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The crustacean stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) is a well-known model for investigating neuropeptidergic control of rhythmic behavior. Among the peptides known to modulate the STNS are the C-type allatostatins (AST-Cs). In the lobster, Homarus americanus, three AST-Cs are known. Two of these, pQIRYHQCYFNPISCF (AST-C I) and GNGDGRLYWRCYFNAVSCF (AST-C III), have non-amidated C-termini, while the third, SYWKQCAFNAVSCFamide (AST-C II), is C-terminally amidated. Here, antibodies were generated against one of the non-amidated peptides (AST-C I) and against the amidated isoform (AST-C II). Specificity tests show that the AST-C I antibody cross-reacts with both AST-C I and AST-C III, but not AST-C II; the AST-C II antibody does not cross-react with either non-amidated peptide. Wholemount immunohistochemistry shows that both subclasses (non-amidated and amidated) of AST-C are distributed throughout the lobster STNS. Specifically, the antibody that cross-reacts with the two non-amidated peptides labels neuropil in the CoGs and the stomatogastric ganglion (STG), axons in the superior esophageal (son) and stomatogastric (stn) nerves, and ~ 14 somata in each commissural ganglion (CoG). The AST-C II-specific antibody labels neuropil in the CoGs, STG and at the junction of the sons and stn, axons in the sons and stn, ~ 42 somata in each CoG, and two somata in the STG. Double immunolabeling shows that, except for one soma in each CoG, the non-amidated and amidated peptides are present in distinct sets of neuronal profiles. The differential distributions of the two AST-C subclasses suggest that the two peptide groups are likely to serve different modulatory roles in the lobster STNS.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether ROCK! Richmond, a healthy nutrition and physical activity promotion initiative of the Richmond (Virginia) City Department of Public Health was effectively recruiting the high-risk individuals for whom this lifestyle change intervention was intended. The effectiveness of recruitment, participant demographic and health status characteristics were compared with those of respondents to a random sample survey conducted 18 months earlier. Relatively high-risk residents were recruited. ROCK! Richmond participants were disproportionately African American and female, had significantly higher body mass indices (BMIs), and were more likely to report a family history of chronic disease. However, their employment, education, and income levels were higher than those of the citywide sample. Certain high-risk segments of the population were successfully reached and involved in community fitness activities. Different recruitment methods may need to be used to recruit more from among the lowest socioeconomic strata.

Incorporation of research and program evaluation in social work practice is a recurring issue in social work literature. Program evaluators and researchers continue to search for ways to engage program stakeholders in the process of designing, implementing, and maintaining evaluation activities that have both scientific merit and practical use (Loneck & Way, 1997; Staudt, 1997). Administrators, practitioners, and consumers constitute a primary group of stakeholders in health care settings, and their knowledge of and investment in program evaluation can determine the nature and usefulness of evaluative efforts within health and social work programs. Teaching program stakeholders how to generate valid, reliable, and meaningful evaluation findings and how to incorporate ongoing evaluation activities in practice settings are major thrusts of empowerment evaluation (Fetterman, 1994a). This article reviews current notions about empowerment evaluation and presents a case study of its application in developing a pilot evaluation plan for an HIV-prevention program. The case study provides an opportunity to examine the practice, policy, and research issues encountered in the development of an evaluation plan, using empowerment evaluation strategies, in a community health setting. The benefits and risks inherent in an empowerment approach to the evaluative research process are addressed. EMPOWERMENT EVALUATION Empowerment is a central theme in social work practice and policy (Lee, 1994), particularly in programs that primarily serve "women, people of color, and other oppressed groups" (Gutierrez, GlenMaye, & DeLois, 1995, p. 249). In practice settings, one of the goals of empowerment is "an increase in the actual power of the client or community so that action can be taken to change and prevent the problems clients are facing" (Gutierrez et al., 1995, p. 250). In the policy arena an empowerment approach strives to "take policy practice and advocacy to the state and local levels so that providers, consumers, and volunteer leaders can actively influence and shape local services, build stronger community collaboration, focus on family outcomes, and develop community governance and ownership of programs and initiatives" (Weil, 1996, p. 494). Empowerment evaluation is a natural extension of the social work empowerment perspective and can be considered within the genre of collaborative and participatory program evaluation models common to social work program evaluation. Stakeholder ownership in the evaluation process and product as well as the use of participatory group techniques to encourage program involvement are integral aspects of empowerment evaluation. However, empowerment evaluation, similar to other social work empowerment strategies, is particularly applicable to programs that serve oppressed peoples (Mertens, 1995; Whitmore, 1990) or in programs that attempt to further social justice (Chen, 1994). Empowerment evaluation fosters in these agencies the capability of using research findings to improve their service delivery systems and to shape their own programmatic destinies (Fetterman, 1994a). Thus, the intent to transfer research evaluation knowledge from the researcher-expert to program stakeholders for the explicit and ongoing use and benefit of the programs serving disenfranchised populations is a major distinction between empowerment evaluation and other collaborative or participatory models. Proponents of empowerment evaluation emphasize the multidimensional, multimethodological quality of the approach. According to Fetterman (1994a), "Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts and techniques to foster self-determination. The focus is on helping people help themselves. This evaluation approach focuses on improvement, is collaborative, and requires both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. . . . It is a multifaceted approach with many forms, including training, facilitation, advocacy, illumination, and liberation" (p. …

