Review of Language development in the preschool years.

Reviews the book, Language development in the preschool years by Gordon Wells (1985). This is the second report of a massive study of child language that has come to be known as "the Bristol study." It was carried out on local children by members of the University of Bristol. It is the best longitudinal study of its type that I have seen. Educators will find the book useful. Many people are worried about the "permissible" limits of variability: when a child is to be treated as normal and when professional intervention is required. The book gives no precise rules, but it can help to inform judgement. Taking one thing with another, the book is replete with useful information that the student of child language will not want to be without. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching ethics: The utility of the CPA code.

Teaching professional ethics can take 2 very different forms, reflecting different fundamental assumptions about ethical rules, and leading to different problem-solving strategies in professional life. In this article, the author outlines and contrasts the 2 approaches, which he calls the overriding principle approach and the moral dilemma approach. The first reifies ethical principles and underpins them with rationales drawn from moral philosophy. The second sees principles as templates of default options, which may or may not fit the facts of the case and the context in which a decision must be made. In the moral dilemma approach, for instance, there is always some circumstance in which following a particular moral rule would produce the wrong result. The Canadian Psychological Association Code of Ethics has different advantages and disadvantages for teaching professional ethics depending on one's fundamental approach. The author concludes that although he believes its rhetoric and its ordering of rules seems to reflect the overriding principle approach, the Code is actually more relevant to the moral dilemma approach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

And Esau was an hairy man.

Attention is focussed on "certain aspects of the professional behavior of industrial psychologists… . It is within the realm of possibility for legitimate PhDs in the profession of psychology to exhibit various shades of professional behavior under various levels of motivation. Both inside and outside the profession of psychology, alarms have arisen about the potential misuse of behavioral sciences in the control of human behavior." Attributes of professional and nonprofessional occupations are distinguished. What can be done to preserve our present status as professionals and also insure true professional behavior on the part of industrial psychologists? Realistic ethical codes will only guide the way. "Industrial psychology cannot operate under the rules of the open market. Either we develop acceptable rules of professional service to society or society will define the conditions of psychological practice by legal restrictions. The choice is up to us as to who will shape the future of industrial psychology. Smooth men or hairy ones." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of protocols and professional judgement in emergency medical dispatching

The task of evaluating incoming calls to Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems in order to determine the most appropriate response is performed in many different ways in current EMS systems. At one end of the spectrum, the process is entirely dependent on the judgement of professionals, while at the other end protocols specify the exact questions to be asked and corresponding decisions. This case study describes the experience of the Montreal EMS system, Urgences santé, where professional telephone evaluation performed by nurses since 1981 was replaced by a protocolized system in 1992. During the professional era, there were many attempts to formalize the nurses' decision-making process. These first revealed that professional judgement tended to override decision-support tools that did not allow a flexible processing of the information spontaneously provided by callers. Second, the choice of a single protocol for each call was unnatural for professionals who could spontaneously integrate multiple aspects of a problem in parallel. Third, when protocols were used by professionals, it was a posteriori in order to document their decisions rather than actually support them. Fourth, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods in order to formalize professional judgement revealed its great complexity, which was confirmed by cognitive analyses of the nurses' decision-making processes. In particular, decisions of not sending EMS resources seemed to be the most difficult. These unsuccessful attempts at formalizing professional judgement led to an evaluation of its performance in terms of results, i.e. to which extent actual decisions minimized errors (both false positives and false negatives) and decision times. A random sample of 1006 calls was collected and the ideal decision was determined by concensus of experts for each call based on the patient's clinical condition. This theoretical decision was considered as a goal standard to which actual decisions were compared. Data analysis revealed that sensitivity of telephone triage (i.e. decision to send EMS resources or not) was almost perfect and specificity was 0.55. The necessary compromise between sensitivity and specificity varied with the types of decisions. Decision times were related to the urgency of the situations, more urgent calls being processed more rapidly. These results were interpreted as representing sophisticated optimization processes in professional judgement. The professional system was replaced by a non-professional protocolized system in 1992. This new system has not yet been formally evaluated in terms of results, but many sources of evidence suggest that it was accompanied by a deterioration of performance. Many contextual factors influence the organization of telephone assessment in EMS systems. This case study suggests that professional judgement may be most useful in contexts where the demand for EMS services often exceeds the availability of resources. On the other hand, protocolized systems may be more appropriate in the absence of such constraints, and where the litigation context prohibits the occurrence of any false negative.     

Editorial.

