Sensitive Mother-to-Adolescent Disclosures After Divorce: Is the Experience of Sons Different From That of Daughters?

This study addressed two main questions: (a) Are adolescent sons and daughters exposed to sensitive maternal disclosures after divorce with similar frequency and in similar detail? and (b) Does gender act as a moderator in the association between maternal disclosures and adolescent adjustment difficulties? Forced-choice and open-ended data were collected from 194 adolescents within 2 years after their parents' divorce. Quantitative analyses revealed that although the majority of adolescents experience some level of maternal disclosure, neither frequency nor detail of maternal disclosure differed as a function of adolescent gender. Frequent and detailed maternal disclosures were associated with adolescent adjustment difficulties, primarily psychological distress. Gender did not moderate that significant association. Qualitative analysis shed light on the link between maternal disclosures and adolescent distress, suggested the importance of how disclosures are made, and revealed several gender differences in reactions to maternal disclosures. Implications of the findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Estimating local mean signal strength of indoor multipathpropagation

We explore techniques for the measurement of local mean signal strength at 900 MHz and 2 GHz. In particular, we characterize the impact of transmitter and receiver antenna rotation on the estimated local mean. Then, we explore the collection of high resolution data while moving along a linear trajectory and using linear averaging techniques to estimate the local mean. With this information, the best measurement techniques can be chosen depending on the required speed versus accuracy tradeoff. Finally, we use a ray tracing propagation model to evaluate different methods of calculating the local mean signal strength for indoor environments     

Progress in the development of polymer cholesteric liquid crystal flakes for display applications

Polymer cholesteric liquid crystal (PCLC) flake technology is being developed as an alternative display technology for flexible, reflective particle displays. The motion of PCLC flakes suspended in a host fluid can be controlled with an electric field, creating a way to electrically control the flakes' ability to brightly reflect light that is circularly polarized. The PCLC flake/host fluid dispersion has been successfully microencapsulated both in a polymer matrix and in gelatin micro-capsules. Microencapsulation will not only expand the applications scope of the technology, but also may aid in addressing some potential problem areas that are inherent to many forms of particle display technology. A second important development in PCLC flake technology involves the manufacture of shaped flakes based on soft lithography techniques. The size and shape of a flake impact its reorientation, and uniformly shaped flakes respond in a similar manner. The unique reflective properties of PCLC flakes also provide possible applications in areas such as optics and photonics, switchable ‘smart windows’ or conformal coatings, and information displays such as ‘electronic paper.’     

Experience, Context, and the Visual Perception of Human Movement.

Why are human observers particularly sensitive to human movement? Seven experiments examined the roles of visual experience and motor processes in human movement perception by comparing visual sensitivities to point-light displays of familiar, unusual, and impossible gaits across gait-speed and identity discrimination tasks. In both tasks, visual sensitivity to physically possible gaits was superior to visual sensitivity to physically impossible gaits, supporting perception-action coupling theories of human movement perception. Visual experience influenced walker-identity perception but not gait-speed discrimination. Thus, both motor experience and visual experience define visual sensitivity to human movement. An ecological perspective can be used to define the conditions necessary for experience-dependent sensitivity to human movement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parametric modeling of somatosensory evoked potentials

In this paper, we examine methods of characterizing somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP's) in both the time and frequency domains. We have found that the truncated impulse response (TIR) method produced an accurate time domain model of the SEP signals at model orders greatly reduced from the original state space matrix. The TIR method was valuable for smoothing signals that were slightly corrupted by noise. In this case, the simulated data sequence was close to the original data sequence in the mean squared error sense. For signals that were greatly corrupted by noise, the TIR method was not able to perform as well. Therefore, the TIR method was not a feature extraction method but was valuable for data simulation. In the frequency domain, we have used the autoregressive moving average model (ARMA) to parameterize the SEP signal. An overdetermined set of Yule-Walker equations was created to determine the autoregressive (AR) parameters of the original data with the model order established by the singular value decomposition. From these AR parameters, a residual time series was generated which was used to find the moving average parameters. The resulting ARMA model was used to produce a simulated data sequence. The frequency domain characteristics of the simulated sequence and the corresponding power spectral density of the ARMA filter were very close to the periodogram of the original data sequence. Accurate parameterization was achieved for the SEP waveforms at low filter lengths.     

