Vasomotor symptoms among Japanese-American and European-American women living in Hilo, Hawaii.

Objective: The Hilo Women's Health Survey was designed and administered to gather baseline data on women's health in Hilo, HI. This randomized, cross-sectional study allowed for a focus on ethnic differences in symptom reporting. The results presented here focus on hot flash and night sweat experience among Japanese-American and European-American women.

Matching: its acquisition and generalization.

Choice typically is studied by exposing organisms to concurrent variable-interval schedules in which not only responses controlled by stimuli on the key are acquired but also switching responses and likely other operants as well. In the present research, discriminated key-pecking responses in pigeons were first acquired using a multiple schedule that minimized the reinforcement of switching operants. Then, choice was assessed during concurrent-probe periods in which pairs of discriminative stimuli were presented concurrently.

Development and validation of the Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS).

This article describes the development and psychometric evaluation of the Stephenson Multigroup Acculturation Scale (SMAS). Three studies were conducted to describe its development and refinement, examine its psychometric properties with 436 participants from 5 ethnic groups, and examine the robustness of the factor structure with a new sample. Exploratory factor analyses generated a 2-factor solution: ethnic society immersion and dominant society immersion.

The medicalization of menopause: implications for recruitment of study participants.

Objective: Early studies of menopause recruited sample populations from clinical settings; however, in the 1970s, populations drawn from health care settings were characterized as nonrepresentative because of symptom overreporting. This pilot study was carried out to test whether this characterization still holds true: that women who are drawn from clinical settings report more symptoms compared with women who are recruited from community and work sites.

Design: Open-ended interviews were carried out with patients aged 40-60 years in a physician's office (n = 50), in a chiropractor's office (n = 24), at two Breast Health Project sites (n = 50), and in several non-health care sites in the community (n = 81).

Patient retention: the practice management challenge under managed care.

The increasingly competitive environment of practice management has become more complicated with the growing penetration of managed care and capitation. Although successful growing practices have always focused on attracting new patients into the office, future efforts must also be directed at retaining the current patient. Additionally, capitation will require that a practice redefine the profile of a patient valuable to the practice.

Epidermal growth factor receptor internalization rate is regulated by negative charges near the SH2 binding site Tyr992.

This study examines the effects of mutations at and in the vicinity of tyrosine 992 of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFr) on epidermal growth factor- (EGF-) stimulated internalization of the receptor. Two regions of the EGFr adjacent to this domain have been defined previously as internalization domains. The present work shows that the mutation of negatively charged amino acid residues near Tyr992 to their uncharged analogues increases the rate of EGF receptor internalization.

Blocked and overshadowed stimuli are weakened in their ability to serve as blockers and second-order reinforcers in Pavlovian fear conditioning.

The ability of a blocked or overshadowed conditioned stimulus (CS) to serve as (a) blocker or (b) a 2nd-order reinforcer in Pavlovian fear conditioning was tested in 152 albino rats. CS-evoked suppression of barpressing for food was the index of conditioned fear. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that an overshadowed CS was weakened in its ability to serve as a blocker.

Visual search tasks: slowing of strategic and nonstrategic processes in the nonlexical domain.

Some investigators have argued that aging affects the slowing of processes in nonlexical tasks more than it does the slowing of processes in lexical tasks, but that within task domains, the slowing is identical. Other investigators have argued that even within nonlexical tasks there is differential slowing such that aging affects processing speed more in (nonlexical) coordinative tasks than it does in (nonlexical) sequential tasks. Perhaps, more finely still, there is a differential slowing in coordinative nonlexical tasks.

Progesterone increases levels of mu-opioid receptor mRNA in the preoptic area and arcuate nucleus of ovariectomized, estradiol-treated female rats.

Estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P) play different roles in generating the preovulatory surge release of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). Results of our previous studies suggest that at least some of these steroid-specific effects may be mediated by beta-endorphinergic neurons. However, it is also possible that E2 and P differentially regulate responsiveness to opioids by altering mu-opioid receptor gene expression.

Toward a model of eye movement control in reading.

The authors present several versions of a general model, titled the E-Z Reader model, of eye movement control in reading. The major goal of the modeling is to relate cognitive processing (specifically aspects of lexical access) to eye movements in reading. The earliest and simplest versions of the model (E-Z Readers 1 and 2) merely attempt to explain the total time spent on a word before moving forward (the gaze duration) and the probability of fixating a word; later versions (E-Z Readers 3-5) also attempt to explain the durations of individual fixations on individual words and the number of fixations on individual words.

Automated electron microscope tomography of frozen-hydrated chromatin: the irregular three-dimensional zigzag architecture persists in compact, isolated fibers.

The potential of electron microscope tomography as a tool for obtaining three-dimensional (3D) information about large macromolecular assemblies is greatly extended by automation of data collection. With the implementation of automated control of tilting, focusing, and digital image recording described here, tilt series of frozen-hydrated specimens can be collected with the requisite low dose. Long chromatin fibers were prepared in 90 mM monovalent ions to maintain a fully compact conformation, and after vitrification were completely contained within the ice layer.

Current problems that are likely to affect the future of epidemiology.

The current discussion focuses on criticism as a positive force for improving epidemiologic practice through periodic reexamination of the basic approach to the discipline and the strategy for meeting the future educational needs of students and practicing epidemiologists. The types of epidemiologic research conducted and the settings within which the research will be conducted are also discussed. Epidemiology can be expected to play a major role in new areas of research that are created by changes in the medical care system and the development of large data systems associated with these approaches to health care delivery.

Psychosocial development and life experiences in adulthood: a 22-year sequential study.

