‘He's got his father's bias’: Parental influence on weight bias in young children

Our aim was to explore the role of parents in the transmission of stereotypical body size attitudes and awareness of weight loss strategies to preschool children. Participants were 279 3‐year‐old children and their parents, who provided data at baseline and 1 year later. Parents completed self‐report body size attitude and dieting measures. Child weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies were assessed through interview. Over time, negative associations with large bodies and awareness of weight loss strategies increased. Fathers’ attitudes prospectively predicted boys’ weight bias and awareness of weight loss strategies. Among girls, parental attitudes were less predictive. Findings confirm the importance of fathers in the development of boys’ body attitudes and inform prevention programmes.     

Who buys New Energy Vehicles in China? Assessing social-psychological predictors of purchasing awareness,intention, and policy

This paper investigates the salience of social-psychological factors in explaining why drivers purchase (or fail to purchase) New Energy Vehicles (NEVs)—including hybrid electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles—in China. A questionnaire measuring six dimensions (including attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, personal norms, low-carbon awareness and policy) was distributed in Tianjin, where aggressive policy incentives for NEVs exist yet adoption rates remain low. Correlation analysis and hierarchical multiple regression analyses are applied data collected through 811 valid questionnaires. We present three main findings. First, there is an “awareness-behavior gap” whereby low-carbon awareness has a slight moderating effect on purchasing behavior via psychological factors. Second, subjective norms has a stronger influence on intention to purchase New Energy Vehicles than other social-psychological factors. Third, acceptability of government policies has positive significant impact on adoption of New Energy Vehicles, which can provide reference potential template for other countries whose market for New Energy Vehicles is also in an early stage.     

The impact of consonant clusters on preschool children''s phonemic awareness: A comparison between readers and nonreaders

Preschool children's ability to segment and blend real words and nonsense words, with and without consonant clusters was investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment, preschool children's ability to segment real words into phonemes was examined. Readers performed better than nonreaders on a phoneme counting task and words containing consonant clusters were harder to segment compared to words without consonant clusters. In experiment two, the ability to segment and blend nonsense words was investigated. Nonreaders had significantly more difficulty with nonsense words compared to readers in both a phoneme synthesis and a phoneme analysis task. A two-way interaction between reading level and word type showed that nonsense words containing consonant clusters were particularly difficult for nonreaders. The results were discussed in relation to theories suggesting that syllables consist of an onset and a rime.     

HUMANITY IN THE WORLD OF LIFE

Abstract. The position and role of humanity in the world of life is examined in the light of the ontological structure of life itself. This problem is approached by considering the possible units of life representing various modes of life phenomena. I argue that the only meaningful unit of life without interposing some special external conditions is "global life" framed in a star-planet system. Any other possible unit of life exhibited by various kinds of individuals is conditional in the sense that it would leave out an essential part as "co-life." The relationship between human being and the global life should be understood in this general scheme of individual and global life. It is emphasized, however, that human being occupies a unique position in global life in the sense that humanity can promote either a cancerous situation or a healthy higher-order enhancement of the global life.     

AN ENERGY/AWARENESS/INFORMATION INTERPRETATION OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL REALITY

Abstract. Interpreting the universe as a medium-message process has explanatory value in both scientific and philosophical/spiritual contexts. From this perspective, reality is seen to comprise an enduring medium modulated by transient information. Physically, the medium is energy. Mentally, the medium is awareness. Algorithmically, the medium is an information generator, a programmatic entity that generates temporary informational patterns which modulate the medium's energy aspect in space and time to produce matter and physical phenomena and modulate the medium's awareness aspect to produce subjective experience, mind. In philosophical terms, the medium is Being; the medium modulated by the message is existence.     

SEQUENTIAL APPLICATION OF MAJOR HABIT-REVERSAL COMPONENTS TO TREAT MOTOR TICS IN CHILDREN

In this study, we sequentially administered up to four components of the habit-reversal treatment to 4 children with motor tics within a multiple baseline design. The habit-reversal components included (a) awareness training; (b) awareness training and self-monitoring; (c) awareness training, self-monitoring, and social support; and (d) awareness training, social support, and the use of a competing response. Results demonstrated that the combined use of awareness training, social support, and competing response training was effective in eliminating motor tics in 2 of 4 children, that awareness training alone was effective for 1 child, and that a combination of awareness training and self-monitoring was effective for the 4th child. The treatment and ensuing improvement were found to be socially valid. We discuss possible explanations for these results and recommend directions for future research.     

Birkhoff-like sheaf representation for varieties of lattice expansions

Given a variety we study the existence of a class such that S1 every A can be represented as a global subdirect product with factors in and S2 every non-trivial A is globally indecomposable. We show that the following varieties (and its subvarieties) have a class satisfying properties S1 and S2: p-algebras, distributive double p-algebras of a finite range, semisimple varieties of lattice expansions such that the simple members form a universal class (bounded distributive lattices, De Morgan algebras, etc) and arithmetical varieties in which the finitely subdirectly irreducible algebras form a universal class (f-rings, vector groups, Wajsberg algebras, discriminator varieties, Heyting algebras, etc). As an application we obtain results analogous to that of Nachbin saying that if every chain of prime filters of a bounded distributive lattice has at most length 1, then the lattice is Boolean.We wish to thank Lic. Alfredo Guerin and Dr. Daniel Penazzi for helping us with linguistics aspects. We are indebted to the referee for several helpful suggestions. We also wish to thank Professor Mick Adams for providing us with several reprints and useful e-mail information on the subject.Suported by CONICOR and SECyT (UNC).     

Including a Spiritual Dimension in Family Therapy: Ethical Considerations

The inclusion of a spiritual dimension in family therapy theory and clinical practice may well be viewed as an important professional challenge of the nineties. Following a working definition of terms, this paper explores the ethical complexities inherent in operationalizing a spiritual orientation in therapy in light of the following principles adopted from medical ethics: Respect for clients' autonomy, safeguarding clients' welfare, protecting them from harm, and treating them justly and honestly.     

AUGMENTING SIMPLIFIED HABIT REVERSAL WITH AN AWARENESS ENHANCEMENT DEVICE: PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

The chronic hair pulling of a 36-year-old woman with moderate mental retardation was initially treated with a simplified habit-reversal (SHR) procedure that consisted of awareness training, competing response training, and social support. When SHR did not produce large and sustained reductions in hair pulling, an awareness enhancement device was added, and it reduced hair pulling to near-zero levels in two settings. The results are discussed, and directions for future research with this device are provided.     

Introduction and overview: Global information ethics

This is an introduction to a set of papers on Computer Ethics from the conference ETHICOMP95. Taken as a whole, the collection of papers provides arguments and concepts to launch a new development in computer ethics: ‘Global Information Ethics’. A rationale for globalization is provided, as well as some early efforts which move in that direction. ETHICOMP95, an international conference on Computer Ethics, was held 28–30 March 1995 at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Co-directors were Terrell Ward Bynum and Simon Rogerson.