Theories, Models, and Science in Community Psychology

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the paper by Jason, Stevens, Ram, Miller, Beasley, and Gleason (2016) entitled, “Theories in the Field of Community Psychology.” The authors tackle an important, but often neglected issue – the use of theories in science – and consider how well theories in community psychology advance scientific inquiry. Jason et al. (2016) provide a valuable service to our field in their examination of theories in community psychology, and specifically, theories in three major areas: ecological theory, sense of community, and empowerment. Their brief review of theory in each area provides a useful summary and a call to action for further specification of theory. They have started a conversation vital to our field’s future. Despite my enthusiasm for several parts of their paper, I have a number of concerns. These include the authors’: 1) assumptions about contemporary science, 2) assessment of theories in community psychology relative to those in other fields in psychology, 3) overemphasis on theory as opposed to models in science, and 4) lack of attention to other epistemologies in community psychology that hold scientific promise for our field. I discuss each of these briefly below

Revolución en el desierto: Una reevaluación de la Edad del Bronce Tardío y el Hierro Temprano en el noroeste de Arabia y el sur del Levante

The societal changes that occurred in north-western Arabia and the arid southern Levant between the mid-second and the beginning of the first millennia BCE were so profound that they can be characterized, borrowing Steven Rosen’s terminology, as a “desert revolution.” This article will review the archaeological and epigraphic evidence of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the Hejaz, Negev, north-eastern Sinai and southern Jordan. This period of ca. 500 years saw major social, economic and political transformations in the local societies: the development of non-state hierarchical societies; the growth of oasis urbanism in north-western Arabia and industrial-based sites in Edom; the appearance of an advanced metallurgy technology in the Arabah Valley; the construction of the earliest hydraulic works in northern Arabia; the earliest evidence of Bedouin agriculture in the Negev; the domestication of the dromedary and its use as beast of burden; the emergence of long-distance trade networks; the appearance and expansion of autochthonous industrial ceramic traditions; and the materialization of a new religious world with local, tribal deities. The northern Arabian and southern Levantine tribal confederacies and states of the first millennium BCE can no longer be considered emerging from a vacuum, but rather they were the result of long-term transformations that had started centuries earlier.Los cambios sociales que se produjeron en el noroeste de Arabia y en el sur del Levante árido entre mediados del segundo y principios del primer milenio a.n.e. fueron tan profundos que pueden caracterizarse, tomando prestada la terminología de Steven Rosen, como una “revolución en el desierto”. Este artículo explorará las evidencias arqueológicas y epigráficas de la Edad del Bronce Tardío y de la Edad del Hierro Temprano en el Hejaz, el Negev, el noreste del Sinaí y el sur de Jordania. Este período de ca. 500 años vio grandes transformaciones sociales, económicas y políticas en las sociedades locales: el desarrollo de sociedades jerárquicas no estatales; la emergencia del urbanismo de oasis en el noroeste de Arabia y de sitios industriales en Edom; la aparición de una tecnología metalúrgica de avanzada en el Valle de Arabá; la construcción de las primeras obras hidráulicas en el norte de Arabia; las evidencias más antiguas de agricultura beduina en el Negev; la domesticación del dromedario y su utilización como animal de carga; la aparición de redes de comercio de larga distancia; la aparición y expansión de tradiciones de cerámica industrial autóctona; y la materialización de un nuevo mundo religioso con deidades locales y tribales. Ya no se puede considerar que las confederaciones y estados tribales del norte de Arabia y del sur de Levante del primer milenio a.n.e. emergieron de un vacío, sino que fueron el resultado de transformaciones de largo plazo que habían comenzado siglos antes

Theories, Models, and Science in Community Psychology

I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the paper by Jason, Stevens, Ram, Miller, Beasley, and Gleason (2016) entitled, “Theories in the Field of Community Psychology.” The authors tackle an important, but often neglected issue – the use of theories in science – and consider how well theories in community psychology advance scientific inquiry. Jason et al. (2016) provide a valuable service to our field in their examination of theories in community psychology, and specifically, theories in three major areas: ecological theory, sense of community, and empowerment. Their brief review of theory in each area provides a useful summary and a call to action for further specification of theory. They have started a conversation vital to our field’s future. Despite my enthusiasm for several parts of their paper, I have a number of concerns. These include the authors’: 1) assumptions about contemporary science, 2) assessment of theories in community psychology relative to those in other fields in psychology, 3) overemphasis on theory as opposed to models in science, and 4) lack of attention to other epistemologies in community psychology that hold scientific promise for our field. I discuss each of these briefly below

Interview with Mark Bennett

Mark Bennett talks about his time being the USDA extension service agent.https://digital.kenyon.edu/ps_interviews/1004/thumbnail.jp

Cytoreductive surgery for patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to identify favorable preoperative characteristics and examine the impact of secondary cytoreductive surgery on survival for patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian carcinoma. METHODS: Patients who underwent cytoreductive surgery for recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer were identified in our surgical database for the period 1988-2004. Patient charts were reviewed and data collected regarding patient demographics, surgical management, preoperative evaluation, perioperative complications, and oncologic outcome. RESULTS: Eighty-five patients met eligibility criteria. Preoperative factors that correlated with improved survival were disease-free interval of greater than 12 months (por=1 cm (p CONCLUSION: When selecting patients for secondary cytoreduction, the most significant preoperative factors are disease-free interval and success of a prior cytoreductive effort. Once secondary cytoreductive surgery is attempted, the most important factor for improved survival is optimal cytoreduction. Of equal importance is counseling regarding the significant risk for bowel surgery, colostomy, and complications

Influencia de los espacios sociotécnicos en los operadores mineros para mitigar los riesgos laborales en Cerro Lunar de Oro - Ananea

