Client attachment to therapist: Relation to client personality and symptomatology, and their contributions to the therapeutic alliance.

This study examined the relation of client attachment to the therapist to diverse facets of the therapeutic alliance, client personality, and psychopathological symptoms, as well as the relative importance of therapeutic attachments, personality, and symptomatology in predicting the alliance. Eighty clients in ongoing therapy completed measures of client attachment to therapist (CATS), personality (6FPQ), psychopathological symptoms (BSI), and therapeutic alliance (WAI–Short, CALPAS, HAQ). Secure and Avoidant–Fearful attachment to the therapist correlated positively and negatively, respectively, with total and subscale alliance scores. Preoccupied-Merger therapeutic attachment was unrelated to the alliance. Exploratory analyses suggested however that the relationship between Preoccupied–Merger attachment and the alliance was moderated by the extent to which clients were distressed. Clients' therapeutic attachments were unrelated to basic personality dimensions. Preoccupied–Merger attachment to the therapist correlated significantly with several symptom dimensions. Clients' therapeutic attachments emerged as superior and more consistent predictors, relative to client personality and symptomatology, of the therapeutic alliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Class restriction of cephalosporin use to control total cephalosporin resistance in nosocomial Klebsiella

CONTEXT: Resistance to most or all cephalosporin antibiotics in Klebsiella species has developed in many European and North American hospitals during the past 2 decades. OBJECTIVE: To determine if restriction of use of the cephalosporin class of antibiotics would reduce the incidence of patient infection or colonization by cephalosporin-resistant Klebsiella. DESIGN: A before-after comparative 2-year trial. SETTING: A 500-bed, university-affiliated community hospital in Queens, NY. PATIENTS: All adult medical and surgical hospital inpatients. INTERVENTION: A new antibiotic guideline excluded the use of cephalosporins except for pediatric infection, single-dose surgical prophylaxis, acute bacterial meningitis, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, and outpatient gonococcal infection. All other cephalosporin use required prior approval by the infectious disease section. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Incidence of patient infection or colonization by ceftazidime-resistant Klebsiella during 1995 (control period) compared with 1996 (intervention period). RESULTS: An 80.1% reduction in hospital-wide cephalosporin use occurred in 1996 compared with 1995. This was accompanied by a 44.0% reduction in the incidence of ceftazidime-resistant Klebsiella infection and colonization throughout the medical center (P<.01), a 70.9% reduction within all intensive care units (P<.001), and an 87.5% reduction within the surgical intensive care unit (P<.001). A concomitant 68.7% increase in the incidence of imipenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa occurred throughout the medical center (P<.01). All such isolates except one were susceptible to other antibiotics. CONCLUSION: Extensive cephalosporin class restriction significantly reduced nosocomial, plasmid-mediated, cephalosporin-resistant Klebsiella infection and colonization. This occurred at the price of increased imipenem resistance in P aeruginosa, which remained susceptible to other agents. Thus, an overall reduction in multiply-resistant pathogens was achieved within 1 year.     

Exhibiting Leadership and Facilitation Behaviors in NPD Project-Based Work: Does Team Personal Style Composition Matter?

Abstract:

Teams are increasingly becoming primary in the way employees in organizations conduct work. Understanding what makes teams effective is especially important for new product development (NPD) teams, whose members often have diverse backgrounds and competencies. The effects of similarities and differences among team members in NPD project-based work influence every aspect of that work. We explored the relationship between project team composition attributes and project team members' team leadership and facilitation behaviors, drawing from the literature on similarity-attraction effect.

Data from two time points that were 12-weeks apart were collected from 144 professional employees working in 48 project teams to test the study's hypotheses. Using HLM 6.0 (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002), findings show that when it comes to project team composition, members of a team, who are similar on affective personal style traits, demonstrate greater team leadership and facilitation behaviors. We identify implications for generating productive team leadership and facilitation behaviors in NPD project-based work.     

Mechanism of a Standalone β-Lactone Synthetase: New Continuous Assay for a Widespread ANL Superfamily Enzyme

Enzyme-catalyzed β-lactone formation from β-hydroxy acids is a crucial step in bacterial biosynthesis of β-lactone natural products and membrane hydrocarbons. We developed a novel, continuous assay for β-lactone synthetase activity using synthetic β-hydroxy acid substrates with alkene or alkyne moieties. β-Lactone formation is followed by rapid decarboxylation to form a conjugated triene chromophore for real-time evaluation by UV/Vis spectroscopy. The assay was used to determine steady-state kinetics of a long-chain β-lactone synthetase, OleC, from the plant pathogen Xanthomonas campestris. Site-directed mutagenesis was used to test the involvement of conserved active site residues in Mg²⁺ and ATP binding. A previous report suggested OleC adenylated the substrate hydroxy group. Here we present several lines of evidence, including hydroxylamine trapping of the AMP intermediate, to demonstrate the substrate carboxyl group is adenylated prior to making the β-lactone final product. A panel of nine substrate analogues were used to investigate the substrate specificity of X. campestris OleC by HPLC and GC-MS. Stereoisomers of 2-hexyl-3hydroxyoctanoic acid were synthesized and OleC preferred the (2R,3S) diastereomer consistent with the stereo-preference of upstream and downstream pathway enzymes. This biochemical knowledge was used to guide phylogenetic analysis of the β-lactone synthetases to map their functional diversity within the acyl-CoA synthetase, NRPS adenylation domain, and luciferase superfamily.     

New approaches to selective pulse design

Selective pulse design for noninteracting spins is equivalent to inversion of the Bloch equations. Until recently, few analytical solutions to this problem were known. However, approaches based on inverse-scattering theory have now led to general solutions that offer ever higher precision in meeting target responses. The concept of soliton pulses (pulses that leave the spin system unaffected) turns out to be a particularly valuable one because half-solitons (both /2 and pulses) are inherently phase compensated. Such pulses are important for observation of shortT ₂ species, where substantial signal loss could occur in any refocusing period. Multiply-selective pulses, suitable for simultaneous suppression of several solvent lines have been generated by inverse-scattering theory and have considerable potential in bothin vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy and in routine high-resolution NMR. Although analytical solutions show great promise, it is likely that optimization methods will continue to be of value for the foreseeable future. The use of the SPINCALC scheme that operates in a switched stationary reference frame is illustrated through its use to design adiabatic refocusing pulses that do not lead to cumulative errors when used in multiple-echo trains.