Hemostatic capability of rapidly curable glues from gelatin, poly(L-glutamic acid), and carbodiimide

The hemostatic capability of rapidly curable glues composed of gelatin and poly(L-glutamic acid) (PLGA) was compared with that of the conventional fibrin glue. The hydrogels produced from mixed gelatin and PLGA aqueous solution within several seconds by addition of water-soluble carbodiimide (WSC) was applied to the dog spleen injured by needle pricking. The WSC-catalyzed gelatin-PLGA glues exhibited higher hemostatic capability than the fibrin glue. The total amount of bleeding from the injured spleen until hemostasis when the gelatin-PLGA hydrogel glues were applied was significantly smaller than that of the fibrin glue application. The gelatin-PLGA glue application enhanced the success rate of complete hemostasis to a significantly greater extent than the fibrin glue, while the frequency of glue applications until achieving complete hemostasis decreased. The gelatin PLGA hydrogels strongly adhered to the surface of dog spleen, whereas the fibrin hydrogel was easily detached from the spleen surface. It was concluded that this strong adhesion mechanically suppressed the bleeding, leading to enhanced hemostasis by the rapidly curable gelatin-PLGA glues.     

A rapidly enlarging neck mass

We presented an unusual case of cutaneous and bilateral ovarian metastases of malignant melanoma. There was no previously identifiable cutaneous or mucous lesion or teratoid element. Past history revealed that the patient had undergone removal of a blackish, elevated, irregular shaped tumor from the right arm eleven years previously. This lesion was considered to be the primary melanoma; therefore, it was thought to be very unusual as metastasis occurred in both the skin and ovaries after an eleven year disease-free interval.     

Stress test in the elderly. Clinical, hemodynamic, metabolic and electrocardiographic variables]

Pentylenetetrazol is a convulsive drug acting on gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABA[A]) gated-chloride receptors. In this study we used a subconvulsive dose (30 mg/kg) of pentylenetetrazol to induce a fully kindled state in rats. Glutamate receptors were evaluated using [3H]-[1(2-thienylcyclohexyl)]-piperidin (TCP) and [3H]kainate receptor autoradiography and [3H]muscimol autoradiography was used to study GABA(A) receptors. In fully kindled rats decreased N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor binding was found in parietal cortex, area CA2 of hippocampus and piriform cortex. Decreased kainate receptor binding was observed in all areas of the hippocampus, the medial amygdala and in the piriform cortex in the kindled rats. In contrast, GABA(A) receptor binding increased in the dentate gyrus. It is concluded that modulatory neuronal plasticity events are induced in fully pentylenetetrazol kindled rats, which appears to lead to decreased glutamatergic excitation and increased GABAergic inhibition in brain regions implicated in the development of seizure activity.     

Give me a disaster.

This article presents the experiences of a psychologist working with the Red Cross Mental Health Disaster Team after the Xenia, Ohio tornado of September 30, 2000. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A school-based emergency crisis intervention in a mass school disaster.

This article is a report detailing a coordinated crisis intervention undertaken in response to a disastrous collision of a railway train with a school bus. The target groups consisted of school-children, parents, and school staff. The effects of this mass disaster and the scope of the large-scale emergency intervention implemented in its wake are described. Emphasized are the role and importance of coordinated intervention in a mass emergency as a critical variable in (a) applying basic crisis intervention principles, (b) supervising intervention activities, and (c) implementing psychoeducational and short-term therapeutic procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A rapidly progressive case of interstitial pneumonia

We treated a 51-year-old woman who had rapidly progressive respiratory distress with an interstitial shadow on chest roentgenogram. Pathologically, open lung biopsy specimens showed an acutely changed lesion such as interstitial inflammatory thickening, polypoid intraluminal organizing exudates, and also honeycombing which was not recognized on chest computed tomogram. These findings were considered unconformable to acute interstitial pneumonia (AIP), bronchiolitis obliterans organizing pneumonia (BOOP), and also usual interstitial pneumonia, although the clinical diagnosis was AIP or BOOP. We diagnosed a rapidly progressive interstitial pneumonia showing an acute lung injury pattern like AIP and BOOP. She showed significant recovery with corticosteroid and cyclophosphamide.     

A meaningful role for graduate students in disaster mental health services.

Describes the role of graduate students in providing disaster mental health services through a program with the American Red Cross (ARC). ARC Disaster Mental Health Services teams focus on the immediate emotional needs and possible posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) associated with the shock of a natural disaster, including the needs and reactions of both victims and volunteers, especially the latter. The implementation of volunteer stress teams by the Minnesota School of Professional Psychology, including 25 students and faculty, is also described. The teams were designed to help assess and limit the effects of acute and traumatic stress resulting from disaster flooding. Specific objectives included assisting local mental health and social service agencies, distributing information, providing support, and triaging victims needing professional mental health services and other flood recovery services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trauma and disaster as life disrupters: A model of computer-assisted psychotherapy applied to adolescent victims of the Chernobyl disaster.

