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Biomedical subjects

D G Cross

Publications and source records attributed to D G Cross.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Living in the nuclear age: an Australian study of children's and adolescent's fears.

Developmental changes in children's fears with a particular focus on fears of nuclear war were studied in a sample of 1243 Australian children and adolescents aged between 4-19 years. The average number of fears reported per child was 9.3. Females reported significantly more fears than males. Developmental changes also were apparent with animal and supernatural fears in the youngest age group giving way to social fears and fear of war in the older age brackets. An average of 67.4% of the sample expressed a fear of nuclear war. The implications of this finding for parents and educators are discussed.

Adolescent↗

Children's understanding of cystic fibrosis.

Sixty-one children aged 4-18 years with cystic fibrosis were interviewed about their understanding of the illness and their attitude towards it. Responses were compared across three age groups: 4-6 years, 7-11 years and 12-18 years, corresponding to Piagetian stages of cognitive development. While there was an obvious progression in knowledge with advancing age, the children's attitude to their illness and therapy varied remarkably between age groups. Those in the 4-6 year group were more positive about themselves and about the effect of therapy than those in the older groups. More than half knew that they were born with the illness, in contrast to published reports of healthy children's concepts of illness causation for this age group. Children in the 7-11 year group were least likely to feel better after therapy and were least likely to mention anything positive about having cystic fibrosis, despite having a higher mean Schwachman clinical score than those in the oldest group.

Adolescent↗

Stress, coping behaviors, and recommendations for intensive care and medical surgical ward registered nurses.

Forty one intensive care unit and 61 medical surgical ward registered nurses from two large urban teaching hospitals completed a stress questionnaire to examine stress factors, coping behaviors, and recommendations for alleviating stress within the work environment. Stress variables were grouped into five clusters: patient-related, environmental, management-related, interpersonal, and knowledge and skills. Multivariate analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect, with the ward nurses perceiving environmental factors as more stressful. Stress factors tend to be related to the overall hospital environment, especially in relation to specific work areas within the institutions.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Environmental factors associated with continuers and terminators in adult out-patient psychotherapy.

Two separate studies examined five areas in the patient's environment (e.g. life adjustment, external support, alternative counsel, intercurrent stress events, and other factors such as transport availability, and difficulty obtaining time off work) which may influence continuation or premature termination from psychotherapy. In the first study, a mail questionnaire was completed by 69 adult clients (32 terminators and 37 continuers) who attended for therapy at a state-controlled psychiatric out-patient clinic. Multivariate analysis of variance on each set of environmental variables failed to achieve significance. Univariate analysis, however, showed the effect of alternative counsel in the community such as the number of people with whom clients could discuss their problems outside of the treatment setting. Continuers, for example, had access to more individuals in the community and actually received more help from specific individuals (e.g. spouses) than did terminators. A replication study was conducted on 45 clients (21 terminators and 24 continuers) who attended for treatment during a further period. Results from the second study showed similar patterning in the data as for Study 1. The role of informal support in conjunction with therapy cannot be overlooked as possibly assisting clients to continue towards their desired goals of treatment.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Secondary therapist variables operating in short-term insight-oriented, and behaviour therapy.

Three therapists from a short-term insight orientation and three practicing behaviour therapy each provided treatment to five clients over a three-month course of therapy. Measurement of therapists' attitudes was taken at the beginning of treatment, at the mid-point, and at the conclusion of therapy, and tapped the therapist's attitude towards the suitability of the treatment administered, the patient's attitude toward the therapist (as perceived by the therapist), the type of patient and problem presented, and attraction to and liking for the patient. Pre-post-outcome measurement was also undertaken on a range of selected criteria. Results showed that behaviour therapists both believed more in the efficacy of their treatment throughout the course of therapy, and perceived their clients to be more positively disposed towards them than did insight-oriented therapists. Data highlight the role played by such secondary factors as these therapist variables, and emphasize the potential error in attributing therapeutic effects solely to traditional primary variables defined in terms of the treatment techniques or procedures being utilized.

Adult↗

Post-hypnotic amnesia: seeing is not remembering.

