Listener Responses as a Collaborative Process: The Role of Gaze

The authors examined precisely when and how listeners insert their responses into a speaker's narrative. A collaborative theory would predict a relationship between the speaker's acts and the listener's responses, and the authors proposed that speaker gaze coordinated this collaboration. The listener typically looks more at the speaker than the reverse, but at key points while speaking the speaker seeks a response by looking at the listener, creating a brief period of mutual gaze called here a gaze window . The listener was very likely to respond with "mhm," a nod, or other reaction during this period, after which the speaker quickly looked away and continued speaking. This model was tested with 9 dyads in which 1 person was telling a close-call story to the other. The results confirmed the model for each dyad, demonstrating both collaboration in dialogue at the microlevel and a high degree of integration and coordination of audible and visible acts, in this case, speech and gaze.     

AIDS education and outreach to injecting drug users and the community in public housing.

Describes an inner-city outreach program using indigenous workers to reduce the risk of HIV infection with treatment coupons and communitywide education. The program targeted predominantly African-American public housing neighborhoods, where injecting drug users not in treatment and their sexual partners resided. Changes in community participation and attitudes regarding outreach were observed over 2 yrs of program operation in separate samples. The program resulted in increased knowledge about HIV infection and decreased needle-sharing behavior in Year 2; high-risk sexual behavior persisted. Treatment success was limited and complicated by continued use of other drugs, a short-length of stay in treatment, and insufficient cocaine protocols. In addition to AIDS education, outreach workers provided networking and coalition-building opportunities that have enhanced treatment accessibility and created a perception of hope and positive change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concreteness effects on memory: When and why?

Two experiments with 194 university students studied the effects of concreteness and relatedness of noun pairs on free recall, cued recall, and memory integration. Dual-coding theory (DCT) implies that concreteness and relatedness should have independent and additive effects on memory performance, whereas relational-distinctiveness processing theory implies that the 2 variables should interact. Their effects proved to be statistically independent in cued-recall and memory integration tests in both studies. In free recall, the effects were independent in Exp 1 and interactive over subjects, but not over items in Exp 2. Results were most consistent with the DCT and, regarding integration, with the hypothesis that strong verbal relations are necessary for integrative recall of abstract pairs, whereas high imagery is sufficient for integrative recall of concrete pairs. The hypothesis resolves a long-standing issue concerning memory integration of abstract language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Chemoenzymatic Semi-synthesis Enables Efficient Production of Isotopically Labeled α-Synuclein with Site-Specific Tyrosine Phosphorylation

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) can affect the normal function and pathology of α-synuclein (αS), an amyloid-fibril-forming protein linked to Parkinson's disease. Phosphorylation of αS Tyr39 has recently been found to display a dose-dependent effect on fibril formation kinetics and to alter the morphology of the fibrils. Existing methods to access site-specifically phosphorylated αS for biochemical studies include total or semi-synthesis by native chemical ligation (NCL) as well as chemoenzymatic methods to phosphorylate peptides, followed by NCL. Here, we investigated a streamlined method to produce large quantities of phosphorylated αS by co-expressing a kinase with a protein fragment in Escherichia coli. We also introduced the use of methyl thioglycolate (MTG) to enable one-pot NCL and desulfurization. We compare our optimized methods to previous reports and show that we can achieve the highest yields of site-specifically phosphorylated protein through chemoenzymatic methods using MTG, and that our strategy is uniquely well suited to producing ¹⁵N-labeled, phosphorylated protein for NMR studies.     

Sorption of hydrophobic pollutants on natural sediments

The sorption of hydrophobic compounds (aromatic hydrocarbons and chlorinated hydrocarbons) spanning a concentration range in water solubility from 500 parts per trillion (ppt) to 1800 parts per million (ppm) on local (North Georgia) pond and river sediments was investigated. The sorption isotherms were linear over a broad range of aqueous phase pollutant concentrations. The linear partition coefficients (K_p) were relatively independent of sediment concentrations and ionic strength in the suspensions. The K_p ś were directly related to organic carbon content for given particle size isolates in the different sediments. On an organic carbon basis (K_{oc = Kp/fraction}) organic carbon), the sand fraction (> 50 μm particle size) was a considerably less effective sorbent (50–90% reduction in K_oc) than the fines fraction (> 50 μm particles). Differences in sorption within the silt and clay fractions were largely related to differences in organic carbon content. Reasonable estimates of K_ocś can be made from octanol/water distribution coefficients, which are widely catalogued or easily measured in the laboratory.     

