BONDING AND BRIDGING ACTIVITIES OF U.S. PENTECOSTALS

A growing body of literature weighs the influence of religion on civic life. Largely missing from prior analysis is Pentecostals. With novel religious beliefs and practices, Pentecostals might be expected to focus more on in-group bonding activities than out-group bridging activities. We test this expectation using national data from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey. We contrast three measures of Pentecostalism: denominational affiliation, speaking in tongues at a place of worship, and self-described Pentecostal/charismatic identity. Results affirm high rates of bonding activity (church attendance and other congregation activity) for contemporary Pentecostals. Results for Pentecostal bridging are more complicated. People in Pentecostal denominations and those who speak in tongues participate less in community organizations and politics. However, this is more a function of social class and general conservatism than religious culture or sense of identity. Comparable to other conservative Protestants, the vitality of Pentecostal groups seems no impediment to democratic society.     

A pilot study of CBT versus escitalopram combined with CBT in the treatment of pathological gamblers

We conducted a randomised controlled trial pilot study (N = 30) with two treatment groups: (1) Manualised cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) (n = 15) and (2) escitalopram combined with CBT (n = 15). Treatment was administered individually and the CBT included weekly sessions for eight consecutive weeks. The treatment with escitalopram lasted for a minimum of 16 weeks (20 mg/day), with an optional continuation for a 6-month follow-up period. Repeated measures ANOVA with modified intent-to-treat analyses were conducted. Results showed significant time effects on all measures for both treatment conditions, although no significant group or time × group effects. The results indicated that both treatments were effective in the short term (effect sizes (ES) ranging from 0.45 to 0.91 for the CBT group and 0.27 to 0.72 for the escitalopram+CBT group), and that adding CBT to escitalopram had no additional statistically significant effect (between-group ES of 0.11 and 0.29 for primary outcome measures at 16-weeks post-treatment).     

Bauman and Levinas: Levinas cannot be used

The most ambitious attempt to use Emmanuel Levinas to justify a new moral philosophy in a postmodern world is that of Zygmunt Bauman in Postmodern Ethics. Levinas cannot be used. Bauman would use Levinas in order to “desocialize” the subject. That is, to render the subject less a creature of the organization, community, and group, each of which is the enemy of ethics. While Levinas would also desocialize the subject, the terms and concepts he employs are only superficially similar to those employed by Bauman, as well as other social theorists. Terms such as “the other” or the “face” are employed by Levinas in such unique ways that they are unavailable to be used as guidance or inspiration for social theory. In many respects this is a good thing, for it means that Levinas must be encountered on his own terms.     

‘Footnotes to Miller and Moore’: Monomyth and Transnationality in the 1986 Superhero Comics

Abstract

New developments in comics studies have begun to consider the superhero comic as a transnational, rather than American, phenomenon. This approach offers a new way of thinking about the typical story that Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore’s Watchmen jointly upended the comics world in 1986. While there is robust criticism to challenge the idea that 1986 was a miraculous year for comics, the continuing attention drawn by the two works requires us to think further about their apparent similarity. This article proposes the importance of a narrative of American exceptionalism within comics culture as a defining feature of the contemporary context for the production of the works. It then examines their responses to this context, arguing that they undermine the American monomyth of the superhero in different ways that originate in the different national positions of the two writers.     

The unconstrained binary quadratic programming problem: a survey

In recent years the unconstrained binary quadratic program (UBQP) has grown in importance in the field of combinatorial optimization due to its application potential and its computational challenge. Research on UBQP has generated a wide range of solution techniques for this basic model that encompasses a rich collection of problem types. In this paper we survey the literature on this important model, providing an overview of the applications and solution methods.     

Infant Mortality by Cause of Death: Main and Interaction Effects

We examine infant mortality among the 1980-1982 live birth cohorts in the state of Florida, specific to five categories of underlying cause of death: infections, perinatal conditions, delivery complications, congenital malformations, and sudden infant death syndrome. The gross and net effects of eight categorical and continuous independent variables, along with 11 first-order interactions, are examined with microlevel data through the use of multinomial logit regression. Findings suggest the complexity of variable effects by cause of death and indicate the simultaneous importance of biological and social factors. It is important that the pattern of interactions suggests an overall dependence of infant life chances on social circumstances. It also suggests that these effects are attenuated for some variables and causes of death at lower birth weights, probably due to advances in health care organization, access, and technology.     

Cohort change and the diffusion of environmental concern: a cross-national analysis

This study explores value change across cohorts for a multinational population sample. Employing a diffusion-of-innovations approach, we combine competing theories predicting the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and environmentalism: post-materialism and affluence theories, and global environmentalism theory. The diffusion argument suggests that high-SES groups first adopt pro-environmental views, but as time passes by, environmentalism diffuses to lower-SES groups. We test the diffusion argument using a sample of 18 countries for two waves (years 1993 and 2000) from the International Social Survey Project. Cross-classified multilevel modeling allows us to identify a nonlinear interaction between cohort and education, our core measure of SES, in predicting environmental concern, while controlling for age and period. We find support for the diffusion argument and demonstrate that the positive effect of education on environmental concern first increases among older cohorts and then starts to level off until a bend point is reached for individuals born around 1940 and becomes progressively weaker for younger cohorts.