Form Perception of Partly Occluded Shapes in 4‐Month‐Old Infants

Two habituation experiments were conducted to investigate how 4‐month‐old infants perceive partly occluded shapes. In the first experiment, we presented a simple, partly occluded shape to the infants until habituation was reached. Then we showed either a probable completion (one that would be predicted on the basis of both local and global cues) or an improbable completion. Longer looking times were found for the improbably completed shape (compared to probable and control conditions), suggesting that the probable shape was perceived during partial occlusion. In the second experiment, infants were habituated to more ambiguous partly occluded shapes, where local and global cues would result in different completions. For adults, the percept of these shapes is usually dominated by global influences. However, after habituation the infants looked longer at the globally completed shapes. These results suggest that by the age of 4 months, infants are able to infer the perceptual completion of partly occluded shapes, but for more ambiguous shapes, this completion seems to be dominated by local influences.     

No wonder social workers feel uncomfortable in court

The present article assesses the adversary systemper se and asks the question, Is there any place for courtroom antics and histrionics in cases involving children? Social workers are uncomfortable before the august body of thecourt, not because of any lack of education or knowledge on their part but because of the nature of the adversary process itself.     

Libertarian collective decision-making: A new framework

A model of collective decision-making is presented which enables us to analyze the allocation of individual rights and liberties. The model broadens the traditional social choice framework. In social choice theory it is usually assumed that individuals have preferences over a set of feasible alternatives and that society reaches a decision on the basis of those preferences only. In the model presented in this paper, decision procedures do not only take information about individual preferences as input, but also information about individual freedom. The specific decision procedures we present and analyze can be characterized as libertarian.This paper was written while I was a visitor at the University of California, Riverside. The visit was made possible by financial support of the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO). I am extremely grateful to Prasanta Pattanaik for many stimulating discussions on the subject. For helpful comments I also thank Ad van Deemen, Grahame Lock, Huib Pellikaan and Marcel Wissenburg. Finally, I express my thanks to Wulf Gaertner and two anonymous referees.     

Growing Disability Rates — the Gender Issue: The Dutch Case in an International Perspective

In the Netherlands, with its remarkably high disability rates, a new phenomenon seems to be emerging. Growing disability rates in the past few years have been exclusively caused by the growing inflow of women into the disability schemes. Comparing the Dutch situation internationally shows that roughly the same problem seems to exist in those countries in which there is a more general problem of large inflow into disability. Women are overrepresented in these arrangements. The Dutch literature shows that there are many factors (both work- and non-work-related) that contribute to a larger push of women towards disability. We conclude that the benefit system can be seen as a sort of "filter". If the filter is weak, many persons will enter disability. If the pressure on women to enter is larger (or the forces to stop women from entering disability smaller), then inflow risks for women will be higher.     

Estimation of Metabolic Rate Constants in PBPK‐Models from Liver Slice Experiments: What Are the Experimental Needs?

A mechanistic model is presented describing the clearance of a compound in a precision-cut liver slice that is incubated in a culture medium. The problem of estimating metabolic rate constants in PBPK models from liver slice experiments is discussed using identifiability analysis. From the identifiability problem analysis, it appears that in addition to the clearance, the compound's free fraction in the slice and the diffusion rate of the exchange of the compound between culture medium and liver slice should be identified. In addition, knowledge of the culture medium volume, the slice volume, the compound's free fraction, and octanol-water-based partition between medium and slice is presupposed. The formal solution for identification is discussed from the perspective of experimental practice. A formally necessary condition for identification is the sampling of parent compound in liver slice or culture medium. However, due to experimental limitations and errors, sampling the parent compound in the slice together with additional sampling of metabolite pooled from the medium and the slice is required for identification in practice. Moreover, it appears that identification results are unreliable when the value of the intrinsic clearance exceeds the value of the diffusion coefficient, a condition to be verified a posteriori.     

It takes two to tango: the integration of people with disabilities into society

The concept of integration is not well defined. It not known how people with disabilities experience integration. In this study qualitative methods were used. The aim of the article is to define a model of successful integration based on the perspectives of people with disabilities and people within their social environment. Integration consists of five elements: functioning ordinarily without receiving special attention, mixing with others that are not disabled, taking part in society, trying to realize one’s potential and directing one’s own life. Integration is obtained through a process of interaction between a person with a disability and society. This process is influenced by personal, societal and support factors. The individual with a disability and society have a mutual responsibility with respect to integration.     

价值观的形成规律与当代青年价值观现状

价值观的形成有其自身的规律 ,并受到社会因素和个体内在因素的影响。当代青年正处在我国改革开放进一步深化和社会主义市场经济体制逐步确立及自我意识发展和自我需要扩大的时期 ,因此 ,他们的价值观必然打着当今时代的烙印 ,具有开放性、先锋化、情绪性等特点 ,他们追求高效、公正、互利 ,追求求职与成才相结合 ,但同时 ,其自身的身心失范问题也日趋严重。     

马寅初的人口质量观及其现实意义——纪念马寅初诞辰120周年

注重人口质量是马寅初人口思想对马尔萨斯人口论的实质性超越.马寅初关于人口质量的观点主要体现于:人口质量与人口数量是对立的统一;在新时代,人不在乎多,而在乎精;人口质量的提高是德、智、体全面的提高和全民的提高;提高人口质量不能离开本国国情.在现代化进程中我们重温马寅初关于提高人口质量方面的有关观点和主张,有助于我们处理好提高人口质量与稳定低生育水平、保护资源环境、提高农民收入等方面的关系.