El estudio tiene como propósito analizar la influencia que genera el ensamblaje de los espacios socio técnicos en los operadores mineros para mitigar los riesgos laborales. La investigación se realizó con base en la metodología cuantitativa, carácter no experimental, de corte transversal, descriptivo y de nivel micro; la unidad de análisis está conformada por los operadores mineros de la Cooperativa Cerro Lunar de Oro, con una muestra representativa de 60 operadores mineros activos y afiliados. El estudio comprendió la aplicación de encuestas, y para el procesamiento y análisis de datos se usó el Software estadístico SPSS vr.25. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que: Existe relación directa entre el uso de herramientas tecnológicas y la mitigación de riesgos laborales en la pequeña minería, sin embargo se denota deficiencias en el acatamiento de los lineamientos de seguridad y salud ocupacional, ya que las maquinarias, los insumos químicos, los equipos y materiales de protección de los obreros no son priorizados lo que conlleva a una situación de normalización del riesgo. Así también las relaciones laborales que se generaron en la pequeña minería y la mitigación de riesgos laborales, ya que se refleja en la inadecuada dirección, planificación que se refleja en la ausencia de cooperación con las entidades de salud y más de la tercera parte trabajadores no hace uso de las indumentarias mininas y la falta de control por las entidades gubernamentales en el lugar.Tesi

Enhancing the Process Specification for Systematic Literature Reviews

SLR (Systematic Literature Review) is a research methodology intended to obtain evidence from scientific articles stored in digital repositories. It must be systematic, repeatable and auditable to formulate research questions about a thematic area or phenomenon of interest and to search, select, analyze and communicate all basic or applied research relevant findings in order to answer those questions. SLR can be carried out on primary or secondary studies. In both cases, well-established processes and methods are required. Although there are guides to the SLR process in Software Engineering, which indicate the steps to be followed in the three phases of the process proposed by Kitchenham, we considered that would be a contribution for the research community the strengthening of its current process specification. For this goal, we document the SLR process specification using mainly the SPEM (Software & Systems Process Engineering Metamodel) language and process modeling perspectives. As long as we develop the present work, we exemplify process aspects using a pilot SLR on software testing ontologies already performed.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Aplicando una estrategia de mejora que incluye conceptos de requisitos funcionales y no funcionales

Organizations should set and reach business goals for varied purposes using the suitable strategies. Basically, a strategy specifies the activities, methods and another related resources that should be considered in order to achieve a given goal purpose. Goal purposes and their associated strategies can aim at evaluating, testing, developing, or maintaining some entity. Some concrete evaluation purposes such as to understand or monitor can be achieved by strategies embracing non-functional requirements definition, measurement, evaluation and analysis activities. Other specific evaluation purposes such as to improve or control also imply changing the target entity; therefore, strategies should embrace functional requirements definition activities as well. Moreover, specific development and maintenance purposes always involve functional requirements. In this work, we relate business and information need goals with functional and nonfunctional requirements concepts, which are paramount for well-defined strategies. Therefore, we specify vocabularies for them, and illustrate the applicability of an improving strategy –which embeds these concepts- in the context of a running example. Having well-structured vocabularies serving as common ground for diverse strategies may promote a more effective operationalization of projects dealing with evaluation, testing, development and maintenance goal purposes.Las organizaciones deben establecer y alcanzar metas de negocio para diferentes propósitos utilizando las estrategias adecuadas. Básicamente, una estrategia especifica las actividades, los métodos y los recursos relacionados que deben considerarse para lograr un determinado propósito. Los propósitos de las metas y sus estrategias asociadas pueden apuntar a la evaluación, prueba, desarrollo o mantenimiento de alguna entidad. Algunos propósitos específicos de evaluación, como comprender o monitorear, pueden lograrse mediante estrategias que abarcan actividades de definición de requisitos no funcionales, medición, evaluación y análisis. Otros propósitos de evaluación, como mejorar o controlar, implican además cambiar la entidad o su contexto; por lo tanto, las estrategias también deben incluir actividades de definición de requisitos funcionales. En cuanto a los propósitos específicos de desarrollo y mantenimiento, estos siempre implican requisitos funcionales. Este trabajo relaciona las metas de negocio y de necesidad de información con conceptos de requisitos funcionales y no funcionales, que son fundamentales para estrategias bien definidas. Por lo tanto, especificamos sus vocabularios e ilustramos la aplicabilidad de una estrategia de mejora –la cual embebe estos conceptos- mediante un ejemplo que desarrollamos a lo largo de las secciones. Tener vocabularios bien estructurados que sirvan de base común para diversas estrategias puede promover una operacionalización más efectiva de los proyectos que tienen que ver con propósitos de metas de evaluación, prueba, desarrollo y mantenimiento.Facultad de Informátic

Enhancing the Process Specification for Systematic Literature Reviews

SLR (Systematic Literature Review) is a research methodology intended to obtain evidence from scientific articles stored in digital repositories. It must be systematic, repeatable and auditable to formulate research questions about a thematic area or phenomenon of interest and to search, select, analyze and communicate all basic or applied research relevant findings in order to answer those questions. SLR can be carried out on primary or secondary studies. In both cases, well-established processes and methods are required. Although there are guides to the SLR process in Software Engineering, which indicate the steps to be followed in the three phases of the process proposed by Kitchenham, we considered that would be a contribution for the research community the strengthening of its current process specification. For this goal, we document the SLR process specification using mainly the SPEM (Software & Systems Process Engineering Metamodel) language and process modeling perspectives. As long as we develop the present work, we exemplify process aspects using a pilot SLR on software testing ontologies already performed.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