bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Unitary Approach and Behaviour Modification within the Social Work Repertoire
Authors: Hudson Barbara L. 
Published: June 2009

I'm going to describe the unitary approach, a recent model for social work, and then use the model to pinpoint the place of behavioural procedures.Social Work is — or aspires to be — a profession that carries out a planned change process aimed at helping people who are having difficulty with life tasks. These tasks range from coping emotionally and practically with the birth of a handicapped child, to keeping within the rules of society, to obtaining the basic supplies: food, shelter and satisfying personal relationships, and they require emotional, cognitive and material resources.
A Parent Group for Parents of Mentally Handicapped Children
Authors: Hutchings Judy , Fearns Keith , Williams John 
Published: June 2009

This paper is a description of one parent teaching group and what we and the parents did. The group was run by a psychologist and two social workers.In Gwynedd a service for mentally handicapped people is developing. For most of the pre-school children and some of the older ones this includes a Portage type home visiting where usually a psychologist and a specialist community nurse or sometimes a social worker visit and help the parents to set goals and teach new behaviour to their handicapped relatives. Often, too, they are trying to help parents to cope with difficult behaviour.
A Case of Severe Obsessive–Compulsive Behaviour Treated by Nurse Therapists in an In-Patient Unit
Authors: de L. Horne David J. , McTiernan Gabriel , Strauss Nigel H. M. 
Published: June 2009

The patient was an 18-year-old girl with a 2-year history of incapacitating Obsessive–compulsive avoidance behaviour for a severe germ phobia. Previous in-patient admissions had failed to produce any improvement. There were no staff in the hospital where she was admitted with any expertise in behaviour therapy so the author was called in as an outside consultant to advise on possible treatment.A full assessment was made of the patient and the basic behavioural ideas of “modelling”, “flooding” and “avoidance behaviours” were introduced to the entire ward staff. It was decided to employ the ward sisters as the main therapists who were to act as “models”. Target behaviours for change were selected with the patient and baselines obtained before active treatment commenced. Target behaviours were handwashing, time spent in toilet, amount of toilet paper used, rituals before, during, and after showering. In addition, a “germ contamination” hierarchy was constructed. By the 18th week of in-patient treatment, all target behaviours, except going to the toilet to defecate, were under control. This latter behaviour eventually responded well several months later when she was no longer an in-patient. At 2-year follow-up, this girl was entirely free of all “germ” phobias and the associated obsessional avoidance and decontamination rituals.
An Examination of the Effectiveness of Instructional Training and Response Cost Procedures in Controlling the Inappropriate Behaviour of Male Schizophrenic Patients
Authors: Fraser Douglas , Black David , Cockram Linda 
Published: June 2009

The effectiveness of instructional training and response cost procedures in reducing the frequency of performance of a range of inappropriate behaviours in a group of nine long-term schizophrenic patients was examined in three distinct settings. Instructional training was found to be generally effective in controlling inappropriate behaviour. The effects of a combined instructional training and response cost procedure in further reducing the level of performance of inappropriate behaviour were confined to a small sub-group of patients and were only demonstrated in one specific setting.Issues relating to the systematic nature of the instructional training procedure, to maintenance of change and to the role of response cost are discussed.
Determinants of Staff Behaviour in Long-term Care
Authors: Woods P. A. , Cullen Chris 
Published: June 2009

For some years now, working with long-stay populations such as the mentally handicapped and elderly mentally infirm has been a “Cinderella” area with difficulties in attracting high quality staff and resources. This has resulted in poor quality of care. There may be many reasons for the relative lack of interest shown by professionals in the problems of long-term care, but two stand out as potentially important:(a) the rate of client behaviour change and(b) the permanency of client behaviour change.Within the areas of out-patient neuroses and other similar nonchronic problems, it is often expected that change can be brought about relatively quickly by trained therapists (cf. Marks, 1981a, b). With chronic problems, however, the situation is quite different. Usually change is only brought about slowly, if at all.Secondly, with an out-patient population, given new ways with which to cope with their problems, we hope that somehow the natural contingencies will “trap” (Baer and Wolf, 1970) the new repertoires. The client gets better, stays better, and does not come back. From our own experience of this type of work, the situation is rarely so sanguine and with chronic populations, there isn't usually even much reason for hope. We are all too familiar with changes occurring and then the group of clients begins rapidly to slip back to where they started from (or beyond!). We have become accustomed to blaming poor motivation, inadequate training, organizational variables, Hawthorne effects, and so on. Almost anything except ourselves.In this paper, we look at some failures and some relative successes in achieving desired change in long-stay institutions, and ask the questions “How?” and “Why?”. It should be obvious before we go any further that we do not have definite answers, but the questions are still worth asking. Work with long-stay populations can be extremely exasperating and demanding, but appeals to abandon the large institutions where such groups reside are defeatist.
The Use of Broad Conversational Targets in Social Skills Training to Promote Generalization of Gains to Real Life: A Case Study
Authors: Stravynski Ariel 
Published: June 2009

