Patient experiences with treatment in private practice compared with public mental health services

The study compared patient experiences with psychiatric treatment provided by private practitioners and public outpatient clinics. Questionnaires were completed by 642 outpatients in private practice and 6,677 outpatients in public clinics. The questionnaire included a measure of patient experiences comprising six items: treatment outcome, enough time for contact and dialogue with clinician, clinicians' understanding of patient's situation, suitability of therapy and treatment, clinician follow-up of planned actions, and influence on treatment. Patients in private practice had generally better experiences than patients in public outpatient treatment. The difference between private and public patients was largest for patients with poor self-evaluated mental health or those who had just one consultation in the previous three months. Private practitioners appear to have an important role in mental health services delivery, and patients have relatively good experiences with services. Further studies that assess the patient - clinician interaction in different mental health services may give further insights into potential service improvements.     

The Dynamics of Cyber China: The Characteristics of Chinese ICT Use

This paper provides a preliminary examination of the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs)—limited to mobile phone and internet use—in contemporary China. Based on fieldwork undertaken since 2003 in Guangzhou and Beijing, the paper focuses on the relationship between society and technology in the Chinese cultural context. An analysis of the data on ICT use in China shows how Chinese cultural traits and the speed of the ICT evolution in China have combined to bring about a unique cyber experience. This analysis may be helpful to other scholars who wish to compare the impact of ICTs in various cultures or who are interested in discovering how Mainland China went ‘cyber’.

理解私人意图与交际意图的ERP证据

已有的意图理解神经成像研究大多关注理解单一个体私人意图的脑功能定位, 而较少涉及两个或更多人的社会性交际意图, 大脑区分私人意图和交际意图的动态时间过程尚不清楚。本研究记录了16名健康被试理解三种不同意图任务时的脑电成分。三种意图分别为: 1)私人意图; 2)交际意图; 3)物理意图。电生理学结果表明在大脑顶区, 私人意图的N250的峰值显著大于交际意图和物理意图。在晚期阶段(300~600 ms), 交际意图的晚期正成分(LPC)的平均波幅要显著大于私人意图和物理意图。在400~600 ms时, 私人意图的LPC的平均波幅要显著大于物理意图。本研究为理解私人意图和交际意图的动态加工过程提供了神经电生理学的初步证据。     

Determinants of fraud examination performance: An empirical study of internal investigation reports

Fraud examiners from global auditing firms and local law firms are in the business of private policing by conducting internal investigations in private and public organisations when there is suspicion of financial crime. The business is often characterised by secrecy, and reports of investigations are often difficult or impossible to disclose. Since 2012, we have successfully retrieved 63 fraud examination reports in Scandinavia. Based on these reports, this article presents a statistical analysis of fraud examination performance. Performance was measured in terms of the extent of successful reconstruction of past events and the extent of justification of conclusions from the examinations. We identified three statistically significant determinants of fraud examination performance: the seriousness of the consequences, the relative seriousness of the consequences and the conclusions, and the seriousness of the conclusions.     

Using indices of happiness to examine the influence of environmental enhancements for nursing home residents with Alzheimer's disease

The present study extends the growing behavioral literature on indices of happiness for persons with developmental disabilities to the geriatric population. Data on indices of emotional affect (i.e., happiness) were collected prior to, during, and after each resident was exposed to environmental enhancement activities of various durations. Results showed that every activity improved each resident's level of happiness when compared to pre- and postactivity levels. These outcomes suggest that indexing affect may be as useful for nursing home residents as it has been for individuals with developmental disabilities.     

Romantic Longings,Moral Ideals,and Democratic Priorities: On Richard Rorty's Use of the Distinction Between the Private and the Public

Abstract

The heart of Richard Rorty's philosophy is his distinction between the private and the public. In the first part of this paper, I highlight the profound influence that the inherited vocabularies of Romanticism and Moralism have had on Rorty's understanding of both the distinction and the problems he intends to solve with it. I also suggest that Rorty shares with Plato, Kant, and Nietzsche philosophical habits that cause him to treat two importantly different problems as one. Once the moral problem is disentangled from the political, it becomes clear that Rorty's distinction is unnecessary to the former and inadequate for the latter. In the second part of the paper, I argue that Rorty's non‐foundationalist pragmatism supports the view that the political problem is best resolved by what I call a democratic mechanism of arbitration. It is the lingering influence of Romanticism and Moralism, I suggest, that is the cause of Rorty's reluctance to embrace fully the political priority of democratic consensus. Finally, I discuss why this analysis of Rorty's liberalism may have implications for the general question of how best to resolve political disputes in pluralist societies.     

Performance and Private Speech of Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder While Taking the Tower of Hanoi Test: Effects of Depth of Search,Diagnostic Subtype,and Methylphenidate

We administered the Tower of Hanoi to demographically comparable samples of control participants (n = 34) and children with the Combined (n = 22) and Inattentive subtypes (n = 19) of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Controls excelled over children with the Inattentive subtype, who outperformed patients with the Combined subtype. These results replicated findings of greater executive deficits in the Combined than in the Inattentive type of ADHD. Double-blind administration of methylphenidate improved task performance only for patients with the Inattentive subtype. In a drug-free Baseline session, children with both subtypes of ADHD made more private verbalizations than controls, particularly when failing puzzles. In later sessions, regardless of drug condition, the inattentive sample exhibited a smaller increase in self-regulatory utterances under failure. In contrast, the combined sample decreased self-regulatory verbalizations under failure only under methylphenidate. The results support some differences between the two subtypes of ADHD in executive functioning and in their response to stimulant therapy. Portions of these results were submitted as part of H. Theresa Chang's PhD dissertation (Chang, 2000) and Helena Kopecky's unpublished master's research, both conducted at the University of Rochester and supervised by Rafael Klorman.     

Irrationality and egoism in Hegel’s account of right

ABSTRACT

Many interpreters argue that irrational acts of exchange can count as rational and civic-minded for Hegel – even though, admittedly, the persons who are exchanging their property are usually unaware of this fact. While I do not want to deny that property exchange can count as rational in terms of ‘mutual recognition’ as interpreters claim, this proposition raises an important question: What about the irrationality and arbitrariness that individuals as property owners and persons consciously enjoy? Are they mere vestiges of nature in Hegel’s system, or do they constitute a simple yet valid form of freedom that is not only a part of Hegel’s rational system of right, but its necessary starting point? I will argue the latter: The arbitrary, purely egoist self-definition of property owners is the simplest possible type of freedom for Hegel, which he dissects in order to show how the very arbitrary self-definition implicitly relies on an identity between persons, and hence foreshadows the more social forms of freedom Hegel will discuss later in his book. I make this argument by highlighting Hegel’s references to his discussion of atoms and freedom in his Logic of Being.     

Darwin's lost theory and its implications for the 21st century

This paper reports the reconstruction of the long ignored “second half” or human level completion for Darwin's theory of evolution. Pursuing the striking contradictions between what has been attributed to Darwin by his neo‐Darwinian and sociobiological heirs and what he actually said, in ignored sections of The Descent of Man and Darwin's long unpublished notebooks it uncovers a three‐level theory of the moral agent that foreshadows the emergence of 20th century social science and the late 20th century rise of the fields of systems science and humanistic psychology. Implications for a joint venture of natural science and social science in the completion of the humanistic and action‐oriented theory of evolution called for by the species‐threatening challenges of the 21st century are considered.