Interconversion of grease flow curves between rheometers

In order to reduce testing time and to cover a wide range of shear rates, it is desirable to be able to predict pipe flow curves for grease from measurements on modern rotary viscometers. Previous papers have shown that reliable measurements of grease flow curves can be made in grease rheometers and also how pipe flow curves may be calculated from flow curves obtained in cone and plate or concentric cylinder viscometers. In this paper results are presented of a correlation study between two rotary viscometers and two pipe rheometers used for grease. It is shown that grease pipe flow curves can be predicted from measurements in rotary viscometers. Flow curves obtained in this way correspond to the undisturbed grease under start-up conditions. The influence of long shearing times on the grease during flow in long pipes is shown to explain apparently anomalous results obtained with one rheometer.     

Couple therapy as a treatment for depression: II. The effects of relationship quality and therapy on depressive relapse.

Investigated the effects of behavioral couple therapy, cognitive–behavioral therapy, and their combination on female depression 6 and 12 mo after therapy ended. It was predicted that couples receiving a behavioral couple treatment would be less likely to relapse than those receiving a cognitive–behavioral treatment for the depressed spouse alone. Relapse rates, however, did not discriminate between treatments at any follow-up point. Reductions in husband and wife dysphoria and increases in wife facilitative behavior during therapy predicted recovery. Moreover, high rates of husbands' facilitative behavior at posttest were associated with wife recovery and predicted low levels of depression at the 1-yr follow-up. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Competency judgments in the training and evaluation of psychotherapists.

Competency or skillfulness refers to the quality of the therapist's interventions. Competency evaluations, although difficult to make, are useful in the training of psychotherapists. Several competency scales are reviewed, and most of these raise significant concerns about interrater reliability and predictive validity. It is argued that competency is best considered a state-like variable, with therapists demonstrating higher competence when they skillfully treat patients across a range of difficulty levels. Competency scales may facilitate the development of a generally accepted standard within a specific psychotherapeutic modality. For competency measures to gain practical acceptance, supervisors must accept their value for documenting replicable qualitative observations of therapists' behavior both within and across cases. The development of standards of psychotherapy practice awaits further scale development and research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A component analysis of cognitive-behavioral treatment for depression.

The purpose of this study was to provide an experimental test of the theory of change put forth by A. T. Beck, A. J. Rush, B. E Shaw, and G. Emery ( 1979 ) to explain the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CT) for depression. The comparison involved randomly assigning 150 outpatients with major depression to a treatment focused exclusively on the behavioral activation (BA) component of CT, a treatment that included both BA and the teaching of skills to modify automatic thoughts (AT), but excluding the components of CT focused on core schema, or the full CT treatment. Four experienced cognitive therapists conducted all treatments. Despite excellent adherence to treatment protocols by the therapists, a clear bias favoring CT, and the competent performance of CT, there was no evidence that the complete treatment produced better outcomes, at either the termination of acute treatment or the 6-month follow-up, than either component treatment. Furthermore, both BA and AT treatments were just as effective as CT at altering negative thinking as well as dysfunctional attributional styles. Finally, attributional style was highly predictive of both short- and long-term outcomes in the BA condition, but not in the CT condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress-related appraisals: A regression analysis.

Conducted 2 studies with 70 male undergraduates that attempted to demonstrate the relative importance of different cognitive appraisals that have a bearing on the amount of stress reported by Ss in an ego-threatening situation. The 1st study scaled a set of stimuli, the related difficulty of which was used to order the stimuli for the 2nd study. In the 2nd study, different appraisal antecedents to stress were assessed. Results of path analysis show that the most important single appraisal related to anticipated stress was that of stimulus difficulty or aversiveness. This held irrespective of trait anxiety, although high anxious Ss used their perception of stimulus aversiveness even more in their later expectations of stress. Only anticipated stress predicted actual perceived stress. Conclusions are drawn about the adequacy of present formulations of the cognitive appraisal process of stress and potential reasons for the effectiveness of cognitively based treatment strategies for stress. (French summary) (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conformational stability of muscle acylphosphatase: the role of temperature, denaturant concentration, and pH

