Comparison of Rat Hepatic Cholesterol Biosynthesis During Skim Milk Versus Whey Permeate Ingestion

Whey permeate is an ultrafiltrate of whey that is devoid of protein but contains lactose, salts, and other soluble low molecular weight compounds. These experiments compared cholesterol concentrations of blood plasma, hepatic lipids, and hepatic cholesterol biosynthesis of rats ingesting skim milk powder versus whey permeate powder. Groups of young male rats weighing 90 to 92 g were fed a casein-based diet into which skim milk powder or whey permeate powder was incorporated isocalorically. No effects of skim milk or whey permeate on plasma cholesterol concentrations were observed at any time during 5-wk of feeding. However, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase activity was increased by either skim milk or whey permeate feeding. Hepatic cholesterol, triglyceride, and phospholipid concentrations at wk 5 were unchanged. Plasma and hepatic cholesterol responses of rats to whey permeate ingestion are similar to those that occur with skim milk consumption, and plasma and hepatic cholesterol concentrations do not reflect necessarily an increase in hepatic cholesterol biosynthesis.     

Interviewer specificity in seminaturalistic interviews.

Attempted to replicate earlier findings by B. Pope and A. W. Siegman (see PA, Vol. 39:13386, and Vol. 40:509) that there is an inverse relationship between interviewer specificity and both interviewee productivity and uncertainty, through the use of more naturalistic interviewers. 24 18-40 yr. old psychiatric inpatients were interviewed 3 times in a low specificity, high specificity, and an uncontrolled interview. Previous findings were supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reports for 1982 of the Regional Associations.

Reports for 1982 are listed for the following regional association meetings: Sixty-Second Annual Meeting of the Western Psychological Association; Fifty-Second Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association; Fifty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association; Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association; Twenty-Eighth Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association; Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the New England Psychological Association; Fifty-Third Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association; and Seventy-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Component-based end-user database design for ecologists

To solve today’s ecological problems, scientists need well documented, validated, and coherent data archives. Historically, however, ecologists have collected and stored data idiosyncratically, making data integration even among close collaborators difficult. Further, effective ecology data warehouses and subsequent data mining require that individual databases be accurately described with metadata against which the data themselves have been validated. Using database technology would make documenting data sets for archiving, integration, and data mining easier, but few ecologists have expertise to use database technology and they cannot afford to hire programmers. In this paper, we identify the benefits that would accrue from ecologists’ use of modern information technology and the obstacles that prevent that use. We describe our prototype, the Canopy DataBank, through which we aim to enable individual ecologists in the forest canopy research community to be their own database programmers. The key feature that makes this possible is domain-specific database components, which we call templates. We also show how additional tools that reuse these components, such as for visualization, could provide gains in productivity and motivate the use of new technology. Finally, we suggest ways in which communities might share database components and how components might be used to foster easier data integration to solve new ecological problems.     

Sustaining a Community Computing Infrastructure for Online Teacher Professional Development: A Case Study of Designing Tapped In

Community computing has recently grown to become a major research area in human–computer interaction. One of the objectives of community computing is to support computer supported cooperative work among distributed collaborators working toward shared professional goals in online communities of practice. A core issue in designing and developing community computing infrastructures – the underlying socio-technical layer that supports communitarian activities – is sustainability. Many community computing initiatives fail because the underlying infrastructure does not meet end user requirements; the community is unable to maintain a critical mass of users consistently over time; it generates insufficient social capital to support significant contributions by members of the community; or, as typically happens with funded initiatives, financial and human capital resource become unavailable to further maintain the infrastructure. Based on more than nine years of design experience with Tapped In – an online community of practice for education professionals – we present a case study that discusses four design interventions that have sustained the Tapped In infrastructure and its community to date. These interventions represent broader design strategies for developing online environments for professional communities of practice.     

Concurrent brief versus intensive smoking intervention during alcohol dependence treatment.

Alcohol dependent smokers (N=118) enrolled in an intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program were randomized to a concurrent brief or intensive smoking cessation intervention. Brief treatment consisted of a 15-min counseling session with 5 min of follow-up. Intensive intervention consisted of three 1-hr counseling sessions plus 8 weeks of nicotine patch therapy. The cigarette abstinence rate, verified by breath carbon monoxide, was significantly higher for the intensive treatment group (27.5%) versus the rate for the brief treatment group (6.6%) at 1 month after the quit date but not at 6 months, when abstinence rates fell to 9.1% for the intensive treatment group and 2.1% for the brief treatment group. Smoking treatment assignment did not significantly impact alcohol outcomes. Although intensive smoking treatment was associated with higher rates of short-term tobacco abstinence, other, perhaps more intensive, smoking interventions are needed to produce lasting smoking cessation in alcohol dependent smokers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resilience to Loss in Bereaved Spouses, Bereaved Parents, and Bereaved Gay Men.

Recent research has indicated that many people faced with highly aversive events suffer only minor, transient disruptions in functioning and retain a capacity for positive affect and experiences. This article reports 2 studies that replicate and extend these findings among bereaved parents, spouses, and caregivers of a chronically ill life partner using a range of self-report and objective measures of adjustment. Resilience was evidenced in half of each bereaved sample when compared with matched, nonbereaved counterparts and 36% of the caregiver sample in a more conservative, repeated-measures ipsative comparison. Resilient individuals were not distinguished by the quality of their relationship with spouse/partner or caregiver burden but were rated more positively and as better adjusted by close friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The overlap of U.S. and Canadian patent literature with journal literature literature with journal literature

The paper describes a study of the overlap of Canadian and U.S. patent literature and journal literature. A random sample of 300 U.S. and 100 Canadian patents published in 1968 were examined. 6.0% of the U.S. patents and 11.0% of the Canadian patents also appeared in the journal literature. 6.1% of the chemical patents, 6.0% of the mechanical patents and 11.3 % of the electrical patents also appeared in the journal literature. The results confirm the need to search both the journal and the patent literature for comprehensive literature coverage.