Parental communication deviance and schizophrenia: A cross-cultural comparison of Mexican- and Anglo-Americans.

Levels of parental communication deviance (CD), as measured on the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), were compared among families of schizophrenic patients in two culturally distinct groups. Spanish-speaking Mexican-American parents of schizophrenics completed the TAT in their native language, and CD was coded from their stories by a Spanish-speaking rater. Mexican-American parents had levels of CD that were nearly identical to those of a carefully matched sample of English-speaking Anglo-American parents. Factor scores that measure distinct subtypes of CD also did not differ across groups. The data suggest that levels of CD, despite discriminating between parents of schizophrenics and nonschizophrenics, do not vary across different languages and cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some computational short-cuts in the development or analysis of tests.

Formulas and procedures are given for calculating item and test means, variances, intercorrelations, and item-selection indices on the basis of an 'F-matrix' that shows the number passing every pair of items. If IBM equipment is not available to develop the F-matrix, alternate procedures based on hand sorting are recommended and described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metaphor in psychodynamic psychotherapy with borderline and non-borderline clients: A qualitative analysis.

Conducted an intensive, qualitative analysis of borderline and non-borderline client's and therapist's experiences of metaphoric expression in a single psychotherapy session. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 2 therapists and 4 clients (aged 24–38 yrs; 2 borderline and 2 non-borderline) who were actively engaged in psychoanalytically-oriented, long-term psychotherapy. The intensive analyses of inquiry interview transcipts revealed 3 important categories of metaphor functions that were shared by all 4 psychotherapy dyads: (1) metaphors illuminate clinical issues, (2) metaphor functions to depict clients' self and object relationships, and (3) therapist metaphor stimulates an intensification of client experiential engagement in therapy. Patterns differentiating the borderline and non-borderline dyads in relation to metaphor use were discussed in the context of 2 core categories: the Representation Mode of Interaction and the Literal Mode of Interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pharmacological relaxation of the saphenous vein during harvesting for coronary artery bypass grafting

Spasm of the saphenous vein frequently occurs during harvesting from the leg and high-pressure distension is required to restore an adequate diameter for grafting. Forceful distention has been shown to damage the intima and media and may predispose to subsequent occlusion of the vein graft. Various pharmacologic vasodilators are capable of relaxing veins; in this study, we carried out a systematic investigation to determine the appropriate agents and concentrations for use during vein graft operations. In organ baths, human saphenous vein segments were contracted with potassium or a thromboxane mimetic, and vasodilator agents were then applied. Glyceryl trinitrate, 7.2 micrograms/mL, or papaverine hydrochloride, 11.9 micrograms/mL, caused 80% to 100% relaxation of contraction induced by potassium or thromboxane. Verapamil, 15.5 micrograms/mL, relaxed the potassium contraction by 100% and the thromboxane contraction by 75%. Comparison of the time course of action showed that glyceryl trinitrate had a rapid onset and a short duration of maximal action, whereas verapamil (like papaverine) had delayed onset and a long duration. A mixture of glyceryl trinitrate and verapamil combined rapid onset with long duration of action. We now use a mixture of glyceryl trinitrate and verapamil (pH 7.4) topically and intraluminally during harvesting of the saphenous vein to provide a relaxed conduit for coronary artery bypass grafting.     

Resolution extension and exit wave reconstruction in complex HREM

Direct methods in real and reciprocal space are developed for structural reversion. The direct method in real space involves the use of a novel method to retrieve the phase in the image plane using transport of intensity equation/maximum entropy method (TIE/MEM) and exit wave reconstruction by self-consistent propagation. Since the exit wave is restored from the complex signal in the image planes, no image model between the exit wave and image is assumed. The structural information in the reconstructed exit wave is then further extended by a "complex" maximum entropy method as a direct method in reciprocal space to extrapolate the phase to higher frequencies.     

MultiRocket: multiple pooling operators and transformations for fast and effective time series classification

Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery - We propose MultiRocket, a fast time series classification (TSC) algorithm that achieves state-of-the-art accuracy with a tiny fraction of the time and without...