Creating a research context for reducing risk and obtaining informed consent in human alcohol studies.

Alcohol consumption by problem drinkers in research involves risks and raises ethical issues. Disease perspectives, however, exaggerate the level of risk and have questionable validity and generality. These accounts suggest that because problem drinkers cannot exert volitional control over drinking, alcohol studies undermine their capacity to give informed consent and entail unacceptable risks of promoting abusive drinking. Alcoholics' purported propensity for denial is also thought to compromise the assessment of risks. Contemporary theory and research question these assertions and help guide the creation of research contexts that reduce risk and promote informed consent. Key contextual elements are (a) the extent of availability of alcohol and other valued activities in participants' natural environments, which reduce the appeal of drinking in research contexts, and (b) whether contingencies exist for inaccurate verbal reports. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

微氧EGSBBR产甲烷系统快速启动与微生物群落特性

为实现高有机废水产甲烷快速启动，本文采用微氧膨胀颗粒污泥床生物膜反应器（EGSBBR）处理2000mg/L化学需氧量（COD）有机废水，通过逐步缩短水力停留时间和增大反应区上升流速的方式，经过34天运行系统产甲烷成功启动，COD去除率从67.5%升高至94.2%，有机负荷达1.0kgCOD/(m³·d)，此时系统最大甲烷产量为582mL/d。产气量与出水pH和出水VFA浓度变化具有相关性，且污泥胞外聚合物（EPS）中的多糖、蛋白质浓度显著增加。高通量测序结果证实Methanothrix为系统产甲烷主要优势菌属，表明微氧条件甲烷产生主要通过乙酸脱羧途径形成。该研究为高浓度有机废水处理实现快速产甲烷提供了一种可借鉴的新工艺。     

Effect of amide distribution in polyamide isomers on their melting points

A new insight has been obtained relating the different structures of linear aliphatic homopolyamides to their melting points. A new equation is derived for structures based on monomers with an even number of methylene units. In this equation, the amide distribution along the polymer chain is defined by a newly introduced parameter K which indicates the lowest number of methylene units between adjacent amide groups. For K ≥ 4 a generic empirical relation is defined, describing the observed melting points of these polyamides. The trend in H‐bond densities in the melt obtained by modeling corresponds well with the trend in observed melting points. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 45837.     

Molar environmental contexts surrounding recovery from alcohol problems by treated and untreated problem drinkers.

The relation between event occurrences and recovery from drinking problems was investigated in abstinent problem drinkers with different help-seeking histories: no assistance (n?=?18), Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) only (n?=?18), or alcohol treatment plus AA (n?=?21). Events were assessed retrospectively for a 4-year period that spanned the 2 years before and 2 years after subjects initiated stable abstinence (M?=?6.8 years abstinent). Collaterals verified subjects' reports. Events common to recovery across the 3 help-seeking groups included decreases from the pre- through the postresolution period in events reflecting health, legal, intimate relations, and family problems and increases during the year following initial abstinence in events reflecting positive changes in health habits, finances, social activities, and intimate relations. The changes in legal and social events and in positive events generally were due largely to the 2 groups who had received assistance. Results suggest similarities in the molar environmental contexts that surround recoveries achieved with and without assistance, whereas differences in event occurrences due to help-seeking status were more circumscribed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Inverse Problem in Electrocardiography: A Model Study of the Effects of Geometry and Conductivity Parameters on the Reconstruction of Epicardial Potentials

An idealized, analytic model using spherical harmonics was developed to analyze the effects of variations in torso geometry and volume conductivity parameters on the recovery of epicardial potentials from torso potentials. The model was also used to analyze the effects of these variations on individual terms in the orthogonal series expansion. The ability to reconstruct separate, local electrical events on the epicardium was examined under the following simulated situations: 1) all conductivity and geometry parameters were known accurately, 2) the conductivity of individual torso tissue layers was varied, 3) the torso-air boundary was eliminated (the "infinite medium" assumption), 4) the heart position was not accurately known, and 5) the heart size was not accurately known. Variation in conductivity and geometry parameters was found to exert a quantitative and qualitative effect on the amplitude, resolution, and position of the reconstructed epicardial maxima and minima. Significant differences were found in the ability of the inverse procedure to recover epicardial potentials resulting from posterior as opposed to anterior myocardial sources. Important conclusions regarding the narrow allowance for error in heart size and position, and the relative contributions of the torso tissue layer conductivities can provide guidelines for inverse reconstruction of epicardial potentials with a realistic model utilizing the true geometry.     

