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Sample records for significant negative interaction

  1. Clinical Significance of CK19 Negative Breast Cancer

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    Fujisue, Mamiko, E-mail: nishimura.reiki@cityhosp-kumamoto.jp; Nishimura, Reiki; Okumura, Yasuhiro [Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Kumamoto City Hospital, 1-1-60 Kotoh, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto 862-8505 (Japan); Tashima, Rumiko [Department of Surgery, Kumamoto City Hospital, 1-1-60 Kotoh, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto 862-8505 (Japan); Nishiyama, Yasuyuki; Osako, Tomofumi [Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Kumamoto City Hospital, 1-1-60 Kotoh, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto 862-8505 (Japan); Toyozumi, Yasuo; Arima, Nobuyuki [Department of Pathology, Kumamoto City Hospital, 1-1-60 Kotoh, Kumamoto City, Kumamoto 862-8505 (Japan)

    2012-12-21

    Analysis of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) by means of One-Step Nucleic Acid Amplification (OSNA) is gaining widespread use as a quick and accurate method. This assay detects the expression level of cytokeratin 19 (CK19) which is present in some but not all breast tumors. In this study, the clinical significance of negative CK19 was investigated in 219 cases of primary breast cancer. In 179 patients with clinically negative nodes, OSNA and imprint smear cytology of SLN were performed simultaneously. The OSNA revealed a node-positive rate of 24.6%. Negative CK19 correlated significantly with negative ER/PgR and higher Ki-67 values, and marginally with higher nuclear grade and p53 overexpression. The triple negative subtype showed lower CK19 expression. OSNA revealed that one of the negative CK19 cases was actually a false negative but this was corrected with the use of the imprint smear cytology. In conclusion, CK19 negativity reflected the aggressiveness of primary breast cancer. OSNA assay used to analyze SLN was useful, but there is a possibility that it will mistakenly detect false negatives in CK19 negative tumors. Therefore, in tumors with negative CK19, the imprint smear cytology may be more useful in cases with macrometastasis.

  2. Clinical Significance of CK19 Negative Breast Cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nobuyuki Arima

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Analysis of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs by means of One-Step Nucleic Acid Amplification (OSNA is gaining widespread use as a quick and accurate method. This assay detects the expression level of cytokeratin 19 (CK19 which is present in some but not all breast tumors. In this study, the clinical significance of negative CK19 was investigated in 219 cases of primary breast cancer. In 179 patients with clinically negative nodes, OSNA and imprint smear cytology of SLN were performed simultaneously. The OSNA revealed a node-positive rate of 24.6%. Negative CK19 correlated significantly with negative ER/PgR and higher Ki-67 values, and marginally with higher nuclear grade and p53 overexpression. The triple negative subtype showed lower CK19 expression. OSNA revealed that one of the negative CK19 cases was actually a false negative but this was corrected with the use of the imprint smear cytology. In conclusion, CK19 negativity reflected the aggressiveness of primary breast cancer. OSNA assay used to analyze SLN was useful, but there is a possibility that it will mistakenly detect false negatives in CK19 negative tumors. Therefore, in tumors with negative CK19, the imprint smear cytology may be more useful in cases with macrometastasis.

  3. Clinical Significance of CK19 Negative Breast Cancer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fujisue, Mamiko; Nishimura, Reiki; Okumura, Yasuhiro; Tashima, Rumiko; Nishiyama, Yasuyuki; Osako, Tomofumi; Toyozumi, Yasuo; Arima, Nobuyuki

    2012-01-01

    Analysis of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) by means of One-Step Nucleic Acid Amplification (OSNA) is gaining widespread use as a quick and accurate method. This assay detects the expression level of cytokeratin 19 (CK19) which is present in some but not all breast tumors. In this study, the clinical significance of negative CK19 was investigated in 219 cases of primary breast cancer. In 179 patients with clinically negative nodes, OSNA and imprint smear cytology of SLN were performed simultaneously. The OSNA revealed a node-positive rate of 24.6%. Negative CK19 correlated significantly with negative ER/PgR and higher Ki-67 values, and marginally with higher nuclear grade and p53 overexpression. The triple negative subtype showed lower CK19 expression. OSNA revealed that one of the negative CK19 cases was actually a false negative but this was corrected with the use of the imprint smear cytology. In conclusion, CK19 negativity reflected the aggressiveness of primary breast cancer. OSNA assay used to analyze SLN was useful, but there is a possibility that it will mistakenly detect false negatives in CK19 negative tumors. Therefore, in tumors with negative CK19, the imprint smear cytology may be more useful in cases with macrometastasis

  4. Evidence that COMT genotype and proline interact on negative-symptom outcomes in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

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    Clelland, C L; Drouet, V; Rilett, K C; Smeed, J A; Nadrich, R H; Rajparia, A; Read, L L; Clelland, J D

    2016-09-13

    Elevated peripheral proline is associated with psychiatric disorders, and there is evidence that proline is a neuromodulator. The proline dehydrogenase (PRODH) gene, which encodes the enzyme that catalyzes proline catabolism, maps to human chromosome 22q11.2, a region conferring risk of schizophrenia. In the Prodh-null mouse, an interaction between elevated peripheral proline and another 22q11.2 gene, catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), on neurotransmission and behavior has been reported. We explored the relationship between fasting plasma proline levels and COMT Val(158)Met genotype on symptoms (positive, negative and total) in schizophrenia patients. In an exploratory study we also examined symptom change in patients with bipolar disorder. There was a significant interaction between peripheral proline and COMT on negative symptoms in schizophrenia (PScale for the Assessment of Negative Symptom (SANS) scores. In contrast, high proline was associated with high SANS scores in patients carrying a Met allele. The relationship between proline and COMT also appears to modify negative symptoms across psychiatric illness. In bipolar disorder, a significant interaction was also observed on negative-symptom change (P=0.007, n=43). Negative symptoms are intractable and largely unaddressed by current medications. These data indicate a significant interaction between peripheral proline and COMT genotype, influencing negative symptoms in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. That high proline has converse effects on symptoms by COMT genotype, may have implications for therapeutic decisions.

  5. Employees' negative and positive work-home interaction and their association with depressive symptoms.

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    Nitzsche, Anika; Jung, Julia; Pfaff, Holger; Driller, Elke

    2013-05-01

    Depression is the leading cause of disability and high costs worldwide. One possibility for preventing depression in the workplace, which has received little consideration so far, is the promotion of a successful balance between work and personal life. The aim of this study was to investigate employees' negative and positive work-home interaction and their association with depressive symptoms. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the micro- and nanotechnology sector in Germany. A stepwise multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed using data from N = 213 employees. The results suggest that while negative work-home interaction is associated with an increased risk for depressive symptoms, positive work-home interaction is correlated with a lower risk. Neither positive nor negative interaction in the home-to-work direction demonstrated a significant association with depressive symptoms. When attempting to prevent mental illnesses, such as depression, it is important to develop strategies aimed at reducing conflict between work and personal life and promoting a positive exchange between these two domains. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  6. Negative Interpersonal Interactions in Student Training Settings

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    Ferris, Patricia A.; Kline, Theresa J. B.

    2009-01-01

    Studies demonstrate that negative interpersonal interaction(s) (NII) such as bullying are frequent and harmful to individuals in workplace and higher education student settings. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the degree of perceived severity of NII varies by the status of the actor. The present study explored the moderating effect of actor…

  7. Structural stability of interaction networks against negative external fields

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    Yoon, S.; Goltsev, A. V.; Mendes, J. F. F.

    2018-04-01

    We explore structural stability of weighted and unweighted networks of positively interacting agents against a negative external field. We study how the agents support the activity of each other to confront the negative field, which suppresses the activity of agents and can lead to collapse of the whole network. The competition between the interactions and the field shape the structure of stable states of the system. In unweighted networks (uniform interactions) the stable states have the structure of k -cores of the interaction network. The interplay between the topology and the distribution of weights (heterogeneous interactions) impacts strongly the structural stability against a negative field, especially in the case of fat-tailed distributions of weights. We show that apart from critical slowing down there is also a critical change in the system structure that precedes the network collapse. The change can serve as an early warning of the critical transition. To characterize changes of network structure we develop a method based on statistical analysis of the k -core organization and so-called "corona" clusters belonging to the k -cores.

  8. Negative Emotional Energy: A Theory of the “Dark-Side” of Interaction Ritual Chains

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Boyns

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available Randall Collins’ theory of interaction ritual chains is widely cited, but has been subject to little theoretical elaboration. One reason for the modest expansion of the theory is the underdevelopment of the concept of emotional energy. This paper examines emotional energy, related particularly to the dynamics of negative experiences. It asks whether or not negative emotions produce emotional energies that are qualitatively distinct from their positive counterparts. The analysis begins by tracing the development of Interaction Ritual Theory, and summarizes its core propositions. Next, it moves to a conceptualization of a “valenced” emotional energy and describes both “positive” and “negative” dimensions. Six propositions outline the central dynamics of negative emotional energy. The role of groups in the formation of positive and negative emotional energy are considered, as well as how these energies are significant sources of sociological motivation.

  9. Vocal and visual stimulation, congruence and lateralization affect brain oscillations in interspecies emotional positive and negative interactions.

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    Balconi, Michela; Vanutelli, Maria Elide

    2016-01-01

    The present research explored the effect of cross-modal integration of emotional cues (auditory and visual (AV)) compared with only visual (V) emotional cues in observing interspecies interactions. The brain activity was monitored when subjects processed AV and V situations, which represented an emotional (positive or negative), interspecies (human-animal) interaction. Congruence (emotionally congruous or incongruous visual and auditory patterns) was also modulated. electroencephalography brain oscillations (from delta to beta) were analyzed and the cortical source localization (by standardized Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography) was applied to the data. Frequency band (mainly low-frequency delta and theta) showed a significant brain activity increasing in response to negative compared to positive interactions within the right hemisphere. Moreover, differences were found based on stimulation type, with an increased effect for AV compared with V. Finally, delta band supported a lateralized right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity in response to negative and incongruous interspecies interactions, mainly for AV. The contribution of cross-modality, congruence (incongruous patterns), and lateralization (right DLPFC) in response to interspecies emotional interactions was discussed at light of a "negative lateralized effect."

  10. Negative Interpersonal Interactions and Dating Abuse Perpetration: The Mediating Role of Dispositional Forgivingness.

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    Garthe, Rachel C; Griffin, Brandon J; Worthington, Everett L; Goncy, Elizabeth A; Sullivan, Terri N; Coleman, Jennifer A; Davis, Don E; Kwakye-Nuako, Charlotte O; Mokushane, Thapelo; Makola, Solomon; Anakwah, Nkansah

    2017-06-01

    Theory and research suggest that an individual's negative interactions with his or her parents or romantic partner are associated with the perpetration of dating abuse. Research is beginning to explore the role of forgivingness within abusive romantic relationships, and these preliminary findings suggest that dispositional forgivingness might mediate the relations between negative interpersonal interactions and dating abuse. The current study assessed negative interactions with one's parents and one's romantic partner, the frequency of dating abuse perpetration, and dispositional forgivingness of others and oneself among a sample of emerging adults in college ( n = 421). Dispositional forgivingness of others was negatively associated with the perpetration of emotional/verbal dating abuse and threatening behaviors, and it mediated relations between negative interpersonal interactions and dating abuse perpetration. Our findings suggest that the tendency to forgive others may explain why some individuals who experience negative interpersonal interactions with parents or romantic partners do not escalate to perpetration of abuse within their romantic relationships. Implications for future research and application are discussed.

  11. Negative (but not Positive) Parenting Interacts with Infant Negative Affect to Predict Infant Approach: Evidence of Diathesis-Stress.

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    Holzman, Jacob B; Burt, Nicole M; Edwards, Erin S; Rosinski, Leanna D; Bridgett, David J

    2018-01-01

    Temperament by parenting interactions may reflect that individuals with greater risk are more likely to experience negative outcomes in adverse contexts (diathesis-stress) or that these individuals are more susceptible to contextual influences in a 'for better or for worse' pattern (differential susceptibility). Although such interactions have been identified for a variety of child outcomes, prior research has not examined approach characteristics - excitement and approach toward pleasurable activities - in the first year of life. Therefore, the current study investigated whether 6-month maternal reported infant negative affect - a phenotypic marker of risk/susceptibility - interacted with 8-month observed parenting behaviors (positive parenting, negative parenting) to predict 12-month infant behavioral approach. Based a sample of mothers and their infants ( N =150), results indicated that negative parenting was inversely associated with subsequent approach for infants with high, but not low, levels of early negative affect. Similar results did not occur regarding positive parenting. These findings better fit a diathesis-stress model rather than a differential susceptibility model. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

  12. Plasma Beam Interaction with Negative glow discharge

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    El-Tayeb, H.A.; El-Gamal, H.A.

    2000-01-01

    A miniature coaxial gun has been used to study the effect of the energy spectrum of the ejected plasma on the interaction with negative glow region in a normal glow discharge. The peak discharge current flow between the coaxial electrodes was 5.25 K A as a single pulse with pulse duration of 60 MUs. Investigations are carried out with argon gas at pressure 0.4 Torr. The sheath thickness of the ejected plasma from the coaxial discharge was 6 cm with different densities and energies. The spectrum of electron energy varies between 6 eV and 1 eV, while the electron density varies between 5 x 10 12 cm -3 and 4x10 13 cm -3 . The peak velocity of the ejected plasma was 0. 8 x 10 5 cm sec -1 in the neutral argon atoms. Argon negative glow region used as base plasma has an electron temperature of 2.2 eV and electron density of 6.2 x10 7 cm -3 . It had been found that the velocity of the ejected plasma decreased when it moves in the negative glow region and its mean electron temperature decreased. The results are compared with the theory of beam interaction with cold plasma

  13. ROLE OF PARENTS' ADJUSTMENT IN EXPLAINING PERCEPTION OF ADOLESCENTS' NEGATIVE INTERACTIONS WITH MOTHER AND FATHER

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    Tamara Efendić-Spahić

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available The research was conducted with the aim of examining the contribution of facets of the adjustment of mother and father for explaining the adolescents’ perception of negative relations with parents. The following adjustment measures were used in this research: anxiety, hypersensitivity, inner coherence, interpersonal orientation and aggression of mother and father individually. The measures of negative interactions between adolescents and parents are conceptualized through the dimension of negative relations with parents, which includes adolescents’ assessment regarding the rejection by father and mother and the assessment of negative relations with father and mother. The research was conducted on a sample including 273 subjects in total: 47 female subjects, 44 male subjects and their parents. For testing the hypotheses, the multiple regression analysis was used. The obtained results show that adjustment facets are important predictors for explaining the perception of negative relations with father. The facet of aggression stands as the most significant predictor among adjustment factors for the group of fathers. For the group of mothers, adjustment did not prove a significant predictor for explaining perception of negative relations. Possible explanations for a modest contribution of mother’s adjustment can be found in the possibility for the quality of family interactions with mother is more explained by an emotional relation that is established between her and the child in early childhood and does not change its quality at later development stages.

  14. Negative, neutral, and positive interactions among nonnative plants: patterns, processes, and management implications.

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    Kuebbing, Sara E; Nuñez, Martin A

    2015-02-01

    The movement of species is one of the most pervasive forms of global change, and few ecosystems remain uninvaded by nonnative species. Studying species interactions is crucial for understanding their distribution and abundance, particularly for nonnative species because interactions may influence the probability of invasion and consequent ecological impact. Interactions among nonnatives are relatively understudied, though the likelihood of nonnative species co-occurrence is high. We quantify and describe the types of interactions among nonnative plants and determine what factors affect interaction outcomes for ecosystems globally. We reviewed 65 studies comprising 201 observations and recorded the interaction type, traits of the interacting species, and study characteristics. We conducted a census of interaction types and a meta-analysis of experiments that tested nonnative competition intensity. Both methods showed that negative and neutral interactions prevailed, and a number of studies reported that the removal of a dominant nonnative led to competitive release of other nonnatives. Positive interactions were less frequently reported and positive mean effect sizes were rare, but the plant characteristics nitrogen fixation, life cycle (annual or perennial), and functional group significantly influenced positive interactions. Positive interactions were three times more frequent when a neighboring nonnative was a nitrogen fixer and 3.5 times lower when a neighboring nonnative was an annual. Woody plants were two or four times more likely to have positive interactions relative to grasses or herbs, respectively. The prevalence of negative interactions suggests that managers should prepare for reinvasion of sites when treating dominant nonnatives. Though positive interactions were infrequent, managers may be able to anticipate positive interactions among nonnatives based upon traits of the co-occurring invaders. Predicting positive nonnative interactions is an

  15. The clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic significance of triple-negativity in node-negative breast cancer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rhee, Jiyoung; Kim, Tae-You; Han, Sae-Won; Oh, Do-Youn; Kim, Jee Hyun; Im, Seock-Ah; Han, Wonshik; Ae Park, In; Noh, Dong-Young; Bang, Yung-Jue

    2008-01-01

    Triple-negative (TN) breast cancer, which is defined as being negative for the estrogen receptor (ER), the progesterone receptor (PR), and the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2), represents a subset of breast cancer with different biologic behaviour. We investigated the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic indicators of lymph node-negative TN breast cancer. Medical records were reviewed from patients with node-negative breast cancer who underwent curative surgery at Seoul National University Hospital between Jan. 2000 and Jun. 2003. Clinicopathologic variables and clinical outcomes were evaluated. Among 683 patients included, 136 had TN breast cancer and 529 had non-TN breast cancer. TN breast cancer correlated with younger age (< 35 y, p = 0.003), and higher histologic and nuclear grade (p < 0.001). It also correlated with a molecular profile associated with biological aggressiveness: negative for bcl-2 expression (p < 0.001), positive for the epidermal growth factor receptor (p = 0.003), and a high level of p53 (p < 0.001) and Ki67 expression (p < 0.00). The relapse rates during the follow-up period (median, 56.8 months) were 14.7% for TN breast cancer and 6.6% for non-TN breast cancer (p = 0.004). Relapse free survival (RFS) was significantly shorter among patients with TN breast cancer compared with those with non-TN breast cancer (4-year RFS rate 85.5% vs. 94.2%, respectively; p = 0.001). On multivariate analysis, young age, close resection margin, and triple-negativity were independent predictors of shorter RFS. TN breast cancer had higher relapse rate and more aggressive clinicopathologic characteristics than non-TN in node-negative breast cancer. Thus, TN breast cancer should be integrated into the risk factor analysis for node-negative breast cancer

  16. The interaction of combined effects of the BDNF and PRKCG genes and negative life events in major depressive disorder.

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    Yang, Chunxia; Sun, Ning; Liu, Zhifen; Li, Xinrong; Xu, Yong; Zhang, Kerang

    2016-03-30

    Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a mental disorder that results from complex interplay between multiple and partially overlapping sets of susceptibility genes and environmental factors. The brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and Protein kinase C gamma type (PRKCG) are logical candidate genes in MDD. Among diverse environmental factors, negative life events have been suggested to exert a crucial impact on brain development. In the present study, we hypothesized that interactions between genetic variants in BDNF and PRKCG and negative life events may play an important role in the development of MDD. We recruited a total of 406 patients with MDD and 391 age- and gender-matched control subjects. Gene-environment interactions were analyzed using generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR). Under a dominant model, we observed a significant three-way interaction among BDNF rs6265, PRKCG rs3745406, and negative life events. The gene-environment combination of PRKCG rs3745406 C allele, BDNF rs6265 G allele and high level of negative life events (C-G-HN) was significantly associated with MDD (OR, 5.97; 95% CI, 2.71-13.15). To our knowledge, this is the first report of evidence that the BDNF-PRKCG interaction may modify the relationship between negative life events and MDD in the Chinese population. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Social consequences of subclinical negative symptoms: An EMG study of facial expressions within a social interaction.

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    Riehle, Marcel; Lincoln, Tania M

    2017-06-01

    The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are related to lower social functioning even in non-clinical samples, but little is known about the distinct social consequences of motivational and expressive negative symptoms. In this study we focused on expressive negative symptoms and examined how these symptoms and varying degrees of pro-social facial expressiveness (smiling and mimicry of smiling) relate to the social evaluations by face-to-face interaction partners and to social support. We examined 30 dyadic interactions within a sample of non-clinical participants (N = 60) who were rated on motivational and expressive negative symptoms with the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS). We collected data on both interaction partners' smiling-muscle (zygomaticus major) activation simultaneously with electromyography and assessed the general amount of smiling and the synchrony of smiling muscle activations between interaction partners (mimicry of smiling). Interaction partners rated their willingness for future interactions with each other after the interactions. Interaction partners of participants scoring higher on expressive negative symptoms expressed less willingness for future interactions with these participants (r = -0.37; p = 0.01). Smiling behavior was negatively related to expressive negative symptoms but also explained by motivational negative symptoms. Mimicry of smiling and both negative symptom domains were also associated with participants' satisfaction with their social support network. Non-clinical sample with (relatively) low levels of symptoms. Expressive negative symptoms have tangible negative interpersonal consequences and directly relate to diminished pro-social behavior and social support, even in non-clinical samples. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Negative Symptoms and Avoidance of Social Interaction: A Study of Non-Verbal Behaviour.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Worswick, Elizabeth; Dimic, Sara; Wildgrube, Christiane; Priebe, Stefan

    2018-01-01

    Non-verbal behaviour is fundamental to social interaction. Patients with schizophrenia display an expressivity deficit of non-verbal behaviour, exhibiting behaviour that differs from both healthy subjects and patients with different psychiatric diagnoses. The present study aimed to explore the association between non-verbal behaviour and symptom domains, overcoming methodological shortcomings of previous studies. Standardised interviews with 63 outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia were videotaped. Symptoms were assessed using the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Calgary Depression Scale. Independent raters later analysed the videos for non-verbal behaviour, using a modified version of the Ethological Coding System for Interviews (ECSI). Patients with a higher level of negative symptoms displayed significantly fewer prosocial (e.g., nodding and smiling), gesture, and displacement behaviours (e.g., fumbling), but significantly more flight behaviours (e.g., looking away, freezing). No gender differences were found, and these associations held true when adjusted for antipsychotic medication dosage. Negative symptoms are associated with both a lower level of actively engaging non-verbal behaviour and an increased active avoidance of social contact. Future research should aim to identify the mechanisms behind flight behaviour, with implications for the development of treatments to improve social functioning. © 2017 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  19. Biomechanical warfare in ecology; negative interactions between species by habitat modification

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Wesenbeeck, B. K.; van de Koppel, J.; Herman, P. M. J.; Bakker, J. P.; Bouma, T. J.

    Since the introduction of the term ecosystem engineering by Jones et al. many studies have focused on positive, facilitative interactions caused by ecosystem engineering. Much less emphasis has been placed on the role of ecosystem engineering in causing negative interactions between species. Here,

  20. Biomechanical warfare in ecology; negative interactions between species by habitat modification

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Van Wesenbeeck, B.K.; Van de Koppel, J.; Herman, P.M.J.; Bakker, J.P.; Bouma, T.J.

    2007-01-01

    Since the introduction of the term ecosystem engineering by Jones et al. many studies have focused on positive, facilitative interactions caused by ecosystem engineering. Much less emphasis has been placed on the role of ecosystem engineering in causing negative interactions between species. Here,

  1. Interaction of negation with tense, modality and information structure in Standard Arabic

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    Nasser Al-Horais

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to consider the interaction of tense, mood and focus with negation in Standard Arabic. This interaction can be observed via marking the tense and mood of the sentence, or via selecting a particular type of tense, or being associated with Information Structure. Building on this fact, the current paper provides a unified analysis, in which negation in Arabic can be accounted for without a NegP projection.

  2. Dynamics of Disagreement: Large-Scale Temporal Network Analysis Reveals Negative Interactions in Online Collaboration

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    Tsvetkova, Milena; García-Gavilanes, Ruth; Yasseri, Taha

    2016-11-01

    Disagreement and conflict are a fact of social life. However, negative interactions are rarely explicitly declared and recorded and this makes them hard for scientists to study. In an attempt to understand the structural and temporal features of negative interactions in the community, we use complex network methods to analyze patterns in the timing and configuration of reverts of article edits to Wikipedia. We investigate how often and how fast pairs of reverts occur compared to a null model in order to control for patterns that are natural to the content production or are due to the internal rules of Wikipedia. Our results suggest that Wikipedia editors systematically revert the same person, revert back their reverter, and come to defend a reverted editor. We further relate these interactions to the status of the involved editors. Even though the individual reverts might not necessarily be negative social interactions, our analysis points to the existence of certain patterns of negative social dynamics within the community of editors. Some of these patterns have not been previously explored and carry implications for the knowledge collection practice conducted on Wikipedia. Our method can be applied to other large-scale temporal collaboration networks to identify the existence of negative social interactions and other social processes.

  3. The relations among child negative interactive behavior, child temperament, and maternal behavior

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Szabo, Nora; Dekovic, Maja; van Aken, Chantal; Verhoeven, Marjolein; van Aken, Marcel A.G.; Junger, Marianne

    2008-01-01

    Negative behavior toward the mother during toddlerhood might be a marker of increased risk for maladjustment. The aim of the present study was to examine the possible antecedents of toddler boys’ negative behavior observed in interaction with the mother: child temperament, and maternal behavior

  4. Uniaxial negative thermal expansion facilitated by weak host-guest interactions.

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    Engel, Emile R; Smith, Vincent J; Bezuidenhout, Charl X; Barbour, Leonard J

    2014-04-25

    A nitromethane solvate of 18-crown-6 was investigated by means of variable-temperature single-crystal X-ray diffraction in response to a report of abnormal unit cell contraction. Exceptionally large positive thermal expansion in two axial directions and negative thermal expansion along the third was confirmed. The underlying mechanism relies exclusively on weak electrostatic interactions to yield a linear thermal expansion coefficient of -129 × 10(-6) K(-1), the largest negative value yet observed for an organic inclusion compound.

  5. Plasma-surface interaction in negative hydrogen ion sources

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    Wada, Motoi

    2018-05-01

    A negative hydrogen ion source delivers more beam current when Cs is introduced to the discharge, but a continuous operation of the source reduces the beam current until more Cs is added to the source. This behavior can be explained by adsorption and ion induced desorption of Cs atoms on the plasma grid surface of the ion source. The interaction between the ion source plasma and the plasma grid surface of a negative hydrogen ion source is discussed in correlation to the Cs consumption of the ion source. The results show that operation with deuterium instead of hydrogen should require more Cs consumption and the presence of medium mass impurities as well as ions of the source wall materials in the arc discharge enlarges the Cs removal rate during an ion source discharge.

  6. Negative social acts and pain: evidence of a workplace bullying and 5-HTT genotype interaction.

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    Jacobsen, Daniel Pitz; Nielsen, Morten Birkeland; Einarsen, Ståle; Gjerstad, Johannes

    2018-05-01

    Objectives Long-term exposure to systematic negative acts at work, usually labeled workplace bullying, is a prevalent problem at many workplaces. The adverse effects of such exposure may range from psychological symptoms, such as depression and anxiety to somatic ailments like cardiovascular disease and musculoskeletal complaints. In this study, we examined the relationships among exposure to negative acts, genetic variability in the 5-HTT gene SLC6A4 and pain. Methods The study was based on a nationally representative survey of 987 Norwegian employees drawn from the Norwegian Central Employee Register by Statistics Norway. Exposure to bullying in the workplace was measured with the 9-item version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire - Revised (NAQ-R) inventory. Pain was rated using an 11-point (0-10) numeric rating scale (NRS). Genotyping with regard to SLC6A4 was carried out using a combination of gel-electrophoresis and TaqMan assay. Results The data revealed a significant interaction between exposure to negative acts and the SLC6A4 genotype with regard to pain (linear regression with 5000 resamples; age, sex, tobacco use and education were included as covariates). The relationship between negative acts and pain intensity was significantly stronger for subjects with the LALA genotype than for subjects with the SLA/LALG/SLG genotype. No significant difference between subjects with the LALA genotype and SS genotype was observed. Conclusions Our data demonstrated that the relationship between bullying and pain was modified by the 5-HTT genotype, ie, genetic variation in SLC6A4. The association between negative acts and health among vulnerable individuals appeared more potent than previously reported.

  7. Synchronization unveils the organization of ecological networks with positive and negative interactions

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    Girón, Andrea; Saiz, Hugo; Bacelar, Flora S.; Andrade, Roberto F. S.; Gómez-Gardeñes, Jesús

    2016-06-01

    Network science has helped to understand the organization principles of the interactions among the constituents of large complex systems. However, recently, the high resolution of the data sets collected has allowed to capture the different types of interactions coexisting within the same system. A particularly important example is that of systems with positive and negative interactions, a usual feature appearing in social, neural, and ecological systems. The interplay of links of opposite sign presents natural difficulties for generalizing typical concepts and tools applied to unsigned networks and, moreover, poses some questions intrinsic to the signed nature of the network, such as how are negative interactions balanced by positive ones so to allow the coexistence and survival of competitors/foes within the same system? Here, we show that synchronization phenomenon is an ideal benchmark for uncovering such balance and, as a byproduct, to assess which nodes play a critical role in the overall organization of the system. We illustrate our findings with the analysis of synthetic and real ecological networks in which facilitation and competitive interactions coexist.

  8. Synchronization unveils the organization of ecological networks with positive and negative interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Girón, Andrea; Saiz, Hugo; Bacelar, Flora S; Andrade, Roberto F S; Gómez-Gardeñes, Jesús

    2016-06-01

    Network science has helped to understand the organization principles of the interactions among the constituents of large complex systems. However, recently, the high resolution of the data sets collected has allowed to capture the different types of interactions coexisting within the same system. A particularly important example is that of systems with positive and negative interactions, a usual feature appearing in social, neural, and ecological systems. The interplay of links of opposite sign presents natural difficulties for generalizing typical concepts and tools applied to unsigned networks and, moreover, poses some questions intrinsic to the signed nature of the network, such as how are negative interactions balanced by positive ones so to allow the coexistence and survival of competitors/foes within the same system? Here, we show that synchronization phenomenon is an ideal benchmark for uncovering such balance and, as a byproduct, to assess which nodes play a critical role in the overall organization of the system. We illustrate our findings with the analysis of synthetic and real ecological networks in which facilitation and competitive interactions coexist.

  9. SOCIAL INTERACTIONS, STRESSFUL EVENTS AND NEGATIVE AFFECT AT WORK - A MICROANALYTIC APPROACH

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    PEETERS, MCW; BUUNK, BP; SCHAUFELI, WB

    1995-01-01

    In the present study a daily event-recording method, the DIRO (Daily Interaction Record in Organizations), was employed for assessing social interactions, stressful events and negative affect at work. Forty-one secretaries filled out the records during the course of a week. This made it possible to

  10. The strategic significance of negative externalities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-12-01

    Negative externalities have competitive relevance in a market when they have selective impacts as, for : example, when a product in use imposes greater costs on consumers of rival products than on other people. : Because managers have discretion ...

  11. How do parents' depression and anxiety, and infants' negative temperament relate to parent-infant face-to-face interactions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aktar, Evin; Colonnesi, Cristina; de Vente, Wieke; Majdandžić, Mirjana; Bögels, Susan M

    2017-08-01

    The present study investigated the associations of mothers' and fathers' lifetime depression and anxiety symptoms, and of infants' negative temperament with parents' and infants' gaze, facial expressions of emotion, and synchrony. We observed infants' (age between 3.5 and 5.5 months, N = 101) and parents' gaze and facial expressions during 4-min naturalistic face-to-face interactions. Parents' lifetime symptoms of depression and anxiety were assessed with clinical interviews, and infants' negative temperament was measured with standardized observations. Parents with more depressive symptoms and their infants expressed less positive and more neutral affect. Parents' lifetime anxiety symptoms were not significantly related to parents' expressions of affect, while they were linked to longer durations of gaze to parent, and to more positive and negative affect in infants. Parents' lifetime depression or anxiety was not related to synchrony. Infants' temperament did not predict infants' or parents' interactive behavior. The study reveals that more depression symptoms in parents are linked to more neutral affect from parents and from infants during face-to-face interactions, while parents' anxiety symptoms are related to more attention to parent and less neutral affect from infants (but not from parents).

  12. Negative Plant-Soil Feedback and Positive Species Interaction in a Herbaceous Plant Community

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bonanomi, G.; Rietkerk, M.; Dekker, S.C.; Mazzoleni, S.

    2005-01-01

    Increasing evidence shows that facilitative interaction and negative plant¿soil feedback are driving factors of plant population dynamics and community processes. We studied the intensity and the relative impact of negative feedback on clonal growth and seed germination of Scirpus holoschoenus, a

  13. Negative Plant–Soil Feedback and Positive Species Interaction in a Herbaceous Plant Community

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bonanomi, G.; Rietkerk, M.G.; Dekker, S.C.; Mazzoleni, S.

    2005-01-01

    Increasing evidence shows that facilitative interaction and negative plant–soil feedback are driving factors of plant population dynamics and community processes. We studied the intensity and the relative impact of negative feedback on clonal growth and seed germination of Scirpus holoschoenus, a

  14. Athlete social support, negative social interactions and psychological health across a competitive sport season.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeFreese, J D; Smith, Alan L

    2014-12-01

    Social support and negative social interactions have implications for athlete psychological health, with potential to influence the links of stress-related experiences with burnout and well-being over time. Using a longitudinal design, perceived social support and negative social interactions were examined as potential moderators of the temporal stress-burnout and burnout-well-being relationships. American collegiate athletes (N = 465) completed reliable and valid online assessments of study variables at four time points during the competitive season. After controlling for dispositional and conceptually important variables, social support and negative social interactions did not moderate the stress-burnout or burnout-well-being relationships, respectively, but did simultaneously contribute to burnout and well-being across the competitive season. The results showcase the importance of sport-related social perceptions to athlete psychological outcomes over time and inform development of socially driven interventions to improve the psychological health of competitive athletes.

  15. Interactive and Indirect Effects of Anxiety and Negative Urgency on Alcohol-Related Problems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Menary, Kyle R.; Corbin, William R.; Leeman, Robert F.; Fucito, Lisa M.; Toll, Benjamin A.; DeMartini, Kelly; O’Malley, Stephanie S.

    2015-01-01

    Background Although drinking for tension reduction has long been posited as a risk factor for alcohol-related problems, studies investigating anxiety in relation to risk for alcohol problems have returned inconsistent results, leading researchers to search for potential moderators. Negative urgency (the tendency to become behaviorally dysregulated when experiencing negative affect) is a potential moderator of theoretical interest because it may increase risk for alcohol problems among those high in negative affect. The present study tested a cross-sectional mediated moderation hypothesis whereby an interactive effect of anxiety and negative urgency on alcohol problems is mediated through coping-related drinking motives. Method The study utilized baseline data from a hazardously drinking sample of young adults (N = 193) evaluated for participation in a randomized controlled trial of naltrexone and motivational interviewing for drinking reduction. Results The direct effect of anxiety on physiological dependence symptoms was moderated by negative urgency such that the positive association between anxiety and physiological dependence symptoms became stronger as negative urgency increased. Indirect effects of anxiety and negative urgency on alcohol problems (operating through coping motives) were also observed. Conclusions Although results of the current cross-sectional study require replication using longitudinal data, the findings suggest that the simultaneous presence of anxiety and negative urgency may be an important indicator of risk for AUDs via both direct interactive effects and indirect additive effects operating through coping motives. These findings have potentially important implications for prevention/intervention efforts for individuals who become disinhibited in the context of negative emotional states. PMID:26031346

  16. The Dark Side of Friendship: Questions about Negative Interactions between Friends.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berndt, Thomas J.

    Alluding to the difficulty in explaining the two opposing powers, the "dark side" and the Force, in the Star Wars movies, this paper focuses on the complex combination of negative and positive interactions among children who are best friends. Presented in question-answer format, the paper discusses research findings and needs related to…

  17. Inclusive negative-hadron production from high-energy nu-bar-nucleus charged-current interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berge, J.P.; Bogert, D.; Endorf, R.; Hanft, R.; Malko, J.A.; Moffatt, G.; Nezrick, F.A.; Scott, W.; Smart, W.; Wolfson, J.; Ammosov, V.V.; Amrakhov, A.H.; Denisov, A.G.; Ermolov, P.F.; Gapienko, V.A.; Klukhin, V.I.; Koreshev, V.I.; Pitukhin, P.V.; Rjabov, V.G.; Slobodyuk, E.A.; Sirotenko, V.I.; Efremenko, V.I.; Gorichev, P.A.; Kaftanov, V.S.; Khovansky, V.D.; Kliger, G.K.; Kolganov, V.Z.; Krutchinin, S.P.; Kubantsev, M.A.; Rosanov, A.N.; Savitsky, M.M.; Shevchenko, V.G.; Coffin, C.T.; Diamond, R.N.; French, H.; Louis, W.; Roe, B.P.; Ross, R.T.; Seidl, A.A.; Sinclair, D.

    1978-01-01

    We present data on inclusive negative-hadron production from charged-current antineutrino interactions in a 21% Ne--H mixture. Inclusive single-particle distributions are presented and are shown to be insensitive to the momentum transferred to the hadron vertex. Comparisons made to inclusive data from π - p and π - n interactions indicate a close similarity between the hadrons resulting from π-nucleon and nu-bar-nucleus interactions. The general features of the nu-bar-nucleus data are found to be similar to those seen in nu-barp interactions. This last observation implies that nu-barp and nu-barn interactions are similar and that nuclear effects are small

  18. Experimental study on interaction between a positive mass and a negative effective mass through a mass–spring system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiao Zhou

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available We investigate the interaction between a positive mass and a negative effective mass through a three-mass chain connected with elastic springs, a pair of masses is designed to have an effective negative mass, and it interacts with the third positive one as if an equivalent two-mass chain. The dynamics of the equivalent two-mass chain shows that the two bodies may be self-accelerated in same direction when the effective mass becomes negative, the experiment is also conducted to demonstrate this type of motion. We further show that the energy principle (Hamilton’s principle is applicable if the energy of the negative mass unit is properly characterized. The result may be relevant to composite with cells of effective negative mass, their interaction with matrix may lead to more richer unexpected macroscopic responses.

  19. Daily interactions with aging parents and adult children: Associations with negative affect and diurnal cortisol.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birditt, Kira S; Manalel, Jasmine A; Kim, Kyungmin; Zarit, Steven H; Fingerman, Karen L

    2017-09-01

    Midlife adults report greater investment in their children than in their parents, and these ties have important implications for well-being. To date, little research has addressed daily experiences in these ties. The present study examines daily experiences (negative and positive) with aging parents and adult children and their associations with daily negative affect and diurnal cortisol rhythms. Participants were middle-aged adults (N = 156; 56% women) from Wave 2 of the Family Exchanges Study, conducted in 2013, who completed a 7-day daily diary study, which included assessments of daily negative and positive social encounters and negative affect, and 4 days of saliva collection, which was collected 3 times a day (upon waking, 30 min after waking, and at bedtime) and assayed for cortisol. Multilevel models revealed that individuals were more likely to have contact with adult children than with parents but more likely to have negative experiences (negative interactions, avoidance, negative thoughts) with parents than with adult children. Nevertheless, contact and negative experiences with adult children were more consistently associated with negative affect and daily cortisol patterns than were interactions with parents. Findings are consistent with the intergenerational stake hypothesis, which suggests that individuals have a greater stake in their children than in their parents. Indeed, negative experiences with adult children may be more salient because tensions with adult children occur less frequently than do tensions with parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Energy dependence of negatively charged pion production in proton-proton interactions at the CERN SPS

    CERN Document Server

    AUTHOR|(SzGeCERN)663936; Dominik, Wojciech; Gaździck, Marek

    2016-01-01

    This thesis presents inclusive spectra of the negatively charged pions produced in inelastic proton-proton interactions measured at five beam momenta: 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c. The measurements were conducted in the NA61/SHINE experiment at CERN using a system of five Time Projection Chambers. The negatively charged pion spectra were calculated based on the negatively charged hadron spectra. Contribution of hadrons other than the primary pions was removed using EPOS simulations. The results were corrected for effects related to detection, acceptance, reconstruction efficiency and the analysis technique. Two-dimensional spectra were derived as a function of rapidity and transverse momentum or transverse mass. The spectra were parametrised by widths of the rapidity distributions, inverse slope parameters of the transverse mass distributions, mean transverse masses and the total pion multiplicities. The negatively charged pion spectra in proton-proton interactions belong to a broad NA61/SHINE programme of se...

  1. Chronic and Daily Stressors Along With Negative Affect Interact to Predict Daily Tiredness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hartsell, Elizabeth N; Neupert, Shevaun D

    2017-11-01

    The present study examines the within-person relationship of daily stressors and tiredness and whether this depends on daily negative affect and individual differences in chronic stress. One hundred sixteen older adult participants were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk for a 9-day daily diary study. Daily tiredness, daily stressors, and negative affect were measured each day, and chronic stress was measured at baseline. Daily stressors, daily negative affect, and chronic stress interacted to predict daily tiredness. People with high chronic stress who experienced an increase in daily negative affect were the most reactive to daily stressors in terms of experiencing an increase in daily tiredness. We also found that people with low levels of chronic stress were the most reactive to daily stressors when they experienced low levels of daily negative affect. Our results highlight the need for individualized and contextualized approaches to combating daily tiredness in older adults.

  2. The interactional significance of formulas in autistic language.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dobbinson, Sushie; Perkins, Mick; Boucher, Jill

    2003-01-01

    The phenomenon of echolalia in autistic language is well documented. Whilst much early research dismissed echolalia as merely an indicator of cognitive limitation, later work identified particular discourse functions of echolalic utterances. The work reported here extends the study of the interactional significance of echolalia to formulaic utterances. Audio and video recordings of conversations between the first author and two research participants were transcribed and analysed according to a Conversation Analysis framework and a multi-layered linguistic framework. Formulaic language was found to have predictable interactional significance within the language of an individual with autism, and the generic phenomenon of formulaicity in company with predictable discourse function was seen to hold across the research participants, regardless of cognitive ability. The implications of formulaicity in autistic language for acquisition and processing mechanisms are discussed.

  3. Brassinosteroid-Induced Transcriptional Repression and Dephosphorylation-Dependent Protein Degradation Negatively Regulate BIN2-Interacting AIF2 (a BR Signaling-Negative Regulator) bHLH Transcription Factor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Yoon; Song, Ji-Hye; Park, Seon-U; Jeong, You-Seung; Kim, Soo-Hwan

    2017-02-01

    Brassinosteroids (BRs) are plant polyhydroxy-steroids that play important roles in plant growth and development via extensive signal integration through direct interactions between regulatory components of different signaling pathways. Recent studies have shown that diverse helix-loop-helix/basic helix-loop-helix (HLH/bHLH) family proteins are actively involved in control of BR signaling pathways and interact with other signaling pathways. In this study, we show that ATBS1-INTERACTING FACTOR 2 (AIF2), a nuclear-localized atypical bHLH transcription factor, specifically interacts with BRASSINOSTEROID-INSENSITIVE 2 (BIN2) among other BR signaling molecules. Overexpression of AIF2 down-regulated transcript expression of growth-promoting genes, thus resulting in retardation of growth. AIF2 renders plants hyposensitive to BR-induced root growth inhibition, but shows little effects on BR-promoted hypocotyl elongation. Notably, AIF2 was dephosphorylated by BR, and the dephosphorylated AIF2 was subject to proteasome-mediated degradation. AIF2 degradation was greatly induced by BR and ABA, but relatively slightly by other hormones such as auxin, gibberellin, cytokinin and ethylene. Moreover, AIF2 transcription was significantly suppressed by a BRI1/BZR1-mediated BR signaling pathway through a direct binding of BRASSINAZOLE RESISTANT 1 (BZR1) to the BR response element (BRRE) region of the AIF2 promoter. In conclusion, our study suggests that BIN2-driven AIF2 phosphorylation could augment the BIN2/AIF2-mediated negative circuit of BR signaling pathways, and the BR-induced transcriptional repression and protein degradation negatively regulate AIF2 transcription factor, reinforcing the BZR1/BES1-mediated positive BR signaling pathway. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  4. Video-based quantification of body movement during social interaction indicates the severity of negative symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kupper, Zeno; Ramseyer, Fabian; Hoffmann, Holger; Kalbermatten, Samuel; Tschacher, Wolfgang

    2010-08-01

    In schizophrenia, nonverbal behavior, including body movement, is of theoretical and clinical importance. Although reduced nonverbal expressiveness is a major component of the negative symptoms encountered in schizophrenia, few studies have objectively assessed body movement during social interaction. In the present study, 378 brief, videotaped role-play scenes involving 27 stabilized outpatients diagnosed with paranoid-type schizophrenia were analyzed using Motion Energy Analysis (MEA). This method enables the objective measuring of body movement in conjunction with ordinary video recordings. Correlations between movement parameters (percentage of time in movement, movement speed) and symptom ratings from independent PANSS interviews were calculated. Movement parameters proved to be highly reliable. In keeping with predictions, reduced movement and movement speed correlated with negative symptoms. Accordingly, in patients who exhibited noticeable movement for less than 20% of the observation time, prominent negative symptoms were highly probable. As a control measure, the percentage of movement exhibited by the patients during role-play scenes was compared to that of their normal interactants. Patients with negative symptoms differed from normal interactants by showing significantly reduced head and body movement. Two specific positive symptoms were possibly related to movement parameters: suspiciousness tended to correlate with reduced head movement, and the expression of unusual thought content tended to relate to increased movement. Overall, a close and theoretically meaningful association between the objective movement parameters and the symptom profiles was found. MEA appears to be an objective, reliable and valid method for quantifying nonverbal behavior, an aspect which may furnish new insights into the processes related to reduced expressiveness in schizophrenia. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Person-organization fit and organizational identification as predictors of positive and negative work-home interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dorota Merecz

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: The aim of the presented research was to explore the links between complementary and supplementary dimensions of Person-Organization fit (P-O fit, organizational identification (OI and negative (WHI- versus positive (WHI+ work-home interactions. It was assumed that both complementary and supplementary P-O fit and OI were positively related to WHI+ and negatively to WHI-. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted on a large sample of Polish blue and white collar workers. The subjects were interviewed by means of questionnaires measuring: supplementary and complementary dimensions of P-O fit, OI and WHI. General work ability and demographic variables were also controlled in the study, and statistical analysis of ANOVA, pairwise comparison as well as regression were performed. Results: P-O fit and OI differentiated the subjects in terms of WHI. For women supplementary fit was a significant predictor of WHI- and explained 12% of its variance, for men it was complementary fit with the number of working days per week and the level of education, which explained 22% of variance. Supplementary fit and OI explained 16% of WHI+ variance in women; OI, tenure at the main place of employment and the level of education explained 8% of WHI+ variance in men. Conclusions: It has been proven that not only are the effects of P-O fit and OI limited to the work environment but they also permeate boundaries between work and home and influence private life - good level of P-O fit and good OI play facilitating role in the positive spillover between work and home. Gender differences in the significance and predictive values of P-O fit and OI for WHI were also found. The innovative aspect of the work is the inclusion of P-O fit and OI in the range of significant predictors of work-home interaction. The results can serve as rationale for employers that improvement of P-O fit and employees' organizational identification should be included in work

  6. Person-organization fit and organizational identification as predictors of positive and negative work-home interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merecz, Dorota; Andysz, Aleksandra

    2014-01-01

    The aim of the presented research was to explore the links between complementary and supplementary dimensions of Person-Organization fit (P-O fit), organizational identification (OI) and negative (WHI(-)) versus positive (WHI(+)) work-home interactions. It was assumed that both complementary and supplementary P-O fit and OI were positively related to WHI(+) and negatively to WHI(-). The study was conducted on a large sample of Polish blue and white collar workers. The subjects were interviewed by means of questionnaires measuring: supplementary and complementary dimensions of P-O fit, OI and WHI. General work ability and demographic variables were also controlled in the study, and statistical analysis of ANOVA, pairwise comparison as well as regression were performed. P-O fit and OI differentiated the subjects in terms of WHI. For women supplementary fit was a significant predictor of WHI(-) and explained 12% of its variance, for men it was complementary fit with the number of working days per week and the level of education, which explained 22% of variance. Supplementary fit and OI explained 16% of WHI(+) variance in women; OI, tenure at the main place of employment and the level of education explained 8% of WHI(+) variance in men. It has been proven that not only are the effects of P-O fit and OI limited to the work environment but they also permeate boundaries between work and home and influence private life - good level of P-O fit and good OI play facilitating role in the positive spillover between work and home. Gender differences in the significance and predictive values of P-O fit and OI for WHI were also found. The innovative aspect of the work is the inclusion of P-O fit and OI in the range of significant predictors of work-home interaction. The results can serve as rationale for employers that improvement of P-O fit and employees' organizational identification should be included in work-life balance programs.

  7. The developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability to depression: temperament, parenting, and negative life events in childhood as contributors to negative cognitive style.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mezulis, Amy H; Hyde, Janet Shibley; Abramson, Lyn Y

    2006-11-01

    Cognitive models of depression have been well supported with adults, but the developmental origins of cognitive vulnerability are not well understood. The authors hypothesized that temperament, parenting, and negative life events in childhood would contribute to the development of cognitive style, with withdrawal negativity and negative parental feedback moderating the effects of negative life events to predict more depressogenic cognitive styles. These constructs were assessed in 289 children and their parents followed longitudinally from infancy to 5th grade; a subsample (n = 120) also participated in a behavioral task in which maternal feedback to child failure was observed. Results indicated that greater withdrawal negativity in interaction with negative life events was associated with more negative cognitive styles. Self-reported maternal anger expression and observed negative maternal feedback to child's failure significantly interacted with child's negative events to predict greater cognitive vulnerability. There was little evidence of paternal parenting predicting child negative cognitive style.

  8. Identification of clinically significant drug-drug interactions in cardiac ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Purpose: To identify clinically significant potential drug-drug interactions in cardiac intensive care units of two tertiary care ... hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes or other diseases .... May result in digoxin toxicity (nausea, vomiting, cardiac.

  9. Elementary electron-molecule interactions and negative ion resonances at subexcitation energies and their significance in gaseous dielectrics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Christophorou, L.G.

    1977-01-01

    Recent knowledge on low-energy (mostly approximately less than 10 eV) electron-molecule interaction processes in dilute and in dense gases is synthesized, discussed, and related to the breakdown strength of gaseous dielectrics. Optimal design of multicomponent gaseous insulators can be made on the basis of such knowledge

  10. Relationship between drug interactions and drug-related negative clinical outcomes in two community pharmacies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gonzalo M

    2009-03-01

    Full Text Available Drug interactions may represent an iatrogenic risk that should be controlled in community pharmacies at the dispensing level. Aim: We analyzed the association between potential drug-drug interactions (DDIs and negative clinical outcomes.Methods: We used dispensing data from two community pharmacies: instances where drug dispensing was associated with a potential DDI and a comparison group of randomized dispensing operations with no potential DDI. In cases where potential DDIs were detected, we analyzed the underlying negative clinical outcomes. Age and gender data were included in the analysis.Results: During the study period, we registered 417 potential DDIs. The proportion of women and age were higher in the study group than in the comparison group. The average potential DDIs per patient was 1.31 (SD=0.72. The Consejo General de Colegios Oficiales de Farmacéuticos (CGCOF database did not produce an alert in 2.4% of the cases. Over-the-counter medication use was observed in 5% of the potential DDI cases. The drugs most frequently involved in potential DDIs were acenocoumarol, calcium salts, hydrochlorothiazide, and alendronic acid, whereas the most predominant potential DDIs were calcium salts and bisphosphonates, oral antidiabetics and thiazide diuretics, antidiabetics and glucose, and oral anticoagulant and paracetamol. The existence of a drug-related negative clinical outcome was observed only in 0.96% of the potential DDI cases (50% safety cases and 50% effectiveness cases. Conclusions: Only a small proportion of the detected potential DDIs lead to medication negative outcomes. Considering the drug-related negative clinical outcomes encountered, tighter control would be recommended in potential DDIs with NSAIDs or benzodiazepines.

  11. Consensus-based evaluation of clinical significance and management of anticancer drug interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jansman, F.G.A.; Reyners, A.K.L.; van Roon, E.N.; Smorenburg, C.H.; Helgason, H.H.; le Comte, M.; Wensveen, B.M.; van den Tweel, A.M.A.; de Blois, M.; Kwee, W.; Kerremans, A.L.; Brouwers, J.R.B.J.

    Background: Anticancer drug interactions can affect the efficacy and toxicity of anticancer treatment and that of the interacting drugs. However, information on the significance, prevention, and management of these interactions is currently lacking. Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess

  12. MOTHER-CHILD AND FATHER-CHILD PLAY INTERACTION: THE IMPORTANCE OF PARENTAL PLAYFULNESS AS A MODERATOR OF THE LINKS BETWEEN PARENTAL BEHAVIOR AND CHILD NEGATIVITY.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Menashe-Grinberg, Atara; Atzaba-Poria, Naama

    2017-11-01

    Based on the premise that father-child play is an important context for children's development and that fathers "specialize" in play, similarities and differences in the role of playfulness in the father-child and mother-child relationship were examined. Participants in this study included 111 families (children's age: 1-3 years). Father-child and mother-child play interactions were videotaped and coded for parental playfulness, sensitivity, structuring, and nonintrusiveness as well as child negativity. Results indicated that mothers and fathers did not differ in playfulness and that mothers and fathers who were higher in playfulness had children with lower levels of negativity. However, playfulness differently moderated the links between parents' and children's behaviors for mothers and fathers. A double-risk pattern was found for mothers, such that the links between child negativity and maternal sensitivity, structuring, and nonintrusiveness were significant only for the subgroup of mothers with low levels of playfulness. When mothers had high levels of playfulness, these effects were negligible. For fathers, a double-buffer pattern was revealed, indicating that the links between child negativity and paternal sensitivity and structuring were significant only for fathers with high levels of playfulness. When fathers had low levels of playfulness, these effects were negligible. These findings demonstrate the important role that parental playfulness has on parent-child interaction as well as the need to examine moderation patterns separately for fathers and mothers. © 2017 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.

  13. Significant difference in p53 and p21 protein immunoreactivity in HPV 16 positive and HPV negative breast carcinomas

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hennig, E.M.; Norwegian Radium Hospital, Oslo; Kvinnsland, S.; Holm, R.; Nesland, J.M.

    1999-01-01

    Human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 has previously been found in 19/41 breast carcinomas (46%) in women with a history of HPV 16 positive CIN III lesions. There was no significant difference in distribution of histological subtypes, mean or median tumour diameter or number of regional lymph node metastases in the HPV positive and HPV negative breast carcinoma groups. P53, p21 and c-erbB-2 proteins were analyzed by immunohistochemistry in the HPV 16 positive and HPV negative breast carcinomas. There was a significant difference in p53 and p21 protein immunoreactivity between HPV 16 positive and HPV negative breast carcinomas (p=0.0091 and p=0.0040), with a significant less detectable p53 and p21 protein immunoreactivity in the HPV 16 positive cases. There was also a significant difference in the coexpression of p53/p21 between the HPV 16 positive and HPV 16 negative breast carcinomas (p=0.002). No significant difference in immunostaining for c-erbB-2 protein in the two groups was found (p=0.15), or for the coexpression of p53/c-erbB-2 (p=0.19). The significantly lower expression of p53 and p21 proteins in HPV 16 positive than in HPV 16 negative breast carcinomas supports the hypothesis of inactivation and degradation of wild-type p53 proteins by HPV 16 E6 and that p53 mutation is not necessary for transformation in the HPV 16 positive cases. (orig.)

  14. Exploring the relationships among humility, negative interaction in the church, and depressed affect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krause, Neal

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to test three hypotheses involving humility. The first hypothesis specifies that people who are more deeply involved in religion will be more humble than individuals who are not as involved in religion. The second hypothesis predicts that humility will offset the effects of negative interaction in the church on depressed affect scores. The third hypothesis specifies that there will be a positive relationship between age and humility. The data come from the Religion, Aging, and Health Survey, a nationwide survey of middle-aged and older Christians who attend church on a regular basis (N = 1154). The findings suggest that people who are more committed to their faith tend to be more humble. The results also reveal that negative interaction in the church is greater for people with lower humility scores than individuals with higher humility scores. In contrast, the data indicate that older adults are not more humble than middle-aged people. The findings are noteworthy because they identify a source of resilience that may help middle-aged and older adults cope more effectively with the effects of stress.

  15. Arabidopsis ETO1 specifically interacts with and negatively regulates type 2 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saito Koji

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In Arabidopsis, ETO1 (ETHYLENE-OVERPRODUCER1 is a negative regulator of ethylene evolution by interacting with AtACS5, an isoform of the rate-limiting enzyme, 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthases (ACC synthase or ACS, in ethylene biosynthetic pathway. ETO1 directly inhibits the enzymatic activity of AtACS5. In addition, a specific interaction between ETO1 and AtCUL3, a constituent of a new type of E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, suggests the molecular mechanism in promoting AtACS5 degradation by the proteasome-dependent pathway. Because orthologous sequences to ETO1 are found in many plant species including tomato, we transformed tomato with Arabidopsis ETO1 to evaluate its ability to suppress ethylene production in tomato fruits. Results Transgenic tomato lines that overexpress Arabidopsis ETO1 (ETO1-OE did not show a significant delay of fruit ripening. So, we performed yeast two-hybrid assays to investigate potential heterologous interaction between ETO1 and three isozymes of ACC synthases from tomato. In the yeast two-hybrid system, ETO1 interacts with LE-ACS3 as well as AtACS5 but not with LE-ACS2 or LE-ACS4, two major isozymes whose gene expression is induced markedly in ripening fruits. According to the classification of ACC synthases, which is based on the C-terminal amino acid sequences, both LE-ACS3 and AtACS5 are categorized as type 2 isozymes and possess a consensus C-terminal sequence. In contrast, LE-ACS2 and LE-ACS4 are type 1 and type 3 isozymes, respectively, both of which do not possess this specific C-terminal sequence. Yeast two-hybrid analysis using chimeric constructs between LE-ACS2 and LE-ACS3 revealed that the type-2-ACS-specific C-terminal tail is required for interaction with ETO1. When treated with auxin to induce LE-ACS3, seedlings of ETO1-OE produced less ethylene than the wild type, despite comparable expression of the LE-ACS3 gene in the wild type. Conclusion These results suggest that ETO1

  16. The interaction of miR-34b/c polymorphisms and negative life events increases susceptibility to major depressive disorder in Han Chinese population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Cheng; Yang, Chunxia; Zhang, Aixia; Xu, Yong; Li, Xinrong; Liu, Zhifen; Liu, Sha; Sun, Ning; Zhang, Kerang

    2017-06-09

    Previous studies have shown that microRNAs(miRNAs) are involved in the pathogenesis of MDD; in particular, miR-34b/c has been implicated in MDD risk and found to exert antidepressant effects. However, the effects of miR-34b/c polymorphisms on MDD risk have not been investigated. In this study, we evaluated the effect of miR-34b/c gene polymorphisms and their interaction with negative life events in relation to MDD, using data from 381 Han Chinese patients with MDD and 291 healthy volunteers. Allelic, genotypic, haplotypic, and gene-environment associations were analyzed using UNPHASED and SPSS software. After discarding data with extremely severe negative life events in our study population, we found an association between rs4938723, rs2187473 polymorphisms and MDD in the dominant models (TC/CC vs. TT, OR=1.45, P=0.027; TC/CC vs. TT, OR=3.32, P=0.030). In haplotype analysis, the C-G haplotype (rs4938723/rs28757623) showed the strongest association with MDD (OR=1.95, P=0.026). Additionally, we found significant gene-environment combination rs4938723 C allele, rs28757623 G allele and high level of negative life events (C-G-HN) was significantly associated with MDD (OR, 3.85; 95% CI, 1.62-9.13). In addition, the combination of (C-C-HN) is of significance (OR, 2.99; 95% CI, 1.36-6.60), indicating that the rs28757623 C allele may contribute to the risk of MDD as well. The sample size was small and the role of miR-34b/c polymorphisms for MDD should be assessed using independent samples from other ethnic populations. Our results suggest that miR-34b/c is a susceptibility factor for MDD stratified by negative life events and that rs4938723 is a significant association locus for gene-environment interaction in relation to MDD risk. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. PhERF6, interacting with EOBI, negatively regulates fragrance biosynthesis in petunia flowers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Fei; Xiao, Zhina; Yang, Li; Chen, Qian; Shao, Lu; Liu, Juanxu; Yu, Yixun

    2017-09-01

    In petunia, the production of volatile benzenoids/phenylpropanoids determines floral aroma, highly regulated by development, rhythm and ethylene. Previous studies identified several R2R3-type MYB trans-factors as positive regulators of scent biosynthesis in petunia flowers. Ethylene response factors (ERFs) have been shown to take part in the signal transduction of hormones, and regulation of metabolism and development processes in various plant species. Using virus-induced gene silencing technology, a negative regulator of volatile benzenoid biosynthesis, PhERF6, was identified by a screen for regulators of the expression of genes related to scent production. PhERF6 expression was temporally and spatially connected with scent production and was upregulated by exogenous ethylene. Up-/downregulation of the mRNA level of PhERF6 affected the expression of ODO1 and several floral scent-related genes. PhERF6 silencing led to a significant increase in the concentrations of volatiles emitted by flowers. Yeast two-hybrid, bimolecular fluorescence complementation and co-immunoprecipitation assays indicated that PhERF6 interacted with the N-terminus of EOBI, which includes two DNA binding domains. Our results show that PhERF6 negatively regulates volatile production in petunia flowers by competing for the binding of the c-myb domains of the EOBI protein with the promoters of genes related to floral scent. © 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.

  18. Mental health among older adults in Japan: do sources of social support and negative interaction make a difference?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okabayashi, Hideki; Liang, Jersey; Krause, Neal; Akiyama, Hiroko; Sugisawa, Hidehiro

    2004-12-01

    This study addresses the question of whether social support and interpersonal strain from different sources (i.e., spouse, children, and other relatives and friends) have differential impact on mental health. Data for this research came from a national probability sample of 2200 persons aged 60 and over in Japan. Structural equation models were evaluated within the context of two types of social networks: (a) persons who had a spouse and children (n=1299), and (b) those with children only (n=677). Between these two networks, the links among social support, negative relations, and mental health were contrasted. The effects of various sources of social support and negative interactions on mental health vary depending on the specific dimension of mental health as well as the nature of social networks. Among older Japanese who are married with children, social support from spouse has a greater association with positive well-being than social support from children and others. However, cognitive functioning is uncorrelated with all sources of positive and negative social exchanges. In contrast, among those without a spouse, only greater support from children is significantly correlated with higher positive well-being, less distress, and less cognitive impairment.

  19. The asymmetrical force of persuasive knowledge across the positive-negative divide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nordmo, Mads; Selart, Marcus

    2015-01-01

    In two experimental studies we explore to what extent the general effects of positive and negative framing also apply to positive and negative persuasion. Our results reveal that negative persuasion induces substantially higher levels of skepticism and awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in positive persuasion, more claims lead to stronger persuasion, while in negative persuasion, the numerosity of claims carries no significant effect. We interpret this finding along the lines of a satiety-model of persuasion. Finally, using diluted, or low strength claims in a persuasion attempt, we reveal a significant interaction between dispositional reactance and dilution of claims on persuasion knowledge. The interaction states that diluted claims increase the awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt, but only for those with a high dispositional level of reactance.

  20. The asymmetrical force of persuasive knowledge across the positive-negative divide

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mads eNordmo

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In two experimental studies we explore to what extent the general effects of positive and negative framing also apply to positive and negative persuasion. Our results reveal that negative persuasion induces substantially higher levels of skepticism and awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in positive persuasion, more claims lead to stronger persuasion, while in negative persuasion, the numerosity of claims carries no significant effect. We interpret this finding along the lines of a satiety-model of persuasion. Finally, using diluted, or low strength claims in a persuasion attempt, we reveal a significant interaction between dispositional reactance and dilution of claims on persuasion knowledge. The interaction states that diluted claims increase the awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt, but only for those with a high dispositional level of reactance.

  1. The asymmetrical force of persuasive knowledge across the positive–negative divide

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nordmo, Mads; Selart, Marcus

    2015-01-01

    In two experimental studies we explore to what extent the general effects of positive and negative framing also apply to positive and negative persuasion. Our results reveal that negative persuasion induces substantially higher levels of skepticism and awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt. Furthermore, we demonstrate that in positive persuasion, more claims lead to stronger persuasion, while in negative persuasion, the numerosity of claims carries no significant effect. We interpret this finding along the lines of a satiety-model of persuasion. Finally, using diluted, or low strength claims in a persuasion attempt, we reveal a significant interaction between dispositional reactance and dilution of claims on persuasion knowledge. The interaction states that diluted claims increase the awareness of being subjected to a persuasion attempt, but only for those with a high dispositional level of reactance. PMID:26388821

  2. Enhanced optoelastic interaction range in liquid crystals with negative dielectric anisotropy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Simoni, F.; Lalli, S.; Lucchetti, L. [Dipartimento di Scienze e Ingegneria della Materia, dell' Ambiente ed Urbanistica and CNISM, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona (Italy); Criante, L. [Center for Nano Science and Technology-PoliMi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Giovanni Pascoli, 70/3, 20133 Milano (Italy); Brasselet, E. [Univ. Bordeaux and CNRS, Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d' Aquitaine, UMR 5798, F-33400 Talence (France)

    2014-01-06

    We demonstrate that the long-range interaction between surface-functionalized microparticles immersed a nematic liquid crystal—a “nematic colloid”—and a laser-induced “ghost colloid” can be enhanced by a low-voltage quasistatic electric field when the nematic mesophase has a negative dielectric anisotropy. The optoelastic trapping distance is shown to be enhanced by a factor up to 2.5 in presence of an electric field. Experimental data are quantitatively described with a theoretical model accounting for the spatial overlap between the orientational distortions around the microparticle and those induced by the trapping light beam itself.

  3. Positive and Negative Interactions Observed Between Siblings: Moderating Effects for Children Exposed to Parents’ Conflict

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iturralde, Esti; Margolin, Gayla; Spies Shapiro, Lauren A.

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated links between interparental conflict appraisals (specifically threat and self-blame), sibling relationship quality (positive and negative dimensions), and anxiety in sibling pairs comprised of an adolescent and a younger sibling close in age. Sibling relationship quality was measured through behavioral observation. Links between self-blame and anxiety were moderated by sibling relationship quality. In older siblings, positive behavior with a sibling was associated with an attenuated relation between self-blame and anxiety. A paradoxical moderating effect was found for negative interactions; for both younger and older siblings, a relation between self-blame and anxiety was weakened in the presence of sibling negativity. Results offered support for theorized benefits of sibling relationship quality in helping early adolescents adjust to conflict between parents. PMID:24244080

  4. Does Social Interaction Matter Psychological Well-Being in Persons With Dementia?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Kyung Hee; Boltz, Marie; Lee, Hana; Algase, Donna L

    2017-06-01

    Social interaction between residents and staff is an important factor influencing sense of well-being. This study examined the relationship between staff-resident interactions and psychological well-being of persons with dementia. A total of 831 observations of 110 persons with dementia in 17 nursing homes and 6 assisted living facilities were included. Psychological well-being was measured by observed displays of positive and negative emotional expressions. Social interaction was determined by the type of social interaction (ie, verbal interaction, nonverbal interaction, and both verbal and nonverbal interactions) and the quality of interaction (ie, positive, negative, and neutral). Verbal or both verbal and nonverbal interactions showed significant relationship with positive and negative emotional expressions. Positive interaction was significantly associated with more positive emotional expression, whereas negative interaction was not. Staff-resident interactions are important to promote the psychological well-being of persons with dementia in residential care.

  5. Assessing Gender Differences in the Relationship between Negative Interaction with the Clergy and Health among Older Mexican Americans

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krause, Neal; Hayward, R. David

    2013-01-01

    A rapidly growing literature indicates that supportive social relationships are associated with better physical and mental health. However, this research further reveals that interaction with others may also be conflicted and unpleasant. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate negative interaction that arises within a social context that…

  6. Pubertal status, interaction with significant others, and self-esteem of adolescent girls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lacković-Grgin, K; Dekovíc, M; Opacić, G

    1994-01-01

    The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between pubertal status, the quality of interactions with significant others, and the self-esteem of adolescent girls. The model which was tested, hypothesized that pubertal status affects self-esteem through girls' interactions with their parents and friends. Pubertal status was operationalized as the number of months between occurrence of the first menstrual periods and time of the investigation. The measure of self-esteem was the shortened form of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory. Analyses revealed that girls who begun menstruating six months before the investigation obtained higher scores on the measure of self-esteem than did girls who had been menstruating 13 months or more. The best predictor of self-esteem, however, was the quality of interaction with their mothers. The results support the theoretical view that stresses the importance of interaction with significant others for the development of self-esteem.

  7. A Simple Negative Interaction in the Positive Transcriptional Feedback of a Single Gene Is Sufficient to Produce Reliable Oscillations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miró-Bueno, Jesús M.; Rodríguez-Patón, Alfonso

    2011-01-01

    Negative and positive transcriptional feedback loops are present in natural and synthetic genetic oscillators. A single gene with negative transcriptional feedback needs a time delay and sufficiently strong nonlinearity in the transmission of the feedback signal in order to produce biochemical rhythms. A single gene with only positive transcriptional feedback does not produce oscillations. Here, we demonstrate that this single-gene network in conjunction with a simple negative interaction can also easily produce rhythms. We examine a model comprised of two well-differentiated parts. The first is a positive feedback created by a protein that binds to the promoter of its own gene and activates the transcription. The second is a negative interaction in which a repressor molecule prevents this protein from binding to its promoter. A stochastic study shows that the system is robust to noise. A deterministic study identifies that the dynamics of the oscillator are mainly driven by two types of biomolecules: the protein, and the complex formed by the repressor and this protein. The main conclusion of this paper is that a simple and usual negative interaction, such as degradation, sequestration or inhibition, acting on the positive transcriptional feedback of a single gene is a sufficient condition to produce reliable oscillations. One gene is enough and the positive transcriptional feedback signal does not need to activate a second repressor gene. This means that at the genetic level an explicit negative feedback loop is not necessary. The model needs neither cooperative binding reactions nor the formation of protein multimers. Therefore, our findings could help to clarify the design principles of cellular clocks and constitute a new efficient tool for engineering synthetic genetic oscillators. PMID:22205920

  8. Negative symptoms and social cognition: identifying targets for psychological interventions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lincoln, Tania M; Mehl, Stephanie; Kesting, Marie-Luise; Rief, Winfried

    2011-09-01

    How to improve treatment for negative symptoms is a continuing topic of debate. Suggestions have been made to advance psychological understanding of negative symptoms by focusing on the social cognitive processes involved in symptom formation and maintenance. Following the recommendations by the National Institute of Mental Health workshop on social cognition in schizophrenia, this study investigated associations between negative symptoms and various aspects of social cognition including Theory of Mind (ToM), attribution, empathy, self-esteem, and interpersonal self-concepts in 75 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and 75 healthy controls. Negative symptoms were significantly associated with difficulties in ToM, less readiness to be empathic, lower self-esteem, less self-serving bias, negative self-concepts related to interpersonal abilities, and dysfunctional acceptance beliefs. Different aspects of social cognition were mildly to moderately correlated and interacted in their impact on negative symptoms: Difficulties in ToM were associated with negative symptoms in persons with low but not in persons with medium or high levels of self-esteem. Taken together, the social cognition variables and their hypothesized interaction explained 39% of the variance in negative symptoms after controlling for neurocognition and depression. The results highlight the relevance of self-concepts related to social abilities, dysfunctional beliefs, and global self-worth alone and in interaction with ToM deficits for negative symptoms and thereby provide a helpful basis for advancing psychosocial interventions.

  9. A novel one-class SVM based negative data sampling method for reconstructing proteome-wide HTLV-human protein interaction networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mei, Suyu; Zhu, Hao

    2015-01-26

    Protein-protein interaction (PPI) prediction is generally treated as a problem of binary classification wherein negative data sampling is still an open problem to be addressed. The commonly used random sampling is prone to yield less representative negative data with considerable false negatives. Meanwhile rational constraints are seldom exerted on model selection to reduce the risk of false positive predictions for most of the existing computational methods. In this work, we propose a novel negative data sampling method based on one-class SVM (support vector machine, SVM) to predict proteome-wide protein interactions between HTLV retrovirus and Homo sapiens, wherein one-class SVM is used to choose reliable and representative negative data, and two-class SVM is used to yield proteome-wide outcomes as predictive feedback for rational model selection. Computational results suggest that one-class SVM is more suited to be used as negative data sampling method than two-class PPI predictor, and the predictive feedback constrained model selection helps to yield a rational predictive model that reduces the risk of false positive predictions. Some predictions have been validated by the recent literature. Lastly, gene ontology based clustering of the predicted PPI networks is conducted to provide valuable cues for the pathogenesis of HTLV retrovirus.

  10. Interaction of the receptor FGFRL1 with the negative regulator Spred1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhuang, Lei; Villiger, Peter; Trueb, Beat

    2011-09-01

    FGFRL1 is a member of the fibroblast growth factor receptor family. It plays an essential role during branching morphogenesis of the metanephric kidneys, as mice with a targeted deletion of the Fgfrl1 gene show severe kidney dysplasia. Here we used the yeast two-hybrid system to demonstrate that FGFRL1 binds with its C-terminal, histidine-rich domain to Spred1 and to other proteins of the Sprouty/Spred family. Members of this family are known to act as negative regulators of the Ras/Raf/Erk signaling pathway. Truncation experiments further showed that FGFRL1 interacts with the SPR domain of Spred1, a domain that is shared by all members of the Sprouty/Spred family. The interaction could be verified by coprecipitation of the interaction partners from solution and by codistribution at the cell membrane of COS1 and HEK293 cells. Interestingly, Spred1 increased the retention time of FGFRL1 at the plasma membrane where the receptor might interact with ligands. FGFRL1 and members of the Sprouty/Spred family belong to the FGF synexpression group, which also includes FGF3, FGF8, Sef and Isthmin. It is conceivable that FGFRL1, Sef and some Sprouty/Spred proteins work in concert to control growth factor signaling during branching morphogenesis of the kidneys and other organs. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Age Differences in Affective and Cardiovascular Responses to a Negative Social Interaction: The Role of Goals, Appraisals, and Emotion Regulation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luong, Gloria; Charles, Susan T.

