Reduction of cold-pressor pain with acupuncture analgesia in high- and low-hypnotic subjects.

Examined the effect of acupuncture on the cold-pressor pain of high and low hypnotically susceptible undergraduates. The 24 high-susceptible Ss and the 24 low-susceptible Ss verbally reported their course of pain over each 60-sec cold-pressor trial on a numerical rating scale. On Trial 1, in which no groups received treatment, pain ratings did not differ between groups. On Trial 2, Ss who received acupuncture reported significantly less pain than their no-treatment counterparts. The Treatment by Susceptibility interaction was significant, with high-susceptible Ss being more responsive to acupuncture. When an acupuncture effect occurred, it was invariably one of pain reduction; in no case was pain elimination reported. It is concluded that hypnotic susceptibility may be a relevant dimension of individual differences in responsivity to acupuncture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Certification, licensing, and the movement of psychologists from state to state.

"The licensing or certification of psychologists… exists to protect the consumer from dangerous or inferior commodities. As an alternative to legislation creating certifying and licensing laws, some states have established nonstatuatory certifying boards." Generally these boards are corporations. A table titled "Some Characteristics of Psychology Laws" lists 26 states and 4 Canadian provinces, the coverage of each law, education requirements, experience requirements, whether examinations are mandatory, whether there is reciprocity, and whether residence is required. A 2nd table titled "Some Characteristics of Nonstatuatory Psychology Provisions" incorporates information under the same major headings. "A study of the laws indicates that with few exceptions the doctorate is required after the initial grand fathering." 2 or more years of experience are required in the majority of states. "An overwhelming majority of statutes requires an examination. Most of the laws cover the use of the title 'Psychologist' and restrict the use of the title to those who hold themselves out to the public as psychologists and request a fee for their services." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond schools of psychotherapy: Integrity and maturity in therapy and supervision.

Discusses the greater importance of integrity and maturity over theoretical allegiance to a particular school of therapy—the lack of which may lead to "psychonoxious" therapy or supervision, done to meet the needs of the therapist rather than for the patient's or student's welfare. Male and female therapists lacking these essential qualities are described. The mechanism producing this immaturity is hypothesized to be the unresolved adolescent issue of insecurity over one's appeal to the opposite sex, resulting in a need for conquest and power. It is concluded that no therapist is above the potential for abuse of his/her emotional power; only self-awareness can assure the integrity and maturity essential in the therapeutic interaction. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acceptability of community-based growth monitoring in a rural village in South Africa

In rural areas, a lack of infrastructure often limits the promotion and implementation of community-based nutrition activities. Growth monitoring can potentially provide a platform for the promotion and implementation of community-based nutrition activities, provided that the growth-monitoring program has a high coverage. The aim of this study was to determine the acceptability of a community-based growth-monitoring project in terms of child attendance and maternal attitude. The study was done in a mountainous rural village that lacks health facilities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Attendance registers from 1996 to 2000 were used to determine the attendance ratio, coverage, adequacy of growth monitoring, and frequency distribution of the age of participating children. In 2001, focus group discussions were used for the qualitative assessment of maternal attitudes. The community-based growth-monitoring project had an estimated coverage of 90%, at least 60% of these children were covered adequately, and attendance was equally distributed over one-year-interval age categories for children aged five years and younger. Community-based growth monitoring can therefore provide a suitable platform for the promotion and implementation of community-based nutrition activities.     

Bile salt/lecithin mixed micelles optimized for the solubilization of a poorly soluble steroid molecule using statistical experimental design

