Maternal influences on daughters' restrained eating behavior.

This study examined whether mothers' preoccupation with their own weight and eating was linked to daughters' restrained eating behavior. Participants included 173 non-Hispanic, White mother-daughter dyads, measured longitudinally when daughters were ages 5, 7, 9, and 11. Mothers who were preoccupied with their own weight and eating reported higher levels of restricting daughters' intake and encouraging daughters to lose weight over time. Mothers' encouragement of daughters' weight loss was linked to daughters' restrained eating behavior; this relationship was partially mediated by daughters' perception of maternal pressure to lose weight. These findings suggest that mothers' preoccupation with weight and eating, via attempts to influence daughters' weight and eating, may place daughters at risk for developing problematic eating behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of food acceptance patterns.

Suckling and feeding are central to the child's health and development. In addition, feeding provides a context for early parent–child interaction. Despite the centrality of feeding to the child's development, it has been largely neglected by developmental psychologists as an area of study. To interest the developmental researcher in the acquisition of food acceptance patterns, this article provides a rationale for the significance of the study of early feeding and delineates major questions and issues that require investigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Listen while you work? Quasi-experimental relations between personal-stereo headset use and employee work responses.

Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined relations between stereo headset use and employee work responses. Employees (N?=?256) worked on 32 jobs in an office of a retail organization. Employees indicated whether they were interested in using stereos at work. From those expressing an interest, a random sample (n?=?75) was assigned to a stereo condition. These employees used headsets at work for 4 weeks. The remaining employees (n?=?181) were assigned to a control condition and were not allowed to use stereos. Results indicated that employees in the stereo condition exhibited significant improvements in performance, turnover intentions, organization satisfaction, mood states, and other responses. The mood state of relaxation best explained the relation between stereo use and performance. Finally, employees in relatively simple jobs responded most positively to the stereos. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adaptive Management of QoS Requirements for Wireless Multimedia Communications

We present a control model, which provides response time and bandwidth requirement adaptation in audio, video, and application sharing multipoint IP teleconferences for emerging wireless multimedia communications. The model is based on revealing feedback controls for multimedia call preparation and subsequent real time connection control. Case-based reasoning memory is used to associate real time congestion (connection) controls with call preparation controls and user QoS profiles. Web agents are used to capture user and application multimedia call profiles observed at the application layer and transfer them into the case memory. RTP statistics are used to identify the connection management feedback controls for the network layer. Real-time adaptation at the network layer and above is made possible by using hierarchical coding techniques. The proposed adaptive management architecture is illustrated by a case memory representation of call preparation feedback controls, RTP feedback control tests for providing audio stream bandwidth adaptation, and configuration of integrated experiments.     

Power and Type I error rates of goodness-of-fit statistics for binomial generalized estimating equations (GEE) models

Binary outcomes are very common in medical studies. Logistic regression is typically used to analyze independent binary outcomes while generalized estimating equations regression methods (GEE) are often used to analyze correlated binary data. Several goodness-of-fit (GoF) statistics for the GEE methods have been developed recently. The objective of this study is to compare the power and Type I error rates of existing GEE GoF statistics using simulated data under different conditions. The number of clusters was varied in each condition. Different tested models included discrete, continuous, observation-specific and/or cluster-specific covariates. Two or three observations per cluster were generated with various correlations between observations.No single GEE GoF statistic performed best across all conditions. Generally, the larger the number of clusters, the more powerful the GEE GoF statistics. The GEE GoF statistics with correctly specified working correlation matrices tended to be robust in terms of Type I error rates and more powerful. For data with two observations per cluster, both Evans and Pan's statistics [1998. Goodness of fit in two models for clustered binary data. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts; 2002a. Goodness-of-fit tests for GEE with correlated binary data. Scand. J. Stat. 29(1), 101–110.] and Barnhart–Williamson's statistics [1998. Goodness-of-fit tests for GEE modeling with binary data. Biometrics 54, 720–729.] performed well for detecting the effect of the omitted interaction between two binary covariates. Barnhart–Williamson's statistics were generally the most powerful for detecting other types of interactions in models with at least one continuous covariate. For data with three observations per cluster, Evans and Pan's statistics performed best.     

