Two–year follow–up of cognitive–behavioral therapy and supportive counseling in the treatment of persistent symptoms in chronic schizophrenia.

The article reports the 2–year follow–up of patients suffering persistent symptoms of schizophrenia who entered a single blind randomized controlled trial. Patients were randomly allocated to cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) plus routine care (RC), supportive counseling (SC) plus RC, or RC alone. Treatment took place over 3 months, and follow-up was made 12 and 24 months after treatment finished. Sixty-one patients were available to the 2-year follow-up and assessed for positive and negative symptoms and clinical improvement; all of the 87 patients who entered the trial were assessed for relapse over the follow-up period. On all measures, patients who received RC alone did significantly worse at 2 years. There were no significant differences at 2 years between the CBT and SC groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Si/SiGe near-infrared photodetectors grown using low pressure chemical vapour deposition

Near-infrared photodetectors have been fabricated using standard CMOS processes in conjunction with the multilayer growth of Si/SiGe_0.06 using low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD). Cross-section scanning electron microscopy (SEM) indicates the existence of quantum dot like corrugations in devices with particularly thick SiGe _0.06 quantum wells. With an accumulation of germanium atoms at the crest of such features and commensurate high germanium concentration we see a considerable enhancement of the long wavelength detection sensitivity of photodetectors in the range 1100–1300 nm. By fitting experimental data the minimum energy gap of the structure is found to be 0.88 eV corresponding to a germanium concentration of around 15%.     

Creating healthy, high-performance workplaces: Strategies from health and sports psychology.

Consulting psychologists are ideally suited to assist in the creation of healthy and life-enhancing workplaces that can increase employee productivity while promoting behaviors that reduce the risk of lifestyle disease incidence or mitigate the effects of such illnesses when already present. When psychologists integrate strategies from health psychology, these interventions can help reduce medical costs and contribute to worker productivity and morale, because these strategies are proven to decrease the incidence of the five leading lifestyle diseases: coronary heart disease, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, diabetes, and stroke. Integrating techniques from sports psychology as well results in even more effective healthy workplaces than could be achieved from using either set of techniques in isolation. Recommendations are offered for nutritional counseling, smoking cessation, stress management, and exercise initiation. Five skills from sports psychology mental training are described because they could be incorporated into psychologists' interventions for enhancing employee performance. A case study illustrates the key points. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High-intensity Raf signal causes cell cycle arrest mediated by p21Cip1

Activated Raf has been linked to such opposing cellular responses as the induction of DNA synthesis and the inhibition of proliferation. However, it remains unclear how such a switch in signal specificity is regulated. We have addressed this question with a regulatable Raf-androgen receptor fusion protein in murine fibroblasts. We show that Raf can cause a G1-specific cell cycle arrest through induction of p21Cip1. This in turn leads to inhibition of cyclin D- and cyclin E-dependent kinases and an accumulation of hypophosphorylated Rb. Importantly, this behavior can be observed only in response to a strong Raf signal. In contrast, moderate Raf activity induces DNA synthesis and is sufficient to induce cyclin D expression. Therefore, Raf signal specificity can be determined by modulation of signal strength presumably through the induction of distinct protein expression patterns. Similar to induction of Raf, a strong induction of activated Ras via a tetracycline-dependent promoter also causes inhibition of proliferation and p21Cip1 induction at high expression levels. Thus, p21Cip1 plays a key role in determining cellular responses to Ras and Raf signalling. As predicted by this finding we show that Ras and loss of p21 cooperate to confer a proliferative advantage to mouse embryo fibroblasts.     

A model for predicting the yield stress of AA6111 after multistep heat treatments

A model has been developed to predict the yield stress (YS) of the aluminum alloy AA6111 after multistep heat treatments that involve combinations of ambient-temperature aging and high-temperature artificial aging. The model framework follows the internal state variable framework where the two principal state variables are the volume fraction of clusters that form at ambient temperature and the volume fraction of metastable phases that form during high-temperature aging. The evolution of these state variables was modeled using a set of coupled differential equations. The mechanical response (the YS) was then formulated in terms of the state variables through an appropriate flow stress addition law. To test the model predictions, a series of experiments were conducted that examined two scenarios for multistep heat treatments. In general, good agreement was observed between the model predictions and the experimental results. However, for the case where a short thermal excursion at 250 °C was applied immediately after the solution treatment, the results were not satisfactory. This can be understood in terms of the importance of the temperature dependence for the nucleation density of metastable precipitates.