Stereotypes and terror management: evidence that mortality salience enhances stereotypic thinking and preferences.

If stereotypes function to protect people against death-related concerns, then mortality salience should increase stereotypic thinking and preferences for stereotype-confirming individuals. Study 1 demonstrated that mortality salience increased stereotyping of Germans. In Study 2, it increased participants' tendency to generate more explanations for stereotype-inconsistent than stereotype-consistent gender role behavior.

Motor and sensory function of the proximal stomach in reflux disease and after laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication.

Objective: After Nissen fundoplication, dyspeptic symptoms such as fullness and early satiety develop in >30% of patients. These symptoms may result from alterations in proximal gastric motor and sensory function.

Methods: We have evaluated proximal gastric motor and sensory function using an electronic barostat in 12 patients after successful laparoscopic Nissen fundoplications (median follow-up; 12 months).

Metabolic regulation of cardiac output during inhalation anaesthesia in dogs.

Background: The metabolic regulation of tissue blood flow manifests itself in a linear relation between blood flow and oxygen consumption, the latter being the independent variable. It is unknown, however, if this fundamental physiological principle operates also during inhalation anaesthesia known to be associated with decreases in both cardiac output (Q) and oxygen consumption (VO2).

Methods: Seven dogs (23-32 kg) with chronically implanted flow probes around the pulmonary artery were repeatedly anaesthetized with halothane, enflurane, isoflurane, sevoflurane, and desflurane at increasing minimum alveolar concentrations (1-3 MAC).

The effect of midazolam on the modality-match effect in implicit memory.

Prominent theories of implicit memory claim that perceptual processes play a central role in implicit memory. The modality-match effect, the finding that priming is greater when the modality of stimulus presentation matches at study and test, provides the central evidence for these approaches. In this paper we use the benzodiazepine, midazolam, to explore the nature of the modality-match effect in implicit memory.

Incidence and time course of cardiovascular side effects during spinal anesthesia after prophylactic administration of intravenous fluids or vasoconstrictors.

Unlabelled: We studied the time course of arterial hypotension and/or bradycardia requiring treatment during spinal anesthesia and compared the efficacy of i.v. fluid or vasoconstrictor administration for the prevention of these side effects.

Error in measurement of oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations by the DeltatracII metabolic monitor in the presence of desflurane.

In experiments in dogs on the metabolic effects of inhalation anaesthetics, we noticed that in the presence of desflurane, oxygen uptake (VO2) measured with the Deltatracll metabolic monitor seemingly increased whereas it decreased when determined independently by the Fick principle. This difference remained even after correction for changes in gas concentration on addition of an inhalation anaesthetic. Therefore, we suspected that desflurane interferes with the measurement of gas concentrations.

Terror management and meaning: evidence that the opportunity to defend the worldview in response to mortality salience increases the meaningfulness of life in the mildly depressed.

Previous terror management research has demonstrated that mildly depressed participants show a greater increase in worldview defense in response to reminders of their mortality than do nondepressed participants. Because the cultural worldview is posited to provide a meaningful conception of life, we hypothesized that mildly depressed participants who defend their worldview in response to mortality salience (MS) would increase their perception that the world is meaningful. A preliminary study first examined the Kunzendorf No Meaning Scale as a measure to assess perceptions of meaning.

Bronchial temperature reflects transcapillary heat transport of isolated blood-perfused rabbit lungs.

The pulmonary capillaries are in such close proximity to the terminal airways that changes in capillary blood temperature should also cause changes in bronchial wall temperature. Therefore, we hypothesized that injection of cold solutions into the pulmonary artery would yield bronchial temperature-time curves similar to those in the pulmonary artery and left atrium. These bronchial curves should mainly represent the capillary bed.

Terror management and aggression: evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others.

The hypothesis that mortality salience (MS) motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others was tested in 4 studies. In Study 1, the experimenters induced participants to write about either their own death or a control topic, presented them with a target who either disparaged their political views or did not, and gave them the opportunity to choose the amount of hot sauce the target would have to consume. As predicted, MS participants allocated a particularly large amount of hot sauce to the worldview-threatening target.

Pulmonary blood volume and its effects on pressure/flow relations and flow resistance in isolated lungs of rabbits.

Quantitative information about the effects of pulmonary blood volume (Qp) on pulmonary haemodynamics is lacking since Qp changes inevitably with flow. To separate flow-dependent from volume-dependent changes in intravascular pressures we imposed changes in Qp (measured continuously) by altering outflow pressure in seven isolated, blood-perfused rabbit lungs and studied the effects of Qp on the relations between arteriovenous pressure gradient (DeltaP) and blood flow (Q.) under two conditions: flow-dependent volume changes were either permitted or compensated.

Bronchial temperature as a key to the interior pulmonary capillary bed of anaesthetized dogs.

The terminal airways are separated from the surrounding pulmonary capillaries by a tissue layer of a few micrometers in thickness only. Therefore, it should be possible to gain information about in vivo transcapillary heat transport of the interior pulmonary vascular bed by recording the terminal bronchial temperature. For this purpose, we studied temperature-time curves in the pulmonary artery, bronchial system and the aorta of six anaesthetized dogs permanently instrumented for measuring pulmonary blood flow.

Suppression, accessibility of death-related thoughts, and cultural worldview defense: exploring the psychodynamics of terror management.

Previous research has shown that after a mortality-salience (MS) treatment, death thought accessibility and worldview defense are initially low and then increase after a delay, suggesting that a person's initial response to conscious thoughts of mortality is to actively suppress death thoughts. If so, then high cognitive load, by disrupting suppression efforts, should lead to immediate increases in death thought accessibility and cultural worldview defense. Studies 1 and 2 supported this reasoning.

