Relationship Education for Stepcouples Reporting Relationship Instability—Evaluation of the Smart Steps: Embrace the Journey Curriculum

Smart Steps: Embrace the Journey is a research‐based educational curriculum for stepfamily couples (“stepcouples”). The curriculum is designed to build couple strengths while addressing the unique challenges of repartnering with a child or children from a previous relationship. This study evaluated the effectiveness of this curriculum with 151 individuals in relationally less stable stepcouple relationships who either engaged in the Smart Steps curriculum (n = 97) or were part of the comparison group (n = 54). This study represents methodological and conceptual advances in the study of stepfamily programs with the use of a comparison group, a racially and economically diverse sample, and a relationally at‐risk population. Results indicated that those who participated in Smart Steps reported significant increases in individual empowerment, couple quality, family harmony, and parenting efficacy while these measures were unchanged for those who did not receive the program. Implications for future research and for practitioners are provided.     

Strategies for High Risk Reduction and Management as Global Responsibility

In the last decades it has been necessary to face emergencies due to big crisis events caused by anthropic and natural events. In particular modern technological systems have reached such a high level of complexity that even a simple event can influence correct behavior with potential catastrophic consequences. The security and economy of technologically developed countries depends on the correct behavior of this infrastructure and on the continuity of the services that they grant. In this framework, risk management assumes an important role focusing on policies for vulnerability reduction and after-crisis management. It imposes a multidisciplinary and transnational approach in order to establish a common strategy between different countries, studying how to be prepared for disasters and prevent disaster damage. In this paper a preliminary analysis of risk categories is presented, suggesting a number of tentative proposals for risk reduction.     

What Could be the Future of South Africa After National Elections on 22 April 2009?

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has been characterized by a dualistic economic structure. It is a developed country compared to the African context, but it is still developing for many problems such as high unemployment rates, low levels of foreign direct investments and saving, inflation, and the general levels of poverty and inequality. In this sense, the recent national election, held on 22 April 2009, has a crucial role. The high percentage of voters shows that there is a common sense of revenge. People want to believe that a new beginning is possible. The ANC victory and the election of Jacob Zuma as president appear to be the first steps in order to realize this change. Nevertheless, this national support clashes with international concerns. The background of J. Zuma, the increasingly close cooperation between South Africa and China, as well as the proximity and politic instability of Zimbabwe make international observers skeptical about Zuma’s actions. In the light of the economic and social problems of South Africa, the aim of this paper is to analyze these aspects in order to imagine what the future holds for South Africa.     

Prevention of Problematic Gambling Behavior Among Adolescents: Testing the Efficacy of an Integrative Intervention

This study aimed at testing the efficacy of an integrative intervention to prevent adolescent problem gambling acting on a multidimensional set of factors including gambling related knowledge and misconceptions, economic perception of gambling, and superstitious thinking. A pre- and post-test design was performed with 181 Italian adolescents (64 % boys; Mean age = 15.95) randomly assigned to two groups (Training and No Training). Results revealed that the intervention was effective in improving correct knowledge about gambling and reducing misconceptions, perception of gambling’s profitability, and superstitious thinking. Except for misconceptions, these effects were obtained both in participants who were classified as Non-problem and At-Risk/Problem gamblers at the beginning of the intervention. Findings attested also that the training effects were stable over time, and that some changes in gambling behavior were produced. Findings were discussed referring to indications for future research aiming at confirming and extending the present results.     

A New Perspective on Neonatal Smiling: Differences Between the Judgments of Expert Coders and Naive Observers

To better understand the form and recognizability of neonatal smiling, 32 newborns (14 girls; M = 25.6 hr) were videorecorded in the behavioral states of alertness, drowsiness, active sleep, and quiet sleep. Baby Facial Action Coding System coding of both lip corner raising (simple or non‐Duchenne) and lip corner raising with cheek raising (Duchenne smile) was followed by a smile recognition task using 48 naive observers. Both types of smiles were detected in all behavioral states. Lip corner raising with cheek raising (Duchenne smiling) tended to predominate in active (rapid eye movement) sleep, suggesting a potential tie to early constituents of emotion. A significant portion of the typically briefer lip corner raising distinguished by expert coders was not recognized as smiling by the naive observers. These briefer actions may represent a motor phenomenon idiosyncratic to the neonatal period.     

Suspended Sorrow: The Crisis in Understanding the Diagnosis for the Mothers of Children with A Disorder of Sex Development

ABSTRACT.Objectives: We conducted a survey to obtain information concerning how mothers of children with DSD represent the diagnosis. Methods: We examined our findings through IPA methodology. Results: We observed a crisis of meaning, based on the inability to classify their child with a milestone of the social experience: the gender category. That risks of slipping into adempitive adherences to medical knowledge or hasty decisions about the health of the child. Conclusions: It's necessary to structure spaces with medical-psychological teams, for allowing these families to manage the condition in relation to the choices, and the daily context, of their children.     

Accounting for uncertainty in the historical response rate of the standard treatment in single‐arm two‐stage designs based on Bayesian power functions

In phase II single‐arm studies, the response rate of the experimental treatment is typically compared with a fixed target value that should ideally represent the true response rate for the standard of care therapy. Generally, this target value is estimated through previous data, but the inherent variability in the historical response rate is not taken into account. In this paper, we present a Bayesian procedure to construct single‐arm two‐stage designs that allows to incorporate uncertainty in the response rate of the standard treatment. In both stages, the sample size determination criterion is based on the concepts of conditional and predictive Bayesian power functions. Different kinds of prior distributions, which play different roles in the designs, are introduced, and some guidelines for their elicitation are described. Finally, some numerical results about the performance of the designs are provided and a real data example is illustrated. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choosing to Remain Childless? A Comparative Study of Fertility Intentions Among Women and Men in Italy and Britain

Pathways to childlessness may differ not only between individuals but also at the population level. This paper investigates differences in childlessness by comparing two countries—Britain and Italy—where levels of childlessness are high in comparison with many other European countries, but which have distinct fertility trajectories and family regimes. Using data from two large, representative national samples of women and men of reproductive age in a co-residential partnership, it presents a rich analysis of the characteristics associated with intended childlessness, net of the aspects associated with being childless at interview. Although childlessness intentions are generally comparable between men and women of the same age, results show a link between socio-economic disadvantage and childlessness for British men as well as the importance of men’s employment for childbearing decisions in Italy. These findings support the view that pathways into childlessness are gendered and highlight the importance of partnership context in the understanding of fertility intentions. Then, the level of childlessness at interview is comparable across the two countries. However, a higher proportion of respondents in Italy is only provisionally childless, whereas a larger proportion of British respondents intends to remain childless. Framing these differences in fertility intentions within the wider context of family and fertility regimes allows insight into the extent to which observed levels of lifetime childlessness at the population level might result from a specific combination of intended childlessness, postponed decisions leading to involuntary childlessness, or constraints affecting abilities to achieve intentions at the individual level.