Tensile microstrain properties of telescope mirror materials

Microstrain tensile tests of three nonmetallic telescope mirror material

Reduced specificity of personal goals and explanations for goal attainment in major depression.

Published onlineJournal ArticleOBJECTIVES: Overgeneralization has been investigated across many domains of cognitive functioning in major depression, including the imagination of future events. However, it is unknown whether this phenomenon extends to representations of personal goals, which are important in structuring long-term behaviour and providing meaning in life. Furthermore, it is not clear whether depressed individuals provide less specific explanations for and against goal attainment. METHOD: Clinically depressed individuals and controls generated personally important approach and avoidance goals, and then generated explanations why they would and would not achieve these goals. Goals and causal explanations were subsequently coded as either specific or general. RESULTS: Compared to controls, depressed individuals did not generate significantly fewer goals or causal explanations for or against goal attainment. However, compared to controls, depressed individuals generated less specific goals, less specific explanations for approach (but not avoidance) goal attainment, and less specific explanations for goal nonattainment. SIGNIFICANCE: Our results suggest that motivational deficits in depression may stem partly from a reduction in the specificity of personal goal representations and related cognitions that support goal-directed behaviour. Importantly, the findings have the potential to inform the ongoing development of psychotherapeutic approaches in the treatment of depression

When the ends outweigh the means: mood and level of identification in depression.

Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tCopyright © 2011 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa businessResearch in healthy controls has found that mood influences cognitive processing via level of action identification: happy moods are associated with global and abstract processing; sad moods are associated with local and concrete processing. However, this pattern seems inconsistent with the high level of abstract processing observed in depressed patients, leading Watkins (2008, 2010) to hypothesise that the association between mood and level of goal/action identification is impaired in depression. We tested this hypothesis by measuring level of identification on the Behavioural Identification Form after happy and sad mood inductions in never-depressed controls and currently depressed patients. Participants used increasingly concrete action identifications as they became sadder and less happy, but this effect was moderated by depression status. Consistent with Watkins' (2008) hypothesis, increases in sad mood and decreases in happiness were associated with shifts towards the use of more concrete action identifications in never-depressed individuals, but not in depressed patients. These findings suggest that the putatively adaptive association between mood and level of identification is impaired in major depression

Ruminative Self-Focus and Negative Affect: An Experience Sampling Study

The authors conducted an experience sampling study to investigate the relationship between momentary ruminative self-focus and negative affect. Ninety-three adults recorded these variables at quasi-random intervals 8 times daily for 1 week. Scores on questionnaire measures of dispositional rumination were associated with mean levels of momentary ruminative self-focus over the experience sampling week. Concurrently, momentary ruminative self-focus was positively associated with negative affect. Cross-lagged analyses revealed that whereas ruminative self-focus predicted negative affect at a subsequent occasion, negative affect also predicted ruminative self-focus at a subsequent occasion. Decomposition of the dispositional rumination measure suggested that brooding, but not reflective pondering, was associated with higher mean levels of negative affect. Though broadly consistent with Nolen-Hoeksema's (1991) response styles theory, these results suggest that a reciprocal relationship exists between ruminative self-focus and negative affect

Processing mode causally influences emotional reactivity: distinct effects of abstract versus concrete construal on emotional response.

addresses: Mood Disorders Centre, School of Psychology, University of Exeter, UK. [email protected]: PMCID: PMC2672048types: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tThis is a postprint of an article published in Emotion © 2008 copyright American Psychological Association. 'This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.' Emotion is available online at: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/emo/index.aspxThree studies are reported showing that emotional responses to stress can be modified by systematic prior practice in adopting particular processing modes. Participants were induced to think about positive and negative scenarios in a mode either characteristic of or inconsistent with the abstract-evaluative mind-set observed in depressive rumination, via explicit instructions (Experiments 1 and 2) and via implicit induction of interpretative biases (Experiment 3), before being exposed to a failure experience. In all three studies, participants trained into the mode antithetical to depressive rumination demonstrated less emotional reactivity following failure than participants trained into the mode consistent with depressive rumination. These findings provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that processing mode modifies emotional reactivity and support the processing-mode theory of rumination

