Brain functions associated with verbal working memory tasks among young males with alcohol use disorders

This study aimed to investigate the differences in brain functions during verbal working memory between individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUD) and normal controls. fMRI was used to scan brain activations associated with verbal working memory while participants performed 2-back and 0-back tasks. A total of 21 young male college students participated in the study. Eleven of those who clinically met the criteria for AUD were assigned to the AUD group, whereas ten demographically similar subjects who were social drinkers but not AUD were assigned to the normal control group. The AUD group showed less activation in bilateral frontal and precentral, left superior temporal, left superior parietal, and left cerebellar cortex during the 2-back task relative to 0-back task compared to the normal control group. In contrast, the control group showed less activation only in the right uncus than the AUD group. These results suggest that subjects with AUD present abnormality in brain functioning during verbal working memory.     

The Academic Experience of Male High School Students with ADHD

This study compared the high school academic experience of adolescents with and without childhood ADHD using data from the Pittsburgh ADHD Longitudinal Study (PALS). Participants were 326 males with childhood ADHD and 213 demographically similar males without ADHD who were recruited at the start of the follow-up study. Data were collected yearly from parents, teachers and schools. The current study used assessment points at which the participants were currently in or had recently completed grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. Results indicated that adolescents with ADHD experienced significant academic impairment in high school relative to comparison adolescents, including lower overall and main academic subject grade point averages (GPA), lower levels of class placement (e.g. remedial vs. honors), and higher rates of course failure. In addition, teacher reports indicated that adolescents with ADHD completed and turned in a significantly lower percentage of assignments and were significantly less likely to be working up to their potential. Adolescents with ADHD were also significantly more likely to be absent or tardy during the academic year, and they were over eight times more likely than adolescents without ADHD to drop out of high school. These findings demonstrate that children with ADHD continue to experience severe academic impairment into high school.     

Acceptability of Behavioral Family Therapy among Caregivers in China

In the U.S., helping the noncompliant child and parent child interaction therapy represent behavioral family therapy programs that are empirically supported for treating the conduct problems of 2- to 7-year old children. This study examined how caregivers in China would view behavioral family therapy. Caregivers in Hangzhou, China reported the perceived age of deviance for behavioral family therapy targets (e.g., noncompliance) and rated the acceptability of behavioral treatment components (e.g., timeout). Chinese caregivers agreed with European-American culture on considering noncompliance, aggression, tantrums, and negative talk deviant during the pre-school period. Overall, Chinese caregivers considered all the following nine behavioral family therapy components acceptable: contingent praise, responsive play, ignoring deviant attention seeking, authoritative instruction-giving, warnings, chair timeouts, ignoring tantrums during timeout, room backups for chair timeouts, and immediate timeouts for aggression. However, specific parental reservations were found regarding backup procedures for chair timeouts, particularly room backups. Possible treatment accommodations of behavioral family therapy for Chinese families are discussed.     

7～10岁自闭症谱系障碍儿童对情绪面孔的觉察与加工

为了考察自闭症谱系障碍(autism spectrum disorder,ASD)儿童对不同情绪面孔的觉察和加工情况,设计两个眼动实验任务,要求14名7～10岁ASD儿童和20名同年龄正常儿童观看图片。实验一采用将情绪面孔嵌入风景图片中引起语义不一致的刺激;实验二采用含有情绪面孔的无意义背景乱序图片刺激。结果发现:(1)ASD儿童对不同情绪面孔的觉察时间都显著长于正常儿童;(2)与正常儿童一样,ASD儿童表现出对恐惧面孔的注意偏向;(3)实验二中,ASD儿童对不同情绪面孔内部特征区的注意分配与正常儿童不同;正常儿童能注意最能展示该类情绪特征信息的区域,如恐惧的眼睛、愉快的嘴巴,而ASD儿童对三类情绪面孔特征区的注意分配方式相似;(4)两个实验条件下,ASD者对不同情绪面孔的觉察、加工模式与正常儿童相似。     

中外公务员医疗保障法律制度的比较研究

许多国家和地区对公务员提供比较专门的医疗保障待遇,如西班牙、韩国和日本.我国公务员在享受基本医疗保险以外,为了确保公务员医疗保障待遇不降低,我国建立了公务员医疗补助制度.通过对各国公务员医疗保障制度立法、保障经费来源及保障水平的比较,对我国完善公务员医疗保障制度提出了建议.     

