bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Immune responses generated by intramuscular DNA immunization of Brugia malayi transglutaminase (BmTGA) in mice
Authors: VANAM UMA , PRABHU PRINCE R. , PANDEY VIVEK , DAKSHINAMURTHY GAJALAKSHMI , VENKATA RAMI REDDY MARYADA , PERUMAL KALIRAJ 
Published: June 2009

SUMMARYAn attempt was made to evaluate the immunoprophylactic efficacy of Brugia malayi transglutaminase (BmTGA) as a DNA vaccine, for human lymphatic filariasis. BmTGA was cloned and characterized in the DNA vaccine vector pVAX1. Further, the tissue distribution study of the DNA construct, pVAX-TGA was carried out in mice and the DNA vaccine was shown to be efficiently distributed to all the organs, was accessible to the immune system, and at the same time was metabolized quickly and did not pose problems of toxicity. Intramuscular immunization in mice showed significant antibody production and splenocyte proliferation upon antigenic stimulation. The immune responses were biased towards the Th1 arm, as evaluated in terms of isotype antibody distribution and cytokine profile. Thus, analysis of the humoral and cellular immune responses indicated that BmTGA is a potent immunogen. However, protection studies as determined by the micropore chamber method using live microfilarial larvae, showed that the DNA vaccine could confer only partial protection in the mouse model. We conclude that despite the induction of sufficient humoral and cellular immune responses, BmTGA as a DNA vaccine could not confer much protection against subsequent challenge and other aspects of the immune responses need to be further investigated.
Behavioural Approaches to Alcoholism
Authors: Stockwell Timothy 
Published: June 2009

A Report on the NATO International Conference “Experimental and Behavioural Approaches to Alcholism” held in Bergen, Norway (August 1977).Behaviour therapists everywhere should rejoice that such a conference received the support of the major military powers of the Western World. This unlikely teaming up with NATO is apparently just one example of the noble organisation's efforts to promote international goodwill. Possibly the ultimate achievement of the conference, however, was the promotion of inter-disciplinary goodwill by successfully gathering together 150 participants from the fields of behavioural psychology, anthropology, sociology, animal research and neuropsychology. The subject matter was wide-ranging, including symposia on the assessment of cognitive functioning in alcoholics, alcohol and crime, cross-cultural studies as well as on the behavioural treatment and analysis of excessive drinking.
Cognitive behaviour modification with children
Authors: Meijers J. J. 
Published: June 2009

The story of the creation of the cognitive trend in behaviour modification, cognitive behaviour modification (CBM), might well, if ever written, begin as follows:In the beginning Skinner created behaviourism. Behaviourism, in its radical form, was pure, elementary, objective, and visible to all. So, when Skinner observed everything he had created, he said: “Let behaviourism bring forth operant man to study and manipulate S and R in mice, pigeons, rats, and men”. It was in the forties and it was the fifties; the first period. Now, when Skinner saw operant man, surrounded by light, sound, and food, throwing pellets to the pigeons and studying the behaviours of mice, rats, and men, Skinner said: “Thou, operant man, are permitted to touch every branch of the radical trees in my paradise of freedom and dignity, but … the tree of knowledge and cognition thou shalt not touch lest thou be seduced”. Operant man, however, was cunning and sly, and said to himself: ‘On the day I will touch the tree of knowledge and cognition, I shall surely unravel the secret behind S & R; then I shall be like Skinner, master of prediction and explanation”. So operant man acted upon his internal dialogue and not only touched but actually ate from the forbidden fruit. When Skinner saw that operant man had transgressed his comandment, his anger was kindled. He then said to operant man: “Since thou hast tasted from the forbidden fruit, thou must leave this pure garden. I hereby condemn you to descend into the valley of mentalism, where thou shalt wander and wonder for ever and ever, since the causal path knows no end. Further, from now on thy name is not operant man anymore, but coverant man”. Now this is the history of coverant man …
Behaviour Therapy for DIMS: Comparison of Three Treatment Procedures with Follow-up
Authors: Sanavio Ezio , Vidotto Giulio , Bettinardi Ornella , Rolletto Teresa , Zorzi Marina 
Published: June 2009

Forty patients suffering from persistent psychophysiological Disorders of Initiating and Maintaining Sleep (DIMS) were assigned to one of the following groups: (1) EMG-biofeedback training; (2) cognitive modification treatment, combining paradoxical instructions, cognitive restructuring and thought stopping; (3) stimulus control and progressive relaxation treatment; (4) waiting list (control). Each active treatment consisted of six sessions over a period of 2 weeks.After treatment, the patients in the three treatment groups showed shorter sleep onset latency (37%), shorter wake time after sleep onset (50%), and more positive evaluations of sleep quality and restedness on awakening in the morning. The waiting-list group did not show any changes. Benefits were maintained and further increased during the 1 and 3 year follow-ups. Results did not suggest substantial differences, among the three treatments, in amount and/or stability of benefits. The 3 year follow-up revealed seven failures, as against 23 successes. The initial variables differentiating the failures were shorter sleep time and higher scores on the P scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
Behavioural Group Training for Anxiety Management
Authors: Eayrs Caroline B. , Rowan D. , Harvey P. G. 
Published: June 2009

