A longitudinal study of high scorers on the Hypomanic Personality Scale.

Former college students (n?=?36) identified by high scores on the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HYP; Eckblad & Chapman, 1986) were compared with control participants (n?=?31) at a 13-year follow-up assessment. As hypothesized, the HYP group reported more bipolar disorders and major depressive episodes than the control group. The HYP group also exceeded the control group on the severity of psychotic-like experiences, symptoms of borderline personality disorder, and rates of substance use disorders. HYP group members with elevated scores on the Impulsive–Nonconformity Scale (Chapman et al., 1984) experienced greater rates of bipolar mood disorders, poorer overall adjustment, and higher rates of arrest than the remaining HYP or control participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discrepancy between predicted and obtained WAIS–R IQ scores discriminates between traumatic brain injury and insufficient effort.

This study examines how well the discrepancy between predicted and obtained Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Revised (WAIS–R) scores discriminate between insufficient effort (IE) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The 27 IE patients performed significantly more poorly on the WAIS–R than the 48 moderate-severe TBI patients. Premorbid IQs were calculated with formulae that use demographics (Barona Index) or demographics and WAIS–R performance (Best-3 and the Oklahoma Premorbid Intelligence Estimation). Predictions were similar on the Barona, but IE patients' predicted IQs were lower than TBIs for measures with a performance component. IE patients demonstrated a greater discrepancy score (i.e., predicted IQ—obtained IQ) than TBIs; variable levels of sensitivity and specificity were obtained when discriminate functions were developed on these scores. The potential advantage of using discrepancy scores versus performance-based measures to detect insufficient effort is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variability in captan residues in apples from a Canadian orchard

Apple trees in an orchard in Quebec, Canada were treated, following label directions, with the fungicide captan (1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-N-(trichloromethylthio)phthalimide) during the 2003 agricultural season. A total of 142 apples from three rows of trees were selected for determination of captan by GC/MS. Individual apples were found to contain captan levels ranging from 16.9 to 6350 ng g^-1. Only two individual apple samples exceeded the Canadian maximum residue limit (5000 ng g^-1) for captan in apples. Six composite samples, comprising half portions of eight individual apples, were analysed from each of the three experimental rows. Composite samples ranged in concentration from 166 to 2620 ng g^-1. The greatest uncertainty associated with the measured concentrations was due to variability among apples rather than the measurement of residue levels.     

Elizabeth Mintz (1913-1997).

Memorializes Elizabeth Mintz. Her contributions to psychotherapy are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interstitial Drug Therapy for Brain Tumors: A Case Study

A novel method of delivering cancer chemotherapeutic drugs to the brain in concentrations higher than those achievable by standard routes of administration has been developed. The drug was incorporated into wafers (trademarked BIODEL®) of a biodegradable, biocompatible polymer. The drug chosen for initial studies was BCNU (carmustine, 1,3-bis[2-chloroethyl]-1-nitrosourea), the most widely used chemotherapeutic agent for the disease to be treated, glioblastoma multiforme, a universally fatal form of brain cancer. Preclinical studies in a number of species demonstrated the safety of this material implanted either directly into the brain or subcutaneously. Efficacy studies in rats demonstrated that implanting BIODEL® wafers containing BCNU either at the time of tumor implantation or after 4 days of tumor growth could significantly prolong survival of the animals, while greatly diminishing side effects of the BCNU therapy.

The safety of this material implanted into these patients during a Phase I/II study has been demonstrated. No systemic side effects of doses of BCNU which would produce marked effects on the hemopoeitic system when injected intravenously have been observed. Further studies, designed to measure the efficacy of this approach to the treatment of brain cancer in a multicentered Phase III clinical trial in the United States and Canada, are currently underway.     

A general framework for preventive maintenance optimization in chemical process operations

Chemical process reliability has become more recognized both in terms of its impact on economics, and for providing academically challenging problems. In this work, we give an overview of some of the major challenges in formulating and optimizing preventive maintenance. As a result, we propose a general framework for preventive maintenance optimization that combines Monte Carlo simulation with a genetic algorithm.

This proposed approach has distinct advantages. When applied to opportunistic maintenance problems, the method developed overcomes demonstrated shortcomings with analytic or Markov techniques in terms of solution accuracy, versatility, and tractability. The framework is easily integrable with general process planning and scheduling, and it provides sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, a genetic algorithm combines well with Monte Carlo simulation to optimize a non-deterministic objective function.     

The use of rhythm in attending to speech.

Three experiments examined attentional allocation during speech processing to determine whether listeners capitalize on the rhythmic nature of speech and attend more closely to stressed than to unstressed syllables. Ss performed a phoneme monitoring task in which the target phoneme occurred on a syllable that was either predicted to be stressed or unstressed by the context preceding the target word. Stimuli were digitally edited to eliminate the local acoustic correlates of stress. A sentential context and a context composed of word lists, in which all the words had the same stress pattern, were used. In both cases, the results suggest that attention may be preferentially allocated to stressed syllables during speech processing. However, a normal sentence context may not provide strong predictive cues to lexical stress, limiting the use of the attentional focus. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)