Internet Pornography Addiction in the Treatment of Heterosexual Dyadic Relationships: A Literature Review

The following dissertation provides a thorough literature review of internet pornography and internet pornography addiction for psychologists treating heterosexual couples in therapy and those training said clinicians. Factors that contribute to the development of compulsive sexual behavior are discussed, as well as how the addiction is maintained through reinforcing cycles. Factors including neuropsychological effects of neurotransmitters on the pleasure-reward system, insecure attachment, and childhood development provide insight into the manifestation of an addiction to pornography. Therefore, a thorough literature review on these aspects is necessary for current clinicians, as well as for those who are training clinicians. In addition, questionnaires that can aid clinicians in the assessment of couples in treatment will be addressed, followed by issues of clinical attention to be incorporated in the initial assessment process. Last, Emotion Focused Therapy and Gottman Method Couples Therapy will be explored as methods for treatment of couples with a partner who has an addiction to pornography

Ion exchange membranes based upon crosslinked sulfonated polyethersulfone for electrochemical applications

Synthesis and characterization of new ion exchange membranes made from chlorosulfonated polyethersul- fone (SO2Cl-PES) crosslinked by polyaminated crosslinking reagents have been performed. Two examples are described: one crosslinked by hexane diamine, the other by amino-polyethersulfone (NH2-PES). Sulfonated polyether sulfone (S-PES) and NH2-PES have similar chemical structures that allow compatibility. Surpris- ingly enough, better results were obtained using amino-polyethersulfone. The best results have been obtained using SO2Cl-PES with 1.3 SO2Cl group per monomer unit crosslinked by 0.2 equivalent of NH2-PES. The membranes, less brittle than pristine SPES and insoluble in solvents such as DMAc, were characterized by TGA, DMA, DSC, ionic conductivity, transport numbers, and water swelling. The results showed that these membranes presented very promising performances for use in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells

Reformation and society in Guernsey : c.1500-c.1640

The maintenance of civil order in Guernsey's pre-Reformation community was regulated by a variety of secular institutions, the most important of which was the Royal Court. Religious beliefs and practices helped to reinforce stability and legitimized traditional authority. Catholic practice, including charity and the activities of numerous fraternities - not hitherto noticed in Guernsey - engendered social cohesion. Any major changes in the island's religious life threatened this traditional polity. When religious alterations loomed in the wake of Henrician and Edwardian changes in England, the Guernsey authorities chose to conceal religious revenues and subvert English intentions. Traditional practices and institutions predominated until the reign of Elizabeth -a finding which contradicts previous studies. In the fifteen-sixties, however, the English Government appointed a series of commissions to seize Catholic dues and close down traditional institutions. The commissioners favoured local Protestants materially, and in 1565 elevated some of them to the Royal Court. The possibilities offered by a Calvinist system of social control appealed to the island's elite group. Calvinist organisation facilitated the enforcement of discipline, Catholic revenues were turned to private and secular purposes, and the elite retained power. The new Church depended on the secular authorities for its survival; it needed magistrates to allow foreign ministers to settle, to educate local ones, and to fend off the threat of an imposed settlement in line with the English settlement of 1559. The Church also repeatedly requested the Court to enact legislation in line with Calvinist principles, which it did. Although the records do not lend themselves to quantitative analysis, it is clear however that the Court often neglected to enforce such legislation. The Church's own remedies frequently were inadequate and ineffective. The secular power responded more positively in other areas. The Church's role in succouring the poor was encouraged, and the elite itself benefited materially as a consequence of Calvinist ideas. But the price paid for the retention of the elite's control and the material advantages it gained was the failure of the Calvinist dream and increased cultural differentiation in the community

ON THE USE OF DEEP NEURAL NETWORKS FOR THE DETECTION OF SMALL VEHICLES IN ORTHO-IMAGES

International audienceThis paper addresses the question of the detection of small targets (vehicles) in ortho-images. This question differs from the general task of detecting objects in images by several aspects. First, the vehicles to be detected are small, typically smaller than 20x20 pixels. Second, due to the multifarious-ness of the landscapes of the earth, several pixel structures similar to that of a vehicle might emerge (roof tops, shadow patterns, rocks, buildings), whereas within the vehicle class the inter-class variability is limited as they all look alike from afar. Finally, the imbalance between the vehicles and the rest of the picture is enormous in most cases. Specifically, this paper is focused on the detection tasks introduced by the VeDAI dataset [1]. This work supports an extensive study of the problems one might face when applying deep neural networks with low resolution and scarce data and proposes some solutions. One of the contributions of this paper is a network severely outperforming the state-of-the-art while being much simpler to implement and a lot faster than competitive approaches. We also list the limitations of this approach and provide several new ideas to further improve our results