When is less treatment better? The role of social anxiety in matching methadone patients to psychosocial treatments.

In response to a need to match drug users to the most appropriate and cost-effective level of care, it was hypothesized that socially anxious methadone-maintained patients would attain greater benefit from coping skills training provided in the context of a low-intensity enhanced standard methadone maintenance intervention (E-STD) than in the context of a high-intensity, socially demanding day treatment program (DTP). Social anxiety was assessed in 307 methadone-maintained patients using the Social Anxiety and Distress Scale prior to randomization to either E-STD or DTP. The hypothesis was supported: Socially anxious patients were drug free longer during treatment, were more likely to be abstinent at treatment completion, and had greater reductions in HIV risk behaviors if assigned to the lower intensity intervention, which was provided at ? the cost of the DTP. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reliability of personality disorder symptoms and personality traits in substance-dependent inpatients.

The authors compared the internal consistency, 1-year temporal stability and self-informant agreement of ratings of personality trait (NEO Five-Factor Inventory; NEO-FFI; P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) and personality disorder symptom severity (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R personality Disorders Questionnaire; SCID-II-Q ; R. L. Spitzer, J. B. W. Williams, M. Gibbon, & M. First, 1990) in 131 substance-dependent inpatients. Internal consistency coefficients were acceptable to very good for most NEO-FFI and SCID-II-Q scales, and temporal stability correlations were significant for all measures. Agreement between patient and informant ratings was more modest. Substance abuse and depression symptom severity moderated the temporal stability and self-informant agreement of several personality trait and disorder ratings. The authors did not find that the five factors were more reliable than the Axis II symptoms. Issues related to the reliability of personality assessment in multiply diagnosed patients are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensation seeking, substance abuse, and psychopathology in treatment-seeking and community cocaine abusers.

Sensation seeking, substance abuse severity, and psychiatric disorders were systematically assessed in a clinical and a community sample of 335 cocaine abusers. In contrast to low-sensation-seeking cocaine abusers, high-sensation seekers exhibited more severe symptoms of substance abuse, exhibited more severe psychosocial impairment, were more likely to be polysubstance abusers, and had an earlier age of onset for substance use and abuse. High-sensation seekers were more likely to report both a lifetime history and family history of antisocial personality, attention deficit disorders and conduct disorder. Sensation seeking was related to several dimensions that are important for defining subtypes of substance abusers and was consistent with other features of a Type II classification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Naltrexone, relapse prevention, and supportive therapy with alcoholics: An analysis of patient treatment matching.

Alcohol-dependent patients (N?=?97 ) were randomly assigned to receive either naltrexone or placebo and either relapse prevention therapy or supportive therapy. The present report explored the hypothesis that patients could be matched to the above treatments on the basis of specific pretreatment characteristics. Treatment matching variables explored included craving, alcohol dependence severity, and cognitive measures of learning and memory. Results of linear regression analyses tentatively suggest that patients experiencing higher levels of craving and poorer cognitive functioning may derive the greatest benefit from naltrexone versus placebo. For psychotherapy, lower levels of verbal learning were associated with poorer drinking outcomes for relapse prevention therapy but not for supportive therapy. Conversely, higher levels of verbal learning were associated with better outcomes for relapse prevention therapy but not for supportive therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of carbon containing SiNx antireflection coating on the screen‐printed contact and low illumination performance of silicon solar cell

Screen‐printed metal contact formation through a carbon containing antireflection coating was investigated for silicon solar cells by fabricating conventional carbon‐free SiN_x and carbon‐rich SiC_xN_y film. An appreciable difference was found in the average shunt resistance (R_sh), which was about an order of magnitude higher for SiC_xN_y‐coated solar cells relative to the counterpart SiN_x‐coated solar cells. Series resistance (R_s) and fill factor (FF) were comparable for both antireflection coatings but the starting efficiency of SiC_xN_y‐coated cell was ~0·2% lower because of slightly inferior surface passivation. However, SiC_xN_y‐coated solar cells showed less degradation under lower illumination (<1000 W/m²) compared with the SiN_x‐coated cells due to reduced FF degradation under low illumination. Theoretical calculations in this paper support that this is a direct result of high R_sh. Detailed photovoltaic system and cost modeling is performed to quantify the enhanced energy production and the reduced levelized cost of electricity due to higher shunt resistance of the SiC_xN_y‐coated cells. It is shown that R_sh value below 30 Ω (7000 Ω cm² for 239 cm² cell) can lead to appreciable loss in energy production in regions of low solar insolation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subtypes of cocaine abusers: Support for a Type A–Type B distinction.