Bile salts and lecithin combine physiologically to form mixed micelles which aid the solubilization and absorption of dietary fats and drug molecules. In this series of experiments, we have shown how experimental design procedures aid the optimization of a formulation incorporating a bile salt, lecithin, and water with fluticasone propionate (FP) as the model poorly soluble drug. The initial inclusion of a categorical variable ruled out the use of classic response surface designs; therefore the experimental design was constructed using a d-optimal selection from a candidate set of all possible experimental combinations. A separate 2-factor central composite design was used to determine the optimum lecithin and bile salt concentrations over an extended range after the categorical variable had been eliminated. It has been demonstrated that an increase in either lecithin or cholic acid concentration produces an increase in solubility of FP, while sodium taurocholate appears to depress the solubility of FP compared with the other two bile salts. The increase in solubility associated with the increase in bile salt and lecithin is further demonstrated by a linear relationship between FP solubility and the total lipid in the formulation. The influence of molar ratio of lecithin to bile salt in the formulation is also significant. The physical properties of the mixed micellar system (solution turbidity and viscosity ranking) were used to further discriminate between formulations. The optimization showed that the dominant effect was the lecithin, which improves the solubilizing characteristics of the formulation with increasing concentration. The effect of salt concentration is less marked though slightly quadratic in nature. The overall increase in solubility demonstrated was from <1 microg/mL in water to 205 microg/mL in the optimized mixed micellar system.     

Automating performance-related impact analysis through event based traceability

Current impact analysis techniques tend to focus on assessing the impact of change upon the system's functionality, whilst a consideration of performance related requirements is often deferred until after implementation. This tendency can lead to costly and time-consuming mistakes that frustrate customers and require frantic last-minute efforts to fix. This paper proposes a method for supporting performance-related impact analysis in a heterogeneous software engineering environment. An event-based approach is taken to establish dynamic traceability links, capable of propagating data values and commands between requirements and performance models. Quantitative values in performance related requirements are adjusted to reflect proposed changes, and impacted models are re-executed to measure the impact of the change. The resulting outputs are then automatically compared to relevant performance requirements and a system-wide report showing the impact of the proposed change upon performance is generated.

A Prospective Study of Autobiographical Memory and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Following Cancer.

In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between autobiographical memory and the onset and maintenance of distressing memories following cancer. In Study 1, participants recently diagnosed with head, neck, or lung cancer were assessed for acute stress disorder (ASD). Participants with ASD reported fewer specific memories than did participants without ASD. In Study 2, the same participants were assessed 6 months later for autobiographical memory and cancer-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Deficits in the retrieval of specific memories in Study 1 were not predictive of subsequent PTSD. Increased hopelessness during the 6 months was associated with a decline in the retrieval of positive memories and an increase in the retrieval of negative memories. These findings accord with propositions that retrieval of distressing memories is guided by current self-image and attitude toward one's future. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward semantic indexing and retrieval using hierarchical audio models

Semantic-level content analysis is a crucial issue in achieving efficient content retrieval and management. We propose a hierarchical approach that models the statistical characteristics of audio events over a time series to accomplish semantic context detection. Two stages, audio event and semantic context modeling, are devised to bridge the semantic gap between physical audio features and semantic concepts. In this work, hidden Markov models (HMMs) are used to model four representative audio events, i.e., gunshot, explosion, engine, and car-braking, in action movies. At the semantic-context level, Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) and ergodic HMMs are investigated to fuse the characteristics and correlations between various audio events. They provide cues for detecting gunplay and car-chasing scenes, two semantic contexts we focus on in this work. The promising experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach and exhibit that the proposed framework provides a foundation in semantic indexing and retrieval. Moreover, the two fusion schemes are compared, and the relations between audio event and semantic context are studied.     

Caregiver burden in Huntington's disease.

Objective: Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant heritable disease characterized by progressive neuron death and subsequent degeneration of motor, cognitive, and emotional functioning. Caregiver research studies in HD are few. The purpose of the current study was to examine caregiver burden in HD. Method: The sample consisted of 62 pairs of caregivers and care receivers (persons with Huntington's disease; pHDs). Caregivers were assessed regarding their psychological functioning, subjective appraisal of burden, and appraisal of problem-solving ability as well as the general level of daily functioning of the pHD in their care; pHDs were queried regarding their psychological functioning. Results: Analyses showed that caregiver subjective burden, pHD depression, and caregiver problem-solving appraisal were significantly associated with caregiver depression. The results did not support caregiver burden as a mediator. Conclusions: Findings delineate impact of caregiving in HD and highlight the importance of mood assessment and treatment in all groups. Suggestions for future research and implications for clinical interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)