Peer-tutoring: Applied behavior analysis working in the classroom.

Schools often use peer-tutoring as a corrective program for students who are experiencing difficulties academically. Given appropriate behavioral structure, peer-tutoring can become a powerful classwide instructional intervention. An historical perspective on the use of students as teachers for their peers is given in this selective literature review. Also, information on the efficacy of considering behavioral function and structure and data addressing ecobehavioral variables to establish a productive learning environment are provided. The authors emphasize infusing peer-tutoring programs with applied behavior analysis techniques to increase the academic success of large numbers of students cost effectively. Peer-tutoring programs are considered to be a way for applied behavior analysts to gain greater access to American school learning environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal investigation of the abstinence violation effect in binge eaters.

This study, guided in part by G. A. Marlatt and J. R. Gordon's (1985) abstinence violation effect (AVE) model, examined whether variability in cognitive and emotional reactions to binges accounts for recurrence of binge eating. Attributional, cognitive, and affective reactions to 2 successive binges, as well as the latencies between each binge and a subsequent binge, were evaluated through a series of structured phone interviews with 50 nonpurging normal-weight female bingers. Reported mood after binging was unrelated to binge latency. However, when Ss made more intense internal, global, and uncontrollable causal attributions for a binge, a subsequent binge followed significantly sooner. Within-subject variations in AVEs across binges prospectively predicted within-subject variations in the speed with which another binge followed. Analyses suggested that cognitive states (e.g., AVE and guilt) evoked by particular events were better predictors of how quickly binging repeats than were stable differences in attributional style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhanced security protocol engineering through a unified multidimensional framework

Multidimensional security protocol engineering is effective for creating cryptographic protocols since it encompasses a variety of design, analysis, and deployment techniques, thereby providing a higher level of confidence than individual approaches offer. SPEAR II, the Security Protocol Engineering and Analysis Resource II, is a protocol engineering tool built on the foundation of previous experience garnered during the SPEAR I project in 1997. The goal of the SPEAR II tool is to facilitate cryptographic protocol engineering and to aid users in distilling the critical issues during an engineering session by presenting them with an appropriate level of detail and guiding them as much as possible during design, analysis and implementation. The SPEAR II tool currently consists of four components that have been integrated into one consistent and unified graphical interface: a protocol specification environment (GYPSIE), a GNY statement construction interface (visual GNY), a Prolog-based GNY analysis engine (GYNGER), and a message rounds calculator. The multidimensional approach realized by SPEAR II is combined with a graphical interface that focuses on making specification of a protocol and its associated conditions for formal analysis as straight forward and painless as possible. Experiments that we have conducted confirm that the analysis engine is able to generate accurate proofs for achievable GNY-based goals, while preliminary usability experiments have indicated that the interface utilized by SPEAR II is both expressive and simple to use for specifying cryptographic protocols and constructing logic statements pertaining to these protocols.     

Freud's group psychology revisited: An opportunity missed.

This brief essay was sparked by a long overdue new book (Person, 2001) dealing with Freud's 1921 monograph on group psychology. This volume, regrettably, failed to relate Freud's promising, precursory ideas to his own behavior as a leader, as well as to subsequent seminal contributions to psychoanalytic and group theories and to group psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relapse crises and coping among dieters.

We examined situational antecedents of dieting relapse crises and dieters' attempts to cope with temptations to overeat. We analyzed postreatment interviews with 57 obese Ss with Type II diabetes, comparing situations in which Ss lapsed with those in which they overcame temptation to overeat. Cluster analysis yielded 3 categories of relapse crises: mealtime, low-arousal, and emotional upset situations. The cluster differed in outcome: Upset situations almost always resulted in overeating; situational factors, especially food-related cues, increased relapse risk; but performance of coping was the strongest correlate of outcome. Cognitive and behavioral coping responses were each equally associated with positive outcomes. When Ss reported combining both types of coping, they were less likely to report overeating. The dynamics of relapse crises among dieters resemble those that govern relapse crises in addictive behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using physical memorabilia as opportunities to move into collocated digital photo-sharing

