Perceptions of therapist responses to shame disclosures by clients: A quasi-experimental investigation with non-clinical participants

Background
Therapist responses to initial shame disclosure in therapy have received little empirical attention.

Aim
This study explored different therapeutic responses to shame disclosures in terms of their perceived helpfulness. Responses ranged from complete withdrawal from the feeling (withdrawal) to completely tuning into it (non-withdrawal). Given the tendency of shame to evoke avoidance, participants higher on shame-proneness (as measured by The Experience of Shame Scale) were expected to perceive withdrawal responses to shame as more helpful than non-withdrawal responses.

Methodology
Fifty-five non-clinical participants were assessed for shame-proneness before viewing videos of mock therapy sessions showing clients either disclosing shame (two videos) or shock (control condition). Participants then rated the helpfulness of different therapist responses. The responses differed in the degree they allowed the client to withdraw from their emotions.

Results
High shame proneness was associated with rating withdrawal responses to shame as least helpful. Overall, neither the withdrawal response nor the non-withdrawal response were rated as particularly helpful. The therapeutic response which addressed management strategies when shame is initially experienced in therapy was deemed most helpful.

Conclusion
Despite the tendency to withdraw from shame feelings, this response is not deemed helpful in therapy.

Accuracy of rural refractionists in western China

Purpose. We assessed the prevalence and predictors of inaccurate refractive error among rural refractionists in western China. Methods. A subset of primary school children with visual acuity (VA) ≤6/12 in ≥1 eye, undergoing subjective refinement by local refractionists after cycloplegic autorefraction in an ongoing population-based study, received repeat refraction by university optometrists for quality control. Results. Among 502 children (mean age 10.5 years, 53.2% girls), independent predictors of poor (inaccurate by ≥1.0 diopter [D]) refraction by 21 rural practitioners (66.7% with high school or lower education) included hyperopia (odds ratio [OR], 4.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.4-7.3, P < 0.001), astigmatism (OR = 3.8; 95% CI, 2.5-5.6; P < 0.001) and VA uncorrectable to >6/12 by the rural refractionist (OR = 4.7; 95% CI, 3.1-7.3; P = < 0.001). Among 201 children whose vision was uncorrectable in ≥1 eye by the rural refractionists, vision could be improved to >6/12 by the university optometrist in 110 (54.7%). We estimate vision could be so improved in 9.1% of all children refracted by these rural refractionists. A reason for inaccuracy in this setting is the erroneous tendency of rural refractionists to adjust instrument values for accommodation, even under cycloplegia. Conclusions. Rural refractionists in western China have little formal training and frequently fail to optimize VA among children, even when autorefractors are used. Training is needed emphasizing better use of automated refraction, particularly in children with astigmatism and hyperopia. © 2014 The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Inc.

The Extra-territorial Obligations of European States regarding Human Rights in the Context of Terrorism

This chapter focuses on the growing tendency of international human rights law to require states to protect the rights of non-nationals who are in the state unlawfully and of nationals and non-nationals who are outside the state, especially when any of these people are involved in terrorist or counter-terrorist activity. It reviews these additional obligations within a European context, focusing on EU law and the law of the European Convention on Human Rights and drawing on the case law of UK courts. Part 1 considers when a European state must grant asylum to alleged terrorists on the basis that otherwise they would suffer human rights abuses in the state from which they are fleeing. Part 2 examines whether, outside of asylum claims, a European state must not deport or extradite an alleged terrorist because he or she might suffer an abuse of human rights in the receiving state. Part 3 looks at whether a European state whose security forces are engaged in counter-terrorism activities abroad is obliged to protect the human rights of the individuals serving in those forces and/or the human rights of the alleged terrorists they are confronting. While welcoming the extension of state responsibility, the chapter notes that it is occurring in a way which introduces three aspects of relativity into the protection of human rights. First, European law protects only some human rights extra-territorially. Second, it protects those rights only when there is ‘a real risk’ of their being violated. Third, sometimes it protects those rights only when there is a real risk of their being violated ‘flagrantly’.

