Responses Of Others Research Articles

Bullying and the politics of ‘telling’

This paper reports on a study of pupils’ views about tackling bullying and discusses the findings in the context of related research on ‘telling’ and other coping strategies. The research was undertaken in two related phases. In the first phase, in‐depth focus groups were conducted with pupils in Years 5 and 8 in twelve participating schools across England. This was followed by a questionnaire survey of all pupils in Years 5 and 8 in the same schools. In total, 230 pupils participated in the initial focus group stage of the research and 953 pupils participated in the questionnaire survey. Young people’s perceptions concerning the relative effectiveness of different options for tackling bullying, and the responses of others (peers, teachers, parents and other adults) to reports of bullying, were discussed. Pupils reported a reluctance to tell adults, particularly teachers, about their experiences of bullying, and this tendency increased with age. Only a third of pupils in Year 8 (31%) reported that they would find talking to a teacher about bullying ‘quite easy’ or ‘very easy’, compared with just over half of pupils in Year 5 (51%). Pupils’ willingness to tell parents also declined over time. However, the likelihood of telling friends remained consistently high. This suggests that telling friends is perceived as a less risky option by both age groups, but pupils become increasing wary of telling parents and teachers as they get older. Reluctance to tell may be attributable to a variety of factors. Adult responses that were perceived as ineffective, insensitive or excessive were highlighted, as was the influence of peer cultures that discourage ‘telling tales’ to adults, or other help‐seeking behaviours. The implications of the findings for developments in anti‐bullying policy and practice are also discussed.

The Private Provision of Public Goods under Uncertainty: A Symmetric-Equilibrium Approach

Various studies have examined whether increased uncertainty about the non-Nash response of others to an individual's voluntary contribution to a public good affects that individual's contribution so as to mitigate the free-rider problem. We extend this single-agent approach to the analysis of a symmetric equilibrium. We provide conditions on group size and endogenous relative risk aversion that imply increased equilibrium contributions in response to greater uncertainty about the productivity of each individual's contribution to the actual level of the public good. These results enable us to broaden the circumstances in which the theory predicts that increased uncertainty reduces free riding.

Verbal Marking of Affect by Children with Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism during Spontaneous Interactions with Family Members

Verbal marking of affect by older children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) and high functioning autism (HFA) during spontaneous interactions is described. Discourse analysis of AS and HFA and typically developing children included frequency of affective utterances, affective initiations, affective labels and affective explanations, attribution of affective responses to self and others, and positive and negative markers of affect. Findings indicate that children with AS and HFA engaged in a higher proportion of affect marking and provided a higher proportion of affective explanations than typically developing children, yet were less likely to initiate affect marking sequences or talk about the affective responses of others. No significant differences were found between groups in terms of the marking of positive and negative affect.

Experiences and Benefits of Volunteering in a Community AIDS Organization

This qualitative study examines the AIDS service organization-volunteer relationship from the volunteer's point of view. Factors that led to a relationship with an AIDS service organization included personal values and individual characteristics and needs. Volunteers reported many rewards from the work itself and the responses of others. Volunteers also encountered challenges that included role demands, role-ability fit, and stress/burnout concerns as well as limited organizational resources and structural obstacles. These results suggest that care must be taken to ensure that the volunteer role meets the needs, skills, and abilities of the individual volunteering. The need to ameliorate challenges is clear for AIDS service organizations seeking to retain volunteers. Some of the preventive strategies include goal-setting and feedback, individual-sensitive role redesign, opportunity to participate in decisions, and increased communication.

Dobutamine stress echocardiography: Does it predict response to beta-blockers in patients with heart failure?

In patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), s-blockers have been shown to improve symptoms, exercise tolerance, functional capacity, quality of life, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), and survival and reduce sudden cardiac death. However, the effect of s-blockers in patients with CHF has also been shown to be heterogeneous, with improved LVEF in some and worsening or no response in others. This review summarizes studies evaluating the role of inotropic contractile reserve (ICR) with dobutamine stress echocardiography in predicting responders to s-blocker therapy among patients with heart failure. It also reviews the rationale for the beneficial effects of ICR in this cohort.

