The effects of social skills training and the development of positive and neutral verbal statements in maladjusted adolescents.

This study measured the effects of social skills training on the development of positive and neutral verbal statements by maladjusted adolescents at a northeast American vocational high school. A single subject research paradigm was used. A set of cognitive behavioral procedures, including self management, presentation of a rationale, positive reinforcement of alternative responses, modeling, practice and feedback were used to develop positive and neutral verbal statements over a seven week training period. There were three additional maintenance weeks. The social and behavioral effects of this social skill training on the five experimental subjects were then compared to the five control subjects. Before treatment, experimental subjects were presented with an oral formal rationale. This included information that helped them decide whether to accept participation in this study. A longitudinal time line design was used to assess direct and collateral behavior change. The most notable among the changes in behavior was the dramatic reduction in detentions by four of the five experimental subjects. There were no further suspensions by any experimental subject after treatment. Also, teachers rated these experimental subjects higher in co-operation, constructiveness, and rapport with peers. Other measures used did not yield significant results. These were the Hahnemann High School Rating Scale, sociometric measures of social attractiveness, self rating scales of perceived mental health and happiness, and Semantic Differential factor scores for four different concepts

Diverse Excellencies: Jonathan Edwards on the Attributes of God

This thesis explores Jonathan Edwards’s view of God’s attributes in light of his Trinitarian theology. In particular, I argue that, contrary to the claims of some Edwards scholars, Edwards clearly affirms the doctrine of divine simplicity throughout his writings as it was held among the Reformed scholastics. Through an exposition of his Discourse on the Trinity in light of its historical and polemical context, I demonstrate both Edwards’s orthodoxy and his distinct innovations in expressing the orthodox view of the Trinity. Notably, I show that Edwards distinguishes the persons of the Godhead by means of a strong psychological account of the Trinity positing that the only real distinctions in God are those of being, understanding, and will, which correspond to the three persons of the Godhead. Additionally, Edwards maintains the unity of the Godhead by appeal to divine simplicity, whereby “everything (real) in God is God.” Finally, Edwards upholds the personhood of each person through the biblical doctrine of perichoresis. This exposition enables me to respond to a variety of criticism of Edwards’s trinitarianism. The second part of my thesis unfolds Edwards’s attribute classification system as it proceeds from his trinitarianism and his account of the God-world relation. Edwards distributes attributes in two primary ways. First, he distributes attributes into real attributes, which simply are the persons of the Godhead, and modal or relative attributes, which are real attributes in relation to creation. Second, he distributes attributes into natural attributes and moral attributes, based on whether they are reducible to God’s being and understanding on the one hand, or reducible to God’s will on the other. Within relative attributes, I demonstrate further distinctions such as capacity attributes, which are sufficiencies in God to certain effects and which are relatively dormant until God wills to create, and negative attributes, which Edwards surprisingly includes within relative attributes on the basis of the fact that they deny some creaturely quality to God and thereby depend upon creation’s existence for their intelligibility. I conclude by bringing Edwards’s taxonomy of attributes to bear on the question of divine freedom and creation’s necessity, showing that while Edwards does differ in some ways from his Reformed forebears, he does not hold, as some scholars claim, that God is essentially creative and that creation is necessary. Rather, Edwards employs the category of “fitness” to describe God’s acts of communicating his glory and the employment of creation as a means to that end

Outliers involving the Poly(A) effect among highly-expressed genes in microarrays

BACKGROUND: The Poly(A) effect is a cross-hybridization artifact in which poly(T)-containing molecules, which are produced by the reverse transcription of a poly(A)(+ )RNA mixture, bind promiscuously to the poly(A) stretches of the DNA in microarray spots. It is customary to attempt to block such hybridization by adding poly(A) to the hybridization solution. This note describes an experiment intended to evaluate circumstances under which the blocking procedure may not have been successful. RESULTS: The experiment involves a spot-by-spot comparison between the hybridization signals obtained by hybridizing a microarray to: (1) end-labeled oligo(dT), versus, (2) cDNA prepared from muscle tissue. We found that the blocking appears to be successful for the vast majority of microarray spots, as evidenced by the weakness of the correlation between signals (1) and (2). However, we found that for microarray spots having oligo(dT) hybridization levels greater than a certain threshold, the blocking might be ineffective or incomplete, as evidenced by an exceptionally strong signal (2) whenever signal (1) is greater than the threshold. CONCLUSION: The PolyA effect may be more subtle than simply a hybridization signal that is proportional to the PolyA content of each microarray spot. It may instead be present only in spots that hybridize oligo(dT) greater than some threshold level. The strong signal generated at these "outlier" spots by cDNA probes might be due to the formation of hybridization heteropolymers

Characterization of ZrO2-Y2O3 thermal spray powder systems

The overall objective is to establish the interrelation between the raw material in the coating process and the performance of the coating deposit. It is anticipated that these interrelations will help establish more precise specifications for the procurement of the raw materials. Some of the preliminary results of the program are presented

Review essay: Anthony Howe. Byron and the Forms of Thought (Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2013) and Carla Pomare. Byron and the Discourse of History (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2013).

