Psychological and marital distress in spouses of Vietnam veterans: importance of spouses' perceptions.

Spouses of combat veterans with PTSD have greater psychological and marital distress than spouses of veterans without PTSD; however, few studies have examined how variables related to the spouses (e.g., cognitions) may play a role in their own distress.

Novel applications of ultrasound technology to visualize and characterize myofascial trigger points and surrounding soft tissue.

Objective: To apply ultrasound (US) imaging techniques to better describe the characteristics of myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) and the immediately adjacent soft tissue.

Design: Four sites in each patient were labeled based on physical examination as active myofascial trigger points (A-MTrPs; spontaneously painful), latent myofascial trigger points (L-MTrPs; nonpainful), or normal myofascial tissue. US examination was performed on each subject by a team blinded to the physical findings.

Funeral directors and bereaved children: beliefs and experiences.

As one component of an ongoing project to develop resources for bereaved children and families, funeral directors were surveyed about their experiences and practices with bereaved children. About one-third of respondents reported that they provided services specifically for bereaved children. Of these, some were proactive (reaching out to provide services) whereas others were reactive (responding only when information or services were requested).

Sociodemographic determinants of growth among Malian adolescent females.

In Africa, research concerning the social determinants of poor nutritional status has typically focused on children under 5 years of age and has used defined categorical boundaries based on international reference standards. In this article, stunting and wasting of 1,157 Malian adolescent girls is measured through both categorical and continuous data. The focus on adolescent girls is significant because there is relatively little literature examining this group, and because adolescence marks the time when girls gain greater workload responsibilities, autonomy of food choices, and, as a result of the adolescent growth spurt, require the greatest amount of caloric intake respective to their weight since infancy.

Doppler vibrometry: assessment of arterial stenosis by using perivascular tissue vibrations without lumen visualization.

Purpose: To correlate vibration frequency and duration at Doppler vibrometry with stenosis severity determined at catheter angiography.

Materials And Methods: Sixteen patients (eight women) scheduled to undergo abdominal or pelvic angiography were recruited after providing informed consent. An ultrasonography (US) scanner was customized to acquire raw echo data before conventional Doppler processing.

Silicon carbide nanostructures: a tight binding approach.

A tight-binding model Hamiltonian is newly parametrized for silicon carbide based on fits to a database of energy points calculated within the density functional theory approach of the electronic energy surfaces of nanoclusters and the total energy of bulk 3C and 2H polytypes at different densities. This TB model includes s and p angular momentum symmetries with nonorthogonal atomic basis functions. With the aid of the new TB model, minima of silicon carbide cagelike clusters, nanotubes, ring-shaped ribbons, and nanowires are predicted.

Bullying and symptoms of depression in chilean middle school students.

Background: The goal of this study was to assess the association between bullying and symptoms of depression among middle school students in Chile.

Methods: Secondary data analysis of Chile's 2004 Global School-Based Health Survey.

Results: A total of 8131 middle school students participated in the study.

A novel method for oral stimulant administration in the neonate rat and similar species.

Sixty male and female Long-Evans hooded rats were administered 1, 2, or 5mg/kg methylphenidate (MPH) suspended in apple juice on postnatal day (P)15 or P40 using a novel, non-invasive oral administration technique. Plasma was collected 15 min after ingestion and analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) to confirm appropriate concentrations. HPLC-MS plasma analysis showed levels comparable to previous gavage studies using MPH.

Incorporating anatomically realistic cellular-level connectivity in neural network models of the rat hippocampus.

The specific connectivity patterns among neuronal classes can play an important role in the regulation of firing dynamics in many brain regions. Yet most neural network models are built based on vastly simplified connectivity schemes that do not accurately reflect the biological complexity. Taking the rat hippocampus as an example, we show here that enough quantitative information is available in the neuroanatomical literature to construct neural networks derived from accurate models of cellular connectivity.

Reliability and true-score measures of binary items as a function of their Rasch difficulty parameter.

This article provides formulas for expected true-score measures and reliability of binary items as a function of their Rasch difficulty when the trait (ability) distribution is normal or logistic. The proposed formulas have theoretical value and can be useful in test development, score analysis, and simulation studies. Once the items are calibrated with the dichotomous Rasch model, one can estimate (without further data collection) the expected values for true-score measures (e.

Passive dendritic integration heavily affects spiking dynamics of recurrent networks.

According to dendritic cable theory, proximal synapses give rise to inputs with short delay, high amplitude, and short duration. In contrast, inputs from distal synapses have long delays, low amplitude, and long duration. Nevertheless, large scale neural networks are seldom built with realistically layered synaptic architectures and corresponding electrotonic parameters.

A new bursting model of CA3 pyramidal cell physiology suggests multiple locations for spike initiation.

We introduce a novel computational model of hippocampal pyramidal cells physiology based on an up-to-date, detailed description of passive and active biophysical properties and real dendritic morphology. This model constitutes a modification of a previous (1995) model which included complex calcium dynamics and Na(+), K(+), and Ca(2+) currents. Changes reflect recently acquired experimental knowledge regarding the types and spatial distributions of these currents.

The status of diagnostic radiology training programs and their graduates in 1999.

Objective: To address job market concerns, the American College of Radiology studied the employment of 1999 graduates from diagnostic radiology training programs and the programs' status and plans.

Materials And Methods: In late April to the beginning of June 1999, the American College of Radiology surveyed a 50% random sample of diagnostic radiology residency directors about the employment status of their 1999 residency and fellowship graduates as well as about plans for their training programs. Seventy-seven percent responded.