The big picture on big holes

Two serious flaws in popular client firewall software have been uncovered in February     

"Temporal encoding in fear conditioning revealed through associative reflex facilitation": Correction to Lindquist and Brown (2004).

Reports an error in "Temporal Encoding in Fear Conditioning Revealed Through Associative Reflex Facilitation" by Derick H. Lindquist and Thomas H. Brown (Behavioral Neuroscience, 2004[Apr], Vol 118[2], 395-402). The article contained several errors. On page 396, second paragraph, the sentence beginning on line 6 should read as follows: "Having a stable baseline is critical for studies of reflex facilitation because the experimental designs invariably entail repetitive CR testing, if only to achieve reasonable statistical power (see Choi et al., 2001b; Lindquist & Brown, 2004)." On page 400, the first heading should read as follows: "Comparison of New and Old Reflex Facilitation Procedures." On page 400, the first sentence under the abovementioned heading should read as follows: "We decided not to use the original measure of reflex facilitation, developed by J. S. Brown et al. (1951), because it suffers from severe interpretational limitations, elaborated in detail elsewhere (Choi et al., 2001b; Leaton & Cranney, 1990; Lindquist & Brown, 2004)." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2004-12681-016.) Temporal encoding in Pavlovian fear conditioning was examined through conditional facilitation of the short-latency (Rl) component of the rat eyeblink reflex. Rats were fear-conditioned to a tone conditional stimulus (CS) with either a 3- or 9-s interstimulus interval (ISI) between CS onset and the onset of the grid-shock unconditional stimulus (US). Rl facilitation was tested over 2 days, in counterbalanced order, at a latency of 3 s and 9 s from CS onset. CS-produced Rl facilitation, the conditional response (CR), was 3-4 times larger when the test latency equaled the conditioning ISI. These results, coupled with the known neurophysiology of Rl facilitation, suggest that this CR could disclose differences in the time course of CS-generated output from the amygdala when driven by cortical versus subcortical CS-CR pathways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short fibre elastomer composites: effect of fibre length,orientation, loading and bonding agent

A series of short fibre reinforced styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) composites were prepared by incorporating sisal fibres of different lengths and different concentrations. The vulcanization behaviour and the properties of the vulcanizates were measured by the relevant ASTM procedures. The processing characteristics such as green strength and mill shrinkage were improved by the addition of fibres. The properties like tensile strength, tear strength, moduli at 10% and 20% elongations were found to be maximum for composites containing longitudinally oriented fibres of length 6 mm. Mixes containing 35 phr loading of fibres and bonding agent showed better mechanical performance than others. The failure behaviour of tensile and tear specimens have been analysed by scanning electron microscopy techniques. Paper presented at the poster session of MRSI AGM VI, Kharagpur, 1995     

Differential effects of hippocampal ablations on dispositional and representational memory in the rat.

Long-Evans rats with electrolytic hippocampal ablations exhibited chronic impairment in performance on a spatial delayed nonmatching-to-sample task in the arms of a T-maze. The same rats exhibited only mild deficits, which disappeared with practice, in dispositional memory-dependent discrimination in the stem. Both types of discrimination were learned rapidly preoperatively with no marked positive or negative interaction between types of discrimination. The present results suggest that hippocampal lesions in rats have far more serious consequences on the performance of representational memory-dependent tasks than similar lesions in monkeys. In agreement with our past studies, the present experiment demonstrated that dispositional and representational memory systems in rodents have at least partially distinct anatomical substrates in brain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preventing weight gain in adults: A pound of prevention.

Evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of a program for weight gain prevention (WGP) in normal adults. 219 Ss were randomized to either WGP treatment or no treatment for 12 mo. The treatment group received monthly newsletters relating to weight management, participated in a financial incentive system, and were offered an optional 4-session education course in the 6th mo of the program. Results demonstrate high interest in WGP among Ss who were not objectively overweight. Participation, as measured by return of postcards sent with each newsletter, was approximately 75%. Results after 1 yr show a net weight loss of 1.8 lb in the group receiving the program compared with controls. 82% of participants maintained or lost weight, compared with 56% of controls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Program adherence and coping strategies as predictors of success in a smoking treatment program.

94 smokers (mean age 39 yrs) in a 6-wk behavioral smoking-cessation program were administered weekly questionnaires on their use of major program recommendations and other quitting strategies throughout treatment. An "affect-regulation" coping inventory was administered at the beginning and end of treatment. Adequate adherence was reported for most recommendations. Although a composite measure of adherence did not predict quitting success, adherence and coping assessments were associated with maintenance of treatment gains. Short-term maintenance was associated with an extensive affect-regulation repertoire and use of stimulus control strategies; long-term maintenance was associated with consistent self-monitoring of smoking during treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together.

We administered the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) to 217 monozygotic and 114 dizygotic reared-together adult twin pairs and 44 monozygotic reared-apart adult twin pairs. A four-parameter biometric model (incorporating genetic, additive versus nonadditive, shared family-environment, and unshared environment components) and five reduced models were fitted through maximum-likelihood techniques to data obtained with the 11 primary MPQ scales and its 3 higher order scales. Solely environmental models did not fit any of the scales. Although the other reduced models, including the simple additive model, did fit many of the scales, only the full model provided a satisfactory fit for all scales. Heritabilities estimated by the full model ranged from .39 to .58. Consistent with previous reports, but contrary to widely held beliefs, the overall contribution of a common family-environment component was small and negligible for all but 2 of the 14 personality measures. Evidence of significant nonadditive genetic effects, possibly emergenic (epistatic) in nature, was obtained for 3 of the measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Comment on 'Articulation of values'": Response to Cochran (1988).

We respond to Cochran's critique of our 1986 study, which was in part a replication of Cochran's original grid methodology for the study of career values. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of everyday memory in age-associated memory impairment: A longitudinal study.

Everyday memory performance was examined longitudinally in 2 groups of Ss meeting the diagnostic criteria for age-associated memory impairment (AAMI). One group of 157 participants in a drug trial for reversing memory loss in AAMI was tested over multiple sessions. The other group of 75 persons did not participate in a drug trial and thus was tested only twice. Both groups were retested for longitudinal follow-up about 4 yrs after initial session. Follow-up test performance remained fairly stable relative to initial performance in both groups. The drug study group showed large practice effects during the course of the drug studies, but these effects subsided after the drug studies' end. Implications regarding memory decline in the normal elderly and neuropsychological measurement issues are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Detecting memory impairment with a modified test procedure: Manipulating retention interval with centrally presented event items.

Suggests that detecting memory impairment with the modified test relies on long retention intervals that provide the necessary forgetting of event information for impairing effects of postevent misinformation to occur. 288 Ss were tested in 4 experiments that presented event items centrally, introduced verbal postevent items to a misled condition, and used the modified test, but differed by using either short (15 min) or long (5–7 days) retention intervals. As evidenced by poorer misled than control test performances, memory impairment only occurred with long retention intervals. Retrieval- and storage-based versions of memory-impairment hypotheses are assessed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)