Stability of formal thought disorder and referential communication disturbances in schizophrenia.

This study examined the degree to which different types of communication disturbances in the speech of 48 schizophrenia patients and 28 controls were variable and state related versus stable and traitlike. Clinically rated formal thought disorder and 5 types of referential disturbance showed substantial stability within participants over time. The sixth type of referential disturbance, the vague reference, was not stable over time. Formal thought disorder was associated with the severity of core psychotic symptoms in patients, whereas referential disturbances showed little or no association with positive or negative symptom severity. Furthermore, changes in psychotic symptoms over time were accompanied by corresponding changes in formal thought disorder but not referential disturbances. These results support the idea that some types of referential disturbances are traitlike and may be reflective of vulnerability as well as manifest illness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correlations for timing consistency among tapping and drawing tasks: Evidence against a single timing process for motor control.

Three experiments were conducted to examine whether timing processes can be shared by continuous tapping and drawing tasks. In all 3 experiments, temporal precision in tapping was not related to temporal precision in continuous drawing. There were modest correlations among the tapping tasks, and there were significant correlations among the drawing tasks. In Experiment 3, the function relating timing variance to the square of the observed movement duration for tapping was different from that for drawing. The conclusions drawn were that timing is not an ability to be shared by a variety of tasks but instead that the temporal qualities of skilled movement are the result of the specific processes necessary to produce a trajectory. These results are consistent with the idea that timing is an emergent property of movement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical Outcomes, Cost-Effectiveness, and the Role of Psychology in Treatments for Chronic Pain Sufferers.

Millions of people throughout the world suffer from chronic pain despite significant advances in research, technology, and treatment. Advances include the understanding of the neurobiology of nociception, the psychology of pain perception and response, and the availability of a range of pharmacological agents, operative procedures, physical modalities (e.g., ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, diathermy), regional anesthesia (e.g., nerve blocks), neuroaugmentation modalities (e.g., spinal cord stimulators, implantable drug delivery systems), comprehensive pain rehabilitation programs, and complementary and alternative medicine modalities. The authors discuss the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of these various treatment modalities. They note the roles and contributions of psychologists in the assessment of chronic pain sufferers and as treatment providers on interdisciplinary teams. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characterization of Enterococcus faecalis-infecting phages (enterophages) as markers of human fecal pollution in recreational waters

Enterophages are a novel group of phages that specifically infect Enterococcus faecalis and have been recently isolated from environmental water samples. Although enterophages have not been conclusively linked to human fecal pollution, we are currently characterizing enterophages to propose them as viral indicators and possible surrogates of enteric viruses in recreational waters. Little is known about the morphological or genetic diversity which will have an impact on their potential as markers of human fecal contamination. In the present study we are determining if enterophages can be grouped by their ability to replicate at different temperatures, and if different groups are present in the feces of different animals. As one of the main objectives is to determine if these phages can be used as indicators of the presence of enteric viruses, the survival rate under different conditions was also determined as was their prevalence in sewage and a large watershed. Coliphages were used as a means of comparison in the prevalence and survival studies. Results indicated that the isolates are mainly DNA viruses. Their morphology as well as their ability to form viral plaques at different temperatures indicates that several groups of enterophages are present in the environment. Coliphage and enterophage concentrations throughout the watershed were lower than those of thermotolerant coliforms and enterococci. Enterophage concentrations were lower than coliphages at all sampling points. Enterophages showed diverse inactivation rates and T₉₀ values across different incubation temperatures in both fresh and marine waters and sand. Further molecular characterization of enterophages may allow us to develop probes for the real-time detection of these alternative indicators of human fecal pollution.     

