The development of procedures for measuring aspects of social/cognitive development of very sexually coercive male college students.

While rape is a complex multidetermined phenomenon, I believe that the most fruitful avenue of research into its causes lies in the understanding of the cognitive abilities of sexually coercive males. Could it be that most sexually coercive men are capable of aggressive acts because these acts make sense to them from their particular level of social understanding? If a relationship between social/cognitive abilities and the commision of coercive sexual behavior can be identified we will have the information we need to design prevention and treatment programs. The goals of this research, therefore, were to develop procedures for measuring the social/cognitive developmental level of sexually coercive (or potentially aggressive) male college students and contrast very coercive and normally coercive males on these measures. A version of the Coercive Sexuality Scale was administered to several hundred undergraduate males at a large public University in the Northeast, in order to identify samples of sexually aggressive and nonaggressive males. Subjects were also administered the Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence Scale(AIV), which has been found to be a useful predictor of self-reported sexually coercive behavior. Based on scores from these measures two extreme groups (15 normal and 13 coercive subjects) were selected to receive a semi-structured interview measuring their levels of intra and interindividual understanding. The interview is based on one videotaped vignette depicting young adult female-male interaction. Computer-assisted qualitative analysis procedures were used to categorize the developmental variability among Subjects related to several important social reasoning constructs (e.g. self-knowledge, understanding relationships, perspective-taking and understanding of consequences). A standardized coding system for these abilities was developed which helped to discriminate between very aggressive & normally aggressive samples. Data was also subjected to quantitative analyses. The results of this study indicate that (1) the measures used to distinguish between coercive and control groups have some strength in terms of ability to measure social/cognitive development, and (2) on the whole the Coercive group responded at significantly more complex levels of social reasoning than did the Control group

Thickness of skeletons of arithmetic hyperbolic orbifolds

We show that closed arithmetic hyperbolic n-dimensional orbifolds with largerand larger volumes give rise to triangulations of the underlying spaces whose1-skeletons are harder and harder to embed nicely in Euclidean space. To showthis we generalize an inequality of Gromov and Guth to hyperbolic n-orbifoldsand find nearly optimal geodesic triangulations of arithmetic hyperbolicn-orbifolds.<br

Exponential sum approximations for t−βt^{-\beta}

Given $\beta>0$ and $\delta>0$, the function $t^{-\beta}$ may be approximated for $t$ in a compact interval $[\delta,T]$ by a sum of terms of the form $we^{-at}$, with parameters $w>0$ and $a>0$. One such an approximation, studied by Beylkin and Monz\'on, is obtained by applying the trapezoidal rule to an integral representation of $t^{-\beta}$, after which Prony's method is applied to reduce the number of terms in the sum with essentially no loss of accuracy. We review this method, and then describe a similar approach based on an alternative integral representation. The main difference is that the new approach achieves much better results before the application of Prony's method; after applying Prony's method the performance of both is much the same.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. I have completely rewritten this paper because after uploading the previous version I realised that there is a much better approach. Note the change to the title. Have included minor corrections following revie

Giving patients granular control of personal health information: Using an ethics ‘Points to Consider’ to inform informatics system designers

Objective: There are benefits and risks of giving patients more granular control of their personal health information in electronic health record (EHR) systems. When designing EHR systems and policies, informaticists and system developers must balance these benefits and risks. Ethical considerations should be an explicit part of this balancing. Our objective was to develop a structured ethics framework to accomplish this. Methods: We reviewed existing literature on the ethical and policy issues, developed an ethics framework called a “Points to Consider” (P2C) document, and convened a national expert panel to review and critique the P2C. Results: We developed the P2C to aid informaticists designing an advanced query tool for an electronic health record (EHR) system in Indianapolis. The P2C consists of six questions (“Points”) that frame important ethical issues, apply accepted principles of bioethics and Fair Information Practices, comment on how questions might be answered, and address implications for patient care. Discussion: The P2C is intended to clarify whatis at stake when designers try to accommodate potentially competing ethical commitments and logistical realities. The P2C was developed to guide informaticists who were designing a query tool in an existing EHR that would permit patient granular control. While consideration of ethical issues is coming to the forefront of medical informatics design and development practices, more reflection is needed to facilitate optimal collaboration between designers and ethicists. This report contributes to that discussion