The Relationship Between Cognitive Flexibility, Coping, and Symptomatology in Psychotherapy

Cognitive flexibility is broadly defined as the ability to shift perspective or approach in order to adapt to changes in the environment. This implies the abilities to generate alternatives and then to implement effective approaches. High cognitive flexibility has been associated with psychological well-being and effective coping, whereas low flexibility, or rigidity, has been linked to several types of psychopathology. The goal of the current study was to provide exploratory evidence of the utility of a brief, self-report measure of cognitive flexibility in identifying relationships to coping strategies, symptomatology, and treatment duration in a clinical setting. A total of 18 individuals seeking treatment at a university-affiliated mental health clinic participated in the study. Participants completed measures of cognitive flexibility and coping styles. Demographic information and data regarding symptomatology and treatment were gathered from client files. Correlational analyses indicated strong positive relationships between aspects of cognitive flexibility and use of problem-focused coping, suggesting that greater ability to generate and implement effective approaches is linked to greater use of pragmatic strategies to improve a situation. Results also indicated a strong positive correlation between the perceived control over challenging situations and duration of previous therapy. However, no relationship was found between flexibility and symptomatology. These exploratory results provide preliminary evidence for the relationship between cognitive flexibility and aspects of mental health in a clinical setting

Moving Mugabe's Mountain: Zimbabwe's Path to Arrears Clearance and Debt Relief

Zimbabwe is embarking on a long, complex, and difficult journey to rebuild its economy, which has been shattered by years of neglect and destructive government policies. If the final political hurdles are overcome? hopefully sooner rather than later—the new coalition government will be faced with making politically difficult decisions and addressing conclusively the economic ghosts of the past. One of those ghosts is more than $5 billion owed to external creditors, of which nearly 80 percent is arrears. Clearing Zimbabwe’s external debt arrears and securing comprehensive debt relief will be a critical step in eventual recovery. By doing so, the government will remove a crippling burden on its budget, investment climate, and overall macroeconomic environment. More important to the success of the coalition government, it will unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in new external assistance for critical reconstruction programs that will improve the Zimbabwean people’s quality of life. This paper provides a detailed overview of the arrears clearance and debt relief processes. The purpose is to spark a debate in creditor capitals and hopefully to buttress the government’s analytical foundation. With a strong dedicated team of experts—and support from relevant donor agencies— the Zimbabwean government will one day conclusively address its crushing debt burden and proceed with the rebuilding of a once vibrant and proud nation.zimbabwe; reconstruction; external debt; economic development; debt relief

Measurements of underwater piling noise during nearshore windfarm construction in the UK potential impact on marine mammals in compliance with German UBA limit

Offshore construction work, such as pile and conductor driving, can potentially cause acoustic disturbance to marine mammals, such as cetaceans (whales, dolphins and por-poises), the odontocetes (toothed cetaceans) of which rely on the underwater sound field for spatial orientation, navigation, prey capture, communication, and predator avoidance. Disturbance ranges from behavioural changes, masking of communication signals, and temporary or even permanent hearing loss. There is currently no specific legal noise threshold in UK waters, but the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has stipulated the requirement for noise monitoring during pile-driving operations when some windfarms are constructed. Measurements presented in this paper were taken during nearshore pile driving in the UK from a support vessel located 750 m from each pile (wind-turbine foun-dation). Results were compared with a threshold issued by the German Federal Environ-ment Agency (UBA). Noise level beyond the measurement location was predicted using a numerical model. Comparing results with the Southall criteria (Southall, B. L., et al., Ma-rine Mammal Noise Exposure Criteria: Initial Scientific Recommendations. Aquatic Mam-mals, 33 (4), 2007), the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) 500 m exclusion zone offered protection for most of marine mammals during pile driving events in this particular case. Keywords: Underwater piling noise, wind-farm, marine mammals, UBA limi

Race, Poverty, and Teacher Mobility

This paper provides information about the importance of non-pecuniary school characteristics, such as race and poverty, on teacher turnover in Georgia. Simple descriptive statistics indicate that new teachers are more likely to leave schools with lower test scores, lower income, or higher proportions of minorities. A linear probability and a competing risks model of transitions out of first teaching jobs allow us to separate the importance of these highly correlated school characteristics. The estimates imply that teachers are much more likely to exit schools with large proportions of minority students, and that the other univariate statistical relationships are driven to a large extent by their correlation with the minority variable. Thus, while the common notion that teachers are more likely to leave high poverty schools is correct, it occurs because teachers are more likely to leave a particular type of poor school - one with a large proportion of minorities. Working Paper 06-5

