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Three Important Things to Consider When Starting Intervention for a Child Diagnosed with Autism
This article discusses important things to consider when starting an intervention for a child diagnosed with autism. The authors discuss questions that one should ask before beginning such an undertaking and important things to consider after the first year of intervention. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39324/
Emerging Opportunities in Higher Education: Applied Behavior Analysis and Autism
This article discusses applying behavior analysis to autism. Abstract: The growing number of children diagnosed with autism and the recognized importance of evidence-based interventions has substantially increased the need for well-trained applied behavior analysts. Relative to public/consumer demand, there are very few higher education programs that are equipped to train behavior analysts specializing in autism. Worldwide, there are only a few programs accredited by Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI), that have course sequences approved by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB), and have formal institutional course approval for classes in autism and behavior analysis. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a series of expert commentary on the context, content and systems required to build quality higher education programs in autism and applied behavior analysis. Together the articles in this special section of the European Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis form a resource for faculty and university administrators interested in the development of innovative and socially relevant training programs in higher education. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39323/
The Development of Interests in Children with Autism: A Method to Establish Baselines for Analyses and Evaluation
This article discusses development of interests in children with autism. Abstract: By definition, children with autism have limited interests. While considerable efforts have been directed toward the social and communication difficulties faced by children with autism, less attention has been directed towards understanding the development and acquisition of new interests. Such understanding may help autism interventionists-establish increasingly diverse and complex interests thereby increasing reinforcing events, learning opportunities, activity participation, and social engagement. This paper describes an observational system for monitoring reinforcer diversity and event engagement during naturalistic teaching portions of an early intervention program. Data are presented for two children. It is suggested that such measures are necessary for two reasons. First, given the lack of empirical support and the importance of reinforcers, there is a need for measurement systems to monitor the development of interests in early intervention programs for children with autism. Second, there is a paucity of research addressing expansion of interests. Developing measurement systems increases the likelihood that evidence-based practices will emerge. Hopefully, these efforts will increase our knowledge, increase child preference for instruction, and open avenues for enhanced instructional and life opportunities based on expanded interests. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39320/
The Effects of a Supportive Communication Training Workshop on the Verbal Behavior of Behavior Analysis
This article discusses the effects of a supportive communication training workshop on the verbal behavior of behavior analysts. Abstract: This study evaluated the effectiveness of a workshop designed to train behavior analysts to use supportive verbal behavior during distressing situations. Participants were trained to provide descriptive, empathetic and hopeful statements using instructions, rationales, modeling, roleplay, feedback, and rehearsal. A pre-post design was used to analyze the effects of the training on verbal and non-verbal behaviors of four females during simulation scenarios. Results indicate all four participants provided maximum support statements above pre-training levels during post-training simulation and written assessments. The importance of behavior analysts engaging in supportive behavior, as well as the difficulties involved in measuring constructs such as intent and timing of verbal responses, is discussed. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39317/
Bhopal Chemical Disaster
This encyclopedia article describes the devastating effects of a chemical disaster that took place in Bhopal, India in 1984. It describes the effects of the chemical disaster and the events that followed. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31094/
Design of District Emergency Operations Centres, and the Case Study of Indian Oil Corporation Jaipur Depot Explosion
Abstract: The author of this paper was appointed by the Government of Rajasthan state in India to design Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) at district level. The assignment was to submit an implementable practical report of district level EOCs design for equipment, personnel and training. This paper describes the process used for this design. A list of priority equipment, staffing pattern and specific training programs were suggested. On the basis of the recommendations, EOCs have been set up in all 33 districts of Rajasthan. The case study of the explosion at the Indian Oil Corporation's Jaipur depot illustrates the use of alternative field EOC in responding to the explosion and the relevance of the EOC consultant's recommendations in responding to the disasters. The objectives of this paper are to share the experiences of designing EOCs in a developing country, and the methods of optimisation for meeting objectives under resource constraints. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31093/
[Review] Habits of the Heartland: Small-Town Life in Modern America
