Guilt : anxiety reaction of parents in having an intellectually handicapped child : an independent project presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Applied Psychology [at] Massey University.

Chronic Guilt: Parents emotional attitude response to having a mentally defective child. The aim of this project is two-fold (1) To propose that most parents who have a mentally defective child suffer from a pervasive psychological reaction, chronic guilt, and that it is not always recognized by the professional personnel – physicians, psychologists, and social workers, who attempt to help them (2) To suggest some of the implications of the phenomenon of chronic guilt for parent counselling processes. Chronic guilt is a complex emotional attitude of long term duration and generally involving emotional conflict, grief, fear, love, anxiety, anger, hatred, protection, sympathy and defensive elements, and arising out of real or imagined contravention of moral and social standards in act or thought. Most, if not all, of these parents suffer from chronic guilt throughout their lives regardless of whether the child is kept at home or 'put away'. The intensity of this guilt varies from time to time for the same person, from situation to situation, and from one family to another. chronic guilt may be more intense for one parent than the other in the same family. Many factors such as parents personality, ethnic origin, religion and social class can influence the intensity of this feeling. Although chronic guilt may be felt by some parents of minimally retarded children, the phenomenon is almost universal among parents of severely or moderately retarded children, that is those children who would be regarded as retarded in any society or group. The reality faced by the parents of severely retarded children is such as to justify the chronic guilt. When a parent is asked to accept mental deficiency it is not clear just what he is asked to do. The stress placed on acceptance may suggest to the parent that he is expected to see his or her child from the point of view of the professional. This expectancy can make the parent both resentful and resistant. The first part of this study reviews some of the important literature published during the past twenty years, and suggests that trait factor analysis could be a basis for the chronic guilt syndrome. The second part of the study is a field investigation of Wolfensberger's theory that guilt can be a positive attribute. From a small New Zealand sample of parents of handicapped children, who were referred or visited over one month (Kimberley Hospital) and asked to complete the 16 PF, four trait factors were extracted to support the contention and underline the complexity of the chronic guilt

Effects of Public Compensation for Disaster Damages on Private Insurance and Forest Management Decisions

Politicians have a tendency to compensate victims of natural disasters. This article explores the impact of such public relief programmes on a non-industrial private forest owner’s insurance expenditures or on forest management activities. We develop a theoretical model of insurance demand or forest management activities in a risky context with a finite number of states of nature and a loss proportional to the forest value. The model predicts the optimal private expenditures of insurance and forest management activities. The comparative static effects of variations in the level of insurance price, attitudes toward risk, stand value, and the magnitude and frequency of the public compensation on insurance expenditures and on forest management activities are also characterised, and their implications for government policies are examined. Providing public financial assistance after a natural catastrophe may reduce the incentives of nonindustrial private forest owners to invest in insurance and protective measures prior to a disaster.Forest management, risk, insurance, public compensation, comparative statics

Amenities and Risk in Forest Management

The objective of the paper is to analyze the risk management behavior of a non-industrial private forest owner under uncertainty about timber production. Two types of hedging strategies with harvesting decisions are studied: a financial practice versus a physical one. We develop a two-period model of hedging and harvesting decisions when the forest owner values the amenity services of forest. We study the properties of optimal current and future harvesting and hedging decisions. We show that, except when both hedging instruments are perfect substitutes, the forest owner chooses a single tool, her/his choice depending on the rate of return of the hedging instrument. We also prove that the greater the marginal utility of amenity services, the smaller the harvesting amount. We provide a comparative statics analysis on current and future harvesting and on the hedging strategies. We are interested in the impact of an increase in initial stocks (wealth and timber), timber prices (periods 1 and 2), opportunity costs of the hedging instruments (rate of return for savings and cost of the regeneration process for physical practice) and expected risk. We show, for example, that an increase in expected risk has a negative impact on period 1 harvesting and the use of hedging tools for both strategies, while the impact on period 2 harvesting is positive for savings and null for physical practice.forest management, forest growth and natural risk, self-protection in forestry, savings and risk

