The relationship of individual and family factors to the psychological well-being of junior high school students living in urban poverty

This study examined the contribution of individual and family factors to psychological adjustment in a sample of junior high school students living in urban poverty. Identity development and perceived parental treatment were hypothesized to serve as mediating, or protective, factors between economic hardship and levels of self-esteem, depression, and loneliness. Consistent with the hypotheses, identity development did serve as a mediator between poverty and psychological adjustment. While perceived parental treatment was not related to economic hardship, it was clearly associated with well-being in this sample. Findings are discussed in terms of the differing contributions of family and individual development, as well as the importance of mediators in assessing the effects of poverty on young adolescents.     

The biological properties of Aerococcus antagonists, representatives of human microbiocenoses

The paper deals with the data on biology of Aerococcus, a slightly studied group of microorganisms. Physiological-biochemical properties of Aerococcus are described, data of their distribution in nature are given. Peculiar attention is paid to the estimate of the role of Aerococcus in human microbiocenoses. As a result of the profound and all-round study of this group of microorganisms the authors have developed new bacterial drug "A-bakterin" based on the aerococcus strain. Data presented about the results of clinical tests of "A-bakterin" are presented, a possibility to use Aerococcus lysate in the elaboration of new drugs is discussed.     

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a husband and wife

A 53-year-old man died of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) after a 1.5-year clinical course. Four and a half years later, his then 55-year-old widow died from CJD after a 1-month illness. Both patients had typical clinical and neuropathologic features of the disease, and pathognomonic proteinase-resistant amyloid protein ("prion" protein, or PrP) was present in both brains. Neither patient had a family history of neurologic disease, and molecular genetic analysis of their PrP genes was normal. No medical, surgical, or dietary antecedent of CJD was identified; therefore, we are left with the unanswerable alternatives of human-to-human transmission or the chance occurrence of sporadic CJD in a husband and wife.     

Attitude towards aggression and creative functioning in patients with breast cancer

Three projective personality tests were used to assess attitude to aggression (The Identification Test), anxiety and defenses (The Meta-Contrast Technique) and creative functioning (The Creative Functioning Test) in 70 patients with breast cancer. Discriminant analyses were applied pro primo to characterize psychologically patients with a better prognosis and patients with a poorer prognosis. A second aim was to characterize psychologically older (postmenopausal) and younger (premenopausal) women. Generally, high scores on the Identification Test indicated maladaptive attitudes towards aggression among all the patients. Patients with a poorer prognosis showed responses that in healthy subjects indicate acknowledgement of aggressive impulses, perhaps suggesting lack of "defenses" against such impulses among those patients. Another way to describe it would be that patients with a better prognosis seem to have (normally nonadaptive) "defenses" against aggressive impulses while those with poorer prognosis have not. Surprisingly, the patients with a better prognosis (but not those with a poorer prognosis) gave responses classified as depression in the Meta-Contrast Technique. Typical of premenopausal patients were responses classified as anxiety as well as reaction formation on the Identification Test. Responses classified as adaptive defenses (isolation) were seen in the Meta-Contrast Technique. A surprising finding was that many of these patients were characterized by high scores on the creativity test. These original statistically significant findings of attitudes towards aggression and creative functioning in breast cancer patients are discussed in relation to the underlying nature of aggression and creativity.     

Peculiarities of primary and secondary structure of phage FI-1 DNA

The composition of nitrous bases of phage FI-1 DNA was studied. As is evidenced from the values of buoyant density in CsCl (p=1,7093 g/cm(3)), melting temperature (T degrees m=86,05 degrees), spectral parameters and direct chromatographic determination, the DNA analysed contains 41,5 mole% pairs of guanine-cystosine. 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and other anomalous bases were not found. Chemical identification and jaxtposition of data of buoyant density in CsCl and Cs2SO4 (p=1,4466 g/cm(3)) and T degrees m. showed the presence of the extra-sugar component in DNA, most likely in the form of hentibiose. Spectral character of thermal denaturation of DNA in different solvents is indicative of the double helixity of its structure. DNA is characterized by enthalpies of conformational transitions "helix coil" (deltaH=12,3 kcal/g) and (deltaH=10 kcal/g) for the solvents, 1 x SSC, and 0,1 x SSC, correspondingly. The presence of extra-sugar in DNA with standard set of nitrous bases is discussed.     

The effect of physician-controlled health insurance. U.S. v. Oregon State Medical Society

The trial record in an antitrust case against the Oregon State Medical Society, finally decided in 1952, was examined to reconstruct the behavior of a competitive market for health insurance coverage. Health insurers, called "hospital associations," were found to have engaged individually in cost-control efforts similar to, but possibly more aggressive than, today's utilization review under professional sponsorship. The subsequent disappearance of these insurer-initiated cost controls in Oregon is traced to the medical society's organization of a competing Blue Shield plan as a model of insurer conduct and to a simultaneous boycott by physicians of the hospital associations as long as they persisted in questioning doctors' practices. Some modern parallels are noted, and the advantages of fostering privately sponsored cost-control efforts are suggested.     

Ultrastructural and biochemical changes of hepatocytes during ether and fluothane anesthesia under experimental conditions

A study was made of a possibility of using Soviet made membranes "Vladipor" with a pore diameter of 16--17 nm for the purpose of concentration and purification of antigenic extracts from stab cultures of S. typhi obtained by the action of typsin, hydrogen peroxide and detergents. Preparations, complete by antigenic structure, were obtained by ultrafiltration, with a good yield. The maximal rate of ultrafiltration was noted in case of "peroxide" antigenic preparations. The use of diafiltration provided a significant reduction of the ash content in the end products.     

Rural and urban differences in physician resource use for low-risk obstetrics

OBJECTIVE: To explore the hypothesis that rural obstetricians (OBs) and family physicians (FPs) utilized fewer resources during the care of the low-risk women who initially booked with them than did their urban counterparts of the same specialties. DATA SOURCES/STUDY DESIGN: A stratified random sample of Washington state rural and urban OBs and FPs was selected during 1989. A participation rate of 89 percent yielded 209 participating physicians. The prenatal and intrapartum medical records of a random sample of the low-risk patients who initiated care with the sampled providers during a one-year period were abstracted in detail and analyzed with the physician as the unit of analysis. Complete data for 1,683 patients were collected. Resource use elements (e.g., urine culture) were combined by standardizing them with average charge data so that aggregate resource use could be analyzed. Intraspecialty comparisons for resource use by category and overall were performed. FINDINGS/CONCLUSIONS: Results show that rural physicians use fewer overall resources in caring for nonreferred low-risk-booking obstetric patients than do their urban colleagues. Resource use unit expenditures showed the hypothesized pattern for both specialties for total, intrapartum, and prenatal care with the exception of FPs for prenatal care. Approximately 80 percent of the resource units used by each physician type were related to hospital care. No differences were shown in patterns of care for most clinically important aspects of care (e.g., cesarean delivery rates), and no evidence suggested that outcomes differed. The overall differences were due to specific components of care (e.g., fewer intrapartum hospital days and less epidural anesthesia).     

Reductions in self-injury produced by transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation is used to reduce pain but also may be useful for self-injurious behavior (SIB). In the current investigation, a microcurrent electromedical device, classified as a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulator (TENS), was applied with a man with Down syndrome who displayed SIB that persisted in the absence of social contingencies. Although clinically significant results were not maintained, a clear difference in the rates of SIB during active and inactive TENS was observed.