The effect of intellectual disability on the adherence of child witnesses to a “story grammar” framework

BackgroundThis study examined the ability of 78 children (aged 9–12 years) with an intellectual disability (ID) to provide a narrative account of a staged event they had participated in four days earlier.
MethodThe children were interviewed using open‐ended questions. The quality of their responses (using a story grammar framework) was compared with that of two control groups: mainstream children matched for mental and chronological age.
ResultsWhile the children with an ID and those matched for mental age provided narratives of similar length and used similar proportions of each story grammar element, the ID group was less likely than both control groups to provide a narrative account at all. Among those children with an ID who did provide a narrative account, their accounts included proportionately fewer story grammar elements than those of both control groups.
ConclusionChildren with an ID are disadvantaged as witnesses with respect to their ability to provide a detailed and coherent narrative account of events under optimal investigative interviewing conditions.

Estimating expected excess returns using historical and option-implied volatility

We test the relation between expected and realized excess returns for the S&P 500 index from January 1994 through December 2003 using the proportional reward-to-risk measure to estimate expected returns. When risk is measured by historical volatility, we find no relation between expected and realized excess returns. In contrast, when risk is measured by option-implied volatility, we find a positive and significant relation between expected and realized excess returns in the 1994–1998 subperiod. In the 1999–2003 subperiod, the option-implied volatility risk measure yields a positive, but statistically insignificant, risk-return relation. We attribute this performance difference to the fact that, in the 1994–1998 subperiod, return volatility was lower and the average return was much higher than in the 1999–2003 subperiod, thereby increasing the signal-to-noise ratio in the latter subperiod.

The sword and the pen in the pre-modern Arabic heritage : a literacy representation of an important historical relationship

The so-called "literary debate" in Greek, Latin and many Near Eastern
languages is a well-developed genre. In his 1987 article, Geert Jan van Gelder surveyed its background more than adequately, 1 and very few details of that paper need to be repeated here. He assessed thoroughly the historical contribution of numerous poets to the relationship between "the sword and the pen," and also analyzed various aspects of this relationship in a few prose texts.

Getting the story from child witnesses : exploring the application of a story grammar framework

Investigative interviews with children about alleged abuse were analysed to determine the degree to which the child's responses adhered to a story grammar framework, and whether the presence of story grammar elements was associated with interviewers' adherence to best-practice (i.e. open-ended) questioning. The sample included 51 interviews with child witnesses from across Australia. The interviews were administered by a police officer with children (37 girls and 14 boys) aged 3-16 years (M age = 103.82 months, SD = 34.21 months). The interviewers' questions were categorised as open-ended or specific and the children's responses were classified as a story grammar element, context/background information, or 'don't know' responses. The majority of interviewer questions were specific in nature and the majority of children's responses were context/background details. Open-ended questions were more successful in eliciting story grammar from children. Of the story grammar elements, the interviewers' specific questions usually targeted setting and attempt details. These findings suggest that improvement in the narrative coherence of children's reports of abusive events can potentially be achieved by increasing interviewers' use of open-ended questions.

Historical fictions : the historical novel in Australia during the 1930s and 1940s

