An ecological study of the effectiveness of mammography in reducing breast cancer mortality

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to determine the relation of screening mammography to breast cancer incidence and case fatality. METHODS: In a sample of White female Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized in 1990-1991, age-adjusted breast cancer incidence and 2-year case fatality rates were estimated and compared with the frequency of mammographic screening from a population-based survey. RESULTS: The average rates for incidence, case fatality, and mammography within 5 years in 29 states were 414/100,000, 18.8%, and 59.2%, respectively. There was a positive state-level correlation between mammography rates and incidence and an inverse correlation between mammography and case fatality. CONCLUSIONS: High screening mammography rates in some states are associated with reduced breast cancer case fatality rates, presumably as a result of diagnosis of earlier stage cancers.     

Validation of a detector of response bias on a forced-choice test of nonverbal ability.

Validation studies of a 2-alternative forced-choice test used to detect faked cognitive impairment are reported. In Study 1, 177 college students were given substantial financial incentives to fake believable impairment. Rate of detection was compromised by financial incentives, but the test demonstrated superior specificity and sensitivity relative to other measures of response bias. Study 2 and Study 3 included neuropsychology (n?=?134) and forensic (n?=?18) evaluees, who were administered several tests of response bias. One decision rule for the forced-choice test demonstrated greater sensitivity than the other measures of response bias and displayed moderately good agreement with clinician ratings of individual testing response style. Although it was originally intended to identify malingering, it is concluded that psychometric tasks can only detect biased responding and that the determination of malingering must be based on overall clinical evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some effects of computerized interviewing on job applicant responses.

We examined the effects of computerized interviewing on applicant responses within the context of a laboratory simulation in which subjects were interviewed for either a low- or high-status position (clerk or management trainee) under one of four interview conditions: computerized, paper-and-pencil, or face-to-face with a warm or a cold behaving interviewer. The results indicated that subjects in nonsocial (computer or paper-and-pencil) interview conditions both scored lower on the Marlowe-Crowne measure of socially desirable responding (SDR) and reported their grade point averages and scholastic aptitude scores more accurately (with less inflation) than those in the face-to-face interview conditions. However, the use of nonsocial screening interviews for the high-status position engendered significantly higher levels of applicant resentment about the interview, relative to the conditions in which the interview procedure was appropriate (or more than appropriate) for the position level. This unintended behavioral consequence suggests one of the bounds that may influence the effectiveness of computerized interviewing. Contrary to expectations, we did not find the interpersonal style of the interviewer to significantly affect applicant resentment or SDR. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creativity in manic-depressives, cyclothymes, their normal relatives, and control subjects.

Studies of creativity and affective illness typically focus on eminent individuals in specific fields. This is the first study to select subjects solely by diagnosis, and then evaluate their overall creative accomplishments. Seventeen manic-depressives, 16 cyclothymes, and 11 normal first-degree relatives were compared with 33 controls with no personal or family history of major affective disorder, cyclothymia, or schizophrenia; 15 controls were normal and 18 carried another diagnosis. Peak creativity was assessed by raters blind to subjects' diagnosis with the use of the Lifetime Creativity Scales. Orthogonal contrasts showed (a) creativity to be significantly higher among the combined index subjects (manic-depressives, cyclothymes, and normal relatives) than among controls (p?p?     

Finite elements for determination of crack tip elastic stress intensity factors

A new type of finite element is introduced which embodies the inverse square root singularity present near a crack in an elastic medium. Using this element near the tip in two typical cracked configurations, stress intensity factors within 5 per cent of accepted values were obtained with meshes having as few as 250° of freedom.     

Validity and utility of the attributional style construct at a moderate level of specificity.

The validity and utility of attributional style has been questioned in recent years. Major criticisms are that attributional style is not cross-situationally consistent, is not measured appropriately, has little construct validity, and contributes little to the prediction of important social behaviors. This article examines these issues with data primarily related to the several different attributional style measures found in Anderson's Attributional Style Assessment Tests. We examined previously published and new data. The results show evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for attributional styles assessed at an intermediate level of specificity. Also, attributional style effects were as large as parallel attribution manipulations in complex social settings. We concluded that both the extreme pessimism of some recent researchers and the broad, sweepingly optimistic claims of some proponents are unwarranted, and that further work on specifying the appropriate level of assessment for attributional style would be useful. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A developmental-genetic analysis of aggressive behavior in mice: I. Behavioral outcomes.

In Exp I, stable lines of mice that differed in the frequency and latency of attacks were rapidly established in 2 series (by S? in the 1st series and S? or S? in the 2nd). For evaluation of the developmental-genetic proposal, an analysis was made of the ontogeny of aggressive expression in male mice of the 2 series, with a report provided of the S? and S? generations of the 2nd breeding series (Exps II and III). Comparisons between results of a longitudinal design and results of a new type of cross-sectional design (involving only siblings, or co-sibial) indicated (a) a reliable developmental course of attack expression, with a sharp rise in early maturity and a slow decline thereafter; (b) a convergence in later maturity of the behavior of lines selectively bred for high or low aggressive behavior, if Ss had been assigned to the longitudinal design; (c) a strong effect of repeated testing on attack latency and frequency, even though the dyadic tests were brief in duration and separated by long intervals. In addition, cross-generational comparisons suggested that the selective breeding differences came about primarily by changes in the behavior of the low aggressive lines, in that these Ss failed to show in early maturity the sharp increases in attack occurrence that were observed in earlier generations. Implications for developmental and evolutionary concepts (e.g., neoteny, acceleration, and heterochrony) are discussed. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An Instrument to Measure Cutaneous Blood Flow Using the Doppler Shift of Laser Light

A system utilizing the Doppler shift of monochromatic laser light has been developed to measure blood flow in skin. Light from a low power (S mW) He-Ne laser is coupled into a quartz fiber and transmitted to the skin. This light is reflected from both the nonmoving tissues (reference beam) and moving red blood cells (Doppler shifted beam), received by a plastic fiber, and transmitted back to a photodiode where optical heterodyning occurs. The heterodyned output signal, which is proportional to the Doppler shift frequency, is amplified and both RMS and dc values obtained. The RMS value is weighted against the backscattered light intensity using the measured dc value as an index of total received power. This is used as the output flow velocity value.