Rituals of complicity,the ‘humanities’ rhetoric,and the closing of the South African mind

A mail survey undertaken in 1977 showed that a clear majority (64%) of final year students polled at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, answered in the affirmative to a question asking them whether they would permanently settle in a country other than South Africa. Almost all the respondents in the survey were desirous of change to the socio‐political structure of this country; in particular the Apartheid, pass laws, job reservation, educational and residential policies; although students expressing attitudes favourable to emigrating seemed to be slightly more concerned in this regard. Thus it appears that South Africa may lose many of those of its citizens who, if they remained, would be most likely to contribute to peaceful change.     

Making sense of leaving care: The contribution of Bridges model of transition to understanding the psycho-social process

This paper is based on research into the transition of young people leaving public care in Romania. Using this specific country example, the paper aims to contribute to present understandings of the psycho-social transition of young people from care to independent living by introducing the use of Bridges (2002) to build on existing theories and literature. The research discussed involved mixed methods design and was implemented in three phases: semi-structured interviews with 34 care leavers, focus groups with 32 professionals, and a professional-service user working group. The overall findings confirmed that young people experience two different, but interconnected transitions - social and psychological - which take place at different paces. A number of theoretical perspectives are explored to make sense of this transition including attachment theory, focal theory and identity. In addition, a new model for understanding the complex process of transitions was adapted from Bridges (2002) to capture the clear complexity of transition which the findings demonstrated in terms of their psycho-social transition. The paper concludes with messages for leaving and after care services with an emphasis on managing the psycho-social transition from care to independent living.     

Die Einführung von Mitarbeiter/innengesprächen an österreichischen Universitäten

The introduction of staff appraisal interviews in Austrian Universities This paper addresses the issue of the obligatory introduction of staff appraisal interviews in the Austrian higher education system after the implementation the law ?UG 2002“ (University Law 2002). It focuses on the cultural change process from the old university management system to a nowadays prevalent ?management by objectives“. After the introduction of the ?UG 2002“ Austrian Universities are forced to be more competitive with one another, hence an academic market is opened. Ultimately this leads to a cultural break. This is the reason why we discuss the possibilities and limitations of the implementation of appraisal interviews and target agreements from different angles. The diverse perspectives will be a theory of communication, a theory of organizations and a psychodynamic standpoint.     

Time to reconceptualize ‘green technology’ in the context of globalization and international relations

The focus on time is used to demonstrate that Newtonian conceptions of reality underpin the push for ‘green technology’ and its associated international relations. It brings to the surface the rationale of this technology and shows its limits and future potential by exploring underlying assumptions and principles: ‘green technology’, it is argued, is not achievable on those terms and such an approach to environmental problems is unlikely to lead to relevant action and suitable solutions. It is not simply a matter of finding the ‘right technical, economic and political solutions but, crucially, about reconceptualization and the restructuring of knowledge. Thus, conceptual revision is necessary if appropriate responses are to be found to the hazards of the industrial way of life; focus on the temporal dimension of technology and globalized political processes offers a first point of departure from the Newtonian tradition.     

Assessing the Imprint of the Long-gone Hapsburg Empire's Border on the Romanian Students' Migration Intentions

This article aims to identify if belonging to one side or another of the former Hapsburg Empire's border matters in relation to migration intentions. Based on a survey of 3,051 students enrolled at three Romanian universities, and using geo-referencing, data mining tools, logistic regressions and prediction nomograms, we found that students who have their homes in different parts, depending on this historical border, manifest different sensitivity levels towards recognition of their own value and the poor quality of public institutions and services, as they have different perceptions concerning the role of individual freedom, parental role models, the work ethic and interpersonal trust. These differences further generate opposite migration intentions for the two sub-samples. Therefore, students who have their homes in the former Empire's area have lower migration intentions than those outside it, despite their proximity to the western borders. The results suggest various economic and non-economic determinants as important predictors of migration intentions.     

The relationship between binge drinking and prosocial bystander behavior among college men

Abstract

Objectives: This study prospectively examined binge drinking’s effect on prosocial bystander behavior and indicators of bystander behavior: intentions to intervene, self-efficacy to intervene, and positive outcome expectancies for intervening. Participants: College men were recruited from February to April 2010. Methods: Pre- and posttest surveys were administered as part of a randomized controlled trial (n?=?743). Potential confounders were identified using Pearson product-moment correlations. Controlling for covariates, multiple linear regression was used to examine whether binge drinking was predictive of prosocial bystander behavior and indicators of bystander behavior. Results: Binge drinking was related to lower bystander behavior (p<.05), lower intentions to intervene (p<.001), and less positive outcome expectancies for intervening (p<.05). Conclusions: Binge drinking may reduce the ability to notice a risk situation and intervene as a prosocial bystander. Results highlight the need for bystander programs to address alcohol use within the context of bystander behavior.     

Bayesian Analysis of Multiple Hypothesis Testing with Applications to Microarray Experiments

Recently, the field of multiple hypothesis testing has experienced a great expansion, basically because of the new methods developed in the field of genomics. These new methods allow scientists to simultaneously process thousands of hypothesis tests. The frequentist approach to this problem is made by using different testing error measures that allow to control the Type I error rate at a certain desired level. Alternatively, in this article, a Bayesian hierarchical model based on mixture distributions and an empirical Bayes approach are proposed in order to produce a list of rejected hypotheses that will be declared significant and interesting for a more detailed posterior analysis. In particular, we develop a straightforward implementation of a Gibbs sampling scheme where all the conditional posterior distributions are explicit. The results are compared with the frequentist False Discovery Rate (FDR) methodology. Simulation examples show that our model improves the FDR procedure in the sense that it diminishes the percentage of false negatives keeping an acceptable percentage of false positives.     

Integrating Spirituality into MFT Training: A Reflexive Curriculum and Qualitative Evaluation

When clients enter the therapy room they bring unique spiritual beliefs and values in with them; however, marital and family therapists (MFTs) often lack training to assist in this important area of diversity. Current training recommendations encourage therapists to explore their own spirituality to identify personal limitations that may occlude positive client outcomes; however very little information exists on the implementation and usefulness of this type of training. This article will describe a curriculum and report results from a qualitative study of students who participated in a reflexive spirituality practicum course offered in a COAMFTE accredited doctoral program at a private, religious institution. Through this, we hope to provide a training model to further spiritual integration activities in MFT.