Condom use: A self-efficacy model.

A survey of heterosexually active college students gathered information about condom use, self-efficacy (SE), outcome expectancies, sexual attitudes, peer group influences, AIDS knowledge, and a perceived vulnerability to AIDS. On the basis of A. Bandura's (1986) social-cognitive theory, a structural model with SE as the central mediator was formulated and evaluated with LISREL. This model explained 46% of the variance in condom use from judgments of SE and effects attributable to peers and 53% of the variance in SE from outcome expectancies and peer group influences. Sexual attitudes, AIDS knowledge, and perceived vulnerability did not predict condom use. Most students were well-informed about HIV transmission but reported not feeling at risk, even though many engaged in risky sexual behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program: foundations and design of a model for reaching older, minority, rural women

Breast cancer screening programs do not reach all women at the same rate. Screening mammography use varies according to sociodemographic characteristics; mammography utilization is highest among women in their fifties but then decreases with age. In North Carolina, breast cancer is a particular burden for Black and lower-income women. Black women are more likely to be diagnosed with late stage disease, and their rate of breast cancer mortality is higher than it is for White women even though the incidence in White women is greater. Older, Black, and low-income women are less likely to obtain screening by mammography and clinical breast examination. The Black-White gap is even more pronounced among rural women, in part because they are more likely to be poor. The North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program (NC-BCSP) was established to increase the rate of regular mammography screening by an absolute 20% in 3 years among older Black women ages 50 and older in five rural counties in the eastern part of the state. In this paper, we describe the genesis of this comprehensive community intervention model, highlighting the behavioral science constructs, health education principles, and theories of behavioral and organizational change that form its conceptual foundation. NC-BCSP's theoretical foundations include the social ecological perspective, the PRECEDE model of health promotion, the Health Belief Model of individual change, and the "stages of change" transtheoretical model. We also review the experiences and lessons learned from two previous outreach initiatives in North Carolina that provided valuable "lessons" in the development of the NC-BCSP intervention model. In the second half of the paper, we describe the actual NC-BCSP interventions, activities, and evaluation tools, citing specific examples of how the underlying theories are implemented. NC-BCSP's goal goes beyond individual behavior change to raise low mammography screening rates among Black women in rural North Carolina. Its ultimate objective is to create linkages across agencies, and between agencies and communities, that will endure after the research project ends.     

Non-conventional injection molding of poly(lactide) and poly(ε-caprolactone) intended for orthopedic applications

Biodegradable polymers such as poly(lactide) (PLA) and poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) are increasingly used in biomedical applications as temporary implants. However, melt processing of these materials in particular of PLA is difficult due to the temperature sensitivity. Within this study, PLA and PCL were injection molded conventionally and by using the process shear controled orientation in injection molding (SCORIM) in order to investigate the effect of processing parameters on the physical properties of the moldings. Therefore, flexural testing, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), molecular weight (MW) and orientation measurements were performed. PLA showed high sensitivity to melt temperature. In the case of amorphous poly(DL-lactide), the molecular weight and subsequently the ductility is substantially reduced by processing at higher melt temperatures. In the case of crystallizable poly(L-lactide), higher melt temperatures and shear induced by the SCORIM process resulted in enhanced crystallinity, which compromised the mechanical properties. Generally, SCORIM processing improved the mechanical properties, in particular the ductility, by orientating the molecular structure. PCL was shown to be less sensitive to shear and temperature than PLA. Stress at yield and stiffness are more improved by SCORIM processing. However, the processing temperature in combination with the grade used proved to be influential for the mechanical properties of resulting moldings.     

Untersuchung über die Schwingungsrißkorrosion rost- und säurebeständiger Stähle in Schwefelsäure hoher Konzentration

Investigation into corrosion fatigue of stainless steels in high concentrated sulfuric acid Four commercial stainless steels (mat. Nos. 1.4539, 1.4586, 1.4571 and 1.4462) were tested in 96% and 90% sulfuric acid of 80 °C as to their corrosion fatigue strength by subjecting notched round bars to the rotary bending test. At the same time, the efficiency of anodic protection was examined. With all four steels, the alternating bending strength obtained in the air is essentially reduced. The semiaustenitic steel Nr. 1.4462 shows a lower corrosion fatigue strength than the three austenitic steels. Although making the corrosion fatigue strength of steels better calculable, anodic protection proves insufficient to completely prevent notched round bars from corrosion fatigue in concentrated sulfuric acid.     

Efficacy of group motivational interviewing (GMI) for psychiatric inpatients with chemical dependence.

