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Biomedical subjects

B Parkinson

Publications and source records attributed to B Parkinson.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Nanometer-scale ablation with a table-top soft x-ray laser.

Ablation of holes with diameters as small as 82 nm and very clean walls was obtained in poly(methyl methacrylate) focusing pulses from a Ne-like Ar 46.9 nm compact capillary-discharge laser with a freestanding Fresnel zone plate diffracting into third order. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using focused soft x-ray laser beams for the direct nanoscale patterning of materials and the development of new nanoprobes.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Home treatment as an alternative to inpatient admission: characteristics of those treated and factors predicting hospitalization.

In response to the NHS Plan, crisis and home treatment teams will be developed across the UK in order to provide intensive home treatment as an alternative to inpatient admission for individuals with severe, acute mental health problems. This study describes aspects of the work of two teams in Hertfordshire. A total of 293 individuals were taken on for intensive home treatment in a 12-month period. A range of social and demographic variables was recorded at the point of initial assessment regarding each individual, as well as two rating scales: the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and the Scale for Suicide Ideation. Sixty-two individuals (21.1%) required admission to hospital after a median period of home treatment of 11 days. The most frequently recorded reason for admission taking place was 'risk to self' (n = 33, 53.2%). Two variables were identified by logistic regression analysis as being predictive of an increased risk of hospitalization: high suicidal ideation at initial assessment (P < 0.01) and previous hospital admission (P < 0.01). Although statistically significant, these variables were only weakly predictive of whether admission would actually take place.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Anger on and off the road.

Participants reported on two recent experiences of anger, of which one had occurred while they were driving and the other in a non-driving situation. Anger while driving was described as less mixed with other emotions, involving purer appraisals of other-blame, more likely to be caused by communication difficulties, and slower to be noticed by the person who was its target. Levels of negative affect preceding anger were rated as significantly lower in driving than non-driving situations, and mood and unrelated pressure were considered to be less influential causes of the subsequent emotional reaction. Frequency estimates supported the popular notion that anger is relatively more likely while driving than during other activities. Individual difference measures relating to ambivalence over emotional expression, self-consciousness, and empathy showed no reliable correlations with frequency of anger while driving, but previously developed self-report indices of driving anger and aggression made a significant contribution to its prediction even after controlling for anger frequency in other situations. These results support everyday intuitions that certain features of the road situation differentially predispose drivers to become angry and that the resulting anger tends to take a different form from anger experienced off the road.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Use and effectiveness of self-regulation strategies for improving mood in a group of trainee teachers.

A field study investigated the ongoing use and effectiveness of self-regulation strategies for improving mood and the effects of a mood-regulation intervention. Thirty trainee teachers used pocket computers to complete ratings of their mood and their use of mood-regulation strategies every 2 hr during 2 weeks of a school placement. Cognitive distraction was the most frequently used strategy, but behavioral diversion and cognitive reappraisal were associated with the greatest improvements in reported mood. Neither avoidance nor venting was associated with mood improvements. Concurrent mood, mood awareness, and activity predicted the use of different regulation strategies. Half of the participants were instructed to use engagement strategies and the other half diversion strategies during the middle 6 days of the study. The engagement group reported significantly higher levels of cheerfulness during this intervention.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

Untangling the appraisal- emotion connection.

This article aims to clarify the nature of the relation between cognitive appraisal and emotion. I distinguish a range of alternative possible hypotheses according to whether this appraisal-emotion connection is assumed to operate at the conceptual or empirical level, whether it is supposed to be a descriptive or causal relation, and whether it is seen as having a contingent or necessary basis. Reviewing the varieties of available evidence for connections at different levels, find little support for empirical rather than conceptual relations or for necessary as opposed to contingent ones. Ways are suggested in which this evidence might be extended so that more substantive conclusions are possible. I contend that future progress in this research area requires tighter specification of the different kinds of appraisal process that operate during real-time emotional episodes and of their potential interactions with other aspects of the unfolding emotional syndrome. Finally, I develop an alternative perspective on appraisal-emotion relations that views appraisals as representing the message value of interpersonally directed emotions, and I suggest future directions for research based on this approach.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1996

Emotions are social.

In this paper, I question the assumption that emotions are first and foremost individual reactions, and suggest instead that they are often best viewed as social phenomena. I show that many of the causes of emotions are interpersonally, institutionally or culturally defined; that emotions usually have consequences for other people; and that they serve interpersonal as well as cultural functions in everyday life. Furthermore, many cases of emotion are essentially communicative rather than internal and reactive phenomena. Previous research has often underestimated the importance of social factors in the causation and constitution of emotion. In conclusion, I recommend that existing cognitive and physiological approaches to emotional phenomena be supplemented or supplanted by social psychological analysis.

