Dialogic Origin and Dialogic Pedagogy of Grammar : Stylistics in Teaching Russian Language in Secondary School

The development of any science is more than just the accumulation of specific knowledge: it also necessarily involves the development of ideas concerning its subject matter, its relationship to other, allied sciences, and its basic problems and fundamental methods. Such an evolution is evident with each major advance, even in scientific disciplines that have acquired their distinct contours, but especially in sciences that are just beginning their historical trajectory, just beginning to emerge from their prehistory, from the stage of their primary preparation. Literally every real step taken in moving a particular investigation forward involves a review of the most basic questions of the science. For this reason, even for psychology, which is at present undergoing an epoch of fundamental restructuring in the Soviet Union, the most acute and urgent problems are those dealing with its own formation.     

Dialogic Consensus In Clinical Decision-Making

This paper is predicated on the understanding that clinical encounters between clinicians and patients should be seen primarily as inter-relations among persons and, as such, are necessarily moral encounters. It aims to relocate the discussion to be had in challenging medical decision-making situations, including, for example, as the end of life comes into view, onto a more robust moral philosophical footing than is currently commonplace. In our contemporary era, those making moral decisions must be cognizant of the existence of perspectives other than their own, and be attuned to the demands of inter-subjectivity. Applicable to clinical practice, we propose and justify a Habermasian approach as one useful means of achieving what can be described as dialogic consensus. The Habermasian approach builds around, first, his discourse theory of morality as universalizable to all and, second, communicative action as a cooperative search for truth. It is a concrete way to ground the discourse which must be held in complex medical decision-making situations, in its actual reality. Considerations about the theoretical underpinnings of the application of dialogic consensus to clinical practice, and potential difficulties, are explored.     

Guest Editor's Introduction : Bakhtin's Dialogic Pedagogy

This issue of Soviet Psychology opens with an extensive round-table discussion of the shortcomings of institutionalized psychology in light of the ongoing changes in Soviet society associated with Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). The participants varied widely in their professional expertise, thus providing an unusually broad view of Soviet psychologists' public views about the problems facing their science.     

A Conversation with Bakhtin : On Inquiry and Dialogic Thinking

Two different traditions in psychology emphasize the study of twin-twin and mother-twin relationships. One line of research, the twin development approach, has compared parenting styles and sibling relationships in families with twin and singleton offspring. This research tradition is based on the assumption that twins, relative to singletons, may be at risk for developmental delays in motor, cognitive [1-3], linguistic [1,4,5], and social-emotional functioning [6,7] because of their increased rate of prematurity, lower birth weight [8-11], increased parenting demands that result in less interactive maternal speech [12-18], shared peer time [19], and other experiences that distinguish twins from singletons [7,8,19-21]. Although recent studies have not replicated the developmental concerns [22-26] or concerns about specific birth defects [27] that emerged from earlier studies comparing twins and singletons, there continues to be interest in the relational differences that may be present in twin and singleton families and in the need to address educational and social policies that promote twin development [28,29]. Within the framework of this approach, distinctions between twins and singletons have received more attention than distinctions between fraternal, dizygotic (DZ) and identical, monozygotic (MZ) twins.     

Darwin's apes and “savages”

Since his visit to Tierra del Fuego in the 1830s, Darwin had been fascinated by the “savages” that succeeded in surviving on such a “broken beach”, and because they were certainly similar in behaviour to our ancestors. However, he was also fascinated by baboons’ behaviour, according to Brehm's accounts: hamadryas baboons showed a strong altruism to the point of risking their own lives in order to save their infants from attack by dogs. In 1871, he mentions he would rather have descended from brave baboons than from “savages”, considered egoistic. We study the two sources of these ideas and try to show how Darwin's comparative reflections on apes and “savages” made him the first evolutionist anthropologist.     

COX-2 polymorphisms − 765G→C and − 1195A→G and hepatocellular carcinoma risk

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and considered to play a role in hepatic carcinogenesis. Our aim was to examine the associations between polymorphisms in COX-2 − 765G→C and − 1195A→G and risk of HCC. We conducted a case–control study including 120 patients with HCC and 130 age- and gender-matched controls. Genotypes of the COX-2 polymorphisms − 765G→C and − 1195A→G were determined by polymerase chain reaction-based restriction fragment length polymorphism. No significant difference was observed in the genotype distribution of the − 765G→C polymorphism between patients and controls. The − 1195AA genotype was associated with an increased risk of developing HCC (OR, 2.5; 95%CI, 1.18–5.37). The A allele was present significantly more often in HCC patients (OR 1.5; 95%CI, 1.05–2.14). In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the − 1195AA genotype and A allele have an important role in HCC risk in Egyptian patients.     

Maternal care and infant development in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Callimico goeldii</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Callithrix jacchus</Emphasis>

Callimico goeldii gives birth to single offspring, whereas other callitrichids, including Callithrix jacchus, twin. This study compares maternal effort and infant development in C. goeldii and C. jacchus; it is the first study to look at nursing frequency. Infants were observed from birth for 7 weeks in two captive groups each of C. goeldii and C. jacchus. C. goeldii mothers physiologically invested the same or less than C. jacchus mothers. C. goeldii mothers gained the same amount of weight during pregnancy in absolute terms as did the smaller C. jacchus. This results in a smaller gain in proportion to maternal weight but an equivalent proportional gain on a per fetus basis. C. goeldii mothers nursed their infants less based on duration of nursing bouts compared with C. jacchus mothers. C. goeldii mothers transported their infants exclusively through the first 2 weeks of life, which is longer than C. jacchus mothers, who exclusively transported infants only during the first week of life. As maternal infant carriage declined, other group members transported offspring in both species. C. goeldii infants engaged in independent locomotive sequences later in development and tasted solid foods less frequently than C. jacchus infants when compared at equivalent ages. A single, opportunistic milk sample obtained from a C. goeldii mother when her infant was 48 days old indicates that C. goeldii milk contains gross energy from crude protein within the range of variation observed in Callithrix milk. Despite the similarities in milk quality and prenatal effort in individual fetuses, C. goeldii infants gain weight faster from 0 to 18 months than do C. jacchus infants. A reduction in litter size allows C. goeldii mothers to spend more time carrying their infant and to delay weaning, thereby allowing accelerated infant and juvenile growth rates compared with C. jacchus.