Empirically supported psychological therapies.

This article introduces the special section of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology on empirically supported psychological therapies. After a discussion of the rationale for the selection of the specific terms in the label, several justifications are considered for conducting and learning from empirical evaluations of psychological therapies. Finally, the process that guided the special section is described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of controlled-release oxycodone for the treatment of chronic cancer pain: a randomized, double-blind study

1. We have studied the effects of muscarinic cholinoceptor agonists and subtype-preferring antagonists on the isometric contraction of smooth muscle strips from dog prostate. 2. Acetylcholine and carbachol induced contraction of prostate strips from the peripheral zone, ('the capsule'). Bethanechol contracted the tissue but not at lower doses. McN-A-343 and oxotremorine-M showed the same effects. 3. Blocking alpha- and beta-adrenoceptors with phentolamine and propranolol, respectively, did not modify carbachol-induced contractions. 4. The nicotinic receptor blocker, hexamethonium (10(-6)-10(-4) M) did not affect the contractile response evoked by a single dose of carbachol (10(-5) M), whilst the muscarinic receptor antagonist, atropine (10(-11)-10(-9) M), inhibited it in a competitive manner. 5. The muscarinic M1 (pirenzepine), M2 [AF-DX 116, himbacine (M2/M4) and methoctramine], M3 (HHSID and f-F-HHSID), and putative M4 (tropicamide) antagonists reduced significantly the carbachol-induced contractions. The pIC50 values were: atropine (10.01) > himbacine (8.3) > methoctramine (7.85) > AF-DX 116 (7.60) > HHSID (7.21) > p-F-HHSID (7.10) > pirenzepine (7.30) > tropicamide (7.00). 6. The antagonist profile indicates that an predominant M2 receptor subtype could mediate the muscarinic contraction in the canine prostate.     

Activation of extracellular matrix metalloproteinases in equine laminitis

Samples of connective tissue obtained from the hoof of six laminitic and eight non-laminitic adult horses were analysed zymographically to investigate whether connective tissue matrix metalloproteinases are activated or induced during laminitis. The activity or matrix metalloproteinases was substantially greater in the tissues from the laminitic horses than in the tissues from the non-laminitic horses. A comparison of the collagenolytic activity in the laminitic and control tissues showed that collagenolytic activities corresponding to the 92 kDa (P < 0.001), 72 kDa (P < 0.01) and 66 kDa (P < 0.01) bands were induced in the laminitic tissues.     

Automated zebrafish chorion removal and single embryo placement: optimizing throughput of zebrafish developmental toxicity screens

The potential of the developing zebrafish model for toxicology and drug discovery is limited by inefficient approaches to manipulating and chemically exposing zebrafish embryos-namely, manual placement of embryos into 96- or 384-well plates and exposure of embryos while still in the chorion, a barrier of poorly characterized permeability enclosing the developing embryo. We report the automated dechorionation of 1600 embryos at once at 4 h postfertilization (hpf) and placement of the dechorionated embryos into 96-well plates for exposure by 6 hpf. The process removed ≥95% of the embryos from their chorions with 2% embryo mortality by 24 hpf, and 2% of the embryos malformed at 120 hpf. The robotic embryo placement allocated 6-hpf embryos to 94.7% ± 4.2% of the wells in multiple 96-well trials. The rate of embryo mortality was 2.8% (43 of 1536) from robotic handling, the rate of missed wells was 1.2% (18 of 1536), and the frequency of multipicks was <0.1%. Embryo malformations observed at 24 hpf occurred nearly twice as frequently from robotic handling (16 of 864; 1.9%) as from manual pipetting (9 of 864; 1%). There was no statistical difference between the success of performing the embryo placement robotically or manually.     

Thawing of lamb loin chops in air and CO(2). Effect on colour and drip

Colour retention and drip loss was assessed during retail display for chilled lamb chops displayed fresh or stored in CO(2) for 7 weeks before display, and for chops frozen for various times and thawed in air or CO(2). A sensory panel found fresh lamb chops to have an acceptable display life of 1 day, while chops which had been frozen for 1 day and then thawed lasted 2 days. Holding chops for 7 weeks in a CO(2) atmosphere at - 1·5°C improved display life to 3 days, but frozen chops held for 7 weeks before thawing had deteriorated in colour, and only one group was acceptable on the initial day of display. Initially there were no differences in Hunter L values (brightness) due to treatment, but chilled chops or those frozen for 1 day showed a greater increase in L values by the second day than those frozen for 7 weeks, after which there was no change in brightness. Hunter a values (redness) were higher in chilled chops and those thawed after 1 day's frozen storage than those frozen for 7 weeks before thawing. Hunter b values (yellowness) were greater at all times in chilled chops held for 7 weeks and varied amongst the other treatments. The measured per cent drip from chops frozen for only 1 day was greater on thawing than drip from chops frozen for 7 weeks before thawing. Drip during display, assessed by a sensory panel, increased more in those chops stored either chilled or frozen for 7 weeks before display.     