Dually diagnosed patients with chemical dependency and a comorbid psychiatric disorder typically show poor compliance with aftercare treatment, which may result in costly and pervasive individual and societal problems. In this study, the authors investigated the effect of adding motivational interviewing in a group format to standard treatment for dually diagnosed psychiatric inpatients. The patients (n = 101) all received standard care and in addition were assigned to either group motivational interviewing (GMI) or a therapist attention activity control group (TAAC). Of patients who attended aftercare and who used alcohol or drugs, those who participated in GMI attended significantly more aftercare treatment sessions, consumed less alcohol, and engaged in less binge drinking at follow-up compared with those in TAAC. Differences between conditions in the overall percentage of participants who achieved complete abstinence or who attended aftercare treatment were not significant, possibly because of a lack of power. These results provide preliminary evidence for the efficacy of GMI when added at the outset to an inpatient program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of alcohol priming on social disinhibition.

Recent studies have suggested that exposure to rudimentary alcohol cues activates mental representations of alcohol expectancies in long-term memory, thereby promoting expectancy-consistent behavior changes. However, reliance in these previous studies on self-report measures raises the possibility that prior findings were an artifact of experimental demand. The present study was aimed at ruling out this alternative explanation by reinvestigating the effects of alcohol priming on nonconsumptive behavior using an implicit measure of social disinhibition. In three experiments, participants were exposed to either alcohol or control beverage images, then asked to type as quickly as possible the first word that came to mind in response to a series of provocative (e.g., feces) and neutral (e.g., chair) stimulus words. Participants’ response times were surreptitiously measured. Results revealed that participants exposed to images of alcohol, relative to control beverages, were faster to generate free associations to provocative, but not neutral, words, suggesting enhanced social disinhibition. This effect was limited to conditions of heightened evaluation, ruling out alternative explanations based on knowledge activation or arousal. Participants reported no suspicions regarding the connection between the image viewing and free association tasks nor any awareness that their response times had been collected. Results suggest that the behavioral effects of alcohol priming do not result from demand characteristics and offer the first evidence that exposure to rudimentary alcohol-related stimuli may suffice to influence social disinhibition in a manner akin to that expected to result from actual or placebo alcohol consumption. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Micro-magnetic evaluation of micro residual stresses of the IInd and IIIrd order

Micro residual stresses (MRS) of the IInd and IIIrd order play an important role in the fracture mechanical analysis of thermally cycled materials, and thus in lifetime analysis of such affected components. In multi-phase materials there can exist two kinds of MRS: thermally induced MRS of the IInd order and coherent MRS of IIIrd order. The thermally induced stresses of the IInd order appear when individual material phases exhibit different thermal expansion coefficients. The coherent MRS of the IIIrd order appear when the lattice parameter of the second phase particles embedded coherently in the matrix and the lattice parameter of the matrix are different. The main emphasis of the presented research work is the development of a micro-magnetic non-destructive technique for quantitative characterization and separation of MRS of IInd and IIIrd order in iron-based materials.     

The role of money in the excitement of gambling.

Many gamblers claim that gambling is intrinsically exciting, with money playing only a secondary role. To examine the effects of the expectancy of winning money, the authors randomly assigned 243 male college student gamblers to 1 of 6 experimental or 1 of 3 control conditions. Control participants either simply watched a videotaped horse race or they picked a horse, but without wagering; that horse later turned out to be either the winner of the race or the runner-up. Experimental participants wagered $1 on a horse for a chance of winning either $2, $7, or $15, with half winning and half losing their wagers. Wagering led to increased heart rates and subjective excitement as a function of the expected payoff and of winning as opposed to losing the wager. The study was replicated with 200 female college student gamblers with similar results. These findings support the notion that the excitement of gambling is tied to the expectancy of winning money. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electromagnetism as a means for understanding materials mechanics phenomena in magnetic materials

Electromagnetic properties are an interesting means for monitoring a variety of materials' mechanical properties in ferro‐ and paramagnetic materials non‐destructively. Those properties include uni‐ und multi‐axial stress states as well as plasticity and fatigue damage and can be measured at macro‐ as well as at microscopic scales, depending on what measurement equipment will be used. The article describes the general electromagnetic phenomena to be considered as well as the equipment to be used before presenting a variety of different experimental results from which the materials mechanical properties mentioned above can be directly derived being an ideal means for monitoring the health of any magnetic metallic structure.     

Single state elastoplastic friction models

For control applications involving small displacements and velocities, friction modeling and compensation can be very important. In particular, the modeling of presliding displacement (motion prior to fully developed slip) can play a pivotal role. In this paper, it is shown that existing single-state friction models exhibit a nonphysical drift phenomenon which results from modeling presliding as a combination of elastic and plastic displacement. A new class of single state models is defined in which presliding is elastoplastic: under loading, frictional displacement is first purely elastic and then transitions to plastic. The new model class is demonstrated to substantially reduce drift while preserving the favorable properties of existing models (e.g., dissipativity) and to provide a comparable match to experimental data