Misinformation increases symptom reporting: a test – retest study

OBJECTIVES: We examined whether misleading information (i.e. misinformation) may promote symptom reporting in non-clinical participants. DESIGN: A test-retest study in which we collected baseline data about participants' psychological symptoms and then misinformed them that they had rated two target symptoms relatively highly. During an interview, we determined whether participants would notice this misinformation and at direct and one-week follow-up, we evaluated whether the misinformation would exacerbate retest measures of the same symptoms. SETTING: A psychological laboratory. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 78 undergraduate students. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Participants' scores on a widely used self-report measure of psychological symptoms. RESULTS: We found that most participants (63%) were blind to the discrepancies between their original symptom ratings and the upgraded scores they were misinformed with. Furthermore, at the one-week follow-up retest, blind participants revised their symptom ratings in the direction of the misinformation (i.e. they increased their ratings of these symptoms). CONCLUSION: Introspective monitoring of common psychological symptoms is poor and this creates an opportunity for misinformation and symptom escalation. Our finding bears relevance to theories about the iatrogenic amplification of medically unexplained symptoms

Relationships Among Women's Menopausal Life-cycle Stages, Occupational Experiences & Health

Writers in the popular and academic press indicate that women are seeking information about their life cycle and corresponding changes upon their life roles. The purpose of this research was to explore and describe how women’s menopausal life-cycle stages of development relate to their health through occupational experiences of burnout, job involvement, and hardiness. Approximately 700 Registered Nurses responded to the Women’s Health Occupational and Life Experiences (WHOLE) Profile. Significant findings were found between pre and post-menopausal (but not peri-menopausal) life-cycle stages and health. No significant correlations were found between menopausal life-cycle stages and the variables of burnout, job involvement and hardiness. Significant differences were found between health ailments and burnout and hardiness, between chronic illnesses and hardiness, between age and job involvement and hardiness, as well as number of children and job involvement. The findings indicated that about 40% of the participants were experiencing a high degree of burnout, 43% demonstrated active job involvement, and36% showed high hardiness

An InP-based HEMT and HBT MMIC production line

We report the development of an InP-based monolithic microwave integrated circuit production line to provide InP HEMT and InP HBT MMICs for both government and commercial applications. This three-inch fabrication facility was originally developed to produce high-performance InP HEMT and InP HBT MMICs specifically designed for government applications. Recent examples of performance capability include InP HEMT low-noise MMIC amplifiers with 12 dB gain at 155 Ghz, and the first fundamental frequency 94 Ghz HBT oscillator. However, InP-hased heterojunction devices also provide specific advantages for some high-volume commercial applications. We present here the production and performance results of InP HEMT and HBT MMICs for governmnent and commercial applications