Evaluation of a direct epifluorescent filter technique (DEFT) for the enumeration of bacterial spores in raw milk

A modified direct epifluorescent filter technique (DEFT), incorporating heat activation followed by a germination stage with -alanine, was evaluated for the enumeration of Bacillus spores with differing germination rates. A Good correlation (r = 0·98) was found between the pour plate spore count and the combined number of orange and green fluorescing cells determined using the DEFT for all three spore types. A good correlation (r = 0·98) was also found between the number of green fluorescing cells, in the DEFT, and the number of viable, but ungerminated spores (all three spore types), determined by a plate count method. Although there is no direct experimental evidence, this implies that the number of orange fluorescing cells, in the DEFT, could be used as an estimate of the number of germinated spores.

The work reported here indicates that DEFT can be used to determine rapidly the number of germinated, ungerminated and total number of Bacillus spores in raw milk. However, further research is required to improve its sensitivity (approximately 10⁴ spores/ml) before it can have widespread application.     

Negative reactions to received spousal care: Predictors and consequences of miscarried support.

This study focused on the negative reactions of older women with osteoarthritis to the receipt of instrumental support (i.e., physical assistance) from their husbands and the effects of such negative reactions on the women's psychological well-being and self-care. Applying a person-environment fit model, the authors predicted that women's negative reactions to spousal support would be determined by the fit between this support and the personal centrality (importance) of being functionally independent. Consistent with this prediction, women who received high levels of support from the husband and for whom being functionally independent was not highly central reacted less negatively to this support. More negative reactions to spousal support were related to greater concurrent depressive symptomatology and fewer self-care behaviors. In addition, negative reactions were predictive of the women's increased depressive symptomatology and decreased life satisfaction. Findings illustrate a useful theoretical approach to the examination of support from family caregivers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adults' demonstration of underlying Euclidean concepts in relation to task context.

In studies in which Piagetian water-level (horizontality) and plumb-line (verticality) tasks are administered to young adults, females are typically less successful than males. Women may, however, have the underlying spatial competence to use horizontal and vertical axes, but they may be less likely to activate this competence because they lack adequate knowledge of the relevant physical phenomena. To evaluate this possibility, 80 male and 80 female undergraduates were given horizontality and verticality tasks in which knowledge of the physical phenomena was or was not relevant. Results show that sex differences were evident only when knowledge of the physical phenomena was needed. These data support a performance rather than a competence interpretation of adult women's difficulties in the standard Piagetian tasks. Developmental and educational implications are discussed. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Enhancing marital intimacy through facilitating cognitive self-disclosure.

Reviews the book, Enhancing marital intimacy through facilitating cognitive self-disclosure by Edward M. Waring (see record 1988-97051-000). In this book Dr. Waring presents his approach to marital therapy, which he calls cognitive family therapy. The central thesis of the book is as follows: A lack of intimacy in family relationships is associated with emotional and psychosomatic symptoms. An important determinant of intimacy, perhaps the most important, is self-disclosure. The author suggests that facilitating self-disclosure is the easiest and most direct technique for enhancing intimacy. The emphasis on cognitive, as opposed to emotional, self-disclosure is the crucial and innovative aspect of the author's approach to treatment. After completing this book, one is left with one idea that there may be some couples with psychiatric problems who benefit more from the exchange of information about each other than from the expression of personal emotions. This is an interesting notion, and one hopes that the author will publish more definitive conceptual and empirical work on this idea. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial attention and cuing to global and local levels of hierarchical structure.

Five experiments investigated the role of attention in identifying global and local targets in hierarchically structured patterns. Hierarchical patterns were presented at a variable stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) either after a cue (4 arrows or shaded boxes) or after no cue. Targets occurred at the cued level 80% of the time and at the uncued level 20%. On uncued trials, target level probability was .5. Global cues produced benefits for both global and local targets over SOA on cued trials. Local cues produced benefits only for local targets. For uncued trials, responses favored local targets overall when interspersed with locally cued trials but favored global targets when interspersed with globally cued trials. The role of an attentional window and discrete distribution of attention over global and local levels of hierarchical patterns are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flexural strengths of polymer modified cement pastes prepared by a novel curing process

Polymer modified cement pastes prepared by a short two stage curing process yielding flexural strengths of approximately 30 MPa are described. The presence of the polymer which gives the improved flexural strength, resulted in a decrease in pore size and porosity and also a marked increase in the work of fracture, whereas very little change was observed in the values of Young's modulus.     

Is memory schematic?

Proposes a prototypical schema theory of memory. Such a theory assumes the operation of 4 central encoding processes: selection (a process that chooses only some of all incoming stimuli for representation), abstraction (a process that stores the meaning of a message without reference to the original syntactic and lexical content), interpretation (a process by which relevant prior knowledge is generated to aid comprehension), and integration (a process by which a single, holistic memory representation is formed from the products of the previous 3 operations. The supportive and critical evidence for these processes is evaluated in light of the need for any theory of memory to account for 3 fundamental observations; accuracy, incompleteness, and distortion. The central retrieval process of schema theory, reconstruction, is also discussed in this context. Evidence indicates that the memory representation is far richer and more detailed than schema theory would suggest. (6 p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)