Coping with the exposure to torture

This paper describes approaches taken at the International Rehabilitation and Research Centre in Copenhagen to helping torture victims and their families cope with the exposure to and aftermath of torture.     

Hippocampal deafferentation: transplantderived reinnervation and functional recovery

A brief review is provided of the capacity of neural tissue transplants to reinnervate the deafferented hippocampus and repair functional deficits induced by the lesion. The techniques for transplantation of solid pieces of embryonic septum, locus coeruleus or raphe nuclei, or tissue suspensions of embryonic septum, to the adult rat hippocampus are described. Such grafts manifest good long-term survival, provide a good reinnervation of the hippocampus that is histochemically and biochemically appropriate and specific, can establish ultrastructural synaptic contacts with the host, and are electrophysiologically active. Rats with septal grafts manifest recovery of the capacity to learn certain aspects of radial 8-arm maze, T-maze alternation and Morris water-maze tasks. Rats with locus coeruleus grafts manifest an amelioration of lesion-induced hyperactivity. It is concluded that neural tissue transplantation provides a powerful new tool in the study of the functional organization of the hippocampus and its various neurotransmitter-specific afferent systems.     

Functional recovery following brain damage: conceptual frameworks and biological mechanisms

Mammals are well known to manifest recovery over time of many functional impairments induced by brain lesions. A brief reveiw is provided of the different conceptual frameworks within which functional recovery has been examined in the literature, and of different neurobiological mechanisms that have been proposed to account for the phenomenon. We observe that these two levels of analysis have frequently been only loosely related. Finally, a newly identified biological mechanism—compensatory collateral sprouting—is described which appears to be closely related to functional recovery in animals with hippocampal lesions, and this is proposed as a powerful new model within which to investigate further the relationship between the phenomenon of functional recovery and its underlying mechanisms.     

Why Kamm's Principle of Secondary Permissibility Cannot Save the Doctrine of Double Effect

The DDE yields counterintuitive verdicts about certain cases: it may deem it permissible to kill a certain number of people when they are not used as means and their death is not intended, but deny that killing fewer of these people is permissible if that requires intending their death, or using them as means. To accommodate the judgement that we may kill the lesser number in such cases, supporters of the DDE may appeal to Frances Kamm's Principle of Secondary Permissibility (PSP). The principle says, roughly, that if it is permissible to kill n people when not intending their death, or using them as means, then it is permissible to kill n ? m people in a way that does involve intending their deaths, or using them as means, as ‘secondarily permissible’ (where m > 0). In this article I argue that appealing to the PSP to solve the puzzling cases of the DDE is generally misleading and that it fails in particular cases. The crux of my argument is that the PSP allows killings that go against the grain of the DDE.     

Stability in optimism-pessimism in relation to bad news: a study of women with breast cancer

In this study, we investigated the stability of optimism-pessimism in relation to receiving bad news (i.e., positive lymph nodes, more advanced cancer stage) after breast cancer surgery and in comparison to the stability of anxiety and depression level. The women (n = 165) completed the Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) at time of diagnosis, 3 months, and 12 months after surgery. Overall, women's optimism-pessimism levels remained stable over the follow-up period whether they received bad news or not. In contrast, women's anxiety and depression level decreased significantly over the same time period with 1 exception. Women's level of depression remained fairly stable among those who received bad news. Optimism-pessimism appears to remain stable over situations as well as time and regardless of negative affects.     

Genetic and environmental contributions to the co-occurrence of depressive personality disorder and DSM-IV personality disorders

One of the main controversies with regard to depressive personality disorder (DPD) concerns the co-occurrence with the established DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs). The main aim of this study was to examine to what extent DPD and the DSM-IV PDs share genetic and environmental risk factors, using multivariate twin modeling. The DSM-IV Structured Interview for Personality was applied to 2,794 young adult twins. Paranoid PD from Cluster A, borderline PD from Cluster B, and all three PDs from Cluster C were independently and significantly associated with DPD in multiple regression analysis. The genetic correlations between DPD and the other PDs were strong (.53-.83), while the environmental correlations were moderate (.36-.40). Close to 50% of the total variance in DPD was disorder specific. However, only 5% was due to disorder-specific genetic factors, indicating that a substantial part of the genetic vulnerability to DPD also increases the vulnerability to other PDs.     

Relationship quality,divorce, and well-being: Findings from a three-year longitudinal study

Recent studies indicate that divorce sometimes is positive for subjective well-being, but we lack knowledge about the circumstances under which this is the case. Further, we lack knowledge about the possible different associations between divorce and life satisfaction (LS) vs. positive affect (PA). The current study is based on the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Change in LS and PA over a three-year period was examined in women who divorced and women who did not divorce (N > 37,000). Relationship quality and relationship status at follow-up were included in the models. The results indicated that divorce predicted higher LS and PA when initial relationship quality was poor. Furthermore, divorce predicted higher PA for women who, after divorce, reported being in a new romantic relationship. The associations between relationship quality and LS and PA were stronger among not-divorced than divorced women, indicating that relationship quality affects LS and PA.     

Prior's Grappling with Peirce's Existential Graphs

A. N. Prior very much admired the logic and philosophy of C.S. Peirce. In the spring of 1962 Prior went to Chicago to study Peirce's ideas. One of the topics that caught his attention was Peirce's existential graphs. This interest continued when he returned to England. In this paper Prior's grappling with the existential graphs will be discussed.     

An empirical investigation of a theoretical model for mathematical creativity

In this exploratory study, a theoretical model proposed by Sriraman (2005) consisting of five theoretical principles for optimizing creativity in a K–12 setting was investigated empirically. This was accomplished in two steps. In the first study, the five principles were operationalized by generating a questionnaire consisting of 45 items intended to capture the dimension of each principle. An exploratory maximum‐likelihood factor analysis indicated a relatively robust five factor structure that corresponded with the theoretical model. In the second study, the five factor model was validated using a confirmatory factor analysis. The model was then investigated using a two‐level linear mixed model with a random intercept. The results revealed that motivation and mathematical achievement were significant predictors of mathematical creativity.