Psychological adjustment of children with sickle cell disease: Stability and change over a 10-month period.

Rates of poor psychological adjustment of children with sickle cell disease remained relatively constant over initial and follow-up assessment points. 50 children (aged 7–12 yrs) and their mothers completed the initial protocol. 30 children completed the follow-up plus 5 additional children and their mothers. These Ss were aged 7–24 yrs at follow-up. With initial levels of adjustment controlled, children's strategies for coping with pain accounted for a significant increment in child-reported symptoms and mother-reported internalizing behavior problems at follow-up beyond the contribution of illness and demographic parameters and follow-up interval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations of social goal pursuit to social acceptance, classroom behavior, and perceived social support.

Relations of social goal pursuit to (1) social acceptance by teachers and peers, (2) prosocial and irresponsible classroom behavior, and (3) perceived support from teachers and peers were examined. Ss were 475 6th and 7th graders. Students' pursuit of academic prosocial goals (to help classmates with academic problems) was related positively to peer acceptance. Pursuit of academic responsibility goals (adhering to classroom rules) was related negatively to peer acceptance but positively to teacher acceptance. These findings reflected in part, significant relations between social goal pursuit and displays of social behavior. Perceived support from teachers and peers was also related positively to social goal pursuit, although findings differed as a function of type and source of support. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The physician-delivered smoking intervention project: Can short-term interventions produce long-term effects for a general outpatient population?

Patterns of smoking cessation using 6- and 12-mo follow-up data are reported for 1,261 primary care patients randomized to 3 physician-delivered smoking interventions: advice only (AO), counseling (CI), and counseling plus availability of nicotine-containing gum (CI?+?NCG). One-week point-prevalence cessation rates at 12 mo did not differ among the interventions: AO (15.2%), CI (12.9%) and CI?+?NCG (16.7%). However, maintained cessation rates (abstinent at both 6 and 12 mo) increased with intervention intensity: AO (6.0%), CI (7.8%), and CI?+?NCG (10.0%): Test of trend χ–2?=?5.06, p?=?.02. CI?+?NCG was significantly higher than AO (p?=?.02). The findings support the following conclusions: Brief physician delivered intervention with availability of nicotine-containing gum can have a beneficial long-term effect on smoking cessation, and cohort data as well as point-prevalence rates are important when assessing the long-term impact of lifestyle interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Debugging mixed‐environment programs with Blink

Programmers build large‐scale systems with multiple languages to leverage legacy code and languages best suited to their problems. For instance, the same program may use Java for ease of programming and C to interface with the operating system. These programs pose significant debugging challenges, because programmers need to understand and control code across languages, which often execute in different environments. Unfortunately, traditional multilingual debuggers require a single execution environment. This paper presents a novel composition approach to building portable mixed‐environment debuggers, in which an intermediate agent interposes on language transitions, controlling and reusing single‐environment debuggers. We implement debugger composition in Blink, a debugger for Java, C, and the Jeannie programming language. We show that Blink is (i) simple: it requires modest amounts of new code; (ii) portable: it supports multiple Java virtual machines, C compilers, operating systems, and component debuggers; and (iii) powerful: composition eases debugging, while supporting new mixed‐language expression evaluation and Java native interface bug diagnostics. To demonstrate the generality of interposition, we build prototypes and demonstrate debugger language transitions with C for five of six other languages (Caml, Common Lisp, C#, Perl 5, Python, and Ruby) without modifications to their debuggers. Using real‐world case studies, we show that diagnosing language interface errors require prior single‐environment debuggers to restart execution multiple times, whereas Blink directly diagnoses them with one execution. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coronary Artery Ectasia: Review of the Non-Atherosclerotic Molecular and Pathophysiologic Concepts

Coronary artery ectasia (CAE) is frequently encountered in clinical practice, conjointly with atherosclerotic CAD (CAD). Given the overlapping cardiovascular risk factors for patients with concomitant CAE and atherosclerotic CAD, a common underlying pathophysiology is often postulated. However, coronary artery ectasia may arise independently, as isolated (pure) CAE, thereby raising suspicions of an alternative mechanism. Herein, we review the existing evidence for the pathophysiology of CAE in order to help direct management strategies towards enhanced detection and treatment.     

