Epidemiology of Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Mexico.

Prevalence rates of trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were estimated from a probability sample of 2,509 adults from 4 cities in Mexico. PTSD was assessed according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI; WHO, 1997). Lifetime prevalence of exposure and PTSD were 76% and 11.2%, respectively. Risk for PTSD was highest in Oaxaca (the poorest city), persons of lower socioeconomic status, and women. Conditional risk for PTSD was highest following sexual violence, but nonsexual violence and traumatic bereavement had greater overall impact because of their frequency. Of lifetime cases, 62% became chronic; only 42% received medical or professional care. The research demonstrates the importance of expanding the epidemiologic research base on trauma to include developing countries around the world. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neuropsychological functioning and personality characteristics of migrainous and nonmigrainous female college students.

Examined the theory that chronic migraine headaches can lead to permanent changes in brain function in 71 female college students. Ss were 20 classic migraineurs, 27 common migraineurs, and 24 controls. No significant group differences were found on the Halstead Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery and additional memory tests. Classic migraineurs had significantly higher scores than common migraineurs on the Hysteria and Paranoia scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and significantly higher scores than the controls on Hypochondriasis and Hysteria scales. Explanations for the lack of cognitive deficits in this group are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Families of ergodic and exact one-dimensional maps

We give a parametrized family of rational interval maps of degree two, each ergodic, exact and preserving a measure equivalent to a Lebesgue measure. The family includes the unique quadratic Chebyshev polynomial as its only polynomial map. We extend the family to other settings on the circle and real line. We also give numerical approximations to the entropy of the equivalent invariant measure and the Hausdorff dimension of the singular measure of maximal entropy.     

Roles for Psychologists in End-of-Life Care: Emerging Models of Practice.

Professional psychologists are increasingly likely to encounter opportunities to work with patients and families facing end-of-life issues. Psychologists can provide psychological assessment, intervention for patients and families, consultation with and support of health care team members, grief therapy, and program development and evaluation. Psychological services are useful for healthy individuals who wish to make thoughtful plans about their own future care, patients with life-limiting illnesses, families stressed by providing end-of-life care, bereaved individuals, and health care providers who face issues of burnout and strain. Several challenges for psychologists working in end-of-life care are noted, including training, development of clear roles, and reimbursement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence-Based Solutions for Overcoming Access Barriers, Decreasing Attrition, and Promoting Change With Underserved Families.

Various definitions exist for what constitutes family therapy. In this article, we consider family therapy to encompass any intervention that targets family interactions and conceptualizes problems as existing beyond individual clients. Numerous individual studies and several quantitative reviews have established family therapy as an effective treatment modality and the treatment of choice for many disorders. However, critiques of existing service provision highlight the unfortunate fact that numerous barriers to treatment exist at multiple levels of the broader ecology, preventing many families from benefiting from these services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Fifth Order Flux Implicit WENO Method

The weighted essentially non-oscillatory (WENO) method is an excellent spatial discretization for hyperbolic partial differential equations with discontinuous solutions. However, the time-step restriction associated with explicit methods may pose severe limitations on their use in applications requiring large scale computations. An efficient implicit WENO method is necessary. In this paper, we propose a prototype flux-implicit WENO (iWENO) method. Numerical tests on classical scalar equations show that this is a viable and stable method, which requires appropriate time-stepping methods. Future study will include the examination of such methods as well as extension of iWENO to systems and higher dimensional problems.Sigal Gottlieb - The work of this author supported by NSF grant DMS-0106743.Steven J. Ruuth - The work of this author was partially supported by a grant from NSERC Canada.     

Writing quality, reading skills, and domain knowledge as factors in text comprehension.

103 undergraduates listened to and recalled 3 passages and were given a general reading comprehension test. The passages were presented such that Ss could use general knowledge to understand them or such that no specific world knowledge seemed applicable. The passages were written in 2 different versions, preserving their content but varying their style. All 3 factors (domain knowledge, writing style, and skill) significantly affected reproductive recall, and there were no interactions between these factors. However, while good writing was sufficient to improve the reproduction of the texts, an analysis of the recall elaborations Ss made revealed that the correctness of their elaborations depended strongly on the availability of appropriate domain knowledge. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)