Extremely Premature and Very Low Birthweight Infants: A Double Hazard Population?

This article evaluates the contributions of birth status (defined by gestational age and birthweight) and family adversity at birth and at age 7 to explaining behavior problems at age 7. The behaviors of 96 extremely preterm and very low birth‐weight children and 66 full‐term children were assessed in a school setting by peers, teachers and parents. The results show that a significant relationship exists between birth status and isolation and social withdrawal problems as well as between birth status and social immaturity and inattention problems. Family adversity at birth has a significant contribution to aggressive behaviors reported by the three sources whereas, at age 7, this index is associated only with aggressive behaviors and social immaturity problems reported by parents. In conclusion, the results of the present study qualify the findings of studies that suggest that at school age, the effect of prematurity decreases and that behavior problems are explained chiefly by family environment characteristics. Our results indicate that the findings must take into account the cohort studied, the environmental measures used, the type of behaviors assessed as well as the type of informants.     

Adorno und die autoritäre Persönlichkeit

“The Authoritarian Personality” is a milestone study in social science research. Based on a series of research and investigations, the study, conducted in 1945/46, had to pass controversies and delays until its publication in 1950. Theodor W. Adorno’s involvement in this research appears to be less central than has frequently been assumed. Gradually, the importance of Erich Fromm’s contribution to the theoretical foundation and methodology of the study was recognized. Nevertheless, in many publications it is still acceptable to neglect the major contribution of Erich Fromm and Adorno’s further co-authors, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford. During the fifties, the Frankfurt Institut für Sozialforschung (IfS) conducted only two large-scale interview-and questionnaire-based studies pertaining to authoritarian personality issues. However, in further studies innovative research perspectives were not evident, and the most obvious task, to investigate former perpetrators and supporters of National Socialism, was not realized. The most probable of these deficit motives were based on Adorno’s dismissive view of empirical social psychology and differential psychology. However, the expertise of both are indispensable for such research programs. This historical review of “The Authoritarian Personality” demonstrates why there has been so little innovative and comprehensive research on the subject in postwar Germany.     

THE EVALUATION PHASE OF SYSTEMIC FAMILY THERAPY*

The initial, evaluation phase of family therapy is of decisive importance within the systemic perspective. Contacting a therapist is always a complex action for a family. The therapist's evaluation must include the possibility that continued contact may influence the family negatively and limit their potential for change. If there appears to be a logical context in which continued therapy can be justified, it will be necessary to use the first three or four sessions to collect essential data and to organize them meaningfully. It is essential to clarify the circular interaction that is maintaining the symptom, as well as the presence of specific family structures and traditions, and the kind of relationships the family attempts to establish with the therapist. On the basis of this information, the therapist can build models of the family's functioning. These models, according to general system theory, make possible logical intervention in complicated, living systems, without distorting them by artificially splitting them into their component parts. Two models that are important to our treatment perspective—the phenomenological and the mythical—are presented.     

Approximation spline de la prevision d'un processus fonctionnel autorégressif d'ordre 1

ABSTRACT We present a method to approximate and forecast, on an entire interval, a continuous-time process. For this purpose, we use the modelization of ARH(l) processes, defined by Bosq (1991). We deal with the practical problem of the discretization of the observed trajectories and approximate them by means of spline functions. We show by simulations that for well-chosen smoothing parameters, good prediction can be obtained in comparison with the “predictable” part of the process. Finally, we apply this model to forecast road traffic and compare it with a SARIMA model.     

La victime et le policier : point de vue profane et point de vue professionnel sur la délinquance

Comparing surveys of victims with police statistics illustrates the differences between lay and professional views of crime. Victims’expectations and the police handling of cases do not always match. The determinants of victims’ decisions to report incidents to the police are briefly summarised; and the ways the police classify victims’account and handle their complaints, examined. This analysis is based on two sets of data: a victimisation survey of a sample of 10?504 persons aged 15 and older, drawn from the Île-de-France Region; the police statistics corresponding to the same area.     

How Therapeutic Intervention Does Create the Prerequisites of Change in Human Relations

The purpose of this paper is to stress our belief that therapeutic intervention does not have the power to create durable, predetermined changes in human systems. Still, a number of therapists seem to feel that certain adjustments are necessary if improvement is to occur and try to convince families to adopt them. Such partial moves ignore the question of what has prevented the family from discovering such beneficial adaptations on its own.
We suggest that the basic rules of the family prohibit it from changing. Tb stimulate the inherent healing capacities of human systems, a preferable goal might be to validate the present functioning of the family through an understanding of the different levels of its self perception (phenomenological model, mythical model). If this is done effectively, a possible reformulation of the relationship is truly facilitated. Relations between the participants will continue, but will no longer be what they were before. The effectiveness of the intervention is confirmed by the appearance of new beliefs, new perceptions. Any behavioral modifications shown by family members are logical consequences of their new conception of the relationship, not the causes of it.     

Just-in-time scheduling with controllable processing times on parallel machines

We study scheduling problems with controllable processing times on parallel machines. Our objectives are to maximize the weighted number of jobs that are completed exactly at their due date and to minimize the total resource allocation cost. We consider four different models for treating the two criteria. We prove that three of these problems are NP\mathcal{NP} -hard even on a single machine, but somewhat surprisingly, the problem of maximizing an integrated objective function can be solved in polynomial time even for the general case of a fixed number of unrelated parallel machines. For the three NP\mathcal{NP} -hard versions of the problem, with a fixed number of machines and a discrete resource type, we provide a pseudo-polynomial time optimization algorithm, which is converted to a fully polynomial time approximation scheme.     

Preis-Promotion-Framing – Ein Überblick zum Stand der Forschung

This article reviews published literature and provides an overview on present empirical evidence about the framing of price promotions. Concerning explicit price reductions (discounts, coupons, rebates), the effects of advertised reference prices and different frames of price discounts (relative versus absolute price discount, objective versus tensile price claims) on consumers’ reactions are discussed. Furthermore, the article examines empirical results on implicit price reductions (volume packs, free extra products) as well as on sale signs and restrictions (e.g. purchase limits, time limits) as popular ways of framing a deal. The key findings point out that framing a price promotion in different ways can affect consumers’ perceptions and evaluations of the deal. Based on the reviewed literature, the concluding section provides managerial implications and an agenda for further research.