External tools for collaborative medication scheduling

Medication adherence—taking medication as prescribed—is critical for successful self-care, especially among older adults. Adherence depends on developing and implementing plans for taking medications. Age-related cognitive declines that affect adherence may be mitigated using external tools that support patient-provider collaboration needed to develop these adherence plans. We tested the effectiveness of structured collaborative medication tools to support better medication planning and adherence practices. Evidence for benefits of collaborative tools has been mixed in terms of their usefulness for medication-scheduling tasks, perhaps because the tools have not been explicitly designed to support patient-provider collaboration. A total of 144 community-dwelling older adults participated in pairs and performed the role of a patient or provider in a simulated patient-provider medication-scheduling task. Each pair worked with a structured (MedTable^? and e-MedTable) or unstructured (Medcard) scheduling tool and completed four problems (2 simple and 2 complex). Performance was measured using the following: problem-solving (medication schedule) accuracy, problem-solving time, solution (schedule) optimality, tool usability, collaborative effectiveness, and subjective workload involved in creating the medication schedules. Participants using structured tools produced more accurate and optimal schedules. They also rated subjective workload as lower and thought that the structured tools were easier to use, reduced subjective workload associated with creating the schedules. There was also suggestive evidence that participants using the structured tools rated more highly the quality of their collaboration. Structured medication-scheduling tools have the potential to improve medication adherence among older adults because they support collaborative planning and reduce the cognitive load involved in creating these adherence plans.     

Evaluating interfaces with children

Children are very different from adults—they have developing motor skills, limited reach, short attention spans, limited exposure to traditional user interfaces and social protocols. How do we evaluate user interfaces for children? In this paper, we present four evaluative techniques that we have successfully used with children.     

Memory capacity, selective control, and value-directed remembering in children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Objective: The ability to select what is important to remember, to attend to this information, and to recall high-value items leads to the efficient use of memory. The present study examined how children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) performed on an incentive-based selectivity task in which to-be-remembered items were worth different point values. Method: Participants were 6–9 year old children with ADHD (n = 57) and without ADHD (n = 59). Using a selectivity task, participants studied words paired with point values and were asked to maximize their score, which was the overall value of the items they recalled. This task allows for measures of memory capacity and the ability to selectively remember high-value items. Results: Although there were no significant between-groups differences in the number of words recalled (memory capacity), children with ADHD were less selective than children in the control group in terms of the value of the items they recalled (control of memory). All children recalled more high-value items than low-value items and showed some learning with task experience, but children with ADHD Combined type did not efficiently maximize memory performance (as measured by a selectivity index) relative to children with ADHD Inattentive type and healthy controls, who did not differ significantly from one another. Conclusions: Children with ADHD Combined type exhibit impairments in the strategic and efficient encoding and recall of high-value items. The findings have implications for theories of memory dysfunction in childhood ADHD and the key role of metacognition, cognitive control, and value-directed remembering when considering the strategic use of memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neurocognitive signs in prodromal Huntington disease.

Objective: PREDICT-HD is a large-scale international study of people with the Huntington disease (HD) CAG-repeat expansion who are not yet diagnosed with HD. The objective of this study was to determine the stage in the HD prodrome at which cognitive differences from CAG-normal controls can be reliably detected. Method: For each of 738 HD CAG-expanded participants, we computed estimated years to clinical diagnosis and probability of diagnosis in 5 years based on age and CAG-repeat expansion number (Langbehn, Brinkman, Falush, Paulsen, & Hayden, 2004). We then stratified the sample into groups: NEAR, estimated to be ≤9 years; MID, between 9 and 15 years; and FAR, ≥15 years. The control sample included 168 CAG-normal participants. Nineteen cognitive tasks were used to assess attention, working memory, psychomotor functions, episodic memory, language, recognition of facial emotion, sensory–perceptual functions, and executive functions. Results: Compared with the controls, the NEAR group showed significantly poorer performance on nearly all of the cognitive tests and the MID group on about half of the cognitive tests (p = .05, Cohen's d NEAR as large as ?1.17, MID as large as ?0.61). One test even revealed significantly poorer performance in the FAR group (Cohen's d = ?0.26). Individual tasks accounted for 0.2% to 9.7% of the variance in estimated proximity to diagnosis. Overall, the cognitive battery accounted for 34% of the variance; in comparison, the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale motor score accounted for 11.7%. Conclusions: Neurocognitive tests are robust clinical indicators of the disease process prior to reaching criteria for motor diagnosis of HD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development, implementation, and testing of fault detection strategies on the National Wind Technology Center’s controls advanced research turbines

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s National Wind Technology Center dedicates two 600 kW turbines for advanced control systems research. A fault detection system for both turbines has been developed, analyzed, and improved across years of experiments to protect the turbines as each new controller is tested. Analysis of field data and ongoing fault detection strategy improvements have resulted in a system of sensors, fault definitions, and detection strategies that have thus far been effective at protecting the turbines. In this paper, we document this fault detection system and provide field data illustrating its operation while detecting a range of failures. In some cases, we discuss the refinement process over time as fault detection strategies were improved. The purpose of this article is to share field experience obtained during the development and field testing of the existing fault detection system, and to offer a possible baseline for comparison with more advanced turbine fault detection controllers.