Reducing STD/HIV Stigmatizing Attitudes Through Community Popular Opinion Leaders in Chinese Markets

Reducing STDs and HIV/AIDS incidence requires campaigns designed to change knowledge, attitudes, and practices of risky sexual behavior. In China, a significant obstacle to such changes is the stigma associated with these diseases. Thus 1 campaign intervention strategy is to train credible community leaders to discuss these issues in everyday social venues. This study tested the effectiveness of such an approach on reducing HIV/AIDS stigma, across 2 years, from a sample of over 4,500 market vendors, in 3 conditions. Results showed an increasing growth in market communication about intervention messages, and concomitant declines in stigmatizing attitudes, across time, with the greatest changes in community popular opinion leaders, significant changes in intervention nonopinion leaders, and little change in the control markets.     

A Taxonomy of Part-Whole Relations

A taxonomy of part-whole or meronymic relations is developed to explain the ordinary English-speaker's use of the term “part of” and its cognates. The resulting classification yields six types of meronymic relations: 1. component-integral object (pedal-bike), 2. member-collection (ship-fleet), 3. portion-mass (slice-pie), 4. stuff-object (steel-car), 5. feature-activity (paying-shopping), and 6. place-area (Everglades-Florida). Meronymic relations ore further distinguished from other inclusion relations, such as spatial inclusion, and class inclusion, and from several other semantic relations: attribution, attachment, and ownership. This taxonomy is then used to explain cases of apparent intransitivity in merological syllogisms, and standard form syllogisms whose premises express different inclusion relations. The data suggest that intransitivities arise due to equivocations between different types of semantic relations. These results are then explained by means of the relation element theory which accounts for the character and behavior of semantic relations in terms of more primitive relational elements. The inferential phenomena observed are then explained by means of a single principle of element matching.     

A sample-to-disk system for psychomusical research

A hardware-and-software system is described that permits musical-bandwidth signal quantization, monophonic or stereophonic, direct to/from hard disk. The system, which uses an IBM AT or compatible, is cost effective and device independent. Software functions allow for automated aural and graphical signal analyses. Perceptual experiments that use contextual, natural-instrument stimuli, and that take advantage of the immediate and random access provided by this system, are described.     

More on millisecond timing and tachistoscope applications for the IBM PC

This paper describes a method of establishing time intervals at a precision of better than 1 msec, using QuickBASIC 4.0, for running real time experiments on an IBM PC without an 8087 coprocessor. This method is far superior to the TIMER function provided by BASIC, which has a precision of only 110 msec. Also described is an assembly language subroutine that corrects a problem in QuickBASIC 3.0 and QuickBASIC 4.0 to allow proper switching between screens in the CGA text mode for use of the PC as a tachistoscope. A tachistoscope program listing shows how to use the screen subroutine and how to establish intertriai intervals and record reaction times using the timing subroutines.     

Measurement of activity in small animals using a microcomputer-controlled system

A computer-controlled system that detects spontaneous activity (locomotion and rearing) and diurnal activity rhythms in small animals is described. Automatic recording of subtotals during test periods provides data about habituation (nonassociative learning). The system is relatively inexpensive to construct. Fabricated from highly reliable circuit components, it provides replicable measures that enable comparisons between different experimental treatments to be made using parametric statistics.     

AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF MULTIPLE SETTING EVENTS ON THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

We examined the effects of four combinations of setting events on the social interactions of 7 preschool children with social delays. In Study 1, the status of the teacher, activity materials, and peer varied across conditions. In Study 2, the status of the teacher and materials varied across conditions. Within the combinations of setting events, we also examined teacher behavior. Teacher presence and absence was varied in both studies. The type and rate of teacher prompting were varied in Study 2. The four combinations of setting events produced different rates of social behavior by the children with social delays. The optimal combination of setting events for promoting peer interaction and reducing teacher—child interaction included teacher absence from the activity, a limited number and form of materials, and children paired with a socially skilled partner.     

Prediction of early social and academic adjustment of children from the inner city

Investigated predictors of five measures of early school adjustment for an ethnically diverse cohort of 683 inner-city kindergartners and first graders. Data from 2 consecutive years were collected from teachers, school records, and children. A multiple-regression preduction model significantly explained children's competence behavior, problem behavior, reading achievement, mathematics achievement, and school absences. Prior adjustment and sociodemographic factors explained a majority of the variance in adjustment. Perceived quality of parent involvement was signifcantly related (in the expected direction) to all five outcomes. Exposure to life events was significantly associated in the expected direction with competence behavior, problem behavior, and school absences but not with reading and mathematics achievement. Together, parent involvement and life-event variables explained as much as 12% of the variance in adjustment independent of sociodemographic and prior adjustment factors. The role of family and school factors in the adjustment of children at risk is discussed [corrected].     

The Personal and Social Worries of Adolescents in Northern Ireland: Results of a Survey

The aim of this study was to ascertain the self-perceived social and personal concerns of adolescents attending educational institutions in Northern Ireland. 446 questionnaires from 15-18-year-old students at ten institutions were analysed in order to determine the frequency with which respondents reported worrying about the following broad areas: school, choosing a job, finding a job, home, starting work, opposite-sex relationships, personal issues, and relating to others. The effects of variables such as gender, age and nature of educational institution attended were also examined. The results indicated that most frequent worry was reported about finding and choosing employment, personal issues and opposite-sex relationships. Gender, age and religious affiliation of school attended exerted major effects. Implications for those involved in working with adolescents within educational contexts are discussed.