The economic consequences of Portuguese State’s movement towards business sector

Over the last 36 years, the relationship with the Portuguese state-owned enterprises registered several dynamics: nationalizations, privatizations and corporatization of public services. However, until now the State Business Sector from a national accounts perspective was never analyzed. Based on data collected and compiled for the first time at Statistics Portugal, this PhD thesis aims to test, analyzing in eight dimensions, whether the weight of the State Business Sector increased and if it contributed positively to the Portuguese economy, from 2006 to 2010. In addition to this analysis, an overview of the economic theory of state intervention in the economy, the paradigm changes of public policy in the international context, the evolution of the Portuguese State Business Sector since 1974, accompanied with a business and national accounting perspective between 2006 and 2010, are also presented. The results allow us to conclude that, in general, the weight of the State Business Sector in the Portuguese economy increased and had a tendency of a positive contribution to its economic growth. The State Business Sector also contributed positively to the nominal labour productivity (although with a decreasing trend of contribution to growth over the period under review) and the profitability of the non-financial corporations sector (although impairing the overall ratio of this sector). Nonetheless, the State Business Sector contributed negatively to the fairness in compensation of employees (although with an improvement trend) and to the competitiveness of labour cost, investment and sectorial sustainability of the Portuguese economy (reinforced by a falling trend). The results also suggest that the State Business Sector had an economic behaviour closer to a welfare maximizing model than to a profit maximizing model. This distinct performance with respect to the institutional sector in which is included, highlights the need to study and reassess the relationship of the state with public corporations, in light of agency theory using micro-data. Lastly, contributions to improve the economic performance of the State Business Sector and future prospects of evolution are presented.

Mythotextuality and the evolution of ideologies the reuse of the Epic of Gilgamesh in North American texts

When the scribes of ancient Mesopotamia rewrote the Epic of Gilgamesh over a period of over two thousand years, the modifications made reflected the social transformations occurring during the same era. The dethroning of the goddess Inanna-Ishtar and the devaluation of other female characters in the evolving Epic of Gilgamesh coincided with the declining status of women in society. Since the 1960s, translations into modern languages have been readily available. The Mesopotamian myth has been reused in a wide variety of mythic and mythological texts by Quebecois, Canadian and American authors. Our analysis of the first group of mythic texts, written in the 1960s and 1970s, shows a reversal of the tendency of the Mesopotamian texts. Written at a time when the feminist movement was transforming North American society, these retellings feature a goddess with her high status restored and her ancient attributes re-established. Another group of writers, publishing in the 1980s and 1990s, makes a radical shift away from these feminist tendencies while still basically rewriting the Epic. In this group of mythic texts, the goddess and other female characters find their roles reduced while the male gods and characters have expanded and glorified roles. The third group of texts analysed does not rewrite the Epic. The Epic is reused here intertextually to give depth to mythological works set in the twentieth century or later. The dialogue created between the contemporary text and the Epic emphasises the role that the individual has in society. A large-scale comparative mythotextual study of texts that share a common hypotext can, especially when socio-historical factors are considered, provide a window onto the relationship between text and society. A comparative study of how the Epic of Gilgamesh is rewritten and referred to intertextually through time can help us relativize the understanding of our own time and culture.

