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Homophobia and heterosexism are complementary social processes that shaped the social construction and the public health response to AIDS. Both concepts view gay and lesbian oppression from different vantage points. Homophobia is a weapon of sexism and is manifested in fear and hatred. Heterosexism is an ideological system that denigrates non-heterosexual behavior. Both processes are well served by the social institutions of family, religion, law, and the ideologies of sexuality and gender. The consequences have been societal and personal: inadequate HIV medical and social services; lack of a national AIDS policy; widespread discrimination and prejudice against gay men, lesbians, and persons living with AIDS; stress, violence, and suicide; substance abuse; and HIV risk behavior and relapse. Mental health and social services, social supports, education and prevention programs, community development, and social action to broaden civil rights and to challenge institutional oppression are required to counter the ravages of hate and discrimination. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

An escalating elderly population has necessitated a corresponding need for social workers trained in gerontology and who can practice in nursing homes. In order to enhance professional knowledge and skills, the authors present a teaching model that uses an apprenticeship framework to help students develop social work skills in working with elderly residents in long term care facilities. Responses to student reaction worksheets were analyzed in order to assess student experiences, the progress of skill development and the amelioration of bias as a relationship develops develops between client and social worker. The authors propose the use of a "reflective practicum" enhanced by group processes as a way to enhance training. © 1995 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Spelling is one of several important operations involved in the act of writing but until recently has received attention primarily in the applied domain. Orthographic abilities, because of their strong association with reading (e.g. Perfetti, 1985), are now of increasing interest to those who study the cognitive bases of literacy development. It is generally acknowledged that phonological processes underlie essential aspects of word recognition (Adams, 1990; Dreyer, 1989; Liberman, Shankweiler & Liberman, 1989; Stanovich, 1986; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987; Williams, 1986). An expanding body of research suggests that orthographic factors can account for a significant amount of variance in word recognition over and above phonological abilities (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990; 1993; Dreyer, 1994; Stanovich & West, 1989; Stanovich, West & Cunningham, 1991).

A comprehensive cognitive appraisal of elementary school children with learning disabilities showed that within the language sphere, deficits associated with reading disability are selective: Phonological deficits consistently accompany reading problems whether they occur in relatively pure form or in the presence of coexisting attention deficit or arithmetic disability. Although reading-disabled children were also deficient in production of morphologically related forms, this difficulty stemmed in large part from the same weakness in the phonological component that underlies reading disability. In contrast, tests of syntactic knowledge did not distinguish reading-disabled children from those with other cognitive disabilities, nor from normal children after covarying for intelligence.

Objective: The study examined relationships between specific treatment elements and their costs and ten outcome measures using data from a longitudinal outcome study of a Veterans Affairs program for homeless mentally ill veterans. Methods: Baseline and outcome data over an eight-month period were analyzed for 406 homeless veterans with psychiatric and substance use disorders who were treated in VA's Homeless Chronically Mentally Ill Veterans Program. Multivariate techniques were used to examine the relationship between ten measures of outcome and six treatment elements: program entry via community outreach, the number of contacts with program clinicians, the number of referrals for other services, duration of program involvement, number of days of residential treatment, and increased public support payments. Results: Each of the six treatment elements was significantly related to improvement on at least one of the ten outcome measures. The number of clinical contacts with program staff and the number of days in residential treatment were associated with improvement in the greatest number of outcome domains. However, improvement associated with residential treatment was far more costly than improvement related to other treatment elements. Conclusion: This study provides evidence of the effectiveness of a multimodal approach to the treatment of homeless mentally ill persons. However, results indicate that special attention should be paid to to differences in the cost of improvement associated with various treatment elements.

Objectives: This study examined the clinical significance of non-complexed (free) prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the differential diagnosis of prostate cancer with an emphasis on patients with total PSA values between 4.0 and 10.0 ng/mL (the diagnostic gray zone). Methods: Serum samples were obtained from three specimen banks. Patient samples consisted of 55 untreated historically confirmed primary cancer, 62 men with untreated benign prostatic disease histologically confirmed by 6 negative sextant biopsies, and 64 asymptomatic healthy male controls with normal digital rectal examinations and PSA values less than 4.0 ng/mL. All patients were between the ages of 50 and 75 years. Total PSA levels were determined using the PA immunoassay performed on the TOSOH AIA-1200 automated immunoassay instrument. Free PSA levels were determined using a monoclonal-polyclonal antibody sandwich radioimmunoassay. The proportion of free to total PSA was calculated by dividing the patient's free PSA value by the total PSA value. Results: When all subjects were included, both total PSA and the proportion of free to total PSA significantly differentiated between patients with prostate cancer and patients with benign histologic conditions (P< 0.0001). However, in men with total PSA values between 4.0 and 10.0 ng/mL, the proportion of free to total PSA significantly differentiated between patients with benign and malignant histologic conditions (P = 0.0004), whereas the total PSA did not (P = 0.13). Among this subgroup of patients, the analysis of sensitivity and specificity showed that the proportion of free to total PSA had a clearly higher specificity compared with that of the total PSA at the same level of sensitivity. Conclusions: Measurement of the free PSA level in a patient's serum and calculation of the proportion of free to total PSA enhances the ability to distinguish benign histologic conditions from cancer while retaining high sensitivity for detecting cancer in men who present with total PSA levels between 4.0 and 10.0 ng/mL. A large-scale population-based study is currently in progress to confirm this preliminary finding. © 1995.