The thesis examines historical novels written in Australia during the 1930s and 1940s, providing close readings of Xavier Herbert's Caprocornia, Miles Franklin's All That Swagger, M. Barnard Eldershaw's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Katherine Susannah Prichard's goldfields trilogy, and Eleanor Dark's The Timeless Land. No attempt has been made at encyclopaedic completeness. The organising principle behind the study relates, instead, to the question of the status of the historical novel as a genre. The thesis considers the importance of genre in literary theory, and reflects on the construction of Australian literary history, which in the post-war period has consistently involved a debunking of historical fiction. In the first chapter, various approaches to historical fiction are considered, special attention being paid to Lukacs's The Historical Novel. This leads on to an examination of Marxist approaches to literature, including Frederic Jameson's The Political Unconscious, in order to establish some of the coordinates of the subsequent analysis. While Lukacs's study represents an inadequate theoretical basis for an examination of the historical novel, his popular frontism suggests a useful context for an examination of historical fiction written in Australia during the 'thirties and 'forties, raising the question of the relationship between literature and ideology during this period. The thesis, however, embraces a wider ideological spectrum than the Popular Front, including P.R. Stephensen's 'Australia First' Movement, as well as Katherine Susannah Prichard's communism. The next two chapters are devoted to a consideration of Capricornia and All That Swagger, novels P. R. Stephensen praised in the columns of The Publicist for being 'authentically Australian'. The thesis is generally concerned with the question of the relationship between Australian nationalism and literary production, a concern which is taken up in the following chapter, where Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Prichard's goldfields trilogy are examined in connection with the Popular Front. Eleanor Dark's development as a writer forms the subject matterof the concluding chapters of this study, when the significance of the historical novel for writers of her generation is established through considering the importance of the historical novel within her oevre.

Syphilis and AIDS : historical and social comparisons

Drawing on the literatures of history, sociology, epidemiology, and microbiology, this thesis compares syphillis with human immunodeficiency virus, with special reference to the social and historical factors likely to be relevant to the control or eradication of acquired imune dificiency syndrom (AIDS). The sudden appearance of a new disease causing suffering and death in a community, engenders apprehension and fear which is often manifested as hysteria against, and vilification of, those who have the disease. This fear is greatly increased should the disease be sexually-transmitted. Syphilis in a venereal form, occured in Europe toward the end of the 15th Century. Initially it was an acute, fulminating disease which rapidly spread through Europe and Asia. Attempts to control the disease have gone through periods of either partial successes or massive failures and have ended in frustration for the authorities. When the syndrome of acquired immune deficiency (AIDS) was first reported, it was seen in Western countries in homosexual men. However, as non-homosexual community members and children became infected, it became apparent to authorities that a pandemic was accurring. Within a few years, the disease was identified worldwide. Isolation of the virus (HIV-1), and development of test for detection of carriers, plus restoration of clean blood and blood-product supplies, have reassured the community to some extent. The history of syphilis shows that neither the epidemiological medical, nor the economic political approaches to disease control work, although there are positive aspects resulting from both. It is social responses that will offer the most hope in the long term for the control of AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases.

Presbyterian ethos and environment in the novels of John Buchan : a religious and historical study