This article reviews the book Habits of the Heartland: Small-Town Life in Modern America by Lyn C. MacGregor. Based on Lyn C. MacGregor's dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Habits of the Heartland is an ethnographic study of Viroqua, a small town approximately 4,000 residents in southwestern Wisconsin. MacGregor's two years living in Viroqua was time well spent: she collected a great deal of ethnographic and interview data, and her arguments regarding the town's social divisions are generally convincing and well supported as a result. MacGregor comes across as a trustworthy guide to Viroqua, and the book is well written and genuinely edifying. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc78295/
Public Libraries and Democratization in Three Developing Countries: Exploring the Role of Social Capital
This article explores the role of social capital. Investments in public libraries in developing countries have been made based on the idea that libraries contribute to societal democratization. Yet scholarly understanding of the relationships between public libraries and democratization is sharply limited. In this article the authors review historical studies of national public library systems that cast doubt on widely held assumptions that a positive relationship necessarily pertains between the establishment of public libraries and democracy. Based on this historical review and on sociological theories of social capital (e.g. Bourdieu 1986), the authors develop a theoretical framework intended to facilitate systematic investigation of the contributions public libraries may make to democracy. Using comparative historical and ethnographic methods, the authors analyze the relationship between public libraries and democratic systems of government in Namibia, Nepal, and Malawi, and find that in all three cases public libraries were established mainly during democratic regimes. However, they were not necessarily established by democratically elected governments directly, but rather because democratic regimes proved to be relatively open to the influence of diasporas and global civil society. The authors only find evidence of public libraries contributing to societal democratization, as the authors conceptualize the process, in Nepal and to a limited degree Namibia - countries that lack a long-established, empowered elite class. The authors discuss possible implications of our analysis for library scholarship and its relations to theories of development. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc81388/
Inter-organizational digital divide: Civic groups' media strategies in the Trinity River Corridor Project
This article discusses a study on civic groups' media strategies in the Trinity River Corridor project. Abstract: This study investigates how leaders of civic groups make decisions about using new and social media versus older forms of media. Drawing from theory and empirical research on the social effects of new media, we focus on whether new media is used in a way that lowers barriers to ordinary citizens' participation in local politics, or else contributes to a "digital divide" between elite and non-elite civic groups. To explore these issues, we conducted interviews with leaders of eight civic groups involved in the Trinity River Corridor development project in Dallas, Texas. We also interviewed local journalists, and analyzed the eight civic groups' Web sites, social media sites, and blogs, as well as blogs that linked to the groups' sites. We find that new and social media were used mainly by organizations that were not directly involved in major political actions, and that for the two groups most directly involved in political actions, the wealthier and more powerful group was better connected to other organizations that did use new and social media. The findings reveal a sharp digital divide between networks of civic organizations. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc78305/
Bishnoi: An Eco-Theological "New Religious Movement" In The Indian Desert
This article discusses the authors fieldwork with the Bishnois. Abstract: Although Rajasthan is the "desert" state in the North West of India, it has been a fertile ground for interreligious interactions for the last several centuries, welcoming or battling the new groups entering South Asia. This article presents the author's fieldwork done with the Bishnois, a Rajasthani community that transcends the boundaries of Hinduism and Islam. Although Bishnois are now considered a caste-group within the Hindu community, they were classified with Muslims in 1891 Census of Marwar. The author notes that despite the several common elements of Hindu and Muslim practices and ideas in this community, at present the Bishnois reject any connection with Islam. The article concludes that this "Hinduization" can be contextualized with similar process taking place with several other "liminal" communities. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc29807/
Bollywood and Beyond: Hinduism Changing the World
This article discusses Hinduism. The ideals of Hinduism, such as pluralism, dharma, ritam, and nonviolence hold important lessons for the future of Hinduism in particular and for humanity in general. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38887/
The Cosmic Dance of Obama-Raja on Newsweek
This article discusses an image that appears on the front cover of Newsweek magazine that depicts President Barack Obama in the cosmic dance pose of the Hindu deity Lord Nataraja (some have called it the Obama-Raja posture). Within a matter of hours after Newsweek depicted this image on its website, several Hindu organizations, Hindu websites, Hindus on social media sites, started reacting to this portrayal of one of their major gods. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc29810/
Dharmic Ecology: Perspectives from the Swadhyaya Practitioners
This article discusses dharmic ecology. Abstract: This is an article about the lives of the Swadhyayis, Swadhyaya practitioners, in the Indian states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. The Swadhyaya movement arose in the mid-twentieth century in Gujarat as a new religious movement led by its founder, the late Pandurang Shastri Athavale. In the author's research, he discovered that there is no category of "environmentalism" in the "way of life" of Swadhyayis living in the villages. Following Weightman and Pandey (1978), the author argues that the concept of dharma can be successfully applied as an overarching term for the sustainability of the ecology, environmental ethics, and the religious lives of Swadhyayis. Dharma synthesizes their way of life with environmental ethics based on its multidimensional interpretations. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38896/
