Relations between identity in young adulthood and intimacy at midlife.

A longitudinal study with 67 males and 75 females examined the relation between the development of ego identity by young adulthood and the establishment and maintenance of stable and enduring intimate interpersonal relationships by midlife. This relation was investigated further to discover how it might differ between men and women. As undergraduates, Ss completed measures of their demographic and psychometric characteristics, in addition to an identity scale, in 1963; in 1981, these Ss completed a follow-up questionnaire containing questions regarding their marital status (the measure of intimacy) and their personal, family, and professional life. The identity scale was initially cross-validated with other personality measures, such as the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF), before being related to subsequent intimacy patterns. The achievement of ego identity was found to be important for the establishment (for men) and stability (for women) of marital relationships. Additional sex differences in happiness and spheres of life satisfaction were also found. These differences suggest differing developmental courses for young men and women as they establish themselves in the adult world. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhancing Engineering Students' Communication Skills Through Multimedia Instruction

After discussing the communication requirements in the engineering work place and what universities have done to prepare students for this environement, this article describes a project aimed at developing multimedia, interactive courseware for use by engineering students and faculty. This courseware is being designed to maximize student exposure to pragmatic communication processes and problem-solving without requiring engineering faculty to diminish the technical content of their courses. The article discusses design criteria, implementation issues, evaluation processes, and the time table for project completion.     

Construct validation of a strategy model of student self-regulated learning.

Using student interviews, teacher ratings, and achievement test outcomes, we validated a strategy model of student self-regulated learning as a theoretical construct. Forty-four male and 36 female high school students were asked to describe their use of 14 self-regulated learning strategies in six contexts, and their teachers rated these students for their self-regulated learning during class. Factor analyses of the teachers' ratings along with students' scores on a standardized test of mathematics and English revealed a single self-regulated learning factor that accounted for nearly 80% of the explained variance and two smaller factors that were labeled Student Verbal Expressiveness and Achievement. Students' reports of using self-regulated learning strategies during a structured interview correlated .70 with the obtained teachers' rating factor and were negatively related to the Student Verbal Expressiveness and Achievement factors. Our results indicate both convergent and discriminative validity for a self-regulated learning construct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metaphor, frame, and nonverbal communication: an ethnographic studyof a technical writing classroom

Professional educational philosophers C.A. Bowers and D.J. Flinders (1990) describe the classroom as an ecology comprising interrelated linguistic and cultural patterns that determine how information is communicated in the classroom. their classroom ecology model centers on the observation of three interconnected areas: the metaphors that the teacher and the textbook use to introduce students to the formal and informal curriculum, the manner in which the teacher frames student expertise and classroom relationships, and the nonverbal communication between teacher and students. Using Bowers and Flinders' model, a technical writing class taught by a teacher who emphasizes relationships, understanding and acceptance, and collaboration was studied. The teacher's metaphorical language, framing of instruction and student relationships, and nonverbal language are shown to reflect a rhetorical approach to technical writing, a caring approach to teaching, and a supportive, community environment for learning. This ethnographic study provides a snapshot of how one teacher defines technical writing and how he answers the question of how is should be taught     

Psychophysiological treatment of migraine and tension headaches: A 12-month follow-up.

Conducted a 12-mo follow-up of the present authors' (1983) study population of chronic headache sufferers by telephone interviewing 31 chronic migraine and 25 chronic tension headache patients (aged 18–61 yrs) who had been treated with EMG, muscle relaxation, and fingertip temperature training to test a hypothesis of biofeedback placebo effects. A previous 3-mo follow-up had revealed that all treatments had produced significant improvement, and relaxation was not as good as the biofeedback devices for obtaining a reduction in monthly headache hours. At 12-mo follow-up, the 3-mo improvement was sustained overall, but migraineurs as a group appeared to regress slightly, while tension patients improved significantly in the interim. On the basis of a 50% reduction in symptomatology, biofeedback treatment was significantly superior to relaxation for tension headaches, although this had not been true at the 3-mo assessment. Temperature training was at least as effective as EMG for both headache groups. In view of these results, biofeedback treatment is viewed less as placebo administration and more as a secondary reinforcer of a specific but unknown physiological response. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Association of crescentic glomerulonephritis with membranous glomerulonephropathy: a report of three cases

Association of membranous glomerulonephropathy with crescentic glomerulonephritis is apparently extremely rare. We report three patients who had this combination. One patient had biopsy-proven membranous glomerulonephropathy thirteen months prior to sudden and rapid decline in renal function necessitating hemodialysis. A repeat renal biopsy showed a superimposed crescentic nephritis and antiglomerular (GBM) antibodies were demonstrable in the serum. A second patient had proteinuria of unknown duration and then developed renal failure. Renal biopsy showed crescentic nephritis with a fine granular glomerular immunofluorescence for IgG typical of membranous glomerulonephropathy. Anti-GBM antibodies were present in this patient's serum. The third patient presented with acute renal failure of moderate severity. A renal biopsy revealed crescentic nephritis, granular deposits of immunoglobulins, and epimembranous electron-dense deposits typical of membranous glomerulonephropathy. Although his creatinine clearance improved spontaneously, nephrotic syndrome has persisted and a repeat renal biopsy showed a progression of the membranous glomerulonephropathy with the disappearance of the crescentic lesions. The reason for this peculiar association of membranous glomerulonephropathy and crescentic glomerulonephritis is unclear. It is possible that deposition of immune-complexes along glomerular basement membrane may render the glomerulus more susceptible to additional injury from a variety of other agents. Alternatively, depostis formed in one disease could initiate release of normal or altered basement membrane material and lead to formation of anti-GBM antibodies and subsequent development.     

Electric field-induced piezoelectricity in polymer film

An apparatus is devised for measuring the real and imaginary components of the piezoelectric strain constant d = d′ ? id″ for polymer films with a d.c. bias field. Electric fieldinduced piezoelectricity is observed for films of several types of polymer. The ratio of the piezoelectric constant to the d.c. bias field gives (? + κ)/G where ? is the dielectric constant, κ is the electrostriction constant, and G is the elastic constant. The temperature dependence of the field-induced piezoelectricity gives, therefore, combined information of dielectric and elastic properties of polymers. After heating to about 95°C followed by cooling to room temperature, maintaining a constant d.c. basis on a poly(vinyl chloride) film, piezoelectricity is observed at null d.c. field, which suggests the introduction of a residual polarization in the films.     

Gastric carcinoma and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura: association with plasma immune complex concentrations

A patient with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the stomach developed microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia, thrombocytopenia, renal insufficiency, and fluctuating neurological abnormalities in association with appreciably raised plasma concentrations of immune complexes. This syndrome, similar to thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, occurred while the tumour was in sustained objective remission after successful treatment with fluorouracil, doxorubicin, and mitomycin. Reversal of the syndrome was achieved with plasmapheresis, azathioprine, corticosteroids, and antiplatelet treatment; this response was paralleled by a reduction in immune complex concentration, suggesting an immune aetiology for the syndrome. Antibodies eluted from the immune complexes reacted with 50% of cells from the gastric cancer but less than 10% of cells from normal gastric mucosa. There was no reactivity with either carcinoembryonic antigen or mitomycin. A 17S immune complex reacted with a glycoprotein from the patient's autologous platelets and produced platelet aggregation. It is postulated that reducing the tumour and the pre-existing state of antigen excess by chemotherapy allowed soluble antigen-antibody complexes to form and the syndrome to develop.