"On the question of professional standards for computer-based test interpretation": Response to Kramer on Matarazzo.

Responds to the comments by J. J. Kramer (see record 1990-58925-001) on the current author's original article (see record 1986-19878-001), in which Matarazzo contends that computerized clinical psychological test interpretations offer considerable potential for improving the work of health service providers. However, cost additions associated with this technology have increased the probabilities that legislative, judicial, and administrative restrictions and sanctions will be imposed. Here, Matarazzo notes that he finds nothing in Kramer's comments that is inconsistent with the opinions that Matarazzo himself offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some national developments in the utilization of nontraditional mental health manpower.

Discusses the recruitment of nonprofessional personnel to help provide sufficient manpower to serve the mentally ill and emotionally disturbed. A review of national developments during the past 2 decades reveals that without national or other coordinated leadership the critical needs of the mentally ill consumer at the local level coalesced with striking changes in (a) the mental health delivery system (the concept of the therapeutic community), and (b) sociopolitical areas (community colleges, career ladder, and related new frontier and great society programs) to produce these new types of mental health manpower. The recent influx of national institute of mental health monies to support these training programs for nontraditional mental health workers will further accelerate these developments. (36 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Salaries and satisfactions of medical school psychologists.

Used data from a 1977 survey to investigate the relationship of salary to professional activities and to vocational satisfactions of 642 medical school psychologists. Results show the following: (1) current and potential salaries correlated with items involving seniority and rank, and with beliefs of appropriate skill utilization and advantages accruing in the setting. (2) Salaries are negatively related to time spent in diagnostic and therapeutic work. (3) Only salary expectations are significantly related to personal satisfactions and comparative occupational freedoms. (4) Vocational interests and career commitments are not closely tied to salaries. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scalable Structural Modal Identification Using Dynamic Sensor Network Data with STRIDEX

This article uses the formulation of the structural identification using expectation maximization (STRIDE) algorithm for compatibility with the truncated physical model (TPM) to enable scalable, output‐only modal identification using dynamic sensor network (DSN) data. The DSN data class is an adaptable and efficient technique for storing measurements from a very large number of sensing nodes, which is the case in mobile sensor networks and BIGDATA problems. In this article, the STRIDEX output‐only identification algorithm is proposed for the stochastic TPM to estimate structural modal properties (frequencies, damping ratios, and mode shapes) directly from DSN data. The spatial information produced by this novel algorithm, called STRIDEX (“X” for extended), is scalable, as demonstrated in a strategy to construct high‐resolution mode shapes from a single DSN data set using a series of independent identification runs. The ability to extract detailed structural system information from DSN data in a computationally scalable framework is a step toward mobile infrastructure informatics in a large urban setting. The performance of the STRIDEX algorithm is demonstrated, using the simulated response of a 5,000 DOF structure, and experimentally, using measurements from two mobile sensor cars, which scanned about 8,000 points on a beam specimen in the laboratory. In the experimental results, a mobile sensor is shown to provide over 120 times more mode shape points than a fixed sensor.     

Early hormonal and surgical treatment of cryptorchidism

PURPOSE: We investigated the efficacy of early gonadotropin treatment of cryptorchidism for promoting testicular descent and ameliorating testicular histology. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We treated 319 cryptorchid testes in 281 boys 4 months to 3 years old with luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and human chorionic gonadotropin sequential therapy. Surgery was done on the 207 testes that did not respond to medical treatment. Microscopic biopsies were performed in 134 of these 207 testes. Histological findings were compared to those of 30 cryptorchid testes in boys younger than 1 year who underwent surgery without previous hormonal treatment. RESULTS: Combined luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and human chorionic gonadotropin treatment induced scrotal descent of a percentage of cryptorchid testes depending on clinical position. Therapeutic success was greater when testes were in a lower position and results were not age dependent. Hormonal treatment of cryptorchidism during the first year of life stimulated spermatogonia maturation. CONCLUSIONS: When administered at the end of age 6 months, hormonal treatment can be considered an effective and timely substitution for gonadotropin and testosterone insufficiency in cryptorchid infants. Therefore, we recommend this therapeutic procedure combined with surgery in the first year of life.     

William A. Hunt (1903–1986).