    2014-01-01

    Older adults often report less affective reactivity to interpersonal tensions than younger individuals, but few studies have directly investigated mechanisms explaining this effect. The current study examined whether older adults’ differential endorsement of goals, appraisals, and emotion regulation strategies (i.e., conflict avoidance/de-escalation, self-distraction) during a controlled negative social interaction may explain age differences in affective and cardiovascular responses to the conflict discussion. Participants (N=159; 80 younger adults, 79 older adults) discussed hypothetical dilemmas with disagreeable confederates. Throughout the laboratory session, participants’ subjective emotional experience, blood pressure, and pulse rate were assessed. Older adults generally exhibited less reactivity (negative affect reactivity, diastolic blood pressure reactivity, and pulse rate reactivity) to the task, and more pronounced positive and negative affect recovery following the task, than did younger adults. Older adults appraised the task as more enjoyable and the confederate as more likeable, and more strongly endorsed goals to perform well on the task, which mediated age differences in negative affect reactivity, pulse rate reactivity, and positive affect recovery (i.e., increases in post-task positive affect), respectively. In addition, younger adults showed increased negative affect reactivity with greater use of self-distraction, whereas older adults did not. Together, findings suggest that older adults respond less negatively to unpleasant social interactions than younger adults, and these responses are explained in part by older adults’ pursuit of different motivational goals, less threatening appraisals of the social interaction, and more effective use of self-distraction, compared to younger adults. PMID:24773101

  12. Wheat CBL-interacting protein kinase 25 negatively regulates salt tolerance in transgenic wheat

    OpenAIRE

    Jin, Xia; Sun, Tao; Wang, Xiatian; Su, Peipei; Ma, Jingfei; He, Guangyuan; Yang, Guangxiao

    2016-01-01

    CBL-interacting protein kinases are involved in plant responses to abiotic stresses, including salt stress. However, the negative regulating mechanism of this gene family in response to salinity is less reported. In this study, we evaluated the role of TaCIPK25 in regulating salt response in wheat. Under conditions of high salinity, TaCIPK25 expression was markedly down-regulated in roots. Overexpression of TaCIPK25 resulted in hypersensitivity to Na+ and superfluous accumulation of Na+ in tr...

  13. Interactive Effects between Maternal Parenting and Negative Emotionality on Social Functioning among Very Young Chinese Children

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ren, Lixin; Zhang, Xiao; Zhou, Ning; Ng, Mei Lee

    2017-01-01

    Research Findings: This study examined how child negative emotionality interacted with mothers' self-reported parenting in predicting different aspects of social functioning among very young Chinese children. A total of 109 Chinese nursery children in Hong Kong participated with their parents. Maternal supportive and aversive parenting practices…

  14. Aberrant interference of auditory negative words on attention in patients with schizophrenia.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Norichika Iwashiro

    Full Text Available Previous research suggests that deficits in attention-emotion interaction are implicated in schizophrenia symptoms. Although disruption in auditory processing is crucial in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, deficits in interaction between emotional processing of auditorily presented language stimuli and auditory attention have not yet been clarified. To address this issue, the current study used a dichotic listening task to examine 22 patients with schizophrenia and 24 age-, sex-, parental socioeconomic background-, handedness-, dexterous ear-, and intelligence quotient-matched healthy controls. The participants completed a word recognition task on the attended side in which a word with emotionally valenced content (negative/positive/neutral was presented to one ear and a different neutral word was presented to the other ear. Participants selectively attended to either ear. In the control subjects, presentation of negative but not positive word stimuli provoked a significantly prolonged reaction time compared with presentation of neutral word stimuli. This interference effect for negative words existed whether or not subjects directed attention to the negative words. This interference effect was significantly smaller in the patients with schizophrenia than in the healthy controls. Furthermore, the smaller interference effect was significantly correlated with severe positive symptoms and delusional behavior in the patients with schizophrenia. The present findings suggest that aberrant interaction between semantic processing of negative emotional content and auditory attention plays a role in production of positive symptoms in schizophrenia. (224 words.

  15. Alternative stable states and alternative endstates of community assembly through intra- and interspecific positive and negative interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gerla, D.J.; Mooij, W.M.

    2014-01-01

    Positive and negative interactions within and between species may occur simultaneously, with the net effect depending on population densities. For instance, at low densities plants may ameliorate stress, while competition for resources dominates at higher densities. Here, we propose a simple

  16. Search for new negative particles produced in 14. 6 A GeV/C Si+A interactions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Crawford, H J; Engelage, J; Greiner, L [Space Sciences Lab., Univ. of California, Berkeley (United States); Aoki, M; Hayano, R S; Shimizu, Y [Univ. of Tokyo (Japan); Beatty, J [Boston Univ., MA (United States); Beavis, D; Debbe, R [Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States); Carroll, J B [Univ. of California, Los Angeles (United States); Chiba, J; Tanaka, K H [National Lab. for High Energy Physics (KEK), Tsukuba (Japan); Doke, T; Kashiwagi, T; Kikuchi, J [Waseda Univ., Tokyo (Japan); Hallman, T J [Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD (United States); Heckman, H; Lindstrom, P J [Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States); Kirk, P N; Wang, Z F [Louisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge (United States); Nagamiya, S; Stankus, P [Columbia Univ., Nevis Lab., Irvington, NY (United States)

    1991-12-01

    We discuss an investigation of negative particle production in interactions of 14.6 A GeV/c {sup 28}Si with targets of Al, Cu, and Au at the Brookhaven National Laboratory AGS, experiment E858. The experiment was performed using a beamline spectrometer to measure cross sections for meta-stable negatively charged particles produced at 0deg at rigidities from 2 GV to 8 GV. We report upper limits on the production of new particles in the mass to charge (A/Z) range from -1 to -6 and discuss a simple model for describing our sensitivity. (orig.).

  17. Diatheses to Depression: The Interactions of Schema Propositions, Schema Structure, and Negative Life Events

    OpenAIRE

    Cankaya, Banu

    2006-01-01

    Drawing from the meta-construct model of cognition (Ingram, 1984; Ingram & Kendall, 1986), the goal of the present study was to examine whether the structural (i.e., self-complexity; SC, Linville, 1985) and propositional components of schemas (dysfunctional attitudes; DAS, Weissman & Beck, 1978), independently and in interaction with each other and stressors, lead to changes in depressive symptoms. The prediction was that if negative self-attributes across different self-aspects in a specifi...

  18. Structural mode significance using INCA. [Interactive Controls Analysis computer program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bauer, Frank H.; Downing, John P.; Thorpe, Christopher J.

    1990-01-01

    Structural finite element models are often too large to be used in the design and analysis of control systems. Model reduction techniques must be applied to reduce the structural model to manageable size. In the past, engineers either performed the model order reduction by hand or used distinct computer programs to retrieve the data, to perform the significance analysis and to reduce the order of the model. To expedite this process, the latest version of INCA has been expanded to include an interactive graphical structural mode significance and model order reduction capability.

  19. Interaction between FOXO1A-209 Genotype and Tea Drinking is Significantly Associated with Reduced Mortality at Advanced Ages

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zeng, Yi; Chen, Huashuai; Ni, Ting

    2016-01-01

    Based on the genotypic/phenotypic data from Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) and Cox proportional hazard model, the present study demonstrates that interactions between carrying FOXO1A-209 genotypes and tea drinking are significantly associated with lower risk of mortality...... at advanced ages. Such significant association is replicated in two independent Han Chinese CLHLS cohorts (p =0.028-0.048 in the discovery and replication cohorts, and p =0.003-0.016 in the combined dataset). We found the associations between tea drinking and reduced mortality are much stronger among carriers...... of the FOXO1A-209 genotype compared to non-carriers, and drinking tea is associated with a reversal of the negative effects of carrying FOXO1A-209 minor alleles, that is, from a substantially increased mortality risk to substantially reduced mortality risk at advanced ages. The impacts are considerably...

  20. Noise in NC-AFM measurements with significant tip–sample interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jannis Lübbe

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The frequency shift noise in non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM imaging and spectroscopy consists of thermal noise and detection system noise with an additional contribution from amplitude noise if there are significant tip–sample interactions. The total noise power spectral density DΔf(fm is, however, not just the sum of these noise contributions. Instead its magnitude and spectral characteristics are determined by the strongly non-linear tip–sample interaction, by the coupling between the amplitude and tip–sample distance control loops of the NC-AFM system as well as by the characteristics of the phase locked loop (PLL detector used for frequency demodulation. Here, we measure DΔf(fm for various NC-AFM parameter settings representing realistic measurement conditions and compare experimental data to simulations based on a model of the NC-AFM system that includes the tip–sample interaction. The good agreement between predicted and measured noise spectra confirms that the model covers the relevant noise contributions and interactions. Results yield a general understanding of noise generation and propagation in the NC-AFM and provide a quantitative prediction of noise for given experimental parameters. We derive strategies for noise-optimised imaging and spectroscopy and outline a full optimisation procedure for the instrumentation and control loops.

  1. Clinical significance of histologic chorioamnionitis with a negative amniotic fluid culture in patients with preterm labor and premature membrane rupture.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeong Woo Park

    Full Text Available To evaluate the effect of histological chorioamnionitis (HCA with a negative amniotic fluid (AF culture on adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes and inflammatory status in the AF compartment in women with preterm labor or preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM.This is a retrospective cohort study of 153 women diagnosed as having a preterm labor or PPROM (20-34 weeks who delivered singleton gestations within 48 hours of amniocentesis. AF obtained through amniocentesis was cultured, and interleukin (IL-6, IL-8, and metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9 levels were determined. The placentas were examined histologically.The prevalence of HCA with negative AF culture was 23.5% (36/153. The women with HCA but with a negative AF culture (group 2 and those with a positive AF culture (group 3 had a significantly lower mean gestational age at amniocentesis and delivery than those with a negative AF culture and without HCA (group 1. Women in group 3 had the highest levels of AF IL-6, IL-8, and MMP-9, followed by those in group 2, and those in group 1. Composite neonatal morbidity was significantly higher in groups 2 and 3 than in group 1, but this was no longer significant after adjusting for confounders caused mainly by the impact of gestational age.In the women who delivered preterm neonates, HCA with a negative AF culture was associated with increased risks of preterm birth, intense intra-amniotic inflammatory response, and prematurity-associated composite neonatal morbidity, and its risks are similar to the risk posed by positive AF culture.

  2. Alternative stable states and alternative endstates of community assembly through intra- and interspecific positive and negative interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerla, Daan J; Mooij, Wolf M

    2014-09-01

    Positive and negative interactions within and between species may occur simultaneously, with the net effect depending on population densities. For instance, at low densities plants may ameliorate stress, while competition for resources dominates at higher densities. Here, we propose a simple two-species model in which con- and heterospecifics have a positive effect on per capita growth rate at low densities, while negative interactions dominate at high densities. The model thus includes both Allee effects (intraspecific positive effects) and mutualism (interspecific positive effects), as well as intra- and interspecific competition. Using graphical methods we derive conditions for alternative stable states and species coexistence. We show that mutual non-invasibility (i.e. the inability of each species to invade a population of the other) is more likely when species have a strong positive effect on the own species or a strong negative effect on the other species. Mutual non-invasibility implies alternative stable states, however, there may also be alternative stable states at which species coexist. In the case of species symmetry (i.e. when species are indistinguishable), such alternative coexistence states require that if the positive effect exerted at low densities at the own species is stronger than on the other species, the negative effect at higher densities is also stronger on the own species than on the other species, or, vice versa, if the interspecific positive effects at low densities are stronger than the intraspecific effects, the negative effects at higher densities are also stronger between species than within species. However, the reachability of alternative stable states is restricted by the frequency and density at which species are introduced during community assembly, so that alternative stable states do not always represent alternative endstates of community assembly. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Examining the interplay among negative emotionality, cognitive functioning, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptom severity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Healey, Dione M; Marks, David J; Halperin, Jeffrey M

    2011-05-01

    Cognition and emotion, traditionally thought of as largely distinct, have recently begun to be conceptualized as dynamically linked processes that interact to influence functioning. This study investigated the moderating effects of cognitive functioning on the relationship between negative emotionality and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom severity. A total of 216 (140 hyperactive/inattentive; 76 typically developing) preschoolers aged 3-4 years were administered a neuropsychological test battery (i.e., NEPSY). To avoid method bias, child negative emotionality was rated by teachers (Temperament Assessment Battery for Children-Revised), and parents rated symptom severity on the ADHD Rating Scale (ADHD-RS-IV). Hierarchical Linear Regression analyses revealed that both negative emotionality and Perceptual-Motor & Executive Functions accounted for significant unique variance in ADHD symptom severity. Significant interactions indicated that when negative emotionality is low, but not high, neuropsychological functioning accounts for significant variability in ADHD symptoms, with lower functioning predicting more symptoms. Emotional and neuropsychological functioning, both individually and in combination, play a significant role in the expression of ADHD symptom severity.

  4. The validity of the negative binomial multiplicity distribution in the case of the relativistic nucleus-nucleus interaction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ghosh, D.; Mukhopadhyay, A.; Ghosh, A.; Roy, J.

    1989-01-01

    This letter presents new data on the multiplicity distribution of charged secondaries in 24 Mg interactions with AgBr at 4.5 GeV/c per nucleon. The validity of the negative binomial distribution (NBD) is studied. It is observed that the data can be well parametrized in terms of the NBD law for the whole phase space and also for different pseudo-rapidity bins. A comparison of different parameters with those in the case of h-h interactions reveals some interesting results, the implications of which are discussed. (orig.)

  5. The role of negative maternal affective states and infant temperament in early interactions between infants with cleft lip and their mothers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montirosso, Rosario; Fedeli, Claudia; Murray, Lynne; Morandi, Francesco; Brusati, Roberto; Perego, Guenda Ghezzi; Borgatti, Renato

    2012-03-01

    The study examined the early interaction between mothers and their infants with cleft lip, assessing the role of maternal affective state and expressiveness and differences in infant temperament. Mother-infant interactions were assessed in 25 2-month-old infants with cleft lip and 25 age-matched healthy infants. Self-report and behavioral observations were used to assess maternal depressive symptoms and expressions. Mothers rated infant temperament. Infants with cleft lip were less engaged and their mothers showed more difficulty in interaction than control group dyads. Mothers of infants with cleft lip displayed more negative affectivity, but did not report more self-rated depressive symptoms than control group mothers. No group differences were found in infant temperament. In order to support the mother's experience and facilitate her ongoing parental role, findings highlight the importance of identifying maternal negative affectivity during early interactions, even when they seem have little awareness of their depressive symptoms.

  6. Negative-binomial multiplicity distributions in the interaction of light ions with 12C at 4.2 GeV/c

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tucholski, A.; Bogdanowicz, J.; Moroz, Z.; Wojtkowska, J.

    1989-01-01

    Multiplicity distribution of single-charged particles in the interaction of p, d, α and 12 C projectiles with C target nuclei at 4.2 GeV/c were analysed in terms of the negative binomial distribution. The experimental data obtained by the Dubna Propane Bubble Chamber Group were used. It is shown that the experimental distributions are satisfactorily described by the negative-binomial distribution. Values of the parameters of these distributions are discussed. (orig.)

  7. Negated bio-events: analysis and identification

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Background Negation occurs frequently in scientific literature, especially in biomedical literature. It has previously been reported that around 13% of sentences found in biomedical research articles contain negation. Historically, the main motivation for identifying negated events has been to ensure their exclusion from lists of extracted interactions. However, recently, there has been a growing interest in negative results, which has resulted in negation detection being identified as a key challenge in biomedical relation extraction. In this article, we focus on the problem of identifying negated bio-events, given gold standard event annotations. Results We have conducted a detailed analysis of three open access bio-event corpora containing negation information (i.e., GENIA Event, BioInfer and BioNLP’09 ST), and have identified the main types of negated bio-events. We have analysed the key aspects of a machine learning solution to the problem of detecting negated events, including selection of negation cues, feature engineering and the choice of learning algorithm. Combining the best solutions for each aspect of the problem, we propose a novel framework for the identification of negated bio-events. We have evaluated our system on each of the three open access corpora mentioned above. The performance of the system significantly surpasses the best results previously reported on the BioNLP’09 ST corpus, and achieves even better results on the GENIA Event and BioInfer corpora, both of which contain more varied and complex events. Conclusions Recently, in the field of biomedical text mining, the development and enhancement of event-based systems has received significant interest. The ability to identify negated events is a key performance element for these systems. We have conducted the first detailed study on the analysis and identification of negated bio-events. Our proposed framework can be integrated with state-of-the-art event extraction systems. The

  8. Stage effects of negative emotion on spatial and verbal working memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chan Raymond CK

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The effects of negative emotion on different processing periods in spatial and verbal working memory (WM and the possible brain mechanism of the interaction between negative emotion and WM were explored using a high-time resolution event-related potential (ERP technique and time-locked delayed matching-to-sample task (DMST. Results Early P3b and late P3b were reduced in the negative emotion condition for both the spatial and verbal tasks at encoding. At retention, the sustained negative slow wave (NSW showed a significant interaction between emotional state and task type. Spatial trials in the negative emotion condition elicited a more negative deflection than they did in the neutral emotion condition. However, no such effect was observed for the verbal tasks. At retrieval, early P3b and late P3b were markedly more attenuated in the negative emotion condition than in the neutral emotion condition for both the spatial and verbal tasks. Conclusions The results indicate that the differential effects of negative emotion on spatial and verbal WM mainly take place during information maintenance processing, which implies that there is a systematic association between specific affects (e.g., negative emotion and certain cognitive processes (e.g., spatial retention.

  9. Validity of the negative binomial multiplicity distribution in case of ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus interaction in different azimuthal bins

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ghosh, D.; Deb, A.; Haldar, P.K.; Sahoo, S.R.; Maity, D.

    2004-01-01

    This work studies the validity of the negative binomial distribution in the multiplicity distribution of charged secondaries in 16 O and 32 S interactions with AgBr at 60 GeV/c per nucleon and 200 GeV/c per nucleon, respectively. The validity of negative binomial distribution (NBD) is studied in different azimuthal phase spaces. It is observed that the data can be well parameterized in terms of the NBD law for different azimuthal phase spaces. (authors)

  10. Androgen Receptor Expression in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Clinical Significance and Prognostic Associations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pistelli, Mirco, E-mail: mirco.pistelli@alice.it; Caramanti, Miriam [Clinica di Oncologia Medica, AO Ospedali Riuniti-Ancona, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona 60020 (Italy); Biscotti, Tommasina; Santinelli, Alfredo [Anatomia Patologica, AO Ospedali Riuniti-Ancona, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona 60020 (Italy); Pagliacci, Alessandra; De Lisa, Mariagrazia; Ballatore, Zelmira; Ridolfi, Francesca; Maccaroni, Elena; Bracci, Raffaella; Berardi, Rossana; Battelli, Nicola; Cascinu, Stefano [Clinica di Oncologia Medica, AO Ospedali Riuniti-Ancona, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona 60020 (Italy)

    2014-06-27

    Background: Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) are characterized by aggressive tumour biology resulting in a poor prognosis. Androgen receptor (AR) is one of newly emerging biomarker in TNBC. In recent years, ARs have been demonstrated to play an important role in the genesis and in the development of breast cancer, although their prognostic role is still debated. In the present study, we explored the correlation of AR expression with clinical, pathological and molecular features and its impact on prognosis in early TNBC. Patients and Methods: ARs were considered positive in case of tumors with >10% nuclear-stained. Survival distribution was estimated by the Kaplan Meier method. The univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. The difference among variables were calculated by chi-square test. Results: 81 TNBC patients diagnosed between January 2006 and December 2011 were included in the analysis. Slides were stained immunohistochemically for estrogen and progesterone receptors, HER-2, Ki-67, ALDH1, e-cadherin and AR. Of the 81 TNBC samples, 18.8% showed positive immunostaining for AR, 23.5% and 44.4% of patients were negative for e-cadherin and ALDH1, respectively. Positive AR immunostaining was inversely correlated with a higher Ki-67 (p < 0.0001) and a lympho-vascular invasion (p = 0.01), but no other variables. Univariate survival analysis revealed that AR expression was not associated with disease-free survival (p = 0.72) or overall survival (p = 0.93). Conclusions: The expression of AR is associated with some biological features of TNBC, such as Ki-67 and lympho-vascular invasion; nevertheless the prognostic significance of AR was not documented in our analysis. However, since ARs are expressed in a significant number of TNBC, prospective studies in order to determine the biological mechanisms and their potential role as novel treatment target.

  11. Androgen Receptor Expression in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Clinical Significance and Prognostic Associations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mirco Pistelli

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Background: Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC are characterized by aggressive tumour biology resulting in a poor prognosis. Androgen receptor (AR is one of newly emerging biomarker in TNBC. In recent years, ARs have been demonstrated to play an important role in the genesis and in the development of breast cancer, although their prognostic role is still debated. In the present study, we explored the correlation of AR expression with clinical, pathological and molecular features and its impact on prognosis in early TNBC. Patients and Methods: ARs were considered positive in case of tumors with >10% nuclear-stained. Survival distribution was estimated by the Kaplan Meier method. The univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. The difference among variables were calculated by chi-square test. Results: 81 TNBC patients diagnosed between January 2006 and December 2011 were included in the analysis. Slides were stained immunohistochemically for estrogen and progesterone receptors, HER-2, Ki-67, ALDH1, e-cadherin and AR. Of the 81 TNBC samples, 18.8% showed positive immunostaining for AR, 23.5% and 44.4% of patients were negative for e-cadherin and ALDH1, respectively. Positive AR immunostaining was inversely correlated with a higher Ki-67 (p < 0.0001 and a lympho-vascular invasion (p = 0.01, but no other variables. Univariate survival analysis revealed that AR expression was not associated with disease-free survival (p = 0.72 or overall survival (p = 0.93. Conclusions: The expression of AR is associated with some biological features of TNBC, such as Ki-67 and lympho-vascular invasion; nevertheless the prognostic significance of AR was not documented in our analysis. However, since ARs are expressed in a significant number of TNBC, prospective studies in order to determine the biological mechanisms and their potential role as novel treatment target.

  12. Androgen Receptor Expression in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Clinical Significance and Prognostic Associations

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pistelli, Mirco; Caramanti, Miriam; Biscotti, Tommasina; Santinelli, Alfredo; Pagliacci, Alessandra; De Lisa, Mariagrazia; Ballatore, Zelmira; Ridolfi, Francesca; Maccaroni, Elena; Bracci, Raffaella; Berardi, Rossana; Battelli, Nicola; Cascinu, Stefano

    2014-01-01

    Background: Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) are characterized by aggressive tumour biology resulting in a poor prognosis. Androgen receptor (AR) is one of newly emerging biomarker in TNBC. In recent years, ARs have been demonstrated to play an important role in the genesis and in the development of breast cancer, although their prognostic role is still debated. In the present study, we explored the correlation of AR expression with clinical, pathological and molecular features and its impact on prognosis in early TNBC. Patients and Methods: ARs were considered positive in case of tumors with >10% nuclear-stained. Survival distribution was estimated by the Kaplan Meier method. The univariate and multivariate analyses were performed. The difference among variables were calculated by chi-square test. Results: 81 TNBC patients diagnosed between January 2006 and December 2011 were included in the analysis. Slides were stained immunohistochemically for estrogen and progesterone receptors, HER-2, Ki-67, ALDH1, e-cadherin and AR. Of the 81 TNBC samples, 18.8% showed positive immunostaining for AR, 23.5% and 44.4% of patients were negative for e-cadherin and ALDH1, respectively. Positive AR immunostaining was inversely correlated with a higher Ki-67 (p < 0.0001) and a lympho-vascular invasion (p = 0.01), but no other variables. Univariate survival analysis revealed that AR expression was not associated with disease-free survival (p = 0.72) or overall survival (p = 0.93). Conclusions: The expression of AR is associated with some biological features of TNBC, such as Ki-67 and lympho-vascular invasion; nevertheless the prognostic significance of AR was not documented in our analysis. However, since ARs are expressed in a significant number of TNBC, prospective studies in order to determine the biological mechanisms and their potential role as novel treatment target

  13. The effect of positive and negative memory bias on anxiety and depression symptoms among adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ho, Samuel M Y; Cheng, Joseph; Dai, Darren Wai Tong; Tam, Titian; Hui, Otilia

    2018-02-28

    To examine the interaction effect of anxiety and depression on the intentional forgetting of positive and negative valence words. One hundred fifty-five grade 7 to grade 10 students participated in the study. The item-method directed forgetting paradigm was used to examine the intentional forgetting of positive-valence, negative-valence, and neutral-valence words. Negative-valence words were recognized better than either positive-valence or neutral-valence words. The results revealed an anxiety main effect (p = .01, LLCI = -.09, and ULCI = -.01) and a depression main effect (p = .04, LLCI = .00, and ULCI = .24). The anxiety score was negative, whereas the depression score was positively related to the directed forgetting of negative-valence words. Regression-based moderation analysis revealed a significant anxiety × depression interaction effect on the directed forgetting of positive-valence words (p = .02, LLCI = .00, and ULCI = .01). Greater anxiety was associated with more directed forgetting of positive-valance words only among participants with high depression scores. With negative-valence words, the anxiety × depression interaction effect was not significant (p = .15, LLCI = - .00, and ULCI = .01). Therapeutic strategies to increase positive memory bias may reduce anxiety symptoms only among those with high depression scores. Interventions to reduce negative memory bias may reduce anxiety symptoms irrespective of levels of depression. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  14. Critical significance of the region between Helix 1 and 2 for efficient dominant-negative inhibition by conversion-incompetent prion protein.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuzuru Taguchi

    Full Text Available Prion diseases are fatal infectious neurodegenerative disorders in man and animals associated with the accumulation of the pathogenic isoform PrP(Sc of the host-encoded prion protein (PrP(c. A profound conformational change of PrP(c underlies formation of PrP(Sc and prion propagation involves conversion of PrP(c substrate by direct interaction with PrP(Sc template. Identifying the interfaces and modalities of inter-molecular interactions of PrPs will highly advance our understanding of prion propagation in particular and of prion-like mechanisms in general. To identify the region critical for inter-molecular interactions of PrP, we exploited here dominant-negative inhibition (DNI effects of conversion-incompetent, internally-deleted PrP (ΔPrP on co-expressed conversion-competent PrP. We created a series of ΔPrPs with different lengths of deletions in the region between first and second α-helix (H1∼H2 which was recently postulated to be of importance in prion species barrier and PrP fibril formation. As previously reported, ΔPrPs uniformly exhibited aberrant properties including detergent insolubility, limited protease digestion resistance, high-mannose type N-linked glycans, and intracellular localization. Although formerly controversial, we demonstrate here that ΔPrPs have a GPI anchor attached. Surprisingly, despite very similar biochemical and cell-biological properties, DNI efficiencies of ΔPrPs varied significantly, dependant on location and inversely correlated with the size of deletion. This data demonstrates that H1∼H2 and the region C-terminal to it are critically important for efficient DNI. It also suggests that this region is involved in PrP-PrP interaction and conversion of PrP(C into PrP(Sc. To reconcile the paradox of how an intracellular PrP can exert DNI, we demonstrate that ΔPrPs are subject to both proteasomal and lysosomal/autophagic degradation pathways. Using autophagy pathways ΔPrPs obtain access to the locale

  15. The Role of Couples’ Interactions in Application of Communication Skills

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    منصوره‌السادات صادقی

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this research was to predict the role of couples’ interactions in application of communication skills based on observing their positive and negative interactions. A sample of 31 couples [adapted (15 and maladapted (16] who were living in Tehran, were selected via accessible sampling. The couples’ interactions were videotaped through a designed scenario including problem solving, decision making, and reviewing conversation about a shared pleasure event. Participants also completed the Marital Adjustment Test (MAT. The couple’s interactions were coded using the Iranian Couples Interaction Coding System (ICICS. Results revealed that the more increase in positive interactions between couples, the more use of “problem solving” and “negotiation” skills observed, whereas increase in the couples’ negative interactions was associated with less application of this skills. It was also revealed that while the couples’ negative interactions were significantly predictive of using the “decision making” skill, couples with more positive interactions were located in the group who was able to have a review conversation about a shared positive event. In addition, results indicated that couples who were more able to apply problem solving, negotiation, decision making and review conversation about a shared event skills, had also higher scores on marital adjustment. Destructive role of the couples’ negative interactions and intensifying the negative emotions between them has been discussed, as if it seems that couples are not willing to help each other for resolving conflicts. As interactions getting more negative, by creating a negative filtering, memory becomes biased towards negative events at the expense of shared positive events.

  16. CBL-interacting protein kinase 6 negatively regulates immune response to Pseudomonas syringae in Arabidopsis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sardar, Atish; Nandi, Ashis Kumar; Chattopadhyay, Debasis

    2017-06-15

    Cytosolic calcium ion (Ca2+) is an essential mediator of the plant innate immune response. Here, we report that a calcium-regulated protein kinase Calcineurin B-like protein (CBL)-interacting protein kinase 6 (CIPK6) functions as a negative regulator of immunity against the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae in Arabidopsis thaliana. Arabidopsis lines with compromised expression of CIPK6 exhibited enhanced disease resistance to the bacterial pathogen and to P. syringae harboring certain but not all avirulent effectors, while restoration of CIPK6 expression resulted in abolition of resistance. Plants overexpressing CIPK6 were more susceptible to P. syringae. Enhanced resistance in the absence of CIPK6 was accompanied by increased accumulation of salicylic acid and elevated expression of defense marker genes. Salicylic acid accumulation was essential for improved immunity in the absence of CIPK6. CIPK6 negatively regulated the oxidative burst associated with perception of pathogen-associated microbial patterns (PAMPs) and bacterial effectors. Accelerated and enhanced activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase cascade in response to bacterial and fungal elicitors was observed in the absence of CIPK6. The results of this study suggested that CIPK6 negatively regulates effector-triggered and PAMP-triggered immunity in Arabidopsis. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology.

  17. Role of tumor microenvironment in triple-negative breast cancer and its prognostic significance

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Tianjian Yu; Genhong Di

    2017-01-01

    Breast cancer has been shown to live in the tumor microenvironment,which consists of not only breast cancer cells themselves but also a significant amount of pathophysiologically altered surrounding stroma and cells.Diverse components of the breast cancer microenvironment,such as suppressive immune cells,re-programmed fibroblast cells,altered extracellular matrix (ECM) and certain soluble factors,synergistically impede an effective anti-tumor response and promote breast cancer progression and metastasis.Among these components,stromal cells in the breast cancer microenvironment are characterized by molecular alterations and aberrant signaling pathways,whereas the ECM features biochemical and biomechanical changes.However,triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC),the most aggressive subtype of this disease that lacks effective therapies available for other subtypes,is considered to feature a unique microenvironment distinct from that of other subtypes,especially compared to Luminal A subtype.Because these changes are now considered to significantly impact breast cancer development and progression,these unique alterations may serve as promising prognostic factors of clinical outcome or potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of TNBC.In this review,we focus on the composition of the TNBC microenvironment,concomitant distinct biological alteration,specific interplay between various cell types and TNBC cells,and the prognostic implications of these findings.

  18. Early participation in a prenatal food supplementation program ameliorates the negative association of food insecurity with quality of maternal-infant interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frith, Amy L; Naved, Ruchira T; Persson, Lars Ake; Rasmussen, Kathleen M; Frongillo, Edward A

    2012-06-01

    Food insecurity is detrimental to child development, yet little is known about the combined influence of food insecurity and nutritional interventions on child development in low-income countries. We proposed that women assigned to an early invitation time to start a prenatal food supplementation program could reduce the negative influence of food insecurity on maternal-infant interaction. A cohort of 180 mother-infant dyads were studied (born between May and October 2003) from among 3267 in the randomized controlled trial Maternal Infant Nutritional Interventions Matlab, which was conducted in Matlab, Bangladesh. At 8 wk gestation, women were randomly assigned an invitation time to start receiving food supplements (2.5 MJ/d; 6 d/wk) either early (~9 wk gestation; early-invitation group) or at the usual start time (~20 wk gestation; usual-invitation group) for the government program. Maternal-infant interaction was observed in homes with the use of the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Feeding Scale, and food-insecurity status was obtained from questionnaires completed when infants were 3.4-4.0 mo old. By using a general linear model for maternal-infant interaction, we found a significant interaction (P = 0.012) between invitation time to start a prenatal food supplementation program and food insecurity. Those in the usual-invitation group with higher food insecurity scores (i.e., more food insecure) had a lower quality of maternal-infant interaction, but this relationship was ameliorated among those in the early-invitation group. Food insecurity limits the ability of mothers and infants to interact well, but an early invitation time to start a prenatal food supplementation program can support mother-infant interaction among those who are food insecure.

  19. The influence of prejudice and stereotypes on anticipated affect : feelings about a potentially negative interaction with another ethnic group

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gordijn, Ernestine; Finchilescu, Gillian; Brix, Louise; Wijnants, Nienke; Koomen, Willem

    2008-01-01

    In this research we investigated whether feelings about an imagined potentially negative interaction with a member of another ethnic group was affected more by valence than content of stereotypes, and whether the differential influence of perception and meta-perception was similar for dominant and

  20. Significance of coagulase negative Staphylococcus from blood cultures: persisting problems and partial progress in resource constrained settings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sidhu, Shailpreet K; Malhotra, Sita; Devi, Pushpa; Tuli, Arpandeep K

    2016-12-01

    Coagulase negative Staphylococcus (CoNS) is frequently isolated from blood cultures but their significance is difficult to interpret. CoNS bacteria which are often previously dismissed as culture contaminants are attracting greater importance as true pathogens in the past decades. Clinical evaluation of these isolates suggests that although there is a relative increase of CoNS associated bloodstream infections in recent years, the microorganisms still remain the most common contaminants in blood cultures. The objective of this study was to determine the significance of CoNS isolated from blood cultures. A retrospective study was conducted to evaluate the rate of contamination in blood cultures in a tertiary care hospital. The paired specimens of blood were cultured using conventional culture methods and the isolates of coagulase negative staphylococci were identified by standard methodology. Clinical data, laboratory indices, microbiological parameters and patient characteristics were analyzed. Of 3503 blood samples, CoNS were isolated from blood culture of 307 patients (8.76%). The isolates were reported as true pathogens of bloodstream infections in only 74 out of 307 cases (24.1%). In the vast majority, 212 of 307 (69.0%), they were mere blood culture contaminants and reported as insignificant/contaminant. Determining whether a growth in the blood culture is a pathogen or a contaminant is a critical issue and multiple parameters have to be considered before arriving at a conclusion. Ideally, the molecular approach is for the most part a consistent method in determining the significant isolates of CoNS. However, in countries with inadequate resources, species identification and antibiogram tests are recommended when determining significance of these isolates.

  1. Release from Proactive Interference with Positive and Negative Words

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferraro, F. Richaro; King, Brent

    2004-01-01

    Using the release from proactive interference (RPI) task, college students (n = 40) received 4 trials comprised of 3-word triads of either positive (P) or negative (N) words. Word-triad recall served as the dependent measure, and results revealed typical buildup of PI (i.e., no significant group X trial interaction across Trials 1-3). Significant…

  2. Effect of nicotine on negative affect among more impulsive smokers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doran, Neal; McChargue, Dennis; Spring, Bonnie; VanderVeen, Joe; Cook, Jessica Werth; Richmond, Malia

    2006-08-01

    In the present study, the authors tested the hypothesis that nicotine would provide greater relief from negative affect for more impulsive smokers than for less impulsive smokers. Euthymic adult smokers (N=70) participated in 2 laboratory sessions, during which they underwent a negative mood induction (music + autobiographical memory), then smoked either a nicotinized or de-nicotinized cigarette. Mixed-effects regression yielded a significant Impulsivity x Condition (nicotinized vs. de-nicotinized) x Time interaction. Simple effects analyses showed that heightened impulsivity predicted greater negative affect relief after smoking a nicotinized cigarette but not after smoking a de-nicotinized cigarette. These data suggest that nicotine may be a disproportionately powerful negative reinforcer for highly impulsive smokers, promoting higher levels of nicotine dependence and inhibiting smoking cessation.

  3. Significant role of the cardiopostural interaction in blood pressure regulation during standing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Da; Verma, Ajay K; Garg, Amanmeet; Bruner, Michelle; Fazel-Rezai, Reza; Blaber, Andrew P; Tavakolian, Kouhyar

    2017-09-01

    Cardiovascular and postural control systems have been studied independently despite the increasing evidence showing the importance of cardiopostural interaction in blood pressure regulation. In this study, we aimed to assess the role of the cardiopostural interaction in relation to cardiac baroreflex in blood pressure regulation under orthostatic stress before and after mild exercise. Physiological variables representing cardiovascular control (heart rate and systolic blood pressure), lower limb muscle activation (electromyography), and postural sway (center of pressure derived from force and moment data during sway) were measured from 17 healthy participants (25 ± 2 yr, 9 men and 8 women) during a sit-to-stand test before and after submaximal exercise. The cardiopostural control (characterized by baroreflex-mediated muscle-pump effect in response to blood pressure changes, i.e., muscle-pump baroreflex) was assessed using wavelet transform coherence and causality analyses in relation to the baroreflex control of heart rate. Significant cardiopostural blood pressure control was evident counting for almost half of the interaction time with blood pressure changes that observed in the cardiac baroreflex (36.6-72.5% preexercise and 34.7-53.9% postexercise). Thus, cardiopostural input to blood pressure regulation should be considered when investigating orthostatic intolerance. A reduction of both cardiac and muscle-pump baroreflexes in blood pressure regulation was observed postexercise and was likely due to the absence of excessive venous pooling and a less stressed system after mild exercise. With further studies using more effective protocols evoking venous pooling and muscle-pump activity, the cardiopostural interaction could improve our understanding of the autonomic control system and ultimately lead to a more accurate diagnosis of cardiopostural dysfunctions. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We examined the interaction between cardiovascular and postural control systems during

  4. Frontal negativity: An electrophysiological index of interpersonal guilt.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leng, Bingbing; Wang, Xiangling; Cao, Bihua; Li, Fuhong

    2017-12-01

    The present study aimed to reveal the temporal course and electrophysiological correlates of interpersonal guilt. Human participants were asked to perform multiple rounds of a dot-estimation task with their partners, while event-related potential being recorded. The paired participants were informed that they would win money if both responded correctly; otherwise, both of them would lose money. The feeling of guilt in Self-Wrong condition (SW) was significantly higher than that in Both-Wrong and Partner-Wrong conditions. At approximately 350 ms after the onset of feedback presentation, greater negativities were observed in the frontal regions in the guilt condition (i.e., SW) than those in the non-guilt condition. The guilt-modulated frontal negativity might reflect the interactions of self-reflection, condemnation, and negative emotion.

  5. Negative cancer stereotypes and disease-specific self-concept in head and neck cancer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Janice C; Payne, Ada Y M; Mah, Kenneth; Lebel, Sophie; Lee, Ruth N F; Irish, Jonathan; Rodin, Gary; Devins, Gerald M

    2013-05-01

    Life-threatening diseases, such as head and neck cancer (HNCa), can stimulate the emergence of a new disease-specific self-concept. We hypothesized that (i) negative cancer-stereotypes invoke distancing, which inhibits the adoption of a disease-specific self-concept and (ii) patient characteristics, disease and treatment factors, and cancer-related stressors moderate the phenomenon. Head and neck cancer outpatients (N = 522) completed a semantic-differential measure of disease-specific self-concept (perceived similarity to the 'cancer patient') and other self-report measures in structured interviews. Negative cancer-stereotypes were represented by the number of semantic-differential dimensions (0-3) along which respondents evaluated the stereotypic 'cancer patient' negatively (i.e., negative valence). We tested the two-way interactions between negative valence and hypothesized moderator variables. We observed significant negative valence × moderator interactions for the following: (i) patient characteristics (education, employment, social networks); (ii) disease and treatment factors (cancer-symptom burden); and (iii) cancer-related stressors (uncertainty, lack of information, and existential threats). Negative cancer stereotypes were consistently associated with distancing of self from the stereotypic 'cancer patient,' but the effect varied across moderator variables. All significant moderators (except employment and social networks) were associated with increasing perceived similarity to the 'cancer patient' when respondents maintained negative stereotypes; perceived similarity decreased when people were employed or had extensive social networks. Moderator effects were less pronounced when respondents did not endorse negative cancer stereotypes. When they hold negative stereotypes, people with HNCa distance themselves from a 'cancer patient' identity to preserve self-esteem or social status, but exposure to cancer-related stressors and adaptive demands may

  6. Social Skills as a Mediator between Anxiety Symptoms and Peer Interactions among Children and Adolescents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Motoca, Luci M.; Williams, Sandra; Silverman, Wendy K.

    2012-01-01

    Objective The present study used a cross-sectional design to examine the relations among youth anxiety symptoms, positive and negative peer interactions, and social skills. Also examined was the mediating role of social skills in the relations between youth anxiety symptoms and positive and negative peer interactions. Youth sex and age were examined as moderators. Method The sample consisted of 397 children and adolescents (M = 10.11 years; 53.4% boys; 74.8% Hispanic Latino) referred to an anxiety disorders clinic. Anxiety symptoms, positive and negative peer interactions, and social skills were assessed using youth and parent ratings. Results Structural equation modeling results indicated that for youth ratings only, youth anxiety symptoms were negatively related to positive peer interactions controlling for primary social phobia and comorbid depressive disorders. For both youth and parent ratings, youth anxiety symptoms were positively related to negative peer interactions and negatively related to social skills. Also for both youth and parent ratings, social skills mediated the relations between youth anxiety symptoms and positive and negative peer interactions. For parent ratings only, the effects of youth anxiety symptoms and social skills on peer interactions were significantly moderated by youth age. Youth sex was not a significant moderator using youth and parent ratings. Conclusions Findings suggest difficulties with social skills and peer interactions are problematic features of youth referred for anxiety problems. Findings highlight the need to improve understanding of anxiety symptoms, social skills, and peer interactions in this population. PMID:22471319

  7. Social skills as a mediator between anxiety symptoms and peer interactions among children and adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Motoca, Luci M; Williams, Sandra; Silverman, Wendy K

    2012-01-01

    The present study used a cross-sectional design to examine the relations among youth anxiety symptoms, positive and negative peer interactions, and social skills. Also examined was the mediating role of social skills in the relations between youth anxiety symptoms and positive and negative peer interactions. Youth sex and age were examined as moderators. The sample consisted of 397 children and adolescents (M = 10.11 years; 53.4% boys; 74.8% Hispanic Latino) referred to an anxiety disorders clinic. Anxiety symptoms, positive and negative peer interactions, and social skills were assessed using youth and parent ratings. Structural equation modeling results indicated that for youth ratings only, youth anxiety symptoms were negatively related to positive peer interactions controlling for primary social phobia and comorbid depressive disorders. For both youth and parent ratings, youth anxiety symptoms were positively related to negative peer interactions and negatively related to social skills. Also for both youth and parent ratings, social skills mediated the relations between youth anxiety symptoms and positive and negative peer interactions. For parent ratings only, the effects of youth anxiety symptoms and social skills on peer interactions were significantly moderated by youth age. Youth sex was not a significant moderator using youth and parent ratings. Findings suggest that difficulties with social skills and peer interactions are problematic features of youth referred for anxiety problems. Findings highlight the need to improve understanding of anxiety symptoms, social skills, and peer interactions in this population.

  8. Probing interaction of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial cells with ZnO nanorods

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jain, Aanchal; Bhargava, Richa; Poddar, Pankaj, E-mail: p.poddar@ncl.res.in

    2013-04-01

    In the present work, the physiological effects of the ZnO nanorods on the Gram positive (Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Aerobacter aerogenes) bacterial cells have been studied. The analysis of bacterial growth curves for various concentrations of ZnO nanorods indicates that Gram positive and Gram negative bacterial cells show inhibition at concentrations of ∼ 64 and ∼ 256 μg/mL respectively. The marked difference in susceptibility towards nanorods was also validated by spread plate and disk diffusion methods. In addition, the scanning electron micrographs show a clear damage to the cells via changed morphology of the cells from rod to coccoid etc. The confocal optical microscopy images of these cells also demonstrate the reduction in live cell count in the presence of ZnO nanorods. These, results clearly indicate that the antibacterial activity of ZnO nanorods is higher towards Gram positive bacterium than Gram negative bacterium which indicates that the structure of the cell wall might play a major role in the interaction with nanostructured materials and shows high sensitivity to the particle concentration. Highlights: ► Effect of ZnO nanorods on the growth cycles of four bacterial strains. ► A relation has been established between growth rate of bacteria and concentration. ► Serious damage in the morphology of bacterial cells in the presence of ZnO nanorods. ► Microscopic studies to see the time dependent effect on bacterial cells.

  9. Negative Affect in Human Robot Interaction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rehm, Matthias; Krogsager, Anders

    2013-01-01

    The vision of social robotics sees robots moving more and more into unrestricted social environments, where robots interact closely with users in their everyday activities, maybe even establishing relationships with the user over time. In this paper we present a field trial with a robot in a semi...

  10. The impact of early powered mobility on parental stress, negative emotions, and family social interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tefft, Donita; Guerette, Paula; Furumasu, Jan

    2011-02-01

    Powered mobility has been found to have positive effects on young children with severe physical disabilities, but the impact on the family has been less well documented. We evaluated the impact of early powered mobility on parental stress, negative emotions, perceived social interactions, and parental satisfaction with wheelchair characteristics such as size and durability. The participants were parents of 23 children with disabilities-10 with orthopedic disabilities (average age 30.1 months) and 13 with cerebral palsy (average age 47.0 months). Pretest assessments were completed two times: at initial wheelchair evaluation and at wheelchair delivery. A posttest assessment was completed after each child had used the wheelchair for 4-6 months. Parents reported a lower perceived level of stress at the time of wheelchair delivery, although the magnitude of this effect was fairly small, standardized mean difference (δ) = .27. They also reported an increased satisfaction with their child's social and play skills (δ = .38), ability to go where desired (δ = .86), sleep/wake pattern (δ = .61), and belief that the general public accepts their child (δ = .39) after several months using the wheelchair. Parents reported an increase in interactions within the family at the time of wheelchair delivery (δ = .66). There was no decrease in negative emotions. Parents were satisfied with most factors relating to the wheelchair itself, with areas of concern being wheelchair size and difficulty adjusting the wheelchair. The findings suggest that self-initiated powered mobility for a young child had a positive impact on the family.

  11. Prognostic significance of ASXL1, JAK2V617F mutations and JAK2V617F allele burden in Philadelphia-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yonal-Hindilerden I

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Ipek Yonal-Hindilerden, Aynur Daglar-Aday, Basak Akadam-Teker, Ceylan Yilmaz, Meliha Nalcaci, Akif Selim Yavuz, Deniz SarginDivision of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Istanbul Medical Faculty, Istanbul University, Fatih-Istanbul, Turkey Background: Despite insights into the genetic basis of Philadelphia-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (Ph-negative MPNs, a significant proportion of essential thrombocythemia (ET and primary myelofibrosis (PMF patients present with no known MPN disease alleles. There were no previous studies investigating the impact of ASXL1 mutations in Ph-negative MPNs in Turkey. In the current study, we investigated the prognostic significance of ASXL1 mutations in Turkish MPN patients. We also aimed to determine the prognostic significance of JAK2V617F allele burden and the relationship of JAK2V617F mutation with ASXL1 mutations in Ph-negative MPNs. Methods: About 184 patients from a single center diagnosed with Ph-negative MPNs were screened for ASXL1, JAK2V617F mutations, and JAK2V617F allele burden: 107 ET and 77 PMF. Results: A total of 29 ASXL1 mutations were detected in 24.7% of PMF and 8.4% of ET patients. ASXL1-mutated ET patients showed a trend toward an increase in the incidence of cerebrovascular events and higher total leukocyte counts. ASXL1-mutation in PMF was associated with older age and a higher prevalence of bleeding complications. In univariate analysis, overall survival (OS was significantly reduced in ASXL1-mutated PMF patients. In multivariate analysis, Dynamic International Prognostic Scoring System-plus high-risk category and ASXL1 mutation status were independently associated with shorter survival in PMF. In PMF, mutational status and allele burden of JAK2V617F showed no difference in terms of OS and leukemia-free survival. Conclusion: We conclude that ASXL1 mutations are molecular predictors of short OS in PMF. Keywords: Philadelphia-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (Ph-negative

  12. Individuals with clinically significant insomnia symptoms are characterised by a negative sleep-related expectancy bias: Results from a cognitive-experimental assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Courtauld, Hannah; Notebaert, Lies; Milkins, Bronwyn; Kyle, Simon D; Clarke, Patrick J F

    2017-08-01

    Cognitive models of insomnia consistently suggest that negative expectations regarding the consequences of poor sleep contribute to the maintenance of insomnia. To date, however, no research has sought to determine whether insomnia is indeed characterised by such a negative sleep-related expectancy bias, using objective cognitive assessment tasks which are more immune to response biases than questionnaire assessments. Therefore, the current study employed a reaction-time task assessing biased expectations among a group with clinically significant insomnia symptoms (n = 30) and a low insomnia symptoms group (n = 40). The task involved the presentation of scenarios describing the consequences of poor sleep, and non-sleep related activities, which could be resolved in a benign or a negative manner. The results demonstrated that the high insomnia symptoms group were disproportionately fast to resolve sleep-related scenarios in line with negative outcomes, as compared to benign outcomes, relative to the low insomnia symptoms group. The two groups did not differ in their pattern of resolving non-sleep related scenarios. This pattern of findings is entirely consistent with a sleep-specific expectancy bias operating in individuals with clinically significant insomnia symptoms, and highlights the potential of cognitive-experimental assessment tasks to objectively index patterns of biased cognition in insomnia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. High ALK mRNA expression has a negative prognostic significance in rhabdomyosarcoma

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonvini, P; Zin, A; Alaggio, R; Pawel, B; Bisogno, G; Rosolen, A

    2013-01-01

    Background: Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) is a receptor tyrosine kinase aberrantly expressed in cancer, but its clinical and functional importance remain controversial. Mutation or amplification of ALK, as well as its expression levels assessed by conventional immunohistochemistry methods, has been linked to prognosis in cancer, although with potential bias because of the semi-quantitative approaches. Herein, we measured ALK mRNA expression in rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) and determined its clinical impact on patients' stratification and outcome. Methods: Specimens were obtained from RMS patients and cell lines, and ALK expression was analysed by quantitative RT–PCR, western blotting, IHC, and copy number analysis. Results: High ALK mRNA expression was detected in the vast majority of PAX3/7-FOXO1-positive tumours, whereas PAX3/7-FOXO1-negative RMS displayed considerably lower amounts of both mRNA and protein. Notably, ALK mRNA distinguished unfavourable PAX3/7-FOXO1-positive tumours from PAX3/7-FOXO1-negative RMS (Ptumour size (PALK mRNA levels were of prognostic relevance by Cox univariate regression analysis and correlated with increased risk of relapse (P=0.001) and survival (P=0.01), whereas by multivariate analysis elevated ALK mRNA expression resulted a negative prognostic marker when clinical stage was not included. Conclusion: Quantitative assessment of ALK mRNA expression helps to improve risk stratification of RMS patients and identifies tumours with adverse biological characteristics and aggressive behaviour. PMID:24149177

  14. Aversive properties of negative incentive shifts in Fischer 344 and Lewis rats

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brewer, Adam; Johnson, Patrick; Stein, Jeff; Schlund, Michael; Williams, Dean C.

    2018-01-01

    Research on incentive contrast highlights that reward value is not absolute but rather is based upon comparisons we make to rewards we have received and expect to receive. Both human and nonhuman studies on incentive contrast show that shifting from a larger more-valued reward to a smaller less-valued reward is associated with long periods of nonresponding—a negative contrast effect. In this investigation, we used two different genetic rat strains, Fischer 344 and Lewis rats that putatively differ in their sensitivity to aversive stimulation, to assess the aversive properties of large-to-small reward shifts (negative incentive shifts). Additionally, we examined the extent to which increasing cost (fixed-ratio requirements) modulates negative contrast effects. In the presence of a cue that signaled the upcoming reward magnitude, lever pressing was reinforced with one of two different magnitudes of food (large or small). This design created two contrast shifts (small-to-large, large-to-small) and two shifts used as control conditions (small-to-small, large-to-large). Results showed a significant interaction between rat strain and cost requirements only during the negative incentive shift with the emotionally reactive Fischer 344 rats exhibiting significantly longer response latencies with increasing cost, highlighting greater negative contrast. These findings are more consistent with emotionality accounts of negative contrast and results of neurophysiological research that suggests shifting from a large to a small reward is aversive. Findings also highlight how subjective reward value and motivation is a product of gene-environment interactions. PMID:27864048

  15. Negative feedback, beliefs and personal goals in prediction of dysfunctional emotions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Popov Boris

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT demonstrates good results in evaluation therapy researches. However, some of its basic concepts, as well as theory as a whole itself, did not receive satisfactory empirical support so far, in comparison to other cognitive models (Beck, Lazarus etc.. Quasiexperimental study was designed to test the role that (1 negative feedback (A and (2 irrational beliefs (B both play in formation of dysfunctional negative emotions, in the context of significant personal goals (in our case value of potential award - G. ABC theoretical model received limited support: statistically significant three-times interaction A x B x G was found in predicting general negative emotional state, as well as anger. In contrast with that, ANOVA showed only main effect of irrational beliefs (as continuous variable to be significant in predicting emotions of anxiety and depression. Findings are discussed in the context of REBT theory of emotions, as well as their possible practical applications. Limitations of the study were also mentioned. .

  16. The mediational significance of negative/depressive affect in the relationship of childhood maltreatment and eating disorder features in adolescent psychiatric inpatients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hopwood, C J; Ansell, E B; Fehon, D C; Grilo, C M

    2011-03-01

    Childhood maltreatment is a risk factor for eating disorder and negative/depressive affect appears to mediate this relation. However, the specific elements of eating- and body-related psychopathology that are influenced by various forms of childhood maltreatment remain unclear, and investigations among adolescents and men/boys have been limited. This study investigated the mediating role of negative affect/depression across multiple types of childhood maltreatment and eating disorder features in hospitalized adolescent boys and girls. Participants were 148 adolescent psychiatric inpatients who completed an assessment battery including measures of specific forms of childhood maltreatment (sexual, emotional, and physical abuse), negative/depressive affect, and eating disorder features (dietary restriction, binge eating, and body dissatisfaction). Findings suggest that for girls, negative/depressive affect significantly mediates the relationships between childhood maltreatment and eating disorder psychopathology, although effects varied somewhat across types of maltreatment and eating disorder features. Generalization of mediation effects to boys was limited.

  17. Phytochrome-interacting factors PIF4 and PIF5 negatively regulate anthocyanin biosynthesis under red light in Arabidopsis seedlings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Zhongjuan; Zhang, Yongqiang; Wang, Jianfeng; Li, Ping; Zhao, Chengzhou; Chen, Yadi; Bi, Yurong

    2015-09-01

    Light is an important environmental factor inducing anthocyanin accumulation in plants. Phytochrome-interacting factors (PIFs) have been shown to be a family of bHLH transcription factors involved in light signaling in Arabidopsis. Red light effectively increased anthocyanin accumulation in wild-type Col-0, whereas the effects were enhanced in pif4 and pif5 mutants but impaired in overexpression lines PIF4OX and PIF5OX, indicating that PIF4 and PIF5 are both negative regulators for red light-induced anthocyanin accumulation. Consistently, transcript levels of several genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis and regulatory pathway, including CHS, F3'H, DFR, LDOX, PAP1 and TT8, were significantly enhanced in mutants pif4 and pif5 but decreased in PIF4OX and PIF5OX compared to in Col-0, indicating that PIF4 and PIF5 are transcriptional repressor of these gene. Transient expression assays revealed that PIF4 and PIF5 could repress red light-induced promoter activities of F3'H and DFR in Arabidopsis protoplasts. Furthermore, chromatin immunoprecipitation-quantitative PCR (ChIP-qPCR) test and electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) showed that PIF5 could directly bind to G-box motifs present in the promoter of DFR. Taken together, these results suggest that PIF4 and PIF5 negatively regulate red light-induced anthocyanin accumulation through transcriptional repression of the anthocyanin biosynthetic genes in Arabidopsis. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Reward-dependent modulation of working memory is associated with negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hager, Oliver M; Kirschner, Matthias; Bischof, Martin; Hartmann-Riemer, Matthias N; Kluge, Agne; Seifritz, Erich; Tobler, Philippe N; Kaiser, Stefan

    2015-10-01

    The negative symptoms of schizophrenia have been associated with altered neural activity during both reward processing and cognitive processing. Even though increasing evidence suggests a strong interaction between these two domains, it has not been studied in relation to negative symptoms. To elucidate neural mechanisms of the reward-cognition interaction, we applied a letter variant of the n-back working memory task and varied the financial incentives for performance. In the interaction contrast, we found a significantly activated cluster in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the middle frontal gyrus, and the bilateral superior frontal gyrus. The interaction did not differ significantly between the patient group and a healthy control group, suggesting that patients with schizophrenia are on average able to integrate reward information and utilize this information to maximize cognitive performance. However within the patient group, we found a significant inverse correlation of ACC activity with the factor diminished expression. This finding is consistent with the model that a lack of available cognitive resources leads to diminished expression. We therefore argue that patients with diminished expression have difficulties in recruiting additional cognitive resources (as implemented in the ACC) in response to an anticipated reward. Due to this lack of cognitive resources, less processing capacity is available for effective expression, resulting in diminished expressive behavior. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Significant interaction of hypertension and homocysteine on neurological severity in first-ever ischemic stroke patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Ying-Li; Zhan, Rui; Dong, Yi-Fei; Huang, Lei; Ji, Xi-Xin; Lu, Peng; Liu, Jian; Li, Ping; Cheng, Xiao-Shu

    2018-04-03

    It is not known whether combination of hypertension and high homocysteine (HHcy) impacts on stroke-related neurological severity. Our aim was to determine whether there is an interaction of hypertension and HHcy on neurological severity in first-ever ischemic stroke patients. We analyzed neurological severity among 189 consecutive first-ever ischemic stroke patients with or without hypertension or HHcy. Hypertension (odds ratio [OR]: 8.086, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.596-18.181, P < .001) and total homocysteine (OR: 1.403, 95% CI: 1.247-1.579, P < .001) were independently associated with neurological severity. In receiver-operating characteristic analysis, total homocysteine was a significant predictor of neurological severity (area under curve: 0.794; P < .001). A multiplicative interaction of hypertension and HHcy on more severe neurological severity was revealed by binary logistic regression (OR: 13.154, 95% CI: 5.293-32.691, P < .001). Analysis further identified a more than multiplicative interaction of hypertension and HHcy on neurological severity compared with patients without each condition (OR: 50.600, 95% CI: 14.775-173.285, P < .001). Interaction effect measured on an additive scale showed that 76.4% patients with moderate/severe neurological severity were attributed to interaction of hypertension and HHcy. Significant interaction of hypertension and HHcy on neurological severity was found on multiplicative and additive scale in first-ever Chinese ischemic stroke patients. Copyright © 2018 American Heart Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  20. Interaction of Melittin with Negatively Charged Lipid Bilayers Supported on Gold Electrodes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Juhaniewicz, Joanna; Sek, Slawomir

    2016-01-01

    ABSTRACT: The interactions of melittin, a cationic antimicrobial peptide, with model lipid membranes consisting of negatively charged phospholipids: 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoglycerol (DMPG) or 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoserine (DMPS) were investigated using electrochemical techniques and atomic force microscopy. Lipid bilayers were deposited on gold electrodes using a combination of Langmuir-Blodgett and Langmuir-Schaefer methods and the resulting membranes established a barrier for electron transfer between the electrode and the redox probe in the solution. After exposure to melittin, the blocking properties of the membranes were monitored using cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. It was observed that after treatment with peptide, the charge transfer through lipid bilayer is initially strongly inhibited. However, after longer exposure to melittin, the structure of the lipid film becomes less compact and the electrode reactions are facilitated due to the presence of numerous defect sites exposing bare substrate. We have assumed that such behavior reflects initial adsorption of melittin on top of the membrane and its further insertion which leads to formation of the pores or partial micellization of the lipid film. AFM imaging revealed that the exposure to 10 μM melittin solution induces significant structural changes in DMPG and DMPS membranes. However, melittin seems to affect their organization in a different manner. DMPG film appears to be more susceptible to peptide action compared with DMPS bilayer. In the latter case, long-time exposure to melittin does not result in the rupture of the membrane but rather leads to formation of pore-like defects. This observation is explained in terms of different nanomechanical properties of DMPG and DMPS films and different barrier for the reorientation and insertion of the peptide molecules into the membranes.

  1. Work-life balance culture, work-home interaction, and emotional exhaustion: a structural equation modeling approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nitzsche, Anika; Pfaff, Holger; Jung, Julia; Driller, Elke

    2013-01-01

    To examine the relationships among employees' emotional exhaustion, positive and negative work-home interaction, and perceived work-life balance culture in companies. Data for this study were collected through online surveys of employees from companies in the micro- and nanotechnology sectors (N = 509). A structural equation modeling analysis was performed. A company culture perceived by employees as supportive of their work-life balance was found to have both a direct negative effect on emotional exhaustion and an indirect negative effect meditated by negative work-home interaction. In addition, whereas negative work-home interaction associated positively with emotional exhaustion, positive work-home interaction had no significant effect. The direct and indirect relationship between work-life balance culture and emotional exhaustion has practical implications for health promotion in companies.

  2. The development of adolescent generalized anxiety and depressive symptoms in the context of adolescent mood variability and parent-adolescent negative interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maciejewski, D.F.; van Lier, P.A.C.; Neumann, A.; van der Giessen, D.; Branje, S.T.J.; Meeus, W.H.J.; Koot, H.M.

    2014-01-01

    This study explored the influence of adolescent mood variability on the symptom development of generalized anxiety and depression in the context of parent-adolescent negative interactions. Participants were 456 adolescents (55.7 % male) from a community sample, who were followed from age 13 to 16

  3. Who Deserves My Trust? Cue-Elicited Feedback Negativity Tracks Reputation Learning in Repeated Social Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Diandian; Meng, Liang; Ma, Qingguo

    2017-01-01

    Trust and trustworthiness contribute to reciprocal behavior and social relationship development. To make better decisions, people need to evaluate others' trustworthiness. They often assess this kind of reputation by learning through repeated social interactions. The present event-related potential (ERP) study explored the reputation learning process in a repeated trust game where subjects made multi-round decisions of investment to different partners. We found that subjects gradually learned to discriminate trustworthy partners from untrustworthy ones based on how often their partners reciprocated the investment, which was indicated by their own investment decisions. Besides, electrophysiological data showed that the faces of the untrustworthy partners induced larger feedback negativity (FN) amplitude than those of the trustworthy partners, but only in the late phase of the game. The ERP results corresponded with the behavioral pattern and revealed that the learned trustworthiness differentiation was coded by the cue-elicited FN component. Consistent with previous research, our findings suggest that the anterior cue-elicited FN reflects the reputation appraisal and tracks the reputation learning process in social interactions.

  4. Who Deserves My Trust? Cue-Elicited Feedback Negativity Tracks Reputation Learning in Repeated Social Interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diandian Li

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Trust and trustworthiness contribute to reciprocal behavior and social relationship development. To make better decisions, people need to evaluate others’ trustworthiness. They often assess this kind of reputation by learning through repeated social interactions. The present event-related potential (ERP study explored the reputation learning process in a repeated trust game where subjects made multi-round decisions of investment to different partners. We found that subjects gradually learned to discriminate trustworthy partners from untrustworthy ones based on how often their partners reciprocated the investment, which was indicated by their own investment decisions. Besides, electrophysiological data showed that the faces of the untrustworthy partners induced larger feedback negativity (FN amplitude than those of the trustworthy partners, but only in the late phase of the game. The ERP results corresponded with the behavioral pattern and revealed that the learned trustworthiness differentiation was coded by the cue-elicited FN component. Consistent with previous research, our findings suggest that the anterior cue-elicited FN reflects the reputation appraisal and tracks the reputation learning process in social interactions.

  5. Harsh parenting and fearfulness in toddlerhood interact to predict amplitudes of preschool error-related negativity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rebecca J. Brooker

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Temperamentally fearful children are at increased risk for the development of anxiety problems relative to less-fearful children. This risk is even greater when early environments include high levels of harsh parenting behaviors. However, the mechanisms by which harsh parenting may impact fearful children's risk for anxiety problems are largely unknown. Recent neuroscience work has suggested that punishment is associated with exaggerated error-related negativity (ERN, an event-related potential linked to performance monitoring, even after the threat of punishment is removed. In the current study, we examined the possibility that harsh parenting interacts with fearfulness, impacting anxiety risk via neural processes of performance monitoring. We found that greater fearfulness and harsher parenting at 2 years of age predicted greater fearfulness and greater ERN amplitudes at age 4. Supporting the role of cognitive processes in this association, greater fearfulness and harsher parenting also predicted less efficient neural processing during preschool. This study provides initial evidence that performance monitoring may be a candidate process by which early parenting interacts with fearfulness to predict risk for anxiety problems.

  6. Endothelial cell SHP-2 negatively regulates neutrophil adhesion and promotes transmigration by enhancing ICAM-1-VE-cadherin interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Meiping; Zhang, Xinhua; Chen, Ao; Gu, Wei; Liu, Jie; Ren, Xiaojiao; Zhang, Jianping; Wu, Xiaoxiong; Place, Aaron T; Minshall, Richard D; Liu, Guoquan

    2017-11-01

    Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) mediates the firm adhesion of leukocytes to endothelial cells and initiates subsequent signaling that promotes their transendothelial migration (TEM). Vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin plays a critical role in endothelial cell-cell adhesion, thereby controlling endothelial permeability and leukocyte transmigration. This study aimed to determine the molecular signaling events that originate from the ICAM-1-mediated firm adhesion of neutrophils that regulate VE-cadherin's role as a negative regulator of leukocyte transmigration. We observed that ICAM-1 interacts with Src homology domain 2-containing phosphatase-2 (SHP-2), and SHP-2 down-regulation via silencing of small interfering RNA in endothelial cells enhanced neutrophil adhesion to endothelial cells but inhibited neutrophil transmigration. We also found that VE-cadherin associated with the ICAM-1-SHP-2 complex. Moreover, whereas the activation of ICAM-1 leads to VE-cadherin dissociation from ICAM-1 and VE-cadherin association with actin, SHP-2 down-regulation prevented ICAM-1-VE-cadherin association and promoted VE-cadherin-actin association. Furthermore, SHP-2 down-regulation in vivo promoted LPS-induced neutrophil recruitment in mouse lung but delayed neutrophil extravasation. These results suggest that SHP-2- via association with ICAM-1-mediates ICAM-1-induced Src activation and modulates VE-cadherin switching association with ICAM-1 or actin, thereby negatively regulating neutrophil adhesion to endothelial cells and enhancing their TEM.-Yan, M., Zhang, X., Chen, A., Gu, W., Liu, J., Ren, X., Zhang, J., Wu, X., Place, A. T., Minshall, R. D., Liu, G. Endothelial cell SHP-2 negatively regulates neutrophil adhesion and promotes transmigration by enhancing ICAM-1-VE-cadherin interaction. © FASEB.

  7. Nogo-B (Reticulon-4B) functions as a negative regulator of the apoptotic pathway through the interaction with c-FLIP in colorectal cancer cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawaguchi, Nao; Tashiro, Keitaro; Taniguchi, Kohei; Kawai, Masaru; Tanaka, Keitaro; Okuda, Junji; Hayashi, Michihiro; Uchiyama, Kazuhisa

    2018-08-01

    Nogo-B is a member of the Nogo/Reticulon-4 family and has been reported to be an inducer of apoptosis in certain types of cancer cells. However, the role of Nogo-B in human cancer remains less understood. Here, we demonstrated the functions of Nogo-B in colorectal cancer cells. In clinical colorectal cancer specimens, Nogo-B was obviously overexpressed, as determined by immunohistochemistry; and Western blot analysis showed its expression level to be significantly up-regulated. Furthermore, knockdown of Nogo-B in two colorectal cancer cell lines, SW480 and DLD-1, by transfection with si-RNA (siR) resulted in significantly reduced cell viability and a dramatic increase in apoptosis with insistent overexpression of cleaved caspase-8 and cleaved PARP. The transfection with Nogo-B plasmid cancelled that apoptosis induced by siRNogoB in SW480 cells. Besides, combinatory treatment with siR-Nogo-B/staurosporine (STS) or siR-Nogo-B/Fas ligand (FasL) synergistically reduced cell viability and increased the expression of apoptotic signaling proteins in colorectal cancer cells. These results strongly support our contention that Nogo-B most likely played an oncogenic role in colorectal cancer cells, mainly by negatively regulating the extrinsic apoptotic pathway in them. Finally, we revealed that suppression of Nogo-B caused down-regulation of c-FLIP, known as a major anti-apoptotic protein, and activation of caspase-8 in the death receptor pathway. Interaction between Nogo-B and c-FLIP was shown by immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence studies. In conclusion, Nogo-B was shown to play an important negative role in apoptotic signaling through its interaction with c-FLIP in colorectal cancer cells, and may thus become a novel therapeutic target for colorectal cancer. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Negative appraisals and fear extinction are independently related to PTSD symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuj, Daniel V; Palmer, Matthew A; Gray, Kate E; Hsu, Chia-Ming K; Nicholson, Emma L; Malhi, Gin S; Bryant, Richard A; Felmingham, Kim L

    2017-08-01

    Considerable research has revealed impaired fear extinction to be a significant predictor of PTSD. Fear extinction is also considered the primary mechanism of exposure therapy, and a critical factor in PTSD recovery. The cognitive theory of PTSD proposes that symptoms persist due to excessive negative appraisals about the trauma and its sequelae. Research has not yet examined the relationship between fear extinction and negative appraisals in PTSD. A cross-sectional sample of participants with PTSD (n =21), and trauma-exposed controls (n =33) underwent a standardized differential fear conditioning and extinction paradigm, with skin conductance response (SCR) amplitude serving as the index of conditioned responses. The Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI) was used to index catastrophic negative appraisals. Participants with PTSD demonstrated a slower decrease in overall SCR responses during extinction and greater negative appraisals compared to the group. A moderation analysis revealed that both negative trauma-relevant appraisals and fear extinction learning were independently associated with PTSD symptoms, but there was no moderation interaction. The current study was limited by a modest sample size, leading to the inclusion of participants with subclinical PTSD symptoms. Further, the current study only assessed fear extinction learning; including a second day extinction recall task may show alternative effects. These findings indicate that negative appraisals and fear extinction did not interact, but had independent relationships with PTSD symptoms. Here we show for the first time in an experimental framework that negative appraisals and fear extinction play separate roles in PTSD symptoms. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. Social interaction and social withdrawal in rodents as readouts for investigating the negative symptoms of schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Christina A.; Koenig, James I.

    2015-01-01

    Negative symptoms (e.g., asociality and anhedonia) are a distinct symptomatic domain that has been found to significantly affect the quality of life in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Additionally, the primary negative symptom of asociality (i.e., withdrawal from social contact that derives from indifference or lack of desire to have social contact) is a major contributor to poor psychosocial functioning and has been found to play an important role in the course of the disorder. Nonetheless, the pathophysiology underlying these symptoms is unknown and currently available treatment options (e.g., antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy) fail to reliably produce efficacious benefits. Utilizing rodent paradigms that measure social behaviors (e.g., social withdrawal) to elucidate the neurobiological substrates that underlie social dysfunction and to identify novel therapeutic targets may be highly informative and useful to understand more about the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Accordingly, the purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the behavioral tasks for assessing social functioning that may be translationally relevant for investigating negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia. PMID:24342774

  10. Social interaction and social withdrawal in rodents as readouts for investigating the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Christina A; Koenig, James I

    2014-05-01

    Negative symptoms (e.g., asociality and anhedonia) are a distinct symptomatic domain that has been found to significantly affect the quality of life in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Additionally, the primary negative symptom of asociality (i.e., withdrawal from social contact that derives from indifference or lack of desire to have social contact) is a major contributor to poor psychosocial functioning and has been found to play an important role in the course of the disorder. Nonetheless, the pathophysiology underlying these symptoms is unknown and currently available treatment options (e.g., antipsychotics and cognitive-behavioral therapy) fail to reliably produce efficacious benefits. Utilizing rodent paradigms that measure social behaviors (e.g., social withdrawal) to elucidate the neurobiological substrates that underlie social dysfunction and to identify novel therapeutic targets may be highly informative and useful to understand more about the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. Accordingly, the purpose of this review is to provide an overview of the behavioral tasks for assessing social functioning that may be translationally relevant for investigating negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia. © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. and ECNP.

  11. Sex differences in effective fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lungu, Ovidiu; Potvin, Stéphane; Tikàsz, Andràs; Mendrek, Adrianna

    2015-12-01

    In view of the greater prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in women than in men, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have examined sex-differences in brain activations during emotion processing. Comparatively, sex-differences in brain connectivity received little attention, despite evidence for important fronto-limbic connections during emotion processing across sexes. Here, we investigated sex-differences in fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing. Forty-six healthy individuals (25 women, 21 men) viewed negative, positive and neutral images during an fMRI session. Effective connectivity between significantly activated regions was examined using Granger causality and psychophysical interaction analyses. Sex steroid hormones and feminine-masculine traits were also measured. Subjective ratings of negative emotional images were higher in women than in men. Across sexes, significant activations were observed in the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and the right amygdala. Granger connectivity from right amygdala was significantly greater than that from dmPFC during the 'high negative' condition, an effect driven by men. Magnitude of this effect correlated negatively with highly negative image ratings and feminine traits and positively with testosterone levels. These results highlight critical sex differences in brain connectivity during negative emotion processing and point to the fact that both biological (sex steroid hormones) and psychosocial (gender role and identity) variables contribute to them. As the dmPFC is involved in social cognition and action planning, and the amygdala-in threat detection, the connectivity results suggest that compared to women, men have a more evaluative, rather than purely affective, brain response during negative emotion processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Negative cognitive style and cortisol recovery accentuate the relationship between life stress and depressive symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quinn, Meghan E; Grant, Kathryn E; Adam, Emma K

    2018-03-01

    When exposed to stressful life events, a significant number of adolescents will experience depressive symptoms. One model of depression suggests that individuals with a negative cognitive style are most vulnerable to depression following life stress. Alternatively, altered activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis may explain vulnerability to depression following life stress. Each of these models plausibly explains the emergence of depressive symptoms during adolescence and have been investigated largely independently. The current study recruited a sample of urban adolescents (N = 179) to evaluate whether cortisol response to a laboratory stress induction and negative cognitive style are related and whether they independently interact with exposure to stressful life events to predict symptoms of depression. Negative cognitive style was not associated with cortisol response to the laboratory stressor. Rather, negative cognitive style and cortisol recovery independently interacted with stressful life events to predict current symptoms of depression. Results support a heterogeneous etiology of depression.