Patient Recognition of and Response to Symptoms of TIA or Stroke

Background and Purpose: Campaigns within Australia and internationally have sought to increase awareness of the emergent nature of stroke. For these initiatives to be effective it is important to gather information about delay in seeking treatment and the reasons given for the delay by people with stroke. The purpose of this study was to examine delay in seeking treatment in people with an evolving stroke or TIA and identify clinical, behavioral and demographic factors that contributed to the delay. Subjects and Methods: During a 1-year period 150 participants were given the Response to Stroke Symptoms Questionnaire. The six domains included in the questionnaire were: (1) context in which the stroke occurred; (2) antecedents to symptoms; (3) affective response to symptoms; (4) behavioral response to symptoms; (5) cognitive response to symptoms; (6) the response of others to patient symptoms. Results: The median delay time from symptom onset to admission to hospital was 4.5 h. While 41% of participants delayed less than 3 h, more than 45% delayed greater than 6 h. Independent predictors of delay time included mode of arrival at hospital with those taking an ambulance having a median delay time of 2.7 h vs. 15.4 h for those arriving by private car (p = 0.04). Gender also predicted delay with women delaying longer (p = 0.001). The first response of others was also an independent predictor of delay time (p = 0.003) with those who called the emergency services number or took the patient to hospital resulting in the shortest patient delays. Finally, if the patient appraised their symptoms as serious they had a shorter delay time (p = 0.02). Conclusions: The message about the emergent nature of stroke may be helping to improve delay times. However, there are still many people who delay greater than 3 h after symptom onset. It is important to direct education programs to those with known risk factors for stroke and their families, who often make the decision to call an ambulance.

Interferon γ: a crucial role in the function of induced regulatory T cells in vivo

Interferon (IFN)gamma can have paradoxical functions, eliciting inflammatory T helper 1 (Th1)-driven immune responses in some circumstances, and enabling induced regulatory T (Treg) cells to control immune responses in others. Here, we propose a model in which IFNgamma produced rapidly and only transiently by induced Treg cells is crucial to their function in vivo. This early production of IFNgamma by induced Treg cells during an immune response can directly inhibit the activation and proliferation of IFNgammaR1- and IFNgammaR2-bearing T cells. Furthermore, it can indirectly prevent further T-cell activation by creating a microenvironment that influences the function of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) as a result of IFNgamma-induced inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and heme oxygenase (HO)-1 expression.

Eutrophication of Chesapeake Bay: historical trends and ecological interactions

This review provides an integrated synthesis with timelines and evaluations of ecological responses to eutrophi- cation in Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the USA. Analyses of dated sediment cores reveal initial evidence of organic enrichment in ~200 yr old strata, while signs of increased phytoplankton and decreased water clarity first appeared ~100 yr ago. Severe, recurring deep-water hypoxia and loss of diverse submersed vascular plants were first evident in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively. The degradation of these benthic habitats has contributed to declines in benthic macro- infauna in deep mesohaline regions of the Bay and blue crabs in shallow polyhaline areas. In contrast, copepods, which are heavily consumed in pelagic food chains, are relatively un- affected by nutrient-induced changes in phytoplankton. Intense mortality associated with fisheries and disease have caused a dramatic decline in eastern oyster stocks and associated Bay water filtration, which may have exacerbated eutrophication effects on phytoplankton and water clarity. Extensive tidal marshes, which have served as effective nutrient buffers along the Bay margins, are now being lost with rising sea level. Although the Bay's overall fisheries production has probably not been affected by eutrophication, decreases in the relative contribution of demersal fish and in the efficiency with which primary production is transferred to harvest suggest funda- mental shifts in trophic and habitat structures. Bay ecosystem responses to changes in nutrient loading are complicated by non-linear feedback mechanisms, including particle trapping and binding by benthic plants that increase water clarity, and by oxygen effects on benthic nutrient recycling efficiency. Observations in Bay tributaries undergoing recent reductions in nutrient input indicate relatively rapid recovery of some ecosystem functions but lags in the response of others.

Receptor aggregation by intermembrane interactions: A Monte Carlo study

The lateral organization of receptors on cell surfaces is critically important to their function; many receptors transmit transmembrane signals when redistributed into clusters, while the response of others is potentiated by their aggregation. Cell–cell contact can play a crucial role in receptor aggregation, even when the bonds between receptors on one cell and ligands on the other are monovalent. Monte Carlo simulations on a two-membrane model were carried out to determine whether weak enthalpic interactions among receptors in one membrane, and among ligands in another, can work synergistically to give large-scale clustering when the two membranes are brought into contact. The simulations give support to such a clustering mechanism. In addition, because clustering is a cooperative process akin to a phase separation, individual receptors and ligands may undergo repeated binding and unbinding while in a clustered “phase,” and a single ligand could interact with multiple different receptor partners. The results suggest a resolution of the dichotomy between serial triggering and aggregation models of T cell activation.

