Terminally ill patients and volunteer support: Is it the right intervention?

Comments on the article by K. T. Herbst-Damm and J. A. Kulik (see record 2005-02260-012) entitled Volunteer support, marital status, and the survival times of terminally ill patients. Can a simple and low-cost intervention, such as a visit by a volunteer, extend the life of terminally ill patients? The answer, according to a study by Herbst-Damm and Kulik (2005), is yes. When it comes to quality of life, however, the effects of volunteer visits remain murky. Thus, it is critical that we look beyond effects on longevity and assess how such a program would influence quality of life. Extending the life of terminally ill patients might not always a blessing. Prolonging their life might even cause harm, as it can extend unwanted physical and mental suffering. It may also go against some patients' desire to hasten their death. Despite Herbst-Damm and Kulik's important findings, the current author remains unconvinced as to the merits of implementing volunteer visits as an intervention policy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young low responders protected from untoward effects of reduced ovarian response

OBJECTIVE(S): To correlate fertilization and clinical pregnancy rates (PRs) in low responders with their E2 levels (<500, 500-800, >800-1,000 pg/mL), age (20-30, 31-40, >40 years), number of follicles, and number of oocytes retrieved. DESIGN: A retrospective study. SETTING: The IVF unit of an academic hospital. PATIENT(S): One hundred forty-three women who failed to attain E2 levels of 1,000 pg/mL on the day of hCG administration. INTERVENTION(S): Controlled ovarian hyperstimulation, blood E2 and progesterone measurements, ultrasonographic scanning of ovarian follicles, oocyte retrieval after hCG administration, and ET. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Clinical PR. RESULT(S): Although E2 levels, fertilization rates, age, and number of oocytes did not differ significantly between the three age groups, the PR achieved in the youngest group was approximately three times as high (19.3%) as that achieved in the two older groups. CONCLUSION: Young low responders represent a unique subset in that their age protects them from the deleterious effects of poor ovarian response.     

Exploring the conformational space of cyclic peptides by a stochastic search method

A stochastic search algorithm is applied in order to probe the conformations of cyclic peptides. The search is conducted in two stages. In the first stage, random conformations are generated and evaluated by a penalty function for ring closure ability, following a stepwise construction of each amino acid into the peptide by a random choice of one of its allowed conformations. The allowed conformational ranges of backbone dihedral angles for each amino acid have been extracted from a Data Bank of diverse proteins. Values of dihedral angles that do not contribute favorably to the scoring of ring closure are retained or discarded by a statistical test. Values are discarded up to a point from which all remaining combinations of angles are constructed, scored, sorted, and clustered. In the second stage, side chains have been added and fast optimization was applied to the set of diverse conformations in a "united atoms" approach, with the "Kollman forcefield" of Sybyl 6.8. This iterative stochastic elimination algorithm finds the global minimum and most of the best results, when compared to a full exhaustive search in appropriately sized problems. In larger problems, we compare the results to experimental structures. The root mean square deviation (RMSD) of our best results compared to crystal structures of cyclic peptides with sizes from 4 to 15 amino acids are mostly below 1.0 A up to 8 mers and under 2.0 A for larger cyclic peptides.     

Factor analysis of the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale—Form A.

Factor analysis of the attitudes of 133 rehabilitation and agency practitioners and trainees yielded four major factors: Coping-Succumbing, Emotional Need-Emotional Satisfaction, Sensitivity-Self-Consciousness, and Inferred Morality. The findings of this study are compared and contrasted with findings using similar instruments with different populations so as to explore psychometric issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The roles of group supervision of supervision.

This article recommends that group supervision of supervision be an integral part of the curriculum of any senior professional who is involved in regular supervision of trainees. Work in the group setting enables use of group dynamics to understand therapeutic events as well as processes of mirroring and identification in the supervision. The supervisory group may promote feelings of security and containment in the supervisors while attenuating and minimizing their potential feelings of vulnerability and validating their perceptions of reality. At the same time, such a group gives rise to difficulties (owing to issues of trust and confidentiality) both inside and outside the group (e.g., among trainees who develop fantasies about the proceedings of the group). Some general resolution of such problems is presented here. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Israeli psychotherapists' reactions and perceptions on the process of psychotherapy during the Gulf War.

64 26–56 yr old psychotherapists (38 still in training), who practiced in areas that were either directly or indirectly threatened by missile attack during the Persian Gulf War, completed a questionnaire addressing well-being as affected by the war, the similarity between the patient's and the therapist's experience of the war, and how psychotherapists perceived the overall functioning of their patients and the extent that their internal conflicts were affected by the war. Therapists more directly threatened by the war reported having a greater positive mood than did Ss more indirectly threatened. Experienced psychotherapists addressed the war to a greater degree during the therapeutic hour; inexperienced Ss reported a greater change in their therapeutic stance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cell Identification Codes for Tracking Mobile Users

The minimization of the wireless cost of tracking mobile users is a crucial issue in wireless networks. Some of the previous strategies addressing this issue leave an open gap, by requiring the use of information that is not generally available to the user (for example, the distance traveled by the user). For this reason, both the implementation of some of these strategies and the performance comparison to existing strategies is not clear. In this work we propose to close this gap by the use of Cell Identification Codes (CIC) for tracking mobile users. Each cell periodically broadcasts a short message which identifies the cell and its orientation relatively to other cells in the network. This information is used by the users to efficiently update their location. We propose several cell identification encoding schemes, which are used to implement different tracking strategies, and analyze the amount of information required by each tracking strategy. One of our major results is that there is no need to transmit a code which is unique for each cell. For example, a 3 bits CIC is sufficient to implement a distance-based tracking strategy in a two-dimensional system. In addition, we propose a combination of timer and movement tracking strategy, based on either a one-bit or a two-bit CIC, depending on system topology and user mobility. An important property of our framework is that the overall performance cost, and hence its comparison to existing methods, is evaluated for each tracking strategy. The CIC-based strategies are shown to outperform the geographic-based method currently used in existing networks, and the timer-based method, over a wide range of parameters. Moreover, this superiority increases as the number of users per cell increases.     

Consecutive sliding window systems

This paper proposes a new model that generalizes the linear multi-state sliding window system to the case of m consecutive overlapping windows. In this model the system consists of n linearly ordered multi-state elements. Each element can have different states: from complete failure up to perfect functioning. A performance rate is associated with each state. The system fails if in each of at least m consecutive overlapping groups of r consecutive elements (windows) the sum of the performance rates of elements belonging to the group is lower than a minimum allowable level. An algorithm for system reliability evaluation is suggested which is based on an extended universal moment generating function. Examples of evaluating system reliability and elements' reliability importance indices are presented.     

Thermal energy storage in columns packed with crosslinked polyethylene tubes

An energy storage system based on solid-solid phase transition of crosslinked polyethylene was constructed and tested. The energy storage unit consisted of a column packed with crosslinked polyethylene tubes. The solid-solid phase transition enables heat transfer by direct contact between the form-stable polymer and the hot (cold) fluid. A theoretical model for the simulation of this system was developed. The heating-cooling characteristics of the energy storage system were simulated by the model, using measured thermodynamic properties of the crosslinked polyethylene. The potential of various crosslinked polyethylene materials for energy storage applications will depend on sufficient high-temperature stability.