The Dharmic Method to Save the Planet
This article discusses environmentalism and ways in which dharmic methods can help save the planet. While most Americans are familiar with the terms such as "yoga" and "Bollywood," Indian perspectives toward the ecology seem to be largely unknown. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38892/
Indology and Marxist Hermeneutics
This article discusses Indology and Marxist Hermeneutics. Although Indian civilization has been one of the most extensively researched fields in the Western Humanities departments, it remains one of the most misinterpreted subjects. Scholars have applied various theories and methods to study this ancient field. However, often their analyses and interpretations fail to do justice to this complex tradition. In the name of "scientific objectivity", they have often applied their own subjective bias. In this paper, I endeavor to demonstrate how the theories of Marx have misinterpreted Indian culture. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc36302/
Irony and the 'yoga wars'
This article discusses the debated topic of whether yoga is a Hindu or Secular practice. It discusses the word Hindu and and some misconceptions about Hinduism, the root of yoga, and the potential causes and impacts of how and why this subject is being debated. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30423/
Jainism, Dharma, and Environmental Ethics
This article discusses the absence of a formal category of environmental ethics in Jainism and explores Jainism's historical relationship to environmental ethics. It also compares Jainist perspectives on the consumption of natural resources with other lifestyles. From the few examples of Jain "environmentalism", this article also seeks to redefine the categories such as "religion" and "environmental ethics", especially as they are applied to the non-Western parts of the world such as the Jains in India. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30424/
Swadhyaya's Dharmic Ecology
This paper is a summary of an essay by the author titled "Dharmic Ecology: Perspectives from the Swadhyaya Practitioners". It discusses the Swadhyayis and their Vrksamandiras, or tree-temples, and dharmic ecology. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc29808/
Ten Key Hindu Environmental Teachings
This article discusses diverse theologies in Hinduism and describes ten important Hindu teachings on the environment. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc29809/
Teaching and Learning Technologies in Higher Education: Applied Behaviour Analysis and Autism: "Necessity is the Mother of Invention"
This article discusses applied behavior analysis and autism. Professionals on both international and national levels who work with children with autism are expressing the need for graduate-level training in applied behaviour analysis. The implementation of effective instruction in higher education for professionals working with children with autism and their families is a complex undertaking: the learner needs to acquire an understanding of the principles and procedures of applied behaviour analysis and also adopt this knowledge to the learning prerequisites of individuals with autism. In this paper, the authors outline some current thinking about adult education and blended learning technologies and then describe and illustrate with examples emerging possibilities of multimedia technology in the development of teaching materials. We conclude that synergies between graduate-level curriculum requirements, knowledge of adult learning, and communication technology are necessary to establish comprehensive learning environments for professionals who specialize in autism intervention. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc39330/
Amygdala involvement in human avoidance, escape and approach behavior
This article discusses amygdala involvement in human avoidance, escape and approach behavior. Abstract: Many forms of psychopathology and substance abuse problems are characterized by chronic ritualized forms of avoidance and escape behavior that are designed to control or modify external or internal (i.e., thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations) threats. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation, the authors examined amygdala reactivity to threatening cues when avoidance responding consistently prevented contact with an upcoming aversive event (money loss). In addition, the authors examined escape responding that terminated immediate escalating money loss and approach responding that produced a future money gain. Results showed cues prompting avoidance, escape and approach behavior recruited a similar fronto-striatal-parietal network. Within the amygdala, bilateral activation was observed to threatening avoidance and escape cues, even though money loss was consistently avoided, as well as to the reward cue. The magnitude of amygdala responses within-subjects was relatively similar to avoidance, escape and approach cues, but considerable between-subject differences were found. The heightened amygdala response to avoidance and escape cues observed within a subset of subjects suggests threat related responses can be maintained even when aversive events are consistently avoided, which may account for the persistence of avoiding-coping in various clinical disorders. Further assessment of the relation between amygdala reactivity and avoidance-escape behavior may prove useful in identifying individuals with or at risk for neuropsychiatric disorders. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77178/
Occipitoparietal contributions to recognition memory: stimulus encoding prompted by verbal instructions and operant contingencies
