Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes

Our aim was to evaluate how human beliefs affect working dog outcomes in an applied environment. We asked whether beliefs of scent detection dog handlers affect team performance and evaluated relative importance of human versus dog influences on handlers’ beliefs. Eighteen drug and/or explosive detection dog/handler teams each completed two sets of four brief search scenarios (conditions). Handlers were falsely told that two conditions contained a paper marking scent location (human influence). Two conditions contained decoy scents (food/toy) to encourage dog interest in a false location (dog influence). Conditions were (1) control; (2) paper marker; (3) decoy scent; and (4) paper marker at decoy scent. No conditions contained drug or explosive scent; any alerting response was incorrect. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used with search condition as the independent variable and number of alerts as the dependent variable. Additional nonparametric tests compared human and dog influence. There were 225 incorrect responses, with no differences in mean responses across conditions. Response patterns differed by condition. There were more correct (no alert responses) searches in conditions without markers. Within marked conditions, handlers reported that dogs alerted more at marked locations than other locations. Handlers’ beliefs that scent was present potentiated handler identification of detection dog alerts. Human more than dog influences affected alert locations. This confirms that handler beliefs affect outcomes of scent detection dog deployments.     

Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: a comparison of long-term meditators and nonmeditators

The authors explored whether meditation training to enhance emotional awareness improves discrimination of subtle emotional feelings hypothesized to guide decision-making. Long-term meditators and nonmeditators were compared on measures of self-reported valence and arousal, skin conductance response (SCR), and facial electromyography (EMG) to masked and nonmasked emotional pictures, and on measures of heartbeat detection and self-reported emotional awareness. Groups responded similarly to nonmasked pictures. In the masked condition, only controls showed discrimination in valence self-reports. However, meditators reported greater emotional clarity than controls, and meditators with higher clarity had reduced arousal and improved valence discrimination in the masked condition. These findings provide qualified support for the somatic marker hypothesis and suggest that meditation may influence how emotionally ambiguous information is processed, regulated, and represented in conscious awareness.     

Discrepancies between premorbid and current IQ as a function of progressive mental deterioration

The declining cognitive functioning typically found in patients with Alzheimer's disease presents an opportunity to study that decline. The changing magnitude of ever widening discrepancies between premorbid estimators of IQ and observed IQ increases as severity of the disease increases. Premorbid IQs estimated by these scores (the National Adult Reading Test-Revised, the reading tests of the Revised and Third Editions of the Wide Range Achievement Test, and a demographically based regression index for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised) had relatively similar discrepancies from obtained WAIS-R Full Scale IQs in samples of normal elderly (n = 30), and elderly patients diagnosed with mild (n = 30) and moderate Alzheimer's disease (n = 30) dementia. The discrepancies became larger, regardless of premorbid estimator, as disease severity progressed from none to mild to moderate across the samples.     

Organizational partnerships in China: self-interest, goal interdependence, and opportunism

Opportunism in organizational partnerships may be understood in terms of how partners conclude that their self-interests are related to each other. When partners believe that their goals are competitively but not cooperatively related, they are tempted to pursue their self-interests opportunistically. Cognitive understandings and values of a shared vision may help partners believe their goals are cooperatively related. Results from 103 pairs of customer and supplier organizations support the argument that partnerships are not inevitably threatened by opportunism. Using structural equation analysis, the authors suggested that shared vision can help partners develop cooperative goals that lead to low levels of opportunism. These results suggest that a shared vision and cooperative goals are important foundations for effective organizational partnerships.     

Note on Meunier and Bodkins's (2005) "interpretation of MMPI-A Scale 5 with female patients"

Meunier and Bodkins discussed the unclear interpretation of Scale 5 of the MMPI-A, investigated use of the scale with adolescent girls in a court-ordered residential treatment program and suggested that subclinical elevations on the scale may predict disruptive behavior in special samples. This note comments on statistics reported by Meunier and Bodkins and recommends additional analyses, including estimation of effect sizes for scales on which comparisons are statistically nonsignificant.     

Factorial structure of the kidcope in Hong Kong adolescents

The Kidcope (A. Spirito, L. J. Stark, & C. Williams, 1988), a brief screening measure of coping strategies for children and adolescents, was subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in a sample of adolescents in Hong Kong. A 2-factor model was found to fit the data when only the 2 emotional regulation items were treated separately and were allowed to load on the 2 different factors. Further analyses showed that factor loadings, factor variances, and factor covariance were invariant across age and gender. On the basis of the factor analyses, the authors created 2 composite scores, representing control-oriented and escape-oriented coping strategies. Implications for the use of the Kidcope in research and preventive intervention are discussed.     

The Longest Faculty Strike in the History of U.S. Institutions of Higher Education: Perceptions of the Union President

The president of the AAUP faculty union at University of Bridgeport, from 1987 to 1991, offers a first-hand account of the circumstances leading to the fatal strike there. He refutes accusations that the union and its leadership destroyed the university and provides a dramatic, personal account of a faculty union under attack by union busters. The faculty, he argues, was resisting a concerted onslaught on traditional faculty rights. It fought desperately to stifle a retrograde revolution in higher education seeking the substitution of absolute Management Rights to traditional collegiality. He refers to faculty as the soul and mind of a university, and to administration as a necessary evil whose duty is primarily to assist the faculty in the accomplishment of the university's mission.     

Control and maintenance effects of long-term relaxation training in a case of hypertension

The effects of long-term, varied relaxation in a case of essential hypertension are described. The client's unusual achievement of voluntary control over his blood pressure was discussed in terms of new directions in the search of a relaxation specific factor.     

Goal attainment scaling: An idiosyncratic method to assess treatment effectiveness in agoraphobia

Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is an individually tailored way to measure treatment gains, using a highly standardized procedure. An advantage of the method is that it takes into account individual characteristics of the patients, and at the same time the data are suitable for quantitative analysis and comparable across patients. Despite the wide acceptance and use of the method in the evaluation of psychotherapy, data on its psychometric properties are rather scarce. In the current study, GAS was used as one of several outcome measures in a research project on the effectiveness of various treatments for panic disorder with agoraphobia. Guidelines for GAS are presented as well as data on the reliability and validity of the procedure. Results indicate that the procedure is reliable, valid, and sensitive to the improvement of patients during treatment. Comparison of GAS with standardized measures revealed considerable concordance, although the clinical end status of patients diverged somewhat dependent on the measure considered.     

Exogenous testosterone and social experience each enhance the development of aggressive behavior in Cyprinodon variegatus

The combined effects of testosterone and social experience from the time of hatching on development of aggressive behaviors in Cyprinodon variegatus were investigated. Social experience was defined as a rearing condition allowing visual, tactile, chemosensory, and auditory contact with zero, three, or 15 additional conspecifics. Behaviors were videotaped once weekly from 3 weeks to 4 months post-hatching, using the focal animal method, and an ethogram was constructed. At 3 months post-hatching, half the fish were injected once with testosterone propionate (2 μg/g b. w., i. p., vehicle-Ringer's solution) and the other half were injected with Ringer's isotonic saline solution. Testosteronetreated subjects showed significantly greater frequencies and durations of behaviors that may be related to aggression than did saline controls. Two weeks after the treatments, a round-robin tournament was conducted between testosterone- and saline-treated fish from each rearing condition. Testosterone-treated fish won significantly more encounters than did saline-treated subjects over all rearing conditions. Furthermore, significantly more aggressive acts were displayed by fish raised in the groups of 16 and the groups of four than did the Isolates. Although the number of aggressive acts exhibited by the group of 16 was greater than the group of four, the difference was not statistically significant.