Prior to the administration of the reversibility cue to cancel a suggestion for post-hypnotic amnesia, subjects were exposed to a videotape playback of the events of the hypnotic session in the presence of an independent experimenter. The specific application of this method (the Experiential Analysis Technique) was designed to maximally cue subjects to recall and report on amnesic events. Performance of highly susceptible subjects who viewed the videotape indicated that amnesic subjects commented on fewer items, stopped the videotape less, and verbalized less than did non-amnesic subjects. The cued recall of the amnesic group was also often item-specific rather than general, and allowed one to distinguish between the impact of behavioural and experiential events. For some subjects, amnesia clearly could not be completely broken by the presentation of maximal cueing.

Adult↗

Hydrogen exchange at the amide group of reduced pyridine nucleotides and the inhibition of that reaction by dehydrogenases.

Stopped flow ultraviolet spectroscopy has been used to measure the rate of hydrogen exchange with solvent at the amide group of reduced nicotinamide nucleotide coenzymes. Several mechanisms for the exchange reaction are considered in the light of the kinetic data. Complex formation between the coenzyme and any of four dehydrogenases markedly slows the rate of hydrogen exchange. Hydrogen bond formation and/or hydrophobic interactions within these complexes are thought to be the reasons for the decreased rate of exchange.

Alcohol Oxidoreductases↗

Hydrogen-deuterium exchange in nucleosides and nucleotides. A mechanism for exchange of the exocyclic amino hydrogens of adenosine.

The pH dependence of the apparent first-order rate constant for the exchange of the exocyclic amino hydrogens of adenosine with deuterium from the solvent was measured by stopped-flow ultraviolet spectroscopy. This dependence shows acid catalysis, base catalysis, and spontaneous exchange at neutral pH values. A study of the effect of several buffers on the rates of exchange reveals both general acid and general base catalytic behavior for the exchange process. We propose a general mechanism for the exchange which requires N-1 protonated adenosine as an intermediate for the acid-catalyzed exchange and amidine anion for the base-catalyzed exchange. In both cases the rate-limiting step is the base-catalyzed abstraction of a proton from the exocyclic amino moiety. Evaluation of the rate constants predicts the equilibrium for the exocyclic amino/imino tautomers to be 6.3 times 10(3):1.

Adenosine↗

Hydrogen exchange in nucleosides and nucleotides. Measurement of hydrogen exchange by stopped-flow and ultraviolet difference spectroscopy.

Time-dependent changes in the ultraviolet absorbance of the adenine chromophore are observed in the stopped-flow spectrophotometer when adenosine and its analogs are rapidly transferred from protium oxide to deuterium oxide. These absorbance changes are shown to result from hydrogen exchange in the exocyclic amino groups of the purine ribonucleosides by using derivatives of adenosine in which methyl groups replace exchangeable hydrogens and by showing that the general characteristics of hydrogen exchange in adenosine analogs agree with those found here. A study of the dependence of hydrogen-exchange rate constants on adenosine, AMP, and phosphate concentration showed there is a second-order dependence on AMP concentration which is primarily due to intermolecular catalysis by the phosphate group of the nucleotide. The deuterium oxide perturbation difference spectrum, obtained at equilibrium, was found to contain two components that result from blue shifts of the adenine chromophore absorbance: (1) a shift cause by the substitution of deuterium for protium in the ring (N1) nitrogen and exocyclic nitrogens, and (2) a shift associated with a change in the polarizability of the medium. Since the theory of solvent perturbation, which is used to measure the relative "exposure" of chromophores in macromolecules, assumes that the spectral shifts observed are solely due to (2) above, the use of deuterium oxide as a measure of chromophore exposure to perturbants the size of water must be reexamined.

Adenosine↗

Value systems and delinquency: parental and generational discrepancies in value systems for delinquent and non-delinquent boys.

A sample of 82 delinquent boys in two institutions and a matched sample of 82 nondelinquent boys from three secondary schools ranked values from the Rokeach Value Survey in their order of importance for self, mother and father. Order of rankings was counter-balanced. Results indicated that the sets of rankings (value systems) were more discrepant between boys and their parents and between the parents themselves in the delinquent sample than in the non-delinquent sample, but only in regard to the set of terminal values. Marked differences in the relative importance of particular values occurred between the two groups both in relation to rankings for self and for parents, and (for both groups) between the boys and their parents (generational) and between mother and father (parental). Favourability towards father correlated positively with degree of value similarity between sons and fathers but only for the terminal values.

Adolescent↗