  13. Interactions between social/ behavioral factors and ADRB2 genotypes may be associated with health at advanced ages in China.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, Yi; Cheng, Lingguo; Zhao, Ling; Tan, Qihua; Feng, Qiushi; Chen, Huashuai; Shen, Ke; Li, Jianxin; Zhang, Fengyu; Cao, Huiqing; Gregory, Simon G; Yang, Ze; Gu, Jun; Tao, Wei; Tian, Xiao-Li; Hauser, Elizabeth R

    2013-09-09

    Existing literature indicates that ADRB2 gene is associated with health and longevity, but none of previous studies investigated associations of carrying the ADRB2 minor alleles and interactions between ADRB2 genotypes and social/behavioral factors(GxE) with health outcomes at advanced ages. This study intends to fill in this research gap. We conducted an exploratory analysis, using longitudinal survey phenotype/genotype data from 877 oldest-old aged 90+. To estimate association of GxE interactions with health outcome, adjusted for the potential correlation between genotypes and social/behavioral factors and various other potentially confounding factors, we develop and test an innovative three-step procedure which combines logistic regression and structural equation methods. Interaction between regular exercise and carrying rs1042718 minor allele is significantly and positively associated with good cognitive function; interaction between regular exercise and carrying rs1042718 or rs1042719 minor allele is significantly and positively associated with self-reported good health; and interaction between social-leisure activities and carrying rs1042719 minor allele is significantly and positively associated with self-reported good health. Carrying rs1042718 or rs1042719 minor alleles is significantly and negatively associated with negative emotion, but the ADRB2 SNPs are not significantly associated with cognitive function and self-reported health. Our structural equation analysis found that, adjusted for the confounding effects of correlation of the ADRB2 SNPs with negative emotion, interaction between negative emotion and carrying rs1042718 or rs1042719 minor allele is significantly and negatively associated with cognitive function. The positive association of regular exercise and social-leisure activities with cognitive function and self-reported health, and negative association of negative emotion with cognitive function, were much stronger among carriers of rs

  14. A Preliminary Examination of the Relationship Between Social Networking Interactions, Internet Use, and Thwarted Belongingness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moberg, Fallon B; Anestis, Michael D

    2015-01-01

    Joiner's (2005) interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide hypothesizes that suicidal desire develops in response to the joint presence of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness. To consider the potential influence of online interactions and behaviors on these outcomes. To address this, we administered an online protocol assessing suicidal desire and online interactions in a sample of 305 undergraduates (83.6% female). We hypothesized negative interactions on social networking sites and a preference for online social interactions would be associated with thwarted belongingness. We also conducted an exploratory analysis examining the associations between Internet usage and perceived burdensomeness. Higher levels of negative interactions on social networking sites, but no other variables, significantly predicted thwarted belongingness. Our exploratory analysis showed that none of our predictors were associated with perceived burdensomeness after accounting for demographics, depression, and thwarted belongingness. Our findings indicate that a general tendency to have negative interactions on social networking sites could possibly impact suicidal desire and that these effects are significant above and beyond depression symptoms. Furthermore, no other aspect of problematic Internet use significantly predicted our outcomes in multivariate analyses, indicating that social networking in particular may have a robust effect on thwarted belongingness.

  15. Erosion of belief and disbelief: effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beck, R; Miller, J P

    2001-04-01

    The authors investigated the effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural among 94 undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes at a small, private U.S. university. They hypothesized that religiosity would predict differential beliefs in the supernatural versus the paranormal but that negative affect would attenuate these beliefs. In addition, the authors predicted that belief in the supernatural and negative affect would interact to predict belief in the paranormal. Overall, the results were consistent with predictions. The religious participants were skeptical of paranormal phenomena but were accepting of supernatural phenomena. In addition, increased reports of negative affect over the preceding year appeared to attenuate belief in the supernatural for the religious participants. By contrast, for the nonreligious participants, increased belief in both the supernatural and paranormal was predicted when reports of negative affect were high. Finally, the interaction of supernatural belief and negative affect significantly predicted belief in the paranormal.

  16. Defaunation leads to interaction deficits, not interaction compensation, in an island seed dispersal network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fricke, Evan C; Tewksbury, Joshua J; Rogers, Haldre S

    2018-01-01

    Following defaunation, the loss of interactions with mutualists such as pollinators or seed dispersers may be compensated through increased interactions with remaining mutualists, ameliorating the negative cascading impacts on biodiversity. Alternatively, remaining mutualists may respond to altered competition by reducing the breadth or intensity of their interactions, exacerbating negative impacts on biodiversity. Despite the importance of these responses for our understanding of the dynamics of mutualistic networks and their response to global change, the mechanism and magnitude of interaction compensation within real mutualistic networks remains largely unknown. We examined differences in mutualistic interactions between frugivores and fruiting plants in two island ecosystems possessing an intact or disrupted seed dispersal network. We determined how changes in the abundance and behavior of remaining seed dispersers either increased mutualistic interactions (contributing to "interaction compensation") or decreased interactions (causing an "interaction deficit") in the disrupted network. We found a "rich-get-richer" response in the disrupted network, where remaining frugivores favored the plant species with highest interaction frequency, a dynamic that worsened the interaction deficit among plant species with low interaction frequency. Only one of five plant species experienced compensation and the other four had significant interaction deficits, with interaction frequencies 56-95% lower in the disrupted network. These results do not provide support for the strong compensating mechanisms assumed in theoretical network models, suggesting that existing network models underestimate the prevalence of cascading mutualism disruption after defaunation. This work supports a mutualist biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship, highlighting the importance of mutualist diversity for sustaining diverse and resilient ecosystems. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  17. Measurement of the dechanneling length for high-energy negative pions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Scandale, W.; Losito, R.; Bagli, E.; Bandiera, L.; Dalpiaz, P.; Fiorini, M.; Guidi, V.; Mazzolari, A.; Vincenzi, D.; Della Mea, G.; Vallazza, E.; Afonin, A.G.; Chesnokov, Yu.A.; Maisheev, V.A.; Yazynin, I.A.; Kovalenko, A.D.; Taratin, A.M.; Denisov, A.S.; Gavrikov, Yu.A.; Ivanov, Yu.M.

    2013-01-01

    We studied the dechanneling length of 150 GeV/cπ − interacting with a short bent silicon crystal. Dechanneling length measures the rate and the strength of incoherent interactions of channeled particles in a crystal. The mechanism of dechanneling of negatively charged particles has been elucidated through simulation and experiment. It was found that the dechanneling length for negative particles is comparable to the nuclear dechanneling length for positive charges. Indeed, dechanneling of negative particles occurs as a result of incoherent interactions with the nuclei because the trajectories of such particles always intersect atomic planes, explaining the lower channeling efficiency for such particles. Obtained results can be useful for the design of crystals for manipulating high-energy negative particle beams through channeling

  18. Harsh parenting and fearfulness in toddlerhood interact to predict amplitudes of preschool error-related negativity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooker, Rebecca J; Buss, Kristin A

    2014-07-01

    Temperamentally fearful children are at increased risk for the development of anxiety problems relative to less-fearful children. This risk is even greater when early environments include high levels of harsh parenting behaviors. However, the mechanisms by which harsh parenting may impact fearful children's risk for anxiety problems are largely unknown. Recent neuroscience work has suggested that punishment is associated with exaggerated error-related negativity (ERN), an event-related potential linked to performance monitoring, even after the threat of punishment is removed. In the current study, we examined the possibility that harsh parenting interacts with fearfulness, impacting anxiety risk via neural processes of performance monitoring. We found that greater fearfulness and harsher parenting at 2 years of age predicted greater fearfulness and greater ERN amplitudes at age 4. Supporting the role of cognitive processes in this association, greater fearfulness and harsher parenting also predicted less efficient neural processing during preschool. This study provides initial evidence that performance monitoring may be a candidate process by which early parenting interacts with fearfulness to predict risk for anxiety problems. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  19. The interactive effects of negative symptoms and social role functioning on suicide ideation in individuals with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jahn, Danielle R; Bennett, Melanie E; Park, Stephanie G; Gur, Raquel E; Horan, William P; Kring, Ann M; Blanchard, Jack J

    2016-02-01

    Findings regarding the protective effect of social role functioning on suicide ideation in individuals with schizophrenia have been mixed. One reason for such inconsistencies in the literature may be that individuals with prominent negative symptoms of schizophrenia may not experience a desire for social closeness, and therefore social role functioning may not influence suicide risk in these individuals. The aim of this study was to examine the moderating effects of self-reported desire for social closeness and interviewer-rated negative symptoms on the relationship between social role functioning and suicide ideation. Our sample consisted of 162 individuals who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders; all participants completed self-report questionnaires and clinician-administered interviews, and moderation hypotheses were tested with a non-parametric procedure. The results indicated that motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms moderated the relationship between social role functioning and suicide ideation; self-reported desire for social closeness and negative symptoms related to expression did not have such a moderating effect. Specifically, better social role functioning was associated with less suicide ideation only in those individuals who had low motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms; no significant relationship was observed between social role functioning and suicide ideation among those with elevated motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms. These findings suggest that assessing for negative symptoms and social role functioning may inform suicide risk assessments in individuals with schizophrenia, and improving social role functioning may reduce suicide ideation among those with few motivation and pleasure-related negative symptoms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Increased superior frontal gyrus activation during working memory processing in psychosis: Significant relation to cumulative antipsychotic medication and to negative symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vogel, Tobias; Smieskova, Renata; Schmidt, André; Walter, Anna; Harrisberger, Fabienne; Eckert, Anne; Lang, Undine E; Riecher-Rössler, Anita; Graf, Marc; Borgwardt, Stefan

    2016-08-01

    Impairment in working memory (WM) is a core symptom in schizophrenia. However, little is known about how clinical features influence functional brain activity specific to WM processing during the development of first-episode psychosis (FEP) to schizophrenia (SZ). We compared functional WM-specific brain activity in FEP and SZ patients, including the effects of the duration of illness, psychopathological factors and antipsychotic medication. Cross-sectional study of male FEP (n=22) and SZ (n=20) patients performing an n-back task when undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Clinical features were collected by semi-structured interviews and medical records. The SZ group performed significantly worse than the FEP group in the 2-back condition. The SZ group also showed significantly higher activation in the left superior frontal gyrus in the 2-back versus 0-back condition (2-back>0-back). This frontal activation correlated positively with negative symptoms and with cumulative antipsychotic medication during the year before the fMRI examination. There were no significant correlations between activation and duration of illness. There was greater frontal neural activation in SZ than in FEP. This indicated differences in WM processing, and was significantly related to cumulative antipsychotic exposure and negative symptoms, but not to the duration of illness. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Production of rare-earth atomic negative ion beams in a cesium-sputter-type negative ion source

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Davis, V.T.; Covington, A.M.; Duvvuri, S.S.; Kraus, R.G.; Emmons, E.D.; Kvale, T.J.; Thompson, J.S.

    2007-01-01

    The desire to study negative ion structure and negative ion-photon interactions has spurred the development of ion sources for use in research and industry. The many different types of negative ion sources available today differ in their characteristics and abilities to produce anions of various species. Thus the importance of choosing the correct type of negative ion source for a particular research or industrial application is clear. In this study, the results of an investigation on the production of beams composed of negatively-charged rare-earth ions from a cylindrical-cathode-geometry, cesium-sputter-type negative ion source are presented. Beams of atomic anions have been observed for most of the first-row rare-earth elements, with typical currents ranging from hundreds of picoamps to several nanoamps

  2. Chemical ecology of insect-plant interactions: ecological significance of plant secondary metabolites.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishida, Ritsuo

    2014-01-01

    Plants produce a diverse array of secondary metabolites as chemical barriers against herbivores. Many phytophagous insects are highly adapted to these allelochemicals and use such unique substances as the specific host-finding cues, defensive substances of their own, and even as sex pheromones or their precursors by selectively sensing, incorporating, and/or processing these phytochemicals. Insects also serve as pollinators often effectively guided by specific floral fragrances. This review demonstrates the ecological significance of such plant secondary metabolites in the highly diverse interactions between insects and plants.

  3. Formation of hydrogen negative ions by surface and volume processes with application to negative ion sources

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hiskes, J.R.

    1979-01-01

    During the last few decades interest in negative-hydrogen ion sources has been directed mainly toward synchrotron and other particle accelerator applications, with emphasis on high current densities delivered for short pulses. But within the last several years there has been an awareness in the magnetic fusion program of the future need for negative ions as a means for generating high energy neutral beams, beams with energies above a few hundred keV. Negative ions seem to be the only effective intermediary for efficiently producing such beams. Although methods for generating negative ion beams have relied upon synchrotron concepts, the requirements for fusion are very different: here one is interested in more moderate current densities, up to 100 m A cm -2 , but with continuous operation. Proposed source modules would accelerate of the order of 10 A of beam current and deliver several megawatts of beam power. Both H - and D - beams are being considered for application in different reactor systems. The conceptualization of negative ion sources is now in a very volatile stage. But of the great variety of proposals that have been offered to date, three general areas appear ready for development. These are: first, the double charge exchange method for converting a positive ion beam into a negative ion beam; second, electron-volume processes wherein low energy electrons interacting with molecular species lead to negative ion products via dissociative attachment or recombination; and third, generation of negative ions in surface interactions, principally via desorption and backscattering. Both our qualitative and our quantitative understanding of these processes diminishes as one proceeds from the first through the third. The physics of these three methods is considered in detail

  4. DHU1 negatively regulates UV-B signaling via its direct interaction with COP1 and RUP1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Sang-Hoon; Kim, Hani; Chung, Sunglan; Lee, Jae-Hoon

    2017-09-16

    Although DWD HYPERSENSITIVE TO UV-B 1 (DHU1) is reported to be a negative regulator in UV-B mediated cellular responses, its detailed role in UV-B signaling is still elusive. To further understand the action mechanism of DHU1 in UV-B response, physical and genetic interactions of DHU1 with various UV-B signaling components were investigated. Yeast two hybrid assay results suggested that DHU1 directly interacts with COP1 and RUP1, implying a functional connection with both COP1 and RUP1. In spite of the physical association between DHU1 and COP1, loss of DHU1 did not affect protein stability of COP1. Epistatic analysis showed that the functional loss of both DHU1 and UVR8 leads to alleviation of UV-B hypersensitivity displayed in dhu1-1. Moreover, phenotypic studies with dhu1-1 cop1-6 and dhu1-1 hy5-215 revealed that COP1 and HY5 are epistatic to DHU1, indicating that UV-B hypersensitivity of dhu1-1 requires both COP1 and HY5. In the case of dhu1-1 rup1-1, UV-B responsiveness was similar to that of both dhu1-1 and rup1-1, implying that DHU1 and RUP1 are required for each other's function. Collectively, these results show that the role of DHU1 as a negative regulator in UV-B response may be derived from its direct interaction with COP1 by sequestering COP1 from the active UVR8-COP1 complex, resulting in a decrease in the COP1 population that positively participates in UV-B signaling together with UVR8. Furthermore, this inhibitory role of DHU1 in UV-B signaling is likely to be functionally connected to RUP1. This study will serve as a platform to further understand more detailed action mechanism of DHU1 in UV-B response and DHU1-mediated core UV-B signaling in Arabidopsis. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Maternal Punitive Reactions to Children's Negative Emotions and Young Adult Trait Anger: Effect of Gender and Emotional Closeness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perry, Nicole B; Cavanaugh, Alyson; Dunbar, Angel; Leerkes, Esther M

    The current study tested whether young adult's recollected reports of their mother's punitive reactions to their negative emotions in childhood predicted anger expression in young adulthood and whether emotional closeness weakens this association. Further, a three-way interaction was tested to examine whether emotional closeness is a stronger protective factor for young women than for young men. Results revealed a significant three-way interaction (gender X emotional closeness X maternal punitive reactions). For young men, maternal punitive reactions to negative emotions were directly associated with increased anger expressions. Maternal punitive reactions to young women's negative emotions in childhood were associated with increased anger in adulthood only when they reported low maternal emotional closeness. Findings suggest that maternal emotional closeness may serve as a buffer against the negative effects of maternal punitive reactions for women's anger expression in young adulthood.

  6. Significance of a negative exercise thallium test in the presence of a critical residual stenosis after thrombolysis for acute myocardial infarction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sutton, J.M.; Topol, E.J.

    1991-01-01

    After thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction, increasing emphasis is placed on early submaximal exercise testing, with further intervention advocated only for demonstrable ischemia. Although significant residual coronary artery lesions after successful thrombolysis are common, many patients paradoxically have no corresponding provokable ischemia. The relation between significant postthrombolytic residual coronary artery disease and a negative early, submaximal exercise thallium-201 tomogram was studied among 101 consecutive patients with uncomplicated myocardial infarction and at least 70% residual stenosis of the infarct artery. A negative test occurred in 49 (48.5%) patients with a mean 88% residual infarct artery stenosis. Further characteristics of the group were as follows: mean time to treatment was 3.1 hours; mean age was 54 +/- 10 years; 80% were male; 47% had anterior infarction; 39% had multivessel disease; mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 53 +/- 14%; and mean peak creatine kinase level was 3,820 +/- 3,123 IU/ml. A similar group of 52 (51.5%) patients, treated within 3.3 hours from symptom onset, with a mean postthrombolysis stenosis of 90%, had a positive exercise test. Characteristics of this group were as follows: age was 58 +/- 10 years; 92% were male; 56% had anterior infarction; 40% had multivessel disease; and mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 54 +/- 15%. The peak creatine kinase level associated with the infarction, however, was lower: 2,605 +/- 1,805 IU/ml (p = 0.04). There was no difference in performance at exercise testing with respect to peak systolic pressure, peak heart rate, or time tolerated on the treadmill between the two groups. By multivariate logistic regression, only peak creatine kinase level predicted a negative stress result in the presence of a significant residual stenosis

  7. Classification and occurrence of clinically significant drug interactions with irinotecan and oxaliplatin in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jansman, FGA; Idzinga, FSF; Smit, WM; de Graaf, JC; Coenen, JLLM; Sleijfer, DT; Brouwers, JRBJ

    Background: Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic drug interactions with cytotoxic drugs may significantly influence the efficacy and toxicity of chemotherapy. Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify drug interactions with irinotecan and oxaliplatin reported in the literature, to assess

  8. Direct observation of charmed-particle pairs produced in 340 GeV/c negative-pion interactions in an emulsion chamber

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fuchi, H.; Hoshino, K.; Miyanishi, M.; Niu, K.; Niwa, K.; Shibuya, H.; Yanagisawa, Y.; Tasaka, S.; Maeda, Y.; Kimura, H.

    1981-01-01

    Among secondaries of 4323 interactions produced in an emulsion chamber exposed to a 340 GeV/c negative ion beam of CERN-SPS, 4 pairs of charmed particles were detected. The mean lifetime of D 0 (D 0 -bar) and the inclusive production cross-section of a charmed particle pair by 340 GeV/c pions were evaluated as (3.1sub(-1.6)sup(+ 2.0)) x 10 - 13 sec and 44 +- 22 μb. (author)

  9. Direct observation of charmed-particle pairs produced in 340 GeV/c negative-pion interactions in an emulsion chamber

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fuchi, H; Hoshino, K; Miyanishi, M; Niu, K; Niwa, K; Shibuya, H; Yanagisawa, Y [Nagoya Univ. (Japan). Dept. of Physics; Ushida, N [Faculty of Education, Aichi University of Education, Kariya, Aichi (Japan); Tasaka, S [Tokyo Univ., Tanashi (Japan). Inst. for Cosmic Ray Research; Maeda, Y

    1981-06-06

    Among secondaries of 4323 interactions produced in an emulsion chamber exposed to a 340 GeV/c negative ion beam of CERN-SPS, 4 pairs of charmed particles were detected. The mean lifetime of D/sup 0/(D/sup 0/-bar) and the inclusive production cross-section of a charmed particle pair by 340 GeV/c pions were evaluated as (3.1sub(-1.6)sup(+ 2.0)) x 10/sup -13/ sec and 44 +- 22 ..mu..b.

  10. Gelsolin negatively regulates the activity of tumor suppressor p53 through their physical interaction in hepatocarcinoma HepG2 cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    An, Joo-Hee; Kim, Jung-Woong; Jang, Sang-Min; Kim, Chul-Hong; Kang, Eun-Jin; Choi, Kyung-Hee

    2011-01-01

    Highlights: → The actin binding protein Gelsolin (GSN) interacts with transcription factor p53. → GSN interacts with transactivation- and DNA binding domains of p53. → GSN represses transactivity of p53 via inhibition of nuclear translocation of p53. → GSN inhibits the p53-mediated apoptosis in hepatocarcinoma HepG2 cells. -- Abstract: As a transcription factor, p53 modulates several cellular responses including cell-cycle control, apoptosis, and differentiation. In this study, we have shown that an actin regulatory protein, gelsolin (GSN), can physically interact with p53. The nuclear localization of p53 is inhibited by GSN overexpression in hepatocarcinoma HepG2 cells. Additionally, we demonstrate that GSN negatively regulates p53-dependent transcriptional activity of a reporter construct, driven by the p21-promoter. Furthermore, p53-mediated apoptosis was repressed in GSN-transfected HepG2 cells. Taken together, these results suggest that GSN binds to p53 and this interaction leads to the inhibition of p53-induced apoptosis by anchoring of p53 in the cytoplasm in HepG2 cells.

  11. Inclusive analysis of negative charged particles produced in sulfur-lead interactions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hafidouni, M.

    1992-09-01

    After a first theoretical part about the physics of quark-gluon plasma, and after a description of CERN experiments (NA34, NA35, NA38, WA80, WA85), the author presents in a second part, the experiment NA36. He describes, with details, the spectrometers and studies the production of negative charged particles in Sulfur-Lead interactions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon. Reconstruction of trajectories in TPC, correction of multiplicity, correction of transverse momentum distribution, correction of pseudo-rapidity distribution and method of maximum entropy are presented and explained

  12. Can I trust you? Negative affective priming influences social judgments in schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hooker, Christine I.; Tully, Laura M.; Verosky, Sara C.; Fisher, Melissa; Holland, Christine; Vinogradov, Sophia

    2010-01-01

    Successful social interactions rely on the ability to make accurate judgments based on social cues as well as the ability to control the influence of internal or external affective information on those judgments. Prior research suggests that individuals with schizophrenia misinterpret social stimuli and this misinterpretation contributes to impaired social functioning. We tested the hypothesis that for people with schizophrenia social judgments are abnormally influenced by affective information. 23 schizophrenia and 35 healthy control participants rated the trustworthiness of faces following the presentation of neutral, negative (threat-related), or positive affective primes. Results showed that all participants rated faces as less trustworthy following negative affective primes compared to faces that followed neutral or positive primes. Importantly, this effect was significantly more pronounced for schizophrenia participants, suggesting that schizophrenia may be characterised by an exaggerated influence of negative affective information on social judgment. Furthermore, the extent that the negative affective prime influenced trustworthiness judgments was significantly associated with patients’ severity of positive symptoms, particularly feelings of persecution. These findings suggest that for people with schizophrenia negative affective information contributes to an interpretive bias, consistent with paranoid ideation, when judging the trustworthiness of others. This bias may contribute to social impairments in schizophrenia. PMID:20919787

  13. Significance of Cuscutain, a cysteine protease from Cuscuta reflexa, in host-parasite interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bleischwitz, Marc; Albert, Markus; Fuchsbauer, Hans-Lothar; Kaldenhoff, Ralf

    2010-10-22

    Plant infestation with parasitic weeds like Cuscuta reflexa induces morphological as well as biochemical changes in the host and the parasite. These modifications could be caused by a change in protein or gene activity. Using a comparative macroarray approach Cuscuta genes specifically upregulated at the host attachment site were identified. One of the infestation specific Cuscuta genes encodes a cysteine protease. The protein and its intrinsic inhibitory peptide were heterologously expressed, purified and biochemically characterized. The haustoria specific enzyme was named cuscutain in accordance with similar proteins from other plants, e.g. papaya. The role of cuscutain and its inhibitor during the host parasite interaction was studied by external application of an inhibitor suspension, which induced a significant reduction of successful infection events. The study provides new information about molecular events during the parasitic plant--host interaction. Inhibition of cuscutain cysteine proteinase could provide means for antagonizing parasitic plants.

  14. Displacement of Drugs from Human Serum Albumin: From Molecular Interactions to Clinical Significance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rimac, Hrvoje; Debeljak, Željko; Bojić, Mirza; Miller, Larisa

    2017-01-01

    Human serum albumin (HSA) is the most abundant protein in human serum. It has numerous functions, one of which is transport of small hydrophobic molecules, including drugs, toxins, nutrients, hormones and metabolites. HSA has the ability to interact with a wide variety of structurally different compounds. This promiscuous, nonspecific affinity can lead to sudden changes in concentrations caused by displacement, when two or more compounds compete for binding to the same molecular site. It is important to consider drug combinations and their binding to HSA when defining dosing regimens, as this can directly influence drug's free, active concentration in blood. In present paper we review drug interactions with potential for displacement from HSA, situations in which they are likely to occur and their clinical significance. We also offer guidelines in designing drugs with decreased binding to HSA. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

  15. The low risk of precancer after a screening result of human papillomavirus-negative/atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance papanicolaou and implications for clinical management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gage, Julia C; Katki, Hormuzd A; Schiffman, Mark; Castle, Philip E; Fetterman, Barbara; Poitras, Nancy E; Lorey, Thomas; Cheung, Li C; Behrens, Catherine; Sharma, Abha; Zhao, Fang-Hui; Cuzick, Jack; Yang, Zi Hua; Kinney, Walter K

    2014-11-01

    Different US practice guidelines have conflicting recommendations for when women should return after a screening result of human papillomavirus (HPV)-negative with an equivocal Papanicolaou (Pap) result of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) (ie, return in either 3 or 5 years). One way to determine management is to compare the risk of precancer/cancer after an HPV-negative/ASC-US result with the risks after other negative screening results. For example, if the risk after an HPV-negative/ASC-US result was similar to the risk after a negative Pap test, a 3-year return would be preferred because guidelines agree that women with negative Pap test results should return in 3 years. Alternatively, if the risk after an HPV-negative/ASC-US result is similar to that after a cotest-negative result (HPV negative/Pap test negative), a 5-year return would be preferred because guidelines agree that women testing cotest negative should return in 5 years. The authors compared risks of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia of grade 3 or higher (CIN3+) and cervical cancer among women aged 30 years to 64 years at Kaiser Permanente Northern California with the following test results from 2003 through 2012: 17,191 women testing HPV negative/ASC-US; 980,268 women testing Pap test negative (regardless of HPV result); and 892,882 women testing cotest negative. The 5-year CIN3+ and cancer risks after an HPV-negative/ASC-US result were closer to the risks after a negative Pap test result (CIN3+: 0.48% vs 0.31% [P =.0019]; and cancer: 0.043% vs 0.031% [P =.4]) than after a negative cotest (CIN3+: 0.48% vs 0.11% [P<.0001]; and cancer: 0.043% vs 0.014% [P =.016]). Women testing HPV negative/ASC-US were found to have precancer/cancer risks that were more closely aligned with women with negative Pap test results, suggesting that women testing HPV negative/ASC-US should be managed similarly to women testing negative on Pap tests with a 3-year return for screening. © 2014

  16. Genetic variation throughout the folate metabolic pathway influences negative symptom severity in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roffman, Joshua L; Brohawn, David G; Nitenson, Adam Z; Macklin, Eric A; Smoller, Jordan W; Goff, Donald C

    2013-03-01

    Low serum folate levels previously have been associated with negative symptom risk in schizophrenia, as has the hypofunctional 677C>T variant of the MTHFR gene. This study examined whether other missense polymorphisms in folate-regulating enzymes, in concert with MTHFR, influence negative symptoms in schizophrenia, and whether total risk allele load interacts with serum folate status to further stratify negative symptom risk. Medicated outpatients with schizophrenia (n = 219), all of European origin and some included in a previous report, were rated with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. A subset of 82 patients also underwent nonfasting serum folate testing. Patients were genotyped for the MTHFR 677C>T (rs1801133), MTHFR 1298A>C (rs1801131), MTR 2756A>G (rs1805087), MTRR 203A>G (rs1801394), FOLH1 484T>C (rs202676), RFC 80A>G (rs1051266), and COMT 675G>A (rs4680) polymorphisms. All genotypes were entered into a linear regression model to determine significant predictors of negative symptoms, and risk scores were calculated based on total risk allele dose. Four variants, MTHFR 677T, MTR 2756A, FOLH1 484C, and COMT 675A, emerged as significant independent predictors of negative symptom severity, accounting for significantly greater variance in negative symptoms than MTHFR 677C>T alone. Total allele dose across the 4 variants predicted negative symptom severity only among patients with low folate levels. These findings indicate that multiple genetic variants within the folate metabolic pathway contribute to negative symptoms of schizophrenia. A relationship between folate level and negative symptom severity among patients with greater genetic vulnerability is biologically plausible and suggests the utility of folate supplementation in these patients.

  17. Reading touch screen storybooks with mothers negatively affects seven-year-old readers’ comprehension but enriches emotional engagement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kirsty Mhairi Ross

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Touch screen storybooks turn reading into an interactive multimedia experience, with hotspot-activated animations, sound effects, and games. Positive and negative effects of reading multimedia stories have been reported, but the underlying mechanisms which explain how children’s learning is affected remain uncertain. The present study examined the effect of storybook format (touch screen and print on story comprehension, and considered how level of touch screen interactivity (high and low and shared reading behaviors (cognitive and emotional scaffolding, emotional engagement might contribute to comprehension. Seven-year-olds (n = 22 were observed reading one touch screen storybook and one print storybook with their mothers. Story comprehension was inferior for the touch screen storybooks compared to the print versions. Touch screen interactivity had no significant effect on comprehension but did affect shared reading behaviors. The mother-child dyads spent less time talking about the story in the highly interactive touch screen condition, despite longer shared reading sessions because of touch screen interactions. Positive emotional engagement was greater for children and mothers in the highly interactive touch screen condition, due to additional positive emotions expressed during touch screen interactions. Negative emotional engagement was greater for children when reading and talking about the story in the highly interactive condition, and some mothers demonstrated negative emotional engagement with the touch screen activities. The less interactive touch screen storybook had little effect on shared reading behaviors, but mothers controlling behaviors were more frequent. Storybook format had no effect on the frequency of mothers’ cognitive scaffolding behaviors (comprehension questions, word help. Relationships between comprehension and shared reading behaviors were examined for each storybook, and length of the shared reading session and

  18. Reading Touch Screen Storybooks with Mothers Negatively Affects 7-Year-Old Readers’ Comprehension but Enriches Emotional Engagement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ross, Kirsty M.; Pye, Rachel E.; Randell, Jordan

    2016-01-01

    Touch screen storybooks turn reading into an interactive multimedia experience, with hotspot-activated animations, sound effects, and games. Positive and negative effects of reading multimedia stories have been reported, but the underlying mechanisms which explain how children’s learning is affected remain uncertain. The present study examined the effect of storybook format (touch screen and print) on story comprehension, and considered how level of touch screen interactivity (high and low) and shared reading behaviors (cognitive and emotional scaffolding, emotional engagement) might contribute to comprehension. Seven-year-olds (n = 22) were observed reading one touch screen storybook and one print storybook with their mothers. Story comprehension was inferior for the touch screen storybooks compared to the print formats. Touch screen interactivity level had no significant effect on comprehension but did affect shared reading behaviors. The mother–child dyads spent less time talking about the story in the highly interactive touch screen condition, despite longer shared reading sessions because of touch screen interactions. Positive emotional engagement was greater for children and mothers in the highly interactive touch screen condition, due to additional positive emotions expressed during touch screen interactions. Negative emotional engagement was greater for children when reading and talking about the story in the highly interactive condition, and some mothers demonstrated negative emotional engagement with the touch screen activities. The less interactive touch screen storybook had little effect on shared reading behaviors, but mothers controlling behaviors were more frequent. Storybook format had no effect on the frequency of mothers’ cognitive scaffolding behaviors (comprehension questions, word help). Relationships between comprehension and shared reading behaviors were examined for each storybook, and although length of the shared reading session and

  19. Negative parenting behavior and childhood oppositional defiant disorder: differential moderation by positive and negative peer regard.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tung, Irene; Lee, Steve S

    2014-01-01

    Although negative parenting behavior and peer status are independently associated with childhood conduct problems (e.g., oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)), relatively little is known about their interplay, particularly in relation to differentiated measures of positive and negative peer regard. To improve the specificity of the association of negative parenting behavior and peer factors with ODD, we explored the potential interaction of parenting and peer status in a sample of 169 five-to ten-year-old ethnically diverse children with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessed using multiple measures (i.e., rating scales, interview) and informants (i.e., parents, teachers). Controlling for children's age, sex, number of ADHD symptoms, and parents' race-ethnicity, peer acceptance inversely predicted and inconsistent discipline, harsh punishment, and peer rejection were each positively associated with ODD symptom severity. Interactive influences were also evident such that inconsistent discipline and harsh punishment each predicted elevated ODD but only among children experiencing low peer acceptance or high peer rejection. These findings suggest that supportive environments, including peer acceptance, may protect children from negative outcomes associated with inconsistent discipline and harsh punishment. Findings are integrated with theories of social support, and we additionally consider implications for intervention and prevention. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  20. Prospective evaluation of a cognitive vulnerability-stress model for depression: the interaction of schema self-structures and negative life events.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seeds, Pamela M; Dozois, David J A

    2010-12-01

    This study tested the diathesis-stress component of Beck's (1967) cognitive theory of depression. Initially, participants completed measures assessing cognitive organization of the self-schema and depressive symptoms. One year later, participants completed measures assessing cognitive organization of the self-schema, depressive symptoms, and negative life events. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses, controlling for initial depression, indicated that more tightly interconnected negative content was associated with greater elevations in depressive symptoms following the occurrence of life events. More diffusely interconnected positive content for interpersonal self-referent information also interacted with life events to predict depressive symptoms. Cognitive organization dimensions showed moderate to high stability across the follow-up, suggesting that they may be trait-like vulnerability factors. Implications for the cognitive vulnerability-stress model of depression are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  1. The dark side of creativity: biological vulnerability and negative emotions lead to greater artistic creativity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akinola, Modupe; Mendes, Wendy Berry

    2008-12-01

    Historical and empirical data have linked artistic creativity to depression and other affective disorders. This study examined how vulnerability to experiencing negative affect, measured with biological products, and intense negative emotions influenced artistic creativity. The authors assessed participants' baseline levels of an adrenal steroid (dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, or DHEAS), previously linked to depression, as a measure of affective vulnerability. They then manipulated emotional responses by randomly assigning participants to receive social rejection or social approval or to a nonsocial situation. Participants then completed artistic collages, which were later evaluated by artists. Results confirmed a person-by-situation interaction. Social rejection was associated with greater artistic creativity; however, the interaction between affective vulnerability (lower baseline DHEAS) and condition was significant, suggesting that situational triggers of negative affect were especially influential among those lower in DHEAS, which resulted in the most creative products. These data provide evidence of possible biological and social pathways to artistic creativity.

  2. The Dark Side of Creativity: Biological Vulnerability and Negative Emotions Lead to Greater Artistic Creativity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akinola, Modupe; Mendes, Wendy Berry

    2009-01-01

    Historical and empirical data have linked artistic creativity to depression and other affective disorders. This study examined how vulnerability to experiencing negative affect, measured with biological products, and intense negative emotions influenced artistic creativity. The authors assessed participants' baseline levels of an adrenal steroid (dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate, or DHEAS), previously linked to depression, as a measure of affective vulnerability. They then manipulated emotional responses by randomly assigning participants to receive social rejection or social approval or to a nonsocial situation. Participants then completed artistic collages, which were later evaluated by artists. Results confirmed a person-by-situation interaction. Social rejection was associated with greater artistic creativity; however, the interaction between affective vulnerability (lower baseline DHEAS) and condition was significant, suggesting that situational triggers of negative affect were especially influential among those lower in DHEAS, which resulted in the most creative products. These data provide evidence of possible biological and social pathways to artistic creativity. PMID:18832338

  3. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ANTISPERM ANTIBODIES FOR SPERM - CERVICAL-MUCUS INTERACTION

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    KREMER, J; JAGER, S

    An overview is presented of the effects of antisperm antibodies on the sperm - cervical mucus interaction. Antisperm IgA on spermatozoa or in cervical mucus can severely inhibit sperm penetration of cervical mucus and migration through it. Disturbance of the sperm - cervical mucus interaction is the

  4. Collective phenomena in negative ion photodetachment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ivanov, V.K.

    1996-01-01

    The many-electron collective effects in negative ion photodetachment are discussed. The calculations of photodetachment cross sections and photoelectron angular distributions have been performed within the Many-Body Theory Methods. It is shown that the role of many-electron interactions leading to the collective effects like dynamical polarizability, interchannel interaction, core polarization, core relaxation, is very important to describe the photodetachment processes. (author)

  5. MiR-27a rs895819 is involved in increased atrophic gastritis risk, improved gastric cancer prognosis and negative interaction with Helicobacter pylori

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Qian; Chen, Tie-jun; He, Cai-yun; Sun, Li-ping; Liu, Jing-wei; Yuan, Yuan

    2017-01-01

    MiR-27a rs895819 is a loop-stem structure single nucleotide polymorphism affecting mature miR-27a function. In this study, we performed a comprehensive analysis about the association of rs895819 with gastric cancer risk and prognosis, atrophic gastritis risk, as well as the interactions with environmental factors. A total of 939 gastric cancer patients, 1,067 atrophic gastritis patients and 1,166 healthy controls were screened by direct sequencing and MALDI-TOF-MS. The association of rs895819 with clinical pathological parameters and prognostic survival in 357 gastric cancer patients was also been analyzed. The rs895819 variant genotype increased the risk for atrophic gastritis (1.58-fold) and gastric cancer (1.24-fold). While in stratified analysis, the risk effect was demonstrated more significantly in the female, age >60y, Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) negative and non-drinker subgroups. Rs895819 and H. pylori showed an interaction effect for atrophic gastritis risk. In the survival analysis, the rs895819 AG heterozygosis was associated with better survival than the AA wild-type in the TNM stage I–II subgroup. In vitro study by overexpressing miR-27a, cells carrying polymorphic-type G allele expressed lower miR-27a than wild-type A allele. In conclusion, miR-27a rs895819 is implicated as a biomarker for gastric cancer and atrophic gastritis risk, and interacts with H. pylori in gastric carcinogenesis. PMID:28150722

  6. Meta-analysis of the effects of forest fragmentation on interspecific interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magrach, Ainhoa; Laurance, William F; Larrinaga, Asier R; Santamaria, Luis

    2014-10-01

    Forest fragmentation dramatically alters species persistence and distribution and affects many ecological interactions among species. Recent studies suggest that mutualisms, such as pollination and seed dispersal, are more sensitive to the negative effects of forest fragmentation than antagonisms, such as predation or herbivory. We applied meta-analytical techniques to evaluate this hypothesis and quantified the relative contributions of different components of the fragmentation process (decreases in fragment size, edge effects, increased isolation, and habitat degradation) to the overall effect. The effects of fragmentation on mutualisms were primarily driven by habitat degradation, edge effects, and fragment isolation, and, as predicted, they were consistently more negative on mutualisms than on antagonisms. For the most studied interaction type, seed dispersal, only certain components of fragmentation had significant (edge effects) or marginally significant (fragment size) effects. Seed size modulated the effect of fragmentation: species with large seeds showed stronger negative impacts of fragmentation via reduced dispersal rates. Our results reveal that different components of the habitat fragmentation process have varying impacts on key mutualisms. We also conclude that antagonistic interactions have been understudied in fragmented landscapes, most of the research has concentrated on particular types of mutualistic interactions such as seed dispersal, and that available studies of interspecific interactions have a strong geographical bias (arising mostly from studies carried out in Brazil, Chile, and the United States). © 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.

  7. The implicit influence of a negative mood on the subliminal mere exposure effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawakami, Naoaki

    2012-12-01

    Despite numerous studies on the mere exposure effect, it is still not clear why it occurs. The present study examined whether a negative mood would enhance or inhibit the effects. Fifty-two participants (30 men, 22 women; M age = 20.5 yr.) were assigned to one of two mood-induction groups (negative and neutral), and were exposed to a photograph 20 times after the mood induction. Thereafter, a single-category Implicit Association Test was conducted to measure their implicit attitudes toward the photograph. There was a significant interaction, with exposed stimuli evaluated more favorably than unexposed stimuli in the neutral condition, but not in the negative condition. This result suggests that a negative mood inhibited the mere exposure effect, implying that people could use their emotional states as cues to evaluate ambiguous objects that they have been repeatedly exposed to.

  8. Interactions between negative energy balance, metabolic diseases, uterine health and immune response in transition dairy cows.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esposito, Giulia; Irons, Pete C; Webb, Edward C; Chapwanya, Aspinas

    2014-01-30

    The biological cycles of milk production and reproduction determine dairying profitability thus making management decisions dynamic and time-dependent. Diseases also negatively impact on net earnings of a dairy enterprise. Transition cows in particular face the challenge of negative energy balance (NEB) and/or disproportional energy metabolism (fatty liver, ketosis, subacute, acute ruminal acidosis); disturbed mineral utilization (milk fever, sub-clinical hypocalcemia); and perturbed immune function (retained placenta, metritis, mastitis). Consequently NEB and reduced dry matter intake are aggravated. The combined effects of all these challenges are reduced fertility and milk production resulting in diminishing profits. Risk factors such as NEB, inflammation and impairment of the immune response are highly cause-and-effect related. Thus, managing cows during the transition period should be geared toward reducing NEB or feeding specially formulated diets to improve immunity. Given that all cows experience a reduced feed intake and body condition, infection and inflammation of the uterus after calving, there is a need for further research on the immunology of transition dairy cows. Integrative approaches at the molecular, cellular and animal level may unravel the complex interactions between disturbed metabolism and immune function that predispose cows to periparturient diseases. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. To study the significance of social interaction for former right wing extremists wanting to disengage

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Tina Wilchen

    2013-01-01

    in investigating the significance of social interaction for former participants in right wing extremist groups, who were in a disengagement process with the help from the organisation Exit in Stockholm, Sweden. As this field involved dealing with people in transition, it also meant dealing with people with very...

  10. Significance of Cuscutain, a cysteine protease from Cuscuta reflexa, in host-parasite interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fuchsbauer Hans-Lothar

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Plant infestation with parasitic weeds like Cuscuta reflexa induces morphological as well as biochemical changes in the host and the parasite. These modifications could be caused by a change in protein or gene activity. Using a comparative macroarray approach Cuscuta genes specifically upregulated at the host attachment site were identified. Results One of the infestation specific Cuscuta genes encodes a cysteine protease. The protein and its intrinsic inhibitory peptide were heterologously expressed, purified and biochemically characterized. The haustoria specific enzyme was named cuscutain in accordance with similar proteins from other plants, e.g. papaya. The role of cuscutain and its inhibitor during the host parasite interaction was studied by external application of an inhibitor suspension, which induced a significant reduction of successful infection events. Conclusions The study provides new information about molecular events during the parasitic plant - host interaction. Inhibition of cuscutain cysteine proteinase could provide means for antagonizing parasitic plants.

  11. Examining the role of emotion in suicidality: negative urgency as an amplifier of the relationship between components of the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior and lifetime number of suicide attempts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anestis, Michael D; Joiner, Thomas E

    2011-03-01

    Joiner's (2005) interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behavior posits that an individual must exhibit elevations on three variables--perceived burdensomeness, thwarted belongingness, and the acquired capability for suicide--in order to enact lethal self-harm. Thus far, however, no research has examined the role of emotion in this process or whether the interaction of these three variables is more problematic for certain populations than for others. We sought to address these voids by examining the role of negative urgency as an amplifier of the relationship between the components of the theory and lifetime number of suicide attempts. Results indicated that the four-way interaction of negative urgency and the three components of the theory predicted lifetime number of suicide attempts, controlling for depression symptoms and sex. Additionally, the three-way interaction of the theory components significantly predicted lifetime number of suicide attempts in the full sample. Furthermore, for individuals with negative urgency scores at or above the median, the three-way interaction of the theory components significantly predicted lifetime number of suicide attempts whereas, for individuals with negative urgency scores below the median, the interaction was non-significant. These findings indicate that, although elevations on the three components of the theory may be dangerous for anyone, this is particularly true for individuals exhibiting high levels of negative urgency, as they might be more likely to quickly develop suicidal ideation and resort to painful self-harming behaviors while experiencing negative affective states. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Rab39a interacts with phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase and negatively regulates autophagy induced by lipopolysaccharide stimulation in macrophages.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shintaro Seto

    Full Text Available Rab39a has pleiotropic functions in phagosome maturation, inflammatory activation and neuritogenesis. Here, we characterized Rab39a function in membrane trafficking of phagocytosis and autophagy induction in macrophages. Rab39a localized to the periphery of LAMP2-positive vesicles and showed the similar kinetics on the phagosome to that of LAMP1. The depletion of Rab39a did not influence the localization of LAMP2 to the phagosome, but it augments the autophagosome formation and LC3 processing by lipopolysaccharide (LPS stimulation. The augmentation of autophagosome formation in Rab39a-knockdown macrophages was suppressed by Atg5 depletion or an inhibitor for phosphatidylinostol 3-kinase (PI3K. Immunoprecipitation analysis revealed that Rab39a interacts with PI3K and that the amino acid residues from 34(th to 41(st in Rab39a were indispensable for this interaction. These results suggest that Rab39a negatively regulates the LPS-induced autophagy in macrophages.

  13. Speciation and Biofilm Production of Coagulase Negative Staphylococcal Isolates from Clinically Significant Specimens and their Antibiogram

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. S. Vijayasri Badampudi

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Background: Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CONS are increasingly recognized as significant nosocomial pathogens. Their ability of biofilm formation and multiple drug resistance are causing serious human infections. Aim and Objectives: To isolate, identify, speciate clinically significant CONS from various specimens, to study antibiotic resistance pattern and biofilm production. Material and Methods: Specimens were collected aseptically, processed and identified upto the species level by a simple scheme of tests urease, novobiocin resistance, mannose and mannitol fermentation, ornithine decarboxylase. Antibiotic sensitivity was done with special reference to methicillin resistance. Biofilm formation was detected by Congo Red Agar (CRA method and Tube Method (TM. Results: Study groupOf 100 isolates majority were pus (40, followed by urine (28, blood (16, CSF (5, body fluids (4 and catheter tips and implants (7. The most common species isolated was S. epidermidis (40% followed by S. haemolyticus (26%, S. saprophyticus (15%, S. schleiferi (13%, S. simulans (2%, S. cohnii (2% and S. warneri and S. capitis each 1%. Resistance to penicillin was 91% followed by ampicillin (79%, cotrimoxazole (67%. Methicillin resistance was 72%. Biofilm producers were 69% by CRAmethod and 33% by TM with majority species S. epidermidis (82.5%- CRA and 55%-TM. Biofilm production was significantly associated with MRCONS (p value 0.0036. Control group-Of 30 isolates were S. epidermidis 66.6% followed by S. haemolyticus (16.66%. Biofilm producers were 53.33% by CRA method and 26.65% by TM with majority species S. epidermidis (65%-CRA and 30%-TM.Methicillin resistance was 26.6%. Conclusion: Clinical significance of CONS is increasing day by day, so there is a need for accurate identification to species level and their antibiogram to avoid multidrug resistance. Biofilm producing CONS species pose a risk and CRA method for screening biofilm can be used in all conventional

  14. Outcomes in Young Women With Breast Cancer of Triple-Negative Phenotype: The Prognostic Significance of CK19 Expression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Parikh, Rahul R.; Yang Qifeng; Higgins, Susan A.; Haffty, Bruce G.

    2008-01-01

    Purpose: Basal-like carcinoma of the breast is associated with genetic instability and aggressive behavior. In this study, we evaluated the luminal cytokeratin marker CK-19 in young women with breast cancer treated with conservative surgery and radiation therapy (CS+RT). Methods: Primary tumor specimens from a cohort of 158 young premenopausal women (range, 25-49 years) treated with CS+RT with a median follow-up of 6.25 years were constructed into a tissue microarray. The array was stained for ER, PR, HER2, CK19, and p53. The molecular profiles were correlated with clinical-pathologic factors, overall, local, and distant relapse-free survival. The association between CK19, other co-variables, and outcome was assessed in a multivariate model. Results: Positive expression of ER, PR, HER-2/neu, CK19, and p53 were 33.1%, 34.5%, 10.0%, 79.5%, and 20.9%, respectively. With 20 local relapses and 38 distant metastases, the 10-year overall, breast relapse-free, and distant relapse-free survival were 79.65%, 87.29%, and 67.35%, respectively. Tumor stage and nodal status were associated with distant relapse-free and overall survival. In multivariate analysis, CK19 negativity was a predictor poor local (RR, 3.54; 95% CI, 1.87-7.65; p < 0.01) distant (RR, 1.44; 95% CI, 0.86-2.70; p = 0.17), and overall survival (RR, 1.89; 95% CI, 1.04-3.55; p = 0.03). Conclusions: Lack of CK19 expression identifies a subset of patients with a significantly higher risk of local relapse. Distant relapse and overall survival rates also correlated with CK19 negativity. Further evaluation of the prognostic significance of basal and luminal cytokeratins in young women with breast cancer is warranted

  15. Significant changes in sexual behavior after a diagnosis of human papillomavirus-positive and human papillomavirus-negative oral cancer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taberna, Miren; Inglehart, Ronald C; Pickard, Robert K L; Fakhry, Carole; Agrawal, Amit; Katz, Mira L; Gillison, Maura L

    2017-04-01

    Sexual behavior and oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infection are risk factors for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The effects of OSCC diagnosis and treatment on subsequent relationship stress and sexual behavior are unknown. Incident cases of HPV-positive or HPV-negative OSCC in patients who had a partnered relationship and partners of patients with oropharyngeal cancer were eligible for a study in which surveys were administered at diagnosis and at the 6-month follow-up time point to assess relationship distress, HPV transmission and concerns about health consequences, and sexual behavior. The frequency distributions of responses, stratified by tumor HPV status, were compared at baseline and follow-up. In total, 262 patients with OSCC and 81 partners were enrolled. Among the patients, 142 (54.2%) had HPV-positive OSCC, and 120 (45.8%) had HPV-negative OSCC. Relationship distress was infrequently reported, and 69% of patients felt that their relationship had strengthened since the cancer diagnosis. Both HPV-positive patients (25%) and their partners (14%) reported feelings of guilt or responsibility for the diagnosis of an HPV-caused cancer. Concern over sexual, but not nonsexual, HPV transmission to partners was reported by 50%. Significant declines in the frequency of vaginal and oral sexual behaviors were reported at follow-up, regardless of tumor HPV status. From baseline to 6 months, significant increases in abstinence from vaginal sex (from 10% to 34%; P oral sex (from 25% to 80%; P oral sex, regardless of tumor HPV status. Sexual behavior is an important quality-of-life outcome to assess within clinical trials. [See related editorial on pages 000-000, this issue.] Cancer 2017. © 2017 American Cancer Society. Cancer 2017;123:1156-1165. © 2016 American Cancer Society. © 2017 American Cancer Society.

  16. Negative cognitive errors and positive illusions for negative divorce events: predictors of children's psychological adjustment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mazur, E; Wolchik, S A; Sandler, I N

    1992-12-01

    This study examined the relations among negative cognitive errors regarding hypothetical negative divorce events, positive illusions about those same events, actual divorce events, and psychological adjustment in 38 8- to 12-year-old children whose parents had divorced within the previous 2 years. Children's scores on a scale of negative cognitive errors (catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, and personalizing) correlated significantly with self-reported symptoms of anxiety and self-esteem, and with maternal reports of behavior problems. Children's scores on a scale measuring positive illusions (high self-regard, illusion of personal control, and optimism for the future) correlated significantly with less self-reported aggression. Both appraisal types accounted for variance in some measures of symptomatology beyond that explained by actual events. There was no significant association between children's negative cognitive errors and positive illusions. The implications of these results for theories of negative cognitive errors and of positive illusions, as well as for future research, are discussed.

  17. The Interaction between Negative Emotionality and Effortful Control in Early

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moran, Lyndsey R.; Lengua, Liliana J.; Zalewski, Maureen

    2013-01-01

    Interactions between reactive and regulatory dimensions of temperament may be particularly relevant to children's adjustment but are examined infrequently. This study investigated these interactions by examining effortful control as a moderator of the relations of fear and frustration reactivity to children's social competence, internalizing, and…

  18. Combinatorial process optimization for negative photo-imageable spin-on dielectrics and investigation of post-apply bake and post-exposure bake interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jihoon; Zhang, Ruzhi M.; Wolfer, Elizabeth; Patel, Bharatkumar K.; Toukhy, Medhat; Bogusz, Zachary; Nagahara, Tatsuro

    2012-03-01

    Patternable dielectric materials were developed and introduced to reduce semiconductor manufacturing complexity and cost of ownership (CoO). However, the bestowed dual functionalities of photo-imageable spin-on dielectrics (PSOD) put great challenges on the material design and development. In this work, we investigated the combinatorial process optimization for the negative-tone PSOD lithography by employing the Temperature Gradient Plate (TGP) technique which significantly reduced the numbers of wafers processed and minimized the developmental time. We demonstrated that this TGP combinatorial is very efficient at evaluating the effects and interactions of several independent variables such as post-apply bake (PAB) and post-exposure bake (PEB). Unlike most of the conventional photoresists, PAB turned out to have a great effect on the PSOD pattern profiles. Based on our extensive investigation, we observed great correlation between PAB and PEB processes. In this paper, we will discuss the variation of pattern profiles as a matrix of PAB and PEB and propose two possible cross-linking mechanisms for the PSOD materials to explain the unusual experimental results.

  19. Influence of negative emotion on the framing effect: evidence from event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Qingguo; Pei, Guanxiong; Wang, Kai

    2015-04-15

    The framing effect is the phenomenon in which different descriptions of an identical problem can result in different choices. The influence of negative emotions on the framing effect and its neurocognitive basis are important issues, especially in the domain of saving lives, which is essential and highly risky. In each trial of our experiment, the emotion stimulus is presented to the participants, followed by the decision-making stimulus, which comprises certain and risky options with the same expected value. Each pair of options is positively or negatively framed. The behavioral results indicate a significant interactive effect between negative emotion and frame; thus, the risk preference under the positive frame can be enhanced by negative emotions, whereas this finding is not true under the negative frame. The event-related potential analysis indicates that choosing certain options under the positive frame with negative emotion priming generates smaller P2 and P3 amplitudes and a larger N2 amplitude than with neutral emotion priming. The event-related potential findings indicate that individuals can detect risk faster and experience more conflict and increased decision difficulty if they choose certain options under the positive frame with negative priming compared with neutral priming.

  20. Rasagiline in the Treatment of the Persistent Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buchanan, Robert W; Weiner, Elaine; Kelly, Deanna L; Gold, James M; Keller, William R; Waltz, James A; McMahon, Robert P; Gorelick, David A

    2015-07-01

    The current study examined the efficacy and safety of rasagiline, a selective MAO-B inhibitor, for the treatment of persistent negative symptoms. Sixty people with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, who met a priori criteria for persistent negative symptoms, were randomized to receive rasagiline, 1mg/d (n = 31) or placebo (n = 29) in a 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. The Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) total score was used to assess change in negative symptoms. The Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), N-Back test, a probabilistic learning task, and a delayed discounting task were used to assess cognition. In a mixed model analysis of covariance (MM-ANCOVA), with time as a continuous variable, there was a significant treatment × time effect for SANS total score (F = 5.61(df = 1,40.3), P = .023). The treatment × time interaction effect was also significant for the SANS avolition subscale score (F(1,40.2) = 10.41, P = .002). In a post hoc MM-ANCOVA analyses, with time as a categorical variable, group differences were significant at week 12 for SANS total score (t(37.3) = 2.15; P = .04; d = -0.41) and SANS avolition subscale score (t(49.0) = 3.06; P = .004; d = -0.46). There was a significant difference in number of participants with a ≥20% reduction in SANS avolition score (χ(2)(1) = 10.94; P = .0009), but not in SANS total score (χ(2)(1) = 1.11; P = .29). There were no significant group differences on the RBANS, N-Back, probabilistic learning, or delayed discounting tasks. Study results support future studies of the utility of rasagiline for the treatment of negative symptoms, including avolition (clinicaltrials.gov trial number: NCT00492336). © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center. All rights reserved. For permissions, please

  1. Negative magnetization induced by Mn doping in YCrO{sub 3}

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, C.L. [School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074 (China); Huang, S. [Institute of Materials Physics, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018 (China); Li, X.X.; Zhu, C.M.; Zerihun, G.; Yin, C.Y. [School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074 (China); Lu, C.L., E-mail: cllu@hust.edu.cn [School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074 (China); Yuan, S.L., E-mail: yuansl@hust.edu.cn [School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074 (China)

    2017-06-15

    Highlights: • Negative magnetization is firstly observed in Mn doped YCrO{sub 3} ceramics. • The phenomenon is originated from the antiferromagnetic coupling of three different interactions. • The increase of magnetization for samples is attributed to the ferromagnetic exchange interaction between Cr{sup 3+} and Mn{sup 3+}. - Abstract: A series of ceramic samples YCr{sub 1−x}Mn{sub x}O{sub 3} (0.15 ⩽ x ⩽ 0.4) with orthorhombic phase were prepared by a modified Pechini method, the structure and magnetic properties were studied in details. Our experiments revealed remarkable negative magnetization induced by the competition among multiple exchange interactions. The negative magnetization is result from the antiferromagnetic coupling of weak ferromagnetic moments of Mn{sup 3+}–Mn{sup 3+} and Cr{sup 3+}–Cr{sup 3+} with that of Cr{sup 3+}–Mn{sup 3+} interactions. And the strength of the magnetization is closely related to the temperature, magnetic field and the value of x. Below the compensation temperature, the absolute of negative magnetization firstly increases and then decreases with the increase of x, which is correlated with the weakening of Cr{sup 3+}–Cr{sup 3+} interaction and the enhancement of Mn{sup 3+}–Mn{sup 3+} interaction. The increase of magnetization obtained from the hysteresis loops is attributed to the ferromagnetic exchange interaction between Cr{sup 3+} and Mn{sup 3+}. Moreover, the magnetic switching by only changing the magnetic field strength and both normal and inverse magnetocaloric effects were demonstrated.

  2. Interactions between Social/ behavioral factors and ADRB2 genotypes may be associated with health at advanced ages in China

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zeng, Y.; Cheng, L. G.; Zhao, L.

    2013-01-01

    ages. This study intends to fill in this research gap. Method: We conducted an exploratory analysis, using longitudinal survey phenotype/genotype data from 877 oldest-old aged 90+. To estimate association of GxE interactions with health outcome, adjusted for the potential correlation between genotypes...... and social/behavioral factors and various other potentially confounding factors, we develop and test an innovative three-step procedure which combines logistic regression and structural equation methods. Results: Interaction between regular exercise and carrying rs1042718 minor allele is significantly...... analysis found that, adjusted for the confounding effects of correlation of the ADRB2 SNPs with negative emotion, interaction between negative emotion and carrying rs1042718 or rs1042719 minor allele is significantly and negatively associated with cognitive function. The positive association of regular...

  3. The interactive role of distress tolerance and eating expectancies in bulimic symptoms among substance abusers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lavender, Jason M; Happel, Kate; Anestis, Michael D; Tull, Matthew T; Gratz, Kim L

    2015-01-01

    Difficulties tolerating distress and the expectancy that eating will relieve negative affect have been linked with bulimic symptoms, which commonly co-occur with other forms of psychopathology characterized by emotion dysregulation (e.g., substance abuse). Indeed, problems with emotional functioning may be of particular relevance to bulimic symptoms in at-risk populations with heightened emotion dysregulation (such as substance use disorder patients). This study examined the interactive role of two emotion-related constructs (distress tolerance and the expectancy that eating relieves negative affect) in relation to bulimic symptoms among patients (N=93) recruited from a residential substance abuse treatment facility. Participants completed the Bulimia Test-Revised, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Distress Tolerance Scale, and the Eating Expectancy Inventory. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine the main effects and interaction of distress tolerance and negative affect eating expectancies in relation to bulimic symptoms, controlling for participant gender and overall negative affect. Significant main effects were found for both distress tolerance and negative affect eating expectancies, and these two constructs were found to significantly interact in the prediction of bulimic symptoms. Interventions that address these constructs may be useful in treating those with bulimic symptoms, as well as those with co-occurring bulimic symptoms and substance use disorders. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Significance of likes: Analysing passive interactions on Facebook during campaigning

    OpenAIRE

    Khairuddin, Mohammad Adib; Rao, Asha

    2017-01-01

    With more and more political candidates using social media for campaigning, researchers are looking at measuring the effectiveness of this medium. Most research, however, concentrates on the bare count of likes (or twitter mentions) in an attempt to correlate social media presence and winning. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Interaction Strength Plot (IntS) to measure the passive interactions between a candidate's posts on Facebook and the users (liking the posts). Using this method...

  5. Inflaton decay and heavy particle production with negative coupling

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Greene, B.R.; Prokopec, T.; Roos, T.G.

    1997-01-01

    We study the decay of the inflaton in a general Z 2 xZ 2 symmetric two scalar theory. Since the dynamics of the system is dominated by states with large occupation numbers which admit a semiclassical description, the decay can be studied by solving the classical equations of motion on the lattice. Of particular interest is the case when the cross coupling between the inflaton and the second scalar field is negative, which is naturally allowed in many realistic models. While the inflaton decays via parametric resonance in the positive coupling case we find that for negative coupling there is a new mechanism of particle production which we call negative coupling instability. Because of this new mechanism the variances of the fields grow significantly larger before the production is shut off by the back reaction of the created particles, which could have important consequences for symmetry restoration by nonthermal phase transitions. We also find that heavy particles are produced much more efficiently with negative coupling, which is of prime importance for GUT baryogenesis. Using a simple toy model for baryogenesis and the results of our lattice simulations we show that for natural values of the cross coupling enough 10 14 GeV bosons are created to produce a baryon to entropy ratio consistent with observation. This is to be contrasted with the situation for positive coupling, where the value of the cross coupling required to produce such massive particles is technically unnatural. In addition to our numerical results we obtain analytical estimates for the maximum variances of the fields in an expanding universe for all cases of interest: massive and massless inflaton, positive and negative cross coupling, with and without significant self-interactions for the second field. copyright 1997 The American Physical Society

  6. Negative Academic Emotion and Psychological Well-being in Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrant Adolescents: Examining the Moderating Role of Cognitive Reappraisal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Daoyang; Li, Shuting; Hu, Mingming; Dong, Dan; Tao, Sha

    2017-01-01

    The study aimed to explore the relationship among negative academic emotions (e.g., anxiety, shame, anger, boredom, hopelessness, disappointment, and hatred), psychological well-being (including life vitality, health concern, altruism commitment, self-value, friendly relationship, and personal development), and cognitive reappraisal in rural-to-urban migrant adolescents in China. Specifically, it was hypothesized that the relationship between psychological well-being and negative academic emotions is moderated by cognitive reappraisal. A total of 311 migrant adolescents aged 14-20 years were selected, including 132 boys and 179 girls. Results of a regression analysis showed that cognitive reappraisal (positive) and negative academic emotions were significant predictors of psychological well-being. The interaction effect between cognitive reappraisal and negative academic emotion was also a significant predictor of psychological well-being. In the simple slope analysis the group with a below average cognitive reappraisal score the negative academic emotions were associated with lower psychological well-being, whereas in the group with above average cognitive reappraisal the effect of negative academic emotions on psychological well-being was not significant. However, for those with a cognitive reappraisal score of 1 standard deviation above the average, the effect of negative academic emotions on psychological well-being was not significant. These results suggest that cognitive reappraisal was a significant moderator in the relationship between negative academic emotion and psychological well-being.

  7. Negative Academic Emotion and Psychological Well-being in Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrant Adolescents: Examining the Moderating Role of Cognitive Reappraisal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daoyang Wang

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The study aimed to explore the relationship among negative academic emotions (e.g., anxiety, shame, anger, boredom, hopelessness, disappointment, and hatred, psychological well-being (including life vitality, health concern, altruism commitment, self-value, friendly relationship, and personal development, and cognitive reappraisal in rural-to-urban migrant adolescents in China. Specifically, it was hypothesized that the relationship between psychological well-being and negative academic emotions is moderated by cognitive reappraisal. A total of 311 migrant adolescents aged 14–20 years were selected, including 132 boys and 179 girls. Results of a regression analysis showed that cognitive reappraisal (positive and negative academic emotions were significant predictors of psychological well-being. The interaction effect between cognitive reappraisal and negative academic emotion was also a significant predictor of psychological well-being. In the simple slope analysis the group with a below average cognitive reappraisal score the negative academic emotions were associated with lower psychological well-being, whereas in the group with above average cognitive reappraisal the effect of negative academic emotions on psychological well-being was not significant. However, for those with a cognitive reappraisal score of 1 standard deviation above the average, the effect of negative academic emotions on psychological well-being was not significant. These results suggest that cognitive reappraisal was a significant moderator in the relationship between negative academic emotion and psychological well-being.

  8. Work-home interaction of employees in the mining industry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karina Mostert

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available This study aimed to test the construct validity, factorial invariance and reliability of the Survey Work-Home Interaction-NijmeGen (SWING and to explore whether and how the work-home interaction of various socio-demographic groups differ. Random samples (n = 320 were taken of employees in the mining industry. The confirmatory factor analysis results supported the proposed four-factor structure measuring negative/positive work-home interference and negative/positive home-work interference. The multi-group invariance analyses’ results for two language and ethnic groups also supported the factorial invariance of the SWING. All the scales were found to be reliable. Statistically significant differences in work-home interaction were found, based on age, ethnicity, gender, education, marital status, parental status, language, flexibility at work and individuals who had a partner with a paid job.

  9. Addendum to the article: Misuse of null hypothesis significance testing: Would estimation of positive and negative predictive values improve certainty of chemical risk assessment?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bundschuh, Mirco; Newman, Michael C; Zubrod, Jochen P; Seitz, Frank; Rosenfeldt, Ricki R; Schulz, Ralf

    2015-03-01

    We argued recently that the positive predictive value (PPV) and the negative predictive value (NPV) are valuable metrics to include during null hypothesis significance testing: They inform the researcher about the probability of statistically significant and non-significant test outcomes actually being true. Although commonly misunderstood, a reported p value estimates only the probability of obtaining the results or more extreme results if the null hypothesis of no effect was true. Calculations of the more informative PPV and NPV require a priori estimate of the probability (R). The present document discusses challenges of estimating R.

  10. Prediction of Narcissism, Perception of Social Interactions and Marital Conflicts Based on the Use of Social Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    رویا رضاپور

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The prevalence of social networks and the excessive use of them by couples have had a significant impact on various aspects of their lives. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of social networks in the formation of narcissism, perception of social interaction and marital conflicts in couples who use these social networks. The study design was correlational and the statistical population included couples of Zanjan city who use social networks. 120 couples which widely used social networks were selected by random sampling. The questionnaires of Internet Addiction (Young, 1998, Narcissistic Personality (Ames and et al, 2006, Perception of Social Interaction (Glass, 1994 and Marital Conflict (Sanaei, 2000 were used. Pearson correlation coefficient and Regression were used for data analysis. This study showed that there is a significant negative relationship between the use of social networks with perception of social interaction, and a significant positive relationship between the use of social networks with narcissism and marital conflicts (P<0/01. Also narcissism has a significant positive relationship with marital conflicts, and a significant negative relationship with perception of social interaction (P<0/01. Social networks have a negative effect on couple's relationship and their feelings towards each other, as well as strengthening narcissism, which can cause communication problems, decreased positive feelings of couples towards each other and marital conflicts.

  11. Negative compressibility observed in graphene containing resonant impurities

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, X. L.; Wang, L.; Li, W.; Wang, Y.; He, Y. H.; Wu, Z. F.; Han, Y.; Zhang, M. W.; Xiong, W.; Wang, N.

    2013-01-01

    We observed negative compressibility in monolayer graphene containing resonant impurities under different magnetic fields. Hydrogenous impurities were introduced into graphene by electron beam (e-beam) irradiation. Resonant states located in the energy region of ±0.04 eV around the charge neutrality point were probed in e-beam-irradiated graphene capacitors. Theoretical results based on tight-binding and Lifshitz models agreed well with experimental observations of graphene containing a low concentration of resonant impurities. The interaction between resonant states and Landau levels was detected by varying the applied magnetic field. The interaction mechanisms and enhancement of the negative compressibility in disordered graphene are discussed.

  12. Sex moderates the effects of positive and negative affect on clinical pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Speed, Traci J; Richards, Jessica M; Finan, Patrick H; Smith, Michael T

    2017-07-01

    Sex differences in clinical pain severity and response to experimental pain are commonly reported, with women generally showing greater vulnerability. Affect, including state (a single rating) and stable (average daily ratings over two weeks) positive affect and negative affect has also been found to impact pain sensitivity and severity, and research suggests that affect may modulate pain differentially as a function of sex. The current study aimed to examine sex as a moderator of the relationships between affect and pain-related outcomes among participants with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). One hundred and seventy-nine participants (59 men) with KOA completed electronic diaries assessing clinical pain, positive affect, and negative affect. A subset of participants (n=120) underwent quantitative sensory testing, from which a single index of central sensitization to pain was derived. We used multiple regression models to test for the interactive effects of sex and affect (positive versus negative and stable versus state) on pain-related outcomes. We used mixed effects models to test for the moderating effects of sex on the relationships between state affect and pain over time. Sex differences in affect and pain were identified, with men reporting significantly higher stable positive affect and lower central sensitization to pain indexed by quantitative sensory testing, as well as marginally lower KOA-specific clinical pain compared to women. Moreover, there was an interaction between stable positive affect and sex on KOA-specific clinical pain and average daily non-specific pain ratings. Post hoc analyses revealed that men showed trends towards an inverse relationship between stable positive affect and pain outcomes, while women showed no relationship between positive affect and pain. There was also a significant interaction between sex and stable negative affect and sex on KOA-specific pain such that men showed a significantly stronger positive relationship between

  13. Some significant but buried studies of embodiment and materiality in social interaction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nevile, Maurice Richard

    When preparing a recent review on rising interest in ‘embodiment’ in EM CA research on social interaction (Nevile 2015) (e.g. gesture, body, mobility; cf. ‘multimodality’), considering over 500 studies, I was delighted to be reminded of, or often ‘discover’, some less-well-known-and-cited studies...... some to highlight from the prominent journal Research on Language and Social Interaction. The paper argues that active recognition of the contribution of the body-in-interaction might be relatively recent, but scholarly awareness of it is not (in EM CA and beyond). My aim is to resurrect some early...... discussion of doing CA and EM as a research community. Goodwin, C. (2000) Action and embodiment within situated human interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 32, 1489–1522. Nevile, M. (2015) The embodied turn in research on language and social interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction. 48,2: 121...

  14. Eating disorder-specific risk factors moderate the relationship between negative urgency and binge eating: A behavioral genetic investigation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Racine, Sarah E; VanHuysse, Jessica L; Keel, Pamela K; Burt, S Alexandra; Neale, Michael C; Boker, Steven; Klump, Kelly L

    2017-07-01

    Theoretical models of binge eating and eating disorders include both transdiagnostic and eating disorder-specific risk factors. Negative urgency (i.e., the tendency to act impulsively when distressed) is a critical transdiagnostic risk factor for binge eating, but limited research has examined interactions between negative urgency and disorder-specific variables. Investigating these interactions can help identify the circumstances under which negative urgency is most strongly associated with binge eating. We examined whether prominent risk factors (i.e., appearance pressures, thin-ideal internalization, body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint) specified in well-established etiologic models of eating disorders moderate negative urgency-binge eating associations. Further, we investigated whether phenotypic moderation effects were due to genetic and/or environmental associations between negative urgency and binge eating. Participants were 988 female twins aged 11-25 years from the Michigan State University Twin Registry. Appearance pressures, thin-ideal internalization, and body dissatisfaction, but not dietary restraint, significantly moderated negative urgency-binge eating associations, with high levels of these risk factors and high negative urgency associated with the greatest binge eating. Twin moderation models revealed that genetic, but not environmental, sharing between negative urgency and binge eating was enhanced at higher levels of these eating disorder-specific variables. Future longitudinal research should investigate whether eating disorder risk factors shape genetic influences on negative urgency into manifesting as binge eating. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  15. Characteristics of social anxiety from virtual interpersonal interactions in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Il Ho; Kim, Jae-Jin; Ku, Jeonghun; Jang, Hee Jeong; Park, Sung-Hyouk; Kim, Chan-Hyung; Kim, In Young; Kim, Sun I

    2009-01-01

    Dysfunctional emotional processing affects social functioning in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationship between emotional perception and response in social interaction has not been elucidated. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 27 normal controls performed a virtual reality social encounter task in which they introduced themselves to avatars expressing happy, neutral, or angry emotions while verbal response duration and onset time were measured and perception of emotional valence and arousal, and state anxiety were rated afterwards. Self-reported trait-affective scale scores and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) ratings were also obtained. Patient group significantly underestimated the valence and arousal of angry emotions expressed by an avatar. While valence and arousal ratings of happy avatars were comparable between groups, patient group reported significantly higher state anxiety in response to happy avatars. State anxiety ratings significantly decreased from encounters with neutral to happy avatars in normal controls while no significant decrease was observed in the patient group. The Social Anhedonia Scale and PANSS negative symptom subscale scores (blunted affect, emotional withdrawal, and passive/ apathetic social withdrawal items) were significantly correlated with state anxiety ratings of the encounters with happy avatars. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have interference with the experience of pleasure in social interactions which may be associated with negative symptoms.

  16. Positive expectations encourage generalization from a positive intergroup interaction to outgroup attitudes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deegan, Matthew P; Hehman, Eric; Gaertner, Samuel L; Dovidio, John F

    2015-01-01

    The current research reveals that while positive expectations about an anticipated intergroup interaction encourage generalization of positive contact to outgroup attitudes, negative expectations restrict the effects of contact on outgroup attitudes. In Study 1, when Blacks and Whites interacted with positive expectations, interaction quality predicted outgroup attitudes to a greater degree than when groups interacted with negative expectations. When expectations (Studies 2 and 3) and the actual interaction quality (Study 4) were manipulated orthogonally, negative expectations about the interaction predicted negative outgroup attitudes, regardless of actual interaction quality. By contrast, participants holding positive expectations who experienced a positive interaction expressed positive outgroup attitudes, whereas when they experienced a negative interaction, they expressed outgroup attitudes as negative as those with negative expectations. Across all four studies, positive expectations encouraged developing outgroup attitudes consistent with interaction quality. © 2014 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

  17. The structures of lipopolysaccharides from plant-associated gram-negative bacteria

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Molinaro, Antonio; Newman, Mari-Anne; Lanzetta, Rosa

    2009-01-01

    Gram-negative bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) have multiple roles in plant-microbe interactions. LPSs contribute to the low permeabilities of bacterial outer membranes, which act as barriers to protect bacteria from plant-derived antimicrobial substances. Conversely, perception of LPSs...... is an important prerequisite for any further understanding of the biological processes in plant-microbe interactions. Moreover, the LPSs from Gram-negative bacteria - especially those originating from plant-associated bacteria - are a great source of novel monosaccharides with unusual and occasionally astounding...

