Educational Needs of Primary Care Physicians Regarding Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

To assess the educational needs of North Carolina primary care physicians (PCPs) about direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing, surveys were mailed to 2,402 family and internal medicine providers in North Carolina. Out of 382 respondents, 323 (85%) felt unprepared to answer patient questions and 282 (74%) reported wanting to learn about DTC genetic testing. A total of 148 (39%) were aware of DTC genetic testing. Among these, 63 (43%) thought DTC genetic testing was clinically useful. PCPs who felt either unprepared to answer patient questions (OR = 0.354, p = 0.01) or that DTC genetic testing was clinically useful (OR = 5.783, p = 0.00) were more likely to want to learn about DTC genetic testing. PCPs are interested in learning about DTC genetic testing, but are mostly unaware of DTC testing and feel unprepared to help patients with DTC testing results. Familiar and trusted channels that provide the information and tools PCPs need to help answer patient’s questions and manage their care should be used when creating educational programs.     

Happiness and Suffering in the Life Story: An Inquiry into Conflicting Expectations Concerning the Association of Perceived Past with Present Subjective Well-Being in Old Age

The study examined whether positive or negative aspects of the life story were predominantly associated with present subjective well-being (SWB). Two samples (N?=?815 and 213; mean ages 75 and 73) rated past emotions (happiness and suffering) in positive and negative anchor periods (e.g., ??the happiest period,?? ??the most miserable period??) of their life stories. The indices of present SWB were present happiness, present suffering, and life satisfaction. Results indicated that when the past emotions were net of each other, past happiness was related to the positive indices, but not to the negative index, of present SWB whereas past suffering was related to the negative index, and only partially to the positive indices, of present SWB. Congruent emotions (happiness in positive periods, suffering in negative periods) were stronger than incongruent emotions (happiness in negative periods, suffering in positive periods), yet each had unique associations with present SWB. Finally, past happiness weakened the inverse relationship between past suffering and present SWB, yet it strengthened this relationship when past emotions were both incongruent (i.e., when happiness in negative periods was analyzed in conjunction with suffering in positive periods). In conclusion, rather than presenting predominance over each other, positive and negative ingredients in the life story maintain complementary and interactive associations with present SWB. In this context, the study points to the SWB-related implications of the interplay between paramount life experiences in the individual??s anchor periods and the emotions that the individual attributes to these periods.     

Exploration of a factor mixture-based taxonic-dimensional model of anxiety sensitivity and transdiagnostic psychopathology vulnerability among trauma-exposed adults

The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between a factor mixture-based taxonic-dimensional model of anxiety sensitivity (AS) and posttraumatic stress, panic, generalized anxiety, depression, psychiatric multimorbidity, and quality of life among a young adult sample exposed to traumatic stress (N = 103, n (females) = 66, M (age) = 23.68 years, SD (age) = 9.55). Findings showed support for the conceptual and operational utility of the AS taxonic-dimensional model with respect to concurrent transdiagnostic vulnerability among trauma-exposed adults. Specifically, relative to the low-AS group, the high-AS group demonstrated elevated levels of panic, depressive, and posttraumatic stress symptom severity as well as greater psychiatric multimorbidity and poorer quality of life. Furthermore, past-month MDD, GAD, PTSD, and panic attacks occurred nearly exclusively among the high-AS group. Continuous AS physical and psychological concerns scores were found to be significantly related to levels of panic and posttraumatic stress symptom severity, psychiatric multimorbidity as well as panic attack status only among the high-AS group and not among the low-AS group. Findings are discussed with respect to their implications for the conceptual and operational utility of the FMM-based taxonic-dimensional model of AS, related vulnerability for psychopathology in the context of trauma, and the clinical implications of these findings for assessment and intervention.     

A probabilistic corpus-based model of syntactic parallelism

Work in experimental psycholinguistics has shown that the processing of coordinate structures is facilitated when the two conjuncts share the same syntactic structure [Frazier, L., Munn, A., & Clifton, C. (2000). Processing coordinate structures. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29(4) 343–370]. In the present paper, we argue that this parallelism effect is a specific case of the more general phenomenon of syntactic priming—the tendency to repeat recently used syntactic structures. We show that there is a significant tendency for structural repetition in corpora, and that this tendency is not limited to syntactic environments involving coordination, though it is greater in these environments. We present two different implementations of a syntactic priming mechanism in a probabilistic parsing model and test their predictions against experimental data on NP parallelism in English. Based on these results, we argue that a general purpose priming mechanism is preferred over a special mechanism limited to coordination. Finally, we show how notions of activation and decay from ACT-R can be incorporated in the model, enabling it to account for a set of experimental data on sentential parallelism in German.     