A Soul Composed of Harmonies: George Herbert\u27s Life, Writings, and Choral Settings of His English Poetry

George Herbert’s poetry is among the greatest religious poetry written in the English language. His introspective and nuanced understanding of the human soul and his beautiful style of writing have earned him his place among the great poets. His catalogue is filled with poems ready to be set to music, and dozens of them have been. However, there is no document that seeks to gather an annotated list of these compositions in one place. Further, while a few of these compositions are performed often, there are dozens of other worthy compositions that should be heard on a more wide and regular basis. By providing a guide to Herbert’s life, writings, and choral settings of his English poetry, this document seeks to address these issues. A brief biography provides conductors with an understanding of Herbert’s family background, education, and career. Attention is given to the metaphysical poets, Herbert’s place among them, and to the breadth of his writings. Finally, an extensive guide to the choral literature based on Herbert’s English poetry is provided. This guide will serve as a resource to the choral community and allow choral directors to easily identify individual works that will be appropriate for their context and ensemble – resulting in a greater breadth of these fine compositions being heard

Incorporating neural network traffic prediction into freeway incident detection

The efficient operation of an incident management system depend Neural network models have been applied to traffic prediction frequently and even repeatedly because of its superior capability in emulating nonlinear systems. However, these traffic prediction models have not been utilized for incident detection. On the other hand, it is expected that the performance of an incident detection algorithm can be improved if an advanced prediction model is incorporated into. Therefore, this study developed several traffic prediction models that were then integrated into incident detection algorithms. The traffic prediction models were developed based on three different choices of independent variables, while the incident detection algorithms employed different decision functions. The results show that a good prediction model can improve the performance of an incident detection algorithm only when the decision function of the algorithm is appropriately chosen

The tyrants within us and the thread of history : the creation of Sic Semper Tyrannis, a one-person play

The assigned task was to create and perform a 20-40 minute long one-person play, with no other guidelines or restrictions offered. Having never performed in or written a full one-person play, my challenge was two-fold: create a cohesive and coherent script, and craft the production and performance of that script. From several inspirational sources, I was spurred on to explore the dynamics of revolutionaries, fanatics, and vigilantes through the lens of presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Through the combination of Booth’s infamy and the modern day realities of fame-seeking, political divisiveness, and tragically pervasive “spectacle killing” events, I was ultimately able to craft the story that became the one-person play SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS. My research led me to amass a great deal of material to draw from, and it soon became clear from the initial script that expanding the piece and its theatrical elements would be required. Through both script revisions and the addition of sound and visuals, I was able to ultimately create and perform a piece that successfully integrated extravagant technical elements and presented several different voices within the same character embodied by my performance with the use of physical and vocal choices. The audience was responsive to the material, and the resulting video recording and production photography stand as a testament to the project’s implementation. It is my intention to use all of the resulting feedback as a means of further evaluation and expansion of the piece and its subject material

Generating Alternative Solutions when Depression is the Problem

Generating alternative solutions for problem situations is a key component of effective problem solving. This process is used to generate a variety of potential options for managing a problem, from which the most effective approach or combination of approaches can be selected for implementation. Impaired alternatives generation provides fewer options from which to select a response, reducing the likelihood that a highly effective approach will be available for implementation, potentially leaving problems unresolved, generating additional problems, and fostering a sense of hopelessness and depression. Depression has been found to impair problem solving further by reducing engagement in the problem solving process, subsequently creating a self-reinforcing cycle of distress. Seeking ways to interrupt this cycle, researchers have investigated generating alternatives for problem situations that may be contributing to depression, then using those alternatives to effectively resolve the contributing stressor. However, use of depression as the problem situation for generating alternatives is absent in the literature. The purpose of the current study was to examine the process of generating solutions using depression as the contributing problem. A systematic literature review was conducted. Based on the literature, two avenues of investigation were explored: whether generating alternatives for depression would be related to the same variables as other problem situations; whether gender effects or problem labeling would influence alternatives generation. A total of 578 undergraduate university students recruited from a psychology participant pool completed the study. Participants completed vignette-based measures of alternatives generation, questions about familiarity and self-efficacy related to situations in the vignettes, verbal fluency and ideation fluency measures, and self-report measures of depression and problem orientation. Results of correlation analyses indicated a moderate positive relationship between alternative generation measures and ideation fluency and weak positive relationships with measures of verbal fluency. Group comparisons identified a statistically significant three-way interaction effect between vignette situation, problem labeling, and vignette protagonist gender on total alternatives generated. Statistically significant two-way interactions between vignette situation and participant gender were found for both total alternatives generated and quantity of good alternatives generated. Results were interpreted in the context of problem-solving literature and recommendations for future research were presented