Widening the social context of disablement among married older adults: Considering the role of nonmarital relationships for loneliness

Utilizing the stress process and life course perspectives, we investigated the influence of non-spousal social support on the associations between marital quality, physical disability, and loneliness among married older adults. Using data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), we found that the association between physical disability and loneliness was partially accounted for by the fact that physical disability was associated with less supportive nonmarital relationships. While physically-disabled older adults in higher-quality marriages were buffered from loneliness, supportive non-martial relationships did not offset elevated loneliness among those in low-quality marriages. These associations were largely similar for men and women. Thus, although both marital and nonmarital relationships are important for loneliness, when confronted with a stressor such as disablement it is the marital relationship alone that matters.     

自杀和生命的意义——来自脑科学研究的解读

生命本身是一个随机事件,并不具有高尚的意义。进化的结果使人类可通过工作、家庭和人际关系等给予自己的生命以意义感。当我们的生活方式使脑内奖赏系统获得刺激,就会带来生命具有意义的感受,这种感受给人带来更好的生存机会。生存的欲望是一切生物体最具特征的属性,一些精神疾病患者缺乏这种欲望。自杀主要发生于精神疾病患者,它并非是基于自由意志的行为。抗精神病治疗和适当的社会交往可以预防自杀。由于不同个体有着不同的大脑,人们的生活方式就应该去适应各自大脑的特征。只要人们的生活方式不对他人造成过多的伤害,政府就应该允许和保护人们自由地按照各自的方式生活。     

符号正义与公共行政 ——基于语言游戏的正义视角

公共行政是正义研究的重要领域。传统理论多采用罗尔斯、诺齐克和沃尔泽等人为正义提供的客观标准。但这些标准不仅在理论上相互冲突,而且在公共行政的实践中也常常会导致模棱两可的判断。本研究旨在提出一种符号正义的观念,来指导当代公共行政的理论与实践。这种观念认为正义并不存在中立客观的标准,而是被群体共享的信念和实践所建构。研究者只有将正义置于特定语言游戏的背景中,才能真正理解其发生和运作。因为和正义相关的不同语言游戏之间只存在家族相似性,所以公共行政必须面对相互冲突的复杂环境。符号正义的观念能够为这种公共行政问题的复杂性提供必不可少的分析框架。     

从脑科学的新发展看人文学问题

神经科学的发展已经形成了关于人文学某些经典问题的重新思考或认识。当前的神经科学发现显示： 我们的大脑和意识都是物质性的,意识的身心二元论是不能成立的,应该回归于大脑一元论。大脑很重要的一部分工作是无意识的,但却能很好地完成许多在常人看来需要意识去完成的工作,这种无意识的大脑运作过程也是大脑的一种客观属性。另外,常识心理学中所谓自由意志的存在是很可疑的,大脑在意识到自己作出决定之前已经作了决定,无意识的意志根据环境中发生的情况而作出瞬间的决定,其过程主要由大脑在发育期间所形成的工作方式以及由之后我们所学到的知识（记忆）决定。当然,自由意志是否存在这个重要问题的最终答案还应该来自于未来更多的科学实验。     

Reality check. Evaluating a school-based gang prevention model

The Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program is a school-based gang prevention initiative developed in 1991 through the collaborative efforts of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and the Phoenix Police Department. Uniformed law enforcement officers, certified as G.R.E.A.T. instructors, teach the 9-week curriculum to middle students. In 1994, the National Institute of Justice funded a national evaluation of the G.R.E.A.T. program. The process evaluation component of this larger study is reported. First, results of on-site observations of the G.R.E.A.T. Officer Training program, including an overview of the training activities, and the authors' assessment of the training process are reported. Second, observations of the implementation of the program by officers at six sites are reported. Of primary concern was whether the program delivered to students was similar to the program taught to the officers during the G.R.E.A.T. Officer Training.     

Measuring community mobilization in the Seattle Minority Youth Health Project.

This article assesses the validity and reliability of the approach used to measure community mobilization in the Seattle Minority Youth Health Project (MY Health), a neighborhood-based program to prevent drug use, violence, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Two constructs were measured: neighborhood cooperation in solving problems, and sense of pride and identification with the neighborhood. The convergent validity of the measurement approach was assessed by comparing several independent measures of community mobilization generated from surveys of key neighborhood leaders, youth, and parents. For the neighborhood cooperation construct, correlations were uniformly positive across measures from different surveys and statistically significant about a quarter of the time. The correlations for the neighborhood pride construct were weaker and generally not statistically significant. Interrater reliability was low for all of the surveys, possibly reflecting varying ideas about what community mobilization meant among survey respondents.     

Bayesian MARS

A Bayesian approach to multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) fitting (Friedman, 1991) is proposed. This takes the form of a probability distribution over the space of possible MARS models which is explored using reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods (Green, 1995). The generated sample of MARS models produced is shown to have good predictive power when averaged and allows easy interpretation of the relative importance of predictors to the overall fit.