Experiences of depression in normal young adults.

Investigated depression as a normal affect state that could have continuity with types of clinical depression. A 66-item Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ) was constructed to assess a wide range of experiences that, though not direct symptoms of depression, are frequently associated with it. The DEQ, the Wessman-Ricks Mood Scale, a version of the semantic differential, and the Death-Concern Questionnaire were administered to 500 female and 160 male college students. In another sample, 128 college students were given the DEQ and the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. Three highly stable factors emerged from the DEQ: Dependency, Self-Criticism, and Efficacy. These factors had significant differential correlations with other measures, which support the interpretation of the factors derived from the items. These data indicate the need to consider dependency and self-criticism as 2 primary dimensions of depression and the value of investigating the continuity between normal mood states and the clinical phenomena of depressions. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes toward sex roles among A and B psychotherapists.

81 male practicing psychotherapists rated themselves and an unknown male and unknown female adult on 82 bipolar sex-role relevant adjectives. Results show that both A and B therapists considered themselves equally masculine, but that A therapists were more likely to ascribe to themselves traditional feminine characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overinclusive thinking in acute schizophrenic patients.

Investigated 2 types of overinclusive thinking, behavioral and conceptual, in 110 acute psychiatric inpatients. The Object Sorting Test was administered and scored for the 2 types of overinclusion and for idiosyncratic (bizarre) thinking and rich associations. Results on behavioral overinclusion and rich associations were mixed. Behavioral overinclusion was more frequent in schizophrenics, but was also found in many acute nonschizophrenics. Conceptual overinclusion and idiosyncratic thinking were significantly more frequent among acute schizophrenics and were also found in delusional patients regardless of diagnosis. (41 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A depth filtration model of straining within the void networks of stainless steel filters

A depth filtration model has been developed, based on the three‐dimensional void network model Pore‐Cor. The geometry of the void network is fitted, by means of an eight‐dimensional Boltzmann annealed amoeboid simplex, to the porosity and percolation characteristics of stainless steel sintered filters measured by mercury porosimetry. Preferential and critical flow paths through the network are calculated. Particles from an experimental size distribution are fed along these flow‐biased paths, and when straining occurs, the flow paths are re‐calculated. We show that the model usefully reproduces experimental filtration efficiencies as a function of pressure drop, measured by single pass tests. We also offer a critique of current measurements of filtration efficiency, suggesting the use of a new “alpha efficiency” rather than the standard beta efficiency. The model is currently being adapted to accept porometry as well as porosimetry data, hence avoiding the use of mercury. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009     

Treatment of raw poultry with nonthermal dielectric barrier discharge plasma to reduce Campylobacter jejuni and Salmonella enterica

Nonthermal plasma has been shown to be effective in reducing pathogens on the surface of a range of fresh produce products. The research presented here investigated the effectiveness of nonthermal dielectric barrier discharge plasma on Salmonella enterica and Campylobacter jejuni inoculated onto the surface of boneless skinless chicken breast and chicken thigh with skin. Chicken samples were inoculated with antibiotic-resistant strains of S. enterica and C. jejuni at levels of 10(1) to 10(4) CFU and exposed to plasma for a range of time points (0 to 180 s in 15-s intervals). Surviving antibiotic-resistant pathogens were recovered and counted on appropriate agar. In order to determine the effect of plasma on background microflora, noninoculated skinless chicken breast and thighs with skin were exposed to air plasma at ambient pressure. Treatment with plasma resulted in elimination of low levels (10(1) CFU) of both S. enterica and C. jejuni on chicken breasts and C. jejuni from chicken skin, but viable S. enterica cells remained on chicken skin even after 20 s of exposure to plasma. Inoculum levels of 10(2), 10(3), and 10(4) CFU of S. enterica on chicken breast and chicken skin resulted in maximum reduction levels of 1.85, 2.61, and 2.54 log, respectively, on chicken breast and 1.25, 1.08, and 1.31 log, respectively, on chicken skin following 3 min of plasma exposure. Inoculum levels of 10(2), 10(3), and 10(4) CFU of C. jejuni on chicken breast and chicken skin resulted in maximum reduction levels of 1.65, 2.45, and 2.45 log, respectively, on chicken breast and 1.42, 1.87, and 3.11 log, respectively, on chicken skin following 3 min of plasma exposure. Plasma exposure for 30 s reduced background microflora on breast and skin by an average of 0.85 and 0.21 log, respectively. This research demonstrates the feasibility of nonthermal dielectric barrier discharge plasma as an intervention to help reduce foodborne pathogens on the surface of raw poultry.     

