Social skills and cognitive-relaxation approaches to general anger reduction.

Inductive social skills training (ISST), skill assembly social skills training (SASST), and cognitive relaxation coping skills (CRCS) training were compared with a no-treatment control condition for general anger reduction. At 4-wk follow-up, compared with the control group, all treatment groups showed equivalent reductions of the amount of anger experienced in a wide range of situations. ISST and CRCS Ss reported less anger in their worst ongoing provocation than did control Ss, whereas SASST Ss did not differ from Ss of other groups. Treatment groups enhanced anger control equally relative to the control group, but only the CRCS group significantly lowered outward, negative expression of anger, and only the ISST group reduced anger suppression, although active treatment groups did not differ from one another on these measures. The ISST group lowered day-to-day anger more than other groups. No treatment effects were found for nontargeted trait anxiety and assertiveness. Results are discussed in terms of prior findings and the efficacy and flexibility of ISST. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of immediate stimulus repetition on reaction time and event-related potentials in tasks of different complexity.

Examined the effect of immediate stimulus repetition in lexical decision, face recognition, letter search, face/nonface discrimination, and word/number discrimination tasks using reaction time (RT), accuracy, and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures. Repetition facilitated performance in all tasks and for all stimulus types. However, ERPs were strongly affected by repetition only in lexical decision, face recognition, and letter search, when relatively long stimulus analysis and decision making processes were required. The ERP repetition effect consisted of a significant increase in P300 amplitude and a shortening of its latency. Repetition also resulted in the attenuation of a negative component that was tentatively identified as N400. These results suggest that immediate repetition facilitates stimulus identification and eliminates the need for stimulus analysis processes including access to semantic memory while making categorical decisions. While both factors affected RT, ERPs were modulated primarily by the elimination of the need to access to semantic memory and by the consequent speeding of categorical decision processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modification of hypoxia-induced injury in cultured rat astrocytes by high levels of glucose

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Preexisting hyperglycemia exacerbates central nervous system injury after transient global and focal cerebral ischemia. Increased anaerobic metabolism with resultant lactic acidosis has been shown to cause the hyperglycemic, neuronal injury. The contribution of astrocytes in producing lactic acidosis under hyperglycemic/ischemic conditions is unclear, whereas the protective role of astrocytes in ischemic-induced neuronal injury has been documented. The ability of astrocytes to maintain energy status and ion homeostasis under hyperglycemic conditions could ultimately reduce neuronal injury. Therefore, we determined the effects of increased glucose concentrations on glucose utilization, lactate production, extracellular pH, and adenosine triphosphate concentrations in hypoxia-treated astrocyte cultures. METHODS: Primary astrocytes were prepared from neonatal rat cerebral cortices. After 35 days in vitro, cultures were incubated with 0-60 mmol/L glucose and subjected to hypoxic conditions at 95% N2/5% CO2 for 24 hours. In addition, under high-glucose conditions (30 mmol/L), astrocytes were exposed to up to 72 hours of hypoxia. Determination of lactate dehydrogenase efflux, adenosine triphosphate concentrations, and extracellular lactate concentrations defined astrocyte status. Equiosmolar levels of mannitol were added in place of high glucose concentrations to distinguish hyperosmotic effect. RESULTS: When physiological concentrations of glucose (7.5 mmol/L) or lower concentrations were used, significant cell damage occurred with 24 hours of hypoxia, as determined by increased efflux of lactate dehydrogenase and loss of cell protein. When higher glucose concentrations (15-60 mmol/L) were used, efflux of lactate dehydrogenase was similar to that observed in normoxic cultures, despite an increased utilization of glucose. Lactate concentrations in the media at low or normal glucose concentrations exceeded normoxic levels, but higher glucose concentrations (15-30 mmol/L) failed to increase lactate levels further. Values of adenosine triphosphate for hypoxic astrocytes treated with high glucose concentrations were significantly higher than those of astrocytes with zero or low glucose levels. In cultures exposed to hypoxia and high glucose levels (30 mmol/L), no cellular injury was observed before 48 hours of hypoxia. Lactate concentrations in the media increased during the first 24 hours of hypoxia and reached steady state. The pH of the media decreased to 6.4 after 24 hours and 5.5 at 48 hours. The latter pH was concomitant with a marked increase in extracellular lactate dehydrogenase activity. Hyperosmotic mannitol failed to protect cultured astrocytes against hypoxia. CONCLUSIONS: Hypoxic injury to mature astrocytes was reduced by the presence of 15-60 mmol/L glucose in the medium during 24-30 hours of hypoxia. Injury occurred when the pH of the medium was < 5.5. This protection was not afforded by the hyperosmotic effect of high glucose concentrations, nor was the hypoxic injury at later time periods with 30 mmol/L glucose mediated solely by lactate accumulation.     