DNA binding by the Xis protein of the conjugative transposon Tn916

We purified the Xis protein of the conjugative transposon Tn916 and showed by nuclease protection experiments that Xis bound specifically to sites close to each end of Tn916. These specific binding sites are close to, and in the same relative orientation to, binding sites for the N-terminal domain of Tn916 integrase protein. These results suggest that Xis is involved in the formation of nucleoprotein structures at the ends of Tn916 that help to correctly align the ends so that excision can occur.     

DHEA-S selectively impairs contextual-fear conditioning: Support for the antiglucocorticoid hypothesis.

The authors had reported that glucocorticoids play a selective role in fear conditioning. The adrenal steroid dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) has been reported to act as a functional antiglucocorticoid. If DHEA has antiglucocorticoid properties, then its effects on fear conditioning might resemble those produced by adrenalectomy. The authors now report that chronic exposure to high levels of dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S; converted in vivo to DHEA) produced the same pattern of results as adrenalectomy. Specifically, treatment with DHEA-S impaired contextual fear conditioning 24 hr after conditioning but not immediately after conditioning, and like adrenalectomy, DHEA-S had no effect on auditory-cue fear conditioning. Preexposure to the context before drug treatment eliminated the amnestic effects of DHEA-S, suggesting that, like adrenalectomy, DHEA-S exerted its effect by interfering with the construction of a contextual memory representation. Thus, DHEA appears to act as a functional antiglucocorticoid in the processes that mediate learning and memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measuring treatment effects on repetitive lifting for patients with chronic low back pain: speed, style, and coordination

The purpose of this study was to determine changes in the amount of work performed and lifting speed, style, and coordination during a repetitive dynamic-lifting task for patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) after an intensive 3 1/2-week pain rehabilitation program. Subjects included 57 CLBP patients and an age- and gender-matched control group (n = 57). Patients' work indices increased by 71%, but remained significantly less than those observed for controls. Similarly, their lifting speed also increased significantly after treatment, but remained slower than the lifting speed of controls. Patients' posttreatment coordination indices, however, were not significantly different from those of controls. This finding suggests that treatment effectively normalized the dynamic lifting motion used by the patients. These findings, along with the basic kinematic patterns developed in this study, have important implications for determining improvements in functional capacity in the treatment of patients with CLBP.     

A comparison of contextual and generalized auditory-cue fear conditioning: evidence for similar memory processes

A number of variables influence contextual, but not auditory-cue, fear conditioning. However, several of these variables (isolation, stimulus preexposure, retention interval, and age) affect generalized auditory-cue fear. More generalized fear was found when (a) rats were isolated in a novel environment than when returned to their home cages, (b) the retention interval was 3 hr rather than 24 hr, and (c) in 18-day-old compared with 25-day-old rats. Moreover, preexposure to the auditory cue eliminated the isolation effect. At a behavioral-psychological level, these variables may exert their effects by influencing the processes that construct a memory representation of the stimulus. At a neural systems level, they may influence processing carried out in the thalamo-corticoamygdaloid auditory pathway.     

Issues,challenges, and a proposed theoretical core of agile software development research

Over the last two decades, agile software development (ASD) has garnered much attention in both research and practice. Several ASD methods and techniques have been developed and studied. In particular, researchers have provided several theoretical perspectives on ASD and contributed rich insights to the ASD practice. Still, despite calls for a more unified theoretical understanding of ASD, a theoretical core of ASD has not been identified. This paper offers a theoretical core of ASD research, clarifying what is essential and what is less essential for IS agility, hoping to spark a scholarly discussion, and provides implications of such a core for understanding method tailoring.