  18. Worry amplifies theory-of-mind reasoning for negatively valenced social stimuli in generalized anxiety disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zainal, Nur Hani; Newman, Michelle G

    2018-02-01

    Theory-of-mind (ToM) is the ability to accurately infer others' thoughts and feelings. In generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), cognitive and emotion regulation theories allude to the plausibility that ToM is conditional on the degree of individuals' state worry, a hallmark symptom. GAD and state worry may interact to predict ToM constructs. However, no experiments have directly tested such interactional hypotheses, and used ToM as a framework to advance understanding of social cognition in GAD. This study therefore aimed to address this gap. 171 participants (69 GAD, 102 Controls) were randomly assigned to either a Worry or Relaxation induction and completed well-validated ToM decoding (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test) and reasoning (Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition) tasks. GAD status significantly interacted with state worry to predict accuracy of overall reasoning, cognitive-reasoning, positive-reasoning, and negative-reasoning ToM. Worry, as opposed to relaxation, led sufferers of GAD to display more accurate overall reasoning and cognitive-reasoning ToM than controls, especially for negative signals. Participants with GAD who worried, but not relaxed, were also significantly better than the norm at interpreting negative signals. These findings remained after controlling for gender, executive function, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms. For other ToM abilities, mean scores of persons with and without GAD who either worried or relaxed were normative. The ToM reasoning measure lacked self-reference, and these preliminary findings warrant replication. Theoretical implications, such as the state worry-contingent nature of ToM in GAD, and clinical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  19. Impact of age on the false negative rate of human papillomavirus DNA test in patients with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Won, Kyu-Hee; Lee, Jae Yeon; Cho, Hye-Yon; Suh, Dong Hoon; No, Jae Hong; Kim, Yong-Beom

    2015-03-01

    Human papillomavirus (HPV) test was incorporated into the triage of lesser abnormal cervical cytologies: atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) or low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL). This study aimed to evaluate the impact of age on the efficacy of HPV testing in patients with lesser abnormal cervical cytologies. A total of 439 patients with ASCUS or LSIL were included. The association between age groups and the diagnostic performances of HPV test for high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2+) was evaluated. Median age was 44 years (range, 17 to 75 years). ASCUS was more frequently observed in older patients while LSIL was more common in younger patients (P=0.002). CIN2+ was found in 11.3% (32/284) of the ASCUS patients and 12.9% (20/155) of patients with LSIL. Older patients with ASCUS showed lower HPV infection rates (P=0.025), but not LSIL (P=0.114). However, the prevalence of CIN2+ was similar between the age groups with ASCUS or LSIL. In patients with ASCUS, the false negative rate of HPV test for CIN2+ was 6.2%. The false negative rate of the HPV test became higher with increasing of the age after the age of 50 (P=0.034). Our findings suggest that false negative rate of the HPV test for CIN2+ in ASCUS patients older than 50 years might become higher with increasing of the age. Negative HPV results in patients of the age >50 years with ASCUS should be carefully interpreted.

  20. What happens at work stays at work? Workplace supervisory social interactions and blood pressure outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Jennifer H K; Kelloway, E Kevin

    2016-04-01

    We investigated the relationship between workplace supervisory social interactions and blood pressure outcomes using hourly diary entries and ambulatory blood pressure data from an experience sampling study of 55 long-term care employees. After accounting for relevant cardiovascular controls, significant effects of supervisory interactions on cardiovascular reactivity and recovery were found. Multilevel analyses revealed that negatively perceived supervisory interactions predicted higher systolic blood pressure at work (B = -1.59, p pressure recovery after work (B = -14.52, p < .05, N = 33). Specifically, negatively perceived supervisory interactions at work predicted poorer cardiovascular recovery after work. Suggestions for improving practices in organizations and in experience sampling research are discussed. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  1. Multifractal structure of multiplicity distributions and negative binomials

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Malik, S.; Delhi, Univ.

    1997-01-01

    The paper presents experimental results of the multifractal structure analysis in proton-emulsion interactions at 800 GeV. The multiplicity moments have a power law dependence on the mean multiplicity in varying bin sizes of pseudorapidity. The values of generalised dimensions are calculated from the slope value. The multifractal characteristics are also examined in the light of negative binomials. The observed multiplicity moments and those derived from the negative-binomial fits agree well with each other. Also the values of D q , both observed and derived from the negative-binomial fits not only decrease with q typifying multifractality but also agree well each other showing consistency with the negative-binomial form

  2. Relationship Quality and Alcohol-Related Social Reinforcement during Couples Interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fairbairn, Catharine E; Testa, Maria

    2016-01-01

    Individuals who are unhappy in their intimate partnerships are at risk for developing alcohol problems. But little is known about the mechanisms underlying this link. One possibility is that couples with poor relationship quality gain more reinforcement from alcohol in certain contexts-a possibility that has never previously been empirically examined. In the current study, 304 individuals (152 couples) were assigned to receive alcohol (target BAC .08%) or a non-alcoholic beverage. They then engaged in a conflict-resolution interaction with their partners. Videotaped interactions were coded by trained observers. Results revealed a significant interaction between alcohol and relationship quality across multiple measures. Alcohol decreased negative behaviors, decreased negative reciprocity, and enhanced self-reported experience to a greater extent during interactions involving individuals reporting low relationship quality and had comparatively little effect among those reporting high relationship quality. Findings point to a potential mechanism underlying problem drinking among couples with poor relationship quality.

  3. The significance of GW-SW interactions for biogeochemical processes in sandy streambeds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arnon, Shai; De Falco, Natalie; Fox, Aryeh; Laube, Gerrit; Schmidt, Christian; Fleckenstein, Jan; Boano, Fulvio

    2015-04-01

    Stream-groundwater interactions have a major impact on hyporheic exchange fluxes in sandy streambeds. However, the physical complexity of natural streams has limited our ability to study these types of interactions systematically, and to evaluate their importance to biogeochemical processes and nutrient cycling. In this work we were able to quantify the effect of losing and gaining fluxes on hyporheic exchange and nutrient cycling in homogeneous and heterogeneous streambeds by combining experiments in laboratory flumes and modeling. Tracer experiments for measuring hyporheic exchange were done using dyes and NaCl under various combinations of overlying water velocity and losing or gaining fluxes. Nutrient cycling experiments were conducted after growing a benthic biofilm by spiking with Sodium Benzoate (as a source of labile dissolved organic carbon, DOC) and measuring DOC and oxygen dynamics. The combination of experimental observations and modeling revealed that interfacial transport increases with the streambed hydraulic conductivity and proportional to the square of the overlying water velocity. Hyporheic exchange fluxes under losing and gaining flow conditions were similar, and became smaller when the losing or gaining flux increases. Increasing in streambed hydraulic conductivity led to higher hyporheic fluxes and reduction in the effects of losing and gaining flow conditions to constrain exchange. Despite the evident effect of flow conditions on hyporheic exchange, labile DOC uptake was positively linked to increasing overlying water velocity but was not affected by losing and gaining fluxes. This is because microbial aerobic activity was taking place at the upper few millimeters of the streambed as shown by local oxygen consumption rates, which was measured using microelectrodes. Based on modeling work, it is expected that GW-SW interaction will be more significant for less labile DOC and anaerobic processes. Our results enable us to study systematically

  4. Negative adsorption due to electrostatic exclusion of micelles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Somasundaran, P; Ananthapadmanabhan, K P; Deo, Puspendu

    2005-10-15

    Interactions of surfactants with solid substrates are important in the controlling of processes such as flotation, coating, flocculation and sedimentation. These interactions usually lead to adsorption on solids, but can also result in an exclusion of the reagents with dire consequences. In this work electrostatic exclusion of negatively charged dodecylbenzene sulfonate micelles from quartz/water, Bio-Sil/water and alumina/water interfaces has been investigated as a function of pH and ionic strength. Measurable negative adsorption of these surfactants from similarly charged solid/liquid interface was observed in the micellar region. In the case of porous samples with large surface area, comparison of pore size with the micelle size is necessary to avoid any erroneous conclusions regarding the role of electrostatic exclusion in a given system. A theoretical model for the electrostatic exclusion of micelles is developed and used to calculate the adsorption of negatively charged dodecylbenzene sulfonate on negatively charged quartz (pH 7), silica (Bio-Sil A, pH 3) and alumina (pH 11) in the micellar concentration region. The micellar exclusion values calculated using the model are in excellent agreement with the experimental results.

  5. Negative affect, negative urgency, thought suppression, and bulimic symptoms: a moderated mediation analysis in a sample at-risk for bulimic symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lavender, Jason M; Green, Daniel; Anestis, Michael D; Tull, Matthew T; Gratz, Kim L

    2015-05-01

    Research suggests that negative affect, negative urgency, and thought suppression are related to bulimic symptoms, either directly or indirectly. This study examined associations between these constructs in a sample at-risk for bulimic symptoms. Participants (N = 80) recruited from a residential substance abuse treatment facility completed self-report questionnaires. A regression-based bootstrapping approach was used to examine the indirect effect of negative affect on bulimic symptoms through negative urgency and the moderating role of thought suppression in the association between negative affect and negative urgency. Results revealed a significant indirect effect, significant moderation, and a significant moderated mediation effect, with an indirect effect of negative affect on bulimic symptoms through negative urgency, conditional upon low to moderate (but not high) levels of thought suppression. These findings suggest that negative affect may promote rash actions, particularly in the context of low to moderate thought suppression, leading to increased risk of bulimic symptoms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

  6. Characterization and Prognosis Significance of JAK2 (V617F), MPL, and CALR Mutations in Philadelphia-Negative Myeloproliferative Neoplasms

    OpenAIRE

    Singdong, Roongrudee; Siriboonpiputtana, Teerapong; Chareonsirisuthigul, Takol; Kongruang, Adcharee; Limsuwanachot, Nittaya; Sirirat, Tanasan; Chuncharunee, Suporn; Rerkamnuaychoke, Budsaba

    2016-01-01

    Background: The discovery of somatic acquired mutations of JAK2 (V617F) in Philadelphia-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (Ph-negative MPNs) including polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) has not only improved rational disease classification and prognostication but also brings new understanding insight into the pathogenesis of diseases. Dosage effects of the JAK2 (V617F) allelic burden in Ph-negative MPNs may partially influence clinical ...

  7. Negative Affect, Decision Making, and Attentional Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ortega, Ana Raquel; Ramírez, Encarnación; Colmenero, José María; García-Viedma, Ma Del Rosario

    2017-02-01

    This study focuses on whether risk avoidance in decision making depends on negative affect or it is specific to anxious individuals. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used to obtain an objective measure in a risk situation with anxious, depressive, and control individuals. The role of attentional networks was also studied using the Attentional Network Test-Interaction (ANT-I) task with neutral stimuli. A significant difference was observed between anxious and depressive individuals in assumed risk in decision making. We found no differences between anxious and normal individuals in the alert, orientation, and congruency effects obtained in the ANT-I task. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between the risk avoidance and the indexes of alertness, orienting, and control. Future research shall determine whether emotionally relevant stimulation leads to attentional control deficit or whether differences between anxious and no anxious individuals are due to the type of strategy followed in choice tasks.

  8. Relationship between interaction parent-child with addictability rate and heterosexual orientation in students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abbas Ali Hosseinkhanzadeh

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Objective: the purpose of this study was to study relationship between interaction parent-child with addictability rate and heterosexual orientation in students. Method: The statistical population consisted of all students of Guilan University in 2012-2013 academic year, which among them a sample of 200 students were selected by random cluster sampling method and they completed preparation to addiction scale relationship between parent–child scale and attitude and heterosexual orientation before marriage. Findings: Correlation analysis indicated a significant negative correlation between addictability in female students and male students with relationship with father, and positive affect, interlace and communication subscales. The relationship between female students’ addictability with relationship with mother and positive affect, hurt and confusion and communication subscales was observed significant negative correlation, also there is a significant negative relationship between male students’ addictability with the relationship with mother. There is significant negative relationship between heterosexual orientations in male students with relation with father, positive affects and interlace. Results of regression analysis showed that relationship with father and relationship with mother can anticipate addict ability in female and male students. Conclusion: If parents cannot establish an appropriate and constructive interaction with their child cause child face with affection and emotional deprivation and this poor emotional and affection deprivation may cause he or she bring to the addict ability and heterosexual orientation.

  9. Internal/external locus of control, self-esteem, and parental verbal interaction of at-risk black male adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Enger, J M; Howerton, D L; Cobbs, C R

    1994-06-01

    We investigated the relationship between three factors--internal/external locus of control, self-esteem, and parental verbal interaction--for at-risk Black male adolescents in the United States. Forty-two male students in Grades 6, 7, and 8 who had been identified by their teachers as being at risk completed the Locus of Control Scale for Children (Nowicki & Strickland, 1973), the Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1967), and the Verbal Interaction Questionnaire (Blake, 1991). A moderate positive relationship found between self-esteem and parental verbal interaction was consistent with a previous finding for White high school students. A moderate negative relationship found between locus of control and self-esteem differed from a previous finding of no significant relationship for Black elementary children. A weak, yet significant, negative relationship was found between locus of control and parental verbal interaction.

  10. A Systematic Study of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pradhan, Prajal; Costa, Luís.; Rybski, Diego; Lucht, Wolfgang; Kropp, Jürgen P.

    2017-11-01

    Sustainable development goals (SDGs) have set the 2030 agenda to transform our world by tackling multiple challenges humankind is facing to ensure well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection. In contrast to conventional development agendas focusing on a restricted set of dimensions, the SDGs provide a holistic and multidimensional view on development. Hence, interactions among the SDGs may cause diverging results. To analyze the SDG interactions we systematize the identification of synergies and trade-offs using official SDG indicator data for 227 countries. A significant positive correlation between a pair of SDG indicators is classified as a synergy while a significant negative correlation is classified as a trade-off. We rank synergies and trade-offs between SDGs pairs on global and country scales in order to identify the most frequent SDG interactions. For a given SDG, positive correlations between indicator pairs were found to outweigh the negative ones in most countries. Among SDGs the positive and negative correlations between indicator pairs allowed for the identification of particular global patterns. SDG 1 (No poverty) has synergetic relationship with most of the other goals, whereas SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production) is the goal most commonly associated with trade-offs. The attainment of the SDG agenda will greatly depend on whether the identified synergies among the goals can be leveraged. In addition, the highlighted trade-offs, which constitute obstacles in achieving the SDGs, need to be negotiated and made structurally nonobstructive by deeper changes in the current strategies.

  11. THE PROGNOSIS SIGNIFICANCE OF CATHEPSIN-D EXPRESSION IN THE DIFFERENT LOCATIONS IN AXILLARY NODES NEGATIVE CARCINOMA

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2001-01-01

    Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate Cathepsin-D (Cath-D) expression in different location and its relationship with prognosis in the axillary lymph nodes negative (ANN) breast cancer patients. Methods: Cath-D expression in 192 cases of breast carcinoma were examined by immunohistochemistry. Depending on different parts of expression, three evaluating methods were used, compared and analysed. Results: The positive rate of Cath-D expression in ANN breast cancer with poor prognosis group and axillary nodes positive (ANP) group were significantly higher than that in ANN breast cancer with good prognosis group (x2=23.20, P0.05). Cath-D expression in stromal cells had no statistical difference among the three groups (x2=1.56, P>0.05). When the Cath-D expression in cancer and stromal cells were counted into the positive rate, it was near the same (u1=0.47, u2=1.41, P>0.05). Conclusion: These results suggest that Cath-D expression is one of the powerful prognostic markers in ANN breast cancer. It's a reliable, practical, and convenient method to observe and evaluate Cath-D expression in cancer cells.

  12. Comparative analysis of three drug-drug interaction screening systems against probable clinically relevant drug-drug interactions: a prospective cohort study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muhič, Neža; Mrhar, Ales; Brvar, Miran

    2017-07-01

    Drug-drug interaction (DDI) screening systems report potential DDIs. This study aimed to find the prevalence of probable DDI-related adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and compare the clinical usefulness of different DDI screening systems to prevent or warn against these ADRs. A prospective cohort study was conducted in patients urgently admitted to medical departments. Potential DDIs were checked using Complete Drug Interaction®, Lexicomp® Online™, and Drug Interaction Checker®. The study team identified the patients with probable clinically relevant DDI-related ADRs on admission, the causality of which was assessed using the Drug Interaction Probability Scale (DIPS). Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of screening systems to prevent or warn against probable DDI-related ADRs were evaluated. Overall, 50 probable clinically relevant DDI-related ADRs were found in 37 out of 795 included patients taking at least two drugs, most common of them were bleeding, hyperkalemia, digitalis toxicity, and hypotension. Complete Drug Interaction showed the best sensitivity (0.76) for actual DDI-related ADRs, followed by Lexicomp Online (0.50), and Drug Interaction Checker (0.40). Complete Drug Interaction and Drug Interaction Checker had positive predictive values of 0.07; Lexicomp Online had 0.04. We found no difference in specificity and negative predictive values among these systems. DDI screening systems differ significantly in their ability to detect probable clinically relevant DDI-related ADRs in terms of sensitivity and positive predictive value.

  13. Discrepant HPV/cytology cotesting results: Are there differences between cytology-negative versus HPV-negative cervical intraepithelial neoplasia?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tracht, Jessica M; Davis, Antoinette D; Fasciano, Danielle N; Eltoum, Isam-Eldin A

    2017-10-01

    The objective of this study was to compare cervical high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions subcategorized as cervical intraepithelial neoplasia-3 (CIN-3)-positive after a negative cytology result but positive for high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) testing to those with a negative HR-HPV test but positive cytology (atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance [ASCUS]-positive/HPV-negative) and to assess reasons for discrepancies. The authors retrospectively analyzed women who underwent screening with cytology and HPV testing from 2010 through 2013. After a review of surgical specimens and cytology, discrepancies were classified as sampling or interpretation error. Clinical and pathologic findings were compared. In total, 15,173 women (age range, 25-95 years; 7.1% were aged ASCUS-positive/HPV-positive, 11 that tested negative for intraepithelial lesion or malignancy (NILM)/HPV-positive, 10 that tested ASCUS-positive/HPV-negative, 3 that tested NILM/HPV-negative, and 5 tests that were unsatisfactory. There was no significant difference between NILM/HPV-positive and ASCUS-positive/HPV-negative CIN-3 in terms of size, time to occurrence, the presence of a cytopathic effect, screening history, race, or age. Six of 11 NILM/HPV-positive cases were reclassified as ASCUS, indicating an interpreting error of 55% and a sampling error of 45%. No ASCUS-positive/HPV-negative cases were reclassified. Seven cases of CIN-3 with positive cytology were HPV-negative. There are no significant clinical or pathologic differences between NILM/HPV-positive and ASCUS-positive/HPV-negative CIN-3-positive specimens. Cytologic sampling or interpretation remains the main reason for discrepancies. However, HPV-negative CIN-3 with positive cytology exists and may be missed by primary HPV screening. Cancer Cytopathol 2017;125:795-805. © 2017 American Cancer Society. © 2017 American Cancer Society.

  14. Energy- and angled-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of negative ions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pegg, D.J.; Thompson, J.S.; Compton, R.N.; Alton, G.D.

    1988-01-01

    Energy- and angle-resolved photoelectron detachment spectroscopy is currently being used to investigate the structure of negative ions and their interaction with radiation. Measurements of the electron affinity of the Ca atom and the partial cross sections for photodetachment of the metastable negative ion, He - (1s2s2p 4 P), are reported. 5 refs., 5 figs

  15. Use of bodily sensations as a risk assessment tool: exploring people with Multiple Sclerosis' views on risks of negative interactions between herbal medicine and conventional drug therapies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skovgaard, Lasse; Pedersen, Inge Kryger; Verhoef, Marja

    2014-02-18

    Most users of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) combine it with conventional medicine. Recent risk assessment studies have shown risks of negative interactions between CAM and conventional medicine, particularly when combining herbal medicine and conventional drug therapies (CDT). Little is known about the way users consider such risks. The present paper aims to gain knowledge about this issue by exploring views on risks of negative interactions when combining herbal medicine and CDT among people with multiple sclerosis (MS). This paper draws on a qualitative follow-up study on a survey among members of the Danish MS Society. Semi-structured, in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a strategic selection from the survey respondents. The study was inspired by a phenomenological approach and emerging themes were extracted from the data through meaning condensation. Four themes characterized the informants' views on risks of negative interactions when combining herbal medicine and CDT: 1) 'naturalness' in herbal medicine; 2) 'bodily sensations' as guidelines; 3) trust in the CAM practitioner; 4) lack of dialogue with medical doctor. Generally, the combination of herbal medicine and CDT was considered by the informants to be safe. In particular, they emphasized the 'non-chemical' nature of herbal medicine and of their own bodily sensations as warrants of safety. A trustful relation to the CAM practitioner furthermore made some of them feel safe in their use of herbal medicine and CDT in combination. The informants' use of bodily sensations as a non-discursive risk assessment may be a relevant element in understanding these issues.

  16. Characterization of ELISA Antibody-Antigen Interaction using Footprinting-Mass Spectrometry and Negative Staining Transmission Electron Microscopy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Margaret; Krawitz, Denise; Callahan, Matthew D.; Deperalta, Galahad; Wecksler, Aaron T.

    2018-05-01

    We describe epitope mapping data using multiple covalent labeling footprinting-mass spectrometry (MS) techniques coupled with negative stain transmission electron microscopy (TEM) data to analyze the antibody-antigen interactions in a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA). Our hydroxyl radical footprinting-MS data using fast photochemical oxidation of proteins (FPOP) indicates suppression of labeling across the antigen upon binding either of the monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) utilized in the ELISA. Combining these data with Western blot analysis enabled the identification of the putative epitopes that appeared to span regions containing N-linked glycans. An additional structural mapping technique, carboxyl group footprinting-mass spectrometry using glycine ethyl ester (GEE) labeling, was used to confirm the epitopes. Deglycosylation of the antigen resulted in loss of potency in the ELISA, supporting the FPOP and GEE labeling data by indicating N-linked glycans are necessary for antigen binding. Finally, mapping of the epitopes onto the antigen crystal structure revealed an approximate 90° relative spatial orientation, optimal for a noncompetitive binding ELISA. TEM data shows both linear and diamond antibody-antigen complexes with a similar binding orientation as predicted from the two footprinting-MS techniques. This study is the first of its kind to utilize multiple bottom-up footprinting-MS techniques and TEM visualization to characterize the monoclonal antibody-antigen binding interactions of critical reagents used in a quality control (QC) lot-release ELISA. [Figure not available: see fulltext.

  17. Characterization of ELISA Antibody-Antigen Interaction using Footprinting-Mass Spectrometry and Negative Staining Transmission Electron Microscopy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Margaret; Krawitz, Denise; Callahan, Matthew D.; Deperalta, Galahad; Wecksler, Aaron T.

    2018-03-01

    We describe epitope mapping data using multiple covalent labeling footprinting-mass spectrometry (MS) techniques coupled with negative stain transmission electron microscopy (TEM) data to analyze the antibody-antigen interactions in a sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA). Our hydroxyl radical footprinting-MS data using fast photochemical oxidation of proteins (FPOP) indicates suppression of labeling across the antigen upon binding either of the monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) utilized in the ELISA. Combining these data with Western blot analysis enabled the identification of the putative epitopes that appeared to span regions containing N-linked glycans. An additional structural mapping technique, carboxyl group footprinting-mass spectrometry using glycine ethyl ester (GEE) labeling, was used to confirm the epitopes. Deglycosylation of the antigen resulted in loss of potency in the ELISA, supporting the FPOP and GEE labeling data by indicating N-linked glycans are necessary for antigen binding. Finally, mapping of the epitopes onto the antigen crystal structure revealed an approximate 90° relative spatial orientation, optimal for a noncompetitive binding ELISA. TEM data shows both linear and diamond antibody-antigen complexes with a similar binding orientation as predicted from the two footprinting-MS techniques. This study is the first of its kind to utilize multiple bottom-up footprinting-MS techniques and TEM visualization to characterize the monoclonal antibody-antigen binding interactions of critical reagents used in a quality control (QC) lot-release ELISA. [Figure not available: see fulltext.

  18. Serious mental illness and negative substance use consequences among adults on probation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rossheim, Matthew E; Livingston, Melvin D; Lerch, Jennifer A; Taxman, Faye S; Walters, Scott T

    2018-03-22

    Adults on probation are at greater risk of both using substances and having a mental disorder compared to the general population. Several theories explain the relationship between substance use and poor mental health. However, the interaction between substance use, mental health, and substance-related consequences is not well understood. A better understanding of this relationship may help treatment programs become more responsive to people with serious mental illness (SMI). The current study used interview data from 313 adults on probation who reported recent substance use. We examined associations between SMI risk, substance use, and substance use consequences. A substantial proportion of the sample (37.5%) screened at risk of having a SMI. Adjusting for type and amount of substance use, those who screened at risk of having a SMI reported more negative substance use consequences. Significant interaction effects were observed between use of alcohol or opiates and SMI risk. Alcohol use was associated with more negative substance use consequences among those at risk of SMI, while opiate use was associated with more consequences among those not at risk. Programs are sorely needed to identify and treat adults with comorbid substance use and mental health symptoms, particularly for adults in the justice system. Clinicians should carefully consider how mental health may interact with substance use to exacerbate consequences.

  19. Expressing negative emotions to children: Mothers' aversion sensitivity and children's adjustment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moed, Anat; Dix, Theodore; Anderson, Edward R; Greene, Shannon M

    2017-03-01

    Research is unclear about when expressing negative emotions to children performs valuable socialization and regulatory functions and when, instead, it undermines children's adjustment. In this study, we isolated 1 kind of negative expression to test the aversion sensitivity hypothesis: that rapid increases in mothers' negativity as a function of increases in the aversiveness of children's behavior are uniquely problematic for children. During multiple assessments of a divorcing sample over 2 years (N = 284), 12-min interactions between mothers and their 4- to 11-year-old children were recorded. Forty-seven observed child behaviors were ranked from low to high aversive. Within-dyad changes demonstrated that mothers' general negativity-their tendency to express negative emotion at high rates-was unrelated to children's adjustment. In contrast, mothers' aversion-focused negativity-their tendency to increase negative emotional expression rapidly as the aversiveness of children's behavior increased-predicted children's poor social competence, poor emotion regulation, and externalizing behavior problems at the next assessment. The findings suggest that negative expression that reflects mothers' affective sensitivity to aversive child behavior may promote interaction patterns and adaptations in children that are particularly likely to place children at risk for adjustment problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Negative regulation of RIG-I-mediated antiviral signaling by TRK-fused gene (TFG) protein

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Na-Rae; Shin, Han-Bo; Kim, Hye-In; Choi, Myung-Soo; Inn, Kyung-Soo

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: •TRK-fused gene product (TFG) interacts with TRIM25 upon viral infection. •TFG negatively regulates RIG-I mediated antiviral signaling. •TFG depletion leads to enhanced viral replication. •TFG act downstream of MAVS. -- Abstract: RIG-I (retinoic acid inducible gene I)-mediated antiviral signaling serves as the first line of defense against viral infection. Upon detection of viral RNA, RIG-I undergoes TRIM25 (tripartite motif protein 25)-mediated K63-linked ubiquitination, leading to type I interferon (IFN) production. In this study, we demonstrate that TRK-fused gene (TFG) protein, previously identified as a TRIM25-interacting protein, binds TRIM25 upon virus infection and negatively regulates RIG-I-mediated type-I IFN signaling. RIG-I-mediated IFN production and nuclear factor (NF)-κB signaling pathways were upregulated by the suppression of TFG expression. Furthermore, vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) replication was significantly inhibited by small inhibitory hairpin RNA (shRNA)-mediated knockdown of TFG, supporting the suppressive role of TFG in RIG-I-mediated antiviral signaling. Interestingly, suppression of TFG expression increased not only RIG-I-mediated signaling but also MAVS (mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein)-induced signaling, suggesting that TFG plays a pivotal role in negative regulation of RNA-sensing, RIG-I-like receptor (RLR) family signaling pathways

  1. Quantity and quality of interaction between staff and older patients in UK hospital wards: A descriptive study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barker, Hannah Ruth; Griffiths, Peter; Mesa-Eguiagaray, Ines; Pickering, Ruth; Gould, Lisa; Bridges, Jackie

    2016-10-01

    The quality of staff-patient interactions underpins the overall quality of patient experience and can affect other important outcomes. However no studies have been identified that comprehensively explore both the quality and quantity of interactions in general hospital settings. To quantify and characterise the quality of staff-patient interactions and to identify factors associated with negative interaction ratings. Data were gathered at two acute English NHS hospitals between March and April 2015. Six wards for adult patients participated including medicine for older people (n=4), urology (n=1) and orthopaedics (n=1). Eligible patients on participating wards were randomly selected for observation. Staff-patient interactions were observed using the Quality of Interactions Schedule. 120h of care were observed with each 2h observation session determined from a balanced random schedule (Monday-Friday, 08:00-22:00h). Multilevel logistic regression models were used to determine factors associated with negative interactions. 1554 interactions involving 133 patients were observed. The median length of interaction was 36s with a mean of 6 interactions per patient per hour. Seventy three percent of interactions were categorized as positive, 17% neutral and 10% negative. Forty percent of patients had at least one negative interaction (95% confidence interval 32% to 49%). Interactions initiated by the patient (adjusted Odds Ratio [OR] 5.30), one way communication (adjusted OR 10.70), involving two or more staff (adjusted OR 5.86 for 2 staff, 6.46 for 3+ staff), having a higher total number of interactions (adjusted OR 1.09 per unit increase), and specific types of interaction content were associated with increased odds of negative interaction (pinteraction was associated with increased odds of negative interaction in a reduced model. There was no significant association with gender, age or cognitive impairment. There was substantially more variation at ward level (variance

  2. Thinking while drinking: Fear of negative evaluation predicts drinking behaviors of students with social anxiety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Villarosa-Hurlocker, Margo C; Whitley, Robert B; Capron, Daniel W; Madson, Michael B

    2018-03-01

    College students with social anxiety disorder experience more alcohol-related negative consequences, regardless of the amount of alcohol they consume. Social anxiety refers to psychological distress and physiological arousal in social situations due to an excessive fear of negative evaluation by others. The current study examined within-group differences in alcohol-related negative consequences of students who met or exceeded clinically-indicated social anxiety symptoms. In particular, we tested a sequential mediation model of the cognitive (i.e., fear of negative evaluation) and behavioral (protective behavioral strategies) mechanisms for the link between social anxiety disorder subtypes (i.e., interaction and performance-type) and alcohol-related negative consequences. Participants were 412 traditional-age college student drinkers who met or exceeded the clinically-indicated threshold for social anxiety disorder and completed measures of fear of negative evaluation, protective behavioral strategies (controlled consumption and serious harm reduction), and alcohol-related negative consequences. Fear of negative evaluation and serious harm reduction strategies sequentially accounted for the relationship between interaction social anxiety disorder and alcohol-related negative consequences, such that students with more severe interaction social anxiety symptoms reported more fear of negative evaluation, which was related to more serious harm reduction strategies, which predicted fewer alcohol-related negative consequences. Future directions and implications are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. When negation is not negation

    OpenAIRE

    Milicevic, Nataša

    2008-01-01

    In this paper I will discuss the formation of different types of yes/no questions in Serbian (examples in (1)), focusing on the syntactically and semantically puzzling example (1d), which involves the negative auxiliary inversion. Although there is a negative marker on the fronted auxiliary, the construction does not involve sentential negation. This coincides with the fact that the negative quantifying NPIs cannot be licensed. The question formation and sentential negation have similar synta...

  4. A randomized pilot study of MOtiVation and Enhancement (MOVE) Training for negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Velligan, Dawn I; Roberts, David; Mintz, Jim; Maples, Natalie; Li, Xueying; Medellin, Elisa; Brown, Matt

    2015-07-01

    Among individuals with schizophrenia, those who have persistent and clinically significant negative symptoms (PNS) have the poorest functional outcomes and quality of life. The NIMH-MATRICS Consensus Statement indicated that these symptoms represent an unmet therapeutic need for large numbers of individuals with schizophrenia. No psychosocial treatment model addresses the entire constellation of PNS. 51 patients with PNS were randomized into one of two groups for a period of 9 months: 1) MOtiVation and Enhancement (MOVE) or 2) treatment as usual. MOVE is a home based, manual-driven, multi-modal treatment that employs a number of cognitive and behavioral principles to address the broad range of factors contributing to PNS and their functional consequences. The components of MOVE include: Environmental supports to prompt initiation and persistence, in-vivo skills training to ameliorate deficits and encourage interaction, cognitive behavioral techniques to address self-defeating attitudes, in-vivo training in emotional processing to address affective blunting and problems in identifying emotions, and specific techniques to address the deficits in anticipatory pleasure. Patients were assessed at baseline and each 3 months with multiple measures of negative symptoms. Repeated measures analyses of variance for mixed models indicated significant Group by Time effects for the Negative Symptom Assessment (NSA; p<.02) and the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS; p<.04). Group differences were not significant until 9 months of treatment and were not significant for the Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS). Further investigation of a comprehensive treatment for PNS, such as MOVE, is warranted. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  5. Hostile attributional bias, negative emotional responding, and aggression in adults: moderating effects of gender and impulsivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Pan; Coccaro, Emil F; Jacobson, Kristen C

    2012-01-01

    The current study examined the main effects of hostile attributional bias (HAB) and negative emotional responding on a variety of aggressive behaviors in adults, including general aggression, physical aggression, relational aggression, and verbal aggression. Effects of both externalizing (anger) and internalizing (embarrassment/upset) negative emotions were considered. In addition, the moderating roles of gender and impulsivity on the effects of HAB and negative emotional responding were explored. Multilevel models were fitted to data from 2,749 adult twins aged 20-55 from the PennTwins cohort. HAB was positively associated with all four forms of aggression. There was also a significant interaction between impulsivity and HAB for general aggression. Specifically, the relationship between HAB and general aggression was only significant for individuals with average or above-average levels of impulsivity. Negative emotional responding was also found to predict all measures of aggression, although in different ways. Anger was positively associated with all forms of aggression, whereas embarrassment/upset predicted decreased levels of general, physical, and verbal aggression but increased levels of relational aggression. The associations between negative emotional responding and aggression were generally stronger for males than females. The current study provides evidence for the utility of HAB and negative emotional responding as predictors of adult aggression and further suggests that gender and impulsivity may moderate their links with aggression. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  6. Hostile Attributional Bias, Negative Emotional Responding, and Aggression in Adults: Moderating Effects of Gender and Impulsivity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Pan; Coccaro, Emil F.; Jacobson, Kristen C.

    2012-01-01

    The current study examined the main effects of hostile attributional bias (HAB) and negative emotional responding on a variety of aggressive behaviors in adults, including general aggression, physical aggression, relational aggression, and verbal aggression. Effects of both externalizing (anger) and internalizing (embarrassment/upset) negative emotions were considered. In addition, the moderating roles of gender and impulsivity on the effects of HAB and negative emotional responding were explored. Multilevel models were fitted to data from 2,749 adult twins aged 20–55 from the PennTwins cohort. HAB was positively associated with all four forms of aggression. There was also a significant interaction between impulsivity and HAB for general aggression. Specifically, the relationship between HAB and general aggression was only significant for individuals with average or above-average levels of impulsivity. Negative emotional responding was also found to predict all measures of aggression, although in different ways. Anger was positively associated with all forms of aggression, whereas embarrassment/upset predicted decreased levels of general, physical, and verbal aggression but increased levels of relational aggression. The associations between negative emotional responding and aggression were generally stronger for males than females. The current study provides evidence for the utility of HAB and negative emotional responding as predictors of adult aggression and further suggests that gender and impulsivity may moderate their links with aggression. PMID:24833604

  7. Children's expressions of negative emotions and adults' responses during routine cardiac consultations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vatne, Torun M; Ruland, Cornelia M; Ørnes, Knut; Finset, Arnstein

    2012-03-01

    One function of expressing emotion is to receive support. The aim of this study was to assess how children with heart disease express negative emotions during routine consultations, and examine the interaction between children's expressions and adults' responses. Seventy children, aged 7-13 years, completed measures of anxiety and were videotaped during cardiology visits. Adult-child interactions were analyzed using the Verona Definitions of Emotional Sequences. Children expressed negative emotion, mainly in subtle ways; however, adults rarely recognized and responded to these expressions. The frequency of children's expressions and adults' responses were related to the child's age, level of anxiety, and verbal participation. Children do not openly express negative emotions frequently during routine cardiac consultations; they are more likely to provide subtle cues of negative emotion. When expression of negative emotions does occur, adults may consider using the opportunity to explore the child's emotional experiences.

  8. Neural correlates of preparatory and regulatory control over positive and negative emotion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seo, Dongju; Olman, Cheryl A; Haut, Kristen M; Sinha, Rajita; MacDonald, Angus W; Patrick, Christopher J

    2014-04-01

    This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activation during preparatory and regulatory control while participants (N = 24) were instructed either to simply view or decrease their emotional response to, pleasant, neutral or unpleasant pictures. A main effect of emotional valence on brain activity was found in the right precentral gyrus, with greater activation during positive than negative emotion regulation. A main effect of regulation phase was evident in the bilateral anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC), precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, right putamen and temporal and occipital lobes, with greater activity in these regions during preparatory than regulatory control. A valence X regulation interaction was evident in regions of ventromedial PFC and anterior cingulate cortex, reflecting greater activation while regulating negative than positive emotion, but only during active emotion regulation (not preparation). Conjunction analyses revealed common brain regions involved in differing types of emotion regulation including selected areas of left lateral PFC, inferior parietal lobe, temporal lobe, right cerebellum and bilateral dorsomedial PFC. The right lateral PFC was additionally activated during the modulation of both positive and negative valence. Findings demonstrate significant modulation of brain activity during both preparation for, and active regulation of positive and negative emotional states.

  9. 3-Phosphoinositide-dependent PDK1 negatively regulates transforming growth factor-beta-induced signaling in a kinase-dependent manner through physical interaction with Smad proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seong, Hyun-A; Jung, Haiyoung; Kim, Kyong-Tai; Ha, Hyunjung

    2007-04-20

    We have reported previously that PDK1 physically interacts with STRAP, a transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) receptor-interacting protein, and enhances STRAP-induced inhibition of TGF-beta signaling. In this study we show that PDK1 coimmunoprecipitates with Smad proteins, including Smad2, Smad3, Smad4, and Smad7, and that this association is mediated by the pleckstrin homology domain of PDK1. The association between PDK1 and Smad proteins is increased by insulin treatment but decreased by TGF-beta treatment. Analysis of the interacting proteins shows that Smad proteins enhance PDK1 kinase activity by removing 14-3-3, a negative regulator of PDK1, from the PDK1-14-3-3 complex. Knockdown of endogenous Smad proteins, including Smad3 and Smad7, by transfection with small interfering RNA produced the opposite trend and decreased PDK1 activity, protein kinase B/Akt phosphorylation, and Bad phosphorylation. Moreover, coexpression of Smad proteins and wild-type PDK1 inhibits TGF-beta-induced transcription, as well as TGF-beta-mediated biological functions, such as apoptosis and cell growth arrest. Inhibition was dose-dependent on PDK1, but no inhibition was observed in the presence of an inactive kinase-dead PDK1 mutant. In addition, confocal microscopy showed that wild-type PDK1 prevents translocation of Smad3 and Smad4 from the cytoplasm to the nucleus, as well as the redistribution of Smad7 from the nucleus to the cytoplasm in response to TGF-beta. Taken together, our results suggest that PDK1 negatively regulates TGF-beta-mediated signaling in a PDK1 kinase-dependent manner via a direct physical interaction with Smad proteins and that Smad proteins can act as potential positive regulators of PDK1.

  10. Analyzing negative ties in social networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mankirat Kaur

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Online social networks are a source of sharing information and maintaining personal contacts with other people through social interactions and thus forming virtual communities online. Social networks are crowded with positive and negative relations. Positive relations are formed by support, endorsement and friendship and thus, create a network of well-connected users whereas negative relations are a result of opposition, distrust and avoidance creating disconnected networks. Due to increase in illegal activities such as masquerading, conspiring and creating fake profiles on online social networks, exploring and analyzing these negative activities becomes the need of hour. Usually negative ties are treated in same way as positive ties in many theories such as balance theory and blockmodeling analysis. But the standard concepts of social network analysis do not yield same results in respect of each tie. This paper presents a survey on analyzing negative ties in social networks through various types of network analysis techniques that are used for examining ties such as status, centrality and power measures. Due to the difference in characteristics of flow in positive and negative tie networks some of these measures are not applicable on negative ties. This paper also discusses new methods that have been developed specifically for analyzing negative ties such as negative degree, and h∗ measure along with the measures based on mixture of positive and negative ties. The different types of social network analysis approaches have been reviewed and compared to determine the best approach that can appropriately identify the negative ties in online networks. It has been analyzed that only few measures such as Degree and PN centrality are applicable for identifying outsiders in network. For applicability in online networks, the performance of PN measure needs to be verified and further, new measures should be developed based upon negative clique concept.

  11. Negative Campaigning and the Logic of Retaliation in Multiparty Competition

    OpenAIRE

    Dolezal, Martin; Ennser-Jedenastik, Laurenz; M?ller, Wolfgang C.

    2016-01-01

    The extant literature has demonstrated that the logic of retaliation is a core feature of negative campaigning. Attacks by one side induce counterattacks by the other. Yet most research on the interactive nature of negative campaigning is limited to two-party competition and provides little theoretical justification for why political actors should respond to attacks with counterattacks. The present paper addresses these research gaps. We argue that the negativity bias in human information pro...

  12. The evolutionary ecology of cytonuclear interactions in angiosperms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caruso, Christina M; Case, Andrea L; Bailey, Maia F

    2012-11-01

    Interactions between cytoplasmic and nuclear genomes have significant evolutionary consequences. In angiosperms, the most common cytonuclear interaction is between mitochondrial genes that disrupt pollen production (cytoplasmic male sterility, CMS) and nuclear genes that restore it (nuclear male fertility restorers, Rf). The outcome of CMS/Rf interactions can depend on whether Rf alleles have negative pleiotropic effects on fitness. Although these fitness costs are often considered to be independent of the ecological context, we argue that the effects of Rf alleles on fitness should be context dependent. Thus, measuring the cost of restoration across a range of environments could help explain geographic and phylogenetic variation in the distribution of Rf alleles and the outcome of CMS/Rf interactions. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Optimization of negative central shear discharges in shaped cross sections

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Turnbull, A.D.; Chu, M.S., Taylor, T.S., Casper, T.A., Rice, B.W.; Greene, J.M., Greenfield, C.M., La Haye, R.J., Lao, L.L., Lee, B.J.; Miller, R.L., Ren, C., Strait, E.J., Tritz, K.; Rettig, C.L., Rhodes, T.L.; Sauter, O.

    1996-10-01

    Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability analyses of Negative Central Shear (NCS) equilibria have revealed a new understanding of the limiting MHD instabilities in NCS experiments. Ideal stability calculations show a synergistic effect between cross section shape and pressure profile optimization; strong shaping and broader pressure independently lead to moderately higher Β limits, but broadening of the pressure profile in a strongly dee-shaped cross- section leads to a dramatic increase in the ideal Β limit. Localized resistive interchange (RI) modes can be unstable in the negative shear region and are most restrictive for peaked pressure profiles. Resistive global modes can also be destabilized significantly below the ideal P limit. Experiments largely confirm the general trends, and diagnostic measurements and numerical stability calculations are found to be in good qualitative agreement. Observed disruptions in NCS discharges with L-mode edge and strongly peaked pressure, appear to be initiated by interactions between the RI, and the global ideal and resistive modes

  14. Financial difficulties but not other types of recent negative life events show strong interactions with 5-HTTLPR genotype in the development of depressive symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gonda, X; Eszlari, N; Kovacs, D; Anderson, I M; Deakin, J F W; Juhasz, G; Bagdy, G

    2016-05-03

    Several studies indicate that 5-HTTLPR mediates the effect of childhood adversity in the development of depression, while results are contradictory for recent negative life events. For childhood adversity the interaction with genotype is strongest for sexual abuse, but not for other types of childhood maltreatment; however, possible interactions with specific recent life events have not been investigated separately. The aim of our study was to investigate the effect of four distinct types of recent life events in the development of depressive symptoms in a large community sample. Interaction between different types of recent life events measured by the List of Threatening Experiences and the 5-HTTLPR genotype on current depression measured by the depression subscale and additional items of the Brief Symptom Inventory was investigated in 2588 subjects in Manchester and Budapest. Only a nominal interaction was found between life events overall and 5-HTTLPR on depression, which failed to survive correction for multiple testing. However, subcategorising life events into four categories showed a robust interaction between financial difficulties and the 5-HTTLPR genotype, and a weaker interaction in the case of illness/injury. No interaction effect for the other two life event categories was present. We investigated a general non-representative sample in a cross-sectional approach. Depressive symptoms and life event evaluations were self-reported. The 5-HTTLPR polymorphism showed a differential interaction pattern with different types of recent life events, with the strongest interaction effects of financial difficulties on depressive symptoms. This specificity of interaction with only particular types of life events may help to explain previous contradictory findings.

  15. Negative parity non-strange baryons

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Stancu, F.; Stassart, P.

    1991-01-01

    Our previous study is extended to negative parity baryon resonances up to J=(9/2) - . The framework is a semi-relativistic constituent quark model. The quark-quark interaction contains a Coulomb plus linear confinement terms and a short distance spin-spin and tensor terms. It is emphasized that a linear confinement potential gives too large a mass to the D 35 (1930) resonance. (orig.)

  16. STUDENT´S ORIENTATIONS ON TOLERANT INTERACTION WITH EDUCATIONAL MIGRANTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga Mihailovna Komornikova

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The article analyzes the specifics orientations of students in the tolerant interaction with educational migrants by conditions of migrant´s international educational intensification. This problem is considered in the context of the phenomenon of tolerance as a cultural value, consolidating for society the importance of methods and forms of conflict-free interaction. The article contains the definition of orientations on tolerant interaction. It was defined the characteristics features of tolerant interaction in modern conditions, external and internal factors that determine the orientation of students on tolerant interaction with migrants. Kurgan region is not experiencing a mass influx of migrants; however, the number of foreigners studying in Shadrinsk State Pedagogical University is quite significant. On the basis of the results of a social study in March-April 2016 among students SSPU, we came to the conclusion that more than half of them are focused tolerant interaction with educational migrants. The main area of cooperation is a learning activity. Friendly relationship with migrants is less attractive for young people. With decreasing of social distance, increases the number of negatively-minded students to co-education with migrant students. This is due to such factors as the social attitudes of the people in inter-ethnic relations, the presence of the negative experience of interaction with foreign student.

  17. Emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder: effects of emotional information on negative bias.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fenske, Sabrina; Lis, Stefanie; Liebke, Lisa; Niedtfeld, Inga; Kirsch, Peter; Mier, Daniela

    2015-01-01

    Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe deficits in social interactions, which might be linked to deficits in emotion recognition. Research on emotion recognition abilities in BPD revealed heterogeneous results, ranging from deficits to heightened sensitivity. The most stable findings point to an impairment in the evaluation of neutral facial expressions as neutral, as well as to a negative bias in emotion recognition; that is the tendency to attribute negative emotions to neutral expressions, or in a broader sense to report a more negative emotion category than depicted. However, it remains unclear which contextual factors influence the occurrence of this negative bias. Previous studies suggest that priming by preceding emotional information and also constrained processing time might augment the emotion recognition deficit in BPD. To test these assumptions, 32 female BPD patients and 31 healthy females, matched for age and education, participated in an emotion recognition study, in which every facial expression was preceded by either a positive, neutral or negative scene. Furthermore, time constraints for processing were varied by presenting the facial expressions with short (100 ms) or long duration (up to 3000 ms) in two separate blocks. BPD patients showed a significant deficit in emotion recognition for neutral and positive facial expression, associated with a significant negative bias. In BPD patients, this emotion recognition deficit was differentially affected by preceding emotional information and time constraints, with a greater influence of emotional information during long face presentations and a greater influence of neutral information during short face presentations. Our results are in line with previous findings supporting the existence of a negative bias in emotion recognition in BPD patients, and provide further insights into biased social perceptions in BPD patients.

  18. Positive and Negative Peer Influence in Residential Care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huefner, Jonathan C; Smith, Gail L; Stevens, Amy L

    2017-10-13

    The potential for negative peer influence has been well established in research, and there is a growing interest in how positive peer influence also impacts youth. No research, however, has concurrently examined positive and negative peer influence in the context of residential care. Clinical records for 886 residential care youth were used in a Hierarchical Linear Model analysis to examine the impact of negative and positive peer influence on naturally occurring patterns of serious problem behavior over time. Negative peer influence, where the majority of youth in a home manifested above the average number of serious behavior problems, occurred 13.7% of the time. Positive peer influence, where the majority of youth manifested no serious problem behaviors for the month, occurred 47.7% of the time. Overall, youth problem behavior improved over time. There were significantly lower rates of serious problem behavior in target youth during positive peer influence months. Conversely, there were significantly higher rates of serious problem behaviors in target youth during negative peer influence months. Negative peer influence had a relatively greater impact on target peers' serious behavior problems than did positive peer influence. Caregiver experience significantly reduced the impact of negative peer influence, but did not significantly augment positive peer influence. Months where negative peer influence was combined with inexperienced caregivers produced the highest rates of serious problem behavior. Our results support the view that residential programs for troubled youth need to create circumstances that promote positive and control for negative peer influence.

  19. Childhood Familial Victimization: An Exploration of Gender and Sexual Identity Using the Scale of Negative Family Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinez, Katherine; McDonald, Courtney

    2017-11-01

    Familial violence poses a serious public health concern and has therefore received a considerable amount of attention from academics and practitioners alike. Research within this field has found that parent-to-parent and parent-to-child violence often occur simultaneously and are especially prevalent within households that suffer from social and environmental stressors. Sibling violence and its relationship to these other forms of familial violence has received considerably less attention, largely related to the widely held belief that sibling violence is natural, especially for boys. Using the Scale of Negative Family Interactions (SNFI), parent-to-child and sibling-to-sibling violence is investigated. Specifically, the relationship between participants' gender and sexual identities and their reports of familial violence are explored to better understand participants' gendered and sexed experiences. Data suggest that gender and sexual minorities may have a unique experience of familial violence, although further research is needed in this area.

  20. Burnout and demographic characteristics of workers experiencing different types of work-home interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merecz, Dorota; Andysz, Aleksandra

    2014-12-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore configurations of positive versus negative interactions between work and home (WHI) and their relation to burnout and demographic characteristics. Sample of 533 Polish workers were interviewed by means of self-administered questionnaires (SWING and MBI-GS). Demographic and work characteristics were also controlled. Cluster analysis distinguished 5 types of WHIs: positive WHI (18%), negative WHI (15.9%), no interaction (29.3%), mutual positive interactions (15.4%) and positive HWI (21.4%). The quality of WHI was associated with number of work hours and tenure at main place of employment. The effect of gender on the quality of work-home interaction was not significant. Configuration of WHIs affected the level of burnout. Again, there was no significant difference between men and women in terms of burnout and its sub-dimensions. The least burned-out were people from positive WHI, positive HWI and mutual positive interaction groups. The most burned-out were people who experienced negative WHI the most often. In this group, predominance of men working more than 10 h per day was observed. The majority of study group (71%) experienced rather integration than segmentation of both spheres. Our results suggest that segmentation is not an universal and effective strategy of coping with work and home demands - it may prevent the positive home-work spillover, which can be buffer or remedy against stress or burnout. We consider cluster analysis the appropriate method in research on relation to work-family balance issue, which may be useful in unraveling relationships between this phenomenon and attitudes and behaviors.

  1. Determination of stability constants of tauro- and glyco-conjugated bile salts with the negatively charged sulfobutylether-β-cyclodextrin: comparison of affinity capillary electrophoresis and isothermal titration calorimetry and thermodynamic analysis of the interaction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holm, René; Østergaard, Jesper; Schönbeck, Jens Christian Sidney

    2014-01-01

    The aim of the present work was to investigate the interaction between bile salts present in the intestine of man, dog and rat with the negatively charged cyclodextrin (CD), sulfobutylether-β-cyclodextrin (SBEβCD). The interactions between bile salts and CDs are of importance for the release of C...

  2. Mindfulness during romantic conflict moderates the impact of negative partner behaviors on cortisol responses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laurent, Heidemarie K; Hertz, Robin; Nelson, Benjamin; Laurent, Sean M

    2016-03-01

    This study was designed to test whether romantic partners' mindfulness-present moment, nonjudgmental awareness-during a conflict discussion could buffer the effects of negative partner behaviors on neuroendocrine stress responses. Heterosexual couples (n=88 dyads) provided 5 saliva samples for cortisol assay during a laboratory session involving a conflict discussion task. Conflict behaviors were coded by outside observers using the System for Coding Interactions in Dyads, and partners rated their mindfulness during the task using the Toronto Mindfulness Scale. Interactions tested using multilevel modeling revealed that participants with higher levels of mindfulness during the conflict showed either quicker cortisol recovery or an absence of slowed recovery in the presence of more negative partner behaviors. Whereas the attitudinal component of mindfulness (curiosity) moderated effects of negative partner engagement in the conflict (i.e., attempts to control, coerciveness, negativity and conflict), the attentional component of mindfulness (decentering) moderated the effect of partner disengagement (i.e., withdrawal). These findings lend support to the idea that mindfulness during a stressful interaction can mitigate the physiological impacts of negative behaviors. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Positive and negative feedback loops in nutrient phytoplankton interactions related to climate dynamics factors in a shallow temperate estuary (Vistula Lagoon, southern Baltic)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kruk, Marek; Kobos, Justyna; Nawrocka, Lidia; Parszuto, Katarzyna

    2018-04-01

    This study aims to demonstrate that factors associated with climate dynamics, such as temperature and wind, affect the ecosystem of the shallow Vistula Lagoon in the southern Baltic and cause nutrient forms phytoplankton interactions: the growth of biomass and constraints of it. This occurs through a network of direct and indirect relationships between environmental and phytoplankton factors, including interactions of positive and negative feedback loops. Path analysis supported by structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test hypotheses regarding the impact of climate factors on algal assemblages. Increased phytoplankton biomass was affected directly by water temperature and salinity, while the wind speed effect was indirect as it resulted in increased concentrations of suspended solids (SS) in the water column. Simultaneously, the concentration of SS in the water was positively correlated with particulate organic carbon (POC), particulate nitrogen (PN), and particulate phosphorus (PP), and was negatively correlated with the total nitrogen to phosphorus (N:P) ratio. Particulate forms of C, N, and phosphorus (P), concentrations of soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) and nitrate and nitrite nitrogen (NO3-N + NO2-N), and ratios of the total N:P and DIN:SRP, all indirectly effected Cyanobacteria C concentrations. These processes influence other phytoplankton groups (Chlorophyta, Bacillariophyceae and the picophytoplankton fraction). Increased levels of SRP associated with organic matter (POC), which stemmed from reduced DIN:SRP ratios, contributed to increased Cyanoprokaryota and picophytoplankton C concentrations, which created a positive feedback loop. However, a simultaneous reduction in the total N:P ratio could have inhibited increases in the biomass of these assemblages by limiting N, which likely formed a negative feedback loop. The study indicates that the nutrients-phytoplankton feedback loop phenomenon can intensify eutrophication in a temperate lagoon

  4. Negative Life Events and Antenatal Depression among Pregnant Women in Rural China: The Role of Negative Automatic Thoughts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yang; Wang, Xiaohua; Liu, Fangnan; Jiang, Xiaoning; Xiao, Yun; Dong, Xuehan; Kong, Xianglei; Yang, Xuemei; Tian, Donghua; Qu, Zhiyong

    2016-01-01

    Few studies have looked at the relationship between psychological and the mental health status of pregnant women in rural China. The current study aims to explore the potential mediating effect of negative automatic thoughts between negative life events and antenatal depression. Data were collected in June 2012 and October 2012. 495 rural pregnant women were interviewed. Depressive symptoms were measured by the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale, stresses of pregnancy were measured by the pregnancy pressure scale, negative automatic thoughts were measured by the automatic thoughts questionnaire, and negative life events were measured by the life events scale for pregnant women. We used logistic regression and path analysis to test the mediating effect. The prevalence of antenatal depression was 13.7%. In the logistic regression, the only socio-demographic and health behavior factor significantly related to antenatal depression was sleep quality. Negative life events were not associated with depression in the fully adjusted model. Path analysis showed that the eventual direct and general effects of negative automatic thoughts were 0.39 and 0.51, which were larger than the effects of negative life events. This study suggested that there was a potentially significant mediating effect of negative automatic thoughts. Pregnant women who had lower scores of negative automatic thoughts were more likely to suffer less from negative life events which might lead to antenatal depression.

  5. Facilitative and competitive interaction components among New England salt marsh plants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    John F. Bruno

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Intra- and interspecific interactions can be broken down into facilitative and competitive components. The net interaction between two organisms is simply the sum of these counteracting elements. Disentangling the positive and negative components of species interactions is a critical step in advancing our understanding of how the interaction between organisms shift along physical and biotic gradients. We performed a manipulative field experiment to quantify the positive and negative components of the interactions between a perennial forb, Aster tenuifolius, and three dominant, matrix-forming grasses and rushes in a New England salt marsh. Specifically, we asked whether positive and negative interaction components: (1 are unique or redundant across three matrix-forming species (two grasses; Distichlis spicata and Spartina patens, and one rush; Juncus gerardi, and (2 change across Aster life stages (seedling, juvenile, and adult. For adult Aster the strength of the facilitative component of the matrix-forb interaction was stronger than the competitive component for two of the three matrix species, leading to net positive interactions. There was no statistically significant variation among matrix species in their net or component effects. We found little difference in the effects of J. gerardi on Aster at later life-history stages; interaction component strengths did not differ between juveniles and adults. However, mortality of seedlings in neighbor removal plots was 100%, indicating a particularly strong and critical facilitative effect of matrix species on this forb during the earliest life stages. Overall, our results indicate that matrix forming grasses and rushes have important, yet largely redundant, positive net effects on Aster performance across its life cycle. Studies that untangle various components of interactions and their contingencies are critical to both expanding our basic understanding of community organization, and predicting

  6. Characterization and Prognosis Significance of JAK2 (V617F), MPL, and CALR Mutations in Philadelphia-Negative Myeloproliferative Neoplasms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singdong, Roongrudee; Siriboonpiputtana, Teerapong; Chareonsirisuthigul, Takol; Kongruang, Adcharee; Limsuwanachot, Nittaya; Sirirat, Tanasan; Chuncharunee, Suporn; Rerkamnuaychoke, Budsaba

    2016-10-01

    Background: The discovery of somatic acquired mutations of JAK2 (V617F) in Philadelphia-negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (Ph-negative MPNs) including polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), and primary myelofibrosis (PMF) has not only improved rational disease classification and prognostication but also brings new understanding insight into the pathogenesis of diseases. Dosage effects of the JAK2 (V617F) allelic burden in Ph-negative MPNs may partially influence clinical presentation, disease progression, and treatment outcome. Material and Methods: Pyrosequencing was performed to detect JAK2 (V617F) and MPL (W515K/L) and capillary electrophoresis to identify CALR exon 9.0 mutations in 100.0 samples of Ph-negative MPNs (38.0 PV, 55 ET, 4 PMF, and 3 MPN-U). Results: The results showed somatic mutations of JAK2 (V617F) in 94.7% of PV, 74.5% of ET, 25.0% of PMF, and all MPN-U. A high proportion of JAK2 (V617F) mutant allele burden (mutational load > 50.0%) was predominantly observed in PV when compared with ET. Although a high level of JAK2 (V617F) allele burden was strongly associated with high WBC counts in both PV and ET, several hematological parameters (hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelet count) were independent of JAK2 (V617F) mutational load. MPL (W515K/L) mutations could not be detected whereas CALR exon 9.0 mutations were identified in 35.7% of patients with JAK2 negative ET and 33.3% with JAK2 negative PMF. Conclusions: The JAK2 (V617F) allele burden may be involved in progression of MPNs. Furthermore, a high level of JAK2 (V617F) mutant allele appears strongly associated with leukocytosis in both PV and ET. Creative Commons Attribution License

  7. Neglect and hereditary risk: Their relative contribution to schizophrenia with negative symptomatology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallagher, Bernard J; Jones, Brian J

    2016-05-01

    There is evidence that genetic and environmental stressors contribute to the genesis of schizophrenia. However, the relevant impact of each factor remains unclear. We tested for an interactive effect between childhood neglect and family history of serious mental illness. Data were further analyzed for a possible connection to type of schizophrenic symptoms. Data for the study are taken from the medical records of 641 patients with schizophrenia from a large state hospital in the northeastern United States. Clinical assessments were divided into positive and negative symptomatology through application of the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Detailed information about childhood neglect and family history of serious mental illness was obtained through Social Service Assessment interviews at intake and during hospital stay. Among clients with no family history of mental illness, childhood neglect does not meaningfully affect the risk of negative versus positive schizophrenia. For clients with such history, on the other hand, neglect significantly raises the risk of schizophrenia with negative symptomatology. Our central finding is that risk for negative symptoms of schizophrenia are elevated by childhood neglect combined with a history of serious mental illness within the family. This is the only report to combine schizophrenic symptoms, familial risk and childhood neglect to date. Implications for primary prevention and treatment are discussed. © The Author(s) 2016.

  8. Low-Voltage Ride-Through Operation of Power Converters in Grid-Interactive Microgrids by Using Negative-Sequence Droop Control

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhao, Xin; Guerrero, Josep M.; Savaghebi, Mehdi

    2017-01-01

    of the utility grid during grid faults. In this paper, a LVRT control strategy based on positive/negative sequence droop control is proposed for grid-interactive MGs to ride-through voltage sags with not only inductive/resistive, but also complex line impedance. By using the proposed control strategy, MGs can......Due to the increasing penetration level of microgrids (MGs), it becomes a critical issue for MGs to help sustaining power system stability. Therefore, ancillary services, such as the low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) capability should be incorporated in MGs in order to guarantee stable operation...... support the grid voltage, make profits, and also ride-through the voltage dip during the whole fault period. A two layer hierarchical control strategy is proposed in this paper. The primary controller consists of voltage and current inner loops, a conventional droop control and a virtual impedance loop...

  9. Marital conflict and parental responses to infant negative emotions: Relations with toddler emotional regulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frankel, Leslie A; Umemura, Tomo; Jacobvitz, Deborah; Hazen, Nancy

    2015-08-01

    According to family systems theory, children's emotional development is likely to be influenced by family interactions at multiple levels, including marital, mother-child, and father-child interactions, as well as by interrelations between these levels. The purpose of the present study was to examine parents' marital conflict and mothers' and fathers' distressed responses to their infant's negative emotions, assessed when their child was 8 and 24 months old, in addition to interactions between parents' marital conflict and their distressed responses, as predictors of their toddler's negative and flat/withdrawn affect at 24 months. Higher marital conflict during infancy and toddlerhood predicted both increased negative and increased flat/withdrawn affect during toddlerhood. In addition, toddlers' negative (but not flat) affect was related to mothers' distressed responses, but was only related to father's distressed responses when martial conflict was high. Implications of this study for parent education and family intervention were discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. dlk acts as a negative regulator of Notch1 activation through interactions with specific EGF-like repeats

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baladron, Victoriano; Ruiz-Hidalgo, Maria Jose; Nueda, Maria Luisa; Diaz-Guerra, Maria Jose M.; Garcia-Ramirez, Jose Javier; Bonvini, Ezio; Gubina, Elena; Laborda, Jorge

    2005-01-01

    The protein dlk, encoded by the Dlk1 gene, belongs to the Notch epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like family of receptors and ligands, which participate in cell fate decisions during development. The molecular mechanisms by which dlk regulates cell differentiation remain unknown. By using the yeast two-hybrid system, we found that dlk interacts with Notch1 in a specific manner. Moreover, by using luciferase as a reporter gene under the control of a CSL/RBP-Jk/CBF-1-dependent promoter in the dlk-negative, Notch1-positive Balb/c 14 cell line, we found that addition of synthetic dlk EGF-like peptides to the culture medium or forced expression of dlk decreases endogenous Notch activity. Furthermore, the expression of the gene Hes-1, a target for Notch1 activation, diminishes in confluent Balb/c14 cells transfected with an expression construct encoding for the extracellular EGF-like region of dlk. The expression of Dlk1 and Notch1 increases in 3T3-L1 cells maintained in a confluent state for several days, which is associated with a concomitant decrease in Hes-1 expression. On the other hand, the decrease of Dlk1 expression in 3T3-L1 cells by antisense cDNA transfection is associated with an increase in Hes-1 expression. These results suggest that dlk functionally interacts in vivo with Notch1, which may lead to the regulation of differentiation processes modulated by Notch1 activation and signaling, including adipogenesis

  11. The trans-kingdom identification of negative regulators of pathogen hypervirulence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Neil A; Urban, Martin; Hammond-Kosack, Kim E

    2016-01-01

    Modern society and global ecosystems are increasingly under threat from pathogens, which cause a plethora of human, animal, invertebrate and plant diseases. Of increasing concern is the trans-kingdom tendency for increased pathogen virulence that is beginning to emerge in natural, clinical and agricultural settings. The study of pathogenicity has revealed multiple examples of convergently evolved virulence mechanisms. Originally described as rare, but increasingly common, are interactions where a single gene deletion in a pathogenic species causes hypervirulence. This review utilised the pathogen-host interaction database (www.PHI-base.org) to identify 112 hypervirulent mutations from 37 pathogen species, and subsequently interrogates the trans-kingdom, conserved, molecular, biochemical and cellular themes that cause hypervirulence. This study investigates 22 animal and 15 plant pathogens including 17 bacterial and 17 fungal species. Finally, the evolutionary significance and trans-kingdom requirement for negative regulators of hypervirulence and the implication of pathogen hypervirulence and emerging infectious diseases on society are discussed. © FEMS 2015.

  12. The Wheat Mediator Subunit TaMED25 Interacts with the Transcription Factor TaEIL1 to Negatively Regulate Disease Resistance against Powdery Mildew.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Jie; Zhang, Tianren; Jia, Jizeng; Sun, Jiaqiang

    2016-03-01

    Powdery mildew, caused by the biotrophic fungal pathogen Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici, is a major limitation for the production of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). However, to date, the transcriptional regulation of bread wheat defense against powdery mildew remains largely unknown. Here, we report the function and molecular mechanism of the bread wheat Mediator subunit 25 (TaMED25) in regulating the bread wheat immune response signaling pathway. Three homoalleles of TaMED25 from bread wheat were identified and mapped to chromosomes 5A, 5B, and 5D, respectively. We show that knockdown of TaMED25 by barley stripe mosaic virus-induced gene silencing reduced bread wheat susceptibility to the powdery mildew fungus during the compatible plant-pathogen interaction. Moreover, our results indicate that MED25 may play a conserved role in regulating bread wheat and barley (Hordeum vulgare) susceptibility to powdery mildew. Similarly, bread wheat ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE3-LIKE1 (TaEIL1), an ortholog of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE3, negatively regulates bread wheat resistance against powdery mildew. Using various approaches, we demonstrate that the conserved activator-interacting domain of TaMED25 interacts physically with the separate amino- and carboxyl-terminal regions of TaEIL1, contributing to the transcriptional activation activity of TaEIL1. Furthermore, we show that TaMED25 and TaEIL1 synergistically activate ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR1 (TaERF1) transcription to modulate bread wheat basal disease resistance to B. graminis f. sp. tritici by repressing the expression of pathogenesis-related genes and deterring the accumulation of reactive oxygen species. Collectively, we identify the TaMED25-TaEIL1-TaERF1 signaling module as a negative regulator of bread wheat resistance to powdery mildew. © 2016 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.

  13. How plants cope with biotic interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Van Dam, N.M.

    2009-01-01

    In their natural environment, plants interact with many different organisms. The nature of these interactions may range from positive, for example interactions with pollinators, to negative, such as interactions with pathogens and herbivores. In this special issue, the contributors provide several

  14. Could patients' coughing have communicative significance?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bailey, Julia V

    2008-01-01

    Medical discourse positions patients with coughs and colds negatively, so consulting health services with 'minor' respiratory illness is therefore more accountable than for other medical problems. Patients face dilemmas since they must persuade doctors of the doctorability of their illness without being seen as hypochondriacal, and they risk losing face if doctors decide that there is nothing much wrong. It is known that the placement of non-lexical features of talk such as laughing or crying can have interactional meaning. Using a data set of video-recorded doctor-patient cough and cold consultations, this study explores whether patients' coughing could have communicative significance. The study is a qualitative analysis of 33 consultations drawing on a constructionist, sociolinguistic analytic approach. Coughing is co-ordinated with talk rather than occurring randomly. Coughing helps patients to demonstrate the doctorability of their symptoms and to legitimize their claims for medical attention. Coughing is also associated with resistance to 'no problem' diagnoses, resulting in changes in the trajectory of talk (for example, soliciting more explanation from doctors and/or re-negotiation of doctors' investigation or treatment plans). Coughing is undoubtedly a manifestation of respiratory illness, but also has communicative significance in consultations for coughs and colds.

  15. Influence of degree correlations on network structure and stability in protein-protein interaction networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zimmer Ralf

    2007-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The existence of negative correlations between degrees of interacting proteins is being discussed since such negative degree correlations were found for the large-scale yeast protein-protein interaction (PPI network of Ito et al. More recent studies observed no such negative correlations for high-confidence interaction sets. In this article, we analyzed a range of experimentally derived interaction networks to understand the role and prevalence of degree correlations in PPI networks. We investigated how degree correlations influence the structure of networks and their tolerance against perturbations such as the targeted deletion of hubs. Results For each PPI network, we simulated uncorrelated, positively and negatively correlated reference networks. Here, a simple model was developed which can create different types of degree correlations in a network without changing the degree distribution. Differences in static properties associated with degree correlations were compared by analyzing the network characteristics of the original PPI and reference networks. Dynamics were compared by simulating the effect of a selective deletion of hubs in all networks. Conclusion Considerable differences between the network types were found for the number of components in the original networks. Negatively correlated networks are fragmented into significantly less components than observed for positively correlated networks. On the other hand, the selective deletion of hubs showed an increased structural tolerance to these deletions for the positively correlated networks. This results in a lower rate of interaction loss in these networks compared to the negatively correlated networks and a decreased disintegration rate. Interestingly, real PPI networks are most similar to the randomly correlated references with respect to all properties analyzed. Thus, although structural properties of networks can be modified considerably by degree

  16. Parent–Child Interactions, Peripheral Serotonin, and Self-Inflicted Injury in Adolescents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crowell, Sheila E.; Beauchaine, Theodore P.; McCauley, Elizabeth; Smith, Cindy J.; Vasilev, Christina A.; Stevens, Adrianne L.

    2009-01-01

    Self-inflicted injury in adolescence indicates significant emotional and psychological suffering. Although data on the etiology of self-injury are limited, current theories suggest that the emotional lability observed among self-injuring adolescents results from complex interactions between individual biological vulnerabilities and environmental risk. For example, deficiencies in serotonergic functioning, in conjunction with certain family interaction patterns, may contribute to the development of emotional lability and risk for self-injury. The authors explored the relation between peripheral serotonin levels and mother–child interaction patterns among typical (n = 21) and self-injuring (n = 20) adolescents. Findings revealed higher levels of negative affect and lower levels of both positive affect and cohesiveness among families of self-injuring participants. Peripheral serotonin was also correlated with the expression of positive affect within dyads. Furthermore, adolescents’ serotonin levels interacted with negativity and conflict within dyads to explain 64% of the variance in self-injury. These findings underscore the importance of considering both biological and environmental risk factors in understanding and treating self-injuring adolescents. PMID:18229978

  17. Burnout and demographic characteristics of workers experiencing different types of work-home interaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dorota Merecz

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: The purpose of this study was to explore configurations of positive versus negative interactions between work and home (WHI and their relation to burnout and demographic characteristics. Material and Methods: Sample of 533 Polish workers were interviewed by means of self-administered questionnaires (SWING and MBI-GS. Demographic and work characteristics were also controlled. Results: Cluster analysis distinguished 5 types of WHIs: positive WHI (18%, negative WHI (15.9%, no interaction (29.3%, mutual positive interactions (15.4% and positive HWI (21.4%. The quality of WHI was associated with number of work hours and tenure at main place of employment. The effect of gender on the quality of work-home interaction was not significant. Configuration of WHIs affected the level of burnout. Again, there was no significant difference between men and women in terms of burnout and its sub-dimensions. The least burned-out were people from positive WHI, positive HWI and mutual positive interaction groups. The most burned-out were people who experienced negative WHI the most often. In this group, predominance of men working more than 10 h per day was observed. The majority of study group (71% experienced rather integration than segmentation of both spheres. Conclusions: Our results suggest that segmentation is not an universal and effective strategy of coping with work and home demands – it may prevent the positive home-work spillover, which can be buffer or remedy against stress or burnout. We consider cluster analysis the appropriate method in research on relation to work-family balance issue, which may be useful in unraveling relationships between this phenomenon and attitudes and behaviors.

  18. Social anxiety and eating disorder comorbidity: The role of negative social evaluation fears

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levinson, Cheri A.; Rodebaugh, Thomas L.