Study of the expression of different genes of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) metabolism during the early paralarval development of the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris)

Dissertação de mestrado, Aquacultura e Pescas, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias, Universidade do Algarve, 2015

Promoting self-regulated learning in technology enhanced learning environments : keeping a digital track of the learning process

Tese de doutoramento (co-tutela), Psicologia (Psicologia da Educação), Faculdade de Psicologia da Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra, Technial University of Darmstadt, 2014

Representations of Portugal in Herman Hesse

The aim of my research is to answer the question: How is Portugal seen by non-Portuguese fictionists? The main reason why I chose this research line is the following: Portuguese essayists like Eduardo Lourenço and José Gil (2005) focus their attention on the image or representation of Portugal as conceived by the Portuguese; indeed there is a tendency in Portuguese cultural studies (and, to a certain extent, also in Portuguese philosophical studies) to focus on studying the so-called ‗portugalidade‘ (portugueseness), i.e., the essence of being Portuguese. In my view, the problem with the studies I have been referring to is that everything is self-referential, and if ‗portugueseness‘ is an issue, then it might be useful, when dealing with it, to separate subject from object of observation. That is the reason why we, in the CEI (Centro de Estudos Interculturais), decided to start this research line, which is an inversion in the current tendency of the studies about ‗portugueseness‘: instead of studying the image or representation of Portugal by the Portuguese, my task is to study the image or representation of Portugal by the non-Portuguese, in this case, in non-Portuguese fiction. For the present paper I selected three writers of the 20th century: the German Hermann Hesse and the North-Americans Philip Roth and Paul Auster

From absolutes to aesthetics : John Dewey and the art of experience /

In this thesis I sought to capture something of the integrity of John Dewey's larger vision. While recognizing this to be a difficult challenge, I needed to clear some of the debris of an overly narrow reading of Dewey's works by students of education. The tendency of reducing Dewey's larger philosophical vision down to neat theoretical snap shots in order to prop up their particular social scientific research, was in my estimation slowly damaging the larger integrity of Dewey's vast body of work. It was, in short, killing off the desire to read big works, because doing so was not necessary to satisfying the specialized interests of social scientific research. In this thesis then I made a plea for returning the Humanities to the center of higher education. It is there that students learn how to read and to think—skills required to take on someone of Dewey's stature. I set out in this thesis to do just that. I took Dewey's notion of experience as the main thread connecting all of his philosophy, and focused on two large areas of inquiry, science and its relation to philosophy, and aesthetic experience. By exploring in depth Dewey's understanding of human experience as it pertains to day-to-day living, my call was for a heightened mode of artful conduct within our living contexts. By calling on the necessity of appreciating the more qualitative dimensions of lived experience, I was hoping that students engaged in the Social Sciences might begin to bolster their research interests with more breadth and depth of reading and critical insight. I expressed this as being important to the survival and intelligent flourishing of democratic conduct.

Demographic and genetic attributes of dispersing and resident individuals of an enclosed Microtus pennsylvanicus population

A dispersal polymorphism may exist in emigrants from cyclic populations of Microtus '~nnsylvanicus biasing trap-revealed movements of unenclosed animals in favour of sedentary or colonizing individuals. The dispersal tendency of emigrants from an enclosed population was investigated by releasing animals via tubes into one of two adjacent enclosures, one vacant and one inhabited. Individuals from the enclosed population were monitored for age, sex, weight and electrophoretically detectable serum transferrin genotype in an intensive live-trapping program. In 1973 the minimum number alive in the introduced enclosed study population reached approximately l67/ha when breeding stopped in October. In 1974 intensive breeding increased the population density to 333/ha by mid-July when a long decline in numbers and breeding intensity began without an intervening plateau. An adjacent unenclosed area had a much lower density and longer breeding season in 1974. The growth rate of young males in the enclosed population tended to be lowest during the decline period in 1974. Survival of the enclosed population was high throughout but was lowest during the decline phase in both sexes, especially males. Low transferrin heterozygote survival during the decline coincided with a significant heterozygote deficiency in females whereas in males genotype frequencies did not depart from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium values throughout th.e study. Twenty-nine suitable ani.mals were released during the decline in five periods from July to November 1974. The proportions of males and transferrin heterozygotes in the released graun were generally greater than in the source population~ In the test enclosures 21% of the released animals continued their movement through the vacant area while 41% (no significant difference) moved through the inhabited enclosure. In the vacant test area, females had a greater tendency than males to continue dispersal whereas no difference was noted in the inhabited area. Low frequency of captures in the tubes, predator disturbances and cold weather forced the termination of the study. The role of dispersal as a population regulating mechanism was further substantiated. The genetic differences between emigrant and resident animals lend support to Howard's hypothesis that a genetic polymorphism influences the tendency to disperse. Support is also given to Myers' and Krebs' contention that among dispersers an additional density dependent polymorphism influences the distance dispersed.