Hedging Strategies in Forest Management

The paper focuses on forests management strategies for natural hazards of nonindustrial owners, in the case where the forest provides nontimber services. We introduce a basic two-period model where the private owner manages natural hazards on his forest thanks to the accumulation of savings on his individual income, or to the adoption of sylvicultural practices. We show that: 1/ the harvesting rule, in the presence of amenity services and a random growth rate for forest, is smaller than the one predicted under the Faustmann's rule; 2/ savings and sylvicultural pratices may be seen as perfectly substitutable tools for the management of natural hazards. However, our analysis predicts that the harvesting rule displays a specific sensibility to price effects and/or changes in the distribution of natural hazards, depending on whether forest owners opt for the financial strategy or undertake sylvicultural practices.Risk; Forest; Amenities; Savings and Sylvicultural Practices

Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: the Masquerade: invocation, spatiality, and ritual transcendence in two tabletop role-playing games

Includes bibliographical references.2015 Fall.In 1974 the world's first Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TRPG) was published, Dungeons and Dragons. Since that time hundreds of TRPGs have been published in multiple genres. In this thesis I explore the rhetoric of two of the most popular horror-themed TRPGs: Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: the Masquerade. I focus on explaining how these games came to be, how they serve their players as equipment for living, how they rhetorically (re)construct real-world places and spaces, and finally, how they encourage transcendence and jamming through ritual play and participation. This thesis hopefully helps to show the complex multi-layered rhetoric taking place in a relatively ignored form of media. Additionally, I introduce the concept of textual invocation as a complimentary theoretical construct to that of textual poaching as an explanation for how players and designers engage in a give and take of authorship

The I-Pad Research Initiative: The Impact Of I-Pads as Engagement Tools For Children With Asperger’s Disorder

Children living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often exist in their own world, devoid of interaction or engagement with others (Gilmour, Hill, Place & Skuse, 2004). The iPad Research Initiative, carried out by the Eastern Michigan University (EMU) Department of Social Work, assessed the effectiveness of the use of iPads to increase engagement and interaction between children with autism. Parents of children and youth with autism have found this technology to be effective and cost-efficient (Seshadri, 2012). In this research I examined samples from a larger research project to determine if young males between 10 and 12 years old and diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder (AD), engaged more with each other while using an iPad for an activity, than when engaged in a non-iPad activity. The results showed that the iPad is a form of learning technology that promotes positive and effective interaction between children with Asperger’s Disorder

Dead Deer Do Tell Tales: Use of GPS Data to Infer Cause of Mortality in Mule Deer

Declining mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) populations across much of western North America in the past 25 years have inspired many studies examining population dynamics and possible causes of this decline. Here I analyze data retrieved from GPS collars on does of the Piceance basin mule deer herd in northwestern Colorado to test if GPS collar point distributions can be used to infer specific causes of mortality. I hypothesize that spatial movements of a carcass post-mortality differ between different mortality causes. I predict that coyote-caused mortalities will show significantly more movement post-mortem than mountain lion or malnutrition-caused mortalities. I predict that mountain lion and malnutrition-caused mortalities will not differ much from each other due to a lack of movement post-mortem in both cases. To test this, I will analyze GPS data in ArcMap to calculate average distance moved over time pre- and post-mortem, as well as average area moved pre- and post-mortem. I will randomly select one-half of the known mortality dataset to develop a model for determining cause of mortality based on spatial array of points and total distance moved. I will also include habitat type, slope, and timing of mortality as additional covariates in the model. I will then use the other half of the mortality dataset to validate the model. If my hypothesis is correct, studies using GPS collars may be able to more accurately determine cause of death based on the GPS data collected. If, on the other hand, GPS data alone cannot differentiate between mortality causes, then this means any study desiring accurate data on cause of death needs to prioritize reaching mortalities as soon as possible

Evaluation of Current Lutheran Materials Training the Congregation to Worship

The initial approach of this paper is to define worship as a basis for the evaluation of the materials. Its premise is that worship is an action on the part of the Christian

Eliminating the Gap: Proposed Implementation Methodology for Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Professional Development

Teachers have the opportunity to improve students’ early literacy success by becoming more proficient in phonemic awareness (PA) and phonics instruction through Professional Development. While some studies show that teachers struggle with PA and phonics concepts, application of implementation best practices could provide teachers with the instructional guidance and support needed to help students achieve the best early literacy outcomes. This project explores the unique challenges of phonics instruction and the best practices in professional development implementation that can bridge the gap between what the curriculum learning goals and teachers’ practical instruction actions. The project identifies a framework for the use of Professional Learning Communities over the course of six months to transform phonemic awareness from a theoretical construct into a practical classroom application methodology