Infants’ and children’s initial attempts to decipher the true nature of their interpersonal and physical worlds mark the beginning of a scientific enterprise that will last a lifetime. Such an awesome undertaking requires sophisticated privately-owned equipment (for example, developing cognitive structures and sensory capabilities) and dependable external sources of support (for example, the existence of discernible invariances in the real world). Another tremendously rich source of data consists of information that is conveyed by other people. Much of this information that is conveyed to infants and children is sensible and useful. For example, adults often try to convey to children the names of people and things, the meanings of words, and some notion of the currently acceptable standards of conduct and systems of values. On other occasions, however, adults tell children about verbally fluent bears and pigs; about wolves who dress up like grandmothers; black-clad women who travel by broomstick; and cows that jump over the moon. The child’s world is punctuated with other types of verbal oddities as well. For example, when Junior smashes a priceless antique in his haste to escape to the great outdoors, his father remarks, “That’s just great.” Curiously, his father uttered the exact same words one day when Junior had picked up all of his toys.

DEPAULO, BELLA M.; JORDAN, AUDREY; IRVINE, AUDREY; and LASER, PATRICIA S. Age Changes in the Detection of Deception. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 701-709. The development of the ability to detect deception was investigated. Subjects were sixth graders, eighth graders, tenth graders, twelfth graders, and college students who watched or listened to a videotape of 4 males and 4 females, each describing someone they liked and someone they disliked (honest messages) and pretending to like the disliked person ("pretend to like") and to dislike the liked person ("pretend to dislike") (deceptive messages). When subjects were asked to indicate the speakers' affect (liking ratings), subjects at every age level tended to report the affect that was overtly expressed, even when the speakers were lying. However, subjects at every age level did perceive the feigned expressions of liking as less positive than the sincere expressions of liking, and the feigned expressions of disliking as less negative than the honest expressions of disliking. The three oldest groups also discriminated truth from deception by their "mixed-feelings" ratings-they perceived the speakers as having more mixed feelings when they were lying than when they were telling the truth. However, only the twelfth graders and college students perceived the dishonest messages as more deceptive than the honest messages. Finally, there were systematic changes, with age, in the kinds of messages that subjects perceived as deceptive. At the younger age levels, subjects judged expressions of negative affect as more deceptive than expressions of positive affect; however, among the older subjects, this trend reversed and subjects judged expressions of positive affect to be relatively more deceptive than expressions of negative affect.