    2011-01-01

    Social anxiety and eating disorders are highly comorbid. However, it is unknown how specific domains of social anxiety relate to disordered eating. We provide data on these relationships and investigate social appearance anxiety and fear of negative evaluation as potential vulnerabilities linking social anxiety with eating disorders. Specifically, we examined five domains of social anxiety: Social interaction anxiety, fear of scrutiny, fear of positive evaluation, fear of negative evaluation, and social appearance anxiety. Results indicated that social appearance anxiety predicted body dissatisfaction, bulimia symptoms, shape concern, weight concern, and eating concern over and above fear of scrutiny, social interaction anxiety, and fear of positive evaluation. Fear of negative evaluation uniquely predicted drive for thinness and restraint. Structural equation modeling supported a model in which social appearance anxiety and fear of negative evaluation are vulnerabilities for both social anxiety and eating disorder symptoms. Interventions that target these negative social evaluation fears may help prevent development of eating disorders. PMID:22177392

  19. Interaction of infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus ORF119L with PINCH leads to dominant-negative inhibition of integrin-linked kinase and cardiovascular defects in zebrafish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Ji-Min; He, Bai-Liang; Yang, Lu-Yun; Guo, Chang-Jun; Weng, Shao-Ping; Li, Shengwen Calvin; He, Jian-Guo

    2015-01-01

    Infectious spleen and kidney necrosis virus (ISKNV) is the type species of the Megalocytivirus genus, Iridoviridae family, causing a severe systemic disease with high mortality in mandarin fish (Siniperca chuatsi) in China and Southeast Asia. At present, the pathogenesis of ISKNV infection is still not fully understood. Based on a genome-wide bioinformatics analysis of ISKNV-encoded proteins, we found that ISKNV open reading frame 119L (ORF119L) is predicted to encode a three-ankyrin-repeat (3ANK)-domain-containing protein, which shows high similarity to the dominant negative form of integrin-linked kinase (ILK); i.e., viral ORF119L lacks the ILK kinase domain. Thus, we speculated that viral ORF119L might affect the host ILK complex. Here, we demonstrated that viral ORF119L directly interacts with particularly interesting Cys-His-rich protein (PINCH) and affects the host ILK-PINCH interaction in vitro in fathead minnow (FHM) cells. In vivo ORF119L overexpression in zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos resulted in myocardial dysfunctions with disintegration of the sarcomeric Z disk. Importantly, ORF119L overexpression in zebrafish highly resembles the phenotype of endogenous ILK inhibition, either by overexpressing a dominant negative form of ILK or by injecting an ILK antisense morpholino oligonucleotide. Intriguingly, ISKNV-infected mandarin fish develop disorganized sarcomeric Z disks in cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, phosphorylation of AKT, a downstream effector of ILK, was remarkably decreased in ORF119L-overexpressing zebrafish embryos. With these results, we show that ISKNV ORF119L acts as a domain-negative inhibitor of the host ILK, providing a novel mechanism for the megalocytivirus pathogenesis. Our work is the first to show the role of a dominant negative inhibitor of the host ILK from ISKNV (an iridovirus). Mechanistically, the viral ORF119L directly binds to the host PINCH, attenuates the host PINCH-ILK interaction, and thus impairs ILK signaling. Intriguingly

  20. Using Multitouch Collaboration Technology to Enhance Social Interaction of Children with High-Functioning Autism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gal, Eynat; Lamash, Liron; Bauminger-Zviely, Nirit; Zancanaro, Massimo; Weiss, Patrice L Tamar

    2016-01-01

    Children with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD) have major difficulties in social communication skills, which may impact their performance and participation in everyday life. The goal of this study was to examine whether the StoryTable, an intervention paradigm based on a collaborative narrative, multitouch tabletop interface, enhanced social interaction for children with HFASD, and to determine whether the acquired abilities were transferred to behaviors during other tasks. Fourteen boys with HFASD, aged 7-12 years, participated in a 3-week, 11-session intervention. Social interactions during two nonintervention tasks were videotaped at three points in time, one prior to the intervention (pre), a second immediately following the intervention (post) and a third three weeks after the intervention (follow-up). The video-recorded files were coded using the Friendship Observation Scale to ascertain the frequencies of positive and negative social interactions and collaborative play. Differences in these behaviors were tested for significance using nonparametric statistical tests. There were significantly higher rates of positive social interactions and collaborative play, and lower rates of negative social interactions following the intervention suggesting generalization of the social skills learned during the intervention. Improvement was maintained when tested three weeks later. These findings provide support for the use of collaborative technology-based interventions within educational settings to enhance social interaction of children with HFASD.

  1. Prognostic significance of Traf2- and Nck- interacting kinase (TNIK) in colorectal cancer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takahashi, Hidenori; Ishikawa, Toshiaki; Ishiguro, Megumi; Okazaki, Satoshi; Mogushi, Kaoru; Kobayashi, Hirotoshi; Iida, Satoru; Mizushima, Hiroshi; Tanaka, Hiroshi; Uetake, Hiroyuki; Sugihara, Kenichi

    2015-01-01

    The potential of expression profiling using microarray analysis as a tool to predict the prognosis for different types of cancer has been realized. This study aimed to identify a novel biomarker for colorectal cancer (CRC). The expression profiles of cancer cells in 152 patients with stage I-III CRC were examined using microarray analysis. High expression in CRC cells, especially in patients with distant recurrences, was a prerequisite to select candidate genes. Thus, we identified seventeen candidate genes, and selected Traf2- and Nck-interacting kinase (TNIK), which was known to be associated with progression in CRC through Wnt signaling pathways. We analyzed the protein expression of TNIK using immunohistochemistry (IHC) and investigated the relationship between protein expression and patient characteristics in 220 stage I-III CRC patients. Relapse-free survival was significantly worse in the TNIK high expression group than in the TNIK low expression group in stage II (p = 0.028) and stage III (p = 0.006) patients. In multivariate analysis, high TNIK expression was identified as a significant independent risk factor of distant recurrence in stage III patients. This study is the first to demonstrate the prognostic significance of intratumoral TNIK protein expression in clinical tissue samples of CRC, in that high expression of TNIK protein in primary tumors was associated with distant recurrence in stage II and III CRC patients. This TNIK IHC study might contribute to practical decision-making in the treatment of these patients. The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-015-1783-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

  2. Significance of likes: Analysing passive interactions on Facebook during campaigning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Adib Khairuddin

    Full Text Available With more and more political candidates using social media for campaigning, researchers are looking at measuring the effectiveness of this medium. Most research, however, concentrates on the bare count of likes (or twitter mentions in an attempt to correlate social media presence and winning. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Interaction Strength Plot (IntS to measure the passive interactions between a candidate's posts on Facebook and the users (liking the posts. Using this method on original Malaysian General Election (MGE13 and Australian Federal Elections (AFE13 Facebook Pages (FP campaign data, we label an FP as performing well if both the posting frequency and the likes gathered are above average. Our method shows that over 60% of the MGE13 candidates and 85% of the AFE13 candidates studied in this paper had under-performing FP. Some of these FP owners would have been identified as popular based on bare count. Thus our performance chart is a vital step forward in measuring the effectiveness of online campaigning.

  3. Significance of likes: Analysing passive interactions on Facebook during campaigning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khairuddin, Mohammad Adib; Rao, Asha

    2017-01-01

    With more and more political candidates using social media for campaigning, researchers are looking at measuring the effectiveness of this medium. Most research, however, concentrates on the bare count of likes (or twitter mentions) in an attempt to correlate social media presence and winning. In this paper, we propose a novel method, Interaction Strength Plot (IntS) to measure the passive interactions between a candidate's posts on Facebook and the users (liking the posts). Using this method on original Malaysian General Election (MGE13) and Australian Federal Elections (AFE13) Facebook Pages (FP) campaign data, we label an FP as performing well if both the posting frequency and the likes gathered are above average. Our method shows that over 60% of the MGE13 candidates and 85% of the AFE13 candidates studied in this paper had under-performing FP. Some of these FP owners would have been identified as popular based on bare count. Thus our performance chart is a vital step forward in measuring the effectiveness of online campaigning.

  4. A daily diary study of perceived social isolation, dietary restraint, and negative affect in binge eating.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mason, Tyler B; Heron, Kristin E; Braitman, Abby L; Lewis, Robin J

    2016-02-01

    Negative affect and dietary restraint are key predictors of binge eating, yet less is known about the impact of social factors on binge eating. The study sought to replicate and extend research on the relationships between negative affect, dietary restraint, perceived social isolation and binge eating using a daily diary methodology. College women (N = 54) completed measures of dietary restraint, negative affect, perceived social isolation, and binge eating daily for 14 days. Participants completed the measures nightly each day. A series of generalized estimating equations showed that dietary restraint was associated with less binge eating while controlling for negative affect and for perceived social isolation separately. Negative affect and perceived social isolation were associated with greater binge eating while controlling for restraint in separate analyses, but only perceived social isolation was significant when modeled simultaneously. All two-way interactions between negative affect, dietary restraint, and perceived social isolation predicting binge eating were nonsignificant. This study furthers our understanding of predictors of binge eating in a nonclinical sample. Specifically, these data suggest perceived social isolation, negative affect, and dietary restraint are important variables associated with binge eating in daily life and warrant further research. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Negative emotional reactivity as a marker of vulnerability in the development of borderline personality disorder symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stepp, Stephanie D; Scott, Lori N; Jones, Neil P; Whalen, Diana J; Hipwell, Alison E

    2016-02-01

    Negative emotionality is a distinguishing feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, this person-level characteristic has not been examined as a marker of vulnerability in the development of this disorder. The current study utilized a multimethod approach to examine the interplay between negative emotional reactivity and cumulative exposure to family adversity on the development of BPD symptoms across 3 years (ages 16-18) in a diverse, at-risk sample of adolescent girls (N = 113). A latent variable of negative emotional reactivity was created from multiple assessments at age 16: self-report, emotion ratings to stressors from ecological assessments across 1 week, and observer-rated negative affectivity during a mother-daughter conflict discussion task. Exposure to family adversity was measured cumulatively between ages 5 and 16 from annual assessments of family poverty, single parent household, and difficult life circumstances. The results from latent growth curve models demonstrated a significant interaction between negative emotional reactivity and family adversity, such that exposure to adversity strengthened the association between negative emotional reactivity and BPD symptoms. In addition, family adversity predicted increasing BPD symptoms during late adolescence. These findings highlight negative emotional reactivity as a marker of vulnerability that ultimately increases risk for the development of BPD symptoms.

  6. Negative emotional reactivity as a marker of vulnerability in the development of borderline personality disorder symptoms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stepp, Stephanie D.; Scott, Lori N.; Jones, Neil P.; Whalen, Diana J.; Hipwell, Alison E.

    2015-01-01

    Negative emotionality is a distinguishing feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, this person-level characteristic has not been examined as a marker of vulnerability in the development of this disorder. The current study utilized a multi-method approach to examine the interplay between negative emotional reactivity and cumulative exposure to family adversity on the development of BPD symptoms across three years (ages 16–18) in a diverse, at-risk sample of adolescent girls (N=113). A latent variable of negative emotional reactivity was created from multiple assessments at age 16: (1) self-report, (2) emotion ratings to stressors from ecological assessments across one week, and (3) observer-rated negative affectivity during a mother-daughter conflict discussion task. Exposure to family adversity was measured cumulatively between ages 5 and 16 from annual assessments of family poverty, single parent household, and difficult life circumstances. Results from latent growth curve models demonstrated a significant interaction between negative emotional reactivity and family adversity, such that exposure to adversity strengthened the association between negative emotional reactivity and BPD symptoms. Additionally, family adversity predicted increasing BPD symptoms during late adolescence. These findings highlight negative emotional reactivity as a marker of vulnerability that ultimately increases risk for the development of BPD symptoms. PMID:25925083

  7. Energy cost of negative pion production on deuterium-tritium target

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kuzminov, V.V. (Petersburg Nuclear Physics Inst., Gatchina, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation)); Petrov, Yu.V. (Petersburg Nuclear Physics Inst., Gatchina, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation)); Shabelski, Yu.M. (Petersburg Nuclear Physics Inst., Gatchina, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation))

    1993-12-01

    The negative pion production by deuterons (T[sub 0] = 0.8 GeV/nucl.) was calculated for a cylindrical gaseous deuterium-tritium target (the density of DT-mixture is [phi] = 0.5). Revised cross sections of nucleon-nucleus interaction were used in a Monte Carlo simulation and multiple nucleon-nuclei collisions were taken into account. The energy cost of negative pion production is [epsilon][sub [pi][sup -

  8. News Media Framing of Negative Campaigning

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Rasmus Tue

    2014-01-01

    that news coverage of negative campaigning does apply the strategic game frame to a significantly larger degree than articles covering positive campaigning. This finding has significant implications for campaigning politicians and for scholars studying campaign and media effects.......News media coverage of election campaigns is often characterized by use of the strategic game frame and a focus on politicians’ use of negative campaigning. However, the exact relationship between these two characteristics of news coverage is largely unexplored. This article theorizes that consumer...... demand and norms of journalistic independence might induce the news media outlets to cover negative campaigning with a strategic game frame. A comprehensive content analysis based on several newspaper types, several election campaigns, and several different measurements of media framing confirms...

  9. Perceptions of marital interaction among black and white newlyweds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oggins, J; Veroff, J; Leber, D

    1993-09-01

    Perceptions of marital interactions were gathered from a representative sample of urban newlywed couples (199 Black and 174 White). A factor analysis of the reports found 6 factors common to husbands and wives: Disclosing Communication, Affective Affirmation, Negative Sexual Interaction, Traditional Role Regulation, Destructive Conflict, and Constructive Conflict. Avoiding Conflict was specific to men and Positive Coorientation was specific to women. Wives reported fewer constructive and more destructive conflict behaviors. Compared with Whites, Blacks reported more disclosure, more positive sexual interactions, and fewer topics of disagreement. They also more often reported leaving the scene of conflict and talking with others more easily than with the spouse. As hypothesized, perceptions that marital interactions affirm one's sense of identity strongly predicted marital well-being. Although regression analyses predicting marital happiness yielded few interactions with race or gender, those that are significant, coupled with race and gender differences in perceiving interaction, suggest taking a contextual orientation to the meaning of marital interaction.

  10. Suggestibility and negative priming: two replication studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    David, Daniel; Brown, Richard J

    2002-07-01

    Research suggests that inhibiting the effect of irrelevant stimuli on subsequent thought and action (cognitive inhibition) may be an important component of suggestibility. Two small correlation studies were conducted to address the relationship between different aspects of suggestibility and individual differences in cognitive inhibition, operationalized as the degree of negative priming generated by to-be-ignored stimuli in a semantic categorization task. The first study found significant positive correlations between negative priming, hypnotic suggestibility, and creative imagination; a significant negative correlation was obtained between negative priming and interrogative suggestibility, demonstrating the discriminant validity of the study results. The second study replicated the correlation between negative priming and hypnotic suggestibility, using a different suggestibility measurement procedure that assessed subjective experience and hypnotic involuntariness as well as objective responses to suggestions. These studies support the notion that the ability to engage in cognitive inhibition may be an important component of hypnotic responsivity and maybe of other forms of suggestibility.

  11. Negative numbers and antimatter particles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsan, Ung Chan

    2012-01-01

    Dirac's equation states that an electron implies the existence of an antielectron with the same mass (more generally same arithmetic properties) and opposite charge (more generally opposite algebraic properties). Subsequent observation of antielectron validated this concept. This statement can be extended to all matter particles; observation of antiproton, antineutron, antideuton … is in complete agreement with this view. Recently antihypertriton was observed and 38 atoms of antihydrogen were trapped. This opens the path for use in precise testing of nature's fundamental symmetries. The symmetric properties of a matter particle and its mirror antimatter particle seem to be well established. Interactions operate on matter particles and antimatter particles as well. Conservation of matter parallels addition operating on positive and negative numbers. Without antimatter particles, interactions of the Standard Model (electromagnetism, strong interaction and weak interaction) cannot have the structure of group. Antimatter particles are characterized by negative baryonic number A or/and negative leptonic number L. Materialization and annihilation obey conservation of A and L (associated to all known interactions), explaining why from pure energy (A = 0, L = 0) one can only obtain a pair of matter particle antimatter particle — electron antielectron, proton and antiproton — via materialization where the mass of a pair of particle antiparticle gives back to pure energy with annihilation. These two mechanisms cannot change the difference in the number of matter particles and antimatter particles. Thus from pure energy only a perfectly symmetric (in number) universe could be generated as proposed by Dirac but observation showed that our universe is not symmetric, it is a matter universe which is nevertheless neutral. Fall of reflection symmetries shattered the prejudice that there is no way to define in an absolute way right and left or matter and antimatter

  12. Quantum entanglement analysis of an optically excited coupling of two nuclear spins via a mediator: Combining the quantum concurrence and negativity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Chenghua; Hu, Zhanning

    2018-03-01

    In this paper, we investigate the characteristics of the nuclear spin entanglement generated by an intermedium with an optically excited triplet. Significantly, the interaction between the two nuclear spins presents to be a direct XY coupling in each of the effective subspace Hamiltonians which are obtained by applying a transformation on the natural Hamiltonian. The quantum concurrence and negativity are discussed to quantitatively describe the quantum entanglement, and a comparison between them can reveal the nature of their relationship. An innovative general equation describing the relationship between the concurrence and negativity is explicitly obtained.

  13. Unsupportive social interactions and affective states: examining associations of two oxytocin-related polymorphisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McInnis, Opal A; McQuaid, Robyn J; Matheson, Kimberly; Anisman, Hymie

    2017-01-01

    Two single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on oxytocin-related genes, specifically the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) rs53576 and the CD38 rs3796863 variants, have been associated with alterations in prosocial behaviors. A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate students (N = 476) to examine associations between the OXTR and CD38 polymorphisms and unsupportive social interactions and mood states. Results revealed no association between perceived levels of unsupportive social interactions and the OXTR polymorphism. However, A carriers of the CD38 polymorphism, a variant previously associated with elevated oxytocin, reported greater perceived peer unsupportive interactions compared to CC carriers. As expected, perceived unsupportive interactions from peers was associated with greater negative affect, which was moderated by the CD38 polymorphism. Specifically, this relation was stronger among CC carriers of the CD38 polymorphism (a variant thought to be linked to lower oxytocin). When examining whether the OXTR polymorphism moderated the relation between unsupportive social interactions from peers and negative affect there was a trend toward significance, however, this did not withstand multiple testing corrections. These findings are consistent with the perspective that a variant on an oxytocin polymorphism that may be tied to lower oxytocin is related to poor mood outcomes in association with negative social interactions. At the same time, having a genetic constitution presumed to be associated with higher oxytocin was related to increased perceptions of unsupportive social interactions. These seemingly paradoxical findings could be related to previous reports in which variants associated with prosocial behaviors were also tied to relatively more effective coping styles to deal with challenges.

  14. The Wheat Mediator Subunit TaMED25 Interacts with the Transcription Factor TaEIL1 to Negatively Regulate Disease Resistance against Powdery Mildew1

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Tianren; Jia, Jizeng; Sun, Jiaqiang

    2016-01-01

    Powdery mildew, caused by the biotrophic fungal pathogen Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici, is a major limitation for the production of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). However, to date, the transcriptional regulation of bread wheat defense against powdery mildew remains largely unknown. Here, we report the function and molecular mechanism of the bread wheat Mediator subunit 25 (TaMED25) in regulating the bread wheat immune response signaling pathway. Three homoalleles of TaMED25 from bread wheat were identified and mapped to chromosomes 5A, 5B, and 5D, respectively. We show that knockdown of TaMED25 by barley stripe mosaic virus-induced gene silencing reduced bread wheat susceptibility to the powdery mildew fungus during the compatible plant-pathogen interaction. Moreover, our results indicate that MED25 may play a conserved role in regulating bread wheat and barley (Hordeum vulgare) susceptibility to powdery mildew. Similarly, bread wheat ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE3-LIKE1 (TaEIL1), an ortholog of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ETHYLENE INSENSITIVE3, negatively regulates bread wheat resistance against powdery mildew. Using various approaches, we demonstrate that the conserved activator-interacting domain of TaMED25 interacts physically with the separate amino- and carboxyl-terminal regions of TaEIL1, contributing to the transcriptional activation activity of TaEIL1. Furthermore, we show that TaMED25 and TaEIL1 synergistically activate ETHYLENE RESPONSE FACTOR1 (TaERF1) transcription to modulate bread wheat basal disease resistance to B. graminis f. sp. tritici by repressing the expression of pathogenesis-related genes and deterring the accumulation of reactive oxygen species. Collectively, we identify the TaMED25-TaEIL1-TaERF1 signaling module as a negative regulator of bread wheat resistance to powdery mildew. PMID:26813794

  15. Association between social interaction and affect in nursing home residents with dementia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jao, Ying-Ling; Loken, Eric; MacAndrew, Margaret; Van Haitsma, Kimberly; Kolanowski, Ann

    2018-06-01

    Social interactions that lead to positive affect are fundamental to human well-being. However, individuals with dementia are challenged to achieve positive social interaction. It is unclear how social interactions influence affect in people with dementia. This study examined the association between social interactions and affect in nursing home residents with dementia. This repeated measures study used baseline data from a clinical trial in which 126 residents from 12 nursing homes were enrolled. Participants were video recorded twice daily on five days. Ratings of social interaction and affect were taken from the videotapes using the Interacting with People subscale of the Passivity in Dementia and the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Apparent Affect Rating Scale. Linear mixed models were used for analysis. Social interaction was significantly related to higher interest and pleasure at within- and between-person levels. Social interaction significantly predicted anxiety and sadness at the between-person level only. Residents with higher cognitive function also displayed greater pleasure. Greater interest and anxiety was evident during the afternoon hours. This study supports the impact of social interactions on positive and negative affect. Findings can guide intervention development, aimed at promoting positive social interactions and improving affect for people with dementia.

  16. Effect of antimony on lead-acid battery negative

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mahato, B.K.; Bullock, K.R.; Strebe, J.L.; Wilkinson, D.F.

    1985-01-01

    The role of antimony on the lead-acid battery negative in terms of its effect on charge efficiency, its effect on gassing overpotential, its interactive influence with lignin expander in controlling the charge efficiency, and its retentive behavior or purging characteristics as SbH 3 in the overcharge gas stream was investigated. Linear potential sweep (LPS) cycling of Plante-type lead electrodes were used to determine the effect of antimony on gassing overpotential and to monitor its concentration either in the active material or the exit gas stream. Results showed a significant contribution of antimony in decreasing charge efficiency and an overwhelming role of lignin expander in suppressing the effect of antimony on charge efficiency. The critical lead-electrode potential for purging antimony from the electrode is close to -1275 mV (vs. Hg/Hg 2 SO 4 )

  17. Ego Boundary Deficits and the Negative Therapeutic Inter-Action: A Tale of a Whale, a Whale of a Tale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peterson, Charles A

    2017-06-01

    Defined variously and unsatisfactorily as a worsening of the patient's condition following a correct interpretation, the negative therapeutic reaction is typically blamed on the patient: "the operation was a success but the patient died." For most neurotic patients unconscious guilt objects to progress and activates the need to suffer. For most character-disturbed patients envy cannot bear the analyst's cleverness. However, patients with ego boundary problems-even sectors of psychosis-may require a different explanatory mechanism, where a correct interpretation may be experienced as a penetration and an engulfment, threatening the intactness of the self. A short-term, time-limited, psychoanalytic psychotherapy that went off the rails following a correct but ill-timed interpretation is presented as an opportunity to amend analytic theory, here favoring the interactional over the intrapsychic. Herman Melville helps tell the tale.

  18. Remarriage Beliefs as Predictors of Marital Quality and Positive Interaction in Stepcouples: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garneau, Chelsea L; Higginbotham, Brian; Adler-Baeder, Francesca

    2015-12-01

    Using an Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, we examined remarriage beliefs as predictors of marital quality and positive interaction in a sample of 179 stepcouples. Three beliefs were measured using subscales from the Remarriage Belief Inventory (RMBI) including success is slim, children are the priority, and finances should be pooled. Several significant actor and partner effects were found for both wives' and husbands' beliefs. Wives' marital quality was positively associated with their own beliefs that finances should be pooled and negatively associated with their own beliefs that success is slim. Wives' reports of their own and spouses' positive interaction were both positively associated with their beliefs that finances should be pooled. Their reports of spouses' positive interaction were also negatively associated with husbands' beliefs that success is slim. Husbands' marital quality was positively associated with wives' beliefs that children are the priority, positively associated with their own beliefs that finances should be pooled, and negatively with success is slim. Positive interaction for husbands was positively associated with wives' beliefs that finances should be pooled and negatively associated with their own beliefs that success is slim. Finally, husbands' reports of positive interaction for their spouses were positively associated with wives' beliefs that finances should be pooled. Implications for future research utilizing dyadic data analysis with stepcouples are addressed. © 2015 Family Process Institute.

  19. Influences of maternal postpartum depression on fathers and on father-infant interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodman, Janice H

    2008-11-01

    Maternal postpartum depression (PPD) has been shown to negatively influence mother-infant interaction; however, little research has explored how fathers and father-infant interaction are affected when a mother is depressed. This study examined the influence of maternal PPD on fathers and identified maternal and paternal factors associated with father-infant interaction in families with depressed as compared with nondepressed mothers. A convenience sample of 128 mother-father-infant triads, approximately half of which included women with significant symptoms of PPD at screening, were recruited from a screening sample of 790 postpartum women. Mothers and fathers completed measures of depression, marital satisfaction, and parenting stress at 2 to 3 months' postpartum and were each videotaped interacting with their infants. Results indicate that maternal PPD is associated with increased paternal depression and higher paternal parenting stress. Partners of depressed women demonstrated less optimal interaction with their infants, indicating that fathers do not compensate for the negative effects of maternal depression on the child. Although mother-infant interaction did not influence father-infant interaction, how the mother felt about her relationship with the infant did, even more so than maternal depression. The links between maternal PPD, fathers, and father-infant interaction indicate a need for further understanding of the reciprocal influences between mothers, fathers, and infants. Copyright © 2008 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.

  20. Insights into significant pathways and gene interaction networks in peripheral blood mononuclear cells for early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jian Xin Jiang

    2016-01-01

    Conclusions: Using identified DEGs, significantly changed biological processes such as nucleic acid metabolic process and KEGG pathways such as cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction in PBMCs of HCC patients were identified. In addition, several important hub genes, for example, CUL4A, and interleukin (IL 8 were also uncovered.

  1. Negative and positive interactions among plants: effects of competitors and litter on seedling emergence and growth of forest and grassland species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Loydi, A; Donath, T W; Otte, A; Eckstein, R L

    2015-05-01

    Living plant neighbours, but also their dead aboveground remains (i.e. litter), may individually exert negative or positive effects on plant recruitment. Although living plants and litter co-occur in most ecosystems, few studies have addressed their combined effects, and conclusions are ambivalent. Therefore, we examined the response in terms of seedling emergence and growth of herbaceous grassland and forest species to different litter types and amounts and the presence of competitors. We conducted a pot experiment testing the effects of litter type (grass, oak), litter amount (low, medium, high) and interspecific competition (presence or absence of four Festuca arundinacea individuals) on seedling emergence and biomass of four congeneric pairs of hemicryptophytes from two habitat types (woodland, grassland). Interactions between litter and competition were weak. Litter presence increased competitor biomass. It also had positive effects on seedling emergence at low litter amounts and negative effects at high litter amounts, while competition had no effect on seedling emergence. Seedling biomass was negatively affected by the presence of competitors, and this effect was stronger in combination with high amounts of litter. Litter affected seedling emergence while competition determined the biomass of the emerged individuals, both affecting early stages of seedling recruitment. High litter accumulation also reduced seedling biomass, but this effect seemed to be additive to competitor effects. This suggests that live and dead plant mass can affect species recruitment in natural systems, but the mechanisms by which they operate and their timing differ. © 2014 German Botanical Society and The Royal Botanical Society of the Netherlands.

  2. The role of chronic pain and current substance use in predicting negative social support among disadvantaged persons living with HIV/AIDS.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitchell, Mary M; Maragh-Bass, Allysha C; Nguyen, Trang Q; Isenberg, Sarina; Knowlton, Amy R

    2016-10-01

    Chronic pain and substance use can strain the supportive relationships of persons with serious chronic illness, which may increase the likelihood of receiving negative, rather than positive, social support from informal caregivers and social network members. To our knowledge, this is the first study to longitudinally examine the effects of chronic pain and substance use on negative social support. The sample (N = 383) comprised disadvantaged, primarily African-American, persons living with HIV/AIDS with a history of injection drug use, 32.4% of whom reported frequent or constant pain in the prior 6 months. Using factor analysis and structural equation modeling, current substance use and greater levels of chronic pain positively predicted negative social support 12 months later, after controlling for baseline negative support, viral load, age and sex. We also found a significant interaction effect such that among those not using substances, there was a significant positive association between pain and negative support, but no such association among those currently using substances. The findings emphasize the importance of treatment of chronic pain and substance use in the supportive functioning of social networks of a disadvantaged population with serious chronic conditions and persistent health disparities.

  3. TargetMiner: microRNA target prediction with systematic identification of tissue-specific negative examples.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bandyopadhyay, Sanghamitra; Mitra, Ramkrishna

    2009-10-15

    Prediction of microRNA (miRNA) target mRNAs using machine learning approaches is an important area of research. However, most of the methods suffer from either high false positive or false negative rates. One reason for this is the marked deficiency of negative examples or miRNA non-target pairs. Systematic identification of non-target mRNAs is still not addressed properly, and therefore, current machine learning approaches are compelled to rely on artificially generated negative examples for training. In this article, we have identified approximately 300 tissue-specific negative examples using a novel approach that involves expression profiling of both miRNAs and mRNAs, miRNA-mRNA structural interactions and seed-site conservation. The newly generated negative examples are validated with pSILAC dataset, which elucidate the fact that the identified non-targets are indeed non-targets.These high-throughput tissue-specific negative examples and a set of experimentally verified positive examples are then used to build a system called TargetMiner, a support vector machine (SVM)-based classifier. In addition to assessing the prediction accuracy on cross-validation experiments, TargetMiner has been validated with a completely independent experimental test dataset. Our method outperforms 10 existing target prediction algorithms and provides a good balance between sensitivity and specificity that is not reflected in the existing methods. We achieve a significantly higher sensitivity and specificity of 69% and 67.8% based on a pool of 90 feature set and 76.5% and 66.1% using a set of 30 selected feature set on the completely independent test dataset. In order to establish the effectiveness of the systematically generated negative examples, the SVM is trained using a different set of negative data generated using the method in Yousef et al. A significantly higher false positive rate (70.6%) is observed when tested on the independent set, while all other factors are kept the

  4. Impact significance determination-Pushing the boundaries

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lawrence, David P.

    2007-01-01

    Impact significance determination practice tends to be highly variable. Too often insufficient consideration is given to good practice insights. Also, impact significance determinations are frequently narrowly defined addressing, for example, only individual, negative impacts, focusing on bio-physical impacts, and not seeking to integrate either the Precautionary Principle or sustainability. This article seeks to extend the boundaries of impact significance determination practice by providing an overview of good general impact significance practices, together with stakeholder roles and potential methods for addressing significance determination challenges. Relevant thresholds, criteria, contextual considerations and support methods are also highlighted. The analysis is then extended to address how impact significance determination practices change for positive as compared with negative impacts, for cumulative as compared with individual impacts, for socio-economic as compared with bio-physical impacts, when the Precautionary Principle is integrated into the process, and when sustainability contributions drive the EIA process and related impact significance determinations. These refinements can assist EIA practitioners in ensuring that the scope and nature of impact significance determinations reflect the broadened scope of emerging EIA requirements and practices. Suggestions are included for further refining and testing of the proposed changes to impact significance determination practice

  5. A CLDN1-negative phenotype predicts poor prognosis in triple-negative breast cancer.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fei Ma

    Full Text Available INTRODUCTION: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC is a heterogeneous disease with no definitive prognostic markers. As a major component of tight junctions, claudins (CLDNs presumably play an important role in carcinogenesis and progression of breast cancer. This study was aimed at determining the relationship between the expression of CLDNs and the clinical outcomes of TNBCs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The surgical specimens of primary breast tumors from a consecutive cohort of 173 TNBC patients were retrospectively collected. The membranous expression of CLDN1, CLDN2, CLDN4, and CLDN7 was measured by immunohistochemistry. Then, the associations between CLDN expression, clinicopathological features, and clinical outcomes were assessed. RESULTS: Positive CLDN1, CLDN2, CLDN4, and CLDN7 membrane expression was detected in 44.5%, 54.9%, 76.9%, and 73.4% of the cohort specimens, respectively. A lack of CLDN1 expression was related to only lymph node metastasis (P = 0.014. The rate of CLDN4-positive tumors was significantly increased in tumors of a higher grade (P = 0.003. Importantly, negative CLDN1 expression was associated with worse relapse-free survival (RFS in both lymph node positive (LN+ and negative (LN- cases (both P<0.001. Similarly it was also associated with shorter overall survival (OS(P = 0.003 in LN+ cases; P = 0.018 in LN- cases. In the LN+ subgroup, CLDN2-negative cases had a significantly higher risk of recurrence (P = 0.008. Multivariate analysis revealed that negative CLDN1 expression was an independent prognostic factor for high risk of both recurrence and death (HR 5.529, 95% CI 2.664-11.475, P<0.001; HR 3.459, 95% CI 1.555-7.696, P = 0.002. However, neither CLDN4 nor CLDN7 expression was associated with survival. CONCLUSION: In TNBC, the CLDN1-negative phenotype predicts a high risk of recurrence and death. The absence of CLDN1 expression is strongly suggested to be an independent adverse prognostic factor

  6. The cation-π interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dougherty, Dennis A

    2013-04-16

    The chemistry community now recognizes the cation-π interaction as a major force for molecular recognition, joining the hydrophobic effect, the hydrogen bond, and the ion pair in determining macromolecular structure and drug-receptor interactions. This Account provides the author's perspective on the intellectual origins and fundamental nature of the cation-π interaction. Early studies on cyclophanes established that water-soluble, cationic molecules would forego aqueous solvation to enter a hydrophobic cavity if that cavity was lined with π systems. Important gas phase studies established the fundamental nature of the cation-π interaction. The strength of the cation-π interaction (Li(+) binds to benzene with 38 kcal/mol of binding energy; NH4(+) with 19 kcal/mol) distinguishes it from the weaker polar-π interactions observed in the benzene dimer or water-benzene complexes. In addition to the substantial intrinsic strength of the cation-π interaction in gas phase studies, the cation-π interaction remains energetically significant in aqueous media and under biological conditions. Many studies have shown that cation-π interactions can enhance binding energies by 2-5 kcal/mol, making them competitive with hydrogen bonds and ion pairs in drug-receptor and protein-protein interactions. As with other noncovalent interactions involving aromatic systems, the cation-π interaction includes a substantial electrostatic component. The six (four) C(δ-)-H(δ+) bond dipoles of a molecule like benzene (ethylene) combine to produce a region of negative electrostatic potential on the face of the π system. Simple electrostatics facilitate a natural attraction of cations to the surface. The trend for (gas phase) binding energies is Li(+) > Na(+) > K(+) > Rb(+): as the ion gets larger the charge is dispersed over a larger sphere and binding interactions weaken, a classical electrostatic effect. On other hand, polarizability does not define these interactions. Cyclohexane is

  7. Physical principles of the surface-plasma method of producing beams of negative ions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bel'chenko, Yu.I.; Dimov, G.I.; Dudnikov, V.G.

    A study is made of the processes used to produce intensive beams of negative ions from surface-plasma sources (SPS). The concepts now being formulated concerning the formation of negative ions upon interaction of bombarding particles with the surface of a solid are analyzed. The peculiarities of the realization of optimal conditions for the production of beams of negative ions in SPS of various designs are discussed

  8. Tree-grass interactions in savannas

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Scholes, RJ

    1997-01-01

    Full Text Available Savannas occur where trees and grasses interact to create a biome that is neither grassland nor forest. Woody and gramineous plants interact by many mechanisms, some negative (competition) and some positive (facilitation). The strength and sign...

  9. Daily Social Interactions and the Biological Stress Response: Are There Age Differences in Links Between Social Interactions and Alpha-Amylase?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Birditt, Kira S; Tighe, Lauren A; Nevitt, Michael R; Zarit, Steven H

    2017-12-12

    According to the strength and vulnerability integration (SAVI) model, older people are better able to avoid negative social interactions than younger people, but when they do experience negative interactions, they are equally or more emotionally and physiologically reactive than younger people. Less is known about the links between daily negative and positive social encounters and the sympathetic adrenal medullary system (a key stress pathway) and whether there are age differences in these links. This study considers whether negative and positive social interactions are associated with diurnal alpha-amylase (a measure of the sympathetic adrenal medullary system) and whether there are differences in these links by age. Participants were from the Daily Health, Stress, and Relationship Study, which includes a random sample of 89 individuals (aged 40-95) who completed 14 days of daily diary interviews and provided saliva samples four times a day (wake, 30 min after wake, lunch, and bedtime) for four of those days that were assayed for alpha-amylase. Days in which people reported more negative interactions were associated with flatter morning declines in alpha-amylase, indicating greater stress. Links between positive interactions and diurnal alpha-amylase varied by age group. Findings are consistent with the SAVI model indicating that older adults respond differently to social stimuli than younger people. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  10. Solitons in a relativistic plasma with negative ions--

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Das, G.C.; Karmakar, B.; Ibohanbi Singh, KH.

    1990-01-01

    The interaction of the nonlinearity and the dispersiveness causing the solitary waves are studied in a relativistic plasma with negative ions through the derivation of a nonlinear partial differential equation known as the Korteweg-Devries (K-DV) equation. The negative ions play a salient feature on the existence and behavior of the solitons and could be of interest in laboratory plasmas. First, the observations are made in a nonisothermal plasma, and later the reduction to the nonisothermality of the plasma shows entirely different characteristics as compared to the solitons in the isothermal plasmas. A comparison with the various solutions has been emphasized

  11. Change over Time in Police Interactions and HIV Risk Behavior Among Female Sex Workers in Andhra Pradesh, India

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reed, Elizabeth; Blankenship, Kim M.

    2015-01-01

    Little is known about the effectiveness of intervening to change interactions between female sex workers (FSWs) and police in order to reduce HIV risk. Using data collected in the context of a HIV prevention intervention that included components to change policing practices (n = 1,680), we examine the association of FSWs’ reports of negative police interactions and HIV risk behaviors and whether these associations varied over time. Results show negative police interactions declined significantly over time. FSWs who had more than one negative police interaction were more likely to experience STI symptoms (AOR 2.97 [95 % CI 2.27–3.89]), inconsistently use condoms with their clients (AOR 1.36 [95 % CI 1.03–1.79]), and accept more money for condomless sex (AOR 2.37 [95 % CI 1.76–3.21]). Over time, these associations were stable or increased. Even where interventions have reduced the number of police incidents experienced by FSWs, stakeholders in HIV prevention must remain vigilant in challenging these incidents. PMID:25354735

  12. Interactions between the vascular endothelial growth factor gene polymorphism and life events in susceptibility to major depressive disorder in a Chinese population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Dong; Qiao, Zhengxue; Chen, Lu; Qiu, Xiaohui; Fang, Deyu; Yang, Xiuxian; Ma, Jingsong; Chen, Mingqi; Yang, Jiarun; Wang, Lin; Zhu, Xiongzhao; Zhang, Congpei; Yang, Yanjie; Pan, Hui

    2017-08-01

    Recent studies suggest that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is involved in the development of major depressive disorder. The aim of this study is to investigate the interaction between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) polymorphism (+405G/C, rs2010963) and negative life events in the pathogenesis of major depressive disorder (MDD). DNA genotyping was performed on peripheral blood leukocytes in 274 patients with MDD and 273 age-and sex-matched controls. The frequency and severity of negative life events were assessed by the Life Events Scale (LES). A logistics method was employed to assess the gene-environment interaction (G×E). Differences in rs2010963 genotype distributions were observed between MDD patients and controls. Significant G×E interactions between allelic variation of rs2010963 and negative life events were observed. Individuals carrying the C alleles were susceptible to MDD only when exposed to high-negative life events. These results indicate that interactions between the VEGF rs2010963 polymorphism and environment increases the risk of developing MDD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Predicting Drug-Target Interactions Based on Small Positive Samples.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Pengwei; Chan, Keith C C; Hu, Yanxing

    2018-01-01

    A basic task in drug discovery is to find new medication in the form of candidate compounds that act on a target protein. In other words, a drug has to interact with a target and such drug-target interaction (DTI) is not expected to be random. Significant and interesting patterns are expected to be hidden in them. If these patterns can be discovered, new drugs are expected to be more easily discoverable. Currently, a number of computational methods have been proposed to predict DTIs based on their similarity. However, such as approach does not allow biochemical features to be directly considered. As a result, some methods have been proposed to try to discover patterns in physicochemical interactions. Since the number of potential negative DTIs are very high both in absolute terms and in comparison to that of the known ones, these methods are rather computationally expensive and they can only rely on subsets, rather than the full set, of negative DTIs for training and validation. As there is always a relatively high chance for negative DTIs to be falsely identified and as only partial subset of such DTIs is considered, existing approaches can be further improved to better predict DTIs. In this paper, we present a novel approach, called ODT (one class drug target interaction prediction), for such purpose. One main task of ODT is to discover association patterns between interacting drugs and proteins from the chemical structure of the former and the protein sequence network of the latter. ODT does so in two phases. First, the DTI-network is transformed to a representation by structural properties. Second, it applies a oneclass classification algorithm to build a prediction model based only on known positive interactions. We compared the best AUROC scores of the ODT with several state-of-art approaches on Gold standard data. The prediction accuracy of the ODT is superior in comparison with all the other methods at GPCRs dataset and Ion channels dataset. Performance

  14. Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron unwind negatively supercoiled DNA and lengthen linear DNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Verebová, Valéria; Adamcik, Jozef; Danko, Patrik; Podhradský, Dušan; Miškovský, Pavol; Staničová, Jana

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron unwind negatively supercoiled DNA. • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron lengthen linear DNA. • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron possess middle binding affinity to DNA. • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron interact with DNA by intercalating mode. - Abstract: The intercalating drugs possess a planar aromatic chromophore unit by which they insert between DNA bases causing the distortion of classical B-DNA form. The planar tricyclic structure of anthraquinones belongs to the group of chromophore units and enables anthraquinones to bind to DNA by intercalating mode. The interactions of simple derivatives of anthraquinone, quinizarin (1,4-dihydroxyanthraquinone) and danthron (1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone), with negatively supercoiled and linear DNA were investigated using a combination of the electrophoretic methods, fluorescence spectrophotometry and single molecule technique an atomic force microscopy. The detection of the topological change of negatively supercoiled plasmid DNA, unwinding of negatively supercoiled DNA, corresponding to appearance of DNA topoisomers with the low superhelicity and an increase of the contour length of linear DNA in the presence of quinizarin and danthron indicate the binding of both anthraquinones to DNA by intercalating mode

  15. Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron unwind negatively supercoiled DNA and lengthen linear DNA

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Verebová, Valéria [Institute of Biophysics, University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, Komenského 73, 041 81 Košice (Slovakia); Adamcik, Jozef [Food and Soft Materials Science, Institute of Food, Nutrition and Health, ETH Zurich, Schmelzbergstrasse 9, CH-8092 Zürich (Switzerland); Danko, Patrik; Podhradský, Dušan [Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, P.J. Šafárik University, Moyzesova 11, 041 54 Košice (Slovakia); Miškovský, Pavol [Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Sciences, P.J. Šafárik University, Jesenná 5, 041 54 Košice (Slovakia); Center for Interdisciplinary Biosciences, Faculty of Sciences, P.J. Šafárik University, Jesenná 5, 041 54 Košice (Slovakia); Staničová, Jana, E-mail: jana.stanicova@uvlf.sk [Institute of Biophysics, University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy, Komenského 73, 041 81 Košice (Slovakia)

    2014-01-31

    Highlights: • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron unwind negatively supercoiled DNA. • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron lengthen linear DNA. • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron possess middle binding affinity to DNA. • Anthraquinones quinizarin and danthron interact with DNA by intercalating mode. - Abstract: The intercalating drugs possess a planar aromatic chromophore unit by which they insert between DNA bases causing the distortion of classical B-DNA form. The planar tricyclic structure of anthraquinones belongs to the group of chromophore units and enables anthraquinones to bind to DNA by intercalating mode. The interactions of simple derivatives of anthraquinone, quinizarin (1,4-dihydroxyanthraquinone) and danthron (1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone), with negatively supercoiled and linear DNA were investigated using a combination of the electrophoretic methods, fluorescence spectrophotometry and single molecule technique an atomic force microscopy. The detection of the topological change of negatively supercoiled plasmid DNA, unwinding of negatively supercoiled DNA, corresponding to appearance of DNA topoisomers with the low superhelicity and an increase of the contour length of linear DNA in the presence of quinizarin and danthron indicate the binding of both anthraquinones to DNA by intercalating mode.

  16. [Predictive factors of clinically significant drug-drug interactions among regimens based on protease inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and raltegravir].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cervero, Miguel; Torres, Rafael; Jusdado, Juan José; Pastor, Susana; Agud, Jose Luis

    2016-04-15

    To determine the prevalence and types of clinically significant drug-drug interactions (CSDI) in the drug regimens of HIV-infected patients receiving antiretroviral treatment. retrospective review of database. Centre: Hospital Universitario Severo Ochoa, Infectious Unit. one hundred and forty-two participants followed by one of the authors were selected from January 1985 to December 2014. from their outpatient medical records we reviewed information from the last available visit of the participants, in relation to HIV infection, comorbidities, demographics and the drugs that they were receiving; both antiretroviral drugs and drugs not related to HIV infection. We defined CSDI from the information sheet and/or database on antiretroviral drug interactions of the University of Liverpool (http://www.hiv-druginteractions.org) and we developed a diagnostic tool to predict the possibility of CSDI. By multivariate logistic regression analysis and by estimating the diagnostic performance curve obtained, we identified a quick tool to predict the existence of drug interactions. Of 142 patients, 39 (29.11%) had some type of CSDI and in 11.2% 2 or more interactions were detected. In only one patient the combination of drugs was contraindicated (this patient was receiving darunavir/r and quetiapine). In multivariate analyses, predictors of CSDI were regimen type (PI or NNRTI) and the use of 3 or more non-antiretroviral drugs (AUC 0.886, 95% CI 0.828 to 0.944; P=.0001). The risk was 18.55 times in those receiving NNRTI and 27,95 times in those receiving IP compared to those taking raltegravir. Drug interactions, including those defined as clinically significant, are common in HIV-infected patients treated with antiretroviral drugs, and the risk is greater in IP-based regimens. Raltegravir-based prescribing, especially in patients who receive at least 3 non-HIV drugs could avoid interactions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

  17. Negative emotionality and externalizing problems in toddlerhood: overreactive parenting as a moderator of genetic influences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lipscomb, Shannon T; Leve, Leslie D; Shaw, Daniel S; Neiderhiser, Jenae M; Scaramella, Laura V; Ge, Xiaojia; Conger, Rand D; Reid, John B; Reiss, David

    2012-02-01

    The current study examines the interplay between parental overreactivity and children's genetic backgrounds as inferred from birth parent characteristics on the development of negative emotionality during infancy, and in turn, to individual differences in externalizing problems in toddlerhood. The sample included 361 families linked through adoption (birth parents and adoptive families). Data were collected when the children were 9, 18, and 27 months old. Results indicated links between individual levels and changes in negative emotionality during infancy and toddlerhood to externalizing problems early in the third year of life. Findings also revealed an interaction between birth mother negative affect and adoptive mother overreactive parenting on children's negative emotionality. This Genotype × Environment interaction predicted externalizing problems indirectly through its association with negative emotionality and revealed stronger effects of genetic risk for children with less overreactive parenting from their mothers. Limitations of this study and directions for future research are discussed.

  18. Surface generation of negative hydrogen ion beams

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bommel, P.J.M. van.

    1984-01-01

    This thesis describes investigations on negative hydrogen ion sources at the ampere level. Formation of H - ions occurs when positive hydrogen ions capture two electrons at metal surfaces. The negative ionization probability of hydrogen at metal surfaces increases strongly with decreasing work function of the surface. The converters used in this study are covered with cesium. Usually there are 'surface plasma sources' in which the hydrogen source plasma interacts with a converter. In this thesis the author concentrates upon investigating a new concept that has converters outside the plasma. In this approach a positive hydrogen ion beam is extracted from the plasma and is subsequently reflected from a low work function converter surface. (Auth.)

  19. Negative Pressure Wound Therapy in Maxillofacial Applications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adam J. Mellott

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Negative pressure wound therapy has greatly advanced the field of wound healing for nearly two decades, by providing a robust surgical adjunct technique for accelerating wound closure in acute and chronic wounds. However, the application of negative pressure wound therapy in maxillofacial applications has been relatively under utilized as a result of the physical articulations and contours of the head and neck that make it challenging to obtain an airtight seal for different negative pressure wound therapy systems. Adapting negative pressure wound therapies for maxillofacial applications could yield significant enhancement of wound closure in maxillofacial applications. The current review summarizes the basic science underlying negative pressure wound therapy, as well as specific maxillofacial procedures that could benefit from negative pressure wound therapy.

  20. Negative inferential style, emotional clarity, and life stress: integrating vulnerabilities to depression in adolescence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stange, Jonathan P; Alloy, Lauren B; Flynn, Megan; Abramson, Lyn Y

    2013-01-01

    Negative inferential style and deficits in emotional clarity have been identified as vulnerability factors for depression in adolescence, particularly when individuals experience high levels of life stress. However, previous research has not integrated these characteristics when evaluating vulnerability to depression. In the present study, a racially diverse community sample of 256 early adolescents (ages 12 and 13) completed a baseline visit and a follow-up visit 9 months later. Inferential style, emotional clarity, and depressive symptoms were assessed at baseline, and intervening life events and depressive symptoms were assessed at follow-up. Hierarchical linear regressions indicated that there was a significant three-way interaction between adolescents' weakest-link negative inferential style, emotional clarity, and intervening life stress predicting depressive symptoms at follow-up, controlling for initial depressive symptoms. Adolescents with low emotional clarity and high negative inferential styles experienced the greatest increases in depressive symptoms following life stress. Emotional clarity buffered against the impact of life stress on depressive symptoms among adolescents with negative inferential styles. Similarly, negative inferential styles exacerbated the impact of life stress on depressive symptoms among adolescents with low emotional clarity. These results provide evidence of the utility of integrating inferential style and emotional clarity as constructs of vulnerability in combination with life stress in the identification of adolescents at risk for depression. They also suggest the enhancement of emotional clarity as a potential intervention technique to protect against the effects of negative inferential styles and life stress on depression in early adolescence.

  1. Effect of electrostatic interaction on thermochemical behavior of 12-crown-4 ether in various polar solvents

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Barannikov, Vladimir P.; Guseynov, Sabir S.; Vyugin, Anatoliy I.

    2010-01-01

    The enthalpies of solution of 12-crown-4 ether have been measured in chloroform, ethyl acetate, acetone, pyridine, acetonitrile and methanol at 298.15 K. The values of enthalpy of solvation and solute-solvent interaction were determined from the obtained results and similar literature data for 12-crown-4 in solvents of various polarities. It was shown that the certain correlation is observed between the enthalpy of solute-solvent interaction and the squared dipole moment of the solvent molecules for solutions in tetrachlormethane, ethyl acetate, pyridine, acetonitrile, DMF, DMSO and propylene carbonate. This means that the electrostatic interaction of 12-crown-4 with polar solvent molecules contributes significantly to the exothermic effect of solvation. The understated negative value was found for the enthalpy of interaction of 12-crown-4 with acetone that can be connected with domination of low polar conformer of the crown ether in acetone medium. The most negative values of enthalpy of solvation are observed for solutions in chloroform and water because of hydrogen bonding between O-atoms of crown ether and molecules of the indicated solvents. This effect is not observed for methanol. The negative coefficient of pairwise solute-solute interaction in methanol indicates that the effects of solvophobic solute-solute interaction and H-bonding of the ether molecule with chain associates of methanol are not evinced in the thermochemical behavior of 12-crown-4.

  2. Maternal depression: effects on social cognition and behavior in parent-child interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lovejoy, M C

    1991-12-01

    The social interactions of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their preschool-age children were observed and mothers' perceptions of child behavior assessed. Depressed mothers, as a group, exhibited more negative behavior than controls; however, no differences were found for maternal positive behavior or contingent responding. There was a high degree of reciprocity between child and mother behavior in both groups and there was a trend for children of the depressed mothers to be more negative than the control children. The results with cognitive measures were consistent with depressive realism in perception of social interactions: Depressed mothers recalled more negative child behavior than nondepressed mothers; however, these perceptions paralleled the observed interactions. Overall, the results suggest that maternal depression is associated with negative parent-child interactions and more negative, albeit fairly accurate, perceptions of child behavior.

  3. Negative predictive value of multiparametric MRI for prostate cancer detection: Outcome of 5-year follow-up in men with negative findings on initial MRI studies

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Itatani, R., E-mail: banguliao@gmail.com [Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1, Honjo, Kumamoto 860-8556 (Japan); Department of Radiology, Kumamoto Chuo Hospital, 1-5-1, Tainoshima, Kumamoto 862-0965 (Japan); Namimoto, T. [Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1, Honjo, Kumamoto 860-8556 (Japan); Atsuji, S.; Katahira, K.; Morishita, S. [Department of Radiology, Kumamoto Chuo Hospital, 1-5-1, Tainoshima, Kumamoto 862-0965 (Japan); Kitani, K.; Hamada, Y. [Department of Urology, Kumamoto Chuo Hospital, 1-5-1, Tainoshima, Kumamoto 862-0965 (Japan); Kitaoka, M. [Department of Pathology, Kumamoto Chuo Hospital, 1-5-1, Tainoshima, Kumamoto 862-0965 (Japan); Nakaura, T. [Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Amakusa Medical Center, Kameba 854-1, Amakusa, Kumamoto 863-0046 (Japan); Yamashita, Y. [Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1, Honjo, Kumamoto 860-8556 (Japan)

    2014-10-15

    Highlights: • We assess the negative predictive value of multiparametric MRI for prostate cancer. • Patients with positive prostate biopsy findings were defined as false-negative. • Patients with negative initial prostate biopsy findings were followed up for 5 years. • The negative predictive value was 89.6% for significant prostate cancer. • MRI is a useful tool to rule out significant prostate cancer before biopsy. - Abstract: Objective: To assess the clinical negative predictive value (NPV) of multiparametric MRI (mp-MRI) for prostate cancer in a 5-year follow-up. Materials and methods: One hundred ninety-three men suspected of harboring prostate cancer with negative MRI findings were included. Patients with positive transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided biopsy findings were defined as false-negative. Patients with negative initial TRUS-guided biopsy findings were followed up and only patients with negative findings by digital rectal examination, MRI, and repeat biopsy and no increase in PSA at 5-year follow-up were defined as “clinically negative”. The clinical NPV of mp-MRI was calculated. For quantitative analysis, mean signal intensity on T2-weighted images and the mean apparent diffusion coefficient value on ADC maps of the initial MRI studies were compared between peripheral-zone (PZ) cancer and the normal PZ based on pathologic maps of patients who had undergone radical prostatectomy. Results: The clinical NPV of mp-MRI was 89.6% for significant prostate cancer. Small cancers, prostatitis, and benign prostatic hypertrophy masking prostate cancer returned false-negative results. Quantitative analysis showed that there was no significant difference between PZ cancer and the normal PZ. Conclusion: The mp-MRI revealed a high clinical NPV and is a useful tool to rule out clinically significant prostate cancer before biopsy.

  4. Negative predictive value of multiparametric MRI for prostate cancer detection: Outcome of 5-year follow-up in men with negative findings on initial MRI studies

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Itatani, R.; Namimoto, T.; Atsuji, S.; Katahira, K.; Morishita, S.; Kitani, K.; Hamada, Y.; Kitaoka, M.; Nakaura, T.; Yamashita, Y.

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • We assess the negative predictive value of multiparametric MRI for prostate cancer. • Patients with positive prostate biopsy findings were defined as false-negative. • Patients with negative initial prostate biopsy findings were followed up for 5 years. • The negative predictive value was 89.6% for significant prostate cancer. • MRI is a useful tool to rule out significant prostate cancer before biopsy. - Abstract: Objective: To assess the clinical negative predictive value (NPV) of multiparametric MRI (mp-MRI) for prostate cancer in a 5-year follow-up. Materials and methods: One hundred ninety-three men suspected of harboring prostate cancer with negative MRI findings were included. Patients with positive transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-guided biopsy findings were defined as false-negative. Patients with negative initial TRUS-guided biopsy findings were followed up and only patients with negative findings by digital rectal examination, MRI, and repeat biopsy and no increase in PSA at 5-year follow-up were defined as “clinically negative”. The clinical NPV of mp-MRI was calculated. For quantitative analysis, mean signal intensity on T2-weighted images and the mean apparent diffusion coefficient value on ADC maps of the initial MRI studies were compared between peripheral-zone (PZ) cancer and the normal PZ based on pathologic maps of patients who had undergone radical prostatectomy. Results: The clinical NPV of mp-MRI was 89.6% for significant prostate cancer. Small cancers, prostatitis, and benign prostatic hypertrophy masking prostate cancer returned false-negative results. Quantitative analysis showed that there was no significant difference between PZ cancer and the normal PZ. Conclusion: The mp-MRI revealed a high clinical NPV and is a useful tool to rule out clinically significant prostate cancer before biopsy

  5. Anticipation and experience of emotions in patients with schizophrenia and negative symptoms. An experimental study in a social context.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engel, Maike; Fritzsche, Anja; Lincoln, Tania M

    2016-01-01

    Negative symptoms play a central role in the impairment of social functioning in schizophrenia. Healthy individuals use anticipated emotions to guide their decisions to seek out social interactions. It is unknown whether social withdrawal in negative symptoms is related to a biased anticipation of emotions that will arise in social situations. This study thus examined differences between patients with negative symptoms of schizophrenia and healthy controls in the anticipation and experience of positive and negative emotions related to a social interaction. In a between-subject factorial design, participants were instructed to either predict or to experience emotions related to a simulated social inclusion and exclusion interaction. Overall, patients anticipated more intense negative emotions than controls. Divided by the type of social situation, however, patients reported less intense positive emotions than controls with regard to social inclusion, but not with regard to social exclusion. The lack of an overall deficit in anticipation of positive emotions speaks against the assumption that anticipation abnormalities in negative symptoms are due to a neurocognitive deficit. Rather, the findings seem to reflect negative beliefs about potentially rewarding social situations in people with negative symptoms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Social inhibition modulates the effect of negative emotions on cardiac prognosis following percutaneous coronary intervention in the drug-eluting stent era

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Denollet, Johan; Pedersen, Susanne S.; Ong, Andrew T L

    2006-01-01

    Negative emotions have an adverse effect on cardiac prognosis. We investigated whether social inhibition (inhibited self-expression in social interaction) modulates the effect of negative emotions on clinical outcome following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).......Negative emotions have an adverse effect on cardiac prognosis. We investigated whether social inhibition (inhibited self-expression in social interaction) modulates the effect of negative emotions on clinical outcome following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)....

  7. Charging of dust grains in a plasma with negative ions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mamun, A.A.; Shukla, P.K.

    2003-01-01

    The role of negative ions on the charging of dust grains in a plasma is examined. Two models for negative ion distributions are considered. These are streaming negative ions and Boltzmannian negative ions. It is found that the effects of the negative ion number density, negative ion charge, and negative ion streaming speed significantly affect the dust grain surface potential or the dust grain charge

  8. Negative incidental emotions augment fairness sensitivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Cuizhen; Chai, Jing Wen; Yu, Rongjun

    2016-04-22

    Previous studies have shown that task-unrelated emotions induced incidentally exert carryover effects on individuals' subsequent decisions in financial negotiations. However, the specificity of these emotion effects are not clear. In three experiments, we systematically investigated the role of seven transiently induced basic emotions (disgust, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and neutral) on rejection of unfair offers using the ultimatum game. We found that all negative emotions (disgust, sadness, anger and fear), but not happiness or surprise, significantly increased rejection rates, suggesting that the effect of incidental negative emotions on fairness is not specific to the type of negative emotion. Our findings highlight the role of fleeting emotions in biasing decision-making processes and suggest that all incidental negative emotions exert similar effects on fairness sensitivity, possibly by potentiating attention towards negative aspects of the situation.

  9. Cellular responses of BRCA1-defective and triple-negative breast cancer cells and in vitro BRCA1 interactions induced by metallo-intercalator ruthenium(II) complexes containing chloro-substituted phenylazopyridine

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nhukeaw, Tidarat; Temboot, Pornvichai; Hansongnern, Kanidtha; Ratanaphan, Adisorn

    2014-01-01

    Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined by the absence of expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Breast cancers with a BRCA1 mutation are also frequently triple-negative. Currently, there is a lack of effective therapies and known specific molecular targets for this aggressive breast cancer subtype. To address this concern, we have explored the cellular responses of BRCA1-defective and triple-negative breast cancer cells, and in vitro BRCA1 interactions induced by the ruthenium(II) complexes containing the bidentate ligand, 5-chloro-2-(phenylazo)pyridine. Triple-negative MDA-MB-231, BRCA1-defective HCC1937 and BRCA1-competent MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines were treated with ruthenium(II) complexes. The cytoxoxicity of ruthenium-induced breast cancer cells was evaluated by a real time cellular analyzer (RTCA). Cellular uptake of ruthenium complexes was determined by ICP-MS. Cell cycle progression and apoptosis were assessed using propidium iodide and Annexin V flow cytometry. The N-terminal BRCA1 RING protein was used for conformational and functional studies using circular dichroism and in vitro ubiquitination. HCC1937 cells were significantly more sensitive to the ruthenium complexes than the MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cells. Treatment demonstrated a higher degree of cytotoxicity than cisplatin against all three cell lines. Most ruthenium atoms were retained in the nuclear compartment, particularly in HCC1937 cells, after 24 h of incubation, and produced a significant block at the G2/M phase. An increased induction of apoptotic cells as well as an upregulation of p53 mRNA was observed in all tested breast cancer cells. It was of interest that BRCA1 mRNA and replication of BRCA1-defective cells were downregulated. Changes in the conformation and binding constants of ruthenium-BRCA1 adducts were observed, causing inactivation of the RING heterodimer BRCA1/BARD1-mediated E3 ubiquitin ligase activity

  10. Measurement of negatively charged pion spectra in inelastic p+p interactions at p{sub lab} = 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abgrall, N.; Blondel, A.; Bravar, A.; Debieux, S.; Haesler, A.; Korzenev, A.; Murphy, S.; Ravonel, M. [University of Geneva, Geneva (Switzerland); Aduszkiewicz, A.; Dominik, W.; Kielczewska, D.; Kirejczyk, M.; Matulewicz, T.; Posiadala, M.; Skrzypczak, E. [University of Warsaw, Faculty of Physics, Warsaw (Poland); Ali, Y.; Brzychczyk, J.; Majka, Z.; Marcinek, A.; Planeta, R.; Staszel, P.; Wyszynski, O. [Jagiellonian University, Cracow (Poland); Anticic, T.; Kadija, K.; Susa, T. [Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb (Croatia); Antoniou, N.; Christakoglou, P.; Davis, N.; Diakonos, F.; Kapoyannis, A.; Panagiotou, A.D.; Vassiliou, M. [University of Athens, Athens (Greece); Baatar, B.; Bunyatov, S.A.; Kolesnikov, V.I.; Krasnoperov, A.; Lyubushkin, V.V.; Malakhov, A.I.; Melkumov, G.L.; Tereshchenko, V. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Bay, F.; Luise, S.Di; Rubbia, A.; Sgalaberna, D. [ETH, Zurich (Switzerland); Blumer, J.; Dembinski, H.; Engel, R.; Mathes, H.J.; Roth, M.; Szuba, M.; Ulrich, R.; Unger, M. [Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe (Germany); Bogomilov, M.; Kolev, D.; Tsenov, R. [University of Sofia, Faculty of Physics, Sofia (Bulgaria); Busygina, O.; Golubeva, M.; Guber, F.; Ivashkin, A.; Kurepin, A.; Marin, V.; Petukhov, O.; Sadovsky, A. [Institute for Nuclear Research, Moscow (Russian Federation); Czopowicz, T.; Dynowski, K.; Grebieszkow, K.; Maksiak, B.; Peryt, W.; Pluta, J.; Slodkowski, M. [Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw (Poland); Drozhzhova, T.; Feofilov, G.A.; Igolkin, S.; Kondratiev, V.P.; Vechernin, V.V.; Vinogradov, L. [St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg (Russian Federation); Dumarchez, J.; Robert, A.; Zambelli, L. [LPNHE, University of Paris VI and VII, Paris (France); Ereditato, A.; Hierholzer, M.; Nirkko, M.; Pistillo, C.; Redij, A. [University of Bern, Bern (Switzerland); Fodor, Z.; Fulop, A.; Kiss, T.; Laszlo, A.; Marton, K.; Palla, G.; Sipos, R.; Tolyhi, T.; Vesztergombi, G. [KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, Budapest (Hungary); Gazdzicki, M. [Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Kielce (Poland); University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt (Germany); Grzeszczuk, A.; Kaptur, E.; Kisiel, J.; Kowalski, S.; Larsen, D.; Pulawski, S.; Schmidt, K.; Wilczek, A.; Zipper, W. [University of Silesia, Katowice (Poland); Hasegawa, T.; Kobayashi, T.; Nakadaira, T.; Nishikawa, K.; Sakashita, K.; Sekiguchi, T.; Shibata, M.; Tada, M. [High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Tsukuba, Ibaraki (Japan); Idczak, R.; Kovesarki, P.; Turko, L. [University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw (Poland); Jokovic, D.; Manic, D.; Puzovic, J.; Savic, M. [University of Belgrade, Belgrade (Serbia); Kleinfelder, S. [University of California, Irvine (United States); Mackowiak-Pawlowska, M.; Renfordt, R.; Rustamov, A.; Stroebele, H. [University of Frankfurt, Frankfurt (Germany); Matveev, V. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); Institute for Nuclear Research, Moscow (Russian Federation); Mrowczynski, S.; Rybczynski, M.; Seyboth, P.; Stefanek, G.; Wlodarczyk, Z.; Wojtaszek-Szwarc, A. [Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Kielce (Poland); Palczewski, T.; Rondio, E.; Stepaniak, J. [National Centre for Nuclear Research, Warsaw (Poland); Paul, T.; Veberic, D. [University Nova Gorica, Laboratory of Astroparticle Physics, Nova Gorica (Slovenia); Popov, B.A. [Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation); LPNHE, University of Paris VI and VII, Paris (France); Rauch, W. [Fachhochschule Frankfurt, Frankfurt (Germany); Roehrich, D. [University of Bergen, Bergen (Norway); Collaboration: NA61/SHINE Collaboration

    2014-03-15

    We present experimental results on inclusive spectra and mean multiplicities of negatively charged pions produced in inelastic p+p interactions at incident projectile momenta of 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c (√(s) = 6.3, 7.7, 8.8, 12.3 and 17.3 GeV, respectively). The measurements were performed using the large acceptance NA61/SHINE hadron spectrometer at the CERN super proton synchrotron. Two-dimensional spectra are determined in terms of rapidity and transverse momentum. Their properties such as the width of rapidity distributions and the inverse slope parameter of transverse mass spectra are extracted and their collision energy dependences are presented. The results on inelastic p+p interactions are compared with the corresponding data on central Pb+Pb collisions measured by the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS. The results presented in this paper are part of the NA61/SHINE ion program devoted to the study of the properties of the onset of deconfinement and search for the critical point of strongly interacting matter. They are required for interpretation of results on nucleus-nucleus and proton-nucleus collisions. (orig.)

  11. The Gap of Self - States and Its Association to an Individual‟s Interaction and Emotional Bond to their Significant Relationships: A Correlational Study about Filipino Youth‟s Self - Discrepancy and Their Attachment Styl

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mae R. Galing

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available A youth is expected to experience difficulties due to the opposing desire to be free while still remaining dependent to family and other significant individuals in their lives. Filipino youth are known as being family - oriented and being submissive which is one of the factors that pounds the importance of what people around them utters. Thus, creating a gap or discrepancy between what they truly want and what other people expect them to do. When these internal battles began, significant external aspects such as social interaction can be compromised. These occurrences can be elucidated by using the two frameworks Self - Discrepancy Theory and Attachment Style. In this study, correlational research design and survey method were employed to 384 Filipino Youth from Makati whom are selected through convenience sampling. Results of the study showed that the respondents have positive image of themselves. Also, a big majority of the respondents were discerned to have high discrepancies between their self - states. In this study, it was also seen that the respondents were dismissive and were characterized to be independent, self - reliant, and gave low importance to relationships. Finally, findings of this study revealed a weak positive correlation between secure attachment s tyle towards the self - discrepancy of the respondents while weak negative correlation was found between the rest of the attachment styles towards the discrepancy among their self - states. With this, the researchers recommended stabilizing internal discrepanc ies and strengthening significant relationships as the two were seen as big factors in respondents’ social interaction and self - esteem.

  12. Cerebral Blood Flow and Amyloid-β Interact to Affect Memory Performance in Cognitively Normal Older Adults

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katherine J. Bangen

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Cerebral blood flow (CBF alterations and amyloid-β (Aβ accumulation have been independently linked to cognitive deficits in older adults at risk for dementia. Less is known about how CBF and Aβ may interact to affect cognition in cognitively normal older adults. Therefore, we examined potential statistical interactions between CBF and Aβ status in regions typically affected in Alzheimer’s disease (AD within a sample of older adults from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI study. Sixty-two cognitively normal participants (mean age = 72 years underwent neuroimaging and memory testing. Arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging was used to quantify CBF and florbetapir PET amyloid imaging was used to measure Aβ deposition. Aβ status (i.e., positivity versus negativity was determined based on established cutoffs (Landau et al., 2013. The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test was used to assess memory. Linear regression models adjusted for age, education, and sex, demonstrated significant interactions between CBF and Aβ status on memory performance. Among Aβ positive older adults, there were significant negative associations between higher CBF in hippocampus, posterior cingulate, and precuneus and poorer memory performance. In contrast, among Aβ negative older adults, there were no significant associations between CBF and cognition. Our findings extend previous CBF studies of dementia risk by reporting interactions between Aβ status and CBF on memory performance in a sample of well-characterized, cognitively normal older adults. Results suggest that differential CBF-cognition associations can be identified in healthy, asymptomatic Aβ positive older adults relative to Aβ negative individuals. Associations between higherCBF and poorer memory among Aβ positive older adults may reflect a cellular and/or vascular compensatory response to pathologic processes whereby higher CBF is needed to maintain normal memory

  13. Negative Sequence Droop Method based Hierarchical Control for Low Voltage Ride-Through in Grid-Interactive Microgrids

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhao, Xin; Firoozabadi, Mehdi Savaghebi; Quintero, Juan Carlos Vasquez

    2015-01-01

    . In this paper, a voltage support strategy based on negative sequence droop control, which regulate the positive/negative sequence active and reactive power flow by means of sending proper voltage reference to the inner control loop, is proposed for the grid connected MGs to ride through voltage sags under...... complex line impedance conditions. In this case, the MGs should inject a certain amount of positive and negative sequence power to the grid so that the voltage quality at load side can be maintained at a satisfied level. A two layer hierarchical control strategy is proposed in this paper. The primary...... control loop consists of voltage and current inner loops, conventional droop control and virtual impedance loop while the secondary control loop is based on positive/negative sequence droop control which can achieve power injection under voltage sags. Experimental results with asymmetrical voltage sags...

  14. Overview of the LBL/LLNL negative-ion-based neutral beam program

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pyle, R.V.

    1980-01-01

    The LBL/LLNL negative-ion-based neutral beam development program and status are described. The emphasis has shifted in some details since the first symposium in 1977, but our overall objectives remain the same, namely, the development of megawatt d.c. injection systems. Previous emphasis was on a system in which the negative ions were produced by double charge exchange in sodium vapor. At present, the emphasis is on a self-extraction source in which the negative ions are produced on a biased surface imbedded in a plasma. A one-ampere beam will be accelerated to at least 40 keV next year. Studies of negative-ion formation and interactions help provide a data base for the technology program

  15. Negative quantum capacitance induced by midgap states in single-layer graphene.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Lin; Wang, Yang; Chen, Xiaolong; Zhu, Wei; Zhu, Chao; Wu, Zefei; Han, Yu; Zhang, Mingwei; Li, Wei; He, Yuheng; Xiong, Wei; Law, Kam Tuen; Su, Dangsheng; Wang, Ning

    2013-01-01

    We demonstrate that single-layer graphene (SLG) decorated with a high density of Ag adatoms displays the unconventional phenomenon of negative quantum capacitance. The Ag adatoms act as resonant impurities and form nearly dispersionless resonant impurity bands near the charge neutrality point (CNP). Resonant impurities quench the kinetic energy and drive the electrons to the Coulomb energy dominated regime with negative compressibility. In the absence of a magnetic field, negative quantum capacitance is observed near the CNP. In the quantum Hall regime, negative quantum capacitance behavior at several Landau level positions is displayed, which is associated with the quenching of kinetic energy by the formation of Landau levels. The negative quantum capacitance effect near the CNP is further enhanced in the presence of Landau levels due to the magnetic-field-enhanced Coulomb interactions.

  16. Genetic Variation Throughout the Folate Metabolic Pathway Influences Negative Symptom Severity in Schizophrenia

    OpenAIRE

    Roffman, Joshua L.; Brohawn, David G.; Nitenson, Adam Z.; Macklin, Eric A.; Smoller, Jordan W.; Goff, Donald C.

    2011-01-01

    Low serum folate levels previously have been associated with negative symptom risk in schizophrenia, as has the hypofunctional 677C>T variant of the MTHFR gene. This study examined whether other missense polymorphisms in folate-regulating enzymes, in concert with MTHFR, influence negative symptoms in schizophrenia, and whether total risk allele load interacts with serum folate status to further stratify negative symptom risk. Medicated outpatients with schizophrenia (n = 219), all of European...

  17. Maternal Cognitions and Mother–Infant Interaction in Postnatal Depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stein, Alan; Craske, Michelle G.; Lehtonen, Annukka; Harvey, Allison; Savage-McGlynn, Emily; Davies, Beverley; Goodwin, Julia; Murray, Lynne; Cortina-Borja, Mario; Counsell, Nicholas

    2012-01-01

    Postnatal depression and anxiety have been shown to increase the risk of disturbances in mother–child interaction and child development. Research into mechanisms has focused on genetics and maternal behavior; maternal cognitions have received little attention. Our aim was to experimentally determine if worry and rumination in mothers with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), diagnosed in the postnatal 6 months, interfered with maternal responsiveness to their 10-month old infants. Mothers (N = 253: GAD n = 90; MDD n = 57; control n = 106) and their infants were randomized to either a worry/rumination prime (WRP) or a neutral prime (NP); mother–infant interactions were assessed before and after priming. Type of priming was a significant predictor of maternal cognitions, with WRP resulting in more negative thoughts, higher thought recurrence and more self-focus relative to NP across the entire sample. Interaction effects between group and priming were significant for two parenting variables: Compared with controls, WRP had a more negative impact on maternal responsiveness to infant vocalization for GAD, and to a lesser extent for MDD; WRP led to decreased maternal vocalization for GAD. Also, mothers with GAD used stronger control after the NP than WRP, as well as compared with other groups, and overall post-priming, their children exhibited lower emotional tone and more withdrawal. Across the entire sample, WRP was associated with increased child vocalization relative to NP. This study demonstrated that disturbances in maternal cognitions, in the context of postnatal anxiety and to a lesser degree depression, play a significant role in mother–child interaction. PMID:22288906

  18. Disruption of the 5S RNP-Mdm2 interaction significantly improves the erythroid defect in a mouse model for Diamond-Blackfan anemia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jaako, P; Debnath, S; Olsson, K; Zhang, Y; Flygare, J; Lindström, M S; Bryder, D; Karlsson, S

    2015-11-01

    Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA) is a congenital erythroid hypoplasia caused by haploinsufficiency of genes encoding ribosomal proteins (RPs). Perturbed ribosome biogenesis in DBA has been shown to induce a p53-mediated ribosomal stress response. However, the mechanisms of p53 activation and its relevance for the erythroid defect remain elusive. Previous studies have indicated that activation of p53 is caused by the inhibition of mouse double minute 2 (Mdm2), the main negative regulator of p53, by the 5S ribonucleoprotein particle (RNP). Meanwhile, it is not clear whether this mechanism solely mediates the p53-dependent component found in DBA. To approach this question, we crossed our mouse model for RPS19-deficient DBA with Mdm2(C305F) knock-in mice that have a disrupted 5S RNP-Mdm2 interaction. Upon induction of the Rps19 deficiency, Mdm2(C305F) reversed the p53 response and improved expansion of hematopoietic progenitors in vitro, and ameliorated the anemia in vivo. Unexpectedly, disruption of the 5S RNP-Mdm2 interaction also led to selective defect in erythropoiesis. Our findings highlight the sensitivity of erythroid progenitor cells to aberrations in p53 homeostasis mediated by the 5S RNP-Mdm2 interaction. Finally, we provide evidence indicating that physiological activation of the 5S RNP-Mdm2-p53 pathway may contribute to functional decline of the hematopoietic system in a cell-autonomous manner over time.