Social dysfunction in a 45-year-old man was treated by a combination of exposure in vivo, social skills training and cognitive modification. Social skills training utilized broad conversational targets designed to help the patient to engage flexibly in social interactions and to be able to generate them in order to achieve his personal goals: to expand and increase his social contacts and meet the opposite sex.Change was assessed on the basis of the patient's records of daily frequency of performance of targeted behaviours and associated anxiety within a single-case multiple baseline design. Change occurred only with the introduction of treatment and not before it, ruling out effects of time or mere contact.The intervention resulted in an increased performance of social targets in real life, general social activity, and a related decrease in associated anxiety. The outcome was maintained for an available 1 year follow-up; systematic data collection was stopped after 6 months. A general improvement in the patient's personal, social and vocational life has also occurred.
Teaching Nurses Behavioural Methods for Pain Management: A Pilot Study
Authors: Fisher Keren , Nurse Moira , Kennedy Paul 
Published: June 2009

This study explores the possibility of teaching nurses behavioural tehniques so that patients with intractable pain problems can be treated confidently, and subjective labelling, which obstructs a goal oriented approach, can be avoided.Three seminars were given which included formal teaching, role-plays and practical between-session tasks.Of the four assessment procedures used, the nurses showed a significant change in their knowledge of behavioural principles, their attitudes to disabled people, and their response to pain behaviours. Their ability to specify problem behaviour did not improve and some reasons for this are discussed
The history of health technology assessment in Norway
Authors: Mørland Berit 
Published: June 2009

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the Norwegian contribution to the broad picture of our international health technology assessment (HTA) history.Methods: A general examination of some pre-HTA activities, as consensus conferences, closer reading of all background papers to the establishment of an HTA agency in Norway, the ongoing activities of this agency, its evaluation, and its merge into a broader knowledge center for the health services were performed. All information and statements are the authors’ own understandings, but also were reviewed by some of the people taken part in these processes.Results: The Norwegian HTA activity was set up rather late compared to, for instance, Sweden, and our involvement in Nordic early warning activities. This may be related to Norwegian scientists being more involved in the Cochrane Collaboration. However, when established, the HTA agency was regarded as highly successful in involving clinical experts and responding to questions arising from the macro- as well as micro-levels of decision makers. International collaboration was essential in building the capacity to serve all levels. After 6 years, the agency was merged with some related health service knowledge activities, into a new center.Conclusions: During the 10 years’ time, HTA has become a well-established activity in Norway.
From idealistic rookies to a regional leader: The history of health technology assessment in Poland
Authors: Niżankowski Rafał , Wilk Norbert 
Published: June 2009

In 1989, Poland started to slowly release itself not only from the burden of a half-century of communist indoctrination and soviet exploitation, but also from the consequences of the Semashko model of healthcare organization: low doctors' salaries, primary care based on multispecialty groups, overdeveloped hospital infrastructure, and limited access to sophisticated interventions overcome by patients' unofficial payments.A few years after the 1998 workshop on health technology assessment (HTA) in Budapest, the first HTA reports were elaborated in the National Center for Quality Assessment in Health Care, which could mark the beginning of HTA in Poland. Several individuals and organizations have been involved in developing HTA, both from noncommercial and commercial standpoints.A goal to establish a national HTA agency appeared among the priorities of the Polish Ministry of Health in 2004 and was realized a year later. The Agency for HTA in Poland published guidelines on HTA and established a sound and transparent two-step (assessment-appraisal) process for preparing recommendations on public financing of both drugs and nondrug technologies. The recommendations of the Agency's Consultative Council were warmly welcomed by the public payer. However, the recent major restructuring of the Agency and new drug reimbursement decisions aroused doubts as to keeping transparency of the decision-making processes.
Health technology assessment in Malaysia
Authors: Sivalal Sadasivan 
Published: June 2009