Depressed people are not less motivated by personal goals but are more pessimistic about attaining them

This is a postprint of an article published in Journal of Abnormal Psychology © 2011 copyright American Psychological Association. 'This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.' Journal of Abnormal Psychology is available online at: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/abn/index.aspxDespite its theoretical importance, personal goal motivation has rarely been examined in clinical depression. Here we investigate whether clinically depressed persons (n = 23) differ from never-depressed persons (n = 26) on number of freely generated approach and avoidance goals, appraisals of these goals, and reasons why these goals would and would not be achieved. Participants listed approach and avoidance goals separately and generated explanations for why they would (pro) and would not (con) achieve their most important approach and avoidance goals, before rating the importance, likelihood, and perceived control of goal outcomes. Counter to hypothesis, depressed persons did not differ from never-depressed controls on number of approach or avoidance goals, or on the perceived importance of these goals. However, compared to never-depressed controls, depressed individuals gave lower likelihood judgments for desirable approach goal outcomes, tended to give higher likelihood judgments for undesirable to-be-avoided goal outcomes, and gave lower ratings of their control over goal outcomes. Furthermore, although controls generated significantly more pro than con reasons for goal achievement, depressed participants did not. These results suggest that depressed persons do not lack valued goals but are more pessimistic about their likelihood, controllability, and reasons for successful goal attainment

Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine Learning: an open access tutorial for practitioners and students

EBVM Learning, an open access online tutorial, has been developed to support the teaching of evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM).  This paper provides the project background and teaching examples.  The authors request JEAHIL readers share this resource with colleagues who support evidence-based practices including veterinary medicine

Development of a Value-Added Database of Evaluated Systematic Reviews in Veterinary Medicine: DVM Evidence

Objectives: This presentation will describe the development of the Database of Veterinary Medicine Evidence (DVM Evidence). The database was created by collecting, annotating, and evaluating systematic reviews and meta-analyses of relevance to veterinary medicine. Methods: The process includes four steps, similar to conducting a systematic review: identification, selection, appraisal, and data abstraction. Identification includes searching bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, Cab Abstracts, and more), grey literature, and expert selected list of conference proceedings and journal titles. The selection and appraisal process was completed independently by 2 team members, with disagreements settled by consensus. The appraisal process utilized AMSTAR and PRISMA. The data abstraction form includes citation, review question, inclusion criteria, topic, resources searched, and list of included primary studies. The database will be open access and browsable by species, specialty area, and type of study as well as searchable by keywords, author(s), journal titles, and year. Collaboration will be sought with librarians, researchers, and veterinarians to add in various perspectives. Results: A pilot group of 20 studies was selected by the team’s systematic review expert based on criteria designed to facilitate training team members in appraisal, coding, and testing the coding form. The coding form which incorporates AMSTAR, PRISMA, and custom questions, was developed in Qualtrics, a subscription based survey tool. Although initially the survey format of Qualtrics had some promise as a tool for the coding form, several issues were found during the pilot phase. The team decided to build a custom form that provides more flexibility with importing and exporting data to and from the database, and more control in the desired outcome of the resource. The team chose MySQL for the database management system, and PHP as the scripting language, because these software are supported by the library IT department, powerful and flexible enough to accomplish the tasks, and common enough for others to adapt them as the database evolves and personnel change occurs. Graduate students, selected for their expertise with MySQL and PHP, created the database and public interfaces with design input from team members. During each step of the process, the team considered needs of potential external evaluators. Conclusions: Developing a systematic review database of this complexity takes a team with a variety of skills, strategic planning, and frequent checkpoints along the way. The next step will focus on the usability of the custom made form and the search interface with external evaluators