Stressful life events and use of physician services among the elderly: The moderating role of pet ownership.

The physician utilization behavior of 938 Medicare enrollees in a health maintenance organization was prospectively followed for 1 year. With demographic characteristics and health status at baseline controlled for, respondents who owned pets reported fewer doctor contacts over the 1-year period than respondents who did not own pets. Furthermore, pets seemed to help their owners in times of stress. The accumulation of prebaseline stressful life events was associated with increased doctor contacts during the study year for respondents without pets. This relationship did not emerge for pet owners. Owners of dogs, in particular, were buffered from the impact of stressful life events on physician utilization. Additional analyses showed that dog owners in comparison to owners of other pets spent more time with their pets and felt that their pets were more important to them. Thus, dogs more than other pets provided their owners with companionship and an object of attachment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological functioning among mothers of children with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: A longitudinal study.

Mothers of children with newly diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) were assessed repeatedly over a period of 6 years in order to determine the psychological correlates of managing this chronic illness. Both maternal depression and overall emotional distress after the 1st year of the IDDM increased slightly with illness duration and were also influenced by other factors. Mothers' adjustment shortly after their children were diagnosed with IDDM was a strong predictor of their long-term emotional symptomatology. However, mothers' symptoms over time were not related to medical aspects of IDDM (i.e., the extent of the children's metabolic control, number of rehospitalizations, or their compliance with the medical regimen) and were also unrelated to the levels of depression or anxiety reported by their children. Mothers generally found it easier to cope with the IDDM the longer their children had the illness. However, the degree to which mothers perceived the IDDM to be bothersome or difficult to manage at any given point in time was associated with their overall levels of emotional distress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resistance in existential-strategic marital therapy: A four-stage conceptual framework.

Discusses how the integration of the strategic and existential approaches to family therapy can provide a maximum positive use of resistance. A 4-stage intervention model is outlined that uses strategic techniques within an existential framework. The stages include (1) recognizing the halo effect and cynical disbelief in clients, (2) allying oneself emotionally with an individual client or client system, (3) respecting the importance of despair, and (4) recognizing the moment in therapy when the decision is made to change. The case of a multiproblem couple illustrates the concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Study of major aromatic compounds in port wines from carotenoid degradation

The carotenoids degradation and the formation of volatiles were examined by simulating Port wine aging. A two year old red Port wine was saturated with oxygen, supplemented with lutein and β-carotene and kept at 60 °C during 87 h. A similar study was performed in a model wine solution. Results showed that the percentage decrease in lutein levels was, respectively, 79% and 95%, in the wine model solution and in the Port wine, and 55% and 10% for β-carotene, indicating that lutein was more sensitive to degradation than β-carotene. Two other unknown degradation carotenoid compounds were identified by HPLC/DAD (reverse phase λ_max: 422; 445; 475 and 422; 445; 472) in the lutein supplemented wine. Levels of β-ionone and β-cyclocitral increased (2.5 times) in both, wine and wine model solution, supplemented with β-carotene. Along with these compounds, the same behaviour was observed in β-damascenone in the supplemented lutein wine and wine model solution. New insights were provided into the understanding of aroma modifications occurring during Port wine aging. The relationship between carotenoid molecules (β-carotene and lutein) and some volatiles has also been provided.     

Recursive retrospective revaluation of causal judgments.

Recursive causal evaluation is an iterative process in which the evaluation of a target cause, T, is based on the outcome of the evaluation of another cause, C, the evaluation of which itself depends on the evaluation of a 3rd cause, D. Retrospective revaluation consists of backward processing of information as indicated by the fact that the evaluation of T is influenced by subsequent information that is not concerned with T directly. Two experiments demonstrate recursive retrospective revaluation with contingency information presented in list format as well as with trial-by-trial acquisition. Existing associative models are unable to predict the results. The model of recursive causal disambiguation that conceptualizes the revaluation as a recursive process of disambiguation predicts the pattern of results correctly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

LOOKING AT NATIONAL SYSTEMS OF INNOVATION FROM THE SOUTH

This paper deals with national systems of innovation (NSIs) from a Latin American perspective. It begins by looking into the related conceptualization elaborated in the North with a "Southern head", stressing some characteristics of the NSIs concept that are helpful to understand Southern specificity: its ex-post nature, the normative weight it carries, its "relational" features, the fact that it describes a purposeful policy subject and not only an outcome of evolutionary patterns. Then the paper describes some contextual differences between Latin America and the developed nations in terms of the NSIs conceptualization. This is followed by an abbreviated account of empirical findings gathered from recent innovation industrial surveys in Latin America. It also briefly describes some of the findings of a methodological attempt to construct a picture of the NSI in a small Latin American country, Uruguay. Finally, some lessons stemming from more mature systems of innovation are outlined.     

Languages, scripts, and the environment: Factors in developing concepts of print.

Preschool children bilingual in English and Hebrew were investigated for their understanding of concepts of print by means of two tasks. In the first, children had to understand that a printed word did not change its meaning if it moved to a new location. In the second, children had to make judgments about word length and ignore the size of the named objects. Previous research had shown bilingual French–English and Chinese–English children to excel in the first task, but only older Chinese–English bilinguals had an advantage in the second. The present study extended those results by investigating the effect of writing system in more detail. The study also examined the effect of the language of the environment by conducting parallel studies in environments in which either English or Hebrew was the community language. The results show that the bilingual children in both settings were more advanced than the monolinguals in both tasks and in both settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual short-term memory in the first year of life: Capacity and recency effects.

A span task was developed to assess the amount of information infants could hold in short-term memory. In this task, infants were presented with up to 4 items in succession and then tested for recognition by successively pairing each item with a novel one. A large sample of full-terms and low-birth-weight preterms (