Traumatic Stress, Perceived Global Stress, and Life Events: Prospectively Predicting Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Patients.

The authors investigated the relationship between stress at initial cancer diagnosis and treatment and subsequent quality of life (QoL). Women (n = 112) randomized to the assessment-only arm of a clinical trial were initially assessed after breast cancer diagnosis and surgery and then reassessed at 4 months (during adjuvant treatment) and 12 months (postadjuvant treatment). There were 3 types of stress measured: number of stressful life events (K. A. Matthews et al., 1997), cancer-related traumatic stress symptoms (M. J. Horowitz, N. Wilner, & W. Alvarez, 1979), and perceived global stress (S. Cohen, T. Kamarck, & R. Mermelstein, 1983). Using hierarchical multiple regressions, the authors found that stress predicted both psychological and physical QoL (J. E. Ware, K. K. Snow, & M. Kosinski, 2000) at the follow-ups (all ps     

Complementary Tasks to Measure Working Memory in Distinct Prefrontal Cortex Subregions in Rats.

Acquisition of odor-guided or visually-guided delayed win-shift behavior was evaluated in rats after lidocaine-induced inactivation within the agranular insular area of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) or the prelimbic area of the PFC. Additional sites and tasks were used to control for neuroanatomical and behavioral specificity of lidocaine inactivation of the agranular insular and prelimbic areas. Results showed that acquisition of the odor-guided delayed win-shift task was dependent on the agranular insular area, whereas acquisition of the visually-guided version was dependent on the prelimbic area. This dissociation suggests that the stimulus modality used is critical for revealing working memory functions of different PFC subregions. The described methods provide a complementary means to study working memory in PFC subregions using a radial-arm maze. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interparental Conflict and Adolescent Dating Relationships: Integrating Cognitive, Emotional, and Peer Influences.

This study investigated the ways in which exposure to interparental conflict may affect adolescent dating relationships in a sample of 391 adolescents ages 14 to 18 years. Boys exposed to greater parental discord were more likely to view aggression as justifiable in a romantic relationship, had more difficulty managing anger, and believed that aggressive behavior was more common in their peers' dating relationships. Each of these variables in turn linked witnessing interparental conflict to higher levels of verbal and physical aggression toward their own romantic partners. Interparental conflict was not related to girls' aggressive behavior. These data support the value of targeting cognitive and emotional processes in prevention programs designed to reduce dating violence and suggest that such programs will be strengthened by focusing on peer influences as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Exploratory Examination of Student Attitudes Toward "Impaired" Peers in Clinical Psychology Training Programs.

Do psychology students view their training programs as doing enough to appropriately identify, accommodate, and possibly dismiss students who manifest significant impairment? This study reports the general findings of an exploratory survey distributed to clinical psychology graduate students. Overall, students viewed impairment as a highly sensitive and inadequately addressed issue. Students commonly reported frustration with and concern for impaired colleagues. A few respondents indicated that the terms impaired and problem student were insensitive and that greater attention needed to be given to "impaired" training contexts. Implications regarding formal standards for interpersonal functioning and programmatic supports for students are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Large-Scale Live Active Learning: Training Object Detectors with Crawled Data and Crowds

Active learning and crowdsourcing are promising ways to efficiently build up training sets for object recognition, but thus far techniques are tested in artificially controlled settings. Typically the vision researcher has already determined the dataset’s scope, the labels “actively” obtained are in fact already known, and/or the crowd-sourced collection process is iteratively fine-tuned. We present an approach for live learning of object detectors, in which the system autonomously refines its models by actively requesting crowd-sourced annotations on images crawled from the Web. To address the technical issues such a large-scale system entails, we introduce a novel part-based detector amenable to linear classifiers, and show how to identify its most uncertain instances in sub-linear time with a hashing-based solution. We demonstrate the approach with experiments of unprecedented scale and autonomy, and show it successfully improves the state-of-the-art for the most challenging objects in the PASCAL VOC benchmark. In addition, we show our detector competes well with popular nonlinear classifiers that are much more expensive to train.     

Zur Stereochemie von N,N′-Bis-[3-(o-ethoxyphenoxy)-2-hydroxy-propyl]-ethylendiamin

Stereochemistry of N,N′-Bis-[3-(o-ethoxyphenoxy)-2-hydroxy-propyl]-ethylendiamine N,N′-Bis-[3-(o-ethoxyphenoxy)-2-hydroxy-propyl]-ethylene diamine ( 5 ), synthesized from racemic 1,2-anhydro-3-O-(o-ethoxyphenyl)-glycerol ( 1 ) and ethylene diamine ( 2 ) or N,N′-dibenzyl ethylene diamine ( 3 ) crystallized in two fractions with different melting points. Both of these analytically pure products gave identical two spot tl-chromatograms on achiral phases. Attempts were made to resolve the mixtures which proved to consist of configurative but not constitutive isomers. Optically pure products were synthesized from chiral precursors.     

The Deliberative Politics of the Consultative Layer: Participation Hopes and Communication as Design Values of Civic Tech Founders

Drawing from communication as design and the spirit of technology, this study investigated the political values embedded in consultative layer companies, with particular attention to the influence of normative deliberative democratic ideals in tech design. Interviews with the founders of consultative layer tech startups explored (a) founders' visions for their technologies and how they were incorporated, (b) the imagined user groups for these technologies, and (c) expected broader outcomes as a result of using their platforms. Six interrelated themes emerged in the analysis that illuminate ideologies, ideals, and pragmatic considerations embedded in the consultative layer, raising new theoretical and practical questions about the role of communication in understanding this emerging industry and its reimagining of government in the online space.     

Electrospinning formaldehyde‐crosslinked zein solutions

In order to develop zein fibers with improved physical properties and solvent resistance, formaldehyde was used as a crosslinking reagent before spinning. The crosslinking reaction was carried out in either acetic acid or ethanolic HCl where the amount of crosslinking reagent was between 1 and 6%. Reactions were carried out at various times and temperatures. When carried out in acetic acid, the maximum amount of formaldehyde that could be used was 1.5% as gelation occurred at higher levels. In ethanolic HCl, 6% formaldehyde could be incorporated into zein. All solutions were successfully electrospun, producing predominantly ribbon and round fibers; the morphology was strongly dependent on solvent and spinning solids. The formaldehyde‐crosslinked zein fabrics had double the tensile strength of control fabrics. SDS‐PAGE analysis clearly showed crosslinking had occurred. Electrospun fabrics from all formaldehyde‐treated zein solutions required an additional heating step in order to be resistant to dissolution in acetic acid, a known very good solvent for zein. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry