Group polarization: A critical review and meta-analysis.

Reviews recent (1974–1982) group polarization studies that address either 1 of the 2 primary explanatory mechanisms thought to underly group polarization: social comparison and persuasive argumentation processes (SCP and PAP). A summary of the effect sizes of 21 published articles (33 independent effects) suggests that SCP and PAP occur in combination to produce polarization, although the persuasive argumentation effects tend to be larger. Four questions that suggest how to integrate PAP and SCP into a more conceptually coherent position—a position that served to integrate group polarization with other social psychological phenomena—are presented. (68 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A randomized clinical trial of the nonsteroidal eyedrop diclofenac after strabismus surgery

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compare the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects of topical diclofenac sodium 0.1% (Voltaren) with prednisolone sodium phosphate 1% ophthalmic solution after strabismus surgery. DESIGN: A prospective, double-masked, randomized, two-center clinical trial. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty eyes of 52 patients undergoing strabismus surgery were examined. INTERVENTION: For 1 week after surgery, the eye that was operated on received one drop of either diclofenac or prednisolone four times a day. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The diclofenac- and prednisolone-treated eyes were compared on postoperative days 3 and 7 with respect to signs of inflammation (e.g., erythema, edema, discharge), patient comfort, and conjunctival incisional healing. RESULTS: On postoperative day 7, in eyes that received prednisolone, the conjunctival defects were larger (P = 0.004) and more frequent (P = 0.02). For all subjects, despite adequate statistical power, there was no statistically significant difference in inflammatory scores between eyes that received diclofenac or prednisolone. In cases of bilateral surgery, however, there was less postoperative erythema and edema in the diclofenac-treated eyes. CONCLUSIONS: In the first week after strabismus surgery, topical diclofenac proved at least as effective as prednisolone in controlling inflammation and discomfort with less delay in incisional wound healing. Topical diclofenac, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agent, may be considered for use after strabismus surgery in place of corticosteroids.     

Thyroiditis and thyroid cancer

We studied a patient with microcephaly, short stature, type B brachydactyly, nail dysplasia, skeletal anomalies, and mental retardation. The mother of the propositus has brachydactyly of thumbs and a similar physiognomy without mental retardation. This appears to be another observation of the Tonoki syndrome, a distinct autosomal dominant or X-linked clinical entity.     

Soil-structure interaction in explosive testing of model containments

The SIMQUAKE series of field tests on model containment structures provides a data base which may be used to validate analytic models of soil-structure interaction (SSI). In addition, the test produced significant evidence of nonlinear rocking response of 1/4-embedded model structures due to debonding and rebonding at the soil-structure interface. This paper describes the SIMQUAKE II test and an analytic method for soil-structure interaction based on explicit finite difference techniques, which consider both nonlinear behavior at the soil-structure interface and nonlinear constitutive behavior of the site. The analytic method is applied to two-dimensional analyses of both 1/8- and 1/12-size structures and results are compared with test measurements. Structural rocking response is shown to be sensitive to the inelastic compaction characteristic of the soil adjacent to the structure. A three-dimensional pretest analysis of the SIMQUAKE II test is also briefly reviewed.     

Autoimmune diseases--at the molecular level

Autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases are the focus of intensive research using the concepts and tools of immunology, molecular genetics and cell biology. A group of scientists recently gathered to discuss recent developments in organ-specific and systemic autoimmune diseases in both human and animal models. In this article, we hope to convey some of the excitement and enthusiasm evident at the meeting which placed emphasis on work at the molecular level.     

Production,milk fatty acid profile,and nutrient utilization in grazing dairy cows supplemented with ground flaxseed

