The physician-delivered smoking intervention project: Can short-term interventions produce long-term effects for a general outpatient population?

Patterns of smoking cessation using 6- and 12-mo follow-up data are reported for 1,261 primary care patients randomized to 3 physician-delivered smoking interventions: advice only (AO), counseling (CI), and counseling plus availability of nicotine-containing gum (CI?+?NCG). One-week point-prevalence cessation rates at 12 mo did not differ among the interventions: AO (15.2%), CI (12.9%) and CI?+?NCG (16.7%). However, maintained cessation rates (abstinent at both 6 and 12 mo) increased with intervention intensity: AO (6.0%), CI (7.8%), and CI?+?NCG (10.0%): Test of trend χ–2?=?5.06, p?=?.02. CI?+?NCG was significantly higher than AO (p?=?.02). The findings support the following conclusions: Brief physician delivered intervention with availability of nicotine-containing gum can have a beneficial long-term effect on smoking cessation, and cohort data as well as point-prevalence rates are important when assessing the long-term impact of lifestyle interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social comparison and affiliation under threat: Going beyond the affiliate-choice paradigm.

Examined the emotional similarity hypothesis, a derivation from social comparison theory, which predicts that increasing fear should lead to greater affiliation with someone who is awaiting the same threat (and who therefore is of relatively similar emotional status) relative to someone who has already experienced the threat (and who therefore is of relatively dissimilar emotional status). Results failed to support the emotional similarity hypothesis and in so doing challenged the importance of emotional comparison as a determinant of verbal affiliation under threat. Cognitive clarity concerns instead seemed to account better for the observed effects on verbal affiliation. Supplementary analyses of nonverbal affiliation (facial glances) likewise ran counter to an emotional similarity prediction. Effects of affiliation on anxiety were also examined. Previous conclusions regarding the pattern and causes of affiliation under threat that have relied on the affiliate-choice paradigm are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elements of the Socratic method: III. Universal definitions.

Describes the content, process, and functions of universal definitions as used in psychotherapy. In the Socratic method, systematic questioning and inductive reasoning are used jointly to derive a universal definition. The content of universal definitions focuses on behavior labels (e.g., aggressive), evaluative standards (e.g., success), and abstract qualities (e.g., love). The process of using universal definitions in psychotherapy follows refutation, collection, and division to identify the essence of the concept. The functions of universal definitions include clarifying category membership, identifying potential causes, building new knowledge, broadening the client's perspective, limiting overgeneralizations, and guiding behavior change. Through the Socratic method, clients learn how to explore general emotional and interpersonal issues in an independent manner. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial attention to arrays of multidimensional objects.

Encoding briefly displayed arrays of multidimensional objects appears to require selective attention, but this hypothesis is challenged by M. J. Nissen's (1985) finding that properties of an object are reported independently. Selective attention to some objects but not others should produce positive dependence. Theoretical analysis shows that deviations from independence would have been difficult to observe in Nissen's data because of high guessing rates and small sample sizes. Four new experiments showing strong positive dependence in property reports are described. Deviations from independence were highly significant for most Ss. Quantitative modeling shows that selective attention to subsets of objects would produce about the amount of dependence obtained. Rather than challenging attention theories, the amount of dependence in encoding multidimensional objects is consistent with selective attention to either objects or locations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characterization of the intracellular GLUT-4 compartment

Learned behaviors and tolerance to ethanol can be maintained by peripheral injection of arginine8-vasopressin (vasopressin) under conditions in which they would otherwise be lost. However, the sites of this action in the brain have not been clearly identified. Using a polyclonal antibody raised against Fos and Fos-like proteins, we have demonstrated increases in immunoreactive Fos and Fos-like proteins in the suprachiasmatic, supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus, and lesser increases in piriform cortex and amygdala, of the rat 2 h after a s.c. injection of vasopressin. Our results suggest that the exogenous vasopressin may exert its central action by activating a cellular immediate early gene in specific brain regions.     

Oxygen Tracer Diffusion in Vitreous Silica

Oxygen diffusion in vitreous silica glass is studied using the gas exchange technique. The tracer concentration profiles are consistent with a model based on two mechanisms, one network and the other interstitial. These processes are coupled through limited network–interstitial exchange. Nuclear reaction analysis and secondary ion mass spectrometry techniques are performed and compared. These results are compared to experiments on transport in thin silica films grown on single-crystal silicon.     

Direct Vapor Pressure Measurement of Heatset Inks

Several types of ink are used in web offset printing. However, heatset inks predominate in general commercial work. In these inks, the vehicle consists of resin dissolved in a solvent, and drying takes place mainly by evaporation. In heatset web offset printing, the printed web is passed through dryers, which raise the temperature of the web enough to cause evaporation of the solvent. leaving only the resin to bind the pigment into a film and to the paper.

Since the solvents used in the heatset inks vary in boiling range from approximately 232° C to 316° C, and the solvent selected depends on the printing conditions, it is necessary to determine the vapor pressure values of heatset inks versus web temperatures for drying calculations. The isoteniscope method is limited to only the vapor pressure measurement of liquids. It cannot be used for materials such as heatset inks. To overcome this difficulty, an apparatus was designed and con- structed by TEC Systems for directly measuring the vapor pressure versus temperature of heatset inks from approximately 21°C to 316°C. In this paper, TEC's apparatus, test procedure developed, and typical test results for pure solvents and heatset inks will be described.     

Stability of everyday memory in age-associated memory impairment: A longitudinal study.

Everyday memory performance was examined longitudinally in 2 groups of Ss meeting the diagnostic criteria for age-associated memory impairment (AAMI). One group of 157 participants in a drug trial for reversing memory loss in AAMI was tested over multiple sessions. The other group of 75 persons did not participate in a drug trial and thus was tested only twice. Both groups were retested for longitudinal follow-up about 4 yrs after initial session. Follow-up test performance remained fairly stable relative to initial performance in both groups. The drug study group showed large practice effects during the course of the drug studies, but these effects subsided after the drug studies' end. Implications regarding memory decline in the normal elderly and neuropsychological measurement issues are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the performance of the CREL system

This paper presents the performance results of a comprehensive approach to the parallel execution of rule systems. It describes the semantics of a Concurrent Rule Execution Language, CREL, and the architecture of the system that compiles and executes CREL programs. The system has been designed to avoid run-time overhead by performing extensive compile-time analysis and by parallelizing compilation. Static dependency analysis, based on serializability, coupled with a set of optimizing transforms, partitions the program into subsets, called clusters. Clusters execute independently of each other and communicate though asynchronous message passing. At run time two additional sources of parallelism are exploited—run-time consistency checking allowing multiple rules to fire, and match-level parallelism. The CREL system is implemented on a Sequent Symmetry shared-memory computer. This paper presents the results of a factorial experiment that isolates and evaluates each source of parallelism in the CREL system and each possible combination of those methods. The results suggest that multiple-rule firing is the single most important source of parallelism in CREL programs and that the use of static dependency analysis based on serializability is instrumental to effectively exploit parallelism.