Developments in behavioural group therapy over the past decade are described, with particular reference to a change in focus from administering individual treatment techniques to teaching coping skills for the management of anxiety. In spite of this growing interest there has been little empirical research reported. The current study was an attempt to develop a coping skills package and to evaluate it against the more traditional approach of group relaxation training. Three experiments were conducted, comprising a total of seven groups and they were run in either an N.H.S. psychiatric hospital outpatient setting or in General Practice.Results were equivocal, both experimental and control groups showed treatment gains. These were superior in the coping skills group on one measure. Reasons for these findings are discussed in the light of the curriculum and the experimental design. And ways of making the coping skills package more potent are suggested.
Organizing Staff to Promote Purposeful Activity in a Setting for Mentally Handicapped Adults: an Evaluation of Alternative Strategies—Small Groups and Room Management
Authors: Crisp A. G. , Sturmey P. 
Published: June 2009

In a hospital training unit for severely mentally handicapped adults, alternative methods of staff organization, Room Management (RM) and Small Groups (SG) were experimentally evaluated. Both procedures were found to be equivalent in ensuring that trainees had materials available to them, in promoting on-task behaviour and staff trainee interaction and minimizing staff–staff interaction. Group engagement was significantly higher during the SG condition. Room Management was nevertheless significantly more successful in facilitating individual training than the SG arrangement, trainees receiving four times more individual training during RM than SG.The implications of these results for the appropriate use of training staff are discussed. The use of group engagement as a dependent variable is critically evaluated.
Evaluation of a Group Programme for Parents of Problem Children
Authors: Scott M. J. , Stradling S. G. 
Published: June 2009

A behaviourally based Programme was developed to assist parents with problem children. The Programme was intended for the typical social service clientele of single parent, low income or state benefit families and may be administered by social workers or assistants conversant with the Programme Manual. The Programme consists of six 90 min sessions run at weekly intervals during which a variety of behavioural techniques are taught, largely through role play, with a seventh follow up session a month later.The Programme was evaluated by a range of before and after measures on both a treatment group and a waiting list control group and maintenance of treatment gains was tested at three and, for some measures, six months interval. The Programme significantly reduced: the perceived number and intensity of child behaviour problems; parental depression, inward irritability and outward irrirability; and the level of perceived chlid conduct problems, impulsivity and anxiety. It significantly improved parents' chlid management skills. Improvement in parental depression and irritability was maintained at three months and reduction in chlid beviour problems was tested for and found at both three and six months.
Behaviour Treatment of Daytime Incontinence in Elderly Male and Female Patients
Authors: Chanfreau-Rona Diana , Wylie Belinda , Bellwood Stuart 
Published: June 2009

This paper describes an attempt at retraining continence in elderly psychogeriatric patients using behavioural methods. Thirty patients across four wards were selected and divided equally into experimental and control groups. The experimental group underwent a training programme lasting a total of seven weeks whilst the control group continued with the usual nursing procedure.The results showed no significant differences in frequency of incontinence between the different groups at the end of the programme. However, there were indications that a continence training programme is more likely to be beneficial to those patients who have a low level of incontinence rather than those for whom incontinence is a more severe problem. For these patients, those in the experimental group showed increased levels of incontinence after the training period compared to the control group.
The Group Treatment of Obsessive—Compulsive Ritualisers: Behavioural Management of Identified Patterns of Relapse
Authors: Espie Colin A. 
Published: June 2009

Five obsessive—compulsives who had previously benefited from individual behaviour therapy, but had subsequently relapsed, were included in 10-week group therapy programme designed to re-establish this behavioural approach with particular emphasis upon those factors which appeared to have been related to relapse.Considerable reductions in ratings of ritualistic behaviour and obsessional thinking were achieved and maintained at one year follow-up, with associated generalization to other areas of personal functioning. Possible prognostic variables were systematically examined. The results are discussed with reference to previous research studies.
Children's sentence planning: Syntactic correlates of fluency variations
Authors: MCDANIEL DANA , MCKEE CECILE , GARRETT MERRILL F. 
Published: June 2009