Communication↗
PubMed1994

Associations of sleep with everyday mood, minor symptoms and social interaction experience.

Although there are strong popular beliefs about the value of a good night's sleep, there is very little documented evidence of day-to-day relations between sleep and well-being. In this study, covariations between sleep and both prior and subsequent daily states of well-being were studied in a healthy, employed sample. Thirty volunteers used pocket computers to complete a daily sleep diary and self-rating scales of mood, minor symptoms and social interaction experience. These were recorded every 2 hours for 14 days except during sleep periods. A pooled regression analysis showed small but significant relationships between many of the sleep and well-being measures. Sleep appeared to be more strongly related to subsequent well-being than prior well-being. An earlier onset of sleep was associated with better mood and social interaction experience the following day and was a better predictor than sleep duration. This result was interpreted to be consistent with the phase angle model of chronobiologic mood disorders. In general, the results suggest that the sleep disturbances found in affective disorders may not be pathological but instead represent the extremes of normal relationships between sleep and well-being.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1992

Benefits and costs of vaccination.

Vaccination programmes supported by the WHO and other organizations have dramatically reduced disease in developing countries, but there remains a need to extend coverage rates and expand the number of vaccines included. In industrialized countries, where paediatric vaccination is almost universal, there will be an increasing opportunity to protect against diseases which occur in later years.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗
PubMed1991

Mammographically guided fine-needle aspiration biopsy of nonpalpable breast lesions. Can it replace open biopsy?

The authors report the accuracy of mammographically guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) for the diagnosis of nonpalpable breast lesions in a series of 71 patients. Each mammographically guided FNA was immediately followed by hookwire localization and open biopsy. Seven malignancies were identified cytologically, but three cancers were not detected in aspirates judged to be sufficient for diagnosis. In addition, 19 aspirates were reported to be insufficient, and 4 of these were obtained from lesions histologically proven to be adenocarcinoma. Although no false-positive diagnoses were encountered, the technique demonstrated a sensitivity of 78% and a diagnostic accuracy of 94% for adequate specimens. In this study, mammographically guided FNA was insufficiently sensitive to replace open biopsy for the diagnosis of nonpalpable breast lesions.

Biopsy↗
PubMed1981

An examination of the role played by meaning of feedback and attention to feedback in the "Valins effect".

This study assesses the role played by the variables of meaning and attention in mediating the cognitive effects of false autonomic feedback, first reported by Valins. In the context of a study of the physiological correlates of selective attention, subjects were instructed either to attend or to ignore pulsed sounds that were described either as veridical heart rate feedback or simply as electronic "bleeps." These auditory stimuli were presented in parallel with slides illustrating skin diseases. Consistent with previous findings, slides associated with acceleration of the pulsed sounds were subsequently rated as significantly more unpleasant than those associated with no change in the speed of these sounds. However, this effect was not contingent on the apparent meaning of these sounds (heart rate vs bleeps) but was contingent on the degree of attention paid to the sounds. The "Valins effect" was only obtained when subjected attended to the sounds. The implications of these findings for the interpretation of the cognitive effects of false autonomic feedback are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mammography screen-film selection: individual facility testing technique.

Variations in tube output, film processing, and radiologist's preferences affect the screen-film combination that is appropriate for any particular mammographic facility. A technique to test a variety of screen-film combinations for screening mammography is described. Films are selected for testing because of their densitometric characteristics. Dose and clinical reliability are established with phantoms before the screen-film combinations are used to image consecutive patients having bilateral examinations. The mammograms selected for evaluation are those with similar optical density ranges, and which also may be compared to available previous mammograms or which have unusual mammographic findings. All radiologists reading mammograms at a facility independently score the selected cases. Scores of "unacceptable," "acceptable," or "outstanding" are assigned to four basic imaging characteristics: sharpness, contrast, visibility of skin line, and noise. Interobserver variations by this method require normalization, unlike ROC analysis which is not applicable for this data because of the absence of proved pathologic diagnoses. The testing of 5 films and two screens using 42 patient examinations required 2 h of time from each radiologist. It took 7 h of the physicist's time to pretest the 5 films, select the 42 acceptable examinations for testing by the radiologists, and summarize the data.

Female↗