Self-concealment as a predictor of psychotherapy outcome.

Psychotherapy research is aimed at discovering factors and mechanisms that influence therapy outcome to guide provision of effective treatment. One client factor that has received recent attention is self-concealment, which is a predisposition to actively conceal from others personal information that one perceives as distressing or negative (Larson & Chastain, 1990). Self-concealment has been studied in relation to attitudes toward therapy, willingness to seek therapy, and therapeutic progress. The findings, however, have been inconclusive and researchers have not studied self-concealment in relation to therapy outcome. The objective of the present study was to examine the relationship between self-concealment and distress and between change in these variables over the course of psychotherapy. The relationship between self-concealment, therapy duration and client demographics also was examined. Participants who attended outpatient psychotherapy at University of Windsor\u27s Psychological Services Centre completed questionnaires at therapy intake and termination assessing self-concealment, global distress, depression, and state and trait anxiety. Correlation and multivariate regression analyses found that participants\u27 self-concealment tendencies and levels of general distress, depression, and anxiety reduced from pre- to post-therapy. Although intake self-concealment was linked to intake distress, intake self-concealment was not found to be associated with termination distress, reduction in distress, premature termination from therapy, or therapist rating of client change. In contrast, reduction in self-concealment uniquely predicted reduction of all distress measures even after accounting for gender, intake distress and therapy duration. Post-hoc analyses revealed that self-concealment reduction also predicted a clinically significant reduction in global distress. This study\u27s findings serve as a preliminary step in understanding the relationship between self-concealment, psychological distress, and psychotherapy outcome.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2003 .W55. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-07, Section: B, page: 3734. Adviser: James Porter. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2004

Dynamical Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov Theory of Vortices in Bose-Einstein Condensates at Finite Temperature

We present a method utilizing the continuity equation for the condensate density to make predictions of the precessional frequency of single off-axis vortices and of vortex arrays in Bose-Einstein condensates at finite temperature. We also present an orthogonalized Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) formalism. We solve the continuity equation for the condensate density self-consistently with the orthogonalized HFB equations, and find stationary solutions in the frame rotating at this frequency. As an example of the utility of this formalism we obtain time-independent solutions for quasi-two-dimensional rotating systems in the co-rotating frame. We compare these results with time-dependent predictions where we simulate stirring of the condensate.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 1 tabl

Adiabatic Quantum Search in Open Systems

Adiabatic quantum algorithms represent a promising approach to universal quantum computation. Whilst in a closed system these algorithms are limited by avoided level crossings, where the gap becomes exponentially small in the system size, their robustness in open systems remains unresolved. We study the dynamics in the proximity of such an avoided level crossing associated with the adiabatic quantum search algorithm in a quantum system that is coupled to a generic environment. At zero temperature, we find that the algorithm remains scalable provided the noise spectral density of the environment decays sufficiently fast at low frequencies. At finite temperature, however, scattering processes render the algorithm inefficient and no quantum speedup can be achieved. Owing to the generic nature of our model, we expect our results to be widely applicable to other adiabatic quantum algorithms.Comment: Accepted version. 6 pages, 2 figures, 10 pages supplemental material

Clouds, photolysis and regional tropospheric ozone budgets.

We use a three-dimensional chemical transport model to examine the shortwave radiative effects of clouds on the tropospheric ozone budget. In addition to looking at changes in global concentrations as previous studies have done, we examine changes in ozone chemical production and loss caused by clouds and how these vary in different parts of the troposphere. On a global scale, we find that clouds have a modest effect on ozone chemistry, but on a regional scale their role is much more significant, with the size of the response dependent on the region. The largest averaged changes in chemical budgets (±10–14%) are found in the marine troposphere, where cloud optical depths are high. We demonstrate that cloud effects are small on average in the middle troposphere because this is a transition region between reduction and enhancement in photolysis rates. We show that increases in boundary layer ozone due to clouds are driven by large-scale changes in downward ozone transport from higher in the troposphere rather than by decreases in in-situ ozone chemical loss rates. Increases in upper tropospheric ozone are caused by higher production rates due to backscattering of radiation and consequent increases in photolysis rates, mainly J(NO2). The global radiative effect of clouds on isoprene, through decreases of OH in the lower troposphere, is stronger than on ozone. Tropospheric isoprene lifetime increases by 7% when taking clouds into account. We compare the importance of clouds in contributing to uncertainties in the global ozone budget with the role of other radiatively-important factors. The budget is most sensitive to the overhead ozone column, while surface albedo and clouds have smaller effects. However, uncertainty in representing the spatial distribution of clouds may lead to a large sensitivity of the ozone budget components on regional scales