ABSTRACTThis paper argues for broader consideration of children's language production systems and, in that context, describes research on children's planning of syntactic structures. The research presented here measures non-fluency patterns in elicited utterances of varied syntactic type. We describe and interpret several regularities in these patterns for two groups of children (‘young’: three–five-year-olds; and ‘older’: six–eight-year-olds) and an adult comparison group. The evidence indicates a strong correspondence of adult and child responses to structural complexity, both in terms of global fluency measures and in terms of more detailed indicators of planning load. In addition, we report some specific contrasts in the patterning for children and adults that suggest disparities in processing resources and/or in local planning strategies.
Explaining the disambiguation effect: Don't exclude mutual exclusivity
Authors: JASWAL VIKRAM K. 
Published: June 2009

ABSTRACTWhen they see a familiar object and an unfamiliar one, and are asked to select the referent of a novel label, children usually choose the unfamiliar object. We asked whether this ‘disambiguation effect’ reflects an expectation that each object has just one label (mutual exclusivity), or an expectation about the intent of the speaker who uses a novel label. In Study 1, when a speaker gazed at or pointed toward the familiar object in a novel–familiar pair, children aged 2 ; 6 (N=64) selected that object in response to a neutral request, but were much less likely to do so in response to a label request. In Study 2, when a speaker both gazed at and pointed toward the familiar object, toddlers (N=16) overwhelmingly selected the familiar object in response to a label request. The expectation that each object has just one label can lead children to discount some individual behavioral cues to a speaker's intent, though it can be overridden given a combination of pragmatic cues.
Development of children's ability to distinguish sarcasm and verbal irony*
Authors: GLENWRIGHT MELANIE , PEXMAN PENNY M. 
Published: June 2009

ABSTRACTAdults distinguish between ironic remarks directed at targets (sarcasm) and ironic remarks not directed at specific targets. We investigated the development of children's appreciation for this distinction by presenting these speech acts to 71 five- to six-year-olds and 71 nine- to ten-year-olds. Five- to six-year-olds were beginning to understand the non-literal meanings of sarcastic speakers and ironic speakers but did not distinguish ironic and sarcastic speakers' intentions. Nine- to ten-year-olds were more accurate at understanding sarcastic and ironic speakers and they distinguished these speakers' intentions, rating sarcastic criticisms as more ‘mean’ than ironic criticisms. These results show that children can determine the non-literal meanings of sarcasm and irony by six years of age but do not distinguish the pragmatic purposes of these speech acts until later in middle childhood.
Functional state following the Fontan procedure
Authors: Williams Ismee A. , Sleeper Lynn A. , Colan Steven D. , Lu Minmin , Stephenson Elizabeth A. , Newburger Jane W. , Gersony Welton M. , Cohen Meryl S. , Cnota James F. , Atz Andrew M. , Williams Richard V. , Margossian Renee , Powell Andrew J. , Stylianou Mario P. , Hsu Daphne T. ,   For the Pediatric Heart Network Investigators (see Appendix)
Published: June 2009

AbstractBackgroundDespite improvements in outcomes after completion of the Fontan circulation, long-term functional state varies. We sought to identify pre- and postoperative characteristics associated with overall function.Methods and ResultsWe analyzed data from 476 survivors with the Fontan circulation enrolled in the Pediatric Heart Network Fontan Cross-sectional Study. Mean age at creation of the Fontan circulation was 3.4 plus or minus 2.1 years, with a range from 0.7 to 17.5 years, and time since completion was 8.7 plus or minus 3.4 years, the range being from 1.1 to 17.3 years. We calculated a functional score for the survivors by averaging the percentile ranks of ventricular ejection fraction, maximal consumption of oxygen, the physical summary score for the Child Health Questionnaire, and a function of brain natriuretic peptide. The mean calculated score was 49.5 plus or minus 17.3, with a range from 3 to 87. After adjustment for time since completion of the circulation, we found that a lower score, and hence worse functional state, was associated with: right ventricular morphology (p less than 0.001), higher ventricular end-diastolic pressure (p equals 0.003) and lower saturations of oxygen (p equals 0.047) prior to completion of the Fontan circulation, lower income for the caregiver (p equals 0.003), and, in subjects without a prior superior cavopulmonary anastomosis, arrhythmias after completion of the circulation (p equals 0.003). The model explained almost one-fifth (18%) of the variation in the calculated scores. The score was not associated with surgical centre, sex, age, weight, fenestration, or the period of stay in hospital after completion of the Fontan circuit. A validation model, using 71 subjects randomly excluded from initial analysis, weakly correlated (R equals 0.17, p equals 0.16) with the score calculated from the dataset.ConclusionsRight ventricular morphology, higher ventricular end-diastolic pressure and lower saturations of oxygen prior to completion of the Fontan circuit, lower income for the provider of care, and arrhythmias after creation of the circuit, are all associated with a worse functional state. Unmeasured factors also influence outcomes.
Analysis of Antarctic Ice Core Data (EPICA Dome C) with Flicker-Noise Spectroscopy
Authors: Polyakov Yuriy , Petit Jean Robert , Timashev Serge 
Published: June 2009

