The Wellesley News (11-15-1956)

https://repository.wellesley.edu/wcnews/1153/thumbnail.jp

Staging Soviet Ideals: The Birth of Soviet Ballet and its Reception 1927-1932

This project explores ballet’s development as a Soviet art form through the critical reviews of three early Soviet ballets: The Golden Age (Zolotoy vek, 1930), The Bolt (Bolt, 1931), and Flames of Paris (Plamya parizha, 1932). Prior to the implementation of Socialist Realism, which set parameters for all cultural production within the Soviet Union from 1934 onward, definitions of Soviet culture were often unclear. As a result, it was often difficult for ballet makers to know what to produce and given the art form’s deep aristocratic roots, pressure to innovate in order to fit into the Soviet cultural project was multiplied tenfold. Through a close analysis of critical reviews, advertisements, and personal testimonies, such as letters and memoirs, this project explores how ballet, despite its aristocratic past, became a successful Soviet art form

Toward an entrepreneurial ecosystem research program

Entrepreneurial ecosystems have become a prominent concept, yet in its current state, the concept itself represents a paradox. While it draws on a rich intellectual history and provides an opportunity to synthesize different strands of research, it is also under-theorized and the mechanisms that govern ecosystem evolution are not well understood. This paper takes stock of recent advancements in ecosystem scholarship and synthesizes the empirical reality of the causal mechanisms. We use these dynamics to position ecosystems in a broader context, within and beyond the domain of entrepreneurship research, and propose a transdisciplinary research program for ecosystem research and practice

Treatment of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders who Display Sexual Offending Behaviours.

Most individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) do not display criminal behaviours, and a penchant for adherence to rules may in fact act as a protective factor against breaking the law in those with ASD . It has however been suggested that the cognitive and behavioural features of ASD such as atypical communication and social interaction styles, difficulties with theory of mind and empathy, inflexibility of thought and repetitive interests, have the potential to leave an individual vulnerable to committing offences, including sexual crimes. The Autism Act (2009) and later changes in social policy have led to increased recognition and support for autistic offenders, both in the community and those detained at her Majesty's pleasure or under the Mental Health Act. This includes the need for evidenced-based treatment and as such, research has continued to speculate over the presence of ASD in sexual offenders and any potential impact of the clinical features on positive treatment outcomes. It has thus been suggested that the cognitive and behavioural profile referred to above may result in barriers to treatment, particularly in programmes for sexual offending. Sexual offending treatment is typically delivered in groups and includes therapeutic objectives to increase victim empathy and address cognitive distortions to reduce 'pro-offence thinking styles' and attitudes conducive to offending. While many have supposed the ASD phenotype as challenging within treatment programmes, this has not been subjected to rigorous empirical investigation, with autistic offenders frequently being studied within intellectual disability or neurotypical samples rather than as a distinct population. Three studies have therefore been undertaken to begin to address this gap in the evidence based regarding sexual offending treatment for individuals with ASD. It is widely acknowledged that many adult sexual offenders displayed inappropriate or abusive sexual behaviours during childhood and adolescence, with many missed opportunities for intervention. This pattern also appears to be present in adult autistic sexual offenders, therefore an online prevalence survey (Chapter Five) was undertaken to identify children and young people with ASD who display risky sexual behaviours within services across the UK, and explore current assessment and treatment provisions. Response rate to the survey was low however the data attained illustrated inconsistency in practice across services for both assessment and treatment, with little use of tools or measures adapted specifically for intellectual or developmental disability. A second study (Chapter Six) provided empirical evidence for sexual offending treatment for individuals with ASD. This was done through interviews with thirteen men with ASD who had completed an adapted sex offender treatment programme and twelve clinicians who facilitated said treatment programmes. The study recorded the collective views and experiences of service users and group facilitators, exploring whether they felt treatment was helpful in reducing risk of re-offending. The findings provided some support for existing propositions regarding the features of ASD and their potential impact on positive treatment outcomes. However, they also illustrated that adapted group sexual offending treatment groups can be beneficial to men with ASD despite potential social or communication difficulties. Challenges remain in shifting cognitive distortions and increasing theory of mind, with changes in affective empathy being a particular caveat in treatment. To explore empathy in a non-forensic sample (due to challenges in accessing a youth forensic sample) , a final study piloted an adapted empathy course for adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities (Chapter Seven). This study examined empathy amongst autistic adolescents, particularly in relation to those with ASD who display challenging or offending behaviours and those who do not, and to those without ASD. A six-week empathy course was run with sixteen students (mean=17.3yrs; SD=11.42). Measures of empathy were taken at (i) baseline, (ii) following a six-week control period, and (iii) after completion of the empathy course. Whilst the measures did not yield any significant increases in empathy, qualitative data from staff and students highlighted improvements in social skills, including increased understanding and awareness of the thoughts and feelings of others. This study illustrated that a short empathy course can be of benefit to adolescents with and without ASD, however for those with more complex needs further input is required to impact behaviour change. These three studies contribute to the developing body of literature on sexual offending treatment for autistic offenders, providing empirical support to some of the existing suggestions in the literature. The findings from the three studies illustrate the need for appropriate and effective treatment for autistic sexual offenders, and that there are benefits to completing an adapted sex offender treatment programme. Many of these benefits are implicit and relate to improvements in identity, self-esteem and quality of life, with reduction of risk stemming from external or indirect treatment outcomes (e.g. development of external management strategies such as staffing levels, or increased monitoring opportunities) rather than internal change (e.g. shift in cognitive distortions or increases in victim empathy). The empathy profile seen in autistic sexual offenders was echoed in a non-forensic sample of autistic adolescents and further investigation is required into the role of empathy in the development pro-social behaviours and risk of sexual offending

