The sexual partnerships of people with serious mental illness

We compared the sexualities of people with serious mental illness and the general population using the National Health and Social Life Survey (Laumann et al., 1994) and the Indiana Mental Health Services and HIV Risk Study (Wright, 2003). We investigated whether and how the sexual behaviors and relationships of people with serious mental illness differ from the general populations and identified factors differently influencing the organization of sexuality in these two groups. We found evidence that the relationships of people with serious mental illness are characterized by less intimacy and commitment than those of the general population. Additionally, although people with serious mental illness use condoms more consistently, they are also more likely to have concurrent relationships and tend to have sex sooner with new partners, which may contribute to a higher risk of contracting HIV. Our findings point to a need for a paradigm shift in the way that clinicians and researchers conceptualize and manage client sexuality. A less individualistic approach that takes into consideration the relationship context and social and institutional constraints is needed.     

Developing culturally competent marriage and family therapists: treatment guidelines for non-African-American therapists working with African-American families

To serve African-American families effectively, marriage and family therapists need to develop a level of cultural competence. This content analysis of the relevant treatment literature was conducted to examine the most common expert recommendations for family therapy with African Americans. Fifteen specific guidelines were generated, including orient the family to therapy, do not assume familiarity, address issue of racism, intervene multi-systemically, do home visits, use problem-solving focus, involve religious leader, incorporate the father, and acknowledge strengths. Conceptual and empirical support for each guideline is discussed, and conclusions are made regarding culturally competent therapy with African-American families.     

Perception of emotions and attribution of acceptance by normal and emotionality disturbed children

In order to ascertain possible differences in perceptions of emotion and attribution of acceptance among normal children and those diagnosed as schizophrenic, neurotic, or character disordered (N=40), participants were tested with the Pictures of Facial Affect (Ekman & Friesen, 1976). When subjected to analysis of variance based on diagnostic category, age, and type of emotion, accuracy of perception data showed significant differences only for main effects of age and type of emotion, while attribution data showed significance only for the main effect of type of emotion. Results were discussed with respect to related studies and methodological refinements.     

Metropolitanizing Nonmetro Space: Population Redistribution and Emergent Metropolitan Areas, 1965–901

Abstract The recent volatility of population redistribution trends in the U.S. continues to stimulate the demographic imagination. This research sheds new light on this subject through an examination of newly designated metro areas, which collectively constitute the largest source of national metropolitan growth in two of the past three decades. The results show that, over this period, new metro areas have consistently drawn the majority of migrants from inter-state exchanges with existing metro territory and that these exchanges are greatest from census divisions that achieved metropolitan dominance prior to 1920. Employment data also reveal a strong positive association between FIRE activities and net in-migration. Together, these findings suggest that traditional processes of urban concentration, while present, now play a secondary role in the development of new metro centers, thus challenging conventional theories of metropolitanization where we might most expect them to apply.     

The State of Play in Poland's Unconventional Shale and Oil Development

Following initial geological assessments, Poland was identified as having one of the largest reserves of unconventional natural gas in the European Union. The Poles, seeking to diversify their energy sources, met the news with tremendous fanfare. However, shale gas development often requires voluminous speculative activity before the gas can be successfully extracted – an activity which has been rare in Poland, where a lack of critical infrastructure coupled with bureaucratic red tape in the permission process has led to slow growth in exploration activities. This article examines the current situation in Poland's unconventional gas and oil development.     

Production System Development for Expert Systems Using a Recursive Partitioning Induction Approach: An Application to Mortgage,Commercial, and Consumer Lending

The concepts of expert systems and decision support systems have received considerable attention recently. While systems have been proposed for various problem areas in business, difficulties still exist in the knowledge acquisition phase of development. This paper presents a recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) approach to knowledge acquisition. The RPA production system approach was applied to data sets representing the mortgage, commercial, and consumer lending problems. Comparison of the classification rates across these problems to the results of a generalized inductive inference production system (Quinlan's ID3 algorithm) and across the mortgage and commercial lending problems to traditional statistical modeling approaches indicated that the RPA approach provided superior results while using fewer variables.