Treating phobic children: Effects of EMDR versus exposure.

This study examined the efficacy of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) and exposure in the treatment of a specific phobia. Twenty-six spider phobic children were treated during 2 treatment phases. During the first phase, which lasted 2.5 hr, children were randomly assigned to either (a) an EMDR group (n?=?9), (b) an exposure in vivo group (n?=?9), or (c) a computerized exposure (control) group (n?=?8). During the 2nd phase, all groups received a 1.5-hr session of exposure in vivo. Therapy outcome measures (i.e., self-reported fear and behavioral avoidance) were obtained before treatment, after Treatment Phase 1, and after Treatment Phase 2. Results showed that the 2.5-hr exposure in vivo session produced significant improvement on all outcome measures. In contrast, EMDR yielded a significant improvement on only self-reported spider fear. Computerized exposure produced nonsignificant improvement. Furthermore, no evidence was found to suggest that EMDR potentiates the efficacy of a subsequent exposure in vivo treatment. Exposure in vivo remains the treatment of choice for childhood spider phobia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Changes in chemical constituents during the maturation and ripening of two commercially important pomegranate accessions

Pomegranate juice is well known for its health beneficial compounds. This study was undertaken to investigate changes in the major chemical composition in arils and peels during fruit maturation in two Israeli commercial accessions, ‘Wonderful’ and ‘Rosh-Hapered.’ In both accessions, the levels of total phenolic, antioxidant activity and hydrolysable tannins were reduced in the peels during maturation, while the anthocyanin level increased. The results show that the sugar content in the aril juice increased in both accessions while the levels of acidity and of citric acid decreased. However, these two accessions differed in other parameters in the aril juice, i.e., while the antioxidant and total phenolic contents significantly decreased in ‘Rosh-Hapered’, these changes were not observed in ‘Wonderful’. The anthocyanin level, however, increased in ‘Wonderful’ but did not change in ‘Rosh-Hapered.’ This knowledge could help establish the optimum harvest date ensuring the maximum nutritional properties of pomegranates.     

Do Adolescent Exposure to Cannabinoids and Early Adverse Experience Interact to Increase the Risk of Psychiatric Disorders: Evidence from Rodent Models

There have been growing concerns about the protracted effects of cannabis use in adolescents on emotion and cognition outcomes, motivated by evidence of growing cannabis use in adolescents, evidence linking cannabis use to various psychiatric disorders, and the increasingly perceived notion that cannabis is harmless. At the same time, studies suggest that cannabinoids may have therapeutic potential against the impacts of stress on the brain and behavior, and that young people sometimes use cannabinoids to alleviate feelings of depression and anxiety (i.e., “self-medication”). Exposure to early adverse life events may predispose individuals to developing psychopathology in adulthood, leading researchers to study the causality between early life factors and cognitive and emotional outcomes in rodent models and to probe the underlying mechanisms. In this review, we aim to better understand the long-term effects of cannabinoids administered in sensitive developmental periods (mainly adolescence) in rodent models of early life stress. We suggest that the effects of cannabinoids on emotional and cognitive function may vary between different sensitive developmental periods. This could potentially affect decisions regarding the use of cannabinoids in clinical settings during the early stages of development and could raise questions regarding educating the public as to potential risks associated with cannabis use.     

Understanding Declare models: strategies,pitfalls, empirical results

Declarative approaches to business process modeling are regarded as well suited for highly volatile environments, as they enable a high degree of flexibility. However, problems in understanding and maintaining declarative process models often impede their adoption. Likewise, little research has been conducted into the understanding of declarative process models. This paper takes a first step toward addressing this fundamental question and reports on an empirical investigation consisting of an exploratory study and a follow-up study focusing on the system analysts’ sense-making of declarative process models that are specified in Declare. For this purpose, we distributed real-world Declare models to the participating subjects and asked them to describe the illustrated process and to perform a series of sense-making tasks. The results of our studies indicate that two main strategies for reading Declare models exist: either considering the execution order of the activities in the process model, or orienting by the layout of the process model. In addition, the results indicate that single constraints can be handled well by most subjects, while combinations of constraints pose significant challenges. Moreover, the study revealed that aspects that are similar in both imperative and declarative process modeling languages at a graphical level, while having different semantics, cause considerable troubles. This research not only helps guiding the future development of tools for supporting system analysts, but also gives advice on the design of declarative process modeling notations and points out typical pitfalls to teachers and educators of future systems analysts.     

Applying ontology-based rules to conceptual modeling: a reflection on modeling decision making

Conceptual modeling represents a domain independently of implementation considerations for purposes of understanding the problem at hand and communicating about it. However, different people may construct different models given the same domain. Variations among correct models, while known and familiar in practice, have hardly been investigated in the literature. Their roots are in the decisions made during the modeling process, where modelers face the need to map reality into modeling constructs. This paper reports an empirical study whose aim is to explore model variations and in particular to examine possible directions for reducing them. Specifically, the study uses a multimethod research paradigm to examine the effect of applying ontology-based modeling rules on modeling decisions as reflected in resulting model variations. The findings of the study provide insights into the variations phenomenon, as well as to the application of ontology-based modeling rules.     

Complete Bound Consistency for the Global Cardinality Constraint

We show an algorithm for bound consistency of global cardinality constraints, which runs in time O(n + n′) plus the time required to sort the assignment variables by range endpoints, where n is the number of assignment variables and n′ is the number of values in the union of their domains. It is the first efficient algorithm that achieves bound consistency for all variables, and not only the assignment variables.Partially supported by DFG grant SA 933/1-1.Partially supported by the EU IST Programme, IST-1999-14186 (ALCOM-FT).     

The role of domain knowledge in requirements elicitation via interviews: an exploratory study

Requirements elicitation is the first activity in the requirements engineering process. It includes learning, surfacing, and discovering the requirements of the stakeholders of the developed system. Various elicitation techniques exist to help analysts elicit the requirements from the different stakeholders; the most commonly used technique is the interview. Analysts may have domain knowledge prior to the elicitation process. Such knowledge is commonly assumed to have positive effects on requirements engineering processes, in that it fosters communication, and a mutual understanding of the needs. However, to a minor extent, some negative effects have also been reported. This paper presents an empirical study in which the perceived and actual effects of prior domain knowledge on requirements elicitation via interviews were examined. The results indicate that domain knowledge affects elicitation via interview in two main aspects: communication with the customers and understanding their needs. The findings provide insights as to both the positive and negative effects of domain knowledge on requirements elicitation via interview, as perceived by participants with and without domain knowledge, and show the existence of an actual effect on the course of the interviews. Furthermore, these insights can be utilized in practice to support analysts in the elicitation process and to form requirements analysis teams. They highlight the different contributions that can be provided by analysts with different levels of domain knowledge in requirements analysis teams and the synergy that can be gained by forming heterogeneous teams of analysts.