Who Do We Think We Are? A Qualitative Exploration of Social Work Identity

Since the inception of the profession, social workers have struggled to identify a common understanding of social work, its fundamental activity, and the role of the worker. Utilizing a phenomenological approach, this qualitative study explored the following questions: 1) What is the participant’s lived experience of social work identity? and 2) How is this understanding of identity similar to or different from that of other helping professionals who perform similar activities? Semi-structured interviews, conducted with 22 social workers in the field, diverse in education, practice area, and experience, highlighted parallels among the various experiences, and advanced the exploration of the essence of social work identity. The interviews investigated the presence of role ambiguity and/or role conflict in the experience of each social work participant, as well as their response orientation to conflict (i.e., expedient, moral, and moral-expedient) and the possible effects of ambiguity (i.e., super and sub identities) on their understanding of their own social work identity. While saturation was not reached, the analysis indicated that the participant’s job description, workplace expectations, and their inability to adequately distinguish their role and activity from that of other helping professional preforming the same task or occupying the same role affected the understanding many had of their own social work identity. Themes included super and subordinate orientations, role or activity dominance, identity modifiers, and conflict resolution orientations. These findings may be used to inform future research of social work identity as well as the unifying element(s) of the profession

The Late Prehistory of the Alutiiq People: Culture Change on the Kodiak Archipelago From 1200-1750 A.D.