The conformational stability (delta G) of muscle acylphosphatase, a small alpha/beta globular protein, has been determined as a function of temperature, urea concentration, and pH. A combination of thermally induced and urea-induced unfolding, monitored by far-UV circular dichroism, was used to define the conformational stability over a wide range of temperature. Through analysis of all these data, the heat capacity change upon unfolding (delta Cp) could be estimated, allowing the determination of the temperature dependence of the main thermodynamic functions (delta G, delta H, delta S). Thermal unfolding in the presence of urea made it possible to extend such thermodynamic analysis to examine these parameters as a function of urea concentration. The results indicate that acylphosphatase is a relatively unstable protein with a delta G(H2O) of 22 +/- 1 kJ mol-1 at pH 7 and 25 degrees C. The midpoints of both thermal and chemical denaturation are also relatively low. Urea denaturation curves over the pH range 2-12 have allowed the pH dependence of delta G to be determined and indicate that the maximum stability of the protein occurs near pH 5.5. While the dependence of delta G on urea (the m value) does not vary with temperature, a significant increase has been found at low pH values, suggesting that the overall dimensions of the unfolded state are significantly affected by the number of charges within the polypeptide chain. The comparison of these data with those from other small proteins indicates that the pattern of conformational stability is defined by individual sequences and not by the overall structural fold.     

The generation of point defects in GaAs by electron-hole recombination at dislocations

The degradation of GaAs heterojunction lasers results in the formation of long dislocation dipoles which grow by a climb process involving point defect concentrations of the order of 10¹⁹ cm⁻³. The driving force for this climb process is not understood and it has been suggested that the material contains a supersaturation of native interstitials which condense on the dislocation during device operation. An alternative model proposed that the driving force is related to the energy released by electron-hole recombination on the dislocation which is partially dissipated by the dislocation emitting vacancies into the surrounding lattice.Gallium arsenide substrates containing greater than 2 × 10¹⁸ tellurium atoms cm⁻³ contain interstitial concentrations of the order of 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ which condense out to form small dislocation loops during an anneal at 880°C. The presence of these loops indicates that the annealed material does not contain excess interstitials in solution. This annealed material was optically pumped and examined by transmission electron microscopy. It was found that the loops developed into dipoles typical of degraded lasers. The number of point defects involved in this climb process increased with increasing pumping power and time. These results are discussed in terms of the two mechanisms listed above and it is concluded that the energy released by electron-hole recombination at the dislocation provides the driving force for the climb process.     

Microwave Backscatter Dependence on Surface Roughness, Soil Moisture, And Soil Texture: Part III-Soil Tension

Results are presented of an experimental program to determine the impact of soil texture on radar response to soil moisture present within nonvegetated soil surfaces. These findings extend previous reports which document the experimental relationship between the radar backscattering coefficient ?° and soil moisture for bare soil [1] and soil under crop canopies [2]. In confirmation of previous results [1] and [2], the sensitivity of ?° to surface gravimetric or volumetric soil moisture is shown to be inversely related to clay content of the soil. As a result, gravimetric or volumetric moisture indicators exhibit poor performance in moisture estimation algorithms for complex multitextured soils. However, estimation algorithms incorporating some knowledge of soil water retention as a function of soil matric potential, or tension, display strong correlation with radar response, typically r ? 0.8, and are shown to be relatively independent of soil texture. These findings are shown to be consistent with soil dielectric properties [3]-[5].     

Altered metabolism of the methionine methyl group in the leukocytes of patients with schizophrenia

Previous work has indicated that abnormal methylation processes may be associated with schizophrenia. In this study, leukocytes from patients with schizophrenia were incubated with methyl-14C-L-methionine and the evolved 14CO2 measured. With increasing concentration of methionine, the evolved 14CO2 was lower in the patients than in normal control subjects. The incorporation of 14C into protein was the same in both groups, and when carboxyl-14C-L-methionine was used the evolved 14CO2 was the same in both groups, thus excluding the possibility that altered incorporation into protein or oxidation of the methionine molecule as a whole were responsible. The observed differences in methionine-methyl metabolism suggest that an abnormality in transmethylation processes or in oxidation of the methyl group to CO2 is associated with schizophrenia. That this occurs in a peripheral tissue indicates that the abnormality is not restricted to the central nervous system.