HIV/AIDS training and continuing education for psychologists.

The HIV infection and AIDS pandemic presents professional disciplines, including psychology, with unique challenges. The authors review the literature on education concerning HIV/AIDS in doctoral psychology programs, internships, and continuing education efforts in psychology and other disciplines. Recommendations are offered regarding the process and content of continuing education for psychologists regarding HIV and AIDS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategy Development and Learning to Spell New Words: Generalization of a Process.

The authors used microgenetic methods in 2 experiments to examine children's and adults' progress from initial attempts at spelling nonwords to later direct memory retrieval of the spellings. Participants repeatedly spelled nonwords presented in computerized, dictated-word spelling tests over several weeks. Following each spelling, participants provided retrospective strategy reports. Half of the children showed a gradual shift from spelling words with effortful backup strategies to fast retrieval; half of the children continued using backup strategies that were fast and effective for them. Relatively more adults shifted from backup strategies to retrieval, but otherwise their patterns of spelling development were quite similar to those of the children. This research provides support for the generalizability of the overlapping waves model to nonalgorithmic domains. It also demonstrates parallels between children and adults in learning to spell new words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contributions of social science to innovation and productivity.

Argues that the current debate on national productivity and innovation has largely ignored the contributions of social science. In the present article, 3 trends and developments are considered: social science as a decision aid, social science as a source of social technology, and social science as a tool for understanding innovation and productivity. Major inhibiting factors in the use of social science include its nonproprietary nature, the disaggregation of social science support, and the isolation of social science from decision making. The continued de-emphasis of social science research is seen as harmful for the nation's knowledge base and for its efforts to achieve economic and technological revitalization. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creating interference colors on thermoplastic films without colorants

Most of us who are involved with color in the plastics industry think of pigments and dyes incorporated into or coated onto a polymer in order to produce asthetic appeal. But unusual colored effects can be created through selective embossings. This article discusses the history of diffraction gratings, how and why they work, how they are made, and how this technology can be applied to the plastics industry to create unique visual effects. Examples are given of design variations which are possible using a basic 1–in. circular diffraction grating. Also included are examples of end-use applications.     

Lipoproteins of fetal and newborn calves and adult steer: A study of developmental changes

Serum lipoproteins in fetal and newborn calves were characterized and compared with those of adult animals. Fetal calf serum contains only low density (LDL) and high density (HDL) lipoproteins; the LDL is the major lipoprotein class. Fetal LDL are ca. 26.0 nm diameter and are morphologically unusual in that particles form linear aggregates or “chains” in which LDL have flattened, parallel sides. These particles contain only apolipoprotein B and are high in polar lipids. Fetal HDL consist of 8.2-nm, round particles which contain large amounts of chlesteryl ester thus suggesting an active lecithin: cholesterol acyltransferase system in the fetal state. The major protein in fetal HDL is apolipoprotein A−I (80%); however, another component with a molecular weight (MW) of ca. 9,000 is also present. Newborn calves show a 5-fold increase in HDL concentration. These particles are 9.0 nm spherical particles and they contain mainly apolipoprotein A−I although C-apolipoproteins are also present; the lipid and apolipoprotein composition of newborn HDL is similar to that of adults. Newborn calves possess very low density (VLDL) lipoproteins which have a mean diameter of 61 nm and are similar in size and composition to those of adult animals; their apolipoprotein composition is principally apolipoprotein B, although C-apolipoproteins and apolipoprotein A−I are also present. The LDL of neonatal and adult animals are similar in morphology, chemical composition and apolipoprotein content. In both instances, LDL are round particles ca. 19.0 nm diameter which contain less polar lipids than the fetal animal. Apolipoprotein B is the major protein in newborn LDL, but adult LDL additionally contains a protein of 27,000 MW which probably represents apolipoprotein A−I from overlapping α-migrating particles in this region. The altered morphology and composition of fetal LDL, together with the lack of VLDL, suggest that the LDL particles may be synthesized de novo. Preliminary data was presented at the American Oil Chemists' Society Meeting, 1979.