Objectives: Malaysia, as a rapidly developing country, has been facing tremendous pressures in its attempts to maximize scarce resources. Despite this problem, Malaysia has made great strides in developing its health services, and has successfully provided good access to the population to healthcare services, reduced the incidence of many communicable diseases, and improved life expectancies and other global indices of health care, some of which are comparable to that of developed countries.Methods: The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Unit was set up in Malaysia in August 1995 in the Ministry of Health Malaysia and has since grown tremendously in size and resources. To date, forty-three in-depth assessments have been carried out, and the recommendations of these assessments were subsequently implemented. In addition, approximately 140 rapid assessment reports were produced in response to requests from policy and decision makers. HTA has been able to provide input into formulation of national and Ministry of Health Malaysia policies, and provide a basis for clinical practice guidelines development, input into purchasing decisions, regulation of drugs, as well as advertisements related to health.Results: A major challenge is sustainability of the program, to be able to have trained personnel competent to take on the demanding tasks of assessments and the sustained efforts that are required. In addition, there need to be constant efforts to create awareness of the utility of HTA so that its services are used and its full potential realized. The scope of services may also need to be expanded to include an early warning system.Conclusions: Malaysia has successfully implemented a health technology program that has had major impact on policy formulation and decision making at various levels. Challenges may be faced in sustaining and developing the program further.
Development and implementation of health technology assessment in Argentina: Two steps forward and one step back
Authors: Rubinstein Adolfo , Pichon-Riviere Andrés , Augustovski Federico 
Published: June 2009

Objectives:The objectives of this study are to review the financing and organization of the Argentine healthcare system, the licensing and drug price setting mechanisms, the benefit packages and coverage policies of pharmaceuticals and other medical technologies, as well as the development of HTA in Argentina, and the role of the Institute of Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy (IECS) as an HTA agency. Finally, the perspectives and future of HTA as a tool to make resource-allocation decisions and priority setting in Argentina is discussed.Methods:The study is a discussion/review based largely on the experiences of the authors, but supported by available literature.Results:Argentina is an upper-middle income country with major healthcare problems related to both equity and efficiency. Its healthcare system consists of a multitier system divided in three large sectors: public, social security, and private, where the federal Ministry of Health has a rather limited role in national health policy stewardship. Many of Argentina's shortcomings are due in part to its pluralistic and fragmented healthcare system. In the past decade, Argentina, like many other Latin American countries, has undergone a profound reform of its healthcare system. Whereas some of the objectives of the reforms were specific to each country, a common issue among all of them was to establish a mechanism that ensured a more efficient allocation of scarce resources, and guaranteed a wider provision of healthcare services on the basis of the local population needs and equity. Although some signals from the national government and congress show that there are plans to formally incorporate HTA to inform reimbursement policies, these signals are still very weak. Paradoxically, even though Argentina was the first country in the region to require formal health economic evidence for the adoption of technologies into the mandatory benefit package of the social security, this “fourth hurdle” is no longer required. Nevertheless, there is an increasing interest and demand for a more explicit and transparent resource-allocation process that include HTA as a formal tool to inform decision making, in most of Argentine healthcare stakeholders.Conclusions:In conclusion, what is needed in Argentina is a clear political will to push forward for a national agency of HTA that, similar to other developed countries, advance the regulation on the adoption of new health technologies to improve not only technical or allocative efficiency, but also health equity. Until this milestone is accomplished, the HTA production and use to inform healthcare coverage policies will continue to mirror the current fragmented healthcare system.
A new Antarctic foraminiferal species for detecting climate change in sub-Recent glacier-proximal sediments
Authors: Majewski Wojciech , Tatur Andrzej 
Published: June 2009

AbstractCribroelphidium webbi sp. nov. is the only adequately described sub-Recent elphidiid foraminifer from Antarctica. In Admiralty Bay (King George Island, South Shetland Islands), it is found at several locations within inner fiord setting at water depths between 33 and 165 m, but most commonly shallower than 100 m. In outer basins this foraminifer is absent. In the cores analysed, C. webbi sp. nov. is present in well-constrained sub-Recent horizons that are clearly related to climate warming and deglaciation. These horizons represent a diachronous facies marker rather than a single stratigraphic layer. Cribroelphidium webbi sp. nov. shows clear association with retreating tidewater glaciers, therefore it is an important sensitive glacier-proximal indicator. It appears that it shares similar ecologic affinities with Cribroelphidium excavatum clavatum, which is widely distributed throughout the Arctic.
Complex splitting of self-representations in sexually abused adolescent girls
Authors: Calverley Rosemary M. , Fischer Kurt W. , Ayoub Catherine 
Published: June 2009