The Reluctance of Cattle to Change a Learned Choice May Confound Preference Tests

The conclusion of the article states "it appears that previously learned choices may affect future choices in Y-mazes for cattle. Another area that needs to be researched is the effects of a mildly aversive treatment versus a severely aversive treatment on the tendency of a bovine to resist changing a learned choice".

Effect of long-range Coulomb interaction on shot-noise suppression in ballistic transport

We present a microscopic analysis of shot-noise suppression due to long-range Coulomb interaction in semiconductor devices under ballistic transport conditions. An ensemble Monte Carlo simulator self-consistently coupled with a Poisson solver is used for the calculations. A wide range of injection-rate densities leading to different degrees of suppression is investigated. A sharp tendency of noise suppression at increasing injection densities is found to scale with a dimensionless Debye length related to the importance of space-charge effects in the structure.

Growth And Characterization Of Diammonium Hydrogen Citrate And Citric Acid Monohydrate Single Crystals

Over the past years there has been considerable interest in the growth of single crystals both from the point of view of basic research and technological application. With the revolutionary emergence of solid state electronics which is based on single crystal technolo8Ys basic and applied studies on crystal growth and characterization _have gained a-more significant role in material science. These studies are being carried out for single crystals not only of semiconductor and other electronic materials but also of metals and insulators. Many organic crystals belonging to the orthorhombic class exhibit ferroelectric, electrooptic, triboluminescent and piezoelectric properties. Diammonium Hydrogen Citrate (DAHC) crystals are reported to be piezoelectric and triboluminescent /1/. Koptsik et al. /2/ have reported the piezoelectric nature of Citric Acid Monohydrate (CA) crystals. And since not much work has been done on these crystals, it has been thought useful to grow and characterize these crystals. This thesis presents a study of the growth of these crystals from solution and their defect structures. The results of the microindentation and thermal analysis are presented. Dielectric, fractographic, infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) studies of DAHC crystals are also reported

Real Estate Development In India And The Behavior of Investors to Invest In The Real Estate Market: An Empirical Investigation

This study examines the behavioral factors that influence the Indian Investors to invest in the Real Estate Market. Among the various factors that affect the tendency of investors to invest in the real market, certain factors are greatly influenced the investors at greatest extend while others at least level. From this study it is revealed that motivation from the real estate developers and brokers (mean value- 3.46) is most influencing factor and happening of uncertain events (mean value- 1.75) is the least factor that influences the investors’ investment behavior. In this study, the behavioral factor like over confidence and the hypotheses regarding education, religion were analyzed and found that religious factor influences the Indian investors to invest in the real estate

Identification of the Learning Styles in the Students of Exercise Physiology in the Rehabilitation and Human Development Faculty

The object of this study is to identify the learning styles (LS) used by the students of the subject of physiology of the exercise of the program of Physiotherapy, with the purpose of establishing a direct relationship later on between the learning styles and the possible pedagogic strategies that but they favor the compression of the physiology of the exercise 48 subject of second and third year of career they were interviewed through the instrument standardized compound number (CHAEA). This study carried out an analysis descriptive and of typical deviation of the data. They were differences statistically significant in the styles of active and reflexive learning, in front of the Theoretical and pragmatic styles what puts in evidence the necessity to generate pedagogic strategies inside the subject that this chord with the tendency of the active and reflexive learning of the students.