Self-determination and conflict in romantic relationships.

Four studies examined associations between E. L. Deci and R. M. Ryan's (1985, 2000) construct of autonomy, responses to relationship disagreements, and dissatisfaction after conflict. In Study 1, diary data showed that trait autonomy predicted relationship autonomy, which in turn predicted relative satisfaction after disagreements. In Study 2, trait autonomy predicted relationship autonomy, which was associated with less defensive and more understanding responses to conflict. Studies 3 and 4 examined whether one's partner's relationship autonomy uniquely predicted reported and observed behavior during conflict. Autonomous reasons for being in the relationship (of both self and partner) predicted both reported and observed responses to conflict and feelings of satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Twelve-Week Outcomes From an Investigation of High-Dose Nicotine Patch Therapy for Heavy Smokers With a Past History of Alcohol Dependence.

This study reports findings from an investigation of the efficacy of high-dose nicotine patch (NP) therapy for heavy smokers with a past history of alcohol dependence. One hundred thirty participants were randomly assigned to 42 mg or 21 mg of transdermal nicotine for 4 weeks, followed by an 8-week dose titration. Follow-up assessments were conducted at 4 and 12 weeks. Differences between dose conditions were nonsignificant, although unexpectedly, outcomes favored participants in the 21-mg NP condition. Nicotine abstinence at follow-up was related to longer length of alcohol abstinence at time of enrollment. Future research should investigate ways to improve smoking quit rates in this population, including more frequent counseling sessions and/or other pharmacotherapies. These investigations should focus primarily on smokers in early alcohol recovery. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal Regulation of Infant Reactivity From 2 to 6 Months.

Previous research has investigated the effect of maternal soothing behaviors on reducing infant reactivity but not the differential effects of specific maternal behaviors on infant stress responses. The present study investigated maternal regulation of 2- and 6-month-olds' responses to an inoculation and found a significant decline with age in both the intensity and duration of infants' crying. Maternal affection and touching decreased from 2 to 6 months, whereas maternal vocalizing and distraction behaviors increased. At both ages, the combination of maternal holding/rocking and vocalizing was associated with decreases in all levels of infant reactivity. Neither strategy alone, however, was found to be effective. Feeding/ pacifying behaviors were effective only when initial distress was at a low or moderate level, which suggests that the effectiveness of maternal regulatory behaviors may depend on the intensity of infants' crying. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conducting Psychological Research in Medical Settings: Challenges, Limitations, and Recommendations for Effectiveness Research.

Efficacy research is insufficient and ineffective in changing practice, despite a large supporting psychotherapy efficacy literature. Concurrently, demand for supporting data and the burden on everyday practice for generating these data is increasing. The disconnect between efficacy and effectiveness is due to a lack of conceptual and methodological tools for testing efficacious procedures in real-world settings, particularly medical contexts. This article articulates the position that effectiveness studies pose more complex questions that require an alteration of conceptual and methodological frames of reference in order to make behavioral services available to the broadest patient base. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knockdown of the Halloween Genes spook,shadow and shade Influences Oocyte Development,Egg Shape,Oviposition and Hatching in the Desert Locust

Ecdysteroids are widely investigated for their role during the molting cascade in insects; however, they are also involved in the development of the female reproductive system. Ecdysteroids are synthesized from cholesterol, which is further converted via a series of enzymatic steps into the main molting hormone, 20-hydoxyecdysone. Most of these biosynthetic conversion steps involve the activity of cytochrome P450 (CYP) hydroxylases, which are encoded by the Halloween genes. Three of these genes, spook (spo), phantom (phm) and shade (shd), were previously characterized in the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria. Based on recent sequencing data, we have now identified the sequences of disembodied (dib) and shadow (sad), for which we also analyzed spatiotemporal expression profiles using qRT-PCR. Furthermore, we investigated the possible role(s) of five different Halloween genes in the oogenesis process by means of RNA interference mediated knockdown experiments. Our results showed that depleting the expression of SchgrSpo, SchgrSad and SchgrShd had a significant impact on oocyte development, oviposition and hatching of the eggs. Moreover, the shape of the growing oocytes, as well as the deposited eggs, was very drastically altered by the experimental treatments. Consequently, it can be proposed that these three enzymes play an important role in oogenesis.     

Chemical analysis and significance of heterocyclic aromatic amines

 Levels of known heterocyclic amines vary from undetectable in many meats sold in fast food restaurants, to over 10 ng/g for meats prepared in restaurants that cook food to order, to hundreds of nanograms per gram for some meats cooked under certain home or laboratory conditions. To simulate the dry reactions that seem to occur at the meat surface we developed a model system to mimic these processes. Mixtures of free amino acids, creatinine and glucose, simulating the composition of beef or chicken, heated at 200  °C, form eight heterocyclic amines. Besides the commonly found 2-amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline, 2-amino-3-methylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline, 2-amino-3,4-dimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoline, 2-amino-3,4,8-trimethylimidazo[4,5-f]quinoxaline and 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine, 2-amino-1,6-dimethylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine, 2-amino-1,5,6-trimethylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine and 2-amino-1,6-dimethylfuro[3,2-e]imidazo[4,5-b]pyridine were also found. The calculated risk of consumption of heterocyclic amines is determined by the dietary dose, the extrapolation of carcinogenic potencies from rodents to humans, and the extrapolation of high rodent doses to low human exposures. Results suggest that DNA binding is linear with dose, but that the human DNA forms more adducts per unit dose than that of the rat. Altogether, the risk appears to be equivalent to that for many carcinogens that are regulated. Received: 23 April 1998     

Past is prologue: Teachers composing narratives about digital literacy

This study examines the technological literacy autobiographical narratives (TLANs) written by 23 graduate students enrolled in a teacher-preparation course, Teaching Writing in a Digital Age. The purpose of this research was to understand the meanings and values these future composition teachers ascribed to technological literacy in their own past histories, as well as potential sources of reluctance or resistance to engage technological literacy in the teaching of composition. Findings from these TLANs suggest that participants’ past experiences with technology in school were often less compelling than extracurricular motives for using technology, such as social contact, playful experimentation, and the pursuit of existing interests. The article also explores the TLAN as a pedagogical activity and its potential for helping future instructors realign their orientations toward digital literacies.     

Growing a list

It is easy to find expert knowledge on the Internet on almost any topic, but obtaining a complete overview of a given topic is not always easy: information can be scattered across many sources and must be aggregated to be useful. We introduce a method for intelligently growing a list of relevant items, starting from a small seed of examples. Our algorithm takes advantage of the wisdom of the crowd, in the sense that there are many experts who post lists of things on the Internet. We use a collection of simple machine learning components to find these experts and aggregate their lists to produce a single complete and meaningful list. We use experiments with gold standards and open-ended experiments without gold standards to show that our method significantly outperforms the state of the art. Our method uses the ranking algorithm Bayesian Sets even when its underlying independence assumption is violated, and we provide a theoretical generalization bound to motivate its use.