Exposure-based treatment to control excessive blood glucose monitoring.

We investigated an exposure‐based procedure for reducing excessive checking of blood glucose by a child with diabetes. In a changing criterion design, an exposure‐based procedure was implemented by systematically exposing the child to decreasing amounts of information about blood sugar levels (checking) and thereby increasing exposure to potential hypoglycemia. Access to information was reduced in graduated increments, with the parents setting criteria to levels at which they were willing to adhere. Results demonstrated that the procedure was effective in reducing excessive blood glucose checking and in improving metabolic control.     

The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of Darwinism

As a young proponent of "creation science," I rejected Darwinian biology as false, bad, and ugly. Now I defend Darwinism as true, good, and beautiful. Moreover, I now see Darwinism as compatible with the natural piety that arises as one moves from nature to nature's God.     

Wordform Similarity Increases With Semantic Similarity: An Analysis of 100 Languages

Although the mapping between form and meaning is often regarded as arbitrary, there are in fact well‐known constraints on words which are the result of functional pressures associated with language use and its acquisition. In particular, languages have been shown to encode meaning distinctions in their sound properties, which may be important for language learning. Here, we investigate the relationship between semantic distance and phonological distance in the large‐scale structure of the lexicon. We show evidence in 100 languages from a diverse array of language families that more semantically similar word pairs are also more phonologically similar. This suggests that there is an important statistical trend for lexicons to have semantically similar words be phonologically similar as well, possibly for functional reasons associated with language learning.     

基于人性本真性的拟人化广告的负面情绪与态度——愧疚感的中介作用

通常来说,商业活动中的拟人化设计可以起到增加亲切感、提升产品评价和增加购买意愿作用。然而,产品广告中不恰当的拟人化设计所引发的负面情绪和态度却很少受到学术界和实践界的关注。本文以食物广告的拟人化设计为研究背景,发现广告中对食用对象进行不恰当的拟人化设计会让人产生愧疚感,进而对广告态度产生负面态度。更进一步,本文表明这种负面效应只发生在感知该拟人化对象的人性本真性高的情况。当消费者不相信拟人化对象真的会拥有人性(本真性低)时,拟人化广告并不会给人们带来明显的负面情绪和态度。     

Problematisations of Complexity: On the Notion and Production of Diverse Complexities in Healthcare Interventions and Evaluations

Within the literature on the evaluation of health (policy) interventions, complexity is a much-debated issue. In particular, many claim that so-called ‘complex interventions’ pose different challenges to evaluation studies than apparently ‘simple interventions’ do. Distinct ways of doing evaluation entail particular ontologies and epistemologies of complexity. They differ in terms of whether they define complexity as a quantitative trait of interventions, whether they see evaluation as part of or outside the intervention, and whether complexity can be regarded as an emergent property of the intervention and its evaluation. In practice, evaluators and commissioners of large health care improvement programmes rely on different, sometimes contradictory, repertoires about what it means to conduct a ‘good’ evaluation. This is an ongoing matter negotiated between and among commissioners, researchers, and—sometimes—programme managers. In particular, notions of evaluability, usefulness and distance/independence are problematised in different ways and with diverse consequences, which, in turn, produce other notions and layers of complexity such as temporal, institutional and affective complexities. When (social science) researchers claim that one method or another is better able to grasp complexity, they elide the issue that any methodological choice emphasises some complexities and lets others fade into the background. Analysing the practicalities and emotions involved in evaluation studies opens up the notion of complexity to analytical scrutiny, and suggests a basis for co-theorising between biomedical, public health and social scientists (including Science and Technology Studies scholars).     

The Effects of Repeated Exposure to the ARRAY Program With Offenders With Mental Illness

In an A‐B‐A‐B‐A single‐case research study of 3 incarcerated offenders with mental illness, repeated exposure to the pilot Adult Recidivism Reduction Alternatives (ARRAY) group counseling intervention was an effective or very effective treatment for anxiety, depression, and associated somatic symptoms.     

Design and analysis of semi-controlled studies

Semi-controlled studies provide a hybrid approach in between controlled experiments and naturalistic driving studies. As in controlled experiments, the researcher can assign participants to groups, select the route and define the tasks, but the participants are given more freedom when it comes to if, when, where and how to perform the tasks. Increased flexibility makes it possible to investigate how drivers use tactical behaviour to accommodate task execution. The disadvantage is decreased control and more complicated analyses. The main objective of this paper is to discuss how to analyse data obtained in semi-controlled studies.The analysis of data from a semi-controlled study include three types of variables: (i) variables that describe the experimental design, (ii) variables that describe the tactical choices of the participants and (iii), operational variables such as speed, lateral position or glance behaviour. To analyse the three types of variables a two-step procedure is suggested. First, the tactical indicators are analysed with regard to the experimental design. Second, the operational indicators are analysed and the tactical indicators are used to divide participants into sub-populations. The semi-controlled design does not need any new statistical procedures to be developed. It is more important that the analysis conditions on the initial properties and not on structures that happen to occur during the experiment, like where the participant chose to do a certain task.We recommend to use the semi-controlled study method when investigating questions involving adaptive and compensatory behaviour on the tactical level. It is especially useful if causal relationships are of interest, if the data collection should be accelerated in comparison to naturalistic studies, and if certain geographical locations definitely should be included.     

Maternal Childhood Sexual Trauma and Early Parenting: Prenatal and Postnatal Associations

Existing research suggests that approximately 19% of females experience childhood sexual trauma (CST). Little is known, however, about the parenting behaviour of mothers who have experienced CST. Using propensity‐matched controls, the present study examines prenatal psychosocial distress, postnatal depressive symptomatology, and caregiving behaviours of women reporting CST at or before the age of 14. Data for these analyses were obtained from mother reports and from observational protocols from a longitudinal study of low‐income, rural families. Propensity score methodology was used to create a contrast group matched on family of origin variables in an effort to isolate and examine the long‐term associations of CST beyond the effects of other childhood adversities such as poverty. Study findings provide evidence that women with CST histories report greater prenatal psychosocial distress compared to women without trauma histories. Findings further provide evidence for a spillover process from prenatal distress to the broader caregiving system including less sensitive parenting through postnatal depressive symptoms for women with CST histories. These results highlight the importance of screening for CST and psychosocial distress and depression prenatally. Interventions for women with CST histories and directions for future study are proposed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-Perceived Competence as a Mediator Between Maternal Feedback and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents

Self-report, other-report, clinical interview, and behavioral observations of evaluative maternal feedback (e.g., positive feedback, criticism), adolescent depressive symptoms, and self-perceived competence were obtained from 72 adolescents and their mothers. Most path analyses supported the hypothesis that adolescent self-perceived competence completely mediates the relation between negative maternal feedback and adolescent depressive symptoms, even after controlling for prior levels of depression. Consistent with Cole's competency-based model of depression (D. A. Cole, 1990), these results suggest that high levels of negative maternal feedback (coupled with low levels of positive feedback) are associated with adolescent negative self-perceptions, which in turn place adolescents at risk for depressive symptoms.     

Sustainable and responsible design from a christian worldview

Many aspects of design require engineers to make choices based on non-quantifiable personal perspectives. These decisions touch issues in aesthetics, ethics, social impact, and responsibility and sustainability. Part of Baylor University’s mission is to provide a learning community in which Christian life values and worldviews might be integrated into academic disciplines. In view of this institutional commitment, members of the Engineering faculty are investigating how Christian worldviews might interact with elements of engineering design in such a way as to produce uniquely Christian insights and inform the non-quantifiable aspects of the engineering process. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.