The dysfunction and generalizability of a multidimensional alcoholism typological system was systematically assessed in 399 inpatient, outpatient, and non-treatment-seeking cocaine abusers. Two different cluster-analytic procedures supported the construct, concurrent, and predictive validity of the Type A–Type B distinction in cocaine abusers. Participants classified as Type B (33%) cocaine abusers exhibited higher rates of premorbid risk factors (family history, childhood behavior problems, personality, age of onset), more severe drug and alcohol abuse, more addiction-related psychosocial impairment, more antisocial behavior, and more comorbid psychiatric problems than Type A participants (67%). Multidimensional typological systems have had a major impact on the alcoholism field and may be equally important for the assessment, prevention, treatment, and theoretical understanding of other substance use disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Construct validity of the dependence syndrome as measured by DSM-IV for different psychoactive substances

The Diagnosis of Drug Dependence in the Official Psychiatric Nomenclatures (DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and ICD 10) are based on the Drug Dependence Syndrome construct. Although the validity and utility of the dependence syndrome has been widely documented for alcohol, the generalizability of the dependence syndrome to other psychoactive substances is still not clear. Thus, this article examines the construct validity of the drug dependence syndrome, as measured by diagnostic criteria for DSM-IV, using both internal consistency analyses and confirmatory factor analyses. Data were obtained from non-mutually exclusive groups of abusers for five drugs (alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, opioids, sedatives, stimulants) drawn from a pool of 521 subjects obtained from drug treatment, general psychiatric and community samples. As predicted by the theory, drug dependence items were found to be unidimensional and factorially distinct from measures of the consequences of substance abuse (e.g. legal problems) for all drug groups. Moreover, the drug dependence items yielded internally consistent scales that produced a distribution of scores reflecting a continuum from low to high severity of abuse for all drugs.     

Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III Subtypes of Opioid Dependence: Validity and Matching to Behavioral Therapies.

The concurrent and predictive validity of 2 different methods of Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-III subtyping (protocol sorting, cluster analysis) was evaluated in 125 recently detoxified opioid-dependent outpatients in a 12-week randomized clinical trial. Participants received naltrexone and relapse prevention group counseling and were assigned to 1 of 3 intervention conditions: (a) no-incentive vouchers, (b) incentive vouchers alone, or (c) incentive vouchers plus relationship counseling. Affective disturbance was the most common Axis I protocol-sorted subtype (66%), antisocial-narcissistic was the most common Axis II subtype (46%), and cluster analysis suggested that a 2-cluster solution (high vs. low psychiatric severity) was optimal. Predictive validity analyses indicated less symptom improvement for the higher problem subtypes, and patient treatment matching analyses indicated that some subtypes had better outcomes in the no-incentive voucher conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contribution of the therapeutic alliance to outcome in active versus control psychotherapies.

Few studies have examined the role of the therapeutic alliance scores in active versus control psychotherapies. Using data from a randomized clinical trial of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy for cocaine dependence, it was found that therapeutic alliance scores were rated as significantly more positive in cognitive-behavioral treatment than clinical management, a psychotherapy control condition. However, level of the therapeutic alliance was associated with outcome for the control but not the active psychotherapy. These data suggest that control conditions, which are intended to control for common factors of psychotherapies such as the therapeutic alliance, may exert their effect on outcomes primarily through the level of those common factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High efficiency inline diffused emitter (ILDE) solar cells on mono‐crystalline CZ silicon

High throughput, low cost, and high efficiency are the keys to reducing the cost of photovoltaic electricity. To realize high efficiency, the quality of emitter is critical. The emitter can be formed either by batch deposition in a tube using liquid POCl₃ source or by inline spray deposition of phosphoric acid (P₂O₅). The POCl₃ process has been optimized over the years to give reproducible performance, whereas the inline diffusion has not been systematically optimized. This paper reports on solar cell results with the inline emitters. Sheet resistance mapping tool has been used to quantify the emitter uniformity in conjunction with junction depth and phosphorus surface concentration to characterize the inline emitters. We have achieved average efficiencies of 17.1 and 17.4%, respectively, on 2 Ω‐cm textured CZ with 45 and 60 Ω/sq emitters. Average fill factor of 0.772 and ideality factor of 1.06 support the front contact firing optimization for the inline emitters. Personal computer one dimensional (PC1D) modeling of the 60 Ω/sq emitter showed efficiency of >18% is achievable by reducing the front surface recombination velocity (FSRV) from 120 000 to 80 000 cm/s and increasing the fill factor to 79.5%. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.