High pressure-sensitive gene expression in Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis

Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis is a Gram-positive lactic acid bacterium used in food biotechnology. It is necessary to investigate many aspects of a model organism to elucidate mechanisms of stress response, to facilitate preparation, application and performance in food fermentation, to understand mechanisms of inactivation, and to identify novel tools for high pressure biotechnology. To investigate the mechanisms of the complex bacterial response to high pressure we have analyzed changes in the proteome and transcriptome by 2-D electrophoresis, and by microarrays and real time PCR, respectively. More than 16 proteins were found to be differentially expressed upon high pressure stress and were compared to those sensitive to other stresses. Except for one apparently high pressure-specific stress protein, no pressure-specific stress proteins were found, and the proteome response to pressure was found to differ from that induced by other stresses. Selected pressure-sensitive proteins were partially sequenced and their genes were identified by reverse genetics. In a transcriptome analysis of a redundancy cleared shot gun library, about 7% of the genes investigated were found to be affected. Most of them appeared to be up-regulated 2- to 4-fold and these results were confirmed by real time PCR. Gene induction was shown for some genes up-regulated at the proteome level (clpL/groEL/rbsK), while the response of others to high hydrostatic pressure at the transcriptome level seemed to differ from that observed at the proteome level. The up-regulation of selected genes supports the view that the cell tries to compensate for pressure-induced impairment of translation and membrane transport.

Conjuring Hope in a Body: Lucille Clifton's Eschatology

world is turning in body of Jesus and future is possible --spring song by Lucille Clifton, from Good News About Earth In a 2000 interview with Michael Glaser, African-American poet and memoirist Lucille Clifton identified hope as a central function of her work. She said, I think writing is a way of continuing to hope. When things sometimes feel as if they're not going to any better, writing offers a way of to with something beyond obvious feeling ... because you know, there is hope in connecting, and so perhaps for me it is a way of remembering I am not alone. And writing may be sending tentacles out to see if there is a response to that. (311) For Clifton, who wrote her first collection in late 1960s as Civil Rights movement began to fade, hope writing offers is one transcends and resists discouragement of present, that obvious feeling. It looks toward future, a future will get [...] better not through escape from life situations, but rather through trying to connect with responses of others. Clifton's statements linking her writing of hope to future and to relationship suggest an eschatological framework for reading her poetry. (1) Eschatology, theology of hope, possesses several characteristics make it a worthwhile critical lens. According to Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope, eschatology properly conceived is future-oriented, resistant to present, missional, and destabilizing to both knowledge and personal identity. That is, hope is comprised of anticipations which show reality in its prospects and its future possibilities, a future orientation manifest within (35,270). Hope's statements of promise, declares Moltmann, must stand in contradiction to reality can at present be experienced. They [...] lead existing reality towards promised and hoped-for transformation (18). Since future is primarily the thing we cannot already think out and picture for ourselves, hope in God of future unsettles knowledge (16). It leads our modern institutions away from their own immanent tendency toward stabilization, [making] uncertain [...] and open[ing] them (330). For individual, committing to theology of hope means a deferral of haven of identity; mission of hope is served through self-emptying sacrifice of hopeful person (91). Clifton's poetry, widely understood as celebrating black culture and developing a vocal black female self, appears quite different when viewed as eschatologicah strains of self-sacrifice and performative rhetoric come to light. (2) Clifton's Good Times, first volume in Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980, was declared by New York Times to be one of year's best books in 1969 for its hard, angry poems. In terms of Clifton's literary context, interviewers and critics have often sought to place Clifton's early poetry within Black Arts Movement, but designation is one she has always resisted. She has written poems for Black Panthers, for Malcolm X, for Eldridge Cleaver and for Bobby Seale, but she refuses to be categorized as part of literary arm of Black Power movement or as reflecting a Black Aesthetic. Her black aesthetic, she jokes, was succession of children emerging from her body during development of 'black is beautiful' ideology. In an interview with Charles H. Rowell in Callaloo, Clifton asserts Black Power Movement's sudden realization and response to programmatic racial inequity seemed to her somewhat strange. She had been knowing inequities, and found her poems conscious of blackness, without an obsessive need for constant repetition. Still, with her use of vernacular black speech and simple language, Clifton's work certainly converses with Black Arts poetry of Amiri Baraka and Nikki Giovanni. …

Good vibrations

Positive feelings will attract positive responses in others, says Jennifer Percival

Catechol O-methyltransferase val158-met genotype and individual variation in the brain response to amphetamine.