Incorporation of laurate and hydroxylaurate into phosphatidylcholines and acylglycerols in castor microsomes

Because castor produces oil with a high content of hydroxyl FA (90% ricinoleate), we were interested in determining the flexibility of castor seed microsomes in incorporating other hydroxyl FA into castor oil. To this end, we incubated the [¹⁴C]-labeled 12:0 FA laurate (La), 11-hydroxylaurate, and 12-hydroxylaurate with castor microsomes that were capable of synthesizing castor oil. The molecular species of PC and acylglycerols (AG) incorporating these nonendogenous FA of castor were identified by reversed-phase C₈ and C₁₈ HPLC, respectively. [¹⁴C]Laurate was incorporated into the molecular species of PC and AG at levels of 10 and 4%, respectively, that of [¹⁴C]ricinoleate. Similar to those from the incorporation of six [¹⁴C]FA reported previously [ricinoleate (R), oleate (O), linoleate (L), linolenate (Ln), stearate (S), and palmitate (P)], the molecular species of PC incorporating [¹⁴C]laureate were LLa-PC>PLa-PC>OLa-PC>LnLa-PC>SLa-PC>RLa-PC. The molecular species of AG incorporating [¹⁴C]laurate were RRLa>LaLa>RLa>RLLa>ROLa>LOLa>LLLa>LLa>LLnLa>RSLa>OOLa. The retention times for lipids incorporating laurate were similar to those of lipids incorporating linolenate, because the equivalent carbon numbers of laurate and linolenate are the same. Relative retention times of the molecular species of PC and AG containing laurate are also reported here. The incorporation of 11-hydroxylaurate and 12-hydroxylaurate into PC and AG was not detected.     

Exploring differential item functioning (DIF) with the Rasch model: a comparison of gender differences on eighth grade science items in the United States and Spain

Traditionally, women and minorities have not been fully represented in science and engineering. Numerous studies have attributed these differences to gaps in science achievement as measured by various standardized tests. Rather than describe mean group differences in science achievement across multiple cultures, this study focused on an in-depth item-level analysis across two countries: Spain and the United States. This study investigated eighth-grade gender differences on science items across the two countries. A secondary purpose of the study was to explore the nature of gender differences using the many-faceted Rasch Model as a way to estimate gender DIF. A secondary analysis of data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was used to address three questions: 1) Does gender DIF in science achievement exist? 2) Is there a relationship between gender DIF and characteristics of the science items? 3) Do the relationships between item characteristics and gender DIF in science items replicate across countries. Participants included 7,087 eight grade students from the United States and 3,855 students from Spain who participated in TIMSS. The Facets program (Linacre and Wright, 1992) was used to estimate gender DIF. The results of the analysis indicate that the content of the item seemed to be related to gender DIF. The analysis also suggests that there is a relationship between gender DIF and item format. No pattern of gender DIF related to cognitive demand was found. The general pattern of gender DIF was similar across the two countries used in the analysis. The strength of item-level analysis as opposed to group mean difference analysis is that gender differences can be detected at the item level, even when no mean differences can be detected at the group level.     

Numerical Modeling of a Magnetic Flux Compression Experiment

A possible plasma target for Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) is a stable diffuse z-pinch in a toroidal cavity, like that in MAGO experiments. To examine key phenomena of such MTF systems, a magnetic flux compression experiment with this geometry is under design. The experiment is modeled with 3 codes: a slug model, the 1D Lagrangian RAVEN code, and the 1D or 2D Eulerian Magneto-Hydro-Radiative-Dynamics-Research (MHRDR) MHD simulation. Even without injection of plasma, high-Z wall plasma is generated by eddy-current Ohmic heating from MG fields. A significant fraction of the available liner kinetic energy goes into Ohmic heating and compression of liner and central-core material. Despite these losses, efficiency of liner compression, expressed as compressed magnetic energy relative to liner kinetic energy, can be close to 50%. With initial fluctuations (1%) imposed on the liner and central conductor density, 2D modeling manifests liner intrusions, caused by the m = 0 Rayleigh-Taylor instability during liner deceleration, and central conductor distortions, caused by the m = 0 curvature-driven MHD instability. At many locations, these modes reduce the gap between the liner and the central core by about a factor of two, to of order 1 mm, at the time of peak magnetic field.