Forensic psychology encompasses a wide range of activities involving the application of knowledge and procedures from all substantive areas of the discipline. The varied nature of this activity is reflected in the contents of this special issue devoted to forensic psychology. This special issue reflects some strengths of current practice and research in forensic psychology. I hope that it will encourage more work of this quality and that it will be a catalyst for the development of professional standards for this "new" field of application. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Legal rights of the physician as the defendant

Until recently, physicians were confronted with a certain risk of prosecution typical of the medical profession such as personal injury or sometimes manslaughter. Now, physicians are compelled to face accusations apparently outside of this profession such as fraud, embezzlement, or cheating. When physicians get contact with the executive power (i.e. on the occasion of a search), it should be questioned whether one is seen as an accused or as witness. Both positions contain different rights and duties. The witness always has to testify. He can refuse to testify due to personal and professional reasons. Additionally, he may refuse to answer questions that would expose himself or a relative to the risk of charges. According to the German constitution, the witness may request the support of a lawyer. The main duty of the accused is to endure the proceedings against him. There is no option to appeal against the opening of criminal proceedings. The most important rights of the accused are the right to refuse the testimony and the right to be heard at court. The right of hearing includes the right to decide about the time and kind of a possible attendance during the proceedings. This right should be used in any case. Every unconsidered or uncertain statement may be of severe disadvantage. It is regularly indicated to ask a lawyer for legal support which is also the right of the accused. During testimony, the physician faces the problem whether he is allowed to reveal facts that are subject of medical discretion. He has the right to do so if he is unable to refute the accusation otherwise leading to legal sanctions or to a charge. The specific rights and options of an attorney include the scrutiny of the procedures of the executive power and the active participation to find the true facts of the case. It is the attorney but not the accused who has the right to examine the records. Both have the right to influence the criminal proceedings by contribution of evidence.     

Accepting forensic case referrals: Ethical and professional considerations.

As psychologists serve the legal system with increasing frequency, it is important to consider a number of critical issues at a case's inception, including the following: Who calls the psychologist? Who is the referral source? Who is the attorney? Who are the various parties involved in the case? What are the facts of the case? Does the psychologist have the expertise to clarify and develop technical issues of the case? Will the psychologist be expected to play an expert role or a consultant role? Who pays the psychologist? How are fees determined? What records should be kept? Answering these questions will help the psychologist avoid ethical, legal, and professional dilemmas and will allow the psychologist to perform an important service in helping the court to understand technical issues in reaching just decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple routes to solution of single-digit multiplication problems.

Researchers have assumed that adults solve simple arithmetic problems by retrieving answers from a network of stored facts. In 2 studies, undergraduates described their solutions of single-digit multiplication problems. They reported direct retrieval on approximately 80% of trials but also reported rules (e.g., anything times 0 is 0), repeated addition (e.g., 2?×?4?=?4?+?4), number series (e.g., 3?×?5?=?5, 10, 15), and derived facts (e.g., 6?×?7?=?[6?×?6]?+?6). Participants were slower to retrieve problems that were most likely to be solved by nonretrieval procedures and faster to retrieve problems that were usually solved by retrieval. These results indicate that direct-retrieval models are incomplete accounts of adults' performance and support a continuing influence of learning and experience on the mental representation of simple multiplication problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Withholding medical care as a physical injury--manslaughter and withdrawal of treatment]

Withholding therapy may cause a charge of manslaughter and the intended withdrawal of therapy may result in proceedings because of second-degree murder, requested homicide and omission of help, respectively. According to the criminal law, negligence of the duty to help does not require a guarantor position of the physician but the intent for punishableness. Otherwise, the physician is liable for negligence only if he holds a guarantor position for the protection of the patient's life and health. The facts of manslaughter require the violation of medical care which is not equal to the violation of common or mostly acknowledged rules of medical science. Another requirement for liability is causality. Thus, is has to be proven without doubt that the patient's death would have been avoided if the omitted therapy had been applied. The legal requirements on the principle of causality are high. Therefore, negligence can be proven in many cases but the proof of causality does not succeed and the charges have to be dropped. In such a case, it is totally wrong to attempt a charge of omission of help since the criminal law requires intent and is not a collector for neglected medical procedures.     

To read or not to read.

Criticizes the pendatry, pomposity, and obscurantism of much professional psychology writing and suggests 3 rules for improving its readability. (1) the language used should be as simple and direct as the information conveyed will permit, (2) the language used should not be so complex or technical that it implies greater profundity or scientific validity than can be supported by the material, and (3) the writer is obligated to write so that the reader not only may but must comprehend. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accreditation professional degrees and teaching institutions: the case of Chile

Accreditation has acquired special relevance for the habilitation of professional practice, considering the proliferation of teaching institutions, the variety of training programs and the increasing amount of professionals requiring accreditation or revalidation of their titles. The internationalization of professional activities requires global and uniform accreditation procedures to avoid inequalities in evaluation of different professionals coming from abroad or from Chile. In the scope of medical practice, these concepts acquire special relevance, considering the appearance of new medical schools in the last decade and the increasing number of foreign physicians that need to revalidate their titles. In the period between January 1996 and September 1997, 192 foreign physicians applied to revalidate their titles and only 55 were approved. Therefore, the establishment of and effective evaluation system will correct deficiencies in the accreditation process and will promote the revision of training programs and the progress of teaching institutions. The organisms that will require to be accredited must be confident that this action will improve the quality of Chilean professional training.     

Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-distributed-processing approaches.

