Psychological Response to Test Results in an Ovarian Cancer Screening Program: A Prospective, Longitudinal Study.

To identify the psychological impact of receipt of an abnormal yet benign screening test result, the authors examined the response to a transvaginal ultrasound screening (TVS) test for ovarian cancer (OC) in asymptomatic women (N=540) undergoing an initial TVS screening test. Interviews were conducted prior to undergoing TVS screening and at 2 weeks and 4 months following this baseline. Women receiving an abnormal yet benign TVS test result (n=33) reported elevated OC-specific, but not general, distress at 2-week follow-up. Distress returned to baseline levels at 4-month follow-up. Consistent with the monitoring process and cognitive-social health information processing models, response to an abnormal TVS result was moderated by a monitoring coping style, low optimism, and a family history of OC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discriminative Stimulus, Reinforcing, Physical Dependence, and Antinociceptive Effects of Oxycodone in Mice, Rats, and Rhesus Monkeys.

Despite oxycodone's (4,5-epoxy-14-hydroxy-3-methoxy-17-methylmorphinan-6-one) history of clinical use and the attention it has received as a drug of abuse, few reports have documented its pharmacology's relevance to its abuse or its mechanism of action. The purposes of the present study were to further characterize the analgesic effects of oxycodone, its mechanism of action, and its effects in terms of its relevance to its abuse liability. The results indicate that oxycodone had potent antinociceptive effects in the mouse paraphenylquinone writhing, hot-plate, and tail-flick assays, in which it appeared to be acting as a μ-opioid receptor agonist. It generalized to the heroin discriminative stimulus and served as a positive reinforcer in rats and completely suppressed withdrawal signs in morphinedependent rhesus monkeys. These results suggest that the analgesic and abuse liability effects of oxycodone are likely mediated through μ-opioid receptors and provide the first laboratory report of its discriminative stimulus, reinforcing, and morphine cross-dependency effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mentoring, Modeling, and Money: The 3 Ms of Producing Academics.

The program at Lehigh University has been very successful in producing a high percentage of students (42% of all graduates) who have entered academic careers as trainers of school psychologists. This article presents a conceptual model for the three variables that are considered as critical components of why students select an academic career--mentoring, modeling, and money. Results of a survey of the program alumni at Lehigh University are presented. Outcomes of the survey showed significant and substantial differences in the perceptions of the mentoring and modeling process by students who are in academic versus nonacademic careers. Implications for doctoral training programs interested in training students to enter academic careers are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Updating Situation Models: Reply to Zwaan and Madden (2004).

E. J. O'Brien, M. L. Rizzella, J. E. Albrecht, and J. G. Halleran (1998) demonstrated that, consistent with the memory-based text processing view, outdated or incorrect information can be reactivated through a passive resonance process. Once reactivated, this outdated information can still influence comprehension. R. A. Zwaan and C. J. Madden (2004) suggested that the O'Brien et al. findings resulted from problems with the materials used. The present authors show that the possible "problems" identified by Zwaan and Madden do not adequately explain the findings of O'Brien et al. and that Zwaan and Madden's Experiment 3 lacks sufficient control or power to support their alternative interpretation of O'Brien et al. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discovery of an Allosteric Ligand Binding Site in SMYD3 Lysine Methyltransferase

SMYD3 is a multifunctional epigenetic enzyme with lysine methyltransferase activity and various interaction partners. It is implicated in the pathophysiology of cancers but with an unclear mechanism. To discover tool compounds for clarifying its biochemistry and potential as a therapeutic target, a set of drug-like compounds was screened in a biosensor-based competition assay. Diperodon was identified as an allosteric ligand; its R and S enantiomers were isolated, and their affinities to SMYD3 were determined (K_D=42 and 84 μM, respectively). Co-crystallization revealed that both enantiomers bind to a previously unidentified allosteric site in the C-terminal protein binding domain, consistent with its weak inhibitory effect. No competition between diperodon and HSP90 (a known SMYD3 interaction partner) was observed although SMYD3–HSP90 binding was confirmed (K_D=13 μM). Diperodon clearly represents a novel starting point for the design of tool compounds interacting with a druggable allosteric site, suitable for the exploration of noncatalytic SMYD3 functions and therapeutics with new mechanisms of action.     

The sex and ethnicity or national origins of researchers in astronomy and oncology in four countries, 2006–2007 and 2011–2012

This paper uses two large databases, one of given names and one of family names, to categorise the names of researchers from Italy, Sweden, the UK and the USA whose papers in astronomy and oncology were published in 2006–2007 and in 2011–2012 by sex (gender) and ethnicity or national origin. For all the countries, there were relatively many more females publishing papers in oncology than in astronomy, but their share of contributions was lower than the percentage of researchers. Sweden and the UK had much higher percentages of both other European and Rest of the World researchers than Italy did. US researchers with non-European names were categorised in six main country groups. The ones with the greatest presence were Chinese (mainly Mandarin) and South Asians (mainly Indians). The method could be adapted to investigate the progress of women in research in many other countries, and the role played by non-national researchers in their scientific output.     

SPECIAL ISSUE ON SOFT COMPUTING AND INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS FOR INDUSTRY - VOLUME I: ADVANCES IN SOFT MODELING TECHNIQUES AND DECISION SUPPORT

ABSTRACT

In this article we propose a methodology for building a lognormal diffusion process with polynomial exogenous factors in order to fit data that present an exponential trend and show deviations with respect to an exponential curve in the observed time interval. We show that such a process approaches a nonhomogeneous lognormal diffusion and proves that it is specially useful in the case when external information (exogenous factors) about the process is not available even though the existence of these influences is clear. An application to the global man-made emissions of methane is provided.     

Project Management for a Change

Along with the proliferation of personal computers in companies comes an increased need for security policies and programs. Recent experiences among MIS managers have shown that no degree of security can be considered too great —and it is the company's responsibility to see that these measures are taken.     

Two MILP models for the N × M SDST flowshop sequencing problem

This paper presents the derivation and evaluation of two new MILP models for the SDST flowshop sequencing problem. The first model, TS1, was derived directly from the assignment-problem-based MILP model for the regular flowshop that Stafford modified from the original Wagner three-machine all-integer model. The second model, TS2, combined the properties of model TS1 with the looser constraints approach of Srikar and Ghosh, as modified by Stafford and Tseng (model SG*). Three experiments were used to compare both new models to the SG* model. Both new models were found to use significantly less computation time than the SG* model, especially for problem sizes of 6 or more jobs and 5 or more machines. The TS1 model used significantly less computation time than the TS2 model, making it the current best MILP model in the SDST flowshop literature.