  19. Negative to positive magnetoresistance transition in functionalization of carbon nanotube and polyaniline composite

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prasad Maity, Krishna; Tanty, Narendra; Patra, Ananya; Prasad, V.

    2018-03-01

    Electrical resistivity and magnetoresistance(MR) in polyaniline(PANI) with carbon nanotube(CNT) and functionalized carbon nanotube(fCNT) composites have been studied for different weight percentages down to the temperature 4.2 K and up to magnetic field 5 T. Resistivity increases significantly in composite at low temperature due to functionalization of CNT compared to only CNT. Interestingly a transition from negative to positive magnetoresistance has been observed when the filler is changed from pure CNT to functionalized CNT after a certain percentage (10wt%) as the effect of more disorder in fCNT/PANI composite. This result depicts that the MR has strong dependency on disorder in the composite system. The transition of MR has been explained on the basis of polaron-bipolaron model. The long range Coulomb interaction between two polarons screened by disorder in the composite of fCNT/PANI, increases the effective on-site Coulomb repulsion energy to form bipolaron which leads to change the sign of MR from negative to positive.

  20. [Stress and attitudes toward negative emotions in adolescence].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozawa, Eiji

    2010-12-01

    This study investigated the relationship between stress and attitudes toward negative emotions in adolescents. Adolescent students (N=1500) completed a questionnaire that measured attitudes toward negative emotions, emotional-stress reactions, and stress coping. Analysis of date yielded, two factors of the attitudes toward negative emotions: "Negative feelings about negative emotions" and "Capabilities of switching of negative emotions". In order to examine the theoretical relationships among attitudes toward negative emotions, emotional-stress reactions, and stress coping, a hypothetical model was tested by covariance structure analysis. This model predicted that students who have a high level of attitudes toward negative emotions would report enhanced problem solving which promoted stress coping. The results indicated that "Negative feelings about negative emotions" enhanced avoidable coping, and avoidable coping enhanced stress reactions. "Capabilities of switching of negative emotions" was related to a decrease of avoidable coping. Based on the results from covariance structure analysis and a multiple population analysis, the clinical significance and developmental characteristics were discussed.

  1. Negative and positive affect are independently associated with patient-reported health status following percutaneous coronary intervention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Versteeg, Henneke; Pedersen, Susanne S; Erdman, Ruud A M; van Nierop, Josephine W I; de Jaegere, Peter; van Domburg, Ron T

    2009-10-01

    We examined the association between negative and positive affect and 12-month health status in patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents. Consecutive PCI patients (n = 562) completed the Global Mood Scale at baseline to assess affect and the EuroQoL-5D (EQ-5D) at baseline and 12-month follow-up to assess health status. Negative affect [F(1, 522) = 17.14, P positive affect [F(1, 522) = 5.11, P = .02] at baseline were independent associates of overall health status at 12-month follow-up, adjusting for demographic and clinical factors. Moreover, there was a significant interaction for negative by positive affect [F(1, 522) = 6.11, P = .01]. In domain-specific analyses, high negative affect was associated with problems in mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression with the risk being two to fivefold. Low positive affect was only associated with problems in self-care (OR: 8.14; 95% CI: 1.85-35.9; P = .006) and usual activities (OR: 1.87; 95% CI: 1.17-3.00; P = .009). Baseline negative and positive affect contribute independently to patient-reported health status 12 months post PCI. Positive affect moderated the detrimental effects of negative affect on overall health status. Enhancing positive affect might be an important target to improve patient-centered outcomes in coronary artery disease.

  2. Initial development and preliminary validation of a new negative symptom measure: the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forbes, Courtney; Blanchard, Jack J; Bennett, Melanie; Horan, William P; Kring, Ann; Gur, Raquel

    2010-12-01

    As part of an ongoing scale development process, this study provides an initial examination of the psychometric properties and validity of a new interview-based negative symptom instrument, the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms (CAINS), in outpatients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (N = 37). The scale was designed to address limitations of existing measures and to comprehensively assess five consensus-based negative symptoms: asociality, avolition, anhedonia (consummatory and anticipatory), affective flattening, and alogia. Results indicated satisfactory internal consistency reliability for the total CAINS scale score and promising inter-rater agreement, with clear areas identified in need of improvement. Convergent validity was evident in general agreement between the CAINS and alternative negative symptom measures. Further, CAINS subscales significantly correlated with relevant self-report emotional experience measures as well as with social functioning. Discriminant validity of the CAINS was strongly supported by its small, non-significant relations with positive symptoms, general psychiatric symptoms, and depression. These preliminary data on an early beta-version of the CAINS provide initial support for this new assessment approach to negative symptoms and suggest directions for further scale development. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  3. Distinct configurations of protein complexes and biochemical pathways revealed by epistatic interaction network motifs

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Casey, Fergal

    2011-08-22

    Abstract Background Gene and protein interactions are commonly represented as networks, with the genes or proteins comprising the nodes and the relationship between them as edges. Motifs, or small local configurations of edges and nodes that arise repeatedly, can be used to simplify the interpretation of networks. Results We examined triplet motifs in a network of quantitative epistatic genetic relationships, and found a non-random distribution of particular motif classes. Individual motif classes were found to be associated with different functional properties, suggestive of an underlying biological significance. These associations were apparent not only for motif classes, but for individual positions within the motifs. As expected, NNN (all negative) motifs were strongly associated with previously reported genetic (i.e. synthetic lethal) interactions, while PPP (all positive) motifs were associated with protein complexes. The two other motif classes (NNP: a positive interaction spanned by two negative interactions, and NPP: a negative spanned by two positives) showed very distinct functional associations, with physical interactions dominating for the former but alternative enrichments, typical of biochemical pathways, dominating for the latter. Conclusion We present a model showing how NNP motifs can be used to recognize supportive relationships between protein complexes, while NPP motifs often identify opposing or regulatory behaviour between a gene and an associated pathway. The ability to use motifs to point toward underlying biological organizational themes is likely to be increasingly important as more extensive epistasis mapping projects in higher organisms begin.

  4. Clinical characteristics of Helicobacter pylori-negative drug-negative peptic ulcer bleeding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Woo Chul; Jeon, Eun Jung; Kim, Dae Bum; Sung, Hea Jung; Kim, Yeon-Ji; Lim, Eun Sun; Kim, Min-Ah; Oh, Jung Hwan

    2015-07-28

    To investigate the clinical characteristics and outcomes of idiopathic Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)-negative and drug-negative] peptic ulcer bleeding (PUB). A consecutive series of patients who experienced PUB between 2006 and 2012 was retrospectively analyzed. A total of 232 patients were enrolled in this study. The patients were divided into four groups according to the etiologies of PUB: idiopathic, H. pylori-associated, drug-induced and combined (H. pylori-associated and drug-induced) types. We compared the clinical characteristics and outcomes between the groups. When the silver stain or rapid urease tests were H. pylori-negative, we obtained an additional biopsy specimen by endoscopic re-examination and performed an H. pylori antibody test 6-8 wk after the initial endoscopic examination. For a diagnosis of idiopathic PUB, a negative result of an H. pylori antibody test was confirmed. In all cases, re-bleeding was confirmed by endoscopic examination. For the risk assessment, the Blatchford and the Rockall scores were calculated for all patients. For PUB, the frequency of H. pylori infection was 59.5% (138/232), whereas the frequency of idiopathic cases was 8.6% (20/232). When idiopathic PUB was compared to H. pylori-associated PUB, the idiopathic PUB group showed a higher rate of re-bleeding after initial hemostasis during the hospital stay (30% vs 7.4%, P = 0.02). When idiopathic PUB was compared to drug-induced PUB, the patients in the idiopathic PUB group showed a higher rate of re-bleeding after initial hemostasis upon admission (30% vs 2.7%, P ulcer (77% vs 49%, P < 0.01). However, the Blatchford and the Rockall scores were not significantly different between the two groups. Among the patients who experienced drug-induced PUB, no significant differences were found with respect to clinical characteristics, irrespective of H. pylori infection. Idiopathic PUB has unique clinical characteristics such as re-bleeding after initial hemostasis upon admission

  5. Diversity of gastrointestinal helminths in Dall's sheep and the negative association of the abomasal nematode, Marshallagia marshalli, with fitness indicators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aleuy, O Alejadro; Ruckstuhl, Kathreen; Hoberg, Eric P; Veitch, Alasdair; Simmons, Norman; Kutz, Susan J

    2018-01-01

    Gastrointestinal helminths can have a detrimental effect on the fitness of wild ungulates. Arctic and Subarctic ecosystems are ideal for the study of host-parasite interactions due to the comparatively simple ecological interactions and limited confounding factors. We used a unique dataset assembled in the early seventies to study the diversity of gastrointestinal helminths and their effect on fitness indicators of Dall's sheep, Ovis dalli dalli, in the Mackenzie Mountains, Northwest Territories, Canada. Parasite diversity included nine species, among which the abomasal nematode Marshallagia marshalli occurred with the highest prevalence and infection intensity. The intensity of M. marshalli increased with age and was negatively associated with body condition and pregnancy status in Dall's sheep across all the analyses performed. The intensity of the intestinal whipworm, Trichuris schumakovitschi, decreased with age. No other parasites were significantly associated with age, body condition, or pregnancy. Our study suggests that M. marshalli might negatively influence fitness of adult female Dall's sheep.

  6. EFFECTS OF MEDICAL DISPUTES ON INTERNET COMMUNICATIONS OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND NEGATIVE ONLINE WORD-OF-MOUTH.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Yi-Chih; Wu, Wei-Li

    2015-08-01

    Emotions play an important role in human behavior. Negative emotions resulting from medical disputes are problems for medical personnel to solve but also have a significant impact on a hospital's reputation and people's trust in the hospital. One medical dispute case was chosen from an Internet news source to assess the correlation between people's negative emotions and negative online word-of-mouth. Convenience sampling was used in school faculties and university students who had shared their medical treatment experiences online were the research participants. A total of 221 Taiwanese participants volunteered (158 women, 63 men; ages: 26.7% under 19, 22.6% 20-29, 30.8% 30-39,19.9% over 40). Four negative emotions were measured using rating scales: uncertainty, anger, disappointment, and sadness. Four negative online word-of-mouth measures were: venting, advice search, helping receiver, and revenge. A modeled relationship was assessed by partial least square method (PLS). Then, people's positive emotions were further analyzed to assess changes after spreading negative word-of-mouth. The results showed that uncertainty had a positive effect on venting and advice search. People who felt anger or regret spread word-of-mouth in order to help the receiver. Disappointment may trigger the revenge behavior of negative word-of-mouth. Negative emotions could be relieved after engaging in the behavior of helping the receiver.

  7. Tacrolimus interaction with nafcillin resulting in significant decreases in tacrolimus concentrations: A case report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wungwattana, Minkey; Savic, Marizela

    2017-04-01

    Tacrolimus (TAC) is subject to many drug interactions as a result of its metabolism primarily via CYP450 isoenzyme 3A4. Numerous case reports of TAC and CYP3A4 inducers and inhibitors have been described including antimicrobials, calcium channel antagonists, and antiepileptic drugs. We present the case of a 13-year-old patient with cystic fibrosis and a history of liver transplantation, where subtherapeutic TAC concentrations were suspected to be a result of concomitant TAC and nafcillin (NAF) therapy. The observed drug interaction occurred on two separate hospital admissions, during both of which the patient exhibited therapeutic TAC concentrations prior to exposure to NAF, a CYP3A4 inducer. Upon discontinuation of NAF, TAC concentrations recovered in both instances. This case represents a drug-drug interaction between TAC and NAF that has not previously been reported to our knowledge. Despite the lack of existing reports of interaction between these two agents, this case highlights the importance of therapeutic drug monitoring and assessing for any potential drug-drug or drug-food interactions in patients receiving TAC therapy. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  8. Specific and non-specific match effects in negative priming.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Labossière, Danielle I; Leboe-McGowan, Jason P

    2018-01-01

    The negative priming effect occurs when withholding a response to a stimulus impairs generation of subsequent responding to a same or a related stimulus. Our goal was to use the negative priming procedure to obtain insights about the memory representations generated by ignoring vs. attending/responding to a prime stimulus. Across three experiments we observed that ignoring a prime stimulus tends to generate higher identity-independent, non-specific repetition effects, owing to an overlap in the coarse perceptual form of a prime distractor and a probe target. By contrast, attended repetition effects generate predominantly identity-specific sources of facilitation. We use these findings to advocate for using laboratory phenomena to illustrate general principles that can be of practical use to non-specialists. In the case of the negative priming procedure, we propose that the procedure provides a useful means for investigating attention/memory interactions, even if the specific cause (or causes) of negative priming effects remain unresolved. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  9. A longitudinal mediation analysis of the effect of negative-self-schemas on positive symptoms via negative affect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jaya, E S; Ascone, L; Lincoln, T M

    2018-06-01

    Cognitive models postulate that negative-self-schemas (NSS) cause and maintain positive symptoms and that negative affect mediates this link. However, only few studies have tested the temporal mediation claim systematically using an appropriate design. A longitudinal cohort design in an online community sample (N = 962) from Germany, Indonesia, and the USA was used. NSS, negative affect and positive symptoms were measured at four time-points (T0-T3) over a 1-year period. Cross-lagged panel and longitudinal mediation analyses with structural equation modeling were used to test the temporal mediation. Independent cross-lagged panel models showed a significant unidirectional longitudinal path from NSS to positive symptoms (T2-T3, β = 0.18, p negative affect (T0-T1, γ = 0.14, p negative affect at T1 and T2 to positive symptoms at T3 (unstandardized indirect effect coefficient = 0.020, p affective pathway from NSS to positive symptoms via negative affect. Specifically, our data indicate that NSS and negative affect influence each other and build up over the course of several months before leading on to positive symptoms. We conclude that interrupting this process by targeting NSS and negative affect early in the process could be a promising strategy to prevent the exacerbation of positive symptoms.

  10. GxE Interactions Between FOXO Genotypes and Tea Drinking Significantly Affect Cognitive Disability at Advanced Ages in China

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zeng, Yi; Chen, Huashuai; Ni, Ting

    2015-01-01

    Logistic regression analysis based on data from 822 Han Chinese oldest old aged 92+ demonstrated that interactions between carrying FOXO1A-266 or FOXO3-310 or FOXO3-292 and tea drinking at around age 60 or at present time were significantly associated with lower risk of cognitive disability...... at advanced ages. Associations between tea drinking and reduced cognitive disability were much stronger among carriers of the genotypes of FOXO1A-266 or FOXO3-310 or FOXO3-292 compared with noncarriers, and it was reconfirmed by analysis of three-way interactions across FOXO genotypes, tea drinking at around...... age 60, and at present time. Based on prior findings from animal and human cell models, we postulate that intake of tea compounds may activate FOXO gene expression, which in turn may positively affect cognitive function in the oldest old population. Our empirical findings imply that the health...

  11. Positive versus negative priming of older adults' generative value: do negative messages impair memory?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hagood, Elizabeth W; Gruenewald, Tara L

    2018-02-01

    A considerable volume of experimental evidence demonstrates that exposure to aging stereotypes can strongly influence cognitive performance among older individuals. However, whether such effects extend to stereotypes regarding older adults' generative (i.e. contributory) worth is not yet known. The present investigation sought to evaluate the effect of exposure to positive versus negative generative value primes on an important aspect of later life functioning, memory. Participants of age 55 and older (n = 51) were randomly assigned to read a mock news article portraying older individuals as either an asset (positive prime) or a burden (negative prime) to society. Upon reading their assigned article, participants completed a post-priming memory assessment in which they were asked to recall a list of 30 words. Those exposed to the negative prime showed significantly poorer memory performance relative to those exposed to the positive prime (d = 0.75), even when controlling for baseline memory performance and sociodemographic covariates. These findings suggest that negative messages regarding older adults' generative social value impair memory relative to positive ones. Though demonstrated in the short term, these results also point to the potential consequences of long-term exposure to such negative ideologies and may indicate a need to promote more positive societal conceptualizations of older adults' generative worth.

  12. Measurement of negatively charged pion spectra in inelastic p+p interactions at $p_{lab}$ = 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158 GeV/c

    CERN Document Server

    Abgrall, N; Ali, Y; Anticic, T; Antoniou, N; Baatar, B; Bay, F; Blondel, A; Blumer, J; Bogomilov, M; Bravar, A; Brzychczyk, J; Bunyatov, S A; Busygina, O; Christakoglou, P; Czopowicz, T; Davis, N; Debieux, S; Dembinski, H; Diakonos, F; Di Luise, S; Dominik, W; Drozhzhova, T; Dumarchez, J; Dynowski, K; Engel, R; Ereditato, A; Feofilov, G A; Fodor, Z; Fulop, A; Gazdzicki, M; Golubeva, M; Grebieszkow, K; Grzeszczuk, A; Guber, F; Haesler, A; Hasegawa, T; Hierholzer, M; Idczak, R; Igolkin, S; Ivashkin, A; Jokovic, D; Kadija, K; Kapoyannis, A; Katrynska, N; Kaptur, E; Kielczewska, D; Kirejczyk, M; Kisiel, J; Kiss, T; Kleinfelder, S; Kobayashi, T; Kolesnikov, V I; Kolev, D; Kondratiev, V P; Korzenev, A; Kovesarki, P; Kowalski, S; Krasnoperov, A; Kurepin, A; Larsen, D; Laszlo, A; Lyubushkin, V V; Mackowiak-Pawlowska, M; Majka, Z; Maksiak, B; Malakhov, A I; Manic, D; Marcinek, A; Marin, V; Marton, K; Mathes, H J; Matulewicz, T; Matveev, V; Melkumov, G.L; Mrowczynski, St; Murphy, S; Nakadaira, T; Nirkko, M; Nishikawa, K; Palczewski, T; Palla, G; Panagiotou, A D; Paul, T; Pistillo, C; Peryt, W; Petukhov, O; Planeta, R; Pluta, J; Popov, B A; Posiadala, M; Pulawski, S; Puzovic, J; Rauch, W; Ravonel, M; Redij, A; Renfordt, R; Robert, A; Rohrich, D; Rondio, E; Roth, M; Rubbia, A; Rustamov, A; Rybczynski, M; Sadovsky, A; Sakashita, K; Savic, M; Schmidt, K; Sekiguchi, T; Seyboth, P; Sgalaberna, D; Shibata, M; Sipos, R; Skrzypczak, E; Slodkowski, M; Staszel, P; Stefanek, G; Stepaniak, J; Strobele, H; Susa, T; Szuba, M; Tada, M; Tereshchenko, V; Tolyhi, T; Tsenov, R; Turko, L; Ulrich, R; Unger, M; Vassiliou, M; Veberic, D; Vechernin, V V; Vesztergombi, G; Vinogradov, L; Wilczek, A; Wlodarczyk, Z; Wojtaszek-Szwarc, A; Wyszynski, O; Zambelli, L; Zipper, W

    2014-01-01

    We present experimental results on inclusive spectra and mean multiplicities of negatively charged pions produced in inelastic p+p interactions at incident projectile momenta of 20, 31, 40, 80 and 158GeV/c ($\\sqrt{s}$ = 6.3, 7.7, 8.8, 12.3 and 17.3GeV, respectively). The measurements were performed using the large acceptance NA61/SHINE hadron spectrometer at the CERN super proton synchrotron. Two-dimensional spectra are determined in terms of rapidity and transverse momentum. Their properties such as the width of rapidity distributions and the inverse slope parameter of transverse mass spectra are extracted and their collision energy dependences are presented. The results on inelastic p+p interactions are compared with the corresponding data on central Pb+Pb collisions measured by the NA49 experiment at the CERN SPS. The results presented in this paper are part of the NA61/SHINE ion program devoted to the study of the properties of the onset of deconfinement and search for the critical point of strongly inter...

  13. Negative affect impairs associative memory but not item memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bisby, James A; Burgess, Neil

    2013-12-17

    The formation of associations between items and their context has been proposed to rely on mechanisms distinct from those supporting memory for a single item. Although emotional experiences can profoundly affect memory, our understanding of how it interacts with different aspects of memory remains unclear. We performed three experiments to examine the effects of emotion on memory for items and their associations. By presenting neutral and negative items with background contexts, Experiment 1 demonstrated that item memory was facilitated by emotional affect, whereas memory for an associated context was reduced. In Experiment 2, arousal was manipulated independently of the memoranda, by a threat of shock, whereby encoding trials occurred under conditions of threat or safety. Memory for context was equally impaired by the presence of negative affect, whether induced by threat of shock or a negative item, relative to retrieval of the context of a neutral item in safety. In Experiment 3, participants were presented with neutral and negative items as paired associates, including all combinations of neutral and negative items. The results showed both above effects: compared to a neutral item, memory for the associate of a negative item (a second item here, context in Experiments 1 and 2) is impaired, whereas retrieval of the item itself is enhanced. Our findings suggest that negative affect impairs associative memory while recognition of a negative item is enhanced. They support dual-processing models in which negative affect or stress impairs hippocampal-dependent associative memory while the storage of negative sensory/perceptual representations is spared or even strengthened.

  14. Significance of fluid-structure interaction phenomena for containment response to ex-vessel steam explosions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Almstroem, H.; Sundel, T. [National Defence Research Establishment, Stockholm (Sweden); Frid, W.; Engelbrektson, A.

    1998-01-01

    When studying the structural response of a containment building to ex-vessel steam explosion loads, a two-step procedure is often used. In the first step of this procedure the structures are treated as rigid and the pressure-time history generated by the explosion at the rigid wall is calculated. In the second step the calculated pressure is applied to the structures. The obvious weakness of the two-step procedure is that it does not correspond to the real dynamic behaviour of the fluid-structure system. The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the relevant fluid-structure interaction phenomena. This is achieved through direct treatment of the explosion process and the structural response. The predictions of a direct and two-step treatment are compared for a BWR Mark II containment design, consisting of two concentric walls interacting with water masses in the central and annular pools. It is shown that the two-step approach leads to unrealistic energy transfer in the containment system studied, and to significant overestimation of the deflection of the containment wall. As regards the pedestal wall, the direct method analysis shows that the flexibility of this wall affects the pressure-time history considerably. Three load types have been identified for this wall namely shock load, water blow as a result of water cavitation, and hydrodynamic load. Reloading impulse due to cavitation phenomena plays an important role as it amounts to about 40% of the total impulse load. Investigation of the generality of the cavitation phenomena in the context of ex-vessel steam explosion loads was outside the scope of this work. (author)

  15. Significance of fluid-structure interaction phenomena for containment response to ex-vessel steam explosions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Almstroem, H.; Sundel, T. (Nat. Defence Res. Establ., Tumba (Sweden)); Frid, W. (Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, SE-10658, Stockholm (Sweden)); Engelbrektson, A. (VBB/SWECO, Box 34044, SE-10026, Stockholm (Sweden))

    1999-05-01

    When studying the structural response of a containment building to ex-vessel steam explosion loads, a two-step procedure is often used. In the first step of this procedure the structures are treated as rigid and the pressure-time history generated by the explosion, at the rigid wall, is calculated. In the second step the calculated pressure is applied to the structures. The obvious weakness of the two-step procedure is that it does not correspond to the real dynamic behaviour of the fluid-structure system. The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the relevant fluid-structure interaction phenomena. This is achieved through direct treatment of the explosion process and the structural response. The predictions of a direct and two-step treatment are compared for a BWR Mark II containment design, consisting of two concentric walls interacting with water masses in the central and annular pools. It is shown that the two-step approach leads to unrealistic energy transfer in the containment system studied and to significant overestimation of the deflection of the containment wall. As regards the pedestal wall, the direct method analysis shows that the flexibility of this wall affects the pressure-time history considerably. Three load types have been identified for this wall namely shock load, water blow as a result of water cavitation, and hydrodynamic load. Reloading impulse due to cavitation phenomena plays an important role as it amounts to [approx]40% of the total impulse load. Investigation of the generality of the cavitation phenomena in the context of ex-vessel steam explosion loads was outside the scope of this work. (orig.) 5 refs.

  16. Significance of fluid-structure interaction phenomena for containment response to ex-vessel steam explosions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Almstroem, H.; Sundel, T.; Frid, W.; Engelbrektson, A.

    1999-01-01

    When studying the structural response of a containment building to ex-vessel steam explosion loads, a two-step procedure is often used. In the first step of this procedure the structures are treated as rigid and the pressure-time history generated by the explosion, at the rigid wall, is calculated. In the second step the calculated pressure is applied to the structures. The obvious weakness of the two-step procedure is that it does not correspond to the real dynamic behaviour of the fluid-structure system. The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the relevant fluid-structure interaction phenomena. This is achieved through direct treatment of the explosion process and the structural response. The predictions of a direct and two-step treatment are compared for a BWR Mark II containment design, consisting of two concentric walls interacting with water masses in the central and annular pools. It is shown that the two-step approach leads to unrealistic energy transfer in the containment system studied and to significant overestimation of the deflection of the containment wall. As regards the pedestal wall, the direct method analysis shows that the flexibility of this wall affects the pressure-time history considerably. Three load types have been identified for this wall namely shock load, water blow as a result of water cavitation, and hydrodynamic load. Reloading impulse due to cavitation phenomena plays an important role as it amounts to ∼40% of the total impulse load. Investigation of the generality of the cavitation phenomena in the context of ex-vessel steam explosion loads was outside the scope of this work. (orig.)

  17. Significance of definitions of relapse after discontinuation of oral antivirals in HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papatheodoridis, George V; Manolakopoulos, Spilios; Su, Tung-Hung; Siakavellas, Spyros; Liu, Chun-Jen; Kourikou, Anastasia; Yang, Hung-Chih; Kao, Jia-Horng

    2017-08-31

    Relapses are observed in most hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B patients who discontinue treatment with nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs); however, the rates of relapse vary widely among studies, and whether all patients with relapse need retreatment is unclear. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of different definitions on the rates of posttreatment relapse and therefore on the probability of retreatment in patients who have discontinued effective long-term NA therapy. In total, 130 HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B patients without cirrhosis and before NA treatment were included. All had on-therapy virological remission for ≥24 months and close follow-up for ≥12 months after stopping NA treatment or until retreatment, which started on stringent predefined criteria. Relapses rates based on several predetermined definitions of virological and perhaps biochemical criteria were assessed. The median duration of therapy was 60 months and the median duration of on-therapy virological remission was 43 months. During a median off-NAs follow-up of 15 months, no patient experienced liver decompensation or died. Cumulative relapse rates were 2%-49%, 4%-73%, 11%-82%, and 16%-90% at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months, respectively, whereas cumulative retreatment rates were 15%, 22%, and 40% at 6, 12, and 24 months, respectively, after discontinuation of NA therapy. No patient characteristic was independently associated with the probability of relapse based on at least two definitions or of retreatment. In HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B patients who discontinue NA therapy, the definition of relapse has a great impact on off-NAs relapse rates and potentially on the probability of retreatment. Regardless of definition, off-NAs relapses cannot be easily predicted by patient characteristics. A substantial proportion of such patients may not require retreatment if stringent criteria are adopted. (Hepatology 2017). © 2017 by the American Association

  18. Inhibitory control and negative emotional processing in psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verona, Edelyn; Sprague, Jenessa; Sadeh, Naomi

    2012-05-01

    The field of personality disorders has had a long-standing interest in understanding interactions between emotion and inhibitory control, as well as neurophysiological indices of these processes. More work in particular is needed to clarify differential deficits in offenders with antisocial personality disorder (APD) who differ on psychopathic traits, as APD and psychopathy are considered separate, albeit related, syndromes. Evidence of distinct neurobiological processing in these disorders would have implications for etiology-based personality disorder taxonomies in future psychiatric classification systems. To inform this area of research, we recorded event-related brain potentials during an emotional-linguistic Go/No-Go task to examine modulation of negative emotional processing by inhibitory control in three groups: psychopathy (n = 14), APD (n = 16), and control (n = 15). In control offenders, inhibitory control demands (No-Go vs. Go) modulated frontal-P3 amplitude to negative emotional words, indicating appropriate prioritization of inhibition over emotional processing. In contrast, the psychopathic group showed blunted processing of negative emotional words regardless of inhibitory control demands, consistent with research on emotional deficits in psychopathy. Finally, the APD group demonstrated enhanced processing of negative emotion words in both Go and No-Go trials, suggesting a failure to modulate negative emotional processing when inhibitory control is required. Implications for emotion-cognition interactions and putative etiological processes in these personality disorders are discussed.

  19. Role of negative emotion in communication about CO2 risks

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meijnders, A.L.; Midden, C.J.H.; Wilke, H.A.M.

    2001-01-01

    This article describes how the effectiveness of risk communication is determined by the interaction between emotional and informative elements. An experiment is described that examined the role of negative emotion in communication about CO2 risks. This experiment was based on the elaboration

  20. Heliospheric MeV energization due to resonant interaction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Roth, Ilan

    2001-01-01

    The prompt enhancement of relativistic electron flux during active geomagnetic periods, and the impulsive increase in the flux of the heliospheric energetic heavy ions during active solar periods are of major importance with respect to the proper operation of electronics on space-borne spacecraft and the safety of interplanetary human travel, respectively. Both enhancements may be caused by resonant wave-particle interaction with oblique electromagnetic waves on the terrestrial and coronal field lines. Whistler waves, which are enhanced significantly during substorms and which propagate obliquely to the magnetic field, can interact with energetic electrons through Landau, cyclotron, and higher harmonic resonant interactions when the Doppler-shifted wave frequency equals any (positive or negative) integer multiple of the local relativistic gyrofrequency. This interaction occurs over a broad spatial region when a relativistic electron is bouncing in the terrestrial magnetic field. Coronal ions interact selectively with electromagnetic ion-cyclotron (emic) waves which are correlated with impulsive flares. This interaction occurs over a small spatial region when the Doppler-shifted frequency matches the first or higher harmonic of the ion gyrofrequency. Recent new observations of terrestrial MeV X-rays are interpreted as a resonant loss of the radiation belt electrons

  1. Measuring positive and negative affect in the voiced sounds of African elephants (Loxodonta africana).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soltis, Joseph; Blowers, Tracy E; Savage, Anne

    2011-02-01

    As in other mammals, there is evidence that the African elephant voice reflects affect intensity, but it is less clear if positive and negative affective states are differentially reflected in the voice. An acoustic comparison was made between African elephant "rumble" vocalizations produced in negative social contexts (dominance interactions), neutral social contexts (minimal social activity), and positive social contexts (affiliative interactions) by four adult females housed at Disney's Animal Kingdom®. Rumbles produced in the negative social context exhibited higher and more variable fundamental frequencies (F(0)) and amplitudes, longer durations, increased voice roughness, and higher first formant locations (F1), compared to the neutral social context. Rumbles produced in the positive social context exhibited similar shifts in most variables (F(0 )variation, amplitude, amplitude variation, duration, and F1), but the magnitude of response was generally less than that observed in the negative context. Voice roughness and F(0) observed in the positive social context remained similar to that observed in the neutral context. These results are most consistent with the vocal expression of affect intensity, in which the negative social context elicited higher intensity levels than the positive context, but differential vocal expression of positive and negative affect cannot be ruled out.

  2. The significance of a new correspondence principle for electromagnetic interaction in strong optical field ionisation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Boreham, B. W.; Hora, H.

    1997-01-01

    We have recently developed a correspondence principle for electromagnetic interaction. When applied to laser interactions with electrons this correspondence principle identifies a critical laser intensity I*. This critical intensity is a transition intensity separating classical mechanical and quantum mechanical interaction regimes. In this paper we discuss the further application of I* to the interaction of bound electrons in atoms. By comparing I* with the ionisation threshold intensities as calculated from a cycle-averaged simple-atom model we conclude that I* can be usefully interpreted as a lower bound to the classical regime in studies of ionisation of gas atoms by intense laser beams

  3. New data and an old puzzle: the negative association between schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, S Hong; Byrne, Enda M; Hultman, Christina M; Kähler, Anna; Vinkhuyzen, Anna A E; Ripke, Stephan; Andreassen, Ole A; Frisell, Thomas; Gusev, Alexander; Hu, Xinli; Karlsson, Robert; Mantzioris, Vasilis X; McGrath, John J; Mehta, Divya; Stahl, Eli A; Zhao, Qiongyi; Kendler, Kenneth S; Sullivan, Patrick F; Price, Alkes L; O'Donovan, Michael; Okada, Yukinori; Mowry, Bryan J; Raychaudhuri, Soumya; Wray, Naomi R; Byerley, William; Cahn, Wiepke; Cantor, Rita M; Cichon, Sven; Cormican, Paul; Curtis, David; Djurovic, Srdjan; Escott-Price, Valentina; Gejman, Pablo V; Georgieva, Lyudmila; Giegling, Ina; Hansen, Thomas F; Ingason, Andrés; Kim, Yunjung; Konte, Bettina; Lee, Phil H; McIntosh, Andrew; McQuillin, Andrew; Morris, Derek W; Nöthen, Markus M; O'Dushlaine, Colm; Olincy, Ann; Olsen, Line; Pato, Carlos N; Pato, Michele T; Pickard, Benjamin S; Posthuma, Danielle; Rasmussen, Henrik B; Rietschel, Marcella; Rujescu, Dan; Schulze, Thomas G; Silverman, Jeremy M; Thirumalai, Srinivasa; Werge, Thomas; Agartz, Ingrid; Amin, Farooq; Azevedo, Maria H; Bass, Nicholas; Black, Donald W; Blackwood, Douglas H R; Bruggeman, Richard; Buccola, Nancy G; Choudhury, Khalid; Cloninger, Robert C; Corvin, Aiden; Craddock, Nicholas; Daly, Mark J; Datta, Susmita; Donohoe, Gary J; Duan, Jubao; Dudbridge, Frank; Fanous, Ayman; Freedman, Robert; Freimer, Nelson B; Friedl, Marion; Gill, Michael; Gurling, Hugh; De Haan, Lieuwe; Hamshere, Marian L; Hartmann, Annette M; Holmans, Peter A; Kahn, René S; Keller, Matthew C; Kenny, Elaine; Kirov, George K; Krabbendam, Lydia; Krasucki, Robert; Lawrence, Jacob; Lencz, Todd; Levinson, Douglas F; Lieberman, Jeffrey A; Lin, Dan-Yu; Linszen, Don H; Magnusson, Patrik K E; Maier, Wolfgang; Malhotra, Anil K; Mattheisen, Manuel; Mattingsdal, Morten; McCarroll, Steven A; Medeiros, Helena; Melle, Ingrid; Milanova, Vihra; Myin-Germeys, Inez; Neale, Benjamin M; Ophoff, Roel A; Owen, Michael J; Pimm, Jonathan; Purcell, Shaun M; Puri, Vinay; Quested, Digby J; Rossin, Lizzy; Ruderfer, Douglas; Sanders, Alan R; Shi, Jianxin; Sklar, Pamela; St Clair, David; Stroup, T Scott; Van Os, Jim; Visscher, Peter M; Wiersma, Durk; Zammit, Stanley; Bridges, S Louis; Choi, Hyon K; Coenen, Marieke J H; de Vries, Niek; Dieud, Philippe; Greenberg, Jeffrey D; Huizinga, Tom W J; Padyukov, Leonid; Siminovitch, Katherine A; Tak, Paul P; Worthington, Jane; De Jager, Philip L; Denny, Joshua C; Gregersen, Peter K; Klareskog, Lars; Mariette, Xavier; Plenge, Robert M; van Laar, Mart; van Riel, Piet

    2015-10-01

    A long-standing epidemiological puzzle is the reduced rate of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in those with schizophrenia (SZ) and vice versa. Traditional epidemiological approaches to determine if this negative association is underpinned by genetic factors would test for reduced rates of one disorder in relatives of the other, but sufficiently powered data sets are difficult to achieve. The genomics era presents an alternative paradigm for investigating the genetic relationship between two uncommon disorders. We use genome-wide common single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data from independently collected SZ and RA case-control cohorts to estimate the SNP correlation between the disorders. We test a genotype X environment (GxE) hypothesis for SZ with environment defined as winter- vs summer-born. We estimate a small but significant negative SNP-genetic correlation between SZ and RA (-0.046, s.e. 0.026, P = 0.036). The negative correlation was stronger for the SNP set attributed to coding or regulatory regions (-0.174, s.e. 0.071, P = 0.0075). Our analyses led us to hypothesize a gene-environment interaction for SZ in the form of immune challenge. We used month of birth as a proxy for environmental immune challenge and estimated the genetic correlation between winter-born and non-winter born SZ to be significantly less than 1 for coding/regulatory region SNPs (0.56, s.e. 0.14, P = 0.00090). Our results are consistent with epidemiological observations of a negative relationship between SZ and RA reflecting, at least in part, genetic factors. Results of the month of birth analysis are consistent with pleiotropic effects of genetic variants dependent on environmental context.

  4. The psychophysiology of parenting: Individual differences in autonomic reactivity to positive and negative mood inductions and observed parental affect during dyadic interactions with children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connell, Arin M; Dawson, Glen C; Danzo, Sarah; McKillop, Hannah N

    2017-02-01

    Parenting is a complex activity driven, in part, by parental emotional and physiological responses. However, work examining the physiological underpinnings of parenting behavior is still in its infancy, and very few studies have examined such processes beyond early childhood. The current study examines associations between Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) indices of parents' physiological reactivity to positive and negative mood states and observed parental affect during a series of discussion tasks with their adolescent child. Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) was measured as an index of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activation while viewing film clips designed to induce neutral, sad, and amused mood states. Parental positive affect, anger, and distress were observed during a series of parent-child discussion tasks, which included an ambiguous discussion regarding adolescent growth, a conflict discussion, and a fun-activity planning discussion. Results supported the association between aspects of parental physiological reactivity and observed affect during dyadic interactions. Further, RSA interacted with maternal depression to predict observed positive affect, anger, and distress, although differences across tasks and specific emotions were found regarding the nature of the interaction effects. Overall, results suggest that such neurobiological processes may be particularly important predictors of parental behavior, particularly in at-risk populations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  5. MODELLING THE INTERACTION IN GAME SPORTS - RELATIVE PHASE AND MOVING CORRELATIONS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Martin Lames

    2006-12-01

    Full Text Available Model building in game sports should maintain the constitutive feature of this group of sports, the dynamic interaction process between the two parties. For single net/wall games relative phase is suggested to describe the positional interaction between the two players. 30 baseline rallies in tennis were examined and relative phase was calculated by Hilbert transform from the two time-series of lateral displacement and trajectory in the court respectively. Results showed that relative phase indicates some aspects of the tactical interaction in tennis. At a more abstract level the interaction between two teams in handball was studied by examining the relationship of the two scoring processes. Each process can be conceived as a random walk. Moving averages of the scoring probabilities indicate something like a momentary strength. A moving correlation (length = 20 ball possessions describes the momentary relationship between the teams' strength. Evidence was found that this correlation is heavily time-dependent, in almost every single game among the 40 examined ones we found phases with a significant positive as well as significant negative relationship. This underlines the importance of a dynamic view on the interaction in these games.

  6. Prognostic significance of proline, glutamic acid, leucine rich protein 1 (PELP1) in triple-negative breast cancer: a retrospective study on 129 cases

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Yanzhi; Dai, Jiali; McNamara, Keely M.; Bai, Bing; Shi, Mumu; Chan, Monica S. M.; Liu, Ming; Sasano, Hironobu; Wang, Xiuli; Li, Xiaolei; Liu, Lijuan; Ma, Ying; Cao, Shuwen; Xing, Yanchun; Zhao, Baoshan; Song, Yinli; Wang, Lin

    2015-01-01

    Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is associated with an aggressive clinical course due to the lack of therapeutic targets. Therefore, identifying reliable prognostic biomarkers and novel therapeutic targets for patients with TNBC is required. Proline, glutamic acid, leucine rich protein 1 (PELP1) is a novel steroidal receptor co-regulator, functioning as an oncogene and its expression is maintained in estrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancers. PELP1 has been proposed as a prognostic biomarker in hormone-related cancers, including luminal-type breast cancers, but its significance in TNBC has not been studied. PELP1 immunoreactivity was evaluated using immunohistochemistry in 129 patients with TNBC. Results were correlated with clinicopathological variables including patient’s age, tumor size, lymph node stage, tumor grade, clinical stage, histological type, Ki-67 LI, as well as clinical outcome of the patients, including disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). PELP1 was localized predominantly in the nuclei of carcinoma cells in TNBC. With the exception of a positive correlation between PELP1 protein expression and lymph node stage (p = 0.027), no significant associations between PELP1 protein expression and other clinicopathological variables, including DFS and OS, were found. However, when PELP1 and Ki-67 LI were grouped together, we found that patients in the PELP1/Ki-67 double high group (n = 48) demonstrated significantly reduced DFS (p = 0.005, log rank test) and OS (p = 0.002, log rank test) than others (n = 81). Multivariable analysis supported PELP1/Ki-67 double high expression as an independent prognostic factor in patients with TNBC, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 2.020 for recurrence (95 % CL, 1.022–3.990; p = 0.043) and of 2.380 for death (95 % CL, 1.138–4.978; p = 0.021). We found that evaluating both PELP1 and Ki-67 expression in TNBC could enhance the prognostic sensitivity of the two biomarkers. Therefore, we propose

  7. Starting off on the right foot: strong right-footers respond faster with the right foot to positive words and with the left foot to negative words.

    Science.gov (United States)

    de la Vega, Irmgard; Graebe, Julia; Härtner, Leonie; Dudschig, Carolin; Kaup, Barbara

    2015-01-01

    Recent studies have provided evidence for an association between valence and left/right modulated by handedness, which is predicted by the body-specificity hypothesis (Casasanto, 2009) and also reflected in response times. We investigated whether such a response facilitation can also be observed with foot responses. Right-footed participants classified positive and negative words according to their valence by pressing a key with their left or right foot. A significant interaction between valence and foot only emerged in the by-items analysis. However, when dividing participants into two groups depending on the strength of their footedness, an interaction between valence and left/right was observed for strong right-footers, who responded faster with the right foot to positive words, and with the left foot to negative words. No interaction emerged for weak right-footers. The results strongly support the assumption that fluency lies at the core of the association between valence and left/right.

  8. Crossover from negative to positive magnetoresistance in the double quantum well system with different starting disorder

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kannan, E S; Karamad, M; Kim, Gil-Ho; Farrer, I; Ritchie, D A

    2010-01-01

    Magnetotransport measurements were performed in two widely separated double quantum well systems with different starting disorders. In the weak magnetic field regime, a crossover from negative to positive magnetoresistance in the longitudinal resistivity was observed in the system with weak disorder when the electron densities in the neighboring wells were significantly unbalanced. The crossover was found to be the result of the exchange-energy-assisted interactions between the electrons occupying the lowest subbands in the neighboring wells. In the case of the system with strong disorder short range scattering dominated the scattering process and no such transition in longitudinal resistivity in the low magnetic field regime was observed. However, at high magnetic fields, sharp peaks were observed in the Hall resistance due to the interaction between the edge states in the quantum Hall regime.

  9. Trees and Fields and Negative Polarity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Vikner, Sten

    2011-01-01

    The paper takes as its point of departure a comparison between two kinds of approaches to clause structure, namely tree analyses like the generative analysis and field analyses like the sætningsskema analysis of Danish of Diderichsen (1946) and many others (or like the topologische Modell analysis...... to accounting for negative polarity items in English, Danish and German, both the more straightforward aspects and the more complex ones, e.g. the so-called NPI-verbs as well as the interaction between NPI-elements and because-clauses...

  10. Laboratory simulation reveals significant impacts of ocean acidification on microbial community composition and host-pathogen interactions between the blood clam and Vibrio harveyi.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zha, Shanjie; Liu, Saixi; Su, Wenhao; Shi, Wei; Xiao, Guoqiang; Yan, Maocang; Liu, Guangxu

    2017-12-01

    It has been suggested that climate change may promote the outbreaks of diseases in the sea through altering the host susceptibility, the pathogen virulence, and the host-pathogen interaction. However, the impacts of ocean acidification (OA) on the pathogen components of bacterial community and the host-pathogen interaction of marine bivalves are still poorly understood. Therefore, 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and host-pathogen interaction analysis between blood clam (Tegillarca granosa) and Vibrio harveyi were conducted in the present study to gain a better understanding of the ecological impacts of ocean acidification. The results obtained revealed a significant impact of ocean acidification on the composition of microbial community at laboratory scale. Notably, the abundance of Vibrio, a major group of pathogens to many marine organisms, was significantly increased under ocean acidification condition. In addition, the survival rate and haemolytic activity of V. harveyi were significantly higher in the presence of haemolymph of OA treated T. granosa, indicating a compromised immunity of the clam and enhanced virulence of V. harveyi under future ocean acidification scenarios. Conclusively, the results obtained in this study suggest that future ocean acidification may increase the risk of Vibrio pathogen infection for marine bivalve species, such as blood clams. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Partial Least Squares Based Gene Expression Analysis in EBV- Positive and EBV-Negative Posttransplant Lymphoproliferative Disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Sa; Zhang, Xin; Li, Zhi-Ming; Shi, Yan-Xia; Huang, Jia-Jia; Xia, Yi; Yang, Hang; Jiang, Wen-Qi

    2013-01-01

    Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (PTLD) is a common complication of therapeutic immunosuppression after organ transplantation. Gene expression profile facilitates the identification of biological difference between Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) positive and negative PTLDs. Previous studies mainly implemented variance/regression analysis without considering unaccounted array specific factors. The aim of this study is to investigate the gene expression difference between EBV positive and negative PTLDs through partial least squares (PLS) based analysis. With a microarray data set from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, we performed PLS based analysis. We acquired 1188 differentially expressed genes. Pathway and Gene Ontology enrichment analysis identified significantly over-representation of dysregulated genes in immune response and cancer related biological processes. Network analysis identified three hub genes with degrees higher than 15, including CREBBP, ATXN1, and PML. Proteins encoded by CREBBP and PML have been reported to be interact with EBV before. Our findings shed light on expression distinction of EBV positive and negative PTLDs with the hope to offer theoretical support for future therapeutic study.

  12. Maternal cognitions and mother-infant interaction in postnatal depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stein, Alan; Craske, Michelle G; Lehtonen, Annukka; Harvey, Allison; Savage-McGlynn, Emily; Davies, Beverley; Goodwin, Julia; Murray, Lynne; Cortina-Borja, Mario; Counsell, Nicholas

    2012-11-01

    Postnatal depression and anxiety have been shown to increase the risk of disturbances in mother-child interaction and child development. Research into mechanisms has focused on genetics and maternal behavior; maternal cognitions have received little attention. Our aim was to experimentally determine if worry and rumination in mothers with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD), diagnosed in the postnatal 6 months, interfered with maternal responsiveness to their 10-month old infants. Mothers (N = 253: GAD n = 90; MDD n = 57; control n = 106) and their infants were randomized to either a worry/rumination prime (WRP) or a neutral prime (NP); mother-infant interactions were assessed before and after priming. Type of priming was a significant predictor of maternal cognitions, with WRP resulting in more negative thoughts, higher thought recurrence and more self-focus relative to NP across the entire sample. Interaction effects between group and priming were significant for two parenting variables: Compared with controls, WRP had a more negative impact on maternal responsiveness to infant vocalization for GAD, and to a lesser extent for MDD; WRP led to decreased maternal vocalization for GAD. Also, mothers with GAD used stronger control after the NP than WRP, as well as compared with other groups, and overall post-priming, their children exhibited lower emotional tone and more withdrawal. Across the entire sample, WRP was associated with increased child vocalization relative to NP. This study demonstrated that disturbances in maternal cognitions, in the context of postnatal anxiety and to a lesser degree depression, play a significant role in mother-child interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

  13. Negative energy solutions and symmetries

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sidharth, B.G.

    2011-01-01

    We revisit the negative energy solutions of the Dirac (and Klein–Gordon) equation, which become relevant at very high energies in the context of the Feshbach–Villars formulation, and study several symmetries which follow therefrom. Significant consequences are briefly examined. (author)

  14. Communication: Hydrogen bonding interactions in water-alcohol mixtures from X-ray absorption spectroscopy

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lam, Royce K.; Smith, Jacob W.; Saykally, Richard J., E-mail: saykally@berkeley.edu [Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA and Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

    2016-05-21

    While methanol and ethanol are macroscopically miscible with water, their mixtures exhibit negative excess entropies of mixing. Despite considerable effort in both experiment and theory, there remains significant disagreement regarding the origin of this effect. Different models for the liquid mixture structure have been proposed to address this behavior, including the enhancement of the water hydrogen bonding network around the alcohol hydrophobic groups and microscopic immiscibility or clustering. We have investigated mixtures of methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol with water by liquid microjet X-ray absorption spectroscopy on the oxygen K-edge, an atom-specific probe providing details of both inter- and intra-molecular structure. The measured spectra evidence a significant enhancement of hydrogen bonding originating from the methanol and ethanol hydroxyl groups upon the addition of water. These additional hydrogen bonding interactions would strengthen the liquid-liquid interactions, resulting in additional ordering in the liquid structures and leading to a reduction in entropy and a negative enthalpy of mixing, consistent with existing thermodynamic data. In contrast, the spectra of the isopropanol-water mixtures exhibit an increase in the number of broken alcohol hydrogen bonds for mixtures containing up to 0.5 water mole fraction, an observation consistent with existing enthalpy of mixing data, suggesting that the measured negative excess entropy is a result of clustering or micro-immiscibility.

  15. Communication: Hydrogen bonding interactions in water-alcohol mixtures from X-ray absorption spectroscopy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lam, Royce K.; Smith, Jacob W.; Saykally, Richard J.

    2016-05-01

    While methanol and ethanol are macroscopically miscible with water, their mixtures exhibit negative excess entropies of mixing. Despite considerable effort in both experiment and theory, there remains significant disagreement regarding the origin of this effect. Different models for the liquid mixture structure have been proposed to address this behavior, including the enhancement of the water hydrogen bonding network around the alcohol hydrophobic groups and microscopic immiscibility or clustering. We have investigated mixtures of methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol with water by liquid microjet X-ray absorption spectroscopy on the oxygen K-edge, an atom-specific probe providing details of both inter- and intra-molecular structure. The measured spectra evidence a significant enhancement of hydrogen bonding originating from the methanol and ethanol hydroxyl groups upon the addition of water. These additional hydrogen bonding interactions would strengthen the liquid-liquid interactions, resulting in additional ordering in the liquid structures and leading to a reduction in entropy and a negative enthalpy of mixing, consistent with existing thermodynamic data. In contrast, the spectra of the isopropanol-water mixtures exhibit an increase in the number of broken alcohol hydrogen bonds for mixtures containing up to 0.5 water mole fraction, an observation consistent with existing enthalpy of mixing data, suggesting that the measured negative excess entropy is a result of clustering or micro-immiscibility.

  16. How much can a negative FDG-PET be trusted?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Shuxia

    2004-01-01

    Purpose: False-negative FDG-PET constituted 22.7% of all clinically identified negative PET in a ten year retrospective review about FDG-PET on irradiated brain tumour. Uncovering possible influencing factors of false-negative FDG-PET may have significant value. Material and methods: 10 patients with a first negative and then a second positive PET during very short time separation and 6 patients with surgically confirmed false-negative PET were traced. Histological type, irradiation parameter, steroids effect were discussed. To define temporary irradiation effect on FDG uptake, interval between radiation treatment to PET examination of these two groups were compared with 24 surgically confirmed true-positive PET, 5 surgically confirmed true-negative PET Results: 80% negative-positive PET transformation happened within 31 weeks. No statistically significant difference with regard to time from irradiation could be found between groups. Steroids medication closely before PET examination was about the same before the first negative and second positive PET scan. 5/6 surgically confirmed false-negative PET patients did not take steroids before PET examination. Conclusion: Tumour histology type, temporary irradiation effect and steroids medication did not constitute the reasons for false negative PET in our patient series. PET could not identify tumour relapse in the very early stage. Therefore, if clinically indicated, second FDG-PET might be a better selection to pick up tumour relapse instead of exploratory surgery or biopsy. In that case, the suitable time point for the second PET could be within 31 weeks after the first PET examination. Keywords: false-negative, FDG-PET, influencing factor, irradiation effect, steroids. (author)

  17. Interaction between body mass index and hormone-receptor status as a prognostic factor in lymph-node-positive breast cancer.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Il Yong Chung

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between the body mass index (BMI at a breast cancer diagnosis and various factors including the hormone-receptor, menopause, and lymph-node status, and identify if there is a specific patient subgroup for which the BMI has an effect on the breast cancer prognosis. We retrospectively analyzed the data of 8,742 patients with non-metastatic invasive breast cancer from the research database of Asan Medical Center. The overall survival (OS and breast-cancer-specific survival (BCSS outcomes were compared among BMI groups using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional-hazards regression models with an interaction term. There was a significant interaction between BMI and hormone-receptor status for the OS (P = 0.029, and BCSS (P = 0.013 in lymph-node-positive breast cancers. Obesity in hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer showed a poorer OS (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 1.51, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.92 to 2.48 and significantly poorer BCSS (HR = 1.80, 95% CI = 1.08 to 2.99. In contrast, a high BMI in hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer revealed a better OS (HR = 0.44, 95% CI = 0.16 to 1.19 and BCSS (HR = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.19 to 1.44. Being underweight (BMI < 18.50 kg/m2 with hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer was associated with a significantly worse OS (HR = 1.98, 95% CI = 1.00-3.95 and BCSS (HR = 2.24, 95% CI = 1.12-4.47. There was no significant interaction found between the BMI and hormone-receptor status in the lymph-node-negative setting, and BMI did not interact with the menopause status in any subgroup. In conclusion, BMI interacts with the hormone-receptor status in a lymph-node-positive setting, thereby playing a role in the prognosis of breast cancer.

  18. Matrix proteins as centralized organizers of negative-sense RNA virions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liljeroos, Lassi; Butcher, Sarah J

    2013-01-01

    Matrix proteins are essential components of most negative-sense RNA, enveloped viruses. They serve a wide range of duties ranging from self-driven membrane budding and coordination of other viral components to modulation of viral transcription. The functional similarity between these proteins is striking, despite major differences in their structures. Whereas biochemical and structural studies have partly been hindered by the inherent aggregation properties of these proteins, their cellular functions are beginning to be understood. In this review we summarize the current knowledge on negative-sense RNA virus matrix proteins and their interactions with other viral and cellular proteins. We also discuss the similarities and differences in matrix protein functions between the different families within the negative-sense RNA viruses.

  19. The cytochrome P450 isoenzyme and some new opportunities for the prediction of negative drug interaction in vivo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sychev DA

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Dmitrij A Sychev,1 Ghulam Md Ashraf,2 Andrey A Svistunov,3 Maksim L Maksimov,4 Vadim V Tarasov,3 Vladimir N Chubarev,3 Vitalij A Otdelenov,1 Natal’ja P Denisenko,1 George E Barreto,5,6 Gjumrakch Aliev7–9 1Russian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education Studies, Moscow, Russia; 2King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; 3Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russia; 4Branch Campus of the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Further Professional Education «Russian Medical Academy of Continuous Professional Education» of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation, Kazan State Medical Academy, Volga Region, Kazan, Russia; 5Departamento de Nutrición y Bioquímica, Facultad de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá D.C., Colombia; 6Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile; 7GALLY International Biomedical Research Consulting LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA; 8School of Health Science and Healthcare Administration, University of Atlanta, Johns Creek, GA, USA; 9Institute of Physiologically Active Compounds Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka, Russia Abstract: Cytochrome (CYP 450 isoenzymes are the basic enzymes involved in Phase I biotransformation. The most important role in biotransformation belongs to CYP3A4, CYP2D6, CYP2C9, CYP2C19 and CYP1A2. Inhibition and induction of CYP isoenzymes caused by drugs are important and clinically relevant pharmacokinetic mechanisms of drug interaction. Investigation of the activity of CYP isoenzymes by using phenotyping methods (such as the determination of the concentration of specific substrates and metabolites in biological fluids during drug administration provides the prediction of negative side effects caused by drug interaction. In clinical practice, the process of phenotyping of CYP isoenzymes and some endogenous substrates in the ratio of cortisol to 6

  20. Response of soil microbial communities and microbial interactions to long-term heavy metal contamination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Xiaoqi; Meng, Delong; Li, Juan; Yin, Huaqun; Liu, Hongwei; Liu, Xueduan; Cheng, Cheng; Xiao, Yunhua; Liu, Zhenghua; Yan, Mingli

    2017-12-01

    Due to the persistence of metals in the ecosystem and their threat to all living organisms, effects of heavy metal on soil microbial communities were widely studied. However, little was known about the interactions among microorganisms in heavy metal-contaminated soils. In the present study, microbial communities in Non (CON), moderately (CL) and severely (CH) contaminated soils were investigated through high-throughput Illumina sequencing of 16s rRNA gene amplicons, and networks were constructed to show the interactions among microbes. Results showed that the microbial community composition was significantly, while the microbial diversity was not significantly affected by heavy metal contamination. Bacteria showed various response to heavy metals. Bacteria that positively correlated with Cd, e.g. Acidobacteria_Gp and Proteobacteria_thiobacillus, had more links between nodes and more positive interactions among microbes in CL- and CH-networks, while bacteria that negatively correlated with Cd, e.g. Longilinea, Gp2 and Gp4 had fewer network links and more negative interactions in CL and CH-networks. Unlike bacteria, members of the archaeal domain, i.e. phyla Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota, class Thermoprotei and order Thermoplasmatales showed only positive correlation with Cd and had more network interactions in CH-networks. The present study indicated that (i) the microbial community composition, as well as network interactions was shift to strengthen adaptability of microorganisms to heavy metal contamination, (ii) archaea were resistant to heavy metal contamination and may contribute to the adaption to heavy metals. It was proposed that the contribution might be achieved either by improving environment conditions or by cooperative interactions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Antibiotic interaction with phospholipid monolayers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gambinossi, F.; Mecheri, B.; Caminati, G.; Nocentini, M.; Puggelli, M.; Gabrielli, G.

    2002-01-01

    We studied the interactions of tetracycline (TC) antibiotic molecules with phospholipid monolayers with the two-fold aim of elucidating the mechanism of action and providing a first step for the realization of bio-mimetic sensors for such drugs by means of the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. We examined spreading monolayers of three phospholipids in the presence of tetracycline in the subphase by means of surface pressure-area and surface potential-area isotherms as a function of bulk pH. We selected phospholipids with hydrophobic chains of the same length but polar head groups differing either in dimensions and protonation equilibria, i.e. dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DPPE) and dipalmitoylphosphatidic acid (DPPA). The interaction of tetracycline with the three phospholipids was found to be highly dependent on the electric charge of the antibiotic and on the ionization state of the lipid. Significant interactions are established between the negatively charged form of dipalmitoylphosphatidic acid and the zwitterionic form of tetracycline. The drug was found to migrate at the interface where it is adsorbed underneath or/and among the head groups, depending on the surface pressure of the film, whereas penetration through the hydrophobic layer was excluded for all the three phospholipids

  2. Antibiotic interaction with phospholipid monolayers

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gambinossi, F.; Mecheri, B.; Caminati, G.; Nocentini, M.; Puggelli, M.; Gabrielli, G

    2002-12-01

    We studied the interactions of tetracycline (TC) antibiotic molecules with phospholipid monolayers with the two-fold aim of elucidating the mechanism of action and providing a first step for the realization of bio-mimetic sensors for such drugs by means of the Langmuir-Blodgett technique. We examined spreading monolayers of three phospholipids in the presence of tetracycline in the subphase by means of surface pressure-area and surface potential-area isotherms as a function of bulk pH. We selected phospholipids with hydrophobic chains of the same length but polar head groups differing either in dimensions and protonation equilibria, i.e. dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC), dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DPPE) and dipalmitoylphosphatidic acid (DPPA). The interaction of tetracycline with the three phospholipids was found to be highly dependent on the electric charge of the antibiotic and on the ionization state of the lipid. Significant interactions are established between the negatively charged form of dipalmitoylphosphatidic acid and the zwitterionic form of tetracycline. The drug was found to migrate at the interface where it is adsorbed underneath or/and among the head groups, depending on the surface pressure of the film, whereas penetration through the hydrophobic layer was excluded for all the three phospholipids.

  3. A comparative study of negative life events and depressive symptoms among healthy older adults and older adults with chronic disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Han; Gao, Tingting; Gao, Jinglei; Kong, Yixi; Hu, Yueyang; Wang, Ruimei; Mei, Songli

    2017-12-01

    This study aims to study internal relations and functionary mechanism between social support, coping style, negative life events and depressive symptoms and compare these relations in healthy older adults and older adults with chronic disease. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2015. In total, 1,264 older adults with chronic disease and 749 healthy older adults participated in this investigation which consist of socio-demographic characters, negative life events, social support, coping style and depressive symptoms. The path and direction of variable function in healthy older adults were inconsistent with older adults with chronic disease. Older adults with chronic disease had more severe depressive symptoms and negative life events, and lower social support and positive coping style. Negative life events, subjective support, positive coping style and negative coping style were significantly predicted depressive symptoms. Objective support may weaken the influence of negative life events on depressive symptoms in chronic disease group. Utilization of support and positive coping style worsen the effect of negative life events on depressive symptoms in healthy older adults. This study implied that to improve their mental health, attention should be paid to the role of biological, psychological and social stress factors and its inherent law of interaction.

  4. Change Trajectories for Parent-Child Interaction Sequences during Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Child Physical Abuse

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hakman, Melissa; Chaffin, Mark; Funderburk, Beverly; Silovsky, Jane F.

    2009-01-01

    Objective: Parent-child interaction therapy (PCIT) has been found to reduce future child abuse reports among physically abusive parents. Reductions in observed negative parenting behaviors mediated this benefit. The current study examined session-by-session interaction sequences in order to identify when during treatment these changes occur and…

  5. The Spreading of Social Energy: How Exposure to Positive and Negative Social News Affects Behavior.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ziqing Yao

    Full Text Available Social news, unlike video games or TV programs, conveys real-life interactions. Theoretically, social news in which people help or harm each other and violate rules should influence both prosocial and violation behaviors. In two experiments, we demonstrated the spreading effects of social news in a social interaction context emphasizing social conventions and a nonsocial interaction context emphasizing moral norms. Across the two studies, the results showed that positive social news increased cooperation (decreased defection but had no effect on cheating, whereas negative social news increased cheating but with no change in cooperation (or defection. We conclude that there is a spreading impact of positive social news in the conventional norm domain and of negative social news in the moral norm domain.

  6. The Spreading of Social Energy: How Exposure to Positive and Negative Social News Affects Behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yao, Ziqing; Yu, Rongjun

    2016-01-01

    Social news, unlike video games or TV programs, conveys real-life interactions. Theoretically, social news in which people help or harm each other and violate rules should influence both prosocial and violation behaviors. In two experiments, we demonstrated the spreading effects of social news in a social interaction context emphasizing social conventions and a nonsocial interaction context emphasizing moral norms. Across the two studies, the results showed that positive social news increased cooperation (decreased defection) but had no effect on cheating, whereas negative social news increased cheating but with no change in cooperation (or defection). We conclude that there is a spreading impact of positive social news in the conventional norm domain and of negative social news in the moral norm domain.

  7. Factors influencing interactions in zoos: animal-keeper relationship, animal-public interactions and solitary animals groups

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giovanni Quintavalle Pastorino

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Interactions that animals experience can have a significant influence on their health and welfare. These interactions can occur between animals themselves, but also between animals and keepers, and animals and the public. Human and non-human animals come into contact with each other in a variety of settings, and wherever there is contact there is the opportunity for interaction to take place. Interaction with companion animals are well known, but human–animal interaction (HAR (Hosey, 2008 also occurs in the context of farms (Hemsworth and Gonyou, 1997; Hemsworth, 2003, laboratories (Chang and Hart, 2002, zoos (Kreger and Mench, 1995 and even the wild (e.g. Cassini, 2001. This project proposes a permanent monitoring scheme to record animal-human interactions and animal-animal interactions in zoos. This will be accompanied by a survey of animal personality for welfare, husbandry, breeding programs and reintroduction purposes. The pilot project is currently based on direct monitoring of animal behaviour, use of time lapse cameras and animal personality questionnaires completed by experienced keepers. The goal of this project is to create a network between zoos to explore the aforementioned interactions to produce husbandry protocols and explore personality and behavioural traits in multiple species. We present provisional data regarding polar bear (Fasano Zoosafari, Italy, Sumatran tigers, Amur tigers and Asiatic lion (ZSL London and Whipsnade zoo interactions with humans and conspecifics. This data is collected across a broad range of environmental conditions and outlines the monitoring protocols developed to collect this data. The first year data show the great adaptability of these species to ex situ environments, low or absent negative impact of visitors’ presence and the relevance of individual personality in these interactions.

  8. Parental coping with children's negative emotions: relations with children's emotional and social responding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fabes, R A; Leonard, S A; Kupanoff, K; Martin, C L

    2001-01-01

    This study examined the relation between parents' reactions to children's negative emotions and social competence. Additionally, the role of parental emotional distress in children's emotional socialization was examined. The emotional reactions of 57 preschoolers (33 girls, 24 boys; M age = 59.2 months) were observed during their free-play interactions. Parents (mostly mothers) completed questionnaires about their reactions to children's negative emotions. An index of children's social competence was obtained from teachers. Results indicated that the relation between harsh parental coping strategies and children's emotional responding was moderated by parental distress. In addition, the relation of the interaction of parental coping and distress to children's social competence was mediated by children's level of emotional intensity. It was concluded that distressed parents who use harsh coping strategies in response to children's negative emotions have children who express emotion in relatively intense ways. In turn, these children find it relatively difficult to behave in a socially competent manner.

  9. Sleep disruption is related to poor response inhibition in individuals with obsessive-compulsive and repetitive negative thought symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nota, Jacob A; Schubert, Jessica R; Coles, Meredith E

    2016-03-01

    Obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms and repetitive negative thinking (RNT) are associated with poor inhibitory control. Sleep disruptions may partially mediate these relations and/or act as a "second hit" to individuals with OC symptoms and RNT. Models including habitual (past month) hours slept and bedtimes were tested. We employed a go/no-go task that allowed us to examine the relation between sleep and inhibition with various task contingencies. Sixty-seven unselected individuals were recruited from the participant pool at a public university. Bias-corrected bootstrap estimates did not show that sleep disruption mediated the relation between OC symptoms and response inhibition nor the relation between RNT and response inhibition. Multiple linear regression analyses found significant interactions between hours slept and OC symptom severity and between RNT and hours slept to predict poor response inhibition. Hours slept significantly negatively predicted commission errors when OC symptoms and RNT levels were relatively heightened but not when OC symptoms and RNT levels were relatively low. These effects were present in blocks where task contingencies were designed to shape a no-go bias. No significant relations were found with habitual bedtimes. The cross-sectional study design precludes testing the temporal precedence of symptoms in the "second hit" model. The unselected sample also limits generalization to clinical samples. These findings support a "second hit" model of interaction between sleep disruption and perseverative thoughts and behaviors. Further research on the mechanisms of the relation between sleep disruption and perseverative thought symptoms (OC and RNT) is warranted. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. [Clinical significance of JAK2、CALR and MPL gene mutations in 1 648 Philadelphia chromosome negative myeloproliferative neoplasms patients from a single center].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, M Y; Chao, H Y; Sun, A N; Qiu, H Y; Jin, Z M; Tang, X W; Han, Y; Fu, C C; Chen, S N; Wu, D P

    2017-04-14

    Objective: To explore the prevalences of JAK2, CALR and MPL gene mutations and the mutation types in patients with Philadelphia chromosome negative myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) , and to compare their clinical characteristics of different mutation types with each other and mutation negative group. Methods: The mutations of JAK2 V617F, JAK2 gene at exon 12, CALR gene at exon 9 and MPL gene at exon 10 in 1 648 Ph negative MPNs patients were detected by direct sequencing. Results: ① The JAK2V617F mutation was found in 471 (92.7%) of 508 PV patients, 819 (78.1%) of 1 049 ET patients and 74 (81.3%) of 91 PMF patients respectively, with the total mutation rate as 82.8% (1 364/1 648) . The JAK2 exon12 mutation was found in 9 (1.7%) of 508 PV patients, none was found in ET or PMF patients, with the total mutation rate as 0.5% (9/1 648) . The CALR mutation was found in 132 (12.6%) of 1 049 ET patients and 11 (12.1%) of 91 PMF patients respectively, with the total mutation rate as 8.7% (143/1 648) ; the MPL mutation was found in 9 (0.9%) of 1 049 ET patients and 1 (1.1%) of 91 PMF patients respectively, with the total mutation rate as 0.6% (10/1 648) . The co-occurrence of any two types of driver gene mutations was not detected by direct sequencing. ②The median onset age of patients with JAK2V617F[61 (15-95) y] was significant higher than of with JAK2 exon12 mutation[49 (33-62) y] or without mutations[42 (3-78) y] ( P MPL mutation[59 (22-71) y] ( P >0.05) . Patients with JAK2V617F had higher white blood cell count and hemoglobin level ( P MPL mutation ( P =0.013) . The platelet count of patients with CALR mutation was significantly higher than of with JAK2V617F[966 (400-2 069) ×10(9)/L vs 800 (198-3 730) ×10(9)/L, P MPL gene mutation revealed normal karyotype. Conclusions: Driver gene mutations detection could ensure the diagnosis and prognosis judgment of MPN more reliable, different subtypes of MPNs had different profiles of driver gene mutations, the latter

  11. Quorum sensing in gram-negative bacteria

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wu, H.; Song, Z.J.; Høiby, N.

    2004-01-01

    Bacteria can communicate with each other by means of signal molecules to coordinate the behavior of the entire community, and the mechanism is referred to as quorum sensing (QS). Signal systems enable bacteria to sense the size of their densities by monitoring the concentration of the signal...... molecules. Among Gram-negative bacteria N-acyl-L-homoserine lactone (acyl-HSL)-dependent quorum sensing systems are particularly widespread. These systems are used to coordinate expression of phenotypes that are fundamental to the interaction of bacteria with each other and with their environment...

  12. Childhood Socioeconomic Status and the Occurrence of Recent Negative Life Events as Predictors of Circulating and Stimulated Levels of Interleukin-6.

    Science.gov (United States)

    John-Henderson, Neha A; Marsland, Anna L; Kamarck, Thomas W; Muldoon, Matthew F; Manuck, Stephen B

    2016-01-01

    Evidence supports an inverse association of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) with systemic inflammation in adulthood. However, it remains to be determined whether this association is dependent on exposure to stressful life experiences. We predicted that the combination of a high number of recent negative life events and low childhood SES would be associated with the highest levels of both circulating interleukin (IL)-6 and lipopolysaccharide-stimulated production of IL-6. We tested this prediction among a community sample of 459 adults (47% male, mean [standard deviation] age = 42.8 [7.3] years). Inverse associations were found between childhood and adult SES indices with circulating IL-6 levels (r values between -0.07 and -0.16, p .05). The number of recent negative life events (mean [standard deviation] = 2.43 [2.34]) was not significantly related to subjective childhood SES and other SES indices (r values .10). Multivariate linear regression analyses revealed a significant association between the interaction of subjective childhood SES and recent negative life events and circulating IL-6 (β = -0.09, t(404) = -1.98, p = .049) and a marginally significant association with stimulated levels of IL-6 (β = -0.10, t(365) = -1.94, p = .054), whereas these covariate-adjusted models revealed no main effects for subjective SES or recent negative life events. The relationship between childhood SES and IL-6 seems to be moderated by recent life events, such that individuals with a relatively low childhood SES exhibit an inflammatory phenotype in the context of a high number of recent negative life events.

  13. Negative Mood Increases Selective Attention to Negatively Valenced Body Parts in Female Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennifer Svaldi

    Full Text Available Previous research has yielded evidence of increased attentional processing of negatively valenced body parts in women with anorexia nervosa (AN, especially for those with high depressive symptomatology. The present study extended previous research by implementing an experimental mood manipulation.In a within-subjects design, female adolescents with AN (n = 12 and an age matched female control group (CG; n = 12 were given a negative and a positive mood induction at a one-week interval. After each mood induction, participants underwent a 3-min mirror exposure, while their eye movements were recorded.After the positive mood induction, both AN and CG participants displayed longer and more frequent gazes towards their self-defined most ugly relative to their self-defined most beautiful body part. However, after the negative mood induction, only females with AN were characterized by increased attention to their most ugly compared to their most beautiful body part, while CG participants' attention distribution was balanced. Furthermore, in the negative (but not in the positive mood induction condition gaze frequency and duration towards the most ugly body part was significantly stronger in the AN group relative to the CG.The results emphasize the role of negative mood in the maintenance of pathological information processing of the self-body. This increased body-related negativity-bias during negative mood may lead to the persistence and aggravation of AN patients' body image disturbance.

  14. Entropy, energy and negativity in Fermi-resonance coupled states of substituted methanes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hou Xiwen; Wan Mingfang; Ma Zhongqi

    2010-01-01

    Several measures of entanglement have attracted considerable interest in the relationship of a measure of entanglement with other quantities. The dynamics of entropy, energy and negativity is studied for Fermi-resonance coupled vibrations in substituted methanes with three kinds of initial mixed states, which are the mixed density matrices of binomial states, thermal states and squeezed states on two vibrational modes, respectively. It is demonstrated that for mixed binomial states and mixed thermal states with small magnitudes the entropies of the stretch and the bend are anti-correlated in the same oscillatory frequency, so do the energies for each kind of state with small magnitudes, whereas the entropies exhibit positive correlations with the corresponding energies. Furthermore, for small magnitudes quantum mutual entropy is positively correlated with the interacting energy. Analytic forms of entropies and energies are provided with initial conditions in which they are stationary, and the agreement between analytic and numerical simulations is satisfactory. The dynamical entanglement measured by negativity is examined for those states and conditions. It is shown that negativity displays a sudden death for mixed binomial states and mixed thermal states with small magnitudes, and the time-averaged negativity has the minimal value under the conditions of stationary entropies and energies. Moreover, negativity is positively correlated with the mutual entropy and the interacting energy just for mixed squeezed states with small magnitudes. Those are useful for molecular quantum information processing and dynamical entanglement.