This article reports on a computer-based, psychologist-assisted technology for addressing posttraumatic responses in Chernobyl-disaster-affected children. Mental health professionals who worked with this population reveal substantially distorted thoughts and feelings about the children's past, present, and future more than others of their age. Chernobyl-affected and evacuated children are aware that they can never return to their homes, illnesses may befall them in childhood, their parents may die sooner than normal, and that their environment is poisoned. The LifeLine psychotherapeutic software program (available from A. Kronik), which is based on the goal-and-causal theory of psychological time is described and suggestions are given for further school-based intervention and prevention services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thinking backward: Some curable and incurable consequences of cognitive busyness.

Social interaction imposes a variety of attentional demands on those who attempt it. Such cognitively busy persons often fail to use contextual information to correct the impressions they form of others. The 4 experiments reported here examined the corrigibility of this effect. Although formerly busy perceivers were able to correct their mistaken impressions retroactively (Experiment 1), such retroactive correction was not inevitable (Experiment 2). In addition, when perceivers were able to correct their original impressions retroactively, they were still unable to correct subsequent inferences that had been biased by those original impressions (Experiments 3 and 4). As such, perceivers were occasionally able to overcome the primary, but not the subsidiary, effects of cognitive busyness. The results are discussed in terms of the metastasis of false knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological functioning following an acute disaster.

We investigated personal and organizational functioning following an acute disaster in an explosives factory in which 14 people were killed and 14 others were injured. Multivariate analyses of covariance (controlling for age and organizational tenure) assessed whether there were any differences between the experimental group (40 individuals physically exposed to the explosion) and two control groups (one from the same site performing a different job, the second from a separate site performing the same job; n?=?76 and n?=?40, respectively). During the 2nd week following the blast and 2 months afterward, there were no between-group differences in terms of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, marital satisfaction, or psychological distress. Failure to find any differences was attributed to the acute (as opposed to chronic) nature of the disaster. At both time periods, family support was correlated with personal functioning, whereas supervisory support was associated with job satisfaction; this is discussed in terms of the source of the stressor being consistent with the source of the support and the nature of the outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some reactions to a hypothetical disaster.

Individual response to a disaster situation is investigated by requiring subjects to describe what action they would take if faced with an impending bombing plane poison gas raid. For 34 Ss the disaster situation involved threat of death, for 33 Ss, only a mild, temporary incapacitation. Three patterns of action appear, evacuation, active defense, and encapsulation, with some probability that the tendency to take the safest path varies with the degree of threat. The willingness to assist others varies inversely as the degree of threat, while the saving of objects is more fundamentally associated with the mode of escape the individual takes than with the degree of threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Participation in A[merican] P[sychological] A[ssociation] voting.

"Our study is limited to the ballots distributed in the Spring of 1954: the presidential nomination ballot, the presidential election ballot, and a ballot proposing changes in the bylaws… . While a somewhat higher percentage of the Fellows vote than do Associates, nevertheless the Associates are so much more numerous that the great majority of the votes in each election came from this membership class." Approximately half of the respondents on each poll consisted of persons who had no divisional affiliation. Four tables are presented, one indicating the percentage of members of each division returning ballots and another indicating the percentage of voters belonging to each division. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A school community in disaster: Primary and secondary prevention in situational crisis.

Provides a preliminary model for preventive local school psychological service (SPS) intervention in an extreme emergency. Following a terrorist attack on an Israeli town's neighborhood, the local SPS reorganized its staff to make its service available to the neighborhood schools, using the primary prevention and the secondary prevention models. The implementation of these models' principles is demonstrated, basic emergency issues facing the mental-health agent are delineated, and selection of specific techniques under explicit stress conditions is described. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional capture with rapidly changing attentional control settings.

The classic theory of spatial attention hypothesized 2 modes, voluntary and involuntary. Folk, Remington, and Johnston (1992) reported that even involuntary attention capture by stimuli requires a match between stimulus properties and what the observer is looking for. This surprising conclusion has been confirmed by many subsequent studies. In these studies, however, the observer typically looks for the same property throughout an entire session. Real-world behavior, in contrast, often requires frequent shifts in attentional set. The present study examined whether such shifts weaken attentional settings, allowing task-irrelevant objects to capture attention. Surprisingly, fluctuating control settings did not increase vulnerability to capture by salient stimuli (color singletons and abrupt onsets). We conclude that the attention control system is remarkably flexible, able to rapidly and fully adopt new settings and abandon old settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)