Flaxseed has been extensively used as a supplement for dairy cows because of its high concentrations of energy and the n-3 fatty acid (FA) cis-9,cis-12,cis-15 18:3. However, limited information is available regarding the effect of ground flaxseed on dry matter intake (DMI), ruminal fermentation, and nutrient utilization in grazing dairy cows. Twenty multiparous Jersey cows averaging (mean ± standard deviation) 111 ± 49 d in milk in the beginning of the study were used in a randomized complete block design to investigate the effects of supplementing herbage (i.e., grazed forage) with ground corn-soybean meal mix (control diet = CTRL) or ground flaxseed (flaxseed diet = FLX) on animal production, milk FA, ruminal metabolism, and nutrient digestibility. The study was conducted from June to September 2013, with data and sample collection taking place on wk 4, 8, 12, and 16. Cows were fed a diet formulated to yield a 60:40 forage-to-concentrate ratio consisting of (dry matter basis): 40% cool-season perennial herbage, 50% partial total mixed ration, and 10% of ground corn-soybean meal mix or 10% ground flaxseed. However, estimated herbage DMI averaged 5.59 kg/d or 34% of the total DMI. Significant treatment by week interactions were observed for milk and blood urea N, and several milk FA (e.g., trans-10 18:1). No significant differences between treatments were observed for herbage and total DMI, milk yield, feed efficiency, concentrations and yields of milk components, and urinary excretion of purine derivatives. Total-tract digestibility of organic matter decreased, whereas that of neutral detergent fiber increased with feeding FLX versus CTRL. No treatment effects were observed for ruminal concentrations of total volatile FA and NH₃-N, and ruminal proportions of acetate and propionate. Ruminal butyrate tended to decrease, and the acetate-to-propionate ratio decreased in the FLX diet. Most saturated and unsaturated FA in milk fat were changed. Specifically, milk proportion of cis-9,cis-12,cis-15 18:3, Σn-3 FA, and Σ18C FA increased, whereas that of cis-9,cis-12 18:2, Σn-6 FA, Σ odd-chain FA, Σ<16C FA, and Σ16C FA decreased with feeding FLX versus the CTRL diet. In conclusion, feeding FLX did not change yields of milk and milk components, but increased milk n-3 FA. Therefore, costs and industry adoption of premiums for n-3-enriched milk will determine the adoption of ground flaxseed in pasture-based dairy farms.     

Defensiveness and perception of external inspiratory resistive loads in asthma

This paper introduces a model which incorporates fetal thymus organ culture (FTOC) from NOD mice to replicate thymic development of diabetogenic T cells. NOD fetal pancreas organ culture (FPOC) co-cultured with 13-16 day NOD FTOC for an additional 14-21 days produced less insulin than FPOC cultured alone. Insulin production from the FTOC of non-diabetic strains C57BL/6 and BALB/c was not inhibited by co-culture with FTOC from their syngeneic counterparts. Sections of the NOD co-cultures showed peri-islet infiltration with lymphocytes. Insulin reduction by FTOC/FP co-culture was prevented by co-culture of the NOD FT with FT from immunologically incompetent C.B-17 SCID/SCID mice. Co-culture of NOD FP with NOD FT prior to the development of T cells prevented generation of diabetogenic FTOC. Thus, early exposure of NOD T cell precursors to the thymic stromal elements of C.B-17 SCID/SCID FT or to islet antigens can negatively select for diabetogenic T cells or activate immuno-regulatory cells that can suppress diabetogenic T cell activity. The addition of blocking F(ab')2 fragments of anti-CD3epsilon monoclonal antibody to NOD FTOC/FP co-cultures prevented insulin reduction, implicating a role for TcR-mediated recognition in this "in vitro IDDM" model. The addition of activating whole anti-CD3epsilon caused the complete ablation of insulin production in FTOC/FP co-cultures from all strains tested. Transfer of unprimed syngeneic FTOC cells to prediabetic NOD mice prevented the onset of IDDM while transfer of islet-cell primed FTOC/FP cells slightly increased disease incidence. These data suggest that while diabetogenic T cells are present in the FT, they are normally suppressed, even after organ culture. However, these cells can induce the destruction of islet cells, in vitro and in vivo, if they are appropriately activated with pancreatic tissue.     

A survey of book recommender systems

The act of reading has benefits for individuals and societies, yet studies show that reading declines, especially among the young. Recommender systems can help stop such decline. We present a survey of recommender systems in the domain of books. We have categorized the systems into six classes, and highlighted the main trends, issues, evaluation approaches and datasets. Other research areas, such as psychology, are consulted to understand users’ books choices and reading models.     

Location detection and disambiguation from twitter messages

A remarkable amount of Twitter messages are generated every second. Detecting the location entities mentioned in these messages is useful in text mining applications. Therefore, techniques for extracting the location entities from the Twitter textual content are needed. In this work, we approach this task in a similar manner to the Named Entity Recognition (NER) task, but we focus only on locations, while NER systems detect names of persons, organizations, locations, and sometimes more (e.g., dates, times). But, unlike NER systems, we address a deeper task: classifying the detected locations into names of cities, provinces/states, and countries in order to map them into physical locations. We approach the task in a novel way, consisting in two stages. In the first stage, we train Conditional Random Fields (CRF) models that are able to detect the locations mentioned in the messages. We train three classifiers: one for cities, one for provinces/states, and one for countries, with various sets of features. Since a dataset annotated with this kind of information was not available, we collected and annotated our own dataset to use for training and testing. In the second stage, we resolve the remaining ambiguities, namely, cases when there exists more than one place with the same name. We proposed a set of heuristics able to choose the correct physical location in these cases. Our two-stage model will allow a social media monitoring system to visualize the places mentioned in Twitter messages on a map of the world or to compute statistics about locations. This kind of information can be of interest to business or marketing applications.