Discussion of Psychological Research and Mental Health

Although the papers in the symposium deal with quite diverse topics, there are at least two points of similarity. First, it is apparent that all the participants felt somewhat uncomfortable about and restricted by the concept of mental health. This is, of course, understandably related to the absence of a clear definition of the term. Now, it seems to me that there are at least three ways in which the concept may be employed, two of which have been used by varying participants

How to decarbonise energy-intensive processing industries? : Survey and conceptualisation of their specific innovation systems

Energy-intensive processing industries (EPIs) such as iron and steel, aluminum, chemicals, cement, glass, and paper and pulp are responsible for a large share of global greenhouse gas emissions. To meet 2050 emission targets, a transition to low carbon, often radical innovations is required, but this process is going slow. Insights from sociotechnical and innovation systems perspectives are therefore needed to facilitate and steer this transition process. The transitions literature has so far however, neglected EPIs.This paper characterises the sociotechnical and innovation systems of EPIs in terms of stylized facts, identifying similarities and differences between the individual industries. These stylized facts are recognized through aniterative process that builds on the authors’ expertise on EPIs and a review of available literature and documentation. Building on the limited body of available literature, it subsequently explores how these stylized facts may influence low carbon transition processes and identifies literature gaps from which a first agenda to further transitions research on EPIs is sketched. Insights obtained through such research would not only benefit policy recommendations, but may also lead to theoretical enrichment, as the unique EPI characteristics are likelyto result in for example new transition dynamics or lock-in mechanisms. The paper is concluded with some implications for policy

Modularity of behaviours for mathematical operational semantics

AbstractSome years ago, Turi and Plotkin gave a precise mathematical formulation of a notion of structural operational semantics: their formulation is equivalent to a distributive law of the free monad on a signature over the cofree copointed endofunctor on a behaviour endofunctor. From such a distributive law, one can readily induce a distributive law of the monad over the cofree comonad on the behaviour endofunctor, and much of their analysis can be carried out in the latter terms, adding a little more generality that proves to be vital here. Here, largely at the latter level of generality, we investigate the situation in which one has two sorts of behaviours, with operational semantics possibly interacting with each other. Our leading examples are given by combining action and timing, with a modular account of the operational semantics for the combination induced by that of each of the two components. Our study necessitates investigation and new results about products of comonads and liftings of monads to categories of coalgebras for the product of comonads, providing constructions with which one can readily calculate

Psychological Research and Mental Health: A Symposium

Leonard D. Goodstein, State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Chairman Mental Health Research in a Veterans Administration General Hospital Edwin Cohen, Veterans Administration Hospital, Iowa City. Mental Health Research in an Academic Setting Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr., State University of Iowa, Iowa City. Mental Health Research in a Psychopathic Hospital Irwin J. Knopf, Iowa Psychopathic Hospital, Iowa City. The Implications of Animal Research for Mental Health Problems Leon S. Otis, State University of Iowa, Iowa City. Discussants: James Freeman, Iowa State College, Ames, and Leonard Worell, State University of Iowa, Iowa City

Mental health care and resistance to fascism

Mental health nurses have a critical stake in resisting the right-wing ideology of British fascism. Particularly concerning is the contemporary effort of the British National Party (BNP) to gain credibility and electoral support by the strategic re-packaging of a racist and divisive political manifesto. Evidence that some public sector workers are affiliated with the BNP has relevance for nursing at a series of levels, not least the incompatibility of party membership with a requirement of the Professional Code to avoid discrimination. Progressive advances, though, need to account for deep rooted institutionalized racism in the discourse and practice of healthcare services. The anomalous treatment of black people within mental health services, alongside racial abuse experienced by ethnic minority staff, is discussed in relation to the concept of race as a powerful social category and construction. The murder of the mentally ill and learning disabled in Nazi Germany, as an adjunct of racial genocide, is presented as an extreme example where professional ethics was undermined by dominant political ideology. Finally, the complicity of medical and nursing staff in the state sanctioned, bureaucratic, killing that characterized the Holocaust is revisited in the context of ethical repositioning for contemporary practice and praxis

The adolescent as decision-maker : application to development and education

xii, 320 hal.; 24 cm