In an adjusting-delay choice procedure, pigeons could peck on either a red key or a green key. A peck on the red key always led to a delay associated with red houselights and then food. The delay was adjusted over trials to estimate an indifference point-a delay at which the two keys were chosen about equally often. In some conditions, a peck on the green key led to food on all trials after delays of either 10 a or 30 s, and green houselights were lit during the delays. In other conditions, food was presented on only half of the green-key trials. If the green houselights continued to occur on both reinforcement and nonreinforcement trials, preference for the green key always decreased. Preference for the green key also decreased if half of the trials had 30-s houselights followed by food and the other half had no green houselights and no food. However, preference for the green key actually increased if half of the trials had 10-s green houselights followed by food and the other half had no green houselights followed by no food. The latter condition therefore demonstrated a case in which preference for an alternative increased when food was removed from half of the trials. The results suggest that the red and green houselights served as conditioned reinforcers. A hyperbolic decay model (Mazur, 1989) provided good predictions for all conditions by assuming that the strength of a conditioned reinforcer is inversely related to the total time spent in its presence before food is delivered.

Pigeons pecked on two response keys that delivered reinforcers on a variable-interval schedule. The proportion of reinforcers delivered by one key was constant for a few sessions and then changed, and subjects' choice responses were recorded during these periods of transition. In Experiment 1, response proportions approached a new asymptote slightly more slowly when the switch in reinforcement proportions was more extreme. In Experiment 2, slightly faster transitions were found with higher overall rates of reinforcement. The results from the first session, after a switch in the reinforcement proportions, were generally consistent with a mathematical model that assumes that the strength of each response is increased by reinforcement and decreased by nonreinforcement. However, neither this model nor other similar models; predicted the `'spontaneous recovery” observed in later sessions: At the start of these sessions, response proportions reverted toward their preswitch levels. Computer simulations could mimic the spontaneous recovery by assuming that subjects store separate representations of response strength for each session, which are averaged at the start of each new session.

The symptomatology of psychiatric inpatients with mild mental retardation was compared with that of a matched sample of inpatients without mental retardation. An integration of the developmental position on mental retardation with the developmental approach to adult psychopathology generated the hypotheses that, compared to patients without mental retardation, patients with mild mental retardation would display (a) more symptoms indicative of turning against others and fewer symptoms indicative of turning against the self, (b) more symptoms involving expression in action rather than thought, and (c) psychotic symptom pictures that more frequently involve hallucinations without delusions and infrequently involve delusions alone. All hypotheses were confirmed.

Kirillov and Reshetikhin introduced rigged configurations as a new way to calculate the entries of the Kostka matrix. Macdonald defined the two-parameter Kostka matrix whose entries generalize. We use rigged configurations and a formula of Stembridge to provide a combinatorial interpretation of in the case where is a partition with no more than two columns. In particular, we show that in this case, has nonnegative coefficients. © 1995 American Mathematical Society.

This nine-year study examined the extent to which selected admissions criteria of 34 family therapy doctoral students predicted their future performance on clinical, academic, research, and other job-related criteria. Age and clinical background were positively related to clinical ratings after three years. Letters of recommendation and student autobiographies were positively related to qualify and quantity of publications. Graduate Record Examination scores and interview ratings were not predictive of any of the criterion variables at three or six years. Additional findings are presented and discussed.

Research shows 65-80% of subject search terms fail to match the appropriate subject heading and one-third to one-half of subject searches result in no references being retrieved. In a cross-sectional study, 82 students (3rd grade through college) were presented complex concepts in a naming task. Concreteness, complexity, and syndeticity contributed significantly in explaining match-failure and predicting match-success. The likelihood of match-success following an initial failure is improved by manipulating the values of these three properties. Developmental trends which worked against match-success were observed. It is suggested that match-failure is a consequence of developmental naming patterns and that these patterns can be overcome through the use of metacognitive naming skills.