The validity of new memory complaints in the elderly

OBJECTIVE: To determine the validity of new subjective memory complaints (MCs) from individuals who previously, when without dementia, denied having MCs. DESIGN: Prospective cohort. SETTING: Longitudinal, community-based study of aging and dementia. PATIENTS: One hundred thirty-three community-dwelling elderly individuals who were part of a registry for the study of conditions related to aging in North Manhattan, NY. Patients were selected if they were initially without dementia and had completed at least 2 successive annual clinical and neuropsychological evaluations and provided their own medical history. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Performance on memory tests--the Buschke Selective Reminding Test and a visual memory task--and global performance on a neuropsychological test battery and clinical evaluation, by which questionable dementia or dementia was diagnosed according to a well-defined paradigm. RESULTS: Fifty-three subjects with MCs at the initial evaluation performed no worse on the memory test than the 80 subjects who denied MCs initially. There was a weak association between MCs and the diagnosis of questionable dementia at baseline (P = .04), but this was nonsignificant after adjusting for age and education. At 1-year follow-up, 21 of the 80 without baseline MCs now reported MCs. At the follow-up evaluation, these 21 subjects performed significantly worse on the memory tests, were 5 times more likely to have significant cognitive impairment, and had shown significantly greater decline over the preceding year on several of the cognitive measures than the 59 who continued to deny MCs. CONCLUSION: New MCs from individuals, who when without dementia recently denied MCs, may suggest the presence of significant impairment of memory or cognition.     

Gag rules and trade secrets in managed care contracts. Ethical and legal concerns

Gag rules-clauses in managed care contracts that prevent physicians from disclosing information that the plan may find disparaging, but that could relate directly to the patient's health-have recently been the subject of ethical condemnation and legislative prohibition. Another serious problem in managed care contracts, trade secrets, or guidelines and quality assurance mechanisms that are imposed on physicians while their origins are shrouded in proprietary secrecy, have by contrast received little attention. Responses to these ethical challenges to the physician's integrity must involve individual physicians, managed care organizations, professional organizations, and public policymakers.     

V antigen-polyhistidine fusion peptide: binding to LcrH and active immunity against plague

The structural gene for V antigen (lcrV) is known to be encoded within the lcrGVH-yopBD operon of the approximately 70-kb low-calcium-response or Lcr plasmid of Yersinia pestis. This 37-kDa monomeric peptide was reported to provide active immunity in mice, suppress inflammatory cytokines, and regulate expression of the low calcium response (Lcr+). Here we describe pVHB62, encoding a polyhistidine-V antigen fusion peptide (Vh) and linked LcrH. Vh underwent degradation from both the C terminus and N terminus during classical chromatographic fractionation but remained intact within two compartments during Ni2+ affinity chromatography. The first was homogeneous, capable of active immunization (mouse intravenous 50% lethal dose, > 10(7) bacteria), and stable at 4 degrees C. The second remained bound to the affinity column but could be eluted as a mixture of Vh, LcrH, and low-molecular-weight material by application of 6 M guanidine HCl. This mixture was dialyzed, denatured in 8 M urea, and again applied to the affinity column, which then hound Vh but not LcrH. The latter was recovered and renatured, and low-molecular-weight material was removed by biochemical fractionation. The resulting homogeneous LcrH bound protein AN antigen fusion peptide but not protein A in a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and this reaction was inhibited by Vh. These observations indicate that LcrH normally binds V antigen in bacterial cytoplasm and suggest that only free LcrH down-regulates expression of the low calcium response.     

Microsatellite loci for stringless bees

What ethical concerns regarding the application of new antidementia compounds are pertinent to the best interests of patients with Alzheimer's disease and their caregivers? Based on collected preliminary anecdotal accounts, these concerns are important and should be considered carefully by clinicians, researchers, and families.