Co-morbid pain conditions and feelings of invalidation and isolation among women with vulvodynia

Many women with vulvodynia also suffer from other chronic co-morbid pain conditions. Alone, these pain conditions are associated with feeling invalidated by others and feeling socially isolated. It is unclear, however, how the presence of additional pain co-morbidities are associated with the psychosocial wellbeing of women with vulvodynia. We used data from a survey administered by the National Vulvodynia Association. Women reported clinician-diagnosed vulvodynia, presence of co-morbid pain, and how often they felt that they felt no one believed their pain existed (invalidated) and isolated. Analyses determined prevalence of feeling invalidated or isolated, and the difference in prevalence when co-morbidities existed. Forty-five percent of these 1847 women with vulvodynia reported having at least one of the following five chronic pain conditions, chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis, fibromyalgia, interstitial cystitis, or irritable bowel syndrome. Adjusted baseline prevalence among all women of feeling invalidated was 9% and of feeling isolated was 14%. Having a co-morbid condition with vulvodynia, as well as having an increasing number of co-morbid conditions with vulvodynia, was significantly associated with the presence of feeling both invalidated and isolated. Chronic fatigue syndrome was the co-morbidity most strongly associated with feelings invalidation and isolation. One or more co-morbid pain conditions in addition to vulvodynia were significantly associated with psychosocial wellbeing. However, the temporality of the association could not be elucidated and therefore we cannot conclude that these pain conditions cause poor psychosocial wellbeing. Despite this, future studies should explore the utility of promoting validation of women's pain conditions and reducing social isolation for women with chronic pain.     

Validating an interlingual metanorm for emotional analysis of texts

In this article, we present a set of 12 norms that characterize emotional terms in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Finnish. The high correlation between the norm values in the two emotional dimensions of valence and arousal suggests an interlingual homogeneity of emotional representations and allows a significant metanorm??EMONORM??to be established with 6,383 terms characterized in valence and 4,345 terms characterized in arousal. This metanorm is a resource for creating experimental materials in studies on language and emotions. Furthermore, we perform three tests using EMONORM, with the objectives of (1) identifying basic emotions from their valence and arousal values, (2) determining the orientation of texts referring to positive and negative emotions, and (3) evaluating the intensity of emotions expressed in texts. The results are highly similar to those for human judgments. Finally, we present EMOVAL/SEMOTEX, a Web application for static and dynamic valence and arousal emotional analysis of texts using EMONORM (http://www.semotex.fr).     

Evolutionary autonomous agents and the naturalization of phenomenology

The phenomenological goal of grounding the content of conceptual thought in the background understanding of everyday, skillful coping was approached using evolutionary autonomous agent (EAA) methodology. The behavior of an EAA evolved to perform a specified motor task was identified with skillful coping. Changes in the dynamics of the EAA controller occurred when the EAA encountered an unexpected obstacle with loss of longer time scale components in its hierarchical temporal organization. These temporal changes are consistent with the phenomenological changes which we experience with breakdown during equipment use with our adoption of a more immediate, determinate stance. Since this latter experience is the basis of conceptual thought, the EAA paradigm goes some way in providing a naturalized explanation for the grounding of the content of conceptual thought in everyday, skillful coping in a manner that is physiologically plausible and phenomenologically accurate.     

Plain Semi-Post algebras as a poset-based generalization of post algebras and their representability

Semi-Post algebras of any type T being a poset have been introduced and investigated in [CR87a], [CR87b]. Plain Semi-Post algebras are in this paper singled out among semi-Post algebras because of their simplicity, greatest similarity with Post algebras as well as their importance in logics for approximation reasoning ([Ra87a], [Ra87b], [RaEp87]). They are pseudo-Boolean algebras generated in a sense by corresponding Boolean algebras and a poset T. Every element has a unique descending representation by means of elements in a corresponding Boolean algebra and primitive Post constants which form a poset T. An axiomatization and another characterization, subalgebras, homomorphisms, congruences determined by special filters and a representability theory of these algebras, connected with that for Boolean algebras, are the subject of this paper.To the memory of Jerzy SupeckiResearch reported here has been supported by Polish Government Grant CPBP 01.01     

Use of a raster framebuffer in vision research

For the study of human and animal vision, the video framebuffer is the only technology that is capable of displaying two-dimensional images with precise control of contrast, luminance, and display timing. The video framebuffer also allows precise control of color. However, this device is not designed for precise psychophysical displays, and techniques must be developed to use them in this role. In this paper, we describe a number of basic methods used in our lab. In order to be concrete, we use an Adage RDS-3000 raster display system (Adage, 1982) as an example, since that is the device we have actually used. The Adage is hosted by a PDP-11/73 under the Venix operating system. The principles generalize to other machines. Where it clarifies the issues, we have shown the syntax of the software routines involved.     

α7 Nicotinic Receptor Subunits Are Not Necessary for Hippocampal-Dependent Learning or Sensorimotor Gating: A Behavioral Characterization of Acra7-Deficient Mice

The α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunit is abundantly expressed in the hippocampus and contributes to hippocampal cholinergic synaptic transmission suggesting that it may contribute to learning and memory. There is also evidence for an association between levels of α7 nAChR and in sensorimotor gating impairments. To examine the role of α7 nAChRs in learning and memory and sensorimotor gating, Acra7 homozygous mutant mice and their wild-type littermates were tested in a Pavlovian conditioned fear test, for spatial learning in the Morris water task, and in the prepulse inhibition paradigm. Exploratory activity, motor coordination, and startle habituation were also evaluated. Acra7 mutant mice displayed the same levels of contextual and auditory-cue condition fear as wild-type mice. Similarly, there were no differences in spatial learning performance between mutant and wild-type mice. Finally, Acra7 mutant and wild-type mice displayed similar levels of prepulse inhibition. Other behavioral responses in Acra7 mutant mice were also normal, except for an anxiety-related behavior in the open-field test. The results of this study show that the absence of α7 nAChRs has little impact on normal, base-line behavioral responses. Future studies will examine the contribution of α7 nAChR to the enhancement of learning and sensorimotor gating following nicotine treatments.     

IPI and MMPI predictions of counterproductive job behaviors by racial group

Correctional officers hired by a large urban agency between 1980 and 1985 were administered the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) before being appointed to the job. The 3,349 white, 3,391 black, and 1,547 hispanic male officers were subsequently evaluated on their job status and histories of absence, lateness, and disciplinary interviews. Discriminant function analyses were applied to the IPI and MMPI, alone and together, to assess any race differences in their prediction accuracy for each counterproductive job behavior measure. No significant bias in prediction accuracy was detected, though hispanic males tended to have the highest number of correct predictions. The implementation of prediction equations for these tests would have reduced negative job behaviors by as much as 13%. Analyses of the relative percentages of good performers rated incorrectly were also included.     

Cultural Differences in the Reciprocal Relations between Emotion Suppression Coping,Depressive Symptoms and Interpersonal Functioning among Adolescents

The current study examined the prospective relations between emotion suppression and maladjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms, family stress events, peer stress events, and family and peer support) among Vietnamese American (n = 372) and European American adolescents (n = 304). We found that at baseline Vietnamese Americans adolescents reported greater use of emotion suppression coping than European American adolescents. Multi-group structural equation modeling indicated that for European American teens emotion suppression was significantly related to increased depression symptoms and decreased quality of peer relationships. In contrast, for the Vietnamese Americans teens emotion suppression relations to later maladjustment was either nonsignificant or attenuated relative to the European American. These findings suggest ethnic group differences in both the utilization, and consequences and function of emotion suppression among Vietnamese American and European American adolescents.