Built environment,causality and urban planning

Informed by critical realist philosophy of science, this paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the issue of causality within urban and planning research. The concept of causality dominating within certain influential disciplinary and philosophical traditions is difficult to reconcile with research into influences of the built environment on human actions. This paper promotes a conceptualizing of causality in terms of generative mechanisms operating in different combinations in normally non-closed systems, and discusses in what sense the built environment can be said to exert causal influences on human actions. In order to integrate knowledge about causal influences at the level of the individual and at the city level, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods is recommended.     

Testing the relations between impulsivity-related traits, suicidality, and nonsuicidal self-injury: A test of the incremental validity of the UPPS model.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has received significant attention as a predictor of suicidal behavior (SB) and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Despite significant promise, trait impulsivity has received less attention. Understanding the relations between impulsivity and SB and NSSI is confounded, unfortunately, by the heterogeneous nature of impulsivity. This study examined the relations among 4 personality pathways to impulsive behavior studied via the UPPS model of impulsivity and SB and NSSI in a residential sample of drug abusers (N = 76). In this study, we tested whether these 4 impulsivity-related traits (i.e., Negative Urgency, Sensation Seeking, Lack of Premeditation, and Lack of Perseverance) provide incremental validity in the statistical prediction of SB and NSSI above and beyond BPD; they do. We also tested whether BPD symptoms provide incremental validity in the prediction of SB and NSSI above and beyond these impulsivity-related traits; they do not. In addition to the main effects of Lack of Premeditation and Negative Urgency, we found evidence of a robust interaction between these 2 personality traits. The current results argue strongly for the consideration of these 2 impulsivity-related domains—alone and in interaction—when attempting to understand and predict SB and NSSI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

“I have always thought about death, a death that I might give myself”.

This article, as well as the publication of a previously unpublished personal letter written by Jacques Derrida in his youth, relate to my thinking and research regarding the existential questions raised by philosophy and the act of suicide. Both the personal letter and the correspondence between Derrida and his close friend Michel Monory invite us to reflect on death and the enigma that suicidal ideation can take when presenting itself to a subject, while at the same time they provide us with valuable information about the origins of Derrida's oeuvre to come. Giving us a glimpse into the universe of a young tormented soul, who has already dreamed of “a book of extraordinary philosophy,” Jacques Derrida confides some of his philosophical, psychological, and—interesting in light of what we know will be his future—autobiographical reflections to his friend. I situate the context of this correspondence more precisely and give shape to the distant, buried form of what will have been friendship allowing us to gain a greater understanding of the act of autobiography, as well as the autobiographical pact—as Philippe Lejeune has theorized it—and how it relates to the work of mourning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A practical, evidence-based approach for means-restriction counseling with suicidal patients.

Assessing a patient's access to potentially lethal means for suicide and taking steps to restrict access to means are common expectations for reasonable outpatient management of suicidal patients. Although scientific evidence supports means restriction as a suicide prevention strategy, means restriction continues to be infrequently utilized by clinicians, in large part because of the general lack of available training and guidance. The present article reviews the conceptual basis and empirical evidence for means restriction, discusses common barriers to means-restriction counseling, and provides practical procedures and tools (e.g., the means receipt, the crisis support plan) for accomplishing means-restriction counseling in routine clinical practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coping with employee, family, and student roles: Evidence of dispositional conflict and facilitation tendencies.

Balancing multiple roles is a challenge for individuals in many sectors of the population. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that individuals have dispositional tendencies to experience interrole conflict and facilitation. We also aimed to show that coping styles and life satisfaction are correlates of dispositional conflict and facilitation tendencies. Two survey studies were conducted with individuals involved in 3 life roles (i.e., employee, student, and family member; Study 1: N = 193; Study 2: N = 284). The hierarchical structure of conflict and facilitation was examined in both studies. Support for the dispositional model was found in both cases through the use of hierarchical confirmatory factor analyses. In Study 2, a longitudinal assessment of the nomological network surrounding conflict and facilitation tendencies was conducted with structural equation modeling analyses; we found that coping styles had synchronous relations with dispositional conflict and facilitation; dispositional conflict had a lagged and negative relation with life satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Coordination dynamics of learning and transfer across different effector systems.

If different effector systems share a common task-specific coordination dynamics, transfer and generalization of sensorimotor learning are predicted. Subjects learned a visually specified phase relationship with either the arms or the legs. Coordination tendencies in both effector systems were evaluated before and after practice to detect attractive states of the coordination dynamics. Results indicated that learning a novel relative phase with a single effector system spontaneously transferred to the other, untrained effector system. Transfer was revealed not only as improvements in performance but also as modifications of each system's initial (prelearning) coordinative landscape. What is learned, appears to be a high-level but neurally instantiated dynamic representation of skilled behavior that proves to be largely effector independent, at least across anatomically symmetric limbs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suicidal ideation and its recurrence in boys and men from early adolescence to early adulthood: An event history analysis.

Occurrence and recurrences of suicidal ideation (SI) were modeled among boys/men assessed annually from ages 12 to 29 years. Multiple-spell discrete-time event-history analyses permitted (a) determination of whether risk for SI escalates with prior experiences of SI (spell effects), while (b) accounting for changes in risk with time (period effects) and (c) controlling for vulnerability factors. Self-reported SI (presence/absence in past week), depressive symptoms, alcohol/substance use, antisocial behavior, and official arrest records were collected annually from 205 boys recruited on the basis of community risk for delinquency. Parents' self-reported psychopathology and SES were collected in childhood. Period effects supported decreasing risk for SI over time. Spell and time-varying 1-year lagged substance use and depressive symptoms independently predicted increased risk for SI. Models involving SI with intent were explored. Consistent with interpersonal psychological theory, risk for young men's SI increases with past experience of SI, even with key propensities controlled. However, risk also decays over time. Targeting conditions that confer risk for SI is essential. Preventing and delaying SI occurrence and recurrence may represent independent mechanisms by which prevention efforts operate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

展望21世纪中国家具工业发展趋势

21世纪是知识经济跨越工业经济的时代。知识经济时代的主要标志,是以信息生产与利用为核心,以人力资本与技术为动力,以高新技术和服务的产业为支柱,以强大的系统化、高新化、高效化的科学研究的体系作为坚强的后盾。简而言之,知识经济是以智力资源为基础的经济。随着知识经济时代的推进,必将推动家具工业向现代化转变,发生革命性的变化。     

From abandonment to symbiosis: A developmental reversal in suicidal adolescents.

This article presents the abandonment-symbiosis hypothesis. This hypothesis pertains to the dynamics of suicide in youngsters who experience difficulties in separation from their symbiotic families. It is suggested that such youngsters have experienced various types of rejection and abandonment in early childhood and have developed insecure attachment styles and insufficient ego functions in order to cope with difficulties. It is also suggested that these youngsters have become scapegoats by their dysfunctional families and that they are held in a symbiotic grip in order to continue to bear the negative projections of their families. As such, they are prevented from developing a proper sense of individuation and autonomy. The sequence that begins with abandonment and continues with symbiosis is a reversal of normal development is critical for the emergence of suicidal behavior. The various aspects of the abandonment-symbiosis hypothesis are demonstrated by case studies and empirical data. A combination of individual and family treatment is recommended as the best approach for the treatment of such youngsters. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)