A Group Level of Aspiration Technique as a Measure of Personality Rigidity

The problem of personality rigidity or the persistence of maladaptive behavior is becoming increasingly important in our culture. As part of a series of studies of the Preventive Psychiatry Project of the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station concerning this variable, it was decided to develop a group level of aspiration technique which would provide an operational measure of this concept. Inherent in such a technique is the opportunity for the subject to make numerous shifts of his goal level. The capacity to change goals in the light of new experience is an integral aspect of flexibility, and conversely an inability to shift goals may be an expression of rigidity. Most level of aspiration tasks are individually administered and data collection is a slow process. Those level of aspiration situations (4) which are group administered lack criterion validity. A valid group level of aspiration technique would, therefore, offer the advantages of more rapid and more extensive sampling, without loss of the predictive value of the individual task. If this group level of aspiration technique provides a valid measure of rigidity, it is predicted that those subjects considered highly rigid in terms of this measure would tend to receive higher scores on the California Ethnocentrism Scale (1) and could also be discriminated from flexible subjects on a Short Form of the Wesley Rigidity Scale (11). Another cross validation of the group level of aspiration technique as a measure of rigidity would be a high degree of relationship with a generally accepted, standard, individual level of aspiration technique, in this case the Rotter Board. In addition, if this group form meets the criteria of an adequate level of aspiration situation, a positive correlation should exist between goal setting behavior in these two distinct tasks

Situation Differences in Punitiveness of Iowa School Children

The present report is part of a larger study in which punitiveness of grade school children was found to be related to certain facets of what is commonly called the authoritarian personality. Punitiveness was measured by means of hypothetical situations involving transgressions by children. The subject is asked to prescribe the proper action to be taken against the transgressor by adults or peers involved. The test consists of 28 such problem situations each having six possible choices of action of which three are classed as punitive and three non-punitive. Punitive action includes physical and verbal punishments, coercion, and deprivation

Studies in Intolerance of Ambiguity, II: The Effects of Set on the Decision-Location Test

Recent interest among personality theorists has centered around the proposed variable tolerance-intolerance of ambiguity. Tolerance-intolerance of ambiguity or simply intolerance of ambiguity as it is commonly called, was put forth by Frenkel-Brunswik as the unifying concept of the syndrome of the so-called authoritarian personality (Frenkel-Brunswik, 19+9). According to Frenkel-Brunswik, the individual who is intolerant of ambiguity tends to use black-white solutions of problems, both cognitive and interpersonal, and to subdivide the phenomena he encounters into strict categories and dichotomies rather than to view them as continua. He has a tendency to avoid ambiguous and unstructured situations, but upon finding himself in the midst of such circumstances, will subjectively structure the situation as soon as possible, even if the structuring conflicts drastically with reality. Following from this theoretical description, it has been hypothesized (Levitt, 1952) that the intolerant of ambiguity person tends to believe popular misconceptions and superstitions since such misbeliefs flourish in an atmosphere of ambiguity. Recent studies have attempted, with some success, to relate operational measures of intolerance of ambiguity to measures of ethnocentrism and authoritarianism in adults. One study (Levitt, 1953) has demonstrated that a perceptual measure of intolerance of ambiguity is related both to a measure of authoritarianism and to belief in popular misconceptions in grade school children. The perceptual measure is called the Decision-Location Test (DLT), and is adequately described by the instructions to subjects taking the test

Acute Stroke, Hematocrit, and Blood Pressure.

A population-based study of the relation between hematocrit and stroke subtype was carried out among 2,077 individuals using the Lehigh Valley Stroke Register. This register identifies all stroke patients admitted to the 8 acute care hospitals serving the Lehigh Valley area of eastern Pennsylvania-western New Jersey. The mean hematocrit was higher in patients with lacunes than with thrombotic or embolic strokes (p = 0.02). However, when blood pressure was also considered the increase in hematocrit in patients with lacunar stroke was significant only when systolic hypertension (greater than or equal to 150 mm Hg) was also present (p = 0.029); no significant difference in hematocrit was found between stroke subtypes in normotensive individuals. Therefore, we cannot exclude the possibility that hypertension interacts with hematocrit in accounting for the observed association with lacunar infarcts. There was no trend for increased in-hospital mortality for stroke patients in either the low (less than or equal to 30, 30-36%) or high (greater than or equal to 47%) hematocrit groups

Impact of human CA8 on thermal antinociception in relation to morphine equivalence in mice

Recently, we showed that murine dorsal root ganglion (DRG) Car8 expression is a cis-regulated eQTL that determines analgesic responses. In this report, we show that transduction through sciatic nerve injection of DRG with human wild-type carbonic anhydrase-8 using adeno-associated virus viral particles (AAV8-V5-CA8WT) produces analgesia in naive male C57BL/6J mice and antihyperalgesia after carrageenan treatment. A peak mean increase of about 4 s in thermal hindpaw withdrawal latency equaled increases in thermal withdrawal latency produced by 10 mg/kg intraperitoneal morphine in these mice. Allometric conversion of this intraperitoneal morphine dose in mice equals an oral morphine dose of about 146 mg in a 60-kg adult. Our work quantifies for the first time analgesia and antihyperalgesia in an inflammatory pain model after DRG transduction by CA8 gene therapy

Anyonic interferometry and protected memories in atomic spin lattices

Strongly correlated quantum systems can exhibit exotic behavior called topological order which is characterized by non-local correlations that depend on the system topology. Such systems can exhibit remarkable phenomena such as quasi-particles with anyonic statistics and have been proposed as candidates for naturally fault-tolerant quantum computation. Despite these remarkable properties, anyons have never been observed in nature directly. Here we describe how to unambiguously detect and characterize such states in recently proposed spin lattice realizations using ultra-cold atoms or molecules trapped in an optical lattice. We propose an experimentally feasible technique to access non-local degrees of freedom by performing global operations on trapped spins mediated by an optical cavity mode. We show how to reliably read and write topologically protected quantum memory using an atomic or photonic qubit. Furthermore, our technique can be used to probe statistics and dynamics of anyonic excitations.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Understanding and acting on the developmental origins of health and disease in Africa would improve health across generations.

Data from many high- and low- or middle-income countries have linked exposures during key developmental periods (in particular pregnancy and infancy) to later health and disease. Africa faces substantial challenges with persisting infectious disease and now burgeoning non-communicable disease.This paper opens the debate to the value of strengthening the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) research focus in Africa to tackle critical public health challenges across the life-course. We argue that the application of DOHaD science in Africa to advance life-course prevention programmes can aid the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and assist in improving health across generations. To increase DOHaD research and its application in Africa, we need to mobilise multisectoral partners, utilise existing data and expertise on the continent, and foster a new generation of young African scientists engrossed in DOHaD