Nature and community in Western culture: Wendell Berry's alternative tradition

This dissertation is an examination of the ideals and practices that have characterized Western culture's relationship to the natural world. The conventional approach, depicted by some of the most prominent ecological publications of recent years, criticizes the Western tradition for both its ideals and practices. The ideals are assumed to be best represented in Western philosophy and religion and both of these sources have been indicted. These ideals are coupled with the Western way of life that is equally indicted as exploitive and destructive. Author, professor and farmer, Wendell Berry, offers an alternative to these indictments. Berry insists that a theme, advocating ecological accountability, runs through some of the West's most significant literature and that Western tradition contains a practice that can support these ecological principles. ^

Evaluation of therapist and client language in Motivational Interviewing (MI) sessions: A secondary analysis of data from the Southern Methodist Alcohol Research Trial (SMART) study

In the United States, “binge” drinking among college students is an emerging public health concern due to the significant physical and psychological effects on young adults. The focus is on identifying interventions that can help decrease high-risk drinking behavior among this group of drinkers. One such intervention is Motivational interviewing (MI), a client-centered therapy that aims at resolving client ambivalence by developing discrepancy and engaging the client in change talk. Of late, there is a growing interest in determining the active ingredients that influence the alliance between the therapist and the client. This study is a secondary analysis of the data obtained from the Southern Methodist Alcohol Research Trial (SMART) project, a dismantling trial of MI and feedback among heavy drinking college students. The present project examines the relationship between therapist and client language in MI sessions on a sample of “binge” drinking college students. Of the 126 SMART tapes, 30 tapes (‘MI with feedback’ group = 15, ‘MI only’ group = 15) were randomly selected for this study. MISC 2.1, a mutually exclusive and exhaustive coding system, was used to code the audio/videotaped MI sessions. Therapist and client language were analyzed for communication characteristics. Overall, therapists adopted a MI consistent style and clients were found to engage in change talk. Counselor acceptance, empathy, spirit, and complex reflections were all significantly related to client change talk (p-values ranged from 0.001 to 0.047). Additionally, therapist ‘advice without permission’ and MI Inconsistent therapist behaviors were strongly correlated with client sustain talk (p-values ranged from 0.006 to 0.048). Simple linear regression models showed a significant correlation between MI consistent (MICO) therapist language (independent variable) and change talk (dependent variable) and MI inconsistent (MIIN) therapist language (independent variable) and sustain talk (dependent variable). The study has several limitations such as small sample size, self-selection bias, poor inter-rater reliability for the global scales and the lack of a temporal measure of therapist and client language. Future studies might consider a larger sample size to obtain more statistical power. In addition the correlation between therapist language, client language and drinking outcome needs to be explored.^

Epidemiology of allergic gastroenteritis in socio-culture perspective of rural Egypt

Diarrhea is a major public health problem in developing countries among infants and young children. Not all episodes of diarrhea are confirmed as infectious, suggesting alternate mechanisms. One such is immunoglobulin E (IgE) mediated or allergic diarrhea that can be seen in food allergy. In order to determine the relation between allergic gastroenteritis and feeding practice, a cohort of 152 infants were followed from birth to one year age in a rural community of Egypt between October, 1987 to April, 1988 were analyzed. In multivariate analysis of the data, statistically conclusive higher risk had been observed with presence of factors, like consumption of milk pudding (RR = 7.4, CI = 1.5-36.2 and p = 0.01), infant's age 3-6 months (RR = 7.7, CI = 1.3-45.9 and p = 0.02), infants whose mothers were vaccinated antenatally (RR = 3.1, CI = 1.3-7.0 and p = 1.3-7.0, p = 0.0) and wet-nursed infants (RR = 2.7, CI = 1.1-6.5 and p = 0.02). In contrast, infants who were completely breast-fed (RR = 0.13, CI = 0.02-0.6 and p = 0.01), and infants family owning a television set (RR = 0.29, CI = 0.1-0.6 and p = 0.0) were less likely to develop allergic gastroenteritis. The role of IgE on development of persistent diarrhea was also examined in a nested case-control design. Multivariate analysis revealed a significant association between detection of fecal IgE and development of persistent diarrhea compared to acute diarrhea (OR = 3.32, CI = 1.0-10.9 and p = 0.04) and health or non diarrhea (OR = 4.8, CI = 1.07-21.7 and p = 0.03) controls. ^