The aim of this thesis is to establish, from a historical and religious perspective, that the Presbyterian ethos and environment in which John Buchan was reared was the predominating influence in the writing of his novels. Presbyterianism was not the only influence on Buchan that determined the character of his stories. Buchan was by temperament a romantic, and this had considerable influence on his literature. His novels are romances, peopled by romantic figures who pursue romantic adventures. There are the signs of Buchan's romantic nature in the contents of the novels: creative imagination, sensitivity to nature, and expectations of the intrusion of other worlds, with destiny-determining events to follow. But Buchan had also an acquired classicism. His studies at Glasgow and Oxford Universities brought him in touch with a whole range of the master-pieces of classical literature, especially the works of Plato and Virgil. This discipline gave him clarity and conciseness in style, and balanced the romantic element in him, keeping his work within the bounds of reason. At the heart of Buchan's life and work, however, was his deeply religious nature and this, while influenced by romanticism and classicism, was the dominant force behind his work. Buchan did not accept in its entirety the Presbyterian doctrine conveyed to him by his father and his Church. He was moderate by temperament and shrank from excesses in religious matters, and, being a romantic, he shied away from any fixed creeds. He did embrace the fundamentals of Christianity, however, which he learned from his father and his Church, even if he did put aside the Rev. John's orthodox Calvinism. The basic Christianity which underlies all Buchan's novels has the stamp of Presbyterianism upon it, and that stamp is evident in his characters and their adventures. The expression of Christianity which Buchan embraced was the Christian Platonism of seventeenth century theologians, who taught and preached at Cambridge University, They gave prominence to the place of reason and conscience in man's search for God, They believed that reason and conscience were the ‘candle of the Lord’ which was existed every one. It was their conviction that, if that light was followed, it would lead men and women to God. They were against superstition and fanaticism in religion, against all forms of persecution for religious beliefs, and insisted that God could only be known by renouncing evil and setting oneself to live according to God’s will. This teaching Buchan received, but the stamp of his Presbyterianism was not obliterated. The basic doctrines which arose from his father's Presbyterianism and are to be found in Buchan's novels are as follows: a. the fear (or awe) of God, as life's basic religious attitude; b. the Providence of God as the ultimate determinative force in the outcome of events; c. the reality, malignity and universality of evil which must be forcefully and constantly resisted; d. the dignity of human beings in bearing God's image; e. the conviction that life has meaning and that its ultimate goal, therefore, is a spiritual one - as opposed to the accumulation of wealth, the achieving of recognition from society, and the gaining access to power; f. the necessity of challenge in life for growth and fulfilment, and the importance of fortitude in successfully meeting such challenge; g. the belief that, in the purpose of God, the weak confound the strong. These emphases of Presbyterianism are to be found in all Buchan's novels, to a greater or lesser degree. All his characters are serious people, with a moral purpose in life. Like the pilgrims of the Bible, they seek a country: true fulfilment. This quest becomes more spiritual and more dearly defined as Buchan grows in age and maturity. The progress is to be traced from his early novels, where fulfilment is sought in honour and self-approving competence, as advocated by classicism; to the novels of his middle years, where fulfilment is sought in adventures suggested by romanticism. In his final novel Sick Heart River. Buchan appears to have moved somewhat from his earlier classicism and his romanticism as the road to fulfilment. In this novel, Buchan expresses what, for him, is ultimate fulfilment: a conversion to God that produces self-sacrificing love for others. The terminally-ill Edward Leithen sets out on a romantic adventure that will enable him to die with dignity, and so, in classic style, justify his existence. He has a belief in God, but in a God who is almighty, distant and largely irrelevant to Leithen's life. In the frozen North of Canada, where he expects to find his meagre beliefs in God's absolute power confirmed by the icy majesty of mountain and plain, he finds instead God's mercy and it melts his heart. In a Christ-like way, he brings life to others through his death, believing that, through death, he will find life. There is sufficient evidence to give plausibility to the view that Buchan is describing in Leithen his own pilgrimage. If so, it means that Buchan found his way back to the fundamental experience of the Christian life, conversion, so strongly emphasised in his orthodox Presbyterianism home and Church. However, Buchan reaches this conclusion in a Christian Platonist way, through the natural world, rather than through the more orthodox pathway of Scripture.

Developing the textual turn : tracking the grammar of research case records

During action research projects a great deal of written material is produced. Some of this is data generated about the project, some about the process of the research and some is reflective writing about the researcher(s). In this article I propose that a deliberate focus on the tracking of texts might be helpful in action research, particularly if the inquiry is working within significant constraints. Working with a range of documents and informed by the work of Dorothy Smith on the texting of ruling relations, I show how a multiagency project based in one school slipped away from its original community development goals into a more 'professional service' model. I also show how the project was able to resist partially the requirement by the funding body to use a rational strategic planning model through the production of taped conversations and meta-analytic papers. Although this is a single case, I contend that this example points to the potential utility of an explicit focus on the textual practices of action research.

Andean pre-historical urban planning tradition

Urban design features that formed an Andean urban planning tradition through continual use across successive periods of time, civilizations and extensive, varied geography are identified. Some Andean urban features were also mirrored or pre-date similar ideas that occurred in other parts of the world, particularly ideas used by Spanish colonialism.

An historical critique of philosophical universalism through Foucault and Rorty

This thesis examines the critiques of modern philosophy by Foucault and Rorty, which use genealogical and philosophical arguments against the notion of universal truths being fundamental to knowledge. They promote the idea of the autonomy of the self, and the use of discourse to generate pragmatic action within society.