This essay is a comparative review of two recently published books in Byron studies: Anthony Howe's Byron and the Forms of Thought (Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2013) and Carla Pomare's Byron and the Discourse of History (Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate, 2013)

Barriers and facilitators for health professionals referring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tobacco smokers to the Quitline

Objective: To examine the barriers and facilitators among health professionals to providing referrals to Quitline for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients who smoke. Methods: A brief online survey, based on the Theoretical Domains Framework, was completed by 34 health professionals who work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Results: Respondents who frequently made referrals had higher domain scores than less frequent referrers for ‘Skills and knowledge’ (M=4.44 SD=0.39 vs. M=4.09 SD=0.47, p<0.05) and ‘beliefs about capabilities’ (M=4.33 SD=0.44 vs. M=3.88 SD=0.42, p<0.01). Barriers to providing referrals to Quitline were lack of client access to a phone, cost of a phone call, preference for face-to-face interventions, and low client motivation to quit. Conclusions: Health professionals working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients should be supported to build their skills and confidence to provide referrals to Quitline and other brief cessation interventions. Building capacity for face-to-face support locally would be beneficial where phone support is not preferable. Implications for public health: Engaging with health professionals who work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to increase referrals to Quitline is strategic as it builds on their existing capacity to provide cessation support.Kimberley Martin, Joanne Dono, Nathan Rigney, Joanne Rayner, Alana Sparrow, Caroline Miller, Andrea Mckivett, Kerin O'Dea, David Roder, Jacqueline Bowde

Measuring Information Transfer

An information theoretic measure is derived that quantifies the statistical coherence between systems evolving in time. The standard time delayed mutual information fails to distinguish information that is actually exchanged from shared information due to common history and input signals. In our new approach, these influences are excluded by appropriate conditioning of transition probabilities. The resulting transfer entropy is able to distinguish driving and responding elements and to detect asymmetry in the coupling of subsystems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Figures, Revte

Vibrational spectroscopy studies of the role of water in metal ion extraction into room temperature ionic liquids

In efforts to evaluate the suitability of ionic liquids (ILs) as solvents for the extraction of fission products, two series of room temperature ILs, one comprising a diakylimidazolium cation and the other containing an analogous (1-hydroxyalkyl)-functionalized imidazolium cation, have been prepared as their bis[(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl]imide salts. The extraction of Sr(II) from aqueous nitric acid solutions by dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 into these ILs has been measured. A linear correlation has been observed between the extent of Sr(II) extraction and the equilibrium water content of the IL phases. Although a precedence has been established similarly with n-alcohol diluents, the relationship in extraction systems employing IL diluents has yet to be adequately studied.To investigate how water may be functioning in these biphasic systems, vibrational spectroscopy has been employed. A challenge to this analysis has been to differentiate between the vibrational modes of water and those of the of IL diluents. Raman spectroscopy offers the possibility to distinguish between -OH vibrational modes from solvent moieties and those in a different state, such as molecular water. Along with the near-IR and mid-IR ranges, Raman spectroscopy is being utilized the interrogate states of molecular water and other species that may be involved in metal ion partitioning. With the ultimate goal of elucidating the interactions between IL constituent ions, metal ion-crown ether complexes, co-extracted ions (e.g., nitrate) and water, these studies represent a principal step in gaining a better understanding of partitioning mechanisms in IL-based separation media

Webteaching: sequencing of subject matter in relation to prior knowledge of pupils

Two experiments are discussed in which the sequencing procedure of webteaching is compared with a linear sequence for the presentation of text material.\ud \ud In the first experiment variations in the level of prior knowledge of pupils were studied for their influence on the sequencing mode of text presentation. Prior knowledge greatly reduced the effect of the size of sequencing procedures.\ud \ud In the second experiment pupils with a low level of prior knowledge studied a text, following either a websequence or a linear sequence. Webteaching was superior to linear teaching on a number of dependent variables. It is concluded that webteaching is an effective sequencing procedure in those cases where substantial new learning is required