This study offers data about the efficacy of "Talk to Me," an Internet-based telepsychology program for the treatment of fear of public speaking that includes the most active components in cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for social phobia (exposure and cognitive therapies). One hundred twenty-seven participants with social phobia were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: (a) an Internet-based self-administered program; (b) the same program applied by a therapist; (c) a waiting-list control group. Results showed that both treatment conditions were equally efficacious. In addition, Talk to Me and the same treatment applied by a therapist were more efficacious than the waiting-list condition. Treatment gains were maintained at 1-year follow-up. The results from this study support the utility of Internet-delivered CBT programs in order to reach a higher number of people who could benefit from CBT. Internet-delivered CBT programs could also play a valuable role in the dissemination of CBT.
The reproductive biology of the dioecious Viscum cruciatum, one of the few viscaceous mistletoes occurring in Europe, was investigated. The male flower is 7.2 mm long and lemon-scented, produces ca. 58,000 pollen grains, and has a dry mass of 14 mg, and thus a low relative staminate effort (RSE) value of 4,059. Female flowers, ca. 3 mm long, 2.7 mg dry mass, secrete small amounts of nectar (0.05 mg sugar/d). A stigma is not apparent. Flowers inside nylon bags (i.e., insect-free) set significantly less fruit than control branches open to natural pollination. Pollination is performed by insects. Flowers bagged against insects but not wind set some fruit. Flowers bagged with dense cloth excluding wind and insect pollination did not set any fruit. Agamospermous embryo production does not take place in this species and cannot be the cause of the shift in sex-ratio toward females. Fruits can contain one (45%), two (43.6%), three (11%), or four (0.3%) embryos, which may not be true polyembryony but may result from the partial or complete fusion of the chlorophyllous endosperm. Fruit size is not correlated with the number of embryos per "seed" but probably with other ecological or maternal factors. Although a dormancy period was not observed, flowering and fruiting are restricted mainly to winter. Nevertheless, the pattern of flowering differed significantly between the two years studied, being longer and less overlapping during 1991 (only in the females). The fruit set was also lower in 1991.
The article analyses the effects of the large scale educational reform policies on teachers' professional identities, based on a review of the literature and data from a study we carried out. Professional identity crisis is placed within the broader framework of the modernity crisis. The story of this crisis (influences and causes) includes a description of the education reform of the 1990"s (LOGSE, Ley de Ordenación General del Sistema Educativo), the role played by teacher training in aggravating the problem, and the reasons secondary teachers have resisted educational change. In this framework, the different types of identity adopted by teachers faced with this change are studied, and the results of a qualitative study through the voices of the teachers are described. Finally, two exit plans are presented: a political use of nostalgia, employed by the conservative government to gain the support of a large number of teachers; and the exploration of new avenues for the reconstruction of professional identities. The idea is to re-examine alternative arguments about what schools should be in the "second modern society."
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