患者的依从性与治疗效果——对两例急性会厌炎使用硬管放大喉镜检查的体会

为了提高无呼吸困难的急性会厌炎患者对治疗的依从性,对两名明确诊断为急性会厌炎,因自觉症状轻而忽视该病、拒绝接受医生治疗意见的患者,本着医患之间相互理解与信任的原则,非常规地应用冷光源硬管放大喉镜成像技术对患者进行检查,让患者观察到自身病变的影像,充分认识治疗的必要性,积极配合医生治疗,取得良好治疗效果。     

发育性髋关节脱位患者复位后固定方法的演变

发育性髋关节脱位是小儿骨科常见病之一,要想使其获得理想的治疗,必须做到早发现、早诊断、早治疗。髋关节复位后的固定方法随着临床实践在不断更新,使手术治疗效果有了明显的进步,其间包含以下哲学观点：（1）事物需要从实践中认识,认识需要过程。（2）外固定器治疗具有普遍性和特殊性,选择适合个体的,达到最优效果。     

Increased testosterone-to-cortisol ratio in psychopathy

Only a few studies have examined hormones in psychopathy, and results have been mixed. It has been suggested that because hormone systems are highly interconnected, it may be important to examine multiple systems simultaneously to gain a clearer picture of how hormones work together to predispose for a certain construct. In the present study, we attempt to clarify the role of the hormones cortisol and testosterone in psychopathy by examining both hormones in a community sample of 178 adults demonstrating a wide range of psychopathy scores. Results showed that psychopathy scores were associated with an increased ratio of testosterone (baseline) to cortisol responsivity to a stressor. Psychopathy was not associated with either of these measures independently or with baseline cortisol levels. These findings suggest that these highly interconnected hormone systems may work in concert to predispose to psychopathy.     

What you learn is what you see: using eye movements to study infant cross-situational word learning

Recent studies show that both adults and young children possess powerful statistical learning capabilities to solve the word-to-world mapping problem. However, the underlying mechanisms that make statistical learning possible and powerful are not yet known. With the goal of providing new insights into this issue, the research reported in this paper used an eye tracker to record the moment-by-moment eye movement data of 14-month-old babies in statistical learning tasks. Various measures are applied to such fine-grained temporal data, such as looking duration and shift rate (the number of shifts in gaze from one visual object to the other) trial by trial, showing different eye movement patterns between strong and weak statistical learners. Moreover, an information-theoretic measure is developed and applied to gaze data to quantify the degree of learning uncertainty trial by trial. Next, a simple associative statistical learning model is applied to eye movement data and these simulation results are compared with empirical results from young children, showing strong correlations between these two. This suggests that an associative learning mechanism with selective attention can provide a cognitively plausible model of cross-situational statistical learning. The work represents the first steps in using eye movement data to infer underlying real-time processes in statistical word learning.     

Unbalanced triangle in the social dilemma of trust: Internet studies of real‐time,real money social exchange between China,Japan, and Taiwan

Using a dyadic game theory paradigm, three experiments on the social dilemma of trust were conducted over the Internet in real time, involving real money. It was predicted and found that in‐group favouritism in trusting behaviour was contingent on historical relationships between societies. In the China–Japan experiment, mainland Chinese but not Japanese trusted and made fair allocations to in‐group members more than out‐group members, and out‐group trust was best predicted by positive stereotypes of the out‐group for Chinese and identity for Japanese. In the China–Taiwan experiment, Taiwanese but not Mainland Chinese trusted in‐group members more than out‐group members, and in‐group trust for Taiwanese was best predicted by perceptions of current realistic threats. In the Taiwan–Japan experiment, there were slight in‐group favouring tendencies in trust, and positive stereotypes of the out‐group were the best predictors of out‐group trust. Japanese were unique in not displaying in‐group favouring behaviour at all, whereas both Chinese and Taiwanese were context specific in their in‐group favouritism. Stereotypes, social identities, perceptions of realistic threat, and historical anger made significant contributions to predicting trusting behaviour, but overall these survey measures only accounted for small and inconsistent amounts of variance across the three experiments.