It has often been argued that various facts about skilled reading aloud cannot be explained by any model unless that model possesses a dual-route architecture (lexical and nonlexical routes from print to speech). This broad claim has been challenged by M. S. Seidenberg and J. L. McClelland (1989, 1990). Their model has but a single route from print to speech, yet, they contend, it can account for major facts about reading that have hitherto been claimed to require a dual-route architecture. The authors identify 6 of these major facts about reading. The 1-route model proposed by Seidenberg and McClelland can account for the 1st of these but not the remaining 5. Because models with dual-route architectures can explain all 6 of these basic facts about reading, the authors suggest that this remains the viable architecture for any tenable model of skilled reading and learning to read. The dual-route cascaded model, a computational version of the dual-route model, is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood as input and catatrophic worrying.

The authors describe 3 experiments investigating a "mood-as-input" approach to understanding catastrophic worrying. Experiment 1 found that induced negative mood increased the number of steps emitted in both a catastrophizing interview procedure and a positive iteration task. Experiment 2 found that the number of items that worriers emitted in an iterative item generation task was dependent on the stop rules specified by the procedure. Experiment 3 found that manipulating the stop rules for catastrophizing had differential effects on worriers and nonworriers, depending on the nature of the stop rules specified. These results suggest that mood provides information about continuing or terminating the catastrophizing process that is interpreted in the context of the stop rules for the task. It is argued that the mood-as-input hypothesis accounts for the facts of exacerbated catastrophizing in worriers better than explanations couched in terms of either mood congruency effects or worriers possessing a generalized perseverative iterative style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Competing ideologies in health care: a personal perspective

With the introduction of general management and then of planned markets into the National Health Service (NHS), health care in the UK has gone through a massive amount of change. The effect on those working for the NHS has been 'challenging' and often confusing. This paper aims to clarify what is happening by taking an ideological perspective: what ideologies exist, how they are changing and the strategies being used to ensure their survival. Ideologies are basically about power. The relationship between market, managerial and professional ideologies is analysed using charters, codes of conduct and other associated documents. A tentative conclusion is reached that professional ideologies are able to adjust to the overriding market/consumerist ideology. However, the managerial ideology is having difficulty in gaining any real ground against the professional ideology and is having to move strategically by using audit, not just of finance, but also of clinical judgement, to gain power.     

Depending on Character: ASCE Shapes Its First Code of Ethics

From the founding of the ASCE in 1852 through today, engineers have relied not only on their individual reputations, but also on the character of the entire discipline. The value of ethical behavior to individual engineers and to the profession leads us to assume that codes of ethics should exist, that they should shape engineers’ behavior, and that they should be enforced. Yet for the first 60 years of their society’s existence, ASCE members repeatedly rejected proposals that the society adopt a formal code of ethics to define appropriate behavior for ASCE members. Furthermore, the code the society eventually did adopt in 1914 was accepted reluctantly, amid strong concern that it would unduly restrict an engineer’s behavior and practice. The first ASCE code was intended, in effect, not so much as a collection of rules, but as a declaration of engineers’ independence from such rules. This paper explores the origins of the ASCE’s first code of ethics to provide a historical backdrop for contemporary discussions about what it means to be an ethical engineer and what role professional societies should play in establishing, encouraging, and enforcing ethical standards.     

Bioethics for clinicians: 17. Conflict of interest in research, education and patient care

A conflict of interest occurs in a situation in which professional judgement regarding a primary interest, such as research, education or patient care, may be unduly influenced by a secondary interest, such as financial gain or personal prestige. Conflicts of interest exist in every walk of life, including medicine and science. There is nothing inherently unethical in finding oneself in a conflict of interest. Rather, the key questions are whether one recognizes the conflict and how one deals with it. Strategies include disclosing the conflict, establishing a system of review and authorization, and prohibiting the activities that lead to the conflict.     

锗还原炉终点判断研究

针对锗还原过程中还原终点判断问题,根据生产工艺的要求,结合现场技术人员的丰富经验,采用模糊控制的思想建立了规则表,实现了还原过程终点的自动判断。实际运用结果表明：这种方法有效的改善了以往完全由人工操作出现的误差,节省能源,具有实际应用价值。     

Parasites of South African wildlife. XIV. Helminths of nyalas (Tragelaphus angasii) in the Mkuzi Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal

Reliability of event-related P3 parameters. Various parameters of the P3 wave were tested for reliability and test-retest stability. To this end, event-related P3 waves were evoked in 21 subjects during visual and auditory oddball tasks. The protocol was repeated one to two weeks later. Amplitude, latency and area between P3 and baseline were estimated by different procedures. The stability within and between sessions was assessed with the split-half method and a measure of test-retest reliability, respectively. A literature review revealed that latency estimation is most commonly done by computer-aided peak measurement, but determining peak parameters visually after interpellating superimposed artifacts turned out to be significantly more reliable. Interrater reliability for this visual inspection was very high if preestablished rules were employed. Amplitude and area were measured reliably by both computer-aided procedures and visual inspection. The area was quite stable both within and between sessions. Area can serve as a measure of cerebral activation and should therefore be determined. Based on the results recommendations are made about analyzing components of event-related potentials. The need to control for error variance is emphasized. This is the only way to improve methods enough that they will be suitable for use in single case diagnosis.