  15. Interaction effects between internal governance mechanisms on the components of initial returns during the IPO

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mediha Mezhoud

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Our work provides an analysis of the interaction effects between internal governance mechanisms on the components of initial returns during the listing period. The application of multivariate regressions on a sample of 110 IPO French companies during 2005-2010, has allowed us to conclude that the different interactions between these mechanisms significantly influence the level of under / overpricing. Indeed, the positive relationship between internal governance mechanisms and overpricing reflects a substitutability relationship. In contrast, the complementarity effect comes from the negative relationship characterizing the combination of governance mechanisms and the underpricing. Thus, the interactions effects between institutional ownership, board structure and under / overpricing are not conforming to the existence of a complementarity or substitutability relationship between these variables given the absence of a significant combination between these variables

  16. Debunking vaccination myths: strong risk negations can increase perceived vaccination risks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Betsch, Cornelia; Sachse, Katharina

    2013-02-01

    Information about risks is often contradictory, especially in the health domain. A vast amount of bizarre information on vaccine-adverse events (VAE) can be found on the Internet; most are posted by antivaccination activists. Several actors in the health sector struggle against these statements by negating claimed risks with scientific explanations. The goal of the present work is to find optimal ways of negating risk to decrease risk perceptions. In two online experiments, we varied the extremity of risk negations and their source. Perception of the probability of VAE, their expected severity (both variables serve as indicators of perceived risk), and vaccination intentions. Paradoxically, messages strongly indicating that there is "no risk" led to a higher perceived vaccination risk than weak negations. This finding extends previous work on the negativity bias, which has shown that information stating the presence of risk decreases risk perceptions, while information negating the existence of risk increases such perceptions. Several moderators were also tested; however, the effect occurred independently of the number of negations, recipient involvement, and attitude. Solely the credibility of the information source interacted with the extremity of risk negation: For credible sources (governmental institutions), strong and weak risk negations lead to similar perceived risk, while for less credible sources (pharmaceutical industries) weak negations lead to less perceived risk than strong negations. Optimal risk negation may profit from moderate rather than extreme formulations as a source's trustworthiness can vary.

  17. Clinically significant drug–drug interactions involving opioid analgesics used for pain treatment in patients with cancer: a systematic review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kotlinska-Lemieszek A

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Aleksandra Kotlinska-Lemieszek,1 Pål Klepstad,2,3,6 Dagny Faksvåg Haugen2,4,5 1Palliative Medicine Chair and Department, University Hospital of the Lord’s Transfiguration, Karol Marcinkowski University of Medical Sciences, Poznan, Poland; 2European Palliative Care Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,Trondheim, Norway; 3Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, St Olavs Hospital, Trondheim, Norway; 4Regional Centre of Excellence for Palliative Care, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway; 5Department of Clinical Medicine K1, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; 6Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Background: Opioids are the most frequently used drugs to treat pain in cancer patients. In some patients, however, opioids can cause adverse effects and drug–drug interactions. No advice concerning the combination of opioids and other drugs is given in the current European guidelines. Objective: To identify studies that report clinically significant drug–drug interactions involving opioids used for pain treatment in adult cancer patients. Design and data sources: Systematic review with searches in Embase, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from the start of the databases (Embase from 1980 through January 2014. In addition, reference lists of relevant full-text papers were hand-searched. Results: Of 901 retrieved papers, 112 were considered as potentially eligible. After full-text reading, 17 were included in the final analysis, together with 15 papers identified through hand-searching of reference lists. All of the 32 included publications were case reports or case series. Clinical manifestations of drug–drug interactions involving opioids were grouped as follows: 1 sedation and respiratory depression, 2 other central nervous system symptoms, 3 impairment of pain

  18. Police use of handcuffs in the homeless population leads to long-term negative attitudes within this group.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krameddine, Yasmeen I; Silverstone, Peter H

    2016-01-01

    The police interact with homeless individuals frequently. However, there has been relatively little research on the attitudes of homeless individuals towards the police, and how police interactions may impact these. This is important since the attitudes of homeless individuals can impact how often they report crimes, and how well they support police when they are investigating crimes in this population. We interviewed 213 homeless individuals in a single city, representing approximately 10% of the total homeless population. They were interviewed at either homeless shelters, or events held specifically for the homeless population. Of these individuals, 75% were male, and 47% had interacted with a police officer within the past month. Self-reports suggested that 60% had a drug and/or alcohol issue and 78% had a mental illness. We found a highly statistically significant difference between the group that had been handcuffed and/or arrested compared to those that had not. This was across multiple domains and included how the individual regarded the police in terms of their empathy and communication skills, and how much they trusted the police. These changes were long-term, and if a homeless individual had been arrested or handcuffed (and verbal reporting suggested that being handcuffed was the by far the most important factor) then these negative attitudes lasted at least 2 years. The primary conclusion from this study is that when police handcuff a homeless individual, this can lead to long-term negative views about the police across several domains that appear to be long lasting, and were linked to feelings of not being respected by the police. It is therefore proposed that police officers should be made aware of the potential long-term negative consequences of this single action, and that police forces should consider providing specific training to minimize any unnecessary overuse of handcuffs. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Radiopharmaceuticals drug interactions: a critical review

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Santos-Oliveira, Ralph; Smith, Sheila W.; Carneiro-Leao, Ana Maria A.

    2008-01-01

    Radiopharmaceuticals play a critical role in modern medicine primarily for diagnostic purposes, but also for monitoring disease progression and response to treatment. As the use of image has been increased, so has the use of prescription medications. These trends increase the risk of interactions between medications and radiopharmaceuticals. These interactions which have an impact on image by competing with the radiopharmaceutical for binding sites for example can lead to false negative results. Drugs that accelerate the metabolism of the radiopharmaceutical can have a positive impact (i.e. speeding its clearance) or, if repeating image is needed, a negative impact. In some cases, for example in cardiac image among patients taking doxirubacin, these interactions may have a therapeutic benefit. The incidence of drug-radiopharmaceuticals adverse reactions is unknown, since they may not be reported or even recognized. Here, we compiled the medical literature, using the criteria of a systematic review established by the Cochrane Collaboration, on pharmaceutical-drug interactions to provide a summary of documented interactions by organ system and radiopharmaceuticals. The purpose is to provide a reference on drug interactions that could inform the nuclear medicine staff in their daily routine. Efforts to increase adverse event reporting, and ideally consolidate reports worldwide, can provide a critically needed resource for prevention of drug-radiopharmaceuticals interactions. (author)

  20. Success/failure condition influences attribution of control, negative affect, and shame among patients with depression in Singapore.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeo, Si-Ning; Zainal, Hani; Tang, Catherine S; Tong, Eddie M; Ho, Cyrus S; Ho, Roger C

    2017-08-02

    There remains a paucity of research on control attribution and depression within Asian populations. This study examines: (1) Success/Failure condition as a moderator between depression and negative affect or shame, and (2) differences in control attribution between patients with depression and healthy controls in Singapore. Seventy one patients with depression and 71 healthy controls went through a digit-span memory task where they were randomized into either the Success or Failure condition. Participants in the Success condition had to memorize and recall 5-digit strings, while participants in the Failure condition did the same for 12-digit strings. They then completed self-report measures of negative affect, shame, and attribution of control. One-way ANCOVA was performed to examine task condition as a moderator of association between mental health status and post-task negative affect or shame. Test of simple effects was carried out on significant interactions. Sign test and Mann-Whitney U test were employed to investigate differences in attribution of control. Mental health status and Success/Failure condition had significant effects on reported negative affect and shame. Healthy controls reported less post-task negative affect and shame in the Success than in the Failure condition while patients with depression reported similar levels of post-task negative affect and shame in both conditions. However, these differences were not significant in the test of simple effects. In addition, healthy controls felt a stronger sense of personal control in success than in failure and were more likely to blame external factors in failure than in success. Conversely, patients with depression were more inclined to credit external factors in success than in failure and ascribed greater personal control in failure than in success. The results suggest that successful conditions may not necessitate the reduction of negative affect in Asians with depression, indicating possible

  1. Predictors of PTSD symptoms in Brazilian police officers: the synergy of negative affect and peritraumatic dissociation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maia, Deborah B.; Marmar, Charles R.; Henn-Haase, Clare; Nóbrega, Augusta; Fiszman, Adriana; Marques-Portella, Carla; Mendlowicz, Mauro V.; Coutinho, Evandro S.F.; Figueira, Ivan

    2013-01-01

    Background Exposure to traumatic events is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Pretrauma, peritrauma and posttrauma factors interact to impact on symptom severity. The aim of the present study is to determine risk factors for PTSD symptoms in Brazilian police officers. Method In a cross-sectional sample of active duty officers (n = 212), participants were asked to complete a socio-demographic questionnaire and self-report scales on affective traits, cumulative critical incident exposure, peritraumatic distress and dissociation, PTSD symptoms, and social support. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was conducted to examine predictors of PTSD symptoms. Results Variables related to negative affect, job duration, frequency of critical incident exposure, peritraumatic dissociation, and lack of social support remained significant in the final model and explained 55% of the variance in PTSD symptoms. When interaction terms were evaluated, a synergistic effect between negative affect and peritraumatic dissociation was found. Conclusions The risk factors found in this study provide clues on how to elaborate primary prevention strategies regarding PTSD symptoms in police officers. Such initiatives may lessen the impact of repeated exposure to traumatic events on police officers over the course of their careers. PMID:22189925

  2. Altered inhibition of negative emotions in subjects at family risk of major depressive disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lisiecka, Danuta M; Carballedo, Angela; Fagan, Andrew J; Connolly, Gerald; Meaney, James; Frodl, Thomas

    2012-02-01

    Unaffected 1st degree relatives of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) are more likely to develop MDD than healthy controls. The aim of our study was to establish neuronal correlates of familial susceptibility in the process of inhibition of emotional information. Unaffected 1st degree relatives of patients with MDD (N = 21) and matched healthy controls (N = 25) underwent a functional magnetic resonance imaging procedure with an inhibition task. Blood oxygenated level dependent signal was evaluated for the two groups during inhibition of positive, negative and neutral information. In a 2 × 3 ANOVA unaffected relatives of patients with MDD were compared to healthy controls, jointly and separately for all three levels of emotional valence of the information. The interaction between group and emotional valence of the inhibited information was significant, indicating "a negative neural drift" in unaffected relatives of patients with MDD. The unaffected relatives of patients with MDD displayed an increased activation during inhibiting of negative material in the right middle cingulate cortex and the left caudate nucleus (p family wise error corrected). There was no difference between the two groups in terms of inhibiting positive or neutral stimuli. Our findings provide the first evidence that unaffected relatives of patients with MDD differ from the standard population in terms of neural correlates of inhibition of negative emotional information. Overactivation of cingulate cortex and caudate nucleus may indicate a learnt strategy aimed at coping with increased susceptibility to negative information schemata and may have future consequences for therapy. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Differentiation without distancing. explaining bi-polarization of opinions without negative influence.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael Mäs

    Full Text Available Explanations of opinion bi-polarization hinge on the assumption of negative influence, individuals' striving to amplify differences to disliked others. However, empirical evidence for negative influence is inconclusive, which motivated us to search for an alternative explanation. Here, we demonstrate that bi-polarization can be explained without negative influence, drawing on theories that emphasize the communication of arguments as central mechanism of influence. Due to homophily, actors interact mainly with others whose arguments will intensify existing tendencies for or against the issue at stake. We develop an agent-based model of this theory and compare its implications to those of existing social-influence models, deriving testable hypotheses about the conditions of bi-polarization. Hypotheses were tested with a group-discussion experiment (N = 96. Results demonstrate that argument exchange can entail bi-polarization even when there is no negative influence.

  4. Differentiation without distancing. explaining bi-polarization of opinions without negative influence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mäs, Michael; Flache, Andreas

    2013-01-01

    Explanations of opinion bi-polarization hinge on the assumption of negative influence, individuals' striving to amplify differences to disliked others. However, empirical evidence for negative influence is inconclusive, which motivated us to search for an alternative explanation. Here, we demonstrate that bi-polarization can be explained without negative influence, drawing on theories that emphasize the communication of arguments as central mechanism of influence. Due to homophily, actors interact mainly with others whose arguments will intensify existing tendencies for or against the issue at stake. We develop an agent-based model of this theory and compare its implications to those of existing social-influence models, deriving testable hypotheses about the conditions of bi-polarization. Hypotheses were tested with a group-discussion experiment (N = 96). Results demonstrate that argument exchange can entail bi-polarization even when there is no negative influence.

  5. Influence of nanoparticle-membrane electrostatic interactions on membrane fluidity and bending elasticity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santhosh, Poornima Budime; Velikonja, Aljaž; Perutkova, Šarka; Gongadze, Ekaterina; Kulkarni, Mukta; Genova, Julia; Eleršič, Kristina; Iglič, Aleš; Kralj-Iglič, Veronika; Ulrih, Nataša Poklar

    2014-02-01

    The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of electrostatic interactions between the nanoparticles and the membrane lipids on altering the physical properties of the liposomal membrane such as fluidity and bending elasticity. For this purpose, we have used nanoparticles and lipids with different surface charges. Positively charged iron oxide (γ-Fe2O3) nanoparticles, neutral and negatively charged cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) nanoparticles were encapsulated in neutral lipid 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and negatively charged 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-L-serine lipid mixture. Membrane fluidity was assessed through the anisotropy measurements using the fluorescent probe 1,6-diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene. Though the interaction of both the types of nanoparticles reduced the membrane fluidity, the results were more pronounced in the negatively charged liposomes encapsulated with positively charged iron oxide nanoparticles due to strong electrostatic attractions. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results also confirmed the presence of significant quantity of positively charged iron oxide nanoparticles in negatively charged liposomes. Through thermally induced shape fluctuation measurements of the giant liposomes, a considerable reduction in the bending elasticity modulus was observed for cobalt ferrite nanoparticles. The experimental results were supported by the simulation studies using modified Langevin-Poisson-Boltzmann model. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Novel stimuli are negative stimuli: evidence that negative affect is reduced in the mere exposure effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robinson, Brent M; Elias, Lorin J

    2005-04-01

    Repeated exposure of a nonreinforced stimulus results in an increased preference for that stimulus, the mere exposure effect. The present study repeatedly presented positive, negative, and neutrally affective faces to 48 participants while they made judgments about the emotional expression. Participants then rated the likeability of novel neutrally expressive faces and some of these previously presented faces, this time in their neutral expression. Faces originally presented as happy were rated as the most likeable, followed by faces originally presented as neutral. Negative and novel faces were not rated significantly differently from each other. These findings support the notion that the increase in preference towards repeatedly presented stimuli is the result of the reduction in negative affect, consistent with the modified two-factor uncertainty-reduction model and classical conditioning model of the mere exposure effect.

  7. The Interactions between Facilitator Identity, Conflictual Presence, and Social Presence in Peer-Moderated Online Collaborative Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Kui; Lu, Lin; Cheng, Sheng-Lun; Izmirli, Serkan

    2017-01-01

    Research has focused on the significance of social presence in online learning. However, peer interaction does not always result in positive emotions and feelings; it can trigger tension, distress, and anger within a learning community. Therefore, conflictual presence, as a carrier of negative valence within presence, is also a critical element…

  8. THE TRANSLATION OF NEGATIVE POLITENESS IN GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ'S NOVEL CIEN AÑOS DE SOLEDAD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Germán Mira Álvarez

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents an empirical contrastive corpus-based analysis of the translation of negative politeness from Spanish into English of the direct verbal interactions in Garcia Marquez's novel Cien años de soledad, which are strongly determined by their cultural, social and situational context. This study assesses, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the extent to which these strategies are maintained, adapted or eliminated in the conversational interactions translated from a positive politeness-oriented culture (Colombia into a negative politeness-oriented culture (English language readers. It could be concluded that in the translation, the pragmatic meaning of the speech acts involved was maintained for the most part, by rendering into the TT a similar type and amount of negative politeness strategies and substrategies.

  9. The C'-terminal interaction domain of the thyroid hormone receptor confers the ability of the DNA site to dictate positive or negative transcriptional activity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Holloway, J.M.; Glass, C.K.; Adler, S.; Nelson, C.A.; Rosenfeld, M.G.

    1990-01-01

    To investigate mechanisms responsible for positive and negative transcriptional control, the authors have utilized two types of promoters that are diffferentially regulated by thyroid hormone (T 3 ) receptors. Promoters containing the palindromic T 3 response element TCAGGTCA TGACCTGA are positively regulated by the T 3 receptor after the administration of T 3 , whereas otherwise identical promoters containing the estrogen response element TCAGGTCA CTG TGACCTGA can be regulated negatively; converse effects are observed with the estrogen receptor. They describe evidence that the transcriptional inhibitory effects of the T 3 or estrogen receptors on the estrogen or T 3 response elements, respectively, are imposed by amino acid sequences in the C'-terminal region that colocalize with dimerization and hormone-binding domains and that these sequences can transfer inhibitory functions to other classes of transcription factors. Removal of the C'-terminal dimerization and hormone-binding domains of either the αT 3 or estrogen receptors permits each receptor to act constitutively to enhance transcription on both T 3 and estrogen response elements. It is, therefore, suggested that protein-protein interactions between receptor C' termini limit the subset of DNA binding sites on which transcriptional activation occurs

  10. Heritability of Intraindividual Mean and Variability of Positive and Negative Affect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zheng, Yao; Plomin, Robert; von Stumm, Sophie

    2016-12-01

    Positive affect (e.g., attentiveness) and negative affect (e.g., upset) fluctuate over time. We examined genetic influences on interindividual differences in the day-to-day variability of affect (i.e., ups and downs) and in average affect over the duration of a month. Once a day, 17-year-old twins in the United Kingdom ( N = 447) rated their positive and negative affect online. The mean and standard deviation of each individual's daily ratings across the month were used as the measures of that individual's average affect and variability of affect. Analyses revealed that the average of negative affect was significantly heritable (.53), but the average of positive affect was not; instead, the latter showed significant shared environmental influences (.42). Fluctuations across the month were significantly heritable for both negative affect (.54) and positive affect (.34). The findings support the two-factor theory of affect, which posits that positive affect is more situational and negative affect is more dispositional.

  11. Protein-Protein Interactions Prediction Based on Iterative Clique Extension with Gene Ontology Filtering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lei Yang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Cliques (maximal complete subnets in protein-protein interaction (PPI network are an important resource used to analyze protein complexes and functional modules. Clique-based methods of predicting PPI complement the data defection from biological experiments. However, clique-based predicting methods only depend on the topology of network. The false-positive and false-negative interactions in a network usually interfere with prediction. Therefore, we propose a method combining clique-based method of prediction and gene ontology (GO annotations to overcome the shortcoming and improve the accuracy of predictions. According to different GO correcting rules, we generate two predicted interaction sets which guarantee the quality and quantity of predicted protein interactions. The proposed method is applied to the PPI network from the Database of Interacting Proteins (DIP and most of the predicted interactions are verified by another biological database, BioGRID. The predicted protein interactions are appended to the original protein network, which leads to clique extension and shows the significance of biological meaning.

  12. Negative life events have detrimental effects on in-vitro fertlization outcome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yilmaz, Nafiye; Kahyaoglu, İnci; İnal, Hasan Ali; Görkem, Ümit; Devran, Aysun; Mollamahmutoglu, Leyla

    2015-09-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of negative life events on in-vitro-fertilization (IVF) outcome. Depression and negative life events were measured using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and List of Recent Events in 83 women attending the IVF clinic of a tertiary research and education hospital with the diagnosis of unexplained infertility between January 2013 and August 2013. Demographic features, stimulation parameters, depression scores, and negative life events of pregnant and non-pregnant participants were compared and the relation between negative life events, depression scores, and IVF outcome was investigated. Women who did not achieve a pregnancy experienced more negative life events than women who became pregnant (77.2% vs. 23.1%) (p > 0.001). The number of patients with moderate-to-severe depression (BDI scores > 16) was higher in the non-pregnant group than pregnant group (49.1% vs. 26.9%), however the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.057). Clinical pregnancy showed a significant moderate negative correlation with the number of negative life events (r = -0.513, p = 0.001), but the correlation between clinical pregnancy and BDI scores was not statistically significant (r = -0.209, p = 0.059). Stressful life events have a negative influence on the quality of life, which eventually affects in IVF outcome, possibly through maladaptive lifestyle behavior.

  13. Negative snakes in JET: evidence for negative shear

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gill, R.D.; Alper, B.; Edwards, A.W.

    1994-01-01

    The signature of the negative snakes from the soft X-ray cameras is very similar to the more usual snakes except that the localised region of the snake has, compared with its surroundings, decreased rather than increased emission. Circumstances where negative snakes have been seen are reviewed. The negative snake appears as a region of increased resistance and of increased impurity density. The relationship between the shear and the current perturbation is shown, and it seem probable that the magnetic shear is reversed at the point of the negative snake, i.e. that q is decreasing with radius. 6 refs., 6 figs

  14. Negative snakes in JET: evidence for negative shear

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gill, R D; Alper, B; Edwards, A W [Commission of the European Communities, Abingdon (United Kingdom). JET Joint Undertaking; Pearson, D [Reading Univ. (United Kingdom)

    1994-07-01

    The signature of the negative snakes from the soft X-ray cameras is very similar to the more usual snakes except that the localised region of the snake has, compared with its surroundings, decreased rather than increased emission. Circumstances where negative snakes have been seen are reviewed. The negative snake appears as a region of increased resistance and of increased impurity density. The relationship between the shear and the current perturbation is shown, and it seem probable that the magnetic shear is reversed at the point of the negative snake, i.e. that q is decreasing with radius. 6 refs., 6 figs.

  15. Hemigrapsus sanguineus in Long Island salt marshes: experimental evaluation of the interactions between an invasive crab and resident ecosystem engineers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bradley J. Peterson

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available The invasive Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, has recently been observed occupying salt marshes, a novel environment for this crab species. As it invades this new habitat, it is likely to interact with a number of important salt marsh species. To understand the potential effects of H. sanguineus on this ecosystem, interactions between this invasive crab and important salt marsh ecosystem engineers were examined. Laboratory experiments demonstrated competition for burrows between H. sanguineus and the native fiddler crab, Uca pugilator. Results indicate that H. sanguineus is able to displace an established fiddler crab from its burrow. Feeding experiments revealed that the presence of H. sanguineus has a significantly negative impact on the number as well as the biomass of ribbed mussels (Geukensia demissa consumed by the green crab, Carcinus maenas, although this only occurred at high predator densities. In addition, when both crabs foraged together, there was a significant shift in the size of mussels consumed. These interactions suggests that H. sanguineus may have long-term impacts and wide-ranging negative effects on the saltmarsh ecosystem.

  16. Hemigrapsus sanguineus in Long Island salt marshes: experimental evaluation of the interactions between an invasive crab and resident ecosystem engineers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peterson, Bradley J; Fournier, Alexa M; Furman, Bradley T; Carroll, John M

    2014-01-01

    The invasive Asian shore crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, has recently been observed occupying salt marshes, a novel environment for this crab species. As it invades this new habitat, it is likely to interact with a number of important salt marsh species. To understand the potential effects of H. sanguineus on this ecosystem, interactions between this invasive crab and important salt marsh ecosystem engineers were examined. Laboratory experiments demonstrated competition for burrows between H. sanguineus and the native fiddler crab, Uca pugilator. Results indicate that H. sanguineus is able to displace an established fiddler crab from its burrow. Feeding experiments revealed that the presence of H. sanguineus has a significantly negative impact on the number as well as the biomass of ribbed mussels (Geukensia demissa) consumed by the green crab, Carcinus maenas, although this only occurred at high predator densities. In addition, when both crabs foraged together, there was a significant shift in the size of mussels consumed. These interactions suggests that H. sanguineus may have long-term impacts and wide-ranging negative effects on the saltmarsh ecosystem.

  17. A global interaction network maps a wiring diagram of cellular function

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costanzo, Michael; VanderSluis, Benjamin; Koch, Elizabeth N.; Baryshnikova, Anastasia; Pons, Carles; Tan, Guihong; Wang, Wen; Usaj, Matej; Hanchard, Julia; Lee, Susan D.; Pelechano, Vicent; Styles, Erin B.; Billmann, Maximilian; van Leeuwen, Jolanda; van Dyk, Nydia; Lin, Zhen-Yuan; Kuzmin, Elena; Nelson, Justin; Piotrowski, Jeff S.; Srikumar, Tharan; Bahr, Sondra; Chen, Yiqun; Deshpande, Raamesh; Kurat, Christoph F.; Li, Sheena C.; Li, Zhijian; Usaj, Mojca Mattiazzi; Okada, Hiroki; Pascoe, Natasha; Luis, Bryan-Joseph San; Sharifpoor, Sara; Shuteriqi, Emira; Simpkins, Scott W.; Snider, Jamie; Suresh, Harsha Garadi; Tan, Yizhao; Zhu, Hongwei; Malod-Dognin, Noel; Janjic, Vuk; Przulj, Natasa; Troyanskaya, Olga G.; Stagljar, Igor; Xia, Tian; Ohya, Yoshikazu; Gingras, Anne-Claude; Raught, Brian; Boutros, Michael; Steinmetz, Lars M.; Moore, Claire L.; Rosebrock, Adam P.; Caudy, Amy A.; Myers, Chad L.; Andrews, Brenda; Boone, Charles

    2017-01-01

    We generated a global genetic interaction network for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, constructing over 23 million double mutants, identifying ~550,000 negative and ~350,000 positive genetic interactions. This comprehensive network maps genetic interactions for essential gene pairs, highlighting essential genes as densely connected hubs. Genetic interaction profiles enabled assembly of a hierarchical model of cell function, including modules corresponding to protein complexes and pathways, biological processes, and cellular compartments. Negative interactions connected functionally related genes, mapped core bioprocesses, and identified pleiotropic genes, whereas positive interactions often mapped general regulatory connections among gene pairs, rather than shared functionality. The global network illustrates how coherent sets of genetic interactions connect protein complex and pathway modules to map a functional wiring diagram of the cell. PMID:27708008

  18. Laboratory experiments on the interaction between inclined negatively buoyant jets and regular waves

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ferrari Simone

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we present the results from a series of laboratory experiments on inclined negatively buoyant jets released in a receiving environment with waves. This simulates the case, typical of many practical applications, of the sea discharge of fluids denser than the receiving environment, as in the case of the brine from a desalination plant. The experiments were performed employing a Light Induced Fluorescence (LIF technique, in order to measure the concentration fields. Both the jet and the wave motion features were varied, in order to simulate a typical discharge into the Mediterranean Sea. Reference discharges in a stagnant environment were performed as well. The jet behaviour was analyzed from a statistical point of view, both considering the global phenomenon and its single phases. The influence of the wave motion on the inclined negatively buoyant jet geometry and dilution turns out to be a combined action of a split into two branches of the jet and a rotation. Their combined action decreases the jet maximum height and the impact distance, and is the main cause for the higher dilution reached in a wavy environment.

  19. Electronic structures in ion-surface interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kiuchi, Masato; Takeuchi, Takae; Yamamoto, Masao.

    1997-01-01

    A chemical bond generated by the interaction between low energy ion and base was investigated by ab initio molecular orbital method. The effects of ion charge were studied by calculation of this method. When carbon ion approached to graphite base (C 24 H 12 ), the positive ion and the neutral atom covalently bonded, but the negative ion did not combine with it. When carbon ion was injected into h-BN base (B 12 N 12 H 12 , hexagonal system boron nitride), the positive ion and the neutron atom formed covalent bond and the van der Waals binding, and the negative ion interacted statically with it. (S.Y.)

  20. Interactive effect of herbivory and competition on the invasive plant Mikania micrantha.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Junmin; Xiao, Tao; Zhang, Qiong; Dong, Ming

    2013-01-01

    A considerable number of host-specific biological control agents fail to control invasive plants in the field, and exploring the mechanism underlying this phenomenon is important and helpful for the management of invasive plants. Herbivory and competition are two of the most common biotic stressors encountered by invasive plants in their recipient communities. We predicted that the antagonistic interactive effect between herbivory and competition would weaken the effect of herbivory on invasive plants and result in the failure of herbivory to control invasive plants. To examine this prediction, thus, we conducted an experiment in which both invasive Mikania micrantha and native Coix lacryma-job i were grown together and subjected to herbivory-mimicking defoliation. Both defoliation and competition had significantly negative effects on the growth of the invader. However, the negative effect of 75% respective defoliation on the above- and below-ground biomass of Mikania micrantha was alleviated by presence of Coix lacryma-jobi. The negative effect of competition on the above- and below-ground biomass was equally compensated at 25%, 50% and 100% defoliation and overcompensated at 75% defoliation. The interactive effect was antagonistic and dependent on the defoliation intensity, with the maximum effect at 75% defoliation. The antagonistic interaction between defoliation and competition appears to be able to release the invader from competition, thus facilitating the invasiveness of Mikania, a situation that might make herbivory fail to inhibit the growth of invasive Mikania in the invaded community.

  1. Nonverbal synchrony and affect in dyadic interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wolfgang eTschacher

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available In an experiment on dyadic social interaction, we invited participants to verbal interactions in cooperative, competitive, and 'fun task' conditions. We focused on the link between interactants' affectivity and their nonverbal synchrony, and explored which further variables contributed to affectivity: interactants' personality traits, sex, and the prescribed interaction tasks. Nonverbal synchrony was quantified by the coordination of interactants' body movement, using an automated video-analysis algorithm (Motion Energy Analysis, MEA. Traits were assessed with standard questionnaires of personality, attachment, interactional style, psychopathology and interpersonal reactivity. We included 168 previously unacquainted individuals who were randomly allocated to same-sex dyads (84 females, 84 males, mean age 27.3 years. Dyads discussed four topics of general interest drawn from an urn of eight topics, and finally engaged in a fun interaction. Each interaction lasted five minutes. In between interactions, participants repeatedly assessed their affect. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found moderate to strong effect sizes for synchrony to occur, especially in competitive and fun task conditions. Positive affect was associated positively with synchrony, negative affect was associated negatively. As for causal direction, data supported the interpretation that synchrony entailed affect rather than vice versa. The link between nonverbal synchrony and affect was strongest in female dyads. The findings extend previous reports of synchrony and mimicry associated with emotion in relationships and suggest a possible mechanism of the synchrony-affect correlation.

  2. Social anxiety and the Big Five personality traits: the interactive relationship of trust and openness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaplan, Simona C; Levinson, Cheri A; Rodebaugh, Thomas L; Menatti, Andrew; Weeks, Justin W

    2015-01-01

    It is well established that social anxiety (SA) has a positive relationship with neuroticism and a negative relationship with extraversion. However, findings on the relationships between SA and agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience are mixed. In regard to facet-level personality traits, SA is negatively correlated with trust (a facet of agreeableness) and self-efficacy (a facet of conscientiousness). No research has examined interactions among the Big Five personality traits (e.g., extraversion) and facet levels of personality in relation to SA. In two studies using undergraduate samples (N = 502; N = 698), we examined the relationships between trust, self-efficacy, the Big Five, and SA. SA correlated positively with neuroticism, negatively with extraversion, and had weaker relationships with agreeableness, openness, and trust. In linear regression predicting SA, there was a significant interaction between trust and openness over and above gender. In addition to supporting previous research on SA and the Big Five, we found that openness is related to SA for individuals low in trust. Our results suggest that high openness may protect against the higher SA levels associated with low trust.

  3. Relationships Between Stress, Negative Emotions, Resilience, and Smoking: Testing a Moderated Mediation Model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yan; Chen, Xinguang; Gong, Jie; Yan, Yaqiong

    2016-01-01

    More effective tobacco prevention and cessation programs require in-depth understanding of the mechanism by which multiple factors interact with each other to affect smoking behaviors. Stress has long been recognized as a risk factor for smoking. However, the underlying mediation and moderation mechanisms are far from clear. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of negative emotions in mediating the link between stress and smoking and whether this indirect link was modified by resilience. Survey data were collected using audio computer-assisted self-interview (ACASI) from a large random sample of urban residents (n = 1249, mean age = 35.1, 45.3% male) in Wuhan, China. Perceived stress, negative emotions (anxiety, depression), resilience were measured with reliable instruments also validated in China. Self-reported smoking was validated with exhaled carbon monoxide. Mediation analysis indicated that two negative emotions fully mediated the link between stress and intensity of smoking (assessed by number of cigarettes smoked per day, effect =.082 for anxiety and.083 for depression) and nicotine dependence (assessed by DSM-IV standard, effect =.134 for anxiety and.207 for depression). Moderated mediation analysis demonstrated that the mediation effects of negative emotions were negatively associated with resilience. Results suggest resilience interacts with stress and negative emotions to affect the risk of tobacco use and nicotine dependence among Chinese adults. Further research with longitudinal data is needed to verify the findings of this study and to estimate the effect size of resilience in tobacco intervention and cessation programs.

  4. Quantum entanglement at negative temperature

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Furman, G B; Meerovich, V M; Sokolovsky, V L

    2013-01-01

    An isolated spin system that is in internal thermodynamic equilibrium and that has an upper limit to its allowed energy states can possess a negative temperature. We calculate the thermodynamic characteristics and the concurrence in this system over the entire range of positive and negative temperatures. Our calculation was performed for different real structures, which can be used in experiments. It is found that the temperature dependence of the concurrence is substantially asymmetrical similarly to other thermodynamic characteristics. At a negative temperature the maximum concurrence and the absolute temperature of the entanglement appearance are significantly larger than those at a positive temperature. The concurrence can be characterized by two dimensionless parameters: the ratio between the Zeeman and dipolar energies and the ratio of the thermal and dipolar energies. It was shown that for all considered structures the dimensionless temperatures of the transition between entanglement and separability of the first and second spins are independent of spin structure and the number of spins. (paper)

  5. Negative ion sources

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ishikawa, Junzo; Takagi, Toshinori

    1983-01-01

    Negative ion sources have been originally developed at the request of tandem electrostatic accelerators, and hundreds of nA to several μA negative ion current has been obtained so far for various elements. Recently, the development of large current hydrogen negative ion sources has been demanded from the standpoint of the heating by neutral particle beam injection in nuclear fusion reactors. On the other hand, the physical properties of negative ions are interesting in the thin film formation using ions. Anyway, it is the present status that the mechanism of negative ion action has not been so fully investigated as positive ions because the history of negative ion sources is short. In this report, the many mechanisms about the generation of negative ions proposed so far are described about negative ion generating mechanism, negative ion source plasma, and negative ion generation on metal surfaces. As a result, negative ion sources are roughly divided into two schemes, plasma extraction and secondary ion extraction, and the former is further classified into the PIG ion source and its variation and Duoplasmatron and its variation; while the latter into reflecting and sputtering types. In the second half of the report, the practical negative ion sources of each scheme are described. If the mechanism of negative ion generation will be investigated more in detail and the development will be continued under the unified know-how as negative ion sources in future, the development of negative ion sources with which large current can be obtained for any element is expected. (Wakatsuki, Y.)

  6. Negative permittivity chamber inside a stack of silver nanorings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Sheng Chung; Shiu Chau, Jr.

    2010-05-01

    The interactions of silver nanorings with polarized optical wave are numerically studied. If the resonant conditions are tuned, the polarization of incident field, inside the nanoring hole, will be reversed by the single silver nanoring due to the surface plasmon resonance, thus, the nanoring hole becomes a region of which permittivity is negative. Put two identical silver nanorings closely, there are two nodes happened between nanorings. It indicates that there is a very steep gradient of electric field and quasi-standing waves exist between nanorings. If many silver nanorings are lined up, the holes of the nanorings will form a negative permittivity chamber. The more close to the center of the chamber, the more ideal the polarization is reversed.

  7. Biological significance of facilitated diffusion in protein-DNA interactions. Applications to T4 endonuclease V-initiated DNA repair

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dowd, D.R.; Lloyd, R.S.

    1990-01-01

    Facilitated diffusion along nontarget DNA is employed by numerous DNA-interactive proteins to locate specific targets. Until now, the biological significance of DNA scanning has remained elusive. T4 endonuclease V is a DNA repair enzyme which scans nontarget DNA and processively incises DNA at the site of pyrimidine dimers which are produced by exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light. In this study we tested the hypothesis that there exists a direct correlation between the degree of processivity of wild type and mutant endonuclease V molecules and the degree of enhanced UV resistance which is conferred to repair-deficient Eshcerichia coli. This was accomplished by first creating a series of endonuclease V mutants whose in vitro catalytic activities were shown to be very similar to that of the wild type enzyme. However, when the mechanisms by which these enzymes search nontarget DNA for its substrate were analyzed in vitro and in vivo, the mutants displayed varying degrees of nontarget DNA scanning ranging from being nearly as processive as wild type to randomly incising dimers within the DNA population. The ability of these altered endonuclease V molecules to enhance UV survival in DNA repair-deficient E. coli then was assessed. The degree of enhanced UV survival was directly correlated with the level of facilitated diffusion. This is the first conclusive evidence directly relating a reduction of in vivo facilitated diffusion with a change in an observed phenotype. These results support the assertion that the mechanisms which DNA-interactive proteins employ in locating their target sites are of biological significance

  8. Comparison between Human Immunodeficiency Virus Positive and Negative Patients with Tuberculosis in Southern Brazil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lucélia Henn

    1999-05-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this study is to determine the different characteristics of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV positive and negative patients treated for tuberculosis (TBC in a tertiary hospital in Southern Brazil. We conducted a retrospective cohort study over a 5-year period, from January 1992 through December 1996. We reviewed medical charts of patients from our institution who received TBC treatment. We reviewed 167 medical charts of patients with confirmed TBC. HIV positivity was detected in 74 patients. There were statistically significant difference between HIV positive and negative patients in sex and age. HIV-infected patients showed significantly more signs of bacteremia than HIV-negative patients. Extra-pulmonary TBC was present respectively in 13 (17.6% and 21 (22.6% HIV positive and negative patients. There was a significant difference between chest radiograph presentation in HIV positive and negative patients. There were significantly lower hematocrit, hemoglobin, leukocyte and lymphocyte levels in HIV-positive compared to HIV-negative patients. Outcome was significantly different in the two groups with a death rate of 36.5% and 10.8% in HIV-positive and in HIV-negative patients. The difference between HIV positive and negative patients may have importance in the diagnosis, management and prognosis of patients with TBC.

  9. The Clinical and Genomic Significance of Donor-Specific Antibody–Positive/C4d-Negative and Donor-Specific Antibody–Negative/C4d-Negative Transplant Glomerulopathy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayde, Nicole; Bao, Yi; Pullman, James; Ye, Bin; Calder, R. Brent; Chung, Monica; Schwartz, Daniel; Lubetzky, Michelle; Ajaimy, Maria; de Boccardo, Graciela

    2013-01-01

    Summary Background This study investigated the mechanisms involved in development of donor-specific antibody (DSA) and/or C4d-negative transplant glomerulopathy (TGP) by allograft gene expression profiles using microarrays. Design, Setting, Participants, & Measurements This cohort study was conducted in kidney transplant recipients. Patients were eligible for inclusion if they required a clinically indicated biopsy at any time point after their transplant. They were then classified according to their histopathology findings and DSA and C4d results. Eighteen chronic antibody-mediated rejection (CAMR), 14 DSA+/C4d− TGP, 25 DSA−/C4d− TGP, and 47 nonspecific interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy (IFTA) biopsy specimens were identified. In a subset of patients from the study population, biopsy specimens in each group and normal transplant kidney specimens were analyzed with Affymetrix Human Gene 1.0 ST Arrays. Results The mean sum score of glomerulitis and peritubular capillaritis increased from 0.28±0.78 in IFTA specimens to 0.75±0.85 in DSA−/C4d− TGP specimens, 1.71±1.49 in DSA+/C4d−/TGP specimens, and 2.11±1.74 in CAMR specimens (PTGP specimens (14.3%), and DSA−/C4d− TGP specimens (16%) (P=0.01). With use of microarrays, comparison of the gene expression profiles of DSA−/C4d− TGP specimens with glomerulitis + peritubular capillaritis scores > 0 to normal and IFTA biopsy specimens revealed higher expression of quantitative cytotoxic T cell–associated transcripts (QCAT). However, both CAMR and DSA+/C4d− TGP specimens had higher expression of not only QCAT but also IFN-γ and rejection-induced, constitutive macrophage-associated, natural killer cell–associated, and DSA-selective transcripts. Endothelial cell–associated transcript expression was upregulated only in CAMR biopsy specimens. Conclusions These results suggested that DSA+/C4d− TGP biopsy specimens may be classified as CAMR. In contrast, DSA−/C4d− TGP specimens showed

  10. The clinical and genomic significance of donor-specific antibody-positive/C4d-negative and donor-specific antibody-negative/C4d-negative transplant glomerulopathy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayde, Nicole; Bao, Yi; Pullman, James; Ye, Bin; Calder, R Brent; Chung, Monica; Schwartz, Daniel; Lubetzky, Michelle; Ajaimy, Maria; de Boccardo, Graciela; Akalin, Enver

    2013-12-01

    This study investigated the mechanisms involved in development of donor-specific antibody (DSA) and/or C4d-negative transplant glomerulopathy (TGP) by allograft gene expression profiles using microarrays. This cohort study was conducted in kidney transplant recipients. Patients were eligible for inclusion if they required a clinically indicated biopsy at any time point after their transplant. They were then classified according to their histopathology findings and DSA and C4d results. Eighteen chronic antibody-mediated rejection (CAMR), 14 DSA+/C4d- TGP, 25 DSA-/C4d- TGP, and 47 nonspecific interstitial fibrosis/tubular atrophy (IFTA) biopsy specimens were identified. In a subset of patients from the study population, biopsy specimens in each group and normal transplant kidney specimens were analyzed with Affymetrix Human Gene 1.0 ST Arrays. The mean sum score of glomerulitis and peritubular capillaritis increased from 0.28±0.78 in IFTA specimens to 0.75±0.85 in DSA-/C4d- TGP specimens, 1.71±1.49 in DSA+/C4d-/TGP specimens, and 2.11±1.74 in CAMR specimens (PTGP specimens (14.3%), and DSA-/C4d- TGP specimens (16%) (P=0.01). With use of microarrays, comparison of the gene expression profiles of DSA-/C4d- TGP specimens with glomerulitis + peritubular capillaritis scores > 0 to normal and IFTA biopsy specimens revealed higher expression of quantitative cytotoxic T cell-associated transcripts (QCAT). However, both CAMR and DSA+/C4d- TGP specimens had higher expression of not only QCAT but also IFN-γ and rejection-induced, constitutive macrophage-associated, natural killer cell-associated, and DSA-selective transcripts. Endothelial cell-associated transcript expression was upregulated only in CAMR biopsy specimens. These results suggested that DSA+/C4d- TGP biopsy specimens may be classified as CAMR. In contrast, DSA-/C4d- TGP specimens showed increased cytotoxic T cell-associated transcripts, suggesting T cell activation as a mechanism of injury.

  11. Unattractive infant faces elicit negative affect from adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schein, Stevie S; Langlois, Judith H

    2015-02-01

    We examined the relationship between infant attractiveness and adult affect by investigating whether differing levels of infant facial attractiveness elicit facial muscle movement correlated with positive and negative affect from adults (N=87) using electromyography. Unattractive infant faces evoked significantly more corrugator supercilii and levator labii superioris movement (physiological correlates of negative affect) than attractive infant faces. These results suggest that unattractive infants may be at risk for negative affective responses from adults, though the relationship between those responses and caregiving behavior remains elusive. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  12. Potential drug–drug interactions in pediatric wards of Gondar University Hospital, Ethiopia: A cross sectional study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Henok Getachew

    2016-06-01

    Conclusions: The study showed that most of the interactions had moderate severity followed by minor severity. Age and polypharmacy were found to show statistically significant association with the occurrence of PDDIs. Due to sensitive nature of pediatrics population, close monitoring is recommended for the detection and management of PDDIs to prevent its negative consequences.

  13. Negativity Bias in Dangerous Drivers.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing Chai

    Full Text Available The behavioral and cognitive characteristics of dangerous drivers differ significantly from those of safe drivers. However, differences in emotional information processing have seldom been investigated. Previous studies have revealed that drivers with higher anger/anxiety trait scores are more likely to be involved in crashes and that individuals with higher anger traits exhibit stronger negativity biases when processing emotions compared with control groups. However, researchers have not explored the relationship between emotional information processing and driving behavior. In this study, we examined the emotional information processing differences between dangerous drivers and safe drivers. Thirty-eight non-professional drivers were divided into two groups according to the penalty points that they had accrued for traffic violations: 15 drivers with 6 or more points were included in the dangerous driver group, and 23 drivers with 3 or fewer points were included in the safe driver group. The emotional Stroop task was used to measure negativity biases, and both behavioral and electroencephalograph data were recorded. The behavioral results revealed stronger negativity biases in the dangerous drivers than in the safe drivers. The bias score was correlated with self-reported dangerous driving behavior. Drivers with strong negativity biases reported having been involved in mores crashes compared with the less-biased drivers. The event-related potentials (ERPs revealed that the dangerous drivers exhibited reduced P3 components when responding to negative stimuli, suggesting decreased inhibitory control of information that is task-irrelevant but emotionally salient. The influence of negativity bias provides one possible explanation of the effects of individual differences on dangerous driving behavior and traffic crashes.

  14. Clinical Manifestations of Helicobacter pylori-Negative Gastritis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shiota, Seiji; Thrift, Aaron P; Green, Linda; Shah, Rajesh; Verstovsek, Gordana; Rugge, Massimo; Graham, David Y; El-Serag, Hashem B

    2017-07-01

    There are data to suggest the existence of non-Helicobacter pylori gastritis. However, the risk factors and clinical course for H pylori-negative gastritis remain unclear. We aimed to examine the prevalence and determinants of H pylori-negative gastritis in a large multiethnic clinical population. We conducted a cross-sectional study among patents scheduled for an elective esophagastroduodenoscopy or attending selected primary care clinics and eligible for screening colonoscopy at a single Veterans Affairs medical center. We identified cases of H pylor-negative gastritis, H pylori-positive gastritis, and H pylori-negative nongastritis, where gastritis was defined by the presence of neutrophils and/or mononuclear cells. Risk factors for H pylori-negative gastritis were analyzed in logistic regression models. A total of 1240 patients had information from all biopsy sites, of whom 695 (56.0%) had gastritis. H pylori-negative gastritis was present in 123 patients (9.9% of all study subjects and 17.7% of all patients with gastritis). Among all patients with gastritis, African Americans were statistically significantly less likely than non-Hispanic whites to have H pylori-negative gastritis (odds ratio, 0.25; 95% confidence interval, 0.14-0.43). Conversely, PPI users were more likely to have H pylori-negative gastritis than H pylori-positive gastritis compared with nonusers (odds ratio, 2.02; 95% confidence interval, 1.17-3.49). The cumulative incidence of gastric erosions and ulcers were higher in patients with H pylori-negative gastritis than H pylori-negative nongastritis. We found that H pylori-negative gastritis was present in approximately 18% of patients with gastritis. The potential for H pylori-negative gastritis to progress or the risk of gastric cancer of those with gastric mucosal atrophy/intestinal metaplasia remains unclear. Copyright © 2017 AGA Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Capillarity Induced Negative Pressure of Water Plugs in Nanochannels

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tas, Niels Roelof; Mela, P.; Kramer, Tobias; Berenschot, Johan W.; van den Berg, Albert

    2003-01-01

    We have found evidence that water plugs in hydrophilic nanochannels can be at significant negative pressure due to tensile capillary forces. The negative pressure of water plugs in nanochannels induces bending of the thin channel capping layer, which results in a visible curvature of the liquid

  16. Reversal of negative charges on the surface of Escherichia coli thioredoxin: pockets versus protrusions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mancusso, Romina; Cruz, Eduardo; Cataldi, Marcela; Mendoza, Carla; Fuchs, James; Wang, Hsin; Yang, Xiaomin; Tasayco, María Luisa

    2004-04-06

    Recent studies of proteins with reversed charged residues have demonstrated that electrostatic interactions on the surface can contribute significantly to protein stability. We have used the approach of reversing negatively charged residues using Arg to evaluate the effect of the electrostatics context on the transition temperature (T(m)), the unfolding Gibbs free energy change (DeltaG), and the unfolding enthalpy change (DeltaH). We have reversed negatively charged residues at a pocket (Asp9) and protrusions (Asp10, Asp20, Glu85), all located in interconnecting segments between elements of secondary structure on the surface of Arg73Ala Escherichia coli thioredoxin. DSC measurements indicate that reversal of Asp in a pocket (Asp9Arg/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = -7.3 degrees C) produces a larger effect in thermal stability than reversal at protrusions: Asp10Arg/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = -3.1 degrees C, Asp20Arg/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = 2.0 degrees C, Glu85Arg/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = 3.9 degrees ). The 3D structure of thioredoxin indicates that Asp20 and Glu85 have no nearby charges within 8 A, while Asp9 does not only have Asp10 as sequential neighbor, but it also forms a 5-A long-range ion pair with the solvent-exposed Lys69. Further DSC measurements indicate that neutralization of the individual charges of the ion pair Asp9-Lys69 with nonpolar residues produces a significant decrease in stability in both cases: Asp9Ala/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = -3.7 degrees C, Asp9Met/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = -5.5 degrees C, Lys69Leu/Arg73Ala, DeltaT(m) = -5.1 degrees C. However, thermodynamic analysis shows that reversal or neutralization of Asp9 produces a 9-15% decrease in DeltaH, while both reversal of Asp at protrusions and neutralization of Lys69 produce negligible changes. These results correlate well with the NMR analysis, which demonstrates that only the substitution of Asp9 produces extensive conformational changes and these changes occur in the surroundings of Lys69. Our results led us to

  17. Impact significance determination-Designing an approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lawrence, David P.

    2007-01-01

    The question of how best to go about determining the significance of impacts has, to date, only been addressed in a partial and preliminary way. The assumption tends to be made that it is either only necessary to provide explicit, justified reasons for a judgment about significance and/or to explicitly apply a prescribed procedure-a procedure usually involving the staged application of thresholds and/or criteria. The detailed attributes, strengths and limitations of such approaches and possible alternative approaches have yet to be explored systematically. This article addresses these deficiencies by analyzing the characteristics, specific methods and positive and negative tendencies of three general impact significance determination approaches-the technical approach, the collaborative approach and the reasoned argumentation approach. A range of potential composite approaches are also described. With an enhanced understanding of these approaches, together with potential combinations, EIA practitioners and other EIA participants can be in a better position to select an approach appropriate to their needs, to reinforce the positive tendencies and offset the negative tendencies of the selected approach and to combine the best qualities of more than one approach

  18. A preliminary investigation into genotype x environment interaction ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    uvp

    2014-08-24

    Aug 24, 2014 ... Genotype x environment interaction (G x E) in dairy cattle is a contentious ... environments, if it exists, with a negative impact on genetic response ..... interaction for Holstein milk yield in Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico.

  19. Titration calorimetry of anesthetic-protein interaction: negative enthalpy of binding and anesthetic potency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ueda, I; Yamanaka, M

    1997-04-01

    Anesthetic potency increases at lower temperatures. In contrast, the transfer enthalpy of volatile anesthetics from water to macromolecules is usually positive. The transfer decreases at lower temperature. It was proposed that a few selective proteins bind volatile anesthetics with negative delta H, and these proteins are involved in signal transduction. There has been no report on direct estimation of binding delta H of anesthetics to proteins. This study used isothermal titration calorimetry to analyze chloroform binding to bovine serum albumin. The calorimetrically measured delta H cal was -10.37 kJ.mol-1. Thus the negative delta H of anesthetic binding is not limited to signal transduction proteins. The binding was saturable following Fermi-Dirac statistics and is characterized by the Langmuir adsorption isotherms, which is interfacial. The high-affinity association constant, K, was 2150 +/- 132 M-1 (KD = 0.47 mM) with the maximum binding number, Bmax = 3.7 +/- 0.2. The low-affinity K was 189 +/- 3.8 M-1 (KD = 5.29 mM), with a Bmax of 13.2 +/- 0.3. Anesthetic potency is a function of the activity of anesthetic molecules, not the concentration. Because the sign of delta H determines the temperature dependence of distribution of anesthetic molecules, it is irrelevant to the temperature dependence of anesthetic potency.

  20. Effects of neonatal excitotoxic lesions in ventral thalamus on social interaction in the rat.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Rainer; Dobrowolny, Henrik; Nullmeier, Sven; Bogerts, Bernhard; Schwegler, Herbert

    2017-03-30

    The role of the thalamus in schizophrenia has increasingly been studied in recent years. Deficits in the ventral thalamus have been described in only few postmortem and neuroimaging studies. We utilised our previously introduced neurodevelopmental animal model, the neonatal excitotoxic lesion of the ventral thalamus of Sprague-Dawley rats (Wolf et al., Pharmacopsychiatry 43:99-109, 22). At postnatal day (PD7), male pubs received bilateral thalamic infusions with ibotenic acid (IBA) or artificial cerebrospinal fluid (control). In adulthood, social interaction of two animals not familiar to each other was studied by a computerised video tracking system. This study displays clear lesion effects on social interaction of adult male rats. The significant reduction of total contact time and the significant increase in distance between the animals in the IBA group compared to controls can be interpreted as social withdrawal modelling a negative symptom of schizophrenia. The significant increase of total distance travelled in the IBA group can be hypothesised as agitation modelling a positive symptom of schizophrenia. Using a triple concept of social interaction, the percentage of no social interaction (Non-SI%) was significantly larger, and inversely, the percentage of passive social interaction (SI-passive%) was significantly smaller in the IBA group when compared to controls. In conclusion, on the background of findings in schizophrenic patients, the effects of neonatal ventral thalamic IBA lesions in adult male rats support the hypothesis of face and construct validity as animal model of schizophrenia.

  1. Coronal mass ejection and stream interaction region characteristics and their potential geomagnetic effectiveness

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lindsay, G.M.; Russell, C.T.; Luhmann, J.G.

    1995-01-01

    Previous studies have indicated that the largest geomagnetic storms are caused by extraordinary increases in the solar wind velocity and/or southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) produced by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and their associated interplanetary shocks. However, much more frequent small to moderate increases in solar wind velocity and compressions in the IMF can be caused by either coronal mass ejections or fast/slow stream interactions. This study examines the relative statistics of the magnitudes of disturbances associated with the passage of both interplanetary coronal mass ejections and stream interaction regions, using an exceptionally continuous interplanetary database from the Pioneer Venus Orbiter at 0.7 AU throughout most of solar cycle 21. It is found that both stream interaction and CMEs produce magnetic fields significantly larger than the nominal IMF. Increases in field magnitude that are up to 2 and 3 times higher than the ambient field are observed for stream interaction regions and CMEs, respectively. Both stream interactions and CMEs produce large positive and negative Β z components at 0.7 AU, but only CMEs produce Β z magnitudes greater than 35 nT. CMEs are often associated with sustained periods of positive or negative Β z whereas stream interaction regions are more often associated with fluctuating Β z . CMEs tend to produce larger solar wind electric fields than stream interactions. Yet stream interactions tend to produce larger dynamic pressures than CMEs. Dst predictions based on solar wind duskward electric field and dynamic pressure indicate that CMEs produce the largest geomagnetic disturbances while the low-speed portion of stream interaction regions are least geomagnetically effective. Both stream interaction regions and CMEs contribute to low and moderate levels of activity with relative importance determined by their solar-cycle-dependent occurrence rates

  2. Using Functional Analysis as a Framework to Guide Individualized Treatment for Negative Symptoms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tania M. Lincoln

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Although numerous interventions are available for negative symptoms, outcomes have been unsatisfactory with pharmacological and psychological interventions producing changes of only limited clinical significance. Here, we argue that because negative symptoms occur as a complex syndrome caused and maintained by numerous factors that vary between individuals they are unlikely to be treated effectively by the present “one size fits all” approaches. Instead, a well-founded selection of those interventions relevant to each individual is needed to optimize both the efficiency and the efficacy of existing approaches. The concept of functional analysis (FA can be used to structure existing knowledge so that it can guide individualized treatment planning. FA is based on stimulus—response learning mechanisms taking into account the characteristics of the organism that contribute to the responses, their consequences and the contingency with which consequences are tied to the response. FA can thus be flexibly applied to the level of individual patients to understand the factors causing and maintaining negative symptoms and derive suitable interventions. In this article we will briefly introduce the concept of FA and demonstrate—exemplarily—how known psychological and biological correlates of negative symptoms can be incorporated into its framework. We then outline the framework's implications for individual assessment and treatment. Following the logic of FA, we argue that a detailed assessment is needed to identify the key factors causing or maintaining negative symptoms for each individual patient. Interventions can then be selected according to their likelihood of changing these key factors and need to take interactions between different factors into account. Supplementary case vignettes exemplify the usefulness of functional analysis for individual treatment planning. Finally, we discuss and point to avenues for future research guided by this

  3. Negative affect varying in motivational intensity influences scope of memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Threadgill, A Hunter; Gable, Philip A

    2018-04-06

    Emotions influence cognitive processes involved in memory. While some research has suggested that cognitive scope is determined by affective valence, recent models of emotion-cognition interactions suggest that motivational intensity, rather than valence, influences these processes. The present research was designed to clarify how negative affects differing in motivational intensity impact memory for centrally or peripherally presented information. Experiments 1 & 2 found that, relative to a neutral condition, high intensity negative affect (anger) enhances memory for centrally presented information. Experiment 3 replicated this effect using another high intensity negative affect (threat). Experiment 4 extended this by finding that, relative to a neutral condition, low intensity negative affect (sadness) enhanced memory for peripherally presented information. Finally, in Experiment 5, the effects of sadness and threat on scope of memory were directly compared, finding that threat narrowed scope of memory, while sadness broadened scope of memory. Together, these results provide additional support for the motivational dimensional model of cognitive scope, in that high intensity emotions narrow cognitive scope, while low intensity emotions broaden cognitive scope.

  4. Prevalence and chemotherapy-induced reactivation of occult hepatitis B virus among hepatitis B surface antigen negative patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: Significance of hepatitis B core antibodies screening

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elbedewy, T.A.; Elashtokhy, H.A.; Rabee, E.S.; Kheder, G.E.

    2015-01-01

    Background: Occult hepatitis B infection (OBI) is characterized by negative hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and detectable hepatitis B virus (HBV)-DNA in the liver and/or serum, with or without hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc). Anti-HBc is the most sensitive marker of previous HBV. HBV reactivation in patients under immunosuppressive treatment is life-threatening, occurring in both overt and occult HBV especially in hematological malignancies. Aim of the work: To evaluate the prevalence and chemotherapy-induced reactivation of OBI among hepatitis B surface antigen negative patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients and to determine the significance of anti-HBc screening among this group of patients before receiving chemotherapy. Patients and methods: This cross-sectional study included 72 DLBCL patients negative for HBsAg, HBsAb and hepatitis C virus antibodies (anti-HCV). Patients were subjected to investigations including anti-HBc. All patients underwent alanine transaminase (ALT) monitoring before each cycle of chemotherapy and monthly for 12 months after the end of chemotherapy. Patients with suspected OBI were tested for HBV-DNA using real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: Anti-HBc was detected in 10 of 72 HBsAg negative sera (13.89%) (95% confidence interval 6.9-22.2%). Five of the 10 anti-HBc positive patients in this study had OBI reactivation. Conclusion: The study concluded that anti-HBc screening is mandatory before chemotherapy. HBsAg-negative/anti-HBc-positive patients should be closely observed for signs of HBV reactivation through the regular monitoring of ALT. Prophylaxis lamivudine is recommended for anti-HBc positive patients before chemotherapy.

  5. Negative Emotions Predict Elevated Interleukin-6 in the United States but not in Japan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miyamoto, Yuri; Boylan, Jennifer Morozink; Coe, Christopher L.; Curhan, Katherine B.; Levine, Cynthia S.; Markus, Hazel Rose; Park, Jiyoung; Kitayama, Shinobu; Kawakami, Norito; Karasawa, Mayumi; Love, Gayle D.; Ryff, Carol D.

    2013-01-01

    Previous studies conducted in Western cultures have shown that negative emotions predict higher levels of pro-inflammatory biomarkers, specifically interleukin-6 (IL-6). This link between negative emotions and IL-6 may be specific to Western cultures where negative emotions are perceived to be problematic and thus may not extend to Eastern cultures where negative emotions are seen as acceptable and normal. Using samples of 1044 American and 382 Japanese middle-aged and older adults, we investigated whether the relationship between negative emotions and IL-6 varies by cultural context. Negative emotions predicted higher IL-6 among American adults, whereas no association was evident among Japanese adults. Furthermore, the interaction between culture and negative emotions remained even after controlling for demographic variables, psychological factors (positive emotions, neuroticism, extraversion), health behaviors (smoking status, alcohol consumption), and health status (chronic conditions, BMI). These findings highlight the role of cultural context in shaping how negative emotions affect inflammatory physiology and underscore the importance of cultural ideas and practices relevant to negative emotions for understanding of the interplay between psychology, physiology, and health. PMID:23911591

  6. The Relationships Between Positive-Negative Affectivity and Individual-Organizational Level Aggressiveness: The Role of Physical Activity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mahmut ÖZDEVECİOĞLU

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available The main aim of the present study is to find out the relationships between, positive and negative affectivity, physical activity, personal level aggressiveness - organization level aggressiveness and mediation effect of physical activity. The universe of the research is employees of Kayseri Organized Industrial Zone businesses in which physical activity is done. The size of the research is 273. According to the results, there is a significant and negative oriented relationship between positive affectivity and individual level aggressiveness. There is a significant and positive oriented relationship between negative affectivity and individual level aggressiveness. There is a significant and positive oriented relationship between positive affectivity and physical activity. There is a significant and negative oriented relationship between negative affectivity and physical activity. There is a significant and negative oriented relationship between physical activity and individual level aggressiveness. There is a significant and positive oriented relationship between individual level aggressiveness and organization level aggressiveness. Separately physical activity has a significant mediation role between positive-negative affectivity and individual level aggressiveness.

  7. Anticipatory pleasure and approach motivation in schizophrenia-like negative symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engel, Maike; Fritzsche, Anja; Lincoln, Tania M

    2013-12-15

    Previous research of negative symptoms in schizophrenia has emphasized an anticipatory pleasure deficit, yet the relationship of this deficit to patients' motivation in everyday life is poorly understood. This study tested the link between anticipatory pleasure and two broad motivational systems that are said to regulate the intensity of approach and avoidance behavior, the Behavioral Inhibition system (BIS) and the Behavioral Activation System (BAS). It was hypothesized that high vulnerability for negative symptoms would be associated with low reward responsiveness and that this association will be mediated by the amount of anticipated pleasure. Students (n=171) with varying vulnerability for negative symptoms (assessed by the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences) completed questionnaires regarding (a) anticipatory and consummatory pleasure, and (b) responsiveness to threat and reward. As hypothesized, anticipatory pleasure correlated significantly negatively with subclinical negative symptoms (r=-0.21) and significantly positively with BAS (r=0.55). Furthermore, evidence for a partial mediation effect was found. The findings support the notion of a close association between negative symptoms, the ability to anticipate pleasure and approach motivation that is evident even in healthy persons. It is suggested that the behavioral deficits immanent to negative symptoms reflect difficulties in the ability to translate emotions into motivation. © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiao Ma

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available A growing number of empirical studies have revealed that diaphragmatic breathing may trigger body relaxation responses and benefit both physical and mental health. However, the specific benefits of diaphragmatic breathing on mental health remain largely unknown. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of diaphragmatic breathing on cognition, affect, and cortisol responses to stress. Forty participants were randomly assigned to either a breathing intervention group (BIG or a control group (CG. The BIG received intensive training for 20 sessions, implemented over 8 weeks, employing a real-time feedback device, and an average respiratory rate of 4 breaths/min, while the CG did not receive this treatment. All participants completed pre- and post-tests of sustained attention and affect. Additionally, pre-test and post-test salivary cortisol concentrations were determined in both groups. The findings suggested that the BIG showed a significant decrease in negative affect after intervention, compared to baseline. In the diaphragmatic breathing condition, there was a significant interaction effect of group by time on sustained attention, whereby the BIG showed significantly increased sustained attention after training, compared to baseline. There was a significant interaction effect of group and time in the diaphragmatic breathing condition on cortisol levels, whereby the BIG had a significantly lower cortisol level after training, while the CG showed no significant change in cortisol levels. In conclusion, diaphragmatic breathing could improve sustained attention, affect, and cortisol levels. This study provided evidence demonstrating the effect of diaphragmatic breathing, a mind-body practice, on mental function, from a health psychology approach, which has important implications for health promotion in healthy individuals.

  9. The Effect of Diaphragmatic Breathing on Attention, Negative Affect and Stress in Healthy Adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Xiao; Yue, Zi-Qi; Gong, Zhu-Qing; Zhang, Hong; Duan, Nai-Yue; Shi, Yu-Tong; Wei, Gao-Xia; Li, You-Fa

    2017-01-01

    A growing number of empirical studies have revealed that diaphragmatic breathing may trigger body relaxation responses and benefit both physical and mental health. However, the specific benefits of diaphragmatic breathing on mental health remain largely unknown. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of diaphragmatic breathing on cognition, affect, and cortisol responses to stress. Forty participants were randomly assigned to either a breathing intervention group (BIG) or a control group (CG). The BIG received intensive training for 20 sessions, implemented over 8 weeks, employing a real-time feedback device, and an average respiratory rate of 4 breaths/min, while the CG did not receive this treatment. All participants completed pre- and post-tests of sustained attention and affect. Additionally, pre-test and post-test salivary cortisol concentrations were determined in both groups. The findings suggested that the BIG showed a significant decrease in negative affect after intervention, compared to baseline. In the diaphragmatic breathing condition, there was a significant interaction effect of group by time on sustained attention, whereby the BIG showed significantly increased sustained attention after training, compared to baseline. There was a significant interaction effect of group and time in the diaphragmatic breathing condition on cortisol levels, whereby the BIG had a significantly lower cortisol level after training, while the CG showed no significant change in cortisol levels. In conclusion, diaphragmatic breathing could improve sustained attention, affect, and cortisol levels. This study provided evidence demonstrating the effect of diaphragmatic breathing, a mind-body practice, on mental function, from a health psychology approach, which has important implications for health promotion in healthy individuals.

  10. Significance of phage-host interactions for biocontrol of Campylobacter jejuni in food

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Athina, Zampara; Sørensen, Martine Camilla Holst; Elsser-Gravesen, Anne

    2017-01-01

    Poultry meat is the main source of Campylobacter jejuni foodborne disease. Currently, no effective control measures prevent C. jejuni from contaminating poultry meat. However, post-harvest phage treatment is a promising biocontrol strategy that has not yet been explored. Here we identified phages....... A thorough understanding of phage-host interactions is prerequisite to further advance phage application as a post-harvest biocontrol strategy against C. jejuni....

  11. Attractive Interactions between Heteroallenes and the Cucurbituril Portal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reany, Ofer; Li, Amanda; Yefet, Maayan; Gilson, Michael K; Keinan, Ehud

    2017-06-21

    In this paper, we report on the noteworthy attractive interaction between organic azides and the portal carbonyls of cucurbiturils. Five homologous bis-α,ω-azidoethylammonium alkanes were prepared, where the number of methylene groups between the ammonium groups ranges from 4 to 8. Their interactions with cucurbit[6]uril were studied by NMR spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, and computational methods. Remarkably, while the distance between the portal plane and most atoms at the guest end groups increases progressively with the molecular size, the β-nitrogen atoms maintain a constant distance from the portal plane in all homologues, pointing at a strong attractive interaction between the azide group and the portal. Both crystallography and NMR support a specific electrostatic interaction between the carbonyl and the azide β-nitrogen, which stabilizes the canonical resonance form with positive charge on the β-nitrogen and negative charge on the γ-nitrogen. Quantum computational analyses strongly support electrostatics, in the form of orthogonal dipole-dipole interaction, as the main driver for this attraction. The alternative mechanism of n → π* orbital delocalization does not seem to play a significant role in this interaction. The computational studies also indicate that the interaction is not limited to azides, but generalizes to other isoelectronic heteroallene functions, such as isocyanate and isothiocyanate. This essentially unexploited attractive interaction could be more broadly utilized as a tool not only in relation to cucurbituril chemistry, but also for the design of novel supramolecular architectures.

  12. Temporal scale dependent interactions between multiple environmental disturbances in microcosm ecosystems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garnier, Aurélie; Pennekamp, Frank; Lemoine, Mélissa; Petchey, Owen L

    2017-12-01

    Global environmental change has negative impacts on ecological systems, impacting the stable provision of functions, goods, and services. Whereas effects of individual environmental changes (e.g. temperature change or change in resource availability) are reasonably well understood, we lack information about if and how multiple changes interact. We examined interactions among four types of environmental disturbance (temperature, nutrient ratio, carbon enrichment, and light) in a fully factorial design using a microbial aquatic ecosystem and observed responses of dissolved oxygen saturation at three temporal scales (resistance, resilience, and return time). We tested whether multiple disturbances combine in a dominant, additive, or interactive fashion, and compared the predictability of dissolved oxygen across scales. Carbon enrichment and shading reduced oxygen concentration in the short term (i.e. resistance); although no other effects or interactions were statistically significant, resistance decreased as the number of disturbances increased. In the medium term, only enrichment accelerated recovery, but none of the other effects (including interactions) were significant. In the long term, enrichment and shading lengthened return times, and we found significant two-way synergistic interactions between disturbances. The best performing model (dominant, additive, or interactive) depended on the temporal scale of response. In the short term (i.e. for resistance), the dominance model predicted resistance of dissolved oxygen best, due to a large effect of carbon enrichment, whereas none of the models could predict the medium term (i.e. resilience). The long-term response was best predicted by models including interactions among disturbances. Our results indicate the importance of accounting for the temporal scale of responses when researching the effects of environmental disturbances on ecosystems. © 2017 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley

  13. Association of the Interaction Between Smoking and Depressive Symptom Clusters With Coronary Artery Calcification: The CARDIA Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carroll, Allison J; Auer, Reto; Colangelo, Laura A; Carnethon, Mercedes R; Jacobs, David R; Stewart, Jesse C; Widome, Rachel; Carr, John Jeffrey; Liu, Kiang; Hitsman, Brian

    2017-01-01

    Depressive symptom clusters are differentially associated with prognosis among patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). Few studies have prospectively evaluated the association between depressive symptom clusters and risk of CVD. Previously, we observed that smoking and global depressive symptoms were synergistically associated with coronary artery calcification (CAC). The purpose of this study was to determine whether the smoking by depressive symptoms interaction, measured cumulatively over 25 years, differed by depressive symptom cluster (negative affect, anhedonia, and somatic symptoms) in association with CAC. Participants (N = 3,189: 54.5% female; 51.5% Black; average age = 50.1 years) were followed from 1985-1986 through 2010-2011 in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study. Smoking exposure was measured by cumulative cigarette pack-years (cigarette packs smoked per day × number of years smoking; year 0 through year 25). Depressive symptoms were measured using a 14-item, 3-factor (negative affect, anhedonia, somatic symptoms) model of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale (years 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25). CAC was assessed at year 25. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate the association between the smoking by depressive symptom clusters interactions with CAC ( = 0 vs. > 0), adjusted for CVD-related sociodemographic, behavioral, and clinical covariates. 907 participants (28% of the sample) had CAC > 0 at year 25. The depressive symptom clusters did not differ significantly between the two groups. Only the cumulative somatic symptom cluster by cumulative smoking exposure interaction was significantly associated with CAC > 0 at year 25 (p = .028). Specifically, adults with elevated somatic symptoms (score 9 out of 18) who had 10, 20, or 30 pack-years of smoking exposure had respective odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) of 2.06 [1.08, 3.93], 3.71 [1.81, 7.57], and 6.68 [2.87, 15.53], ps Negative

  14. Personality Characteristics, Job Stressors, and Job Satisfaction: Main and Interaction Effects on Psychological and Physical Health Conditions of Italian Schoolteachers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zurlo, Maria Clelia; Pes, Daniela; Capasso, Roberto

    2016-08-01

    The study proposed an application of the transactional model of stress in teaching elaborated by Travers and Cooper in 1996, and aimed to investigate the influence of personality characteristics (coping strategies, type A behaviors), situational characteristics (sources of pressure), and perceived job satisfaction in the prediction of teachers' psychophysical health conditions. The Italian version of the Teacher Stress Questionnaire was administered to 621 teachers. Logistic regression was used to evaluate significant main and interaction effects of personality characteristics, situational characteristics, and perceived job satisfaction on teachers' self-reported psychophysical health conditions. The findings highlighted specific coping strategies (focused on the problem, on innovation, and on hobbies and pastimes) and dimensions of job satisfaction (related to intrinsic aspects of job and to employee relations) buffering the negative effects of several job stressors. Type A behaviors and coping strategies focused on mobilized social support, suppression of stress, and not confronting the situation had main and interactions with negative effects on psychophysical health. Findings confirmed the necessity to run multi-factor research to analyze the different combinations of individual and situational variables implicated in negative health outcomes and to highlight the most significant buffering or increasing associations. © The Author(s) 2016.