Search for a singular word or nonword.

Observers looked for an out-of-category item, either a singular word in a list of nonwords (i.e., random collections of letters) or a singular nonword in a list of words. When list items were presented simultaneously (Exp 1), words were detected faster than nonwords, but a singular word in a nonword list was missed more often than a singular nonword in a word list. These results are consistent with the internal-noise principle (INP). According to the INP, legal letter sequences are more likely to be misperceived as illegal than are illegal sequences as legal; thus, there was more rechecking of perceived nonwords than perceived words. With rapid serial visual presentation of list items (Exp 2), the effect of list type vanished. The missing-feature principle, which credits unresolved letters and features to legal letter sequences wherever possible, was as strong and evident as the INP during early processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processes linking weight status and self-concept among girls from ages 5 to 7 years.

This study assessed the relationship between girls' weight status and self-concept and examined peer teasing and parent criticism as potential mediators of this relationship. Data were collected for 182 girls and their parents when the girls were 5 and 7 years old. At each age, girls' body mass index, self-concept, peer weight-related teasing (child report), and parents' criticism of girls' weight status (spouse report) were assessed. At ages 5 and 7, girls who were more overweight reported lower self-concept. Peer teasing and parent criticism mediated the relationship between weight status and self-concept at age 7, but not at age 5. In addition, the duration and timing of parent criticism across ages 5 and 7 mediated the association between girls' weight status at age 5 and perceived peer acceptance at age 7. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rapid and precise epitope mapping of monoclonal antibodies against Plasmodium falciparum AMA1 by combined phage display of fragments and random peptides

We describe an approach for the rapid mapping of epitopes withina malaria antigen using a combination of phage display techniques.Phage display of antigen fragments identifies the location ofthe epitopes, then random peptide libraries displayed on phageare employed to identify accurately amino acids involved inthe epitope. Finally, phage display of mutant fragments confirmsthe role of each residue in the epitope. This approach was appliedto the apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA1), which is a leadingcandidate for inclusion in a vaccine directed against the asexualblood stages of Plasmodium falciparum. As part of the effortboth to understand the function of AMA1 in the parasite lifecycle and to define the specificity of protective immune responses,a panel of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) was generated to obtainbinding reagents to the various domains within the molecule.There is a pressing need to determine rapidly the regions recognizedby these antibodies and the structural requirements requiredwithin AMA1 for high affinity binding of the MAbs. Using phagedisplaying random AMA1 fragments, it was shown that MAb5G8 recognizesa short linear epitope within the pro-domain of AMA1 whereasthe epitope recognized by MAb 1F9 is reduction sensitive andresides within a disulphide-bonded 57 amino acid sub-domainof domain-1. Phage displaying random peptide libraries and mutantAMA1 fragments were employed for fine mapping of the MAb5G8core epitope to a three-residue sequence in the AMA1 prodomain.     

Change in maternal criticism and behavior problems in adolescents and adults with autism across a 7-year period.

In a previous study, high levels of maternal criticism predicted increased behavior problems in adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) over an 18-month period (Greenberg, Seltzer, Hong, & Orsmond, 2006). The current investigation followed these families over a period of 7 years to examine the longitudinal course of criticism and behavior problems, to assess the association between their trajectories, and to determine the degree to which change in each of these factors predicted levels of criticism and behavior problems at the end of the study period. A sample of 118 mothers coresiding with their adolescent and adult children with ASD provided open-ended narratives about their children and reported on the children's behavior problems at 4 waves. Maternal criticism was derived from expressed emotion ratings of the narratives. Criticism exhibited low but significant stability over the 7-year period, and behavior problems exhibited high stability. Through latent growth curve modeling, (a) criticism was found to have increased over time, but only for the group of families in which the sons or daughters transitioned from high school services during the study period; (b) individual changes in criticism and behavior problems were positively correlated over the 7-year period; and (c) changes in criticism predicted levels of behavior problems at the conclusion of the study. Changes in behavior problems were not predictive of end levels of criticism. Implications for intervention and prevention efforts are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)