Judgments of social justice: Compromises between equality and efficiency.

Political economists agree that a trade-off exists between equality and efficiency. Using a hypothetical society paradigm, the mean income (representing efficiency) and income variability (representing equality) of distributions of wealth and the correlation between wealth and effort within a society were manipulated. Ss made all pairwise comparisons of distributions within societies of differing meritocracy. A "maximin" principle best described trade-off resolution strategies when effort and outcome were weakly linked: People maximized the minimum standard of living within a society. A compromise principle best described preferences when income was tightly linked to effort: People rejected distributions in which some citizens fell below the "poverty line" but maximized efficiency above this constraint. Ideological polarization was pronounced under moderate meritocracy; here liberals could focus on the role of chance and conservatives on the role of effort and ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy in pancreas transplant recipients

Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is the treatment of choice for symptomatic cholelithiasis. Since its introduction in 1987, this procedure has been employed with increasing frequency as its safety has been documented in numerous studies. Absolute contraindications to laparoscopic cholecystectomy have become relative contraindications, and patients previously felt to be at excessive risk for laparoscopic cholecystectomy are viewed as patients who may benefit from laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The use of this procedure in patients with comorbid medical conditions has the potential to decrease patient morbidity. Patients who have previously undergone solid organ transplantation and require immunosuppressive therapy are a group of patients who may benefit from laparoscopic cholecystectomy. We report four patients who have previously undergone combined renal and pancreas transplantation who underwent successful laparoscopic cholecystectomy.     

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Studies of Silicon Carbide Polytypes

The ²⁹Si MAS NMR spectra of the 2H, 4H, 6H, and 3C polytypes of silicon carbide are presented. An attempt is made to correlate differences in the chemical shifts with local atomic environment. The results of the analysis of the spectra of pure polytypes are used as a basic for the interpretation of the spectra of mixed polytypes and a discussion of the crystallinity and impurity levels of different samples. Carbon-13 chemical shifts obtained from spectra of the same polytypes are also tabulated.     

The measurement of gastric motor function and transit in man by echo planar magnetic resonance imaging

Echo-planar imaging (EPI) can be used to produce snapshot images of the human stomach and antro-pyloro-duodenal segment in real time as an alternative technique to intubation and exposure to ionizing radiation. The method has been further developed to monitor simultaneous gastric motility and gastric emptying of liquid and solid meals. The model has been utilized to study the effects of pharmacological agents on gastric function.Eight normal subjects were imaged in a 0.5-T superconducting magnet for up to 6 h following ingestion of 800 ml tap water, followed by 500 ml porridge test meal + 500 ml tap water. A rapid multislice technique was adopted to image adjacent transverse slices (10 mm thick) through the gastric region. In addition, three subjects were orally dosed with 20 mg of the prokinetic agent Cisapride. Gastric volumes for each slice were calculated and summed to produce a measure of total gastric volume and gastric emptying. Contractile activity at the level of the antro-pyloric segment was detected using sequential 128 ms images at 3 s intervals. Alternate measurements of gastric volume and motility were made for the duration of the study.Gastric emptyingT _1/2's (times to empty 50% of the gastric contents) of 12.9 min for water and 116 min for porridge were in agreement with results obtained by the traditional techniques of gamma scintigraphy and impedance imaging. The frequency of gastric contractions increased from 2.4 contractions per minute (cpm) to 3.2 cpm following water and from 2.9 to 3.2 cpm following porridge. The prokinetic effect of enhanced coordination of antroduodenal contractions was also observed. These studies have demonstrated that EPI can be used to detect and image gastroduodenal function in man, totally noninvasively, and can be used to study the effects of drugs acting on the gastrointestinal tract.     

Capacitated, finish-to-order production planning with customer ordering day assignments

We examine the production and ordering fulfillment system of a firm offering a large variety of products to time-sensitive customers. The firm wants to combine a finish-to-order strategy with an existing customer ordering system. The finish-to-order policy guarantees significant inventory savings due to the large number of end-product offerings, but it may also increase setup costs due to a short delivery commitment. The ordering system assigns periodic ordering dates to customers, encourages them to place their orders only on these dates, and promises them the same short delivery time irrespective of their geographic locations. The ordering system facilitates a smooth capacity load as well as transportation economies by allowing shipments to each location once during each ordering cycle. We propose a formulation for the combinatorial problem of choosing an ordering-day assignment and a finish-to-order production schedule that minimizes setup costs and maintains a balanced capacity load. We examine a Lagrangian relaxation of this formulation and heuristic solutions based on our relaxation. Our numerical work demonstrates that our best heuristic differs from the optimal solution by 5% on average for small problems (with up to 10 products and 10 customers). Moreover, we show that the difference between the objective value of the relaxation and that of the best heuristic decreases significantly as the problem size increases, being as low as 4% on average for problems with 30 products and 30 customers.