Incremental associations between facets of anxiety sensitivity and posttraumatic stress and panic symptoms among trauma-exposed adults

The present investigation examined incremental associations between anxiety sensitivity (AS) subfactors (e.g. physical, psychological, and social concerns) and posttraumatic stress and panic symptoms among trauma-exposed adults. These effects were examined above and beyond other theoretically relevant factors, including negative affectivity and number of types of trauma exposures. The 239 participants were selected from a university- and community-based sample (129 women; mean age = 23.0 years; SD = 9.6, range = 18-65), all of whom endorsed exposure to traumatic life events. The AS psychological concerns and AS physical concerns lower order factors evidenced distinct associations with posttraumatic stress symptoms and panic-relevant symptoms, respectively. Specifically, the AS psychological concerns facet was significantly incrementally predictive of posttraumatic stress-relevant avoidance symptoms. The AS physical concerns facet was significantly incrementally predictive of panic-relevant symptoms, including anxious arousal, body vigilance, and perceived control over anxiety-related events. Results are discussed in the context of the relevant theoretical literature pertaining to shared vulnerability and comorbidity between posttraumatic stress and panic.     

A test of the interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity and mindfulness in the prediction of anxious arousal, agoraphobic cognitions, and body vigilance

The present investigation sought to examine the interactive effects of anxiety sensitivity [AS; Reiss, S., & McNally, R. J. (1985). Expectancy model of fear. In S. Reiss, & R. R. Bootzin (Eds.), Theoretical issues in behavior therapy (pp. 107-121). San Diego: Academic Press] and mindfulness [Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2003). The benefit of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 822-848] in predicting panic-relevant processes. A community sample of 248 individuals participated in the study by completing a battery of self-report instruments. Consistent with prediction, the interaction between AS and mindfulness significantly predicted anxious arousal symptoms and agoraphobic cognitions, above and beyond the individual main effects, and did not significantly predict anhedonic depression symptoms. Contrary to prediction, the AS by mindfulness interaction did not significantly predict body vigilance. Theoretical implications are discussed and future directions are delineated.     

Exploring how constraints created by other people influence intraindividual variation in objective performance measures

Objective performance indicators have low test-retest reliability, particularly in complex jobs. Yet, little is actually known about the reasons why objective performance indicators lack temporal stability. The authors address this issue by using data from a sample of 106 professional football players to explore how the actions of other people influence intraindividual variation in performance. Results suggest that weekly measures of performance outcome exhibit substantial variability within individuals. A significant portion of this within-person variance is explained by environmental fluctuation created by the constraining actions of other people. Individuals with highly fluctuating past performance exhibit stronger relationships between the actions of competitors and subsequent performance outcomes. The intraindividual relationship between fluctuating constraints and performance outcomes is also stronger for individuals in more complex jobs.     

Emotional-vulnerability and mindfulness: a preliminary test of associations among negative affectivity, anxiety sensitivity, and mindfulness skills

This study evaluated associations between general (negative affectivity) and specific (anxiety sensitivity) factors that may relate to the mindfulness skill domains assessed by the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills. Participants were 154 young adults (88 females; M(age) = 22.4 years, SD = 7.9) recruited from the community. Partially consistent with predictions, higher levels of negative affectivity were significantly associated with lower levels of Awareness, Acceptance, and Describe mindfulness skills, and higher levels of anxiety sensitivity were significantly associated with lower levels of Awareness and Acceptance mindfulness skills. Additionally, negative affectivity and anxiety sensitivity each demonstrated unique relations to participants' ability to experience the present state without evaluating or judging its content (Accept factor), after accounting for their shared variance, but only anxiety sensitivity demonstrated a unique association to the Act with Awareness factor independent of variance explained by negative affectivity. Findings are discussed in relation to theory and research on mindfulness processes.     

Influence of liquid state diffusion on joint microstructure developed during transient liquid phase bonding of dissimilar superalloys

Theoretical prediction of the influence of liquid-state diffusion on the joint microstructure developed during transient liquid phase (TLP) bonding of dissimilar superalloys, based on asymmetric numerical simulation model, is experimentally verified. A new understanding of the diffusional solidification mechanism during TLP bonding has enabled the formation of a single-crystal (SX) joint microstructure between dissimilar polycrystalline and SX substrates, which is considered unachievable by conventional TLP bonding theoretical models.     

Performance on phonological and grammatical awareness metalinguistic tasks by children who stutter and their fluent peers

This study was undertaken to examine the performance of 23 children who stutter (CWS) and 23 children who do not stutter (CWNS) on three metalinguistic tasks. These included two phonological awareness assessment procedures (The Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization Test (LAC) and a Phoneme Reversal Task) and one modified Grammar Judgments Task where syntactic and semantic appropriateness of sentences was evaluated. Differences between groups were significant for the grammar judgment task, where CWNS outperformed CWS in judging syntactically and semantically anomalous sentences. Group differences were not significant for the phonological awareness tasks. The results underscore the importance of examining metalinguistic abilities of CWS through a variety of tasks. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn about and be able to: (1) recognize the relevance of examining metalinguistic abilities within the context of research on language-stuttering dynamics; and (2) identify measures of metalinguistic abilities that can be used to compare the performances of CWS and CWNS.