Behavioural inhibition and hyperactivity: a commentary from alternative perspectives

Attention disorders in the school population include attention deficit, hyperactivity and conduct disorders. A key concept for distinguishing hyperactive from attention disorders is behavioural inhibition as advocated by Barkley, a prominent American researcher. However, the concept itself needs to be understood because, as argued in this paper, there are two kinds of inhibition: Pavlov's original concept and the American one. These should be differentiated if the abnormal conditions associated with attention and hyperactivity are to be rationally connected to cognitive characteristics, rather than to be solely based on clinical symptoms and behavioural ratings. We suggest a consensus on the concept of inhibition and a unified view of attention disorders integrating cognitive and behavioural manifestations. Finally, the importance of basing remediation on a theoretically supported and rationally derived set of cognitive training tasks for the amelioration of inattention and hyperactivity is offered.     

“Save our students”: contesting discourses of racist attacks against Indians down under

This paper seeks to understand the dominant civic discourses of accusation of racism leveled against the Australians as expressed by the victims of racist attacks and Indian Government officials in the Times of India and Outlook India news magazines. The aim of the paper is to understand how the logics of the discourses have constituted the racially motivated attacks on the Indian diaspora in Australia, and how the nationalistic sentiments are fostered among the diasporic Indians and the Indians in India. The paper argues that there is a mutual production of diasporic and homeland nationalism in the face of a crisis that hits the Indian diaspora in Australia. This analysis also brings to fore the ideology of multiculturalism in Australia.     

Philosophy of Mind： A Jain Perspective

Dualism is one of the views concerning the nature of mind. Arguments have been forwarded for and against dualism. Western philosophy lacks a clear distinction between soul and mind. Closely related to the concept of mind is the question of consciousness, a clear view of which has also eluded the westem thinkers. Jain philosophy describes ＂jiva＂ （soul） as the sentient substance, which is non-physical and not sense-perceptible; consciousness and ＂upayoga＂ （manifestation） are the differentia of ＂jiva＂. Consciousness manifests itself in many ways： intelligence, intuition, conation, bliss, perception （cognitive elements）, emotions, will, attitude and behavior, awareness of pleasure and pain. Jain distinguishes between soul and mind. The mind does not possess consciousness, which is the exclusive property of soul. Mind like soul is not permanent entity, and it exists only when consciousness manifests as thoughts, beliefs, desires, emotions and feelings. All these activities are influenced by karma, which is interface between soul and mind. Our existence is seen to be at three levels： soul, mind and body. Soul is the source of intelligence; mind （subtle body） is the executive and regulatory body and material body is the place of physical actions. A model of interactions between these three units is presented. The soul perceives and knows the external world through mind, so the perceptions made by soul are influenced by mind. The relationship between brain and mind is discussed. The brain is seen as the center for information storage and processing, its activity is regulated by mind, which in turn is conditioned by the soul. The conscious experience is made by the soul, not the mind. The Jain model of soul, mind and body avoids all objections raised against dualism, as interaction between soul and karma body （unconscious part of mind） is assumed to be based on parallelism, and that between mind and body is through radiations not violating the law of conservation of energy.     

The human dimension of development in India

This paper provides an overview of the level of economic development in India, with a brief explanation of the factors that have impeded rapid growth of the economy. Against this background information, the paper focuses on some social programs undertaken by government and non-governmental agencies to help the most vulnerable segments of society to deal with the adverse effects of industrialization and urbanization and to share in the benefits of economic development.     

Assessment of attention in school children: teachers' ratings related to tests of attention

The paper provides (1) a teacher-administered rating instrument for inattention without confounding the rating with hyperactivity and conduct disorder, and (2) evidence that the ratings correlate with the scores obtained from cognitive tests of attention. In Study I, the first objective was to investigate the construct validity and the inter-rater reliability of the Attention Checklist (ACL) by factor analysing the teacher ratings of 110 Grade 4 children, obtained by using the ACL. The second objective was to investigate the predictive validity of the ACL by examining the relationship between the scores obtained for the participants from teachers' ratings using the ACL and the scores obtained by participants in the lab-type attention tests. The results of factor analysis showed that a single factor labelled ‘inattention’ underlies the 12 items in the ACL. Examining the differences in performance on attention tests, the ‘low attention’ children as rated by the teachers on the ACL scored lower than the ‘high attention’ children on the objective tests of attention. These findings were replicated in Study II, which was conducted to test further the construct validity and predictive validity of the ACL. This time, only those two tests (Auditory Attention and Visual Attention) that had shown relatively poor discrimination between the high and low attention groups in Study I were, again, administered to another cohort of 97 Grade 4 children, as it was our intention to further challenge the reliability of the ACL. Overall, the results of both studies suggest that comprehensive assessment of attention skills should include both ACL and objective measures of selective attention.     

UNIVERSITY‐BASED ADULT DAY CARE CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND TRAINING: DESIGN,FUNDING, AND PROGRAMMATIC ISSUES

In the early 1980s, the College of Human Resources at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University began a visioning process to plan its educational agenda for the 21st century. One of the more pressing issues targeted for educational intervention was community‐based long‐term care. Ten years later, a licensed, Medicaid‐certified adult day health center is fully operational on the university campus, providing a myriad of research, teaching, and public service opportunities for faculty and students. Center design, funding, and programmatic issues are discussed.     

Status and Interrelationship of Zinc,Copper, Iron,Calcium and Selenium in Prostate Cancer

Deficiency or excess of certain trace elements has been considered as risk factor for prostate cancer. This study was aimed to detect differential changes and mutual correlations of selected trace elements in prostate cancer tissue versus benign prostatic hyperplasia tissue. Zinc, copper, iron, calcium and selenium were analysed in histologically proven 15 prostate cancer tissues and 15 benign prostatic hyperplasia tissues using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Unpaired two tailed t test/Mann–Whitney U test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to compare the level of trace elements, elemental ratios and their interrelations. As compared to benign prostatic tissue, malignant prostatic tissue had significantly lower selenium (p = 0.038) and zinc (p = 0.043) concentrations, a lower zinc/iron ratio (p = 0.04) and positive correlation of selenium with zinc (r = 0.71, p = 0.02) and iron (r = 0.76, p = 0.009). Considerably divergent interrelationship of elements and elemental ratios in prostate cancer versus benign prostatic hyperplasia was noted. Understanding of differential elemental changes and their interdependence may be useful in defining the complex metabolic alterations in prostate carcinogenesis with potential for development of element based newer diagnostic, preventive and therapeutic strategies. Further studies may be needed to elucidate this complex relationship between trace elements and prostate carcinogenesis.     

Integrated carbon fiber electrodes within hollow polymer microneedles for transdermal electrochemical sensing

In this study, carbon fiber electrodes were incorporated within a hollow microneedle array, which was fabricated using a digital micromirror device-based stereolithography instrument. Cell proliferation on the acrylate-based polymer used in microneedle fabrication was examined with human dermal fibroblasts and neonatal human epidermal keratinocytes. Studies involving full-thickness cadaveric porcine skin and trypan blue dye demonstrated that the hollow microneedles remained intact after puncturing the outermost layer of cadaveric porcine skin. The carbon fibers underwent chemical modification in order to enable detection of hydrogen peroxide and ascorbic acid; electrochemical measurements were demonstrated using integrated electrode-hollow microneedle devices.