In this study, a model was tested postulating reciprocal relationships between psychosocial development and life experiences in adulthood. A sequential design compared college alumni (n = 99) who were age 20 in 1966, age 31 in 1977, and 42 in 1988 (Cohort 1) with college alumni (n = 83) who were 20 in 1977 and 31 in 1988 (Cohort 2). Path analyses testing specific hypotheses provided partial support for the reciprocal model.

Interpreting infant looking: the event set x event set design.

Theory, data, and mathematical models presented suggest that perceptual processing may be crucial in young infant cognition. Prior results indicating early or innate physical knowledge are reinterpreted. Assumptions that young infants use higher level cognitive processes to infer, reason, believe, and so on are challenged in favor of perceptual processes and the effects of novelty and familiarity.

Referential cohesion and logical coherence of narration after right hemisphere stroke.

A group with right hemisphere dysfunction was compared to neurologically intact controls regarding the referential cohesion and logical coherence of narrative production. A somewhat varied sample of six stories was obtained with tasks of cartoon-elicited story-telling and auditory-oral retelling. We found deficits in the patient group with respect to referential cohesion, logical coherence, and accuracy of narration, but the occurrence of deficits depended on the condition in which narration was produced and, to some extent, on the particular story used in each condition.

Peptide-derived self-assembled monolayers: adsorption of N-stearoyl L-cysteine methyl ester on gold.

The work reported herein concerns the assembly of N-stearoyl L-cysteine methyl ester [CH3(CH2)16COCysOMe, 1] on the surface of gold. This compound serves as a simple model of a related polypeptide, which has been designed to adopt a beta-sheet architecture on metallic and oxide surfaces. We describe the preparation of monolayers of 1, and characterization of these layers via ellipsometry, vibrational spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

Timing of menopause in relation to body size and weight change.

Age at menopause was examined in relation to weight and body mass index (BMI) (kg/m2) in 105 women,. age 41 years and older, who recalled the date of their last menstrual period to be at least 12 months before the interview. Mean recalled age at menopause was 49.

Woman abuse. The role of nurse-midwives in assessment.

When health care providers do not assess routinely for abuse, it most likely is a result of the powerful social myths surrounding domestic violence and a lack of knowledge about incidence, prevalence, and the dynamics of abuse. This article examines commonly held myths as well as personal and social constraints that cause practitioners not to assess for abuse. Additionally, it presents guidelines for the assessment of individual women, as well as professional role development in the area of abuse of women and suggests that nurse-midwives are generally well positioned to assess their clients for the health problems of violence and abuse.

Alternate functions of the single-minded and rhomboid genes in development of the Drosophila ventral neuroectoderm.

We have investigated the roles of the single-minded (sim) and rhomboid (rho) genes in generating distinct cell fates in the Drosophila embryonic neuroectoderm. We show that sim functions to repress ventral ectodermal cell fates, as in sim mutants mesectodermal cells adopt the fates of neighboring ventral ectodermal cells and targeted sim expression in P[paired.Gal4]/P[UAS-sim] embryos results in loss of epidermal cells.

Multiagent reinforcement learning in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma.

Reinforcement learning (RL) is based on the idea that the tendency to produce an action should be strengthened (reinforced) if it produces favorable results, and weakened if it produces unfavorable results. Q-learning is a recent RL algorithm that does not need a model of its environment and can be used on-line. Therefore, it is well suited for use in repeated games against an unknown opponent.

Connections to cerebellar cortex (Larsell's HVI) in the rabbit: a WGA-HRP study with implications for classical eyeblink conditioning.

Conditioned eyeblink responses are presumably learned in the cerebellum and relayed to motoneurons by way of the red nucleus. Projections from the red nucleus to cerebellar cortex (Larsell's lobule HVI) could be important for shaping temporally adaptive features of the conditioned response. Rabbits that had pipettes containing wheat germ agglutinated horseradish peroxidase (WGA-HRP) implanted unilaterally into HVI showed retrograde labeling of neurons within subregions of the contralateral red nucleus implicated in eyeblink conditioning by lesioning and recording studies.

Requirement of a 3'-terminal stem-loop in in vitro transcription by an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase.

Partially purified RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) isolated from plants infected with turnip crinkle virus (TCV) is capable of template-dependent synthesis of TCV-associated RNAs. To determine the cis-sequences required for the synthesis of TCV satellite (sat-) RNA C (-) strands in vitro, templates containing interior deletions were subjected to transcription using RdRp-active fractions. Results indicated that the promoter for (-)-strand synthesis was contained within the 3'-terminal 29 bases of the (+)-strand.

Beta 1 integrins signal lipid second messengers required during cell adhesion.

Clustering of integrin receptors during cell adhesion stimulates signal transduction across the cell membrane. Second messengers are generated, activating cytosolic proteins and causing cytoskeletal assembly and rearrangement. HeLa cell adhesion to a collagen substrate has been shown to initiate an arachidonic acid-mediated signaling pathway, leading to the activation of protein kinase C (PKC) and cell spreading.

The acquisition of the English past tense in children and multilayered connectionist networks.

The apparent very close similarity between the learning of the past tense by Adam and the Plunkett and Marchman model is exaggerated by several misleading comparisons--including arbitrary, unexplained changes in how graphs were plotted. The model's development differs from Adam's in three important ways: Children show a U-shaped sequence of development which does not depend on abrupt changes in input; U-shaped development in the simulation occurs only after an abrupt change in training regimen. Children overregularize vowel-change verbs more than no-change verbs; the simulation overregularizes vowel-change verbs less often than no-change verbs.