This article discusses occipitoparietal contributions to recognition memory. Background: Many human neuroimaging investigations on recognition memory employ verbal instructions to direct subject's attention to a stimulus attribute. But do the same or a similar neurophysiological process occur during nonverbal experiences, such as those involving contingency-shaped responses? Establishing the spatially distributed neural network underlying recognition memory for instructed stimuli and operant, contingency-shaped (i.e., discriminative) stimuli would extend the generality of contemporary domain-general views of recognition memory and clarify the involvement of declarative memory processes in human operant behavior. Methods: Fifteen healthy adults received equivalent amounts of exposure to three different stimulus sets prior to neuroimaging. Encoding of one stimulus set was prompted using instructions that emphasizing memorizing stimuli (Instructed). In contrast, encoding of two additional stimulus sets was prompted using a GO/NO-GO operant task, in which contingencies shaped appropriate GO and NO-GO responding. During BOLD functional MRI, subjects completed two recognition tasks. One required passive viewing of stimuli. The second task required recognizing whether a presented stimulus was a GO/NO-GO stimulus, an Instructed stimulus, or novel (NEW) stimulus. Retrieval success related to recognition memory was isolated by contrasting activation from each stimulus set to a novel stimulus (i.e., an OLD > NEW contrast). To explore differences potentially related to source memory, separate contrasts were performed between stimulus sets. Results: No regions reached supralevel thresholds during the passive viewing task. However, a relatively similar set of regions was activated during active recognition regardless of the methods and included dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, right inferior and posterior parietal regions and the occipitoparietal region, precuneus, lingual, fusiform gyri and cerebellum. Results also showed the magnitude of the functional response in the occipitoparietal region was inversely correlated with reaction times (RTs), such that the largest functional response and slowest RTs occurred to Instructed stimuli and the smallest functional response and fastest RTs occurred to GO stimuli, with effects to NO-GO stimuli intermediate. The inverse relation was also present bilaterally in the parahippocampus and hippocampus. Comparisons between stimulus sets also revealed regional differences potentially related to source memory. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77115/
Nothing to fear? Neural systems supporting avoidance behavior in healthy youths
This article discusses neural systems supporting avoidance behavior in healthy youths. Active avoidance involving controlling and modifying threatening situations characterizations many forms of clinical pathology, particularly childhood anxiety. Presently our understanding of the neural systems supporting human avoidance is largely based on nonhuman research. Establishing the generality of nonhuman findings to healthy children is a needed first step towards advancing developmental affective neuroscience research on avoidance in childhood anxiety. Accordingly, this investigation examined brain activation patterns to threatening cues that prompted avoidance in healthy youths. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, fifteen youths (ages 9-13) completed a task that alternatively required approach or avoidance behaviors. On each trial either a threatening 'Snake' cue or a 'Reward' cue advanced towards a bank containing earned points. Directional buttons enabled subjects to move cues away from (Avoidance) or towards the bank (Approach). Avoidance cues elicited activation in regions hypothesized to support avoidance in nonhumans (amygdala, insula, striatum and thalamus). Results also highlighted that avoidance response rates were positively correlated with amygdala activation and negatively correlated with insula and anterior cingulate activation. Moreover, increased amygdala activity was associated with decreased insula and anterior cingulate activity. Our results suggest nonhuman neurophysiological research findings on avoidance may generate to neural systems associated with avoidance in childhood. Perhaps most importantly, the amygdala/insula activation observed suggests threat related responses can be maintained even when aversive events are consistently avoided, which may account for the persistence of avoidance-coping in childhood anxiety. The present approach may offer developmental affective neuroscience a conceptual and methodological framework for investigating avoidance in childhood anxiety. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77177/
Generalized anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in major depression
This article discusses generalized anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in major depression. Abstract: Background: Anxiety is relatively common in depression and capable of modifying the severity and course of depression. Yet our understanding of how anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in depression is limited. Methods: The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging and two emotional information processing tasks to examine frontal and limbic activation in ten patients with major depression and comorbid with preceding generalized anxiety (MDD/GAD) and ten non-depressed controls. Results: Consistent with prior studies on depression, MDD/GAD patients showed hypoactivation in medial and middle frontal regions, as well as in the anterior cingulate and insula. However, heightened anxiety in MDD/GAD patients was associated with increased activation in middle frontal regions and the insula and the effects varied with the type of emotional information presented. Conclusions: The authors' findings highlight frontal and limbic hypoactivation in patients with depression and comorbid anxiety and indicate that anxiety level may modulate frontal and limbic activation depending upon the emotional context. One implication of this finding is that divergent findings reported in the imaging literature on depression could reflect modulation of activation by anxiety level in response to different types of emotional information. digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc122164/