Gottlieb's (1991/2007) target article represents a milestone in our understanding of the impact of social experience on developmental malleability. Interactions across the species-typical and operant behavior categories are increasingly understood to exist. The social contingencies present in the normal species-typical developmental manifold are…

Due to a stronger dependency on biomass for energy, there is a need for improved technologies in biomass-to-energy conversion in Tanzania. This paper presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of pyrolysis technology used for conversion of wood and wood waste to liquid biofuel. In particular, a survey of environmental impacts of the process is…

Factors identified by 16 participants during in-depth interviews as influencing selection of speech pathology as a career were described using the Systems Theory Framework (STF, Patton & McMahon, 2006). Participants were highly likely to identify factors from the individual and social systems, but not the environmental-societal system, of the STF…

Promoting services is a conundrum for any organization. This is especially true for an academic library promoting distance library services. Systems thinking, process mapping, team learning, and diffusion of information practices offer ways of thinking about promoting services that help those involved find novel ways to approach promoting distance…

In this article, the author employs systems theory and organizational theory to illustrate how music education is an occupation instead of a profession and that most music educators think and function at the tactical level. The lack of a true education organization and career ladder for teachers, and that those operating at the tactical level…

Digital electronic technology systems are composed of hardware, software, thoughtware, and their context. The four elements of the model are in a context sensitive relationship where to alter one element is to change them all. Digital Cinema is a theoretical construct for understanding moving images produced and viewed in a digital context.…

Most institutional approaches to the understanding of government and politics describe all the variables of a particular case. The systems model, however, attempts greater generality in its consideration of four variables: the system, the environment, response, and feedback. Examples of the model's applicability to recent political events are…

Conventional approaches to educational planning (in particular to the forecasting of enrolments) fail to yield satisfactory results during periods of rapid social or educational change. This paper briefly outlines a flexible, alternative approach, that of the student flow model. (Editor/RK)

Provides steps to follow in evaluating reading instruction that incorporates the systems approach. (RB)

This manual is intended to assist operational managers in using feedback, goal-setting, and incentive systems. The first section presents background information on feedback, goal-setting, and incentive systems and on measuring productivity. It includes formal definitions of each system, examines the logic of why each system works, compares the…

The paper reviews literature on the family-ecological perspective regarding autism and examines the bidirectional influences among child, family, professional, and school. It is noted that, in contradiction of psychogenic theories of autism, research suggests that parents of autistic children are not more pathological than parents of otherwise…

If a therapist conceptualizes human behavior systemically, he may process information and devise therapeutic strategies from many different vantage points, ranging from the intrapsychic to the macrosystemic. Although psychodiagnostic examination of the individual has a long history in the field of psychology, and psychodiagnostics can greatly…

The paper traces the evolution of psychiatric care for children from an intrapsychic orientation to a new conceptual perspective provided by systems theory and the accompanying relational formulation of conflict. The interdisciplinary process prevents a challenge to professionals' collaboration and respect for other fields and mandates critical…

A take-home international relations final exam in the form of a group conversation allows the student to fill in opinions in the characters of "Me." In some instances real student responses have been included in "Me's" place, in others they have been left empty to perserve the flavor of an exam. (JH)