Verbal Aggression Among Male Alcoholic Patients and Their Wives in the Year Before and Two Years After Alcoholism Treatment

Our earlier reports on 88 male alcoholics and their wives showed that domestic violence decreased significantly in the first and second year following a behavioral marital therapy (BMT) alcoholism treatment program. The present study examined verbal aggression in this same sample. In the year before BMT, verbal aggression was significantly greater—being five to seven times more prevalent for clinically elevated aggression and substantially more frequent—for the alcoholic husbands and their wives than for a demographically matched, nonalcoholic comparison sample. In the two years after BMT, both alcoholic men and their wives showed significant and substantial reductions in verbal aggression as compared with the year before BMT. Despite these significant reductions from the year before BMT, verbal aggression in the two years after BMT remained significantly elevated relative to demographically similar nonalcoholic controls. As predicted, relapsed alcoholics and their wives showed more verbal aggression in the 2 years after BMT than both couples with a remitted alcoholic husband and demographically similar nonalcoholic controls, whereas remitted alcoholics and their wives had similar levels of verbal aggression to the nonalcoholic controls. Further, frequency of drinking was positively correlated with verbal aggression in the 2 years after BMT; verbal aggression was greater when the alcoholic husband drank more frequently.     

Internationalization and quality assurance: Towards worldwide accreditation?

This paper addresses two very closely related issues, namely the integration of the quality dimension in internationalization policies in higher education and the adaptation of quality assurance policies and practices to an increasingly international environment. Through an analysis of some issues and challenges in internationalization on the one hand and an overview of recent developments in quality assurance on the other, our objective is to question how internationalization and quality assurance can be integrated. Internationalization policies and practices are lacking a quality assurance dimension and quality assurance approaches are too much confined to national contexts. Can quality assurance give answers to the challenges facing internationalization and can the introduction of an international dimension give a solution to issues in the field of quality assurance. This paper then focuses on the concept of multiple accreditation and the development of worldwide mutual accreditation networks among institutions as a possible avenue for future progress. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Enhancing rural learning,linkages, and institutions: the rice videos in Africa

Africa Rice Center (WARDA) facilitated the development and translation of 11 rice videos. From 2005 to 2009, WARDA partners translated them into more than 30 African languages. Open-air video presentations enhanced learning, experimentation, confidence, trust, and group cohesion among rural people. The videos strengthened capacities of more than 500 organisations and hundreds of thousands of farmers. WARDA's integrated rural learning approach also helped women to access new markets and credit. Learning videos allow for unsupervised learning; unleash local creativity and experimentation; facilitate institutional innovations; and improve social inclusion of the poor, youth, and women.