The nature of phoneme representation in spoken word recognition.

Four experiments used the psychological refractory period logic to examine whether integration of multiple sources of phonemic information has a decisional locus. All experiments made use of a dual-task paradigm in which participants made forced-choice color categorization (Task 1) and phoneme categorization (Task 2) decisions at varying stimulus onset asynchronies. In Experiment 1, Task 2 difficulty was manipulated using words containing matching or mismatching coarticulatory cues to the final consonant. The results showed that difficulty and onset asynchrony combined in an underadditive way, suggesting that the phonemic mismatch was resolved prior to a central decisional bottleneck. Similar results were found in Experiment 2 using nonwords. In Experiment 3, the manipulation of task difficulty involved lexical status, which once again revealed an underadditive pattern of response times. Finally, Experiment 4 compared this prebottleneck variable with a decisional variable: response key bias. The latter showed an additive pattern of responses. The experiments show that resolution of phonemic ambiguity can take advantage of cognitive slack time at short asynchronies, indicating that phonemic integration takes place at a relatively early stage of spoken word recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Representational boundaries in role portrayals among paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenic patients.

Studied the boundary properties of self and other representations in 31 normal Ss (mean age 18.8 yrs) and in 18 paranoid (mean age 21.2 yrs), 14 intermediate (mean age 21.9 yrs), and 16 nonparanoid (mean age 22.1 yrs) inpatient schizophrenics, using a dramatic role-playing technique. Role test and Rorschach responses were scored for presence of fluid and rigid boundaries between representations of human characters. Paranoid schizophrenics evidenced higher levels of rigid boundaries, nonparanoid schizophrenics had higher levels of fluid boundaries, and normal Ss showed fewer fluid or rigid boundaries. Rorschach and role test measures of boundary disruption were significantly correlated with each other and with other measures of psychopathology. Findings suggest that the relative balance between fluid and rigid representational boundaries is an effective discriminator of paranoid and nonparanoid subtypes and that the presence of either type of boundary imagery discriminates schizophrenics from normal Ss. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rac1 and extracellularly regulated kinase activation are sufficient for E1A-dependent cooperative transformation of primary epithelial cells, but progression can only be modulated by E1A or Rac1

Vibrissa connections play a decisive role in setting the somatotopic coordinates in the trigeminal sensory system. Although previous studies have examined the development of peripheral patterning, certain questions are still in dispute, for example, the way vibrissa connections are structured, and the relationship between periphery and central organization, and ganglion cell organization. In order to fill the blanks left by previous studies, the extension of ganglionic branches and the formation of vibrissa connections were reexamined by using fluorescent carbocyanin dyes, DiI and DiA, during embryonic days 10 to 14 in mouse. Whole-mount preparations satisfactorily demonstrated the ganglionic fiber system, which allowed detailed analysis at both macroscopic and microscopic levels. We show here that the differential fasciculation of follicular nerves is the critical process for organizing vibrissa connections which modulate the initially extending fiber pattern. Follicular nerves developed by fine fibers arising from initially ordered root fascicles, so as to connect with vibrissa rudiments that developed on the facial prominences. During differential fasciculation, ganglion cells were segregated into distinct groups by the vibrissa connections, whereas central fiber terminals did not yet develop specific structures in the nuclear region. In the primary order of the trigeminal sensory system, vibrissa connections in the periphery were organized before those of the central structure. These results indicate that trigeminal ganglion cells have a critical binomial function in order to transfer the somatotopic relations among vibrissa rudiments into the topographic coordinates of the central system.