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This article applies concepts from critical social theories to shift the profession's discourse from the center-margin relations of generalist-multicultural practice to a model of socially located cross-cultural client-worker relationships. Critical theories examine patterns and meanings enacted within and between people in specific social locations at specific points in history that express particular relations of culture, power, and identity. This framework can help social workers listen, explore, conceptualize, and intervene in a more complex and effective manner. The article summarizes key themes in critical theories, redefines how social workers can use knowledge for practice, and concludes with discussion of a case illustration.

This paper documents some dialogue among the authors that emerged as each taught Master of Social Work students a course in sociocultural concepts. The instructors taught this required course from a common syllabus and the discussion reflects the authors' experiences in the delivery of the course material. At the time these dialogues took place, the instructors had recently changed the course format. Rather than teaching sociocultural concepts in isolation (eg. a class on sexism, a class on ageism, etc.), the instructors crafted the course content around central themes. Postmodern theories underscore much of the course content, and are synthesized both in this course and across the curriculum with feminist, psychodynamic, and cross-cultural practice theories. The paper begins by summarizing key post-modern theories that frame the course. Then, the authors respond to formulated questions that address multiple forms of identity development, ambiguity, and competing student ideologies that are manifest in classroom dynamics. Finally, the authors discuss their respective pedagogical and theoretical views and discuss their classroom experiences.

In Experiment 1, pigeons responded on concurrent-chains schedules with equal variable-interval schedules as initial links and fixed delays to food as terminal links. One terminal-link delay was always three times as long as the other. As terminal-link delays increased, response percentages on the key with the shorter terminal link increased according to a curvilinear function. This result supported the predictions of the hyperbolic value-added model and the contextual-choice theory but not delay-reduction theory. In Experiment 2, the terminal links were always delays of 2 s and 12 s, followed by food, and the durations of the initial links varied across conditions. As initial-link durations increased, pigeons' response percentages on the key with the shorter terminal link decreased, but toward an asymptote greater than 50%, indicating a continued preference for the shorter terminal link with very long initial links. This result was more consistent with the predictions of the hyperbolic-value added model than with those of the contextual-choice model or of delay-reduction theory. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This study examined the relative importance of self-esteem, family cohesion, and support from friends in predicting depressed mood and anxiety in Japanese and American college students. Contrary to expectations, self-esteem was the strongest predictor of emotional distress in both groups of students. Nevertheless, consistent with predictions derived from Markus and Kitayama's theory of self-construals, family cohesion accounted for a significantly larger percentage of the variance in predicting emotional distress in Japan than in the United States. In both countries, the relations between support from friends and the measures of emotional distress were entirely mediated by self-esteem. However, among Japanese students, family cohesion accounted for additional significant variance in predicting the measures of emotional distress, even after controlling for self-esteem.

Phoneme identification with audiovisually discrepant stimuli is influenced by information in the visual signal (the McGurk effect). Additionally, lexical status affects identification of auditorily presented phonemes. The present study tested for lexical influences on the McGurk effect. Participants identified phonemes in audiovisually discrepant stimuli in which lexical status of the auditory component and of a visually influenced percept was independently varied. Visually influenced (McGurk) responses were more frequent when they formed a word and when the auditory signal was a nonword (Experiment 1). Lexical effects were larger for slow than for fast responses (Experiment 2), as with auditory speech, and were replicated with stimuli matched on physical properties (Experiment 3). These results are consistent with models in which lexical processing of speech is modality independent.

The purpose of this study was to shed further light on the intrapersonal and interpersonal correlates of shame- and guilt-proneness by examining their relations with self- and peer-ratings of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality. Shame- and guilt-proneness were assessed using a scenario-based and a checklist measure. Consistent with findings from previous research, the self-rating data yielded support for the view that shame-proneness may be associated with more maladaptive patterns than guilt-proneness. However, peer-ratings of personality failed to corroborate these findings. Both scenario-based and checklist measures of shame-proneness were associated with a tendency to underestimate one's Agreeableness relative to peer-ratings. Several possible interpretations of these findings are discussed in light of the extant research on personality judgment. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

The current study examined gender and identity status differences in late adolescents' possible selves. The intent of the study was to clarify conflicts between theory and research on gender differences in identity by investigating the content of participants' possible selves. Participants completed measures of identity and possible selves. The results indicated that there was a relationship between gender and the mean number of both feared and balanced interpersonally themed possible selves. The pattern of results is discussed in terms of prior findings regarding gender differences in both identity and possible selves. Suggestions for future research are also provided. (C) 2003 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Infants' expressions of discrete emotions were coded during the more stressful episodes (4 through 8) of the Strange Situation at 13 and 18 months. The data showed a significant decrease in full-face expressions (more complex configurations of movements) and a significant increase in component expressions (simpler and more constrained patterns of movements). The authors interpreted this trend as a developmental change toward more regulated and less intense emotions. Consistent with this view, the aggregate index of infants' full-face negative emotion expressions, interpreted as reflecting relatively unregulated intense emotions, correlated significantly with maternal ratings of difficult temperament. The authors discuss alternative interpretations of the findings in terms of changes in reactivity/arousability and the emerging capacity for self-regulation.

The present study examines the contribution of psychotherapist variables to change in depressive symptoms in a large clinical trial comparing the efficacy of the cognitive-behavioral analysis system of psychotherapy, the antidepressant nefazodone, and the combination of both in the treatment of chronic depression. Greater change on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) was associated with greater emphasis on the therapeutic relationship, lower overall psychotherapy caseload, therapist psychodynamic orientation, and supervisory status. There was no relationship between HRSD change and therapist sex, age, or years of experience.

The interface formation mechanism during the molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) of InAs/GaP has been studied with the aid of the In-Ga-P phase diagram. It is discovered that an initial dissolution and crystallization process similar to liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) may happen at sufficiently high temperature, resulting in a graded composition at the interface. Consequently, "parasitic LPE/MBE" is the name for this hybrid form of MBE. High-resolution TEM images confirm the existence of the interfacial layer in the sample grown at high temperature. The graded interface smears out the band offset and leads to a nonrectifying heterojunction. Low-temperature (LT) MBE growth can turn off the LPE component, enabling the growth of an abrupt interface. Based on this "LPE/MBE" model, a LT MBE technique is developed to grow an abrupt InAs/InGaP interface for heterojunction power Schottky rectifiers. The LT InAs/InGaP heterojunction demonstrates nearly ideal Schottky rectifier characteristics, while the sample grown at high temperature shows resistive ohmic characteristics. The LT InAs/InGaP Schottky diode also demonstrates good stability with respect to anneal temperature, similar to the InAs/GaP heterojunctions. © 2004 American Institute of Physics.

We report flexible synthesis of III-Nitride nanowires and heterostructures by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) via a catalytic vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth mechanism. Indium is used as an in-situ catalyst to facilitate and sustain the stability of liquid phase droplet for VLS growth based on thermodynamic consideration. The employment of mesoporous molecular sieves (MCM-41) helps to prevent the coalescence of catalyst droplets and to promote nucleation statistics. Cathodoluminescence (CL) of GaN nanowires shows near band-edge emission at 370nm, and strong E 2 phonon peak is observed at room temperature in Raman scattering spectra. Both binary GaN and AlN nanowires have been synthesized by MOCVD. Three-dimensional AlN/GaN trunk-branch nanostructures are reported to illustrate the versatility of incorporating the VLS mechanism into MOCVD process. © 2005 Materials Research Society.