Esta tesis se centra en un estudio experimental sobre la adquisición de las obstruyentes del chino y del español como L3 las oclusivas, las africadas y las fricativas. En este estudio, participaron dos grupos de hablantes: un grupo de nativos chinos cuya L2 es el inglés y cuya L3 es el español y un grupo de nativos españoles cuya L2 es el inglés y cuya L3 es el chino. Los dos grupos constituyen el grupo de análisis de su L3, al mismo tiempo, sirven de grupo de control de su L1. Ambos grupos de informantes participaron en una serie de experimentos, tanto de producción como de percepción. En la tarea de producción, se leyeron textos fonéticamente equilibrados para cada lengua y, en la de percepción, se llevó a cabo una tarea de identificación de los fonemas que presentaban alguna dificultad en la producción. De esta forma, se comprobó si en la adquisición de las obstruyentes el proceso de producción precedía al de percepción. Para analizar los datos de producción, se utilizaron dos métodos diferentes: la categorización de errores y el análisis acústico de los datos. Los resultados obtenidos señalan un comportamiento diferente en función del tipo de análisis, de la categoría, de la lengua y del tipo de tarea. En primer lugar, la sistematización de los errores requiere un análisis acústico para categorizar las realizaciones que produce el hablante. Algunas realizaciones producidas por el grupo de aprendices, que han sido categorizadas como correctas, muestran en un análisis acústico posterior características diferentes a las del grupo de nativos. En segundo lugar, categorías diferentes de sonidos presentan distintos resultados de adquisición; por lo tanto, no se pueden tratar de la misma forma. El chino y el español, aunque cuentan con algunos fonemas similares, no poseen exactamente las mismas características, lo que da lugar a una reflexión sobre el concepto de fonemas similares. La producción y la percepción también muestran resultados diferentes, indicando una complejidad en la relación de ambos procesos. Por último, los resultados obtenidos nos ayudan a interpretar mejor las interacciones entre los sistemas fónicos de un hablante y entender las influencias interlingüísticas que se pueden dar entre las lenguas que conoce un mismo hablante.This thesis aims at investigating the acquisition of Spanish and Mandarin Chinese by L3 learners. The sounds under investigation are the obstruents, namely, stops, affricates and fricatives. Two groups of participants were involved in the study: L1 Mandarin Chinese, L2 English, and L3 Spanish speakers; L1 Spanish, L2 English and L3 Mandarin Chinese speakers. The participants took part in a series of perception and production tasks for data elicitation in Chinese and Spanish. The production tasks involve in reading phonetically balanced passages. Based on their performance in production, perceptual tests were designed on those sounds which presented more difficulty. For data analysis, production data were categorized based on acoustic observation in the spectrogram and only those production which were categorized as authentic production were submitted for acoustic comparison. Later, perception tasks were performed on the sounds where more mistakes were observed. The results show that different tasks, languages, and sounds may have an effect on participants' performance. It also seems that categorization is not enough to evaluate the learners' production, since the sounds which were categorized as correct production show different acoustic performance from that of the native speakers. Secondly, not all sounds show the same degree of difficulty. Some sounds were produced and perceived more accurately than others. Thus, it may be more adequate to treat them separately during the investigation. Moreover, even though Mandarin and Spanish share some similar phonemes, they may differ acoustically. The relationship between production and perception seems to be complex and no unique pattern has been observed. All the findings seem to suggest that the cross-linguistic influence may be observed in these learners. It takes different directions and it can either facilitate or hinder learners' acquisition. Learners' L3 seems to be influenced by their L1 and L2. There also seems to be a regressive transfer on their L1

Evolution: From Big Bang to Nanorobots

The present volume is the fourth issue of the Yearbook series entitled ‘Evolution’. The title of the present volume is ‘From Big Bang to Nanorobots’. In this way we demonstrate that all phases of evolution and Big History are covered in the articles of the present Yearbook. Several articles also present the forecasts about future development. The main objective of our Yearbook as well as of the previous issues is the creation of a unified interdisciplinary field of research in which the scientists specializing in different disciplines could work within the framework of unified or similar paradigms, using the common terminology and searching for common rules, tendencies and regularities. At the same time for the formation of such an integrated field one should use all available opportunities: theories, laws and methods. In the present volume, a number of such approaches are used

Evolution: From Big Bang to Nanorobots

The present volume is the fourth issue of the Yearbook series entitled ‘Evolution’. The title of the present volume is ‘From Big Bang to Nanorobots’. In this way we demonstrate that all phases of evolution and Big History are covered in the articles of the present Yearbook. Several articles also present the forecasts about future development. The main objective of our Yearbook as well as of the previous issues is the creation of a unified interdisciplinary field of research in which the scientists specializing in different disciplines could work within the framework of unified or similar paradigms, using the common terminology and searching for common rules, tendencies and regularities. At the same time for the formation of such an integrated field one should use all available opportunities: theories, laws and methods. In the present volume, a number of such approaches are used