Monamines subserve many critical roles in the brain, and monoaminergic drugs such as amphetamine have a long history in the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders and also as a substance of abuse. The clinical effects of amphetamine are quite variable, from positive effects on mood and cognition in some individuals, to negative responses in others, perhaps related to individual variations in monaminergic function and monoamine system genes. We explored the effect of a functional polymorphism (val(158)-met) in the catechol O-methyltransferase gene, which has been shown to modulate prefrontal dopamine in animals and prefrontal cortical function in humans, on the modulatory actions of amphetamine on the prefrontal cortex. Amphetamine enhanced the efficiency of prefrontal cortex function assayed with functional MRI during a working memory task in subjects with the high enzyme activity val/val genotype, who presumably have relatively less prefrontal synaptic dopamine, at all levels of task difficulty. In contrast, in subjects with the low activity met/met genotype who tend to have superior baseline prefrontal function, the drug had no effect on cortical efficiency at low-to-moderate working memory load and caused deterioration at high working memory load. These data illustrate an application of functional neuroimaging in pharmacogenomics and extend basic evidence of an inverted-"U" functional-response curve to increasing dopamine signaling in the prefrontal cortex. Further, individuals with the met/met catechol O-methyltransferase genotype appear to be at increased risk for an adverse response to amphetamine.

PERSPECTIVES ON PRACTICE: A PRAGMATIC COMPARISON OF THE PRAXIAL PHILOSOPHIES OF DAVID ELLIOTT AND THOMAS REGELSKI

In a highly influential paper, What Should One Expect from a Philosophy of Music Education? (1991), philosopher Philip Alperson outlined three possible basic strategies for understanding and explaining music and music education. He began by describing the formalist view that originated with such Enlightenment philosophers as Immanuel Kant, according to which disinterested contemplation (that is, attention solely to the formal, qualitative aspects of somethingsuch as a musical workwithout reference to concepts or to its practical significance) gives rise to aesthetic experience, a particular, highly pleasurable state of mind. According to this view, music is a fine art, and music education should involve training people to perceive and respond appropriately to musical works (that is, by cultivating their taste for masterpieces) in order to evoke experience in them and perhaps also to prepare them to produce works that might evoke such responses in others. Aesthetic formalists hold that such education will enhance an individual's understanding and enjoyment of music. Next, Alperson gave an account of what he termed an enhanced version of

Societal and Workplace Responses to Perinatal Loss: Disenfranchised Grief or Healing Connection

Perinatal loss is a life-altering event for a mother, affecting every aspect of her existence, including her work and career. Fifteen women describe how such loss affected their work and how the responses of others influenced their healing. I consider the effects on grief of silence, disenfranchisement, attachment, trauma, shame, secrecy, and the social context. I note patterns of healing: connection to the self, attachment to the dead child, and linking the self and child to the family and community. Community attachments include those made in the workplace. Relationships at work and work itself can contribute to disenfranchised grief or healing from perinatal loss.

Social Integration following Traumatic Brain Injury and Rehabilitation

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine the issues involved in social integration for those affected by traumatic brain injury, following a period of rehabilitation. Eighteen patients, their significant other* and members of the rehabilitation team involved in their care were interviewed when the patient was discharged from the ward of a neurological rehabilitation hospital, 6 months later and, again, at one year following discharge from the ward. When the data were analysed at the time of the final interview, two respondents reported social isolation. Although many others felt that the level of social contact was that of their choice, several issues were discussed that affected social relationships. These included the impact of impairments, the social response of others and the fact that social networks change naturally over time irrespective of injury or disability. When the data were considered from a sociological perspective, the themes of self-identity, master status and stranger status emerged. This gave a different insight into issues that could be relevant but had not been discussed widely within the head injury literature. Further consideration of the individual in the context of personhood as well as head injury is recommended as a means to develop understanding.

