Antagonism of SR 90107A/Org 31540-induced bleeding by protamine sulfate in rats and mice

The neutralization by protamine sulfate of bleeding enhancement induced by the potent anti-factor Xa pentasaccharide SR 90107A/Org 31540 and by heparin has been studied in rats and mice. Bleeding, as measured by transection of the tail of anaesthetised rats or mice, was increased following the administration of heparin and very high doses of SR 90107A/Org 31540. In rats, i.v. doses of 0.6 mg/kg heparin or 15 mg/kg SR 90107A/Org 31540 were required to enhance bleeding time to approximately the same extent (5- or 7-fold increase), whereas in mice a 13-fold increase in blood loss was observed with i.v. doses of 3 mg/kg heparin or 10 mg/kg SR 90107A/Org 31540. Protamine sulfate (10 mg/kg i.v.) reduced bleeding in rats and mice induced by both compounds. It also neutralized the anti-factor Xa activity as well as the antithrombotic activity of heparin as observed in venous thrombosis models in both species. However, protamine sulfate neither affected the anti-factor Xa activity nor the antithrombotic activity of SR 90107A/Org 31540 in rats and mice. The present results suggest that protamine sulfate may be regarded as a potential antidote to neutralize bleeding side-effects in cases of SR 90107A/Org 31540 overdosing.     

Philosophical embarrassments of psychology.

Philosophers "can fulfill a useful auxiliary role… in collaborating with productive scientists… as critics and catalysts." Theories "so conceived as to be irrefutable by any sort of evidence" constitute a methodological embarrassment for psychology. "The quest for certainty, the craving for infallibility, has produced the embarrassments of emptiness and circularity." The "most painful philosophical embarrassment of psychology" is "the definition of its very subject matter… . The embarrassment of unanswerable questions can be avoided if we do not introduce absolutely unconfirmable entities into our theories." In theory construction psychology's embarrassment is a methodological one. "The time has come to emancipate ourselves from the radical empiricism of the operationists and the behaviorists. A more liberal view of the nature of scientific theory will help us more adequately and clearly to assign to psychology its proper place in the uniting sciences and to remove many of the philosophical embarrassments that have stood in the way of scientific progress." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mixed Professional Corporations.

In this article, the author argues that it is past time for psychology to regard itself simply as a mental health profession and to recognize itself as the health profession it is. It is as broad as the state acts that license, certify, or register its practice. It is as broad as direct recognition/freedom of choice state laws delineate. It is noted that many psychologists in practice have established cordial referral and other working relationships with family practitioners, pediatricians, internists, psychiatrists, and other medical specialists. Generally, these interdisciplinary relations are informal and based on mutual regard. Occasionally, the basis is joint membership in a business, as distinct from a professional corporation. Over 20 states have laws that proscribe organized group practice. However, if private sector health care delivery is to be comprehensive, effective, and viable, a medium must be found to enable health practitioners of different disciplines to engage in professional corporate practice as colleagues. A new California law helps set the stage and may prove to be a useful model. With this law, California becomes the third state in which psychologists can engage in multidisciplinary corporate practice with physicians. By enabling the formation of multidisciplinary professional corporations wherein psychologists and physicians may practice as colleagues, these laws open a new avenue for the delivery of this broadened range of professional services to the public and further establish, in statute, a collaborative basis for practice among psychologists and physicians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The other half of the expectancy equation: Pygmalion.

The central position of this study is that both expectancy research and compensatory educational theory have reached an impasse because expectancy manipulation has largely been confined to the teacher. 45 inner-city 5-6 yr old Blacks enrolled in a compensatory program were exposed to different positive expectancy inductions in order to assess the effects of manipulating Ss' expectations alone, teacher's alone, and the 2 simultaneously on reading achievement test scores (Metropolitan Reading Readiness Test, Form A). Results show that postexperimental scores improved significantly for all 3 expectancy conditions. Moreover, inducing positive expectations in Ss was more effective than the conventional teacher manipulation and was as successful as the group in which both teachers and Ss were given controlled feedback. It is concluded that perhaps the focus of educational programs should be the potentially malleable child rather than the sometimes intransigent teacher. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Was deception justified-and was it necessary? Comments on "Self-control techniques as an alternative to pain medication."

Discusses ethical issues raised by the use of placebos in clinical practice in connection with P. Levendusky and L. Pankratz's (see PA, Vol 54:Issue 4) report of the case of a patient undergoing self-control training, who was withdrawn from antipain medication without his knowledge by substitution of a placebo. Ethical problems resulting from the use of deception in this case center on the patient's right to informed consent, on the quality of the patient-therapist relationship, and on potential damages to the patient's self-concept. However, a number of mitigating factors may well have justified the use of deception in this particular case. Nevertheless, the question is raised whether deception was really necessary and might have been avoided by a therapeutic model that goes beyond the control of specific behaviors and views the treatment as part of a larger process designed to enhance the patient's capacity to cope with his life situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Radiation-induced flux pinning in type II superconductors

In monocyrstalline foils of oxygen-doped niobium and niobium—zirconium alloys, statistically distributed or regularly arranged voids were created during irradiation with high-energy ⁵⁸Ni⁺ ions (3.5MeV, up to 8.1 × 10¹⁶ ions/cm²) at temperatures between 750 and 900°C. The voids exhibit a strong interaction with flux lines, which was determined from measurements of the (anisotropic) critical currents as a function of transverse magnetic field, temperature, and defect geometry. The experimentally determined volume pinning forces obey scaling laws and lead to elementary interaction forces between voids and fluxoids that are larger than theoretical values calculated for various possible mechanisms of interaction. The validity of the statistical summation of elementary forces is discussed.Research supported by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. For numerical computations the facilities of the Gesellschaft für Wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen were used. This investigation is part of a Habilitation Thesis presented at the University of Göttingen.     

Carcass chilling-experimental investigation of weight loss from lean meat

Weight loss histories have been determined for slabs of warm, pre-rigor sheep meat, trimmed free of fat, cooled for up to 24 h by chilled air in a wind tunnel. Evaporation from a lean meat surface is seen to proceed in three stages. In a short first stage evaporation proceeds as if the meat surface were fully wetted. In the second stage the meat surface progressively dries, with the evaporation rate falling to as little as 35% of the fully wetted surface value. In the third stage the meat surface progressively rewets. Experimentally determined moisture profiles showed that drying occurred only in a thin layer near the meat surface. These results indicate that in the early stages of chilling, diffusional transport of water through a partly dried surface layer controls the flow of water to the meat surface and thereby the rate of evaporation weight loss.