Institutional research productivity in industrial/organizational psychology.

Updated the report of W. M. Cox and V. Catt (see record 1978-21651-001) by determining the 40 top contributing institutions to the Journal of Applied Psychology, 1976–1982, and assessed the generalizability of productivity rankings based solely on contributions to this journal. A number of industrial and organizational psychologists were asked to indicate all the journals in which psychologists in the field were likely to publish. Five journals suggested by these nominators were used for comparison in the review. A list of the 40 most productive graduate programs based on these 5 journals is included. Results show the inadequacy of Cox and Catt's decision to base productivity ratings solely on contributions to 1 journal. Using 5 journals, 4 programs were catapulted into the top 10 rankings, while 7 programs dropped from top rankings in the Cox study (1970–1975) to below the 65th rank in the present study. Using only the Journal of Applied Psychology contributions, 2 of these programs ranked in the top 10, 1976–1982. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision Making Effectiveness in Wildfire Incident Management Teams

During large scale wildfires, suppression activities are carried out under the direction of an Incident Management Team (IMT). The aim of the research was to increase understanding of decision processes potentially related to IMT effectiveness. An IMT comprises four major functions: Command, Operations, Planning, and Logistics. Four methodologies were used to study IMT processes: computer simulation experiments; analyses of wildfire reports; interviews with IMT members; and cognitive ethnographic studies of IMTs. Three processes were important determinants of IMT effectiveness: information management and cognitive overload; matching component function goals to overall goals; and team metacognition to detect and counter task‐disruptive developments. These processes appear to be complex multi‐person analogues of individual Incident Command processes identified previously. The findings have implications for issues such as: creating IMTs; training IMTs; managing IMTs; and providing decision support to IMTs.     

R. K. Merton — Life time of influence

In this article, “Life time of influence” refers to Robert K. Merton's impact broadly, and emblematically, to his influence upon my work. The article discusses 1) the scope and influence of Merton's ideas about social structure and explanations of social processes; 2) his vast scholarship establishing the study of science as a social institution, with implications for theory and research; and 3) his fostering of the social study of science through immense published work, and through impact upon an inter-generational network of scholars. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance.

Explores the role of early supervisory experience and cognitive ability in 1st-line supervisor performance. Similar to the F. L. Schmidt et al (see record 1986-31441-001) study of nonsupervisors, this research tested structural models hypothesizing relationships among supervisory experience, cognitive ability, supervisory knowledge and proficiency, and performance ratings, using a sample of 570 2nd-tour soldiers. The Schmidt et al model with an additional ability?→?experience path provided the best fit. The significant ability?→?experience path was interpreted as indicating that demonstrated ability contributes to soldiers being given the opportunity to obtain supervisory experience. Experience had a greater impact on supervisor proficiency than on supervisor knowledge. Ability had a greater impact on supervisor knowledge than on proficiency. Discussion focuses on the personal characteristics that might be involved in being assigned supervisory responsibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quantitation of Cefaclor in Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography

A stability-indicating high-performance liquid chromatography for the quantitation of cefaclor in pharmaceutical dosage forms has been developed. The method is accurate and precise with a percent relative standard deviation of 1.2 based on 5 readings. A number of inactive ingredients present in the capsules and suspensions did not interfere with the assay procedure. The extraction procedure from the dosage forms is very simple. The recovery from the synthetic mixtures was quantitative. The capsules which had expired 3 years ago lost only 3% of the potency. The drug appears to be very sensitive to strong acids or bases since a 5 minute boiling caused 100% degradation of drug in both the solutions.     

Responses of practicing psychologists to a web site developed to promote empirically supported treatments.

Increased adoption of empirically supported treatments (ESTs) has been hindered in part by inadequate and inconvenient access to EST information and training. To improve diffusion of ESTs, the authors developed a Web application to provide practitioners with concise information by disorder on ESTs. The resulting site, therapyadvisor.com, was evaluated by 239 practicing psychologists to assess the usefulness of the site and explore possible interactions of EST attitudes on ratings of usefulness and impact. Two thirds of participants indicated using ESTs in practice, and limited time and resources were cited as primary barriers to EST adoption. The Web application was rated positively by most participants and was reported to increase awareness of and commitment to try ESTs among approximately 60% of participants. The results of this project support the feasibility of a Web application to increase diffusion and promote further adoption of ESTs. Technological and e-learning advances are promising directions for encouraging the adoption of ESTs specifically and evidence-based practice generally, particularly among busy practitioners who have inadequate time and resources for more traditional forms of dissemination and training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors of outcome in LAAM, buprenorphine, and methadone treatment for opioid dependence.

This study examined (1) predictors of treatment outcome for opioid-dependent participants in a single-site controlled trial comparing methadone, buprenorphine, and LAAM treatments and (2) the extent to which various subpopulations of patients may have more successful outcomes with each medication. The relationships between patient demographics, drug use history, and psychological status and outcome measures of treatment retention, opiate use, and cocaine use were assessed. We believe this study to be the first to demonstrate that predictors of treatment success appear to be largely similar in LAAM, buprenorphine, and methadone treatment for opioid dependence. We did not find any factors that would strongly guide selection of one medication over others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trade-offs between gaze and working memory use.

Eye movements during natural tasks suggest that observers do not use working memory to capacity but instead use eye movements to acquire relevant information immediately before needed. Results here however, show that this strategy is sensitive to memory load and to observers' expectations about what information will be relevant. Depending upon the predictability of what object features would be needed in a brick sorting task, subjects spontaneously modulated the order in which they sampled and stored visual information using working memory more when the task was predictable and reverting to a just-in-time strategy when the task was unpredictable and the memory load was higher. This self organization was evidenced by subjects' sequence of eye movements and also their sorting decisions following missed feature changes. These results reveal that attentional selection, fixations, and use of working memory reflect a dynamic optimization with respect to a set of constraints, such as task predictablity and memory load. They also reveal that change blindness depends critically on the local task context, by virtue of its influence on the information selected for storage in working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

低成本手机市场将取得爆炸式增长

目前,低成本手机数量不断增多,市场份额越来越大,比高端手机更受欢迎。研究表明,未来三年,低成本手机市场还将持续增长,这将是无线产业最主要的发展趋势之一,已经并将继续为无线手机制造商、服务供应商及芯片设计商带来金融、市场、战略和技术领域的重大变革与挑战。     

Are all cognitive therapies alike? A comparison of cognitive and noncognitive therapy process and implications for the application of empirically supported treatments.

The definition of an empirically supported treatment (EST) arguably embodies 2 untested assumptions: (a) that different manualized renditions of the same therapy are functionally equivalent and (b) that therapies can be reliably applied independently of therapist, setting, and format. These assumptions were tested as applied to cognitive therapy (CT), using process data from a large multisite study (N=235) that included 3 cognitive and 6 alternative therapies. Although the non-CTs were more variable than the CTs on 2 of 4 dimensions studied (directiveness and emotional arousal), there was considerable variation among the 3 CTs, even when implemented in the current context of rigorous training, manualization, and adherence checks. Results are discussed as related to the assumptions underlying EST criteria. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)