William A. Hunt was one of our country's early scientist-clinicians. He began his career with study of a psychology that was a meld of Titchener's structuralism and Harvard's functionalism and completed it 50 years later in the field of health psychology. Hunt spent all but a few of those 50 years as a full-time teacher, at schools that included Dartmouth College, Connecticut College for Women, and Northwestern University. While doing his dissertation, he had mastered and used the structuralist's experimental method of introspection, applying it to the study of human emotion, specifically the James-Lange theory. In 1941, Hunt entered the Navy. He discerned that the screening for military duty of some 15 million women and men required an approach suited to the rapid, albeit individual, screening of large numbers of such personnel. His teaming up with a psychiatrist, Cecil Wittson, led to their joint development of a screening interview lasting one to two minutes that, with continued refinement, proved remarkably effective. Their goals as the mental health specialists participating in the medical examination conducted at this intake station were twofold: (a) to improve the efficiency of the Navy by removing those neuropsychiatric high-risk recruits who were potential psychiatric casualties if they continued in the Navy and (b) by such removal, to save these recruits the disastrous personal experience of subsequent breakdown during military duty. In his own still active research in the 1960s and 1970s Hunt continued to apply the same methods he earlier had used (in his Navy research) to the judgmental processes clinical psychologists used to identify psychological test responses that were pathognomonic of schizophrenia, mental retardation, and related forms of psychopathology. Hunt remained, until his death at age 82, an active scientist-clinician. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serum alpha-L-fucosidase activity and early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma: a prospective study of patients with cirrhosis

BACKGROUND: Serum alpha-L-fucosidase activity is considered a marker of hepatocellular carcinoma. To the authors' knowledge, its clinical usefulness in the early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma in the follow-up of cirrhotic patients has not been reported previously. METHODS: The authors prospectively studied serum alpha-L-fucosidase activity, in addition to alpha-fetoprotein and ultrasonography, in a regular screening of 132 cirrhotic patients during an 8-year follow-up. RESULTS: At enrollment, 120 patients had low alpha-L-fucosidase activity (below the cutoff value) and 12 had high activity. All patients had serum alpha-fetoprotein levels below the cutoff value. During the follow-up, hepatocellular carcinoma was detected in 19 patients, 16 with alpha-L-fucosidase activity below the cutoff value at enrollment and 3 with activity above it. In 7 of those 16 patients with carcinoma and low enzyme activity, the enzyme activity showed a significant increase 6-9 months before there was ultrasonographic evidence of a focal lesion, and by the time of diagnosis it had risen above the cutoff value in all of them; in only 3 of the 7 patients was the increase in alpha-L-fucosidase activity associated with an increase in alpha-fetoprotein. In another 4 of the 19 patients with carcinoma, only alpha-fetoprotein increased. CONCLUSIONS: Serum alpha-L-fucosidase activity is useful in the early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma. The data from this study suggest that cirrhotic patients who have a marked increase in serum alpha-L-fucosidase levels during follow-up should be closely monitored for signs of hepatocellular carcinoma development.     

Accreditation of psychology's graduate professional education and training programs: An historical perspective.

For over 46 years, the American Psychological Association (APA) has sponsored an accreditation system for professional doctoral and internship programs. Throughout its history, national conferences in psychology have consistently supported this accreditation system, at times with reservations. Recently, both academic and professional groups of psychologists have sought a stronger role in this process. The factors leading to APA's accreditation system, its evolution, and the recent major changes enacted in response to the discipline's interests are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological test usage patterns in five professional settings.

Compared psychological test usage in 5 settings surveyed in 1982 by the 1st 3 authors (see record 1985-05592-001) to establish a more useful basis for subsequent comparisons than that which is available in their composite. The 1982 questionnaire containing the 30 most frequently used tests in the 1969 survey (the 1st author et al, 1971) was sent to groups of psychologists in 5 settings: psychiatric hospitals, community mental health centers and community clinics, centers for the developmentally disabled and mentally retarded, counseling centers, and Veteran's Administration medical centers. Data on the frequency of use of each of the 30 psychological tests for the 5-sample composite and for each of the 5 samples are presented. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Postdoctoral education and training for clinical service providers in health psychology.

Reviews issues behind the 1983 National Working Conference on Education and Training in Health Psychology recommendation that 2 yrs of postdoctoral education and training be mandated for future licensed health psychologists. Existing pre- and postdoctoral programs are discussed in terms of academic emphasis, and a model for education, including desired competencies, residency setting and faculty, and funding issues, is presented. Implications of the growth of health psychology and the need to expand the period of clinical training to meet advances in the field are examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)