The uptake of digital photos vs. print photos has altered the practice of photo-sharing. Print photos are easy to share within the home, but much harder to share outside of it. The opposite is true of digital photos. People easily share digital photos outside the home, e.g., to family and friends by e-mail gift-giving, and to social networks and the broader public by web publishing. Yet within the home, collocated digital photo-sharing is harder, primarily because digital photos are typically stored on personal accounts in desktop computers located in home offices. This leads to several consequences. (1) The invisibility of digital photos implies few opportunities for serendipitous photo-sharing. (2) Access control and navigation issues inhibit family members from retrieving photo collections. (3) Photo viewing is compromised as digital photos are displayed on small screens in an uncomfortable viewing setting.To mitigate some of these difficulties, we explore how physical memorabilia collected by family members can create opportunities that encourage social and collocated digital photo-sharing. First, we studied (via contextual interviews with 20 households) how families currently practice photo-sharing and how they keep memorabilia. We identified classes of memorabilia that can serve as memory triggers to family events, trips, and times when people took photos. Second, we designed Souvenirs, a photo-viewing system that exploits memorabilia as a social instrument. Using Souvenirs, a family member can meaningfully associate physical memorabilia with particular photo-sets. Later, any family member can begin their story-telling with others through the physical memento, and then enrich the story by displaying its associated photos simply by moving the memento close to the home's large-format television screen. Third, we re-examined our design premises by evoking household reactions to an early version of Souvenirs. Based on these interviews, we redesigned Souvenirs to better reflect the preferences and real practices of photo and memorabilia use in the home.     

Executive Summary—Community Water Supply: The Handpump Option

An estimated 1,800 million people need improved water supplies in the fifteen years to the end of the century, if developing countries are to reach the target of full coverage. The first half of the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981–1990) has seen increases in the percentages of the rural population with access to safe water supplies, but only in Asia has the pace been quick enough to envisage a target of essentiahy full coverage by the end of the century (ten years later than the original Decade goals). In Africa, present progress rates would leave half of the rural population still without safe water in the year 2000, while in Latin America, it may be ten years into the next century before full coverage is achieved unless progress improves dramatically.

Accelerated progress is hampered by financial and technical resource constraints faced by many developing countries, and the problem is aggravated by the growing number of completed projects which are broken down and abandoned, or functioning much below capacity. Attempts to increase the pace of providing improved community water supplies have often been frustrated because the technology used has proved impossible to sustain in village conditions.

To make a lasting impact on the urgent needs, community water supply (CWS) strategies must be based on sustainable and replicable programs, and must take account of the pace at which resource constraints can be overcome. Human resource development programs take time to produce results, and institutional changes can only be accomplished gradually.     

The Morning After: Limit Violations and the Self-Regulation of Alcohol Consumption.

The authors examined whether the reciprocal relationship between alcohol consumption and distress unfolded over time in 2 samples of social drinkers. Participants monitored their alcohol intake and their cognitive and emotional responses to that drinking on hand-held computers. On mornings after drinking, those who had violated their self-imposed limits the day before reported more guilt, even after controlling for acute negative symptoms of drinking and amount consumed. Reciprocally, guilt led to poorer self-regulation of alcohol intake: Greater distress over alcohol consumption was linked to more intake, intoxication, and more limit violations. Individual differences moderated the relationships among limit violations, distress, and drinking. Consistent with the limit violation effect, violating a limit produced distress over consumption among social drinkers, and they responded to that distress by drinking more. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative Affect and Smoking Lapses: A Prospective Analysis.

Relapse is a central problem in smoking treatment. Data collected at the time of relapse episodes indicate that stress and negative affect (NA) promote relapse, but retrospective data are potentially biased. The authors performed a prospective analysis of stress and NA prior to initial lapses in smokers (N = 215). Day-to-day changes in stress (daily negative and positive events and Perceived Stress Scale scores) and NA (multiple momentary affect ratings) did not predict lapse risk on the following day. However, within the lapse day itself, NA was already significantly increasing hours before lapses, but only for episodes attributed to stress or bad mood. Thus, rapid increases in NA, but not slow-changing shifts in stress and NA, were associated with relapse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Efficiency analysis of information technology and online social networks management: An integrated DEA-model assessment

This paper analyses the relationship between productive efficiency and online-social-networks (OSN) in Spanish telecommunications firms. A data-envelopment-analysis (DEA) is used and several indicators of business “social Media” activities are incorporated. A super-efficiency analysis and bootstrapping techniques are performed to increase the model's robustness and accuracy. Then, a logistic regression model is applied to characterise factors and drivers of good performance in OSN. Results reveal the company's ability to absorb and utilise OSNs as a key factor in improving the productive efficiency. This paper presents a model for assessing the strategic performance of the presence and activity in OSN.