  15. Gender differences in negative affect during acute tobacco abstinence differ between African American and White adult cigarette smokers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pang, Raina D; Bello, Mariel S; Liautaud, Madalyn M; Weinberger, Andrea H; Leventhal, Adam M

    2018-06-15

    Prior studies have found heightened negative affect following tobacco abstinence in women compared to men. However, experimental work addressing whether these findings generalize across racial groups is scarce. The current study investigated whether race (Non-Hispanic White vs. Non-Hispanic African American) moderated gender differences in abstinence-induced negative affect and smoking behavior. Data were collected from 2010 to 2017 from two separate laboratory studies investigating experimentally manipulated tobacco abstinence. Following a baseline session, adult daily smokers (10 cigarettes per day; women: n=297, 83.8% Non-Hispanic African American; men: n=492, 86.2% Non-Hispanic African American) attended two counterbalanced lab sessions (16 hours abstinent vs. non-abstinent) and completed self-report measures of negative affect followed by a laboratory analogue smoking reinstatement task. We found a gender race interaction for several negative affect states and composite negative affect (ßs=-.12 to -.16, psNon-Hispanic White women compared to Non-Hispanic White men exhibited greater abstinence-induced increases in anger, anxiety, and composite negative affect (ßs=-.20 to -.29, psNon-Hispanic African American smokers (ßs=.00 to -.04, ps>.05). These findings suggest that negative affect during acute tobacco abstinence may be a clinically important and intervenable factor that can inform cessation interventions specifically for Non-Hispanic White women smokers. Further empirical exploration of mechanisms underlying interactions of gender and race in tobacco addiction may benefit smoking cessation efforts in Non-Hispanic African American women smokers. The current study contributes to a scant body of research examining the intersectional influence of race and gender on abstinence-induced negative affect-a central, motivationally prepotent feature of tobacco withdrawal. Using a laboratory-based design to experimentally manipulate abstinence, we provide evidence

  16. Negative-assortative mating for color in wolves.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hedrick, Philip W; Smith, Douglas W; Stahler, Daniel R

    2016-04-01

    There is strong negative-assortative mating for gray and black pelage color in the iconic wolves in Yellowstone National Park. This is the first documented case of significant negative-assortative mating in mammals and one of only a very few cases in vertebrates. Of 261 matings documented from 1995 to 2015, 63.6% were between gray and black wolves and the correlation between mates for color was -0.266. There was a similar excess of matings of both gray males × black females and black males × gray females. Using the observed frequency of negative-assortative mating in a model with both random and negative-assortative mating, the estimated proportion of negative-assortative mating was 0.430. The estimated frequency of black wolves in the population from 1996 to 2014 was 0.452 and these frequencies appear stable over this 19-year period. Using the estimated level of negative-assortative mating, the predicted equilibrium frequency of the dominant allele was 0.278, very close to the mean value of 0.253 observed. In addition, the patterns of genotype frequencies, that is, the observed proportion of black homozygotes and the observed excess of black heterozygotes, are consistent with negative-assortative mating. Importantly these results demonstrate that negative-assortative mating could be entirely responsible for the maintenance of this well-known color polymorphism. © 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

  17. The temporal deployment of emotion regulation strategies during negative emotional episodes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalokerinos, Elise K; Résibois, Maxime; Verduyn, Philippe; Kuppens, Peter

    2017-04-01

    Time is given a central place in theoretical models of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998, 2015), but key questions regarding the role of time remain unanswered. We investigated 2 such unanswered questions. First, we explored when different emotion regulation strategies were used within the course of an emotional episode in daily life. Second, we investigated the association between the temporal deployment of strategies and negative emotional experience. We conducted a daily diary study in which participants (N = 74) drew an intensity profile depicting the temporal unfolding of their negative emotional experience across daily events (N = 480), and mapped their usage of emotion regulation strategies onto this intensity profile. Strategies varied in their temporal deployment, with suppression and rumination occurring more at the beginning of the episode, and reappraisal and distraction occurring more toward the end of the episode. Strategies also varied in their association with negative emotion: rumination was positively associated with negative emotion, and reappraisal and distraction were negatively associated with negative emotion. Finally, both rumination and reappraisal interacted with time to predict negative emotional experience. Rumination was more strongly positively associated with negative emotions at the end of the episode than the beginning, but reappraisal was more strongly negatively associated with negative emotion at the beginning of the episode than the end. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for timing in the study of emotion regulation, as well as the necessity of studying these temporal processes in daily life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  18. Radiation quality of beams of negative pions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dicello, J.F.; Brenner, D.J.

    1981-01-01

    As a negative pion stops in tissue, it attaches itself to an adjacent atom to form a mesonic atom. Subsequently, the wave function of the pion interacts with that of the nucleus and the pion is absorbed. Because the energy associated with the rest mass of the pion is greater than the separation energy of the nuclear particles, the nucleus disintegrates (pion star). In tissue, approximately 40 MeV goes into overcoming the binding energies; 20 MeV goes into kinetic energy of charged particles; 80 MeV goes into kinetic energy of neutrons. In cases where biological studies are performed with beams of negative pions, as much as 20% of the total absorbed dose in the treatment volume and about 50% of the high-LET dose (> 100 keV/μm) can result from neutrons. The degree of biological response and the variation of that response throughout the treatment volume can be altered by the neutron dose

  19. Impact of negation salience and cognitive resources on negation during attitude formation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boucher, Kathryn L; Rydell, Robert J

    2012-10-01

    Because of the increased cognitive resources required to process negations, past research has shown that explicit attitude measures are more sensitive to negations than implicit attitude measures. The current work demonstrated that the differential impact of negations on implicit and explicit attitude measures was moderated by (a) the extent to which the negation was made salient and (b) the amount of cognitive resources available during attitude formation. When negations were less visually salient, explicit but not implicit attitude measures reflected the intended valence of the negations. When negations were more visually salient, both explicit and implicit attitude measures reflected the intended valence of the negations, but only when perceivers had ample cognitive resources during encoding. Competing models of negation processing, schema-plus-tag and fusion, were examined to determine how negation salience impacts the processing of negations.

  20. Protein-protein interaction site prediction in Homo sapiens and E. coli using an interaction-affinity based membership function in fuzzy SVM.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sriwastava, Brijesh Kumar; Basu, Subhadip; Maulik, Ujjwal

    2015-10-01

    Protein-protein interaction (PPI) site prediction aids to ascertain the interface residues that participate in interaction processes. Fuzzy support vector machine (F-SVM) is proposed as an effective method to solve this problem, and we have shown that the performance of the classical SVM can be enhanced with the help of an interaction-affinity based fuzzy membership function. The performances of both SVM and F-SVM on the PPI databases of the Homo sapiens and E. coli organisms are evaluated and estimated the statistical significance of the developed method over classical SVM and other fuzzy membership-based SVM methods available in the literature. Our membership function uses the residue-level interaction affinity scores for each pair of positive and negative sequence fragments. The average AUC scores in the 10-fold cross-validation experiments are measured as 79.94% and 80.48% for the Homo sapiens and E. coli organisms respectively. On the independent test datasets, AUC scores are obtained as 76.59% and 80.17% respectively for the two organisms. In almost all cases, the developed F-SVM method improves the performances obtained by the corresponding classical SVM and the other classifiers, available in the literature.

  1. Overlapping positive and negative regulatory domains of the human β-interferon gene

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goodbourn, S.; Maniatis, T.

    1988-01-01

    Virus of poly(I) x poly(C) induction of human β-interferon gene expression requires a 40-base-pair DNA sequence designated the interferon gene regulatory element (IRE). Previous studies have shown that the IRE contains both positive and negative regulatory DNA sequences. To localize these sequences and study their interactions, the authors have examined the effects of a large number of single-base mutations within the IRE on β-interferon gene regulation. They find that the IRE consists of two genetically separable positive regulatory domains and an overlapping negative control sequence. They propose that the β-interferon gene is switched off in uninduced cells by a repressor that blocks the interaction between one of the two positive regulatory sequences and a specific transcription factor. Induction would then lead to inactivation or displacement of the repressor and binding of transcription factors to both positive regulatory domains

  2. Negative mass

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hammond, Richard T

    2015-01-01

    Some physical aspects of negative mass are examined. Several unusual properties, such as the ability of negative mass to penetrate any armor, are analysed. Other surprising effects include the bizarre system of negative mass chasing positive mass, naked singularities and the violation of cosmic censorship, wormholes, and quantum mechanical results as well. In addition, a brief look into the implications for strings is given. (paper)

  3. Significance of investigating allelopathic interactions of marine organisms in the discovery and development of cytotoxic compounds

    Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)

    Singh, A.; Thakur, N.L.

    like (1) growth interactions (e.g. overgrowth by corals) [27], (2) aggressive behaviour (e.g., induced development of sweeper tentacles by bryozoans [28], (3) feeding interactions (e.g., extracoelenteric digestion via mesenteries filaments...

  4. Accounting for negative automaintenance in pigeons: a dual learning systems approach and factored representations.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florian Lesaint

    Full Text Available Animals, including Humans, are prone to develop persistent maladaptive and suboptimal behaviours. Some of these behaviours have been suggested to arise from interactions between brain systems of Pavlovian conditioning, the acquisition of responses to initially neutral stimuli previously paired with rewards, and instrumental conditioning, the acquisition of active behaviours leading to rewards. However the mechanics of these systems and their interactions are still unclear. While extensively studied independently, few models have been developed to account for these interactions. On some experiment, pigeons have been observed to display a maladaptive behaviour that some suggest to involve conflicts between Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. In a procedure referred as negative automaintenance, a key light is paired with the subsequent delivery of food, however any peck towards the key light results in the omission of the reward. Studies showed that in such procedure some pigeons persisted in pecking to a substantial level despite its negative consequence, while others learned to refrain from pecking and maximized their cumulative rewards. Furthermore, the pigeons that were unable to refrain from pecking could nevertheless shift their pecks towards a harmless alternative key light. We confronted a computational model that combines dual-learning systems and factored representations, recently developed to account for sign-tracking and goal-tracking behaviours in rats, to these negative automaintenance experimental data. We show that it can explain the variability of the observed behaviours and the capacity of alternative key lights to distract pigeons from their detrimental behaviours. These results confirm the proposed model as an interesting tool to reproduce experiments that could involve interactions between Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. The model allows us to draw predictions that may be experimentally verified, which could help

  5. Shame, Catastrophizing, and Negative Partner Responses Are Associated With Lower Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction and More Negative Affect in Men With Peyronie's Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Seth; Ferrar, Saskia; Sadikaj, Gentiana; Binik, Yitzchak; Carrier, Serge

    2017-04-03

    Peyronie's disease (PD) has a negative impact on men's sexual functioning and quality of life, but little is known about why some men cope better than others and what the effects of PD are on their relationships. The aims of the present study were to describe negative affect, pain, and relationship and sexual satisfaction in men with PD, and to explore their psychosocial correlates. Participants were 110 men diagnosed with PD. All men completed questionnaires. The main outcome measures were as follows: Global Measure of Sexual Satisfaction, Dyadic Adjustment Scale, McGill Pain Questionnaire, and Negative Affect Scale. The predictor variables were the following: Experience of Shame Scale, Body Esteem Scale, Body Image Self-Consciousness Scale, Index of Male Genital Image, a modified Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and a modified Multidimensional Pain Inventory. Although men with PD had mean sexual/relationship satisfaction and negative affect scores indicating mild impairment, there was a wide range of variation, with 42% to 52% scoring in the clinical range. Catastrophizing was significantly associated with reduced sexual satisfaction and increased negative affect and pain. Shame was also associated with increased negative affect. The significant associations of relationship satisfaction were partner responses and shame. Given the lack of curative treatment in PD, understanding why some men cope better than others may guide therapy. Shame, catastrophizing, and partner responses may be important therapeutic targets.

  6. The impact of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and their interactions with customer equity drivers

    OpenAIRE

    Ou, Yi-Chun; Verhoef, Peter C.

    2017-01-01

    Customer equity drivers (CEDs) include value, brand, and relationship equity, which have a strong link with loyalty intentions. This study aims to examine the incremental effects of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and to determine whether these emotions moderate the positive link between CEDs and loyalty intentions. We use customer data with 102 leading firms across eighteen services industries in the Netherlands. The results show that (1) positive and negative emotions h...

  7. Choosing the negative: A behavioral demonstration of morbid curiosity

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-01-01

    This paper examined, with a behavioral paradigm, to what extent people choose to view stimuli that portray death, violence or harm. Based on briefly presented visual cues, participants made choices between highly arousing, negative images and positive or negative alternatives. The negative images displayed social scenes that involved death, violence or harm (e.g., war scene), or decontextualized, close-ups of physical harm (e.g., mutilated face) or natural threat (e.g., attacking shark). The results demonstrated that social negative images were chosen significantly more often than other negative categories. Furthermore, participants preferred social negative images over neutral images. Physical harm images and natural threat images were not preferred over neutral images, but were chosen in about thirty-five percent of the trials. These results were replicated across three different studies, including a study that presented verbal descriptions of images as pre-choice cues. Together, these results show that people deliberately subject themselves to negative images. With this, the present paper demonstrates a dynamic relationship between negative information and behavior and advances new insights into the phenomenon of morbid curiosity. PMID:28683147

  8. SNT-2 interacts with ERK2 and negatively regulates ERK2 signaling in response to EGF stimulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huang Lin; Gotoh, Noriko; Zhang Shengliang; Shibuya, Masabumi; Yamamoto, Tadashi; Tsuchida, Nobuo

    2004-01-01

    The control of cellular responses with fibroblast growth factors and neurotrophins is mediated through membrane-linked docking proteins, SNT (suc1-binding neurotrophic target)-1/FRS2α and SNT-2/FRS2β. ERK1/2 are members of the mitogen-activated protein kinase family that regulate diverse cellular activities in response to various stimuli. Here, we demonstrate that SNT-2 does not become tyrosine phosphorylated significantly in response to EGF but forms a complex with ERK2 via the region of 186-252 amino acid residues, and the complex formation is enhanced upon EGF stimulation. SNT-2 downregulates ERK2 phosphorylation, suppresses and delays ERK2 nuclear accumulation which occurs following EGF stimulation. In contrast, the mutant SNT-2 which carries deletion of 186-252 amino acids and lacks ERK2 binding does not have these effects. These observations suggest that SNT-2 negatively regulates ERK2 signaling activated via EGF stimulation through direct binding to ERK2

  9. Positive Effects of Negative Publicity: When Negative Reviews Increase Sales

    OpenAIRE

    Jonah Berger; Alan T. Sorensen; Scott J. Rasmussen

    2010-01-01

    Can negative information about a product increase sales, and if so, when? Although popular wisdom suggests that "any publicity is good publicity," prior research has demonstrated only downsides to negative press. Negative reviews or word of mouth, for example, have been found to hurt product evaluation and sales. Using a combination of econometric analysis and experimental methods, we unify these perspectives to delineate contexts under which negative publicity about a product will have posit...

  10. [How children show positive and negative relationships on their drawings].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gramel, Sabine

    2005-01-01

    This study analyses, whether pictures of children showing a positive relationship are significantly different from those showing a negative one with respect to several criteria. The study involved a random selection of 45 children aged 4;6 to 11;6 years. The children painted a picture with themselves and a person they liked and a picture of themselves with someone they disliked. For the most part, the children drew pictures of themselves with peers both with respect to positive as well as negative images. In an interview afterwards, the children specified the criteria in their drawings by which the quality of the particular relationship can be identified. Positive and negative relationship paintings differ in the character of activity described. The sun as an element in children's paintings is painted not more frequent on positive compared to negative pictures. The colour black is used more often in the drawings signifying negative relationships. While girls used more colour in negative relationship drawings, boys used more colour in the positive ones. There was no significant difference in the use of favourite colours and decorative elements between the two groups. Only in negative relationship drawings people were looking away from each other. Smiling individuals were more common in the positive relationship pictures and in pictures painted by the 6 to 8 year olds. A greater distance between the individuals emerged on negative relationship drawings of the girls.

  11. Want More? Learn Less: Motivation Affects Adolescents Learning from Negative Feedback.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhuang, Yun; Feng, Wenfeng; Liao, Yu

    2017-01-01

    The primary goal of the present study was to investigate how positive and negative feedback may differently facilitate learning throughout development. In addition, the role of motivation as a modulating factor was examined. Participants (children, adolescents, and adults) completed two forms of the guess and application task (GAT). Feedback from the Cool-GAT task has low motivational salience because there are no consequences, while feedback from the Hot-GAT task has high motivational salience as it pertains to receiving a reward. The results indicated that negative feedback leads to a reduction in learning compared to positive feedback. The effect of negative feedback was greater in adolescent participants compared to children and adults in the Hot-GAT task, suggesting an interaction between age and motivation level on learning. Further analysis indicated that greater risk was associated with a greater reduction in learning from negative feedback and again, the reduction was greatest in adolescents. In summary, the current study supports the idea that learning from positive feedback and negative feedback differs throughout development. In a rule-based learning task, when associative learning is primarily in practice, participants learned less from negative feedback. This reduction is amplified during adolescence when task-elicited motivation is high.

  12. Optical negative refraction by four-wave mixing in thin metallic nanostructures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palomba, Stefano; Zhang, Shuang; Park, Yongshik; Bartal, Guy; Yin, Xiaobo; Zhang, Xiang

    2011-10-30

    The law of refraction first derived by Snellius and later introduced as the Huygens-Fermat principle, states that the incidence and refracted angles of a light wave at the interface of two different materials are related to the ratio of the refractive indices in each medium. Whereas all natural materials have a positive refractive index and therefore exhibit refraction in the positive direction, artificially engineered negative index metamaterials have been shown capable of bending light waves negatively. Such a negative refractive index is the key to achieving a perfect lens that is capable of imaging well below the diffraction limit. However, negative index metamaterials are typically lossy, narrow band, and require complicated fabrication processes. Recently, an alternative approach to obtain negative refraction from a very thin nonlinear film has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated in the microwave region. However, such approaches use phase conjugation, which makes optical implementations difficult. Here, we report a simple but different scheme to demonstrate experimentally nonlinear negative refraction at optical frequencies using four-wave mixing in nanostructured metal films. The refractive index can be designed at will by simply tuning the wavelengths of the interacting waves, which could have potential impact on many important applications, such as superlens imaging.

  13. Interactions between whey protein isolate and gum Arabic.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klein, Miri; Aserin, Abraham; Ben Ishai, Paul; Garti, Nissim

    2010-09-01

    In this study we have attempted to understand the nature of "charge interactions" between two negatively charged biopolymers (whey protein isolate, WPI and gum Arabic, GA) and, consequently, why their mixture exhibits better interfacial activity. Surface tension (gamma(0)) measurements indicated that at ca. 1 wt.% of the biopolymer mixture (3:1 wt. ratio) the air/water surface is saturated. At 5 wt.% the gamma(0) of the mixture is lower than the calculated co-operative value. The zeta-potential measurements revealed that the isoelectric point of the WPI:GA 3:1 wt. ratio mixture is 3.8. The zeta-potential values up to pH 6 are below those calculated. Similarly, the electrical conductivities of the mixture are lower than those calculated. All these measurements indicate: (1) partial charge neutralization in spite of the fact that both biopolymers are negative or (2) partial charge-charge interactions between the two biopolymers. The thermal heating behavior of the frozen water in the aqueous mixture studied by DSC (heating cycle of the frozen sample) clearly indicates that the two biopolymers are interacting. We calculated the enthalpy, the free energy and the chemical potential of the interactions. We found that the interactions of the biopolymers are rather weak. They are likely derived from some local positively charged domains (pH 7) on the protein that neutralize some of the negatively charged GA. These interactions form weak charge adducts. These charge adducts are sufficient to improve its adsorption into the oil-water interface and enhance the emulsion stability. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Reversing a Negative Measurement in Process with Negative Events: A Haunted Negative Measurement and the Bifurcation of Time

    CERN Document Server

    Snyder, D M

    2003-01-01

    Reversing an ordinary measurement in process (a haunted measurement) is noted and the steps involved in reversing a negative measurement in process (a haunted negative measurement) are described. In order to discuss in a thorough manner reversing an ordinary measurement in process, one has to account for how reversing a negative measurement in process would work for the same experimental setup. The reason it is necessary to know how a negative measurement in process is reversed is because for a given experimental setup there is no physical distinction between reversing a negative measurement in process and reversing an ordinary measurement in process. In the absence of the reversal of a negative measurement in process in the same experimental setup that supports the reversal of an ordinary measurement in process, the possibility exists of which-way information concerning the negative measurement that would render theoretically implausible reversing an ordinary measuremnt in process. The steps in reversing a n...

  15. Testing Hadronic Interaction Models using a Highly Granular Silicon-Tungsten Calorimeter

    CERN Document Server

    Bilki, B.; Schlereth, J.; Xia, L.; Deng, Z.; Li, Y.; Wang, Y.; Yue, Q.; Yang, Z.; Eigen, G.; Mikami, Y.; Price, T.; Watson, N.K.; Thomson, M.A.; Ward, D.R.; Benchekroun, D.; Hoummada, A.; Khoulaki, Y.; Carloganu, C.; Chang, S.; Khan, A.; Kim, D.H.; Kong, D.J.; Oh, Y.D.; Blazey, G.C.; Dyshkant, A.; Francis, K.; Lima, J.G.R.; Salcido, P.; Zutshi, V.; Boisvert, V.; Green, B.; Misiejuk, A.; Salvatore, F.; Kawagoe, K.; Miyazaki, Y.; Sudo, Y.; Suehara, T.; Tomita, T.; Ueno, H.; Yoshioka, T.; Apostolakis, J.; Folger, G.; Ivantchenko, V.; Ribon, A.; Uzhinskiy, V.; Cauwenbergh, S.; Tytgat, M.; Zaganidis, N.; Hostachy, J.Y.; Morin, L.; Gadow, K.; Göttlicher, P.; Günter, C.; Krüger, K.; Lutz, B.; Reinecke, M.; Sefkow, F.; Feege, N.; Garutti, E.; Laurien, S.; Lu, S.; Marchesini, I.; Matysek, M.; Ramilli, M.; Kaplan, A.; Norbeck, E.; Northacker, D.; Onel, Y.; Kim, E.J.; van Doren, B.; Wilson, G.W.; Wing, M.; Bobchenko, B.; Chadeeva, M.; Chistov, R.; Danilov, M.; Drutskoy, A.; Epifantsev, A.; Markin, O.; Mizuk, R.; Novikov, E.; Popov, V.; Rusinov, V.; Tarkovsky, E.; Besson, D.; Popova, E.; Gabriel, M.; Kiesling, C.; Simon, F.; Soldner, C.; Szalay, M.; Tesar, M.; Weuste, L.; Amjad, M.S.; Bonis, J.; Callier, S.; Conforti di Lorenzo, S.; Cornebise, P.; Doublet, Ph.; Dulucq, F.; Faucci-Giannelli, M.; Fleury, J.; Frisson, T.; Kégl, B.; van der Kolk, N.; Li, H.; Martin-Chassard, G.; Richard, F.; de la Taille, Ch.; Pöschl, R.; Raux, L.; Rouëne, J.; Seguin-Moreau, N.; Anduze, M.; Balagura, V.; Becheva, E.; Boudry, V.; Brient, J.-C.; Cornat, R.; Frotin, M.; Gastaldi, F.; Magniette, F.; Matthieu, A.; Mora de Freitas, P.; Videau, H.; Augustin, J.-E.; David, J.; Ghislain, P.; Lacour, D.; Lavergne, L.; Zacek, J.; Cvach, J.; Gallus, P.; Havranek, M.; Janata, M.; Kvasnicka, J.; Lednicky, D.; Marcisovsky, M.; Polak, I.; Popule, J.; Tomasek, L.; Tomasek, M.; Ruzicka, P.; Sicho, P.; Smolik, J.; Vrba, V.; Zalesak, J.; Jeans, D.; Götze, M.

    2015-09-11

    A detailed study of hadronic interactions is presented using data recorded with the highly granular CALICE silicon-tungsten electromagnetic calorimeter. Approximately 600,000 selected negatively changed pion events at energies between 2 and 10 GeV have been studied. The predictions of several physics models available within the GEANT4 simulation tool kit are compared to this data. Although a reasonable overall description of the data is observed, there are significant quantitative discrepancies in the longitudinal and transverse distributions of reconstructed energy.

  16. A global genetic interaction network maps a wiring diagram of cellular function.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Costanzo, Michael; VanderSluis, Benjamin; Koch, Elizabeth N; Baryshnikova, Anastasia; Pons, Carles; Tan, Guihong; Wang, Wen; Usaj, Matej; Hanchard, Julia; Lee, Susan D; Pelechano, Vicent; Styles, Erin B; Billmann, Maximilian; van Leeuwen, Jolanda; van Dyk, Nydia; Lin, Zhen-Yuan; Kuzmin, Elena; Nelson, Justin; Piotrowski, Jeff S; Srikumar, Tharan; Bahr, Sondra; Chen, Yiqun; Deshpande, Raamesh; Kurat, Christoph F; Li, Sheena C; Li, Zhijian; Usaj, Mojca Mattiazzi; Okada, Hiroki; Pascoe, Natasha; San Luis, Bryan-Joseph; Sharifpoor, Sara; Shuteriqi, Emira; Simpkins, Scott W; Snider, Jamie; Suresh, Harsha Garadi; Tan, Yizhao; Zhu, Hongwei; Malod-Dognin, Noel; Janjic, Vuk; Przulj, Natasa; Troyanskaya, Olga G; Stagljar, Igor; Xia, Tian; Ohya, Yoshikazu; Gingras, Anne-Claude; Raught, Brian; Boutros, Michael; Steinmetz, Lars M; Moore, Claire L; Rosebrock, Adam P; Caudy, Amy A; Myers, Chad L; Andrews, Brenda; Boone, Charles

    2016-09-23

    We generated a global genetic interaction network for Saccharomyces cerevisiae, constructing more than 23 million double mutants, identifying about 550,000 negative and about 350,000 positive genetic interactions. This comprehensive network maps genetic interactions for essential gene pairs, highlighting essential genes as densely connected hubs. Genetic interaction profiles enabled assembly of a hierarchical model of cell function, including modules corresponding to protein complexes and pathways, biological processes, and cellular compartments. Negative interactions connected functionally related genes, mapped core bioprocesses, and identified pleiotropic genes, whereas positive interactions often mapped general regulatory connections among gene pairs, rather than shared functionality. The global network illustrates how coherent sets of genetic interactions connect protein complex and pathway modules to map a functional wiring diagram of the cell. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  17. The impact of bullying on health care administration staff: reduced commitment beyond the influences of negative affectivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rodwell, John; Demir, Defne; Parris, Melissa; Steane, Peter; Noblet, Andrew

    2012-01-01

    Investigations of workplace bullying in health care settings have tended to focus on nurses or other clinical staff. However, the organizational and power structures enabling bullying in health care are present for all employees, including administrative staff. : The purpose of this study was to specifically focus on health care administration staff and examine the prevalence and consequences of workplace bullying in this occupational group. A cross-sectional study was conducted based on questionnaire data from health care administration staff who work across facilities within a medium to large health care organization in Australia. The questionnaire included measures of bullying, negative affectivity (NA), job satisfaction, organizational commitment, well-being, and psychological distress. The three hypotheses of the study were that (a) workplace bullying will be linked to negative employee outcomes, (b) individual differences on demographic factors will have an impact on these outcomes, and (c) individual differences in NA will be a significant covariate in the analyses. The hypotheses were tested using t tests and analyses of covariances. A total of 150 health care administration staff completed the questionnaire (76% response rate). Significant main effects were found for workplace bullying, with lower organizational commitment and well-being with the effect on commitment remaining over and above NA. Main effects were found for age on job satisfaction and for employment type on psychological distress. A significant interaction between bullying and employment type for psychological distress was also observed. Negative affectivity was a significant covariate for all analyses of covariance. The applications of these results include the need to consider the occupations receiving attention in health care to include administration employees, that bullying is present across health care occupations, and that some employees, particularly part-time staff, may need to be

  18. Prevalence of potential drug–drug interactions among internal medicine ward in University of Gondar Teaching Hospital, Ethiopia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula

    2014-05-01

    Conclusion: We have recorded a high rate of prevalence of potential DDI in the internal medicine ward of UOG hospital and a high number of clinically significant DDIs which the most prevalent DDI were of moderate severity. Careful selection of drugs and active pharmaceutical care is encouraged in order to avoid negative consequences of these interactions.

  19. Dispositional pathways to trust: Self-esteem and agreeableness interact to predict trust and negative emotional disclosure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCarthy, Megan H; Wood, Joanne V; Holmes, John G

    2017-07-01

    Expressing our innermost thoughts and feelings is critical to the development of intimacy (Reis & Shaver, 1988), but also risks negative evaluation and rejection. Past research suggests that people with high self-esteem are more expressive and self-disclosing because they trust that others care for them and will not reject them (Gaucher et al., 2012). However, feeling good about oneself may not always be enough; disclosure may also depend on how we feel about other people. Drawing on the principles of risk regulation theory (Murray et al., 2006), we propose that agreeableness-a trait that refers to the positivity of interpersonal motivations and behaviors-is a key determinant of trust in a partner's caring and responsiveness, and may work in conjunction with self-esteem to predict disclosure. We examined this possibility by exploring how both self-esteem and agreeableness predict a particularly risky and intimate form of self-disclosure, the disclosure of emotional distress. In 6 studies using correlational, partner-report, and experimental methods, we demonstrate that self-esteem and agreeableness interact to predict disclosure: People who are high in both self-esteem and agreeableness show higher emotional disclosure. We also found evidence that trust mediates this effect. People high in self-esteem and agreeableness are most self-revealing, it seems, because they are especially trusting of their partners' caring. Self-esteem and agreeableness were particularly important for the disclosure of vulnerable emotions (i.e., sadness; Study 5) and disclosures that were especially risky (Study 6). These findings illustrate how dispositional variables can work together to explain behavior in close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) negatively regulate triple-negative breast cancer growth and epithelial:mesenchymal stem cell signaling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Narayanan, Ramesh; Ahn, Sunjoo; Cheney, Misty D; Yepuru, Muralimohan; Miller, Duane D; Steiner, Mitchell S; Dalton, James T

    2014-01-01

    The androgen receptor (AR) is the most highly expressed steroid receptor in breast cancer with 75-95% of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and 40-70% of ER-negative breast cancers expressing AR. Though historically breast cancers were treated with steroidal androgens, their use fell from favor because of their virilizing side effects and the emergence of tamoxifen. Nonsteroidal, tissue selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) may provide a novel targeted approach to exploit the therapeutic benefits of androgen therapy in breast cancer. Since MDA-MB-453 triple-negative breast cancer cells express mutated AR, PTEN, and p53, MDA-MB-231 triple-negative breast cancer cells stably expressing wildtype AR (MDA-MB-231-AR) were used to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo anti-proliferative effects of SARMs. Microarray analysis and epithelial:mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) co-culture signaling studies were performed to understand the mechanisms of action. Dihydrotestosterone and SARMs, but not bicalutamide, inhibited the proliferation of MDA-MB-231-AR. The SARMs reduced the MDA-MB-231-AR tumor growth and tumor weight by greater than 90%, compared to vehicle-treated tumors. SARM treatment inhibited the intratumoral expression of genes and pathways that promote breast cancer development through its actions on the AR. SARM treatment also inhibited the metastasis-promoting paracrine factors, IL6 and MMP13, and subsequent migration and invasion of epithelial:MSC co-cultures. 1. AR stimulation inhibits paracrine factors that are important for MSC interactions and breast cancer invasion and metastasis. 2. SARMs may provide promise as novel targeted therapies to treat AR-positive triple-negative breast cancer.

  1. Selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs negatively regulate triple-negative breast cancer growth and epithelial:mesenchymal stem cell signaling.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ramesh Narayanan

    Full Text Available The androgen receptor (AR is the most highly expressed steroid receptor in breast cancer with 75-95% of estrogen receptor (ER-positive and 40-70% of ER-negative breast cancers expressing AR. Though historically breast cancers were treated with steroidal androgens, their use fell from favor because of their virilizing side effects and the emergence of tamoxifen. Nonsteroidal, tissue selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs may provide a novel targeted approach to exploit the therapeutic benefits of androgen therapy in breast cancer.Since MDA-MB-453 triple-negative breast cancer cells express mutated AR, PTEN, and p53, MDA-MB-231 triple-negative breast cancer cells stably expressing wildtype AR (MDA-MB-231-AR were used to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo anti-proliferative effects of SARMs. Microarray analysis and epithelial:mesenchymal stem cell (MSC co-culture signaling studies were performed to understand the mechanisms of action.Dihydrotestosterone and SARMs, but not bicalutamide, inhibited the proliferation of MDA-MB-231-AR. The SARMs reduced the MDA-MB-231-AR tumor growth and tumor weight by greater than 90%, compared to vehicle-treated tumors. SARM treatment inhibited the intratumoral expression of genes and pathways that promote breast cancer development through its actions on the AR. SARM treatment also inhibited the metastasis-promoting paracrine factors, IL6 and MMP13, and subsequent migration and invasion of epithelial:MSC co-cultures.1. AR stimulation inhibits paracrine factors that are important for MSC interactions and breast cancer invasion and metastasis. 2. SARMs may provide promise as novel targeted therapies to treat AR-positive triple-negative breast cancer.

  2. Influences of adding negative couplings between cliques of Kuramoto-like oscillators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Li-xin; Lin, Xiao-lin; Jiang, Jun

    2018-06-01

    We study the dynamics in a clustered network of coupled oscillators by considering positive and negative coupling schemes. Second order oscillators can be interpreted as a model of consumers and generators working in a power network. Numerical results indicate that coupling strategies play an important role in the synchronizability of the clustered power network. It is found that the synchronizability can be enhanced as the positive intragroup connections increase. Meanwhile, when the intragroup interactions are positive and the probability p that two nodes belonging to different clusters are connected is increased, the synchronization has better performance. Besides, when the intragroup connections are negative, it is observed that the power network has poor synchronizability as the probability p increases. Our simulation results can help us understand the collective behavior of the power network with positive and negative couplings.

  3. Strong Selection Significantly Increases Epistatic Interactions in the Long-Term Evolution of a Protein.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aditi Gupta

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Epistatic interactions between residues determine a protein's adaptability and shape its evolutionary trajectory. When a protein experiences a changed environment, it is under strong selection to find a peak in the new fitness landscape. It has been shown that strong selection increases epistatic interactions as well as the ruggedness of the fitness landscape, but little is known about how the epistatic interactions change under selection in the long-term evolution of a protein. Here we analyze the evolution of epistasis in the protease of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1 using protease sequences collected for almost a decade from both treated and untreated patients, to understand how epistasis changes and how those changes impact the long-term evolvability of a protein. We use an information-theoretic proxy for epistasis that quantifies the co-variation between sites, and show that positive information is a necessary (but not sufficient condition that detects epistasis in most cases. We analyze the "fossils" of the evolutionary trajectories of the protein contained in the sequence data, and show that epistasis continues to enrich under strong selection, but not for proteins whose environment is unchanged. The increase in epistasis compensates for the information loss due to sequence variability brought about by treatment, and facilitates adaptation in the increasingly rugged fitness landscape of treatment. While epistasis is thought to enhance evolvability via valley-crossing early-on in adaptation, it can hinder adaptation later when the landscape has turned rugged. However, we find no evidence that the HIV-1 protease has reached its potential for evolution after 9 years of adapting to a drug environment that itself is constantly changing. We suggest that the mechanism of encoding new information into pairwise interactions is central to protein evolution not just in HIV-1 protease, but for any protein adapting to a changing

  4. Human interactions with sirenians (manatees and dugongs)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonde, Robert K.; Flint, Mark

    2017-01-01

    There are three extant sirenian species of the Trichechidae family and one living Dugongidae family member. Given their close ties to coastal and often urbanized habitats, sirenians are exposed to many types of anthropogenic activities that result in challenges to their well-being, poor health, and even death. In the wild, they are exposed to direct and indirect local pressures as well as subject to large-scale stressors such as global climate change acting on regions or entire genetic stocks. In captivity, they are subject to husbandry and management practices based on our collective knowledge, or in some cases lack thereof, of their needs and welfare. It is therefore reasonable to consider that their current imperiled status is very closely linked to our actions. In this chapter, we identify and define human interactions that may impact dugongs and manatees, including hunting, fisheries, boat interactions, negative interactions with man-made structures, disease and contaminants, and global climate change. We examine techniques used to investigate these impacts and the influence of sirenian biology and of changing human behaviors on potential outcomes. We examine how this differs for dugongs and manatees in the wild and for those held in captivity. Finally, we provide possible mitigation strategies and ways to assess the efforts we are making to improve the welfare of individuals and to conserve these species. This chapter identifies how the welfare of these species is intrinsically linked to the human interactions these animals experience, and how the nature of these interactions has changed with societal shifts. We proffer suggested ways to minimize negative impacts. Current knowledge should be used to minimize negative human interactions and impacts, to promote positive impacts, and to protect these animals for the future.

  5. Flg22-Triggered Immunity Negatively Regulates Key BR Biosynthetic Genes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiménez-Góngora, Tamara; Kim, Seong-Ki; Lozano-Durán, Rosa; Zipfel, Cyril

    2015-01-01

    In plants, activation of growth and activation of immunity are opposing processes that define a trade-off. In the past few years, the growth-promoting hormones brassinosteroids (BR) have emerged as negative regulators of pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP)-triggered immunity (PTI), promoting growth at the expense of defense. The crosstalk between BR and PTI signaling was described as negative and unidirectional, since activation of PTI does not affect several analyzed steps in the BR signaling pathway. In this work, we describe that activation of PTI by the bacterial PAMP flg22 results in the reduced expression of BR biosynthetic genes. This effect does not require BR perception or signaling, and occurs within 15 min of flg22 treatment. Since the described PTI-induced repression of gene expression may result in a reduction in BR biosynthesis, the crosstalk between PTI and BR could actually be negative and bidirectional, a possibility that should be taken into account when considering the interaction between these two pathways.

  6. Entanglement for a Bimodal Cavity Field Interacting with a Two-Level Atom

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu Jia; Chen Ziyu; Bu Shenping; Zhang Guofeng

    2009-01-01

    Negativity has been adopted to investigate the entanglement in a system composed of a two-level atom and a two-mode cavity field. Effects of Kerr-like medium and the number of photon inside the cavity on the entanglement are studied. Our results show that atomic initial state must be superposed, so that the two cavity field modes can be entangled. Moreover, we also conclude that the number of photon in the two cavity mode should be equal. The interaction between modes, namely, the Kerr effect, has a significant negative contribution. Note that the atom frequency and the cavity frequency have an indistinguishable effect, so a corresponding approximation has been made in this article. These results may be useful for quantum information in optics systems.

  7. Iodide uptake by negatively charged clay interlayers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Andrew; Kruichak, Jessica; Mills, Melissa; Wang, Yifeng

    2015-09-01

    Understanding iodide interactions with clay minerals is critical to quantifying risk associated with nuclear waste disposal. Current thought assumes that iodide does not interact directly with clay minerals due to electrical repulsion between the iodide and the negatively charged clay layers. However, a growing body of work indicates a weak interaction between iodide and clays. The goal of this contribution is to report a conceptual model for iodide interaction with clays by considering clay mineral structures and emergent behaviors of chemical species in confined spaces. To approach the problem, a suite of clay minerals was used with varying degrees of isomorphic substitution, chemical composition, and mineral structure. Iodide uptake experiments were completed with each of these minerals in a range of swamping electrolyte identities (NaCl, NaBr, KCl) and concentrations. Iodide uptake behaviors form distinct trends with cation exchange capacity and mineral structure. These trends change substantially with electrolyte composition and concentration, but do not appear to be affected by solution pH. The experimental results suggest that iodide may directly interact with clays by forming ion-pairs (e.g., NaI(aq)) which may concentrate within the interlayer space as well as the thin areas surrounding the clay particle where water behavior is more structured relative to bulk water. Ion pairing and iodide concentration in these zones is probably driven by the reduced dielectric constant of water in confined space and by the relatively high polarizability of the iodide species. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Age group differences in positive and negative affect among oldest-old adults: findings from the Georgia Centenarian Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, Jinmyoung; Martin, Peter; Poon, Leonard W; MacDonald, M; Jazwinski, S M; Green, R C; Gearing, M; Johnson, M A; Markesbery, W R; Woodard, J L; Tenover, J S; Siegler, L C; Rott, C; Rodgers, W L; Hausman, D; Arnold, J; Davey, A

    2013-01-01

    The developmental adaptation model (Martin & Martin, 2002) provides insights into how current experiences and resources (proximal variables) and past experiences (distal variables) are correlated with outcomes (e.g., well-being) in later life. Applying this model, the current study examined proximal and distal variables associated with positive and negative affect in oldest-old adults, investigating age differences. Data from 306 octogenarians and centenarians who participated in Phase III of the Georgia Centenarian Study were used. Proximal variables included physical functioning, cognitive functioning, self-rated health, number of chronic conditions, social resources, and perceived economic status; distal variables included education, social productive activities, management of personal assets, and other learning experiences. Analysis of variance and block-wise regression analyses were conducted. Octogenarians showed significantly higher levels of positive emotion than centenarians. Cognitive functioning was significantly associated with positive affect, and number of health problems was significantly associated with negative affect after controlling for gender, ethnicity, residence, and marital status. Furthermore, four significant interaction effects suggested that positive affect significantly depended on the levels of cognitive and physical functioning among centenarians, whereas positive affect was dependent on the levels of physical health problems and learning experiences among octogenarians. Findings of this study addressed the importance of current and past experiences and resources in subjective well-being among oldest-old adults as a life-long process. Mechanisms connecting aging processes at the end of a long life to subjective well-being should be explored in future studies.

  9. Negative affect impairs associative memory but not item memory.

    OpenAIRE

    Bisby, J. A.; Burgess, N.

    2014-01-01

    The formation of associations between items and their context has been proposed to rely on mechanisms distinct from those supporting memory for a single item. Although emotional experiences can profoundly affect memory, our understanding of how it interacts with different aspects of memory remains unclear. We performed three experiments to examine the effects of emotion on memory for items and their associations. By presenting neutral and negative items with background contexts, Experiment 1 ...

  10. Negative heat capacity at phase-separation in macroscopic systems

    OpenAIRE

    Gross, D. H. E.

    2005-01-01

    Systems with long-range as well with short-range interactions should necessarily have a convex entropy S(E) at proper phase transitions of first order, i.e. when a separation of phases occurs. Here the microcanonical heat capacity c(E)= -\\frac{(\\partial S/\\partial E)^2}{\\partial^2S/\\partial E^2} is negative. This should be observable even in macroscopic systems when energy fluctuations with the surrounding world can be sufficiently suppressed.

  11. Backscattering and negative polarization of agglomerate particles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zubko, Evgenij; Shkuratov, Yuriy; Hart, Matthew; Eversole, Jay; Videen, Gorden

    2003-09-01

    We used the discrete dipole approximation to study the backscattering of agglomerate particles consisting of oblong monomers. We varied the aspect ratio of the monomers from approximately 1 (sphere) to 4, while we kept the total particle volume equivalent to that of an x = 10 sphere for m = 1.59 + i0 and 1.50 + i0 and considered two values of agglomerate packing density: rho = 0.25 and rho = 0.1. We found that these particles do not display a prominent brightness opposition effect but do produce significant negative polarization over a range of near-backscattering angles. Increasing the monomers' aspect ratio can make the negative polarization much more prominent. We have noted also that decreasing m and p can reduce the amplitude of the negative polarization for these particles.

  12. Exotic Material as Interactions Between Scalar Fields

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robertson G. A.

    2006-04-01

    Full Text Available Many theoretical papers refer to the need to create exotic materials with average negative energies for the formation of space propulsion anomalies such as "wormholes" and "warp drives". However, little hope is given for the existence of such material to resolve its creation for such use. From the standpoint that non-minimally coupled scalar fields to gravity appear to be the current direction mathematically. It is proposed that exotic material is really scalar field interactions. Within this paper the Ginzburg-Landau (GL scalar fields associated with superconductor junctions isinvestigated as a source for negative vacuum energy fluctuations, which could be used to study the interactions among energyfluctuations, cosmological scalar (i.e., Higgs fields, and gravity.

  13. Negative emotions and risk for type 2 diabetes among Korean immigrants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Sarah E; Rush, Elizabeth B; Henry, Shayna L

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between negative emotions and bio-behavioral risk factors among Korean immigrants at risk for type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Data were collected from 148 Korean immigrant adults who are "at risk" for T2DM as defined by having family history of T2DM in first-degree relatives, body mass index greater than 23, or history of gestational diabetes in women. Participants completed questionnaires and underwent biological measures. Negative emotions included feeling nervous, hopeless, restless, anxious, and stressed as well as depressive symptoms. High percentages of participants had T2DM risk factors including overweight, greater than normal waist to hip ratio, and blood glucose readings that are indicative of T2DM. Feeling stressed was the most commonly reported negative emotion (66%), followed by feeling anxious (51%), restless (38%), nervous (30%), and hopeless (13%). Experience of negative emotions was significantly related to behavioral risk factors; higher levels of experiencing negative emotions were related to increased soda intake and a decreased likelihood of doing at least 10 minutes of moderate exercise. Stress and anxiety were each negatively related to moderate exercise, and depressive symptoms were negatively related to both moderate and vigorous exercise. No significant relationship was found between negative emotions and biological risk factors. Findings suggest that negative emotions, individually and taken together, may be related to T2DM risk behaviors in high-risk Korean immigrants. Behavioral interventions to prevent T2DM in this population should consider assessing and addressing negative emotions.

  14. Exploring the effects of individual customer incivility encounters on employee incivility: the moderating roles of entity (in)civility and negative affectivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, David D; van Jaarsveld, Danielle D; Skarlicki, Daniel P

    2014-01-01

    Incivility between customers and employees is common in many service organizations. These encounters can have negative outcomes for employees, customers, and the organization. To date, researchers have tended to study incivility as an aggregated and accumulated phenomenon (entity perspective). In the present study, we examined incivility as it occurs during a specific service encounter (event perspective) alongside the entity perspective. Using a mixed-method multilevel field study of customer service interactions, we show that individual customer incivility encounters (i.e., events) trigger employee incivility as a function of the employee's overall accumulated impression of the (in)civility in his or her customer interactions, such that the effects are more pronounced among employees who generally perceive their customer interactions to be more versus less civil. We also find that these interactive effects occur only among employees who are lower (vs. higher) in negative affectivity. Our results show that, in order to expand the understanding of customer incivility, it is important to study the incivility encounter, the social context in which negative customer interactions occur, and individual differences. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved

  15. Exploring Psychosocial Mechanisms and Interactions: Links Between Adolescent Emotional Distress, School Connectedness, and Educational Achievement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pate, Christina M.; Maras, Melissa A.; Whitney, Stephen D.; Bradshaw, Catherine P.

    2017-01-01

    Internalizing mental health issues are a significant developmental and clinical concern during adolescence, but rarely identified as a problem among school staff. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the associations between adolescent emotional distress, school connectedness, and educational achievement by exploring potential mechanistic and interactive roles of perceived school connectedness on the emotion–education association. Emotional distress was negatively associated with adolescents’ perceptions of belonging to school, which, in turn, may negatively influence educational achievement. School connectedness also had both additive and multiplicative interaction effects on the emotion–education relationship. Results support previous evidence of school connectedness as a protective factor for adolescents with internalizing mental health concerns, although much of the work to date has focused on externalizing problems. This study informs our understanding of how, why, and for whom emotional problems influence educational outcomes in light of social support in the school context. PMID:28947921

  16. Expressing and Amplifying Positive Emotions Facilitate Goal Attainment in Workplace Interactions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wong, Elena; Tschan, Franziska; Messerli, Laurence; Semmer, Norbert K.

    2013-01-01

    Expressing emotions has social functions; it provides information, affects social interactions, and shapes relationships with others. Expressing positive emotions could be a strategic tool for improving goal attainment during social interactions at work. Such effects have been found in research on social contagion, impression management, and emotion work. However, expressing emotions one does not feel entails the risk of being perceived as inauthentic. This risk may well be worth taking when the emotions felt are negative, as expressing negative emotions usually has negative effects. When experiencing positive emotions, however, expressing them authentically promises benefits, and the advantage of amplifying them is not so obvious. We postulated that expressing, and amplifying, positive emotions would foster goal attainment in social interactions at work, particularly when dealing with superiors. Analyses are based on 494 interactions involving the pursuit of a goal by 113 employes. Multilevel analyses, including polynomial analyses, show that authentic display of positive emotions supported goal attainment throughout. However, amplifying felt positive emotions promoted goal attainment only in interactions with superiors, but not with colleagues. Results are discussed with regard to the importance of hierarchy for detecting, and interpreting, signs of strategic display of positive emotions. PMID:23675358

  17. Expressing and amplifying positive emotions facilitate goal attainment in workplace interactions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena eWong

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Expressing emotions has social functions; it provides information, affects social interactions, and shapes relationships with others. Expressing positive emotions could be a strategic tool for improving goal attainment during social interactions at work. Such effects have been found in research on social contagion, impression management, and emotion work. However, expressing emotions one does not feel entails the risk of being perceived as inauthentic. This risk may well be worth taking when the emotions felt are negative, as expressing negative emotions usually has negative effects. When experiencing positive emotions, however, expressing them authentically promises benefits, and the advantage of amplifying them is not so obvious. We postulated that expressing, and amplifying, positive emotions would foster goal attainment in social interactions at work, particularly when dealing with superiors. Analyses are based on 494 interactions involving the pursuit of a goal by 113 employees. Multilevel analyses, including polynomial analyses, show that authentic display of positive emotions supported goal attainment throughout. However, amplifying felt positive emotions promoted goal attainment only in interactions with superiors, but not with colleagues. Results are discussed with regard to the importance of hierarchy for detecting, and interpreting, signs of strategic display of positive emotions.

  18. Molecular interactions with reference to manifestation of solvation ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The density and viscosity data were analyzed by some semi-empirical viscosity models, and the results have been discussed in terms of molecular interactions and structural effects. The excess properties were found to be either negative or positive depending on the molecular interactions and the nature of liquid mixtures.

  19. Age differences in adults' daily social interactions: An ecological momentary assessment study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhaoyang, Ruixue; Sliwinski, Martin J; Martire, Lynn M; Smyth, Joshua M

    2018-04-30

    Prevailing research has suggested that social relationships get better with age, but this evidence has been largely based on studies with lengthy reporting intervals. Using an ecological momentary assessment approach, the present study examined age differences in several characteristics of social interactions as reported in near-real time: the frequency, quality, and partner type. Participants (N = 173) ages 20-79 years reported their social interactions at 5 random times throughout the day for 1 week. Results revealed that age was associated with higher frequency of interacting with family and lower frequency of interacting with peripheral partners. These age effects, however, became nonsignificant after accounting for contextual factors such as race, gender, education, employment status, family structure, and living arrangement. In contrast, a curvilinear relationship best characterized age differences in both positive and negative ratings of daily social interaction quality, with middle-aged adults reporting the lowest positive ratings and older adults reporting the lowest negative ratings among all ages. Contextual factors did not account for these patterns of age differences in interaction quality. Furthermore, the intraindividual variability of interaction frequency with peripheral partners, partner diversity, and interaction quality (positivity and negativity) was lower among older adults than among younger adults. Findings from the present study portray a nuanced picture of social interactions in daily life and advance the understanding of social interactions across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  20. Prognostic significance of surgical extranodal extension in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsumoto, Fumihiko; Mori, Taisuke; Matsumura, Satoko; Matsumoto, Yoshifumi; Fukasawa, Masahiko; Teshima, Masanori; Kobayashi, Kenya; Yoshimoto, Seiichi

    2017-08-01

    Lymph node metastasis with extranodal extension represents one of the most important adverse prognostic factors for survival in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. We propose that extranodal extension occurs to differing extents. The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic significance of extranodal extension in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Two hundred and ninety-eight patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who underwent surgical resection and neck dissection were included. Cervical lymph nodes were classified into four categories: (i) pathological N negative, (ii) extranodal extension negative, (iii) non-surgical extranodal extension and (iv) surgical extranodal extension. Lymph node metastases were detected in 67.1% of laryngeal/hypopharyngeal cancer patients and 52.7% of oral cancer patients. The 3-year disease-specific survival rates for patients in the pathological N negative, extranodal extension negative, non-surgical extranodal extension and surgical extranodal extension groups were 90.9%, 79.6%, 63.8% and 48.3%, respectively. In laryngeal/hypopharyngeal cancer patients, surgical extranodal extension was associated with a significantly poorer disease-specific survival than a pathological N negative, extranodal extension negative or non-surgical extranodal extension status. In oral cancer patients, no significant differences were observed between the non-surgical and surgical extranodal extension groups. However, non-surgical extranodal extension was associated with a poorer disease-specific survival than a pathological N negative or extranodal extension negative status. Surgical extranodal extension was a poor prognostic factor in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The prognostic significance of surgical extranodal extension differed between laryngeal/hypopharyngeal and oral cancer patients. The clinical significance of surgical extranodal extension was much greater for

  1. Auditory attention enhances processing of positive and negative words in inferior and superior prefrontal cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wegrzyn, Martin; Herbert, Cornelia; Ethofer, Thomas; Flaisch, Tobias; Kissler, Johanna

    2017-11-01

    Visually presented emotional words are processed preferentially and effects of emotional content are similar to those of explicit attention deployment in that both amplify visual processing. However, auditory processing of emotional words is less well characterized and interactions between emotional content and task-induced attention have not been fully understood. Here, we investigate auditory processing of emotional words, focussing on how auditory attention to positive and negative words impacts their cerebral processing. A Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study manipulating word valence and attention allocation was performed. Participants heard negative, positive and neutral words to which they either listened passively or attended by counting negative or positive words, respectively. Regardless of valence, active processing compared to passive listening increased activity in primary auditory cortex, left intraparietal sulcus, and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). The attended valence elicited stronger activity in left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and left SFG, in line with these regions' role in semantic retrieval and evaluative processing. No evidence for valence-specific attentional modulation in auditory regions or distinct valence-specific regional activations (i.e., negative > positive or positive > negative) was obtained. Thus, allocation of auditory attention to positive and negative words can substantially increase their processing in higher-order language and evaluative brain areas without modulating early stages of auditory processing. Inferior and superior frontal brain structures mediate interactions between emotional content, attention, and working memory when prosodically neutral speech is processed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Enhanced brain susceptibility to negative stimuli in adolescents: ERP evidences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiajin eYuan

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Background: previous studies investigated neural substrates of emotional face processing in adolescents and its comparison with adults. As emotional faces elicit more of emotional expression recognition rather than direct emotional responding, it remains undetermined how adolescents are different from adults in brain susceptibility to emotionally stressful stimuli. Methods: Event-Related Potentials were recorded for highly negative (HN, moderately negative (MN and Neutral pictures in 20 adolescents and 20 adults while subjects performed a standard/deviant distinction task by pressing different keys, irrespective of the emotionality of deviant stimuli. Results: Adolescents exhibited more negative amplitudes for HN versus neutral pictures in N1 (100-150ms, P2 (130-190ms, N2 (210-290ms and P3 (360-440ms components. In addition, adolescents showed more negative amplitudes for MN compared to neutral pictures in N1, P2 and N2 components. By contrast, adults exhibited significant emotion effects for HN stimuli in N2 and P3 amplitudes but not in N1 and P2 amplitudes, and they did not exhibit a significant emotion effect for MN stimuli at all these components. In the 210-290ms time interval, the emotion effect for HN stimuli was significant across frontal and central regions in adolescents, while this emotion effect was noticeable only in the central region for adults. Conclusions: Adolescents are more emotionally sensitive to negative stimuli compared to adults, regardless of the emotional intensity of the stimuli, possibly due to the immature prefrontal control system over the limbic emotional inputs during adolescence. Keywords: Event-Related Potentials (ERPs; Adolescence; Emotion intensity; Negative pictures; Emotional Susceptibility

  3. Direct quantification of negatively charged functional groups on membrane surfaces

    KAUST Repository

    Tiraferri, Alberto

    2012-02-01

    Surface charge plays an important role in membrane-based separations of particulates, macromolecules, and dissolved ionic species. In this study, we present two experimental methods to determine the concentration of negatively charged functional groups at the surface of dense polymeric membranes. Both techniques consist of associating the membrane surface moieties with chemical probes, followed by quantification of the bound probes. Uranyl acetate and toluidine blue O dye, which interact with the membrane functional groups via complexation and electrostatic interaction, respectively, were used as probes. The amount of associated probes was quantified using liquid scintillation counting for uranium atoms and visible light spectroscopy for the toluidine blue dye. The techniques were validated using self-assembled monolayers of alkanethiols with known amounts of charged moieties. The surface density of negatively charged functional groups of hand-cast thin-film composite polyamide membranes, as well as commercial cellulose triacetate and polyamide membranes, was quantified under various conditions. Using both techniques, we measured a negatively charged functional group density of 20-30nm -2 for the hand-cast thin-film composite membranes. The ionization behavior of the membrane functional groups, determined from measurements with toluidine blue at varying pH, was consistent with published data for thin-film composite polyamide membranes. Similarly, the measured charge densities on commercial membranes were in general agreement with previous investigations. The relative simplicity of the two methods makes them a useful tool for quantifying the surface charge concentration of a variety of surfaces, including separation membranes. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

  4. Pion interactions with light nuclei and applications to radiotherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brenner, D.J.

    1979-02-01

    In the light of the current interest in negative pion radiotherapy particle spectra have been obtained after negative pion absorption in oxygen. Using a multiple foil activation technique, measurements were made of neutron spectra from the pion interactions and also from background sources from which it appears that the technique is a potentially useful tool for routine dosimetry. Theoretical predictions are made of the energy spectra of particles emitted after stopped pion absorption on oxygen based on an alpha cluster model and using a plane-wave impulse approximation. A method of considering residual interactions with the nucleus is described which has the potential to treat the low energy particles and also final channels not expected as a result of a single interaction. (UK)

  5. Gendered Teacher–Student Interactions in English Language Classrooms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaleh Hassaskhah

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Being and becoming is the ultimate objective of any educational enterprise, including language teaching. However, research results indicate seemingly unjustified differences between how females and males are treated by EFL (English as a Foreign Language teachers. The overall aim of this study is to illustrate, analyze, and discuss aspects of gender bias and gender awareness in teacher–student interaction in the Iranian college context. To this end, teacher–student interactions of 20 English teachers and 500 students were investigated from the perspective of gender theory. The data were obtained via classroom observations, a seating chart and the audio-recording of all classroom interactions during the study. The findings, obtained from the quantitative descriptive statistics and chi-square methods, as well as the qualitative analysis by way of open and selective coding, uncovered that there were significant differences in the quantity and quality of the interaction for females and males in almost all categories of interaction. The study also revealed teachers’ perception of “gender,” the problems they associate with gender, and the attitudes they have to gender issues. Apparently, while positive incentives are able to facilitate learner growth, the presence of any negative barrier such as gender bias is likely to hinder development. This has implications for teachers, and faculty members who favor healthy and gender-neutral educational climate.

  6. Mapping and characterization of positive and negative BOLD responses to visual stimulation in multiple brain regions at 7T.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jorge, João; Figueiredo, Patrícia; Gruetter, Rolf; van der Zwaag, Wietske

    2018-02-20

    External stimuli and tasks often elicit negative BOLD responses in various brain regions, and growing experimental evidence supports that these phenomena are functionally meaningful. In this work, the high sensitivity available at 7T was explored to map and characterize both positive (PBRs) and negative BOLD responses (NBRs) to visual checkerboard stimulation, occurring in various brain regions within and beyond the visual cortex. Recently-proposed accelerated fMRI techniques were employed for data acquisition, and procedures for exclusion of large draining vein contributions, together with ICA-assisted denoising, were included in the analysis to improve response estimation. Besides the visual cortex, significant PBRs were found in the lateral geniculate nucleus and superior colliculus, as well as the pre-central sulcus; in these regions, response durations increased monotonically with stimulus duration, in tight covariation with the visual PBR duration. Significant NBRs were found in the visual cortex, auditory cortex, default-mode network (DMN) and superior parietal lobule; NBR durations also tended to increase with stimulus duration, but were significantly less sustained than the visual PBR, especially for the DMN and superior parietal lobule. Responses in visual and auditory cortex were further studied for checkerboard contrast dependence, and their amplitudes were found to increase monotonically with contrast, linearly correlated with the visual PBR amplitude. Overall, these findings suggest the presence of dynamic neuronal interactions across multiple brain regions, sensitive to stimulus intensity and duration, and demonstrate the richness of information obtainable when jointly mapping positive and negative BOLD responses at a whole-brain scale, with ultra-high field fMRI. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  7. Interactions of microbicide nanoparticles with a simulated vaginal fluid.

    Science.gov (United States)

    das Neves, José; Rocha, Cristina M R; Gonçalves, Maria Pilar; Carrier, Rebecca L; Amiji, Mansoor; Bahia, Maria Fernanda; Sarmento, Bruno

    2012-11-05

    The interaction with cervicovaginal mucus presents the potential to impact the performance of drug nanocarriers. These systems must migrate through this biological fluid in order to deliver their drug payload to the underlying mucosal surface. We studied the ability of dapivirine-loaded polycaprolactone (PCL)-based nanoparticles (NPs) to interact with a simulated vaginal fluid (SVF) incorporating mucin. Different surface modifiers were used to produce NPs with either negative (poloxamer 338 NF and sodium lauryl sulfate) or positive (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) surface charge. Studies were performed using the mucin particle method, rheological measurements, and real-time multiple particle tracking. Results showed that SVF presented rheological properties similar to those of human cervicovaginal mucus. Analysis of NP transport indicated mild interactions with mucin and low adhesive potential. In general, negatively charged NPs underwent subdiffusive transport in SVF, i.e., hindered as compared to their diffusion in water, but faster than for positively charged NPs. These differences were increased when the pH of SVF was changed from 4.2 to 7.0. Diffusivity was 50- and 172-fold lower in SVF at pH 4.2 than in water for negatively charged and positively charged NPs, respectively. At pH 7.0, this decrease was around 20- and 385-fold, respectively. The estimated times required to cross a layer of SVF were equal to or lower than 1.7 h for negatively charged NPs, while for positively charged NPs these values were equal to or higher than 7 h. Overall, our results suggest that negatively charged PCL NPs may be suitable to be used as carriers in order to deliver dapivirine and potentially other antiretroviral drugs to the cervicovaginal mucosal lining. Also, they further reinforce the importance in characterizing the interactions of nanosystems with mucus fluids or surrogates when considering mucosal drug delivery.

  8. Negative liability

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dari-Mattiacci, G.

    2009-01-01

    Negative and positive externalities pose symmetrical problems to social welfare. The law internalizes negative externalities by providing general tort liability rules. According to such rules, those who cause harm to others should pay compensation. In theory, in the presence of positive

  9. Institutional Regime, Off-Farm Employment, and the Interaction Effect: What are the Determinants of Households’ Forestland Transfer in China?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Han Zhang

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available The development of the land rental market has been widely attributed to the associated institutional regime and the functioning of the off-farm labor market. However, little is known of the interaction effect of these two factors. To fill this gap, we employ a nationwide representative household dataset to investigate the effects of China’s collective forest tenure reform (CFTR and off-farm employment on forestland transfer in China. Special interest is focused on their potential interaction effect. The Smith-Blundell instrumental variable tobit model is adopted to account for the endogeneity of off-farm employment. The estimation results show that both the tenure reform and off-farm employment significantly influence forestland transactions. However, compared to the positive effect of the reform on both renting in and renting out forestland, the effect of off-farm employment is mixed, that is, its effect is negative when forestland is rented in but positive on rent-out decisions. An important finding is that the CFTR imposes a negative enhancement effect on forestland rent-in through its interaction term with off-farm employment. In contrast, the enhancement effect on rent-out is not statistically significant, which may be due to the neutralization by the endowment effect of the CFTR.

  10. The Negative Effects of Prejudice on Interpersonal Relationships within Adolescent Peer Groups

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poteat, V. Paul; Mereish, Ethan H.; Birkett, Michelle

    2015-01-01

    Social development theories highlight the centrality of peer groups during adolescence and their role in socializing attitudes and behaviors. In this longitudinal study, we tested the effects of group-level prejudice on ensuing positive and negative interpersonal interactions among peers over a 7-month period. We used social network analysis to…

  11. Positive Social Support, Negative Social Exchanges, and Suicidal Behavior in College Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirsch, Jameson K.; Barton, Alison L.

    2011-01-01

    Objective: Risk for suicide is often higher among college students, compared to same-age noncollegiate peers, and may be exacerbated by quality of social support and interactions. The authors examined the independent contributions of positive social support and negative social exchanges to suicide ideation and attempts in college students.…

  12. ROCS: a Reproducibility Index and Confidence Score for Interaction Proteomics Studies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dazard Jean-Eudes

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Affinity-Purification Mass-Spectrometry (AP-MS provides a powerful means of identifying protein complexes and interactions. Several important challenges exist in interpreting the results of AP-MS experiments. First, the reproducibility of AP-MS experimental replicates can be low, due both to technical variability and the dynamic nature of protein interactions in the cell. Second, the identification of true protein-protein interactions in AP-MS experiments is subject to inaccuracy due to high false negative and false positive rates. Several experimental approaches can be used to mitigate these drawbacks, including the use of replicated and control experiments and relative quantification to sensitively distinguish true interacting proteins from false ones. Methods To address the issues of reproducibility and accuracy of protein-protein interactions, we introduce a two-step method, called ROCS, which makes use of Indicator Prey Proteins to select reproducible AP-MS experiments, and of Confidence Scores to select specific protein-protein interactions. The Indicator Prey Proteins account for measures of protein identifiability as well as protein reproducibility, effectively allowing removal of outlier experiments that contribute noise and affect downstream inferences. The filtered set of experiments is then used in the Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI scoring step. Prey protein scoring is done by computing a Confidence Score, which accounts for the probability of occurrence of prey proteins in the bait experiments relative to the control experiment, where the significance cutoff parameter is estimated by simultaneously controlling false positives and false negatives against metrics of false discovery rate and biological coherence respectively. In summary, the ROCS method relies on automatic objective criterions for parameter estimation and error-controlled procedures. Results We illustrate the performance of our method by applying

  13. Social interactions through the eyes of macaques and humans.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard McFarland

    Full Text Available Group-living primates frequently interact with each other to maintain social bonds as well as to compete for valuable resources. Observing such social interactions between group members provides individuals with essential information (e.g. on the fighting ability or altruistic attitude of group companions to guide their social tactics and choice of social partners. This process requires individuals to selectively attend to the most informative content within a social scene. It is unclear how non-human primates allocate attention to social interactions in different contexts, and whether they share similar patterns of social attention to humans. Here we compared the gaze behaviour of rhesus macaques and humans when free-viewing the same set of naturalistic images. The images contained positive or negative social interactions between two conspecifics of different phylogenetic distance from the observer; i.e. affiliation or aggression exchanged by two humans, rhesus macaques, Barbary macaques, baboons or lions. Monkeys directed a variable amount of gaze at the two conspecific individuals in the images according to their roles in the interaction (i.e. giver or receiver of affiliation/aggression. Their gaze distribution to non-conspecific individuals was systematically varied according to the viewed species and the nature of interactions, suggesting a contribution of both prior experience and innate bias in guiding social attention. Furthermore, the monkeys' gaze behavior was qualitatively similar to that of humans, especially when viewing negative interactions. Detailed analysis revealed that both species directed more gaze at the face than the body region when inspecting individuals, and attended more to the body region in negative than in positive social interactions. Our study suggests that monkeys and humans share a similar pattern of role-sensitive, species- and context-dependent social attention, implying a homologous cognitive mechanism of

  14. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) -TrKB signaling modulates cancer-endothelial cells interaction and affects the outcomes of triple negative breast cancer.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsai, Yi-Fang; Tseng, Ling-Ming; Hsu, Chih-Yi; Yang, Muh-Hwa; Chiu, Jen-Hwey; Shyr, Yi-Ming

    2017-01-01

    There is good evidence that the tumor microenvironment plays an important role in cancer metastasis and progression. Our previous studies have shown that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) participates in the process of metastasis and in the migration of cancer cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of BDNF on the tumor cell microenvironment, namely, the cancer cell-endothelial cell interaction of TNBC cells. We conducted oligoneucleotide microarray analysis of potential biomarkers that are able to differentiate recurrent TNBC from non-recurrent TNBC. The MDA-MB-231 and human endothelial HUVEC lines were used for this study and our approaches included functional studies, such as migration assay, as well as Western blot and real-time PCR analysis of migration and angiogenic signaling. In addition, we analyzed the survival outcome of TNBC breast cancer patients according to their expression level of BDNF using clinical samples. The results demonstrated that BDNF was able to bring about autocrinal (MDA-MB-231) and paracrinal (HUVECs) regulation of BDNF-TrkB gene expression and this affected cell migratory activity. The BDNF-induced migratory activity was blocked by inhibitors of ERK, PI3K and TrkB when MDA-MB-231 cells were examined, but only an inhibitor of ERK blocked this activity when HUVEC cells were used. Furthermore, decreased migratory activity was found for △BDNF and △TrkB cell lines. Ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) of MDA-MB-231 cells showed that BDNF is a key factor that is able to regulate a network made up of metalloproteases and calmodulin. Protein expression levels in a tissue array of tumor slices were found to be correlated with patient prognosis and the results showed that there was significant correlation of TrkB expression, but not of BDNF. expressionwith patient DFS and OS. Our study demonstrates that up-regulation of the BDNF signaling pathway seems tobe involved in the mechanism associated with early recurrence in

  15. Uniaxial Negative Thermal Expansion, Negative Linear Compressibility, and Negative Poisson's Ratio Induced by Specific Topology in Zn[Au(CN)2]2.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Lei; Luo, Hubin; Deng, Shenghua; Sun, Ying; Wang, Cong

    2017-12-18

    The well-known idea of "structure determines properties" can be understood profoundly in the case of hexagonal zinc dicyanometalate. Using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show the uniaxial negative thermal expansion (NTE) and negative linear compressibility (NLC) properties of Zn[Au(CN) 2 ] 2 . The temperature dependence of phonon frequencies within the quasi-harmonic approximation (QHA) is investigated. The abnormal phonon hardening (frequency increase on heating) is detected in the ranges of 0-225, 320-345, and 410-430 cm -1 , which can be indicative of the unusual physical properties of Zn[Au(CN) 2 ] 2 . Due to the significance of low-energy phonon frequencies in Zn[Au(CN) 2 ] 2 , in this work, the corresponding vibrational mode of the lowest-frequency optical phonon at the zone center is analyzed. The specific topology of a springlike framework that will produce the effects of a compressed spring on heating and an extended spring under hydrostatic pressure is identified and leads to the coexistence of uniaxial-NTE and NLC behaviors in Zn[Au(CN) 2 ] 2 . The distinguishing phonon group velocity along the a axis and c axis facilitates different responses for both the axes under temperature and hydrostatic pressure field. Through an analysis and visualization of the spatial dependence of elastic tensors, it is found that a negative Poisson's ratio (NPR) is presented in all projection planes due to the specific topology.

  16. Negative Symptom Dimensions of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale Across Geographical Regions: Implications for Social, Linguistic, and Cultural Consistency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khan, Anzalee; Liharska, Lora; Harvey, Philip D; Atkins, Alexandra; Ulshen, Daniel; Keefe, Richard S E

    2017-12-01

    Objective: Recognizing the discrete dimensions that underlie negative symptoms in schizophrenia and how these dimensions are understood across localities might result in better understanding and treatment of these symptoms. To this end, the objectives of this study were to 1) identify the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptom dimensions of expressive deficits and experiential deficits and 2) analyze performance on these dimensions over 15 geographical regions to determine whether the items defining them manifest similar reliability across these regions. Design: Data were obtained for the baseline Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale visits of 6,889 subjects across 15 geographical regions. Using confirmatory factor analysis, we examined whether a two-factor negative symptom structure that is found in schizophrenia (experiential deficits and expressive deficits) would be replicated in our sample, and using differential item functioning, we tested the degree to which specific items from each negative symptom subfactor performed across geographical regions in comparison with the United States. Results: The two-factor negative symptom solution was replicated in this sample. Most geographical regions showed moderate-to-large differential item functioning for Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale expressive deficit items, especially N3 Poor Rapport, as compared with Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale experiential deficit items, showing that these items might be interpreted or scored differently in different regions. Across countries, except for India, the differential item functioning values did not favor raters in the United States. Conclusion: These results suggest that the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptom factor can be better represented by a two-factor model than by a single-factor model. Additionally, the results show significant differences in responses to items representing the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale expressive

  17. Negative affect reduces performance in implicit sequence learning.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Junchen Shang

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: It is well documented that positive rather than negative moods encourage integrative processing of conscious information. However, the extent to which implicit or unconscious learning can be influenced by affective states remains unclear. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A Serial Reaction Time (SRT task with sequence structures requiring integration over past trials was adopted to examine the effect of affective states on implicit learning. Music was used to induce and maintain positive and negative affective states. The present study showed that participants in negative rather than positive states learned less of the regularity. Moreover, the knowledge was shown by a Bayesian analysis to be largely unconscious as participants were poor at recognizing the regularity. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The results demonstrated that negative rather than positive affect inhibited implicit learning of complex structures. Our findings help to understand the effects of affective states on unconscious or implicit processing.

  18. Investigation of a large volume negative hydrogen ion source

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Courteille, C.; Bruneteau, A.M.; Bacal, M.

    1995-01-01

    The electron and negative ion densities and temperatures are reported for a large volume hybrid multicusp negative ion source. Based on the scaling laws an analysis is made of the plasma formation and loss processes. It is shown that the positive ions are predominantly lost to the walls, although the observed scaling law is n + ∝I 0.57 d . However, the total plasma loss scales linearly with the discharge current, in agreement with the theoretical model. The negative ion formation and loss is also discussed. It is shown that at low pressure (1 mTorr) the negative ion wall loss becomes a significant part of the total loss. The dependence of n - /n e versus the electron temperature is reported. When the negative ion wall loss is negligible, all the data on n - /n e versus the electron temperatures fit a single curve. copyright 1995 American Institute of Physics

  19. Influence of affective significance on different levels of processing using pupil dilation in an analogical reasoning task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prehn, Kristin; Heekeren, Hauke R; van der Meer, Elke

    2011-02-01

    The present study investigates the interaction of cognition and emotion in decision making, using an analogical reasoning task. In this task, two word pairs were presented simultaneously. Each word pair could be characterized by an associative conceptual relation (object, actor, or location relation) as well as an emotional relation (negative, neutral, or positive valence). Both types of relations were equally task-relevant: Participants had to identify both types of relations, to compare them, and to decide whether or not the word pairs were analogous, i.e., corresponding in both conceptual and emotional relations. Behavioral data showed that emotional relations were identified preferentially and faster than conceptual relations. Pupil dilations reflected the descending difficulty of the conditions and were greatest in amplitude when both conceptual and emotional correspondence was shown, intermediate when only one type of relation (either the emotional or the conceptual) corresponded, and least when neither correspondence existed. Additionally, a negative valence of the word material slowed down response times and increased pupil dilation relative to positive and neutral items. In summary, pupil and response time data together support recent (neurobiological) models concerning the interaction of emotion and cognition by showing that affective significance leads to a processing advantage at a cognitively lower level of information processing (here, identification or retrieval of relations from long-term memory) but can also distract people from higher level cognitive processes (here, from the controlled comparison of retrieved relations). Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Physical principles of the surface plasma method for producing beams of negative ions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bel'chenko, Yu.I.; Dimov, G.I.; Dudnikov, V.G.

    1977-01-01

    The processes which are important for the production of intense beams of negative ions from surface plasma sources (SPS) are examined. The formation of negative ions when atomic particles interact with a surface is analyzed on the basis of both experimental results obtained when a surface was bombarded with beams and recently developed theoretical considerations of reflection, scattering, and electron exchange. The characteristic features of these processes in SPS, when a surface is bombarded with intense fluxes of plasma particles, are revealed in special experiments. The characteristics of generation and acceleration of the bombarding particles in a gas discharge SPS plasma, the characteristics of transportation of negative ions through the plasma toward the beam forming system, the role of cesium in SPS, and the characteristics of formation of the intense negative ion beams as well as the removal of parasite electrons from the beam