Effect of tray liners on the drip loss of lamb chops during retail display

The amount of drip lost by lamb chops during display was affected by the type of tray liner used. In one study involving chilled and frozen/thawed meat, the use of an absorbent paper liner increased the drip loss and influenced whether or not the quantity of drip was affected by freezing/thawing. In another study, thawed chops held for 24 h on plastic coated trays without liner or on a plastic coated liner had less than 2% drip loss, whereas adjacent chops from the same loin processed and held in the same way but displayed on liners of absorbent paper or paper pouches of diatomaceous earth lost 4·3% and 5·6% drip, respectively. This effect of the material in contact with the meat should be considered when reporting drip loss data and when comparing results with those of other researchers.     

Microstructural characterization of rapidly solidified nickel-base superalloys

Several Ni-Al-Mo-based eutectic superalloys were rapidly solidified using a chilled block melt spinning process. The effects of rapid solidification on the microstructure were studied using optical microscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Results showed, except for the alloy containing chromium, that the microstructure varied as a function of ribbon thickness from segregationless solidification at the wheel side of the ribbon to dendritic solidification at the free side. In addition, alloys with the same solidification rate showed a large variation in microstructure depending upon the solid state cooling rate. The rapidly solidified eutectic Ni-Al-Mo alloy with a small amount of rhenium and vanadium did not show any improvement on delaying or prohibiting the formation of the embrittling-NiMo phase on ageing at 1000 C. This was determined from microstructural as well as chemical analysis using STEM. Differential thermal analysis was used to obtain melting temperature,-Ni₃Al solvus, and heat of formation for the alloys.     

Combining teacher-Led and technology-assisted instruction to improve phoneme blending to read words for elementary students with disabilities

Technology-assisted instruction has potential for helping students improve their reading skills. In the current studies, PowerPoint software was used to supplement teacher-led reading instruction for elementary-aged students with disabilities who struggled with phoneme blending to read words. The effectiveness of the intervention was assessed using two multiple probe design studies across sets of words based on an onset-rime (word family) strategy. In Study 1, teacher-led instruction was paired with technology-assisted instruction for all intervention sessions for three students in first and second grade. In Study 2, teacher-led instruction occurred between baseline and technology-assisted intervention sessions for three students in third and fourth grade. During the initial instruction sessions, participants recorded their own voices onto PowerPoint slides so that their technology-assisted instruction included self-modelling. Results of both studies indicated that technology-assisted instruction can be effective for helping students learn how to blend phonemes to read words; however, performance varied and there were limitations in each study that should be addressed in future research. Relevant implications for classroom instruction are emphasized.     

Exploring latent browsing graph for question answering recommendation

In this paper, we develop a framework of Question Answering Pages (referred to as QA pages) recommendation. Our proposed framework consists of the two modules: the off-line module to determine the importance of QA pages and the on-line module for on-line QA page recommendation. In the off-line module, we claim that the importance of QA pages could be discovered from user click streams. If the QA pages are of higher importance, many users will click and spend their time on these QA pages. Moreover, the relevant relationships among QA pages are captured by the browsing behavior on these QA pages. As such, we exploit user click streams to model the browsing behavior among QA pages as QA browsing graph structures. The importance of QA pages is derived from our proposed QA browsing graph structures. However, we observe that the QA browsing graph is sparse and that most of the QA pages do not link to other QA pages. This is referred to as a sparsity problem. To overcome this problem, we utilize the latent browsing relations among QA pages to build a QA Latent Browsing Graph. In light of QA latent browsing graph, the importance score of QA pages (referred to as Latent Browsing Rank) and the relevance score of QA pages (referred to as Latent Browsing Recommendation Rank) are proposed. These scores demonstrate the use of a QA latent browsing graph not only to determine the importance of QA pages but also to recommend QA pages. We conducted extensive empirical experiments on Yahoo! Asia Knowledge Plus to evaluate our proposed framework.