AbstractRecent work on psychopathology supports a connection between repeated childhood maltreatment and disturbances in self-definition and -regulation. This study tested the hypothesis that chronic childhood sexual abuse is associated with developmentally complex affective splitting of representations of self-with-others, including both a negativity bias in evaluating core self and a high degree of affective splitting of scripts for self-in-relationships. Sixteen inpatient adolescent girls with affective disorders participated in the Self-in-Relationships Interview to produce and analyze a self-diagram; seven had been victims of prolonged sexual abuse, and nine had not. The results supported the hypothesis, showing two powerful differences in splitting between the groups, (a) The abused girls placed negative characteristics as central to their core self and also produced an unusually large overall number of negatives. The nonabused girls regarded negative characteristics as mostly peripheral in their self-diagram and produced fewer negatives, (b) The abused girls showed a form of complex dissociative coordination calledpolarized qffective splitting, which was not produced by the nonabused group. They also showed slightly higher developmental levels in general than the nonabused group, thus contradicting the traditional view that maltreatment produces splitting through developmental fixation or regression. Psychopathology from abuse arises along a complex, distinctive developmental pathway, not as a result of a delay or failure of development.
Coping Strategies in PTSD
Authors: Biro Mikloš , Novović Zdenka , Gavrilov Vesna 
Published: June 2009

The aim of this study is to analyse the type of coping strategies used by patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For that purpose, two groups of war veterans (40 subjects in each group) were compared. The first group was made up of patients with PTSD, and the second (control) group comprised veterans who suffered combat trauma, but did not show any PTSD symptoms. Coping strategies were assessed using the Questionnaire of Coping Responses (McCrae, 1984).The results show that out of 118 items (examples of coping strategies) 10 show statistically significant differences between the group with PTSD and the one without it. PTSD patients used more maladaptive strategies (avoidance, pseudo-planning, fantasizing, impulsive and depressive behaviour), while subjects from the control group were more likely to use the strategy of controlling impulses.
Biofuels, poverty, and growth: a computable general equilibrium analysis of Mozambique
Authors: ARNDT CHANNING , BENFICA RUI , TARP FINN , THURLOW JAMES , UAIENE RAFAEL 
Published: June 2009

ABSTRACTThis paper assesses the implications of large-scale investments in biofuels for growth and income distribution. We find that biofuels investment enhances growth and poverty reduction despite some displacement of food crops by biofuels. Overall, the biofuel investment trajectory analyzed increases Mozambique's annual economic growth by 0.6 percentage points and reduces the incidence of poverty by about 6 percentage points over a 12-year phase-in period. Benefits depend on production technology. An outgrower approach to producing biofuels is more pro-poor, due to the greater use of unskilled labor and accrual of land rents to smallholders, compared with the more capital-intensive plantation approach. Moreover, the benefits of outgrower schemes are enhanced if they result in technology spillovers to other crops. These results should not be taken as a green light for unrestrained biofuels development. Rather, they indicate that a carefully designed and managed biofuels policy holds the potential for substantial gains.
Termination prediction for general logic programs
Authors: SHEN YI-DONG , SCHREYE DANNY DE , VOETS DEAN 
Published: June 2009

AbstractWe present a heuristic framework for attacking the undecidable termination problem of logic programs, as an alternative to current termination/nontermination proof approaches. We introduce an idea of termination prediction, which predicts termination of a logic program in case that neither a termination nor a non-termination proof is applicable. We establish a necessary and sufficient characterization of infinite (generalized) SLDNF-derivations with arbitrary (concrete or moded) queries, and develop an algorithm that predicts termination of general logic programs with arbitrary nonfloundering queries. We have implemented a termination prediction tool and obtained quite satisfactory experimental results. Except for five programs which break the experiment time limit, our prediction is 100% correct for all 296 benchmark programs of the Termination Competition 2007, of which 18 programs cannot be proved by any of the existing state-of-the-art analyzers like AProVE07, NTI, Polytool, and TALP.
Consumer confusion: the choice of pension fund manager in Mexico
Authors: CALDERÓN-COLÍN ROBERTO , DOMÍNGUEZ ENRIQUE E. , SCHWARTZ MOISÉS J. 
Published: June 2009

AbstractThe article shows that in markets with “noise”, such as the pension fund manager industry in Mexico, an ample number of competitors may not significantly reduce mark-ups. Utilizing the statistical distribution of the industry's “noise”, the theoretical framework allows for the estimation of the mark-up. The model also indicates that as the number of pension fund managers increases, the mark-up diminishes at a very slow rate. This implies that more participants in the industry will hardly affect prices. The referred hypotheses are confirmed using information of Mexico's pension fund industry. Evidence also indicates that account transfers among pension fund administrators barely respond to price or return considerations, and that switching has not served as a market disciplining tool that would result in lower fees and higher returns for the consumer.