Do low-risk prenatal patients really need a screening glucose challenge test?

Background: It is common practice to routinely screen pregnant women for gestational diabetes. The screening technique typically used is the 1-hour 50-g oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), with a subsequent 3-hour 100-g OGTT for women whose 1-hour test was positive. This process can be both time-consuming and inconvenient for patients.

Terror management and cognitive-experiential self-theory: evidence that terror management occurs in the experiential system.

The authors hypothesized, on the basis of terror management theory and cognitive-experiential self-theory, that participants in an experiential mode of thinking would respond to mortality salience with increased worldview defense and increased accessibility of death-related thoughts, whereas participants in a rational mode would not. Results from 3 studies provided convergent evidence that when participants were in an experiential mode, mortality salience produced the typical worldview defense effect, but when participants were in a rational mode it did not. Study 4 revealed that mortality salience also led to a delayed increase in the accessibility of death-related thoughts only when participants were in an experiential mode.

Assessment of faculty development program outcomes.

More and better research is needed about the effectiveness of faculty development programs. Increasingly, government leaders in Congress and the Administration expect comprehensive outcome and impact evaluation as justification for federal finding. This paper summarizes outcomes reported and methods used in published studies of faculty development programs since 1980.

Outcomes of three part-time faculty development fellowship programs.

Background And Objectives: Part-time faculty development fellowship programs have trained large numbers of new physician faculty for family medicine education programs. This study reviews data from three part-time fellowship programs to determine how well the programs train new faculty and the academic success of fellowship graduates.

Methods: Part-time fellowship programs at Michigan State University, the University of North Carolina, and the Faculty Development Center in Waco, Tex, sent written surveys to graduates as part of routine follow-up studies.

Inflammatory bowel disease activity assessment using technetium-99m-HMPAO leukocytes.

Aim of the study was to evaluate [99mTc]hexamethyl-propylamine-oxime (HMPAO) leukocyte scintigraphy for the assessment of disease activity and extent in inflammatory bowel disease patients. Results and scores of scintigraphy using [99mTc]HMPAO-labeled leukocytes were retrospectively compared with the activity index of van Hees, laboratory parameters, and gastroenterologists' assessment of disease using endoscopy, radiology, and histology plus clinical parameters in 136 patients with Crohn's disease (115) and ulcerative colitis (21) and in 29 controls. There were 114 positive and 22 negative [99mTc]HMPAO leukocyte scintigrams.

Collegial networking and faculty vitality.

Background: This research explored the relationship between collegial networking and faculty "vitality" among graduates of the family medicine faculty development fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Faculty vitality was defined by retention in full-time teaching, job satisfaction, academic activity, and contributions to the discipline.

Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to 170 family physician graduates of the 1980-1992 fellowship classes.

The role of pain from veins for the formation of perivenous edema in humans.

To test the hypothesis that nociception from veins plays a role in the formation of perivenous edema, we looked at edema along hand veins of humans during painful noxious stimulation in the presence and absence of nerve conduction block. Pain from vascularly isolated hand vein segments was evoked by perfusion with hyperosmolar saline and rated with the help of an electronically controlled visual analogue scale. Perivenous edema measured as changes in skin altitude was continuously recorded by means of infrared reflection.

Pulmonary embolism: validation of spiral CT angiography in 149 patients.

Purpose: To assess the reliability of spiral computed tomographic (CT) angiography of the pulmonary arteries in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE).

Materials And Methods: One hundred forty-nine patients clinically suspected of having PE underwent spiral CT angiography and ventilation-perfusion (V-P) scintigraphy. Pulmonary angiography was also performed when the results of the V-P scan were indeterminate.

Dietary fish oil in renal transplant recipients treated with cyclosporin-A: no beneficial effects shown.

This study aimed to determine whether dietary supplementation with fish oil has a beneficial effect on graft function and the incidence of rejection in renal allograft recipients treated with cyclosporin A (CsA). Renal function, blood pressure, the incidence of acute rejection episodes, graft survival, and renal histology and immunochemistry were investigated. In a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial, groups of 25 recipients of primary cadaveric renal allografts who had been treated with CsA took fish oil (30% C20:5 omega-3 and 20% C22:6 omega-3) or coconut oil (63% C8:0 and 36% C10:0) at 6 g/day for 3 months.

Is it possible to assess disease activity of inflammatory bowel disease with scintigraphy?

99mTc-HMPAO-leukocyte scintigrams were compared with the activity index (AI) of Van Hees in 145 inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. Labelling of leukocytes with 99mTc-HMPAO was less time-consuming and less laborious than 111In-labelling of granulocytes; in addition, the radiation dose for the patient is lower and the shorter acquisition time allows multiple views. In a previous comparative study 99mTc-leukocytes proved superior to 111In-granulocytes in detecting active IBD.

Nitric oxide as a chemical link in the generation of pain from veins in humans.

In humans, both nitric oxide (NO) and bradykinin, a naturally occurring algetic and a potent NO liberator, evoke pain from hand veins. The afferent innervation of these veins consists solely of polymodal nociceptors which are located close to the endothelium, a well-known source of NO, thus suggesting NO as a chemical link in nociception. Consistent with this hypothesis, our observations show that neither bradykinin, nor hyperosmolar solutions (a noxious physicochemical stimulus) evoke pain from hand vein segments that have been exposed to the NO-synthase (NOS) inhibitor NG-mono-methyl-L-arginine.