AbstractEvolution of Earth’s climate system over the past 800,000 years represents a complex process with successions of uneven glacial and interglacial periods. The length, amplitudes, and development of each climate cycle depend on a number of different factors, including the orbital parameters attributed to insolation and the complex responses of the Earth system to solar radiation primarily through the amplification by Earth’s albedo and greenhouse gas and secondarily through a system of heat reservoirs, such as ice sheet and deep ocean, distributed throughout our planet. The purpose of this study is to analyze the transitions related to climate cycles in Antarctic ice core data (EPICA Dome C) of deuterium composition and dust concentration recorded for the past 800,000 years [1] using Flicker-Noise Spectroscopy (FNS), an analytical toolset for the extraction and analysis of information in stochastic time and space series, containing both regular and chaotic components, by using power spectra and difference moments (structural functions) of various orders [2].The FNS nonstationarity factors for the deuterium composition and dust (logarithm) concentration, which represent the normalized discrete derivative of the second-order structural function of the source signal with respect to a given shifted “window” interval, were built for different intervals of averaging to identify the major changes in the dynamics of both time series and their precursors. It is shown that when displayed together with the source signals, the positive peaks in the nonstationarity factors provide more reliable estimates of the transition of the climate system from one sub-period to another within a specific climate cycle as compared to predefined thresholds in dust or deuterium values. For climatic transitions, the power spectral estimates of the nonstationarity factors contain several periodicities in addition to the orbital ones. These frequencies may be attributed to specific heat accumulation and discharge processes in the climate system. The results of this study demonstrate the potential of FNS in the analysis of climate data series and may be used in refining climate transition models.This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 08-02-00230a.[1] Lambert F., et al. (2008) Dust-climate couplings over the past 800,000 years from the EPICA Dome C ice core, Nature 452, 616-619.[2] Timashev, S. F., Polyakov Yu. S. (2007) Review of flicker noise spectroscopy in electrochemistry, Fluctuations and Noise Letters 7(2), R15-R47.
Inhibiting Crm1 causes the formation of excess acentriolar spindle poles containing NuMA and B23, but does not affect centrosome numbers
Authors: Rousselet Annie 
Published: June 2009

Background. B23/nucleophosmin is present on spindle poles at metaphase. Migration of B23 to the poles is under the control of exportin Crm1. B23 at the centrosome plays a role in the control centrosome duplication.Results. h‐Tert‐RPE1 cells blocked in prometaphase with low doses of Nocodazol showed a progression to mitosis if Crm1 exportin was inhibited. Under these conditions, the formation of accessory poles containing γ‐tubulin, NuMA (nuclear‐mitotic‐apparatus) and B23 was induced at metaphase. No effect on centrosome number was observed. In quiescent h‐Tert‐RPE1 cells, when Crm1 was active, B23 was not detected at the centrosome as well as B23‐mutants reported to block centrosome duplication. In addition, the modification of B23 nucleo‐cytoplasmic shuttling showed no effect on centrosome duplication.Conclusion. Inhibition of Crm1 in early metaphase favours the formation of supplementary acentriolar spindle poles. B23 and NuMA are present at these poles that ultimately focus around the centrosome. Inhibition of Crm1 at metaphase has no effect on the control of centrosome numbers.
Relationships Between Body Mass Index, Mental Health, and Suicidal Ideation: Population Perspective Using Two Methods
Authors: Goldney Robert D. , Dunn Kirsten I. , Air Tracy M. , Dal Grande Eleanora , Taylor Anne W. 
Published: June 2009

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI), mental health, and suicidal ideation in a general population. Method: Two random and representative samples were drawn from the South Australian population. The interview techniques differed, as did the measures of depression and suicidality. One involved 3034 people in face-to-face interviews, and the other involved 30 214 persons providing information via a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system. BMI was classified according to World Health Organization criteria. In face-to-face interviews, major depression was defined by the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) and suicidal ideation by direct enquiry. In the CATI data, psychological distress was assessed on the Kessler 10 instrument and suicidal ideation by four items on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Data analysis controlled for demographic and physical health variables. Results: In the face-to-face interviews, the combined obese and morbidly obese men were significantly less likely to have major depression or suicidal ideation than those of a healthy weight. For the telephone interview-derived data, the only significant finding was for overweight women to report less psychological distress than those of a healthy weight. Conclusions: It is no longer tenable to assume that increased BMI is necessarily associated with major depression, psychological distress, or suicidal ideation. Indeed, it appears protective for some people.