Consistency in Interpersonal Themes in Narratives About Relationships

The current study investigates the hypothesis that psychiatric patients display consistent interpersonal themes in narratives across different important interpersonal relationships. In response to a revised Relationship Anecdote Paradigm interview, 93 patients with a diagnosable disorder, based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (third edition, revised) criteria, were asked to give 5 narratives about each of the following significant people in their lives: mother, father, same-sex best friend, and romantic partner. From the transcribed interview material, independent judges reliably rated the intensity of wishes, responses of others, and responses from self associated with a modified Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method (Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1990). Consistency of specific relational themes was assessed across multiple interactions with the same person and across different relationships. Although only 1% to 3% of the variance was explained by an individual's consistency, there was substantial variability in specific interpersonal themes across narratives, both across and within relationships (explaining 27% to 30% of the variance). The discussion addresses methodological issues that may have contributed to the current findings and the implications of these findings for the CCRT method, psychodynamic theory and practice in general, and the psychodynamic concept of transference in particular.

Evolution of temperature responses in the Cladophora vagabunda complex and the C. albida/sericea complex (Chlorophyta)

Differentiation in temperature responses (survival and growth) was investigated among isolates of two tropical to temperate green algal lineages: the Cladophora vagabunda complex and the C. albida/sericea complex. The results were analysed in relation to published data on 18S rRNA and ITS sequence divergence, which have shown that the overall degree of genetic divergence is similar in the two lineages but that very different patterns of radiation have occurred. In the C. vagabunda complex, the two main clades in the well-resolved phylogenetic tree differed mainly in their tolerance to low temperatures. Within-clade variation was no stronger in the Atlantic/Pacific than in the all-Pacific clade. In the C. albida/sericea complex, six distinctive ITS types indicated early radiation. Although distinctive differences were found between some of these types, the thermal responses of others were very similar, indicating physiological stasis. In both lineages there was evidence for some adaptation to local temperature regimes but phylogenetic constraints were generally more important. Isolates with the same ITS sequences showed similar temperature responses even though collected from different climate zones. Evidence was found for a physiological trade-off between growth at high and at low temperatures in the C. albida/sericea complex, whereas, in the C. vagabunda complex, one clade showed more eurythermal growth responses than the other. In the C. vagabunda complex, which is the ancestral lineage of the C. albida/sericea complex, major differentiation was found in cold tolerance but not in heat tolerance, whereas the reverse pattern was found in the derived C. albida/sericea complex. These findings suggest that an acquisition of cold tolerance preceded the loss of heat tolerance during adaptation to colder climates.

Toward a praxis theory of suffering.

This article revises and summarizes the major findings from a research program exploring the behavioral-experiential nature of suffering. Suffering is perceived as comprising two major behavioral states: enduring (in which emotions are suppressed; it is manifested as an emotionless state) and emotional suffering (an overt state of distress in which emotions are released). Individuals who are suffering move back and forth between these two states according to their own needs, their recognition/acknowledgment/acceptance of events, the context, and the needs and responses of others. Implications for the provision of comfort during suffering states are presented.

A prospective investigation of the role of cognitive factors in persistent Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after physical or sexual assault

The effectiveness of psychological treatments for PTSD is likely to be enhanced by improved understanding of the factors involved in maintaining the disorder. Ehlers and Clark [A cognitive model of persistent posttraumatic stem disorder Behav. Res. Ther. 38 (2000) 319–345] recently proposed a cognitive model of maintenance. The current study aimed to investigate several cognitive factors highlighted in Ehlers and Clark's model using a prospective design. Fifty-seven victims of physical or sexual assault participated in the study. Cognitive factors were assessed within 4 months of assault and victims were followed-up 6 and 9 months after the assault. Cognitive variables which significantly predicted PTSD severity at both follow-ups were: cognitive processing style during assault (mental defeat, mental confusion, detachment); appraisal of assault sequelae (appraisal of symptoms, perceived negative responses of others, permanent change); negative beliefs about self and world; and maladaptive control strategies (avoidance/safety seeking). Relationships between early appraisals, control strategies, and processing styles and subsequent PTSD severity remained significant after statistically controlling for gender and perceived assault severity. These findings support the cognitive model of PTSD proposed by Ehlers and Clark and suggest that effective treatment will need to address these cognitive factors.