The Multi-Function Needs Assessment instrument (MFNA) was used to assess the level o f functioning, in three annual data collections, o f patients with severe and persistent mental illness in an inpatient psychoso cial rehabilitation program. It was found that the MFNA could differentiate between categories o f patients based on their functional abilities. Complex behaviors, such as independent living skills, were more discriminating o f overall functioning than were relatively simple behaviors. Evidence support ing the reliability and validity o f the MFNA is presented. The MFNA appears to have the potential for utility in individual assessment as well as on a sys tems level.

The major purpose of this study was to investigate one component of the self-reinforcement process-that of standard setting. Specifically, this experiment assessed the effect of self-selected versus other-determined schedules of reinforcement on resistance to extinction. Children, from grades two through four, were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. One group (Self) was permitted to select one of three schedules of reinforcement before making responses at a game-like apparatus. For the second group (External), the schedules were determined by a yoking procedure. Extinction procedures were instituted for all subjects after 20 contingently reinforced responses were made. The results showed that the Self Group persisted significantly longer and emitted more responses in extinction than did the External Group. A strong partial reinforcement effect was also found.

To test the discrimination hypothesis of the partial reinforcement effect in extinction, partial or continuous reinforcement trials were interpolated between the initial training trials of partial or continuous reinforcement and the extinction period. 112 children from Grades 2 and 3 participated in one of four conditions. Children receiving two consecutive blocks of partial reinforcement showed the greatest resistance to extinction, children receiving two consecutive blocks of continuous reinforcement showed the weakest resistance, and those receiving partial reinforcement followed by continuous reinforcement or vice versa showed intermediate levels of resistance. Discrimination between training and extinction does not seem to be the critical factor involved in the partial reinforcement effect. The results were discussed in terms of a stimulus analyzer or a sequential analysis model.

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THE CINEMA AND THE CITY The poignant images of forty-second street in Midnight Cowboy and of Spanish Harlem in Popi are recent products of a long cinematic tradition. The historic threads running through the portrayal of the city in films are (I) the juxtaposition of hope and despair and (2) the use of experimental techniques. EARLY CONNECTIONS The motion picture appeared on the scene as the Western World groped toward a new urban consciousness. Cinematic images have thus become one of the great historic records of that effort. At the same time, the dissemination of films has played a role in the development of that very consciousness. evident as far back as the nickelodean age. For example, in 1908 the Vitagraph Studio gave a special urban flavor t o Romeo and Juliet by using the architecture of New York's Central Park Mall as a background for the death of Mercutio. Such Edison films as The Suffrugette offered distinctly urban themes and scenery.' vealed an early link between the cinema and the urban novels of Charles Dickens. There is evidence that Dickens was the favorite author of film pioneer, D. W. Griffith.2 The urban images of the English novelist may have inspired Griffith's descriptive expertise. The bustle of Paris traffic and the disparity of wealth depicted in the last chapter of a Tale ofTwo Cities reveals the kind of montage whichThe inevitable intertwining of the cinema and the city was The great film artist and theoritician, Sergei Eisenstein, re-