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Biomedical subjects

S Brake

Publications and source records attributed to S Brake.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Quality of life in HIV-infected women in the south-eastern United States.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relative importance of social (social support, material resources, disclosure, and family functioning) and psychological factors (stigma, emotional distress, intrusion, avoidance, and fatalism) as predictors of the quality of life of women infected with HIV. The cross-sectional data were drawn from interviews of a sample of 264 women recruited from 8 HIV/AIDS treatment sites in a south-eastern state. Variance in quality of life variables, included limited daily functioning, general anxiety, and HIV symptoms was analyzed using ANOVA, correlations, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Limited daily functioning was predicted by stigma, fatalism, employment status, and stage of disease (R2 = 0.179). General anxiety was predicted by emotional distress, intrusion, and marital status (R2 = 0.503). Reported HIV symptoms were predicted by material resources, disclosure, intrusion, age, employment status, and race (R2 = 0.294). The results of this study support that social and, particularly, psychological factors are important in their influence on quality of life in women with HIV infection and suggest the need for interventions which address such factors.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1997

The impact of HIV on emotional distress of infected women: cognitive appraisal and coping as mediators.

This study examined the role of psychological factors as mediators of the impact of HIV-related stressors on emotional distress of a clinic-based sample of 264 HIV+ women. Based upon Lazarus and colleagues' cognitively oriented theory of stress and coping, causal modeling was used to test for mediating effects of cognitive appraisal (intrusive thoughts and perceived stigma) and coping variables (avoidance and fatalism) on emotional distress within the context of HIV-related stressors (functional impairment and work performance impairment). The findings supported the mediating effects of cognitive appraisal but not of the coping variables. Consistent with theory, the effect of HIV-related stressors on emotional distress was indirect through cognitive appraisal; however, there were no significant direct effects of HIV-related stressors, fatalism or avoidance on emotional distress. The causal model accounted for significant portions of variance in emotional distress (R2 = .49) and the model fit, as a whole, was more than adequate. The findings indicate that how HIV+ women think about HIV-related stressors is an important factor that may account for individual variability in the ability to maintain a sense of subjective well-being in the face of a devastating fatal disease.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1993

What's lost in inverted faces?

Disproportionate inversion decrements for recognizing faces and other homogeneous stimuli are often interpreted as evidence that experts use relational features to recognize stimuli that share a configuration. However, it has never directly been shown that inversion disrupts the coding of relational features more than isolated features. Here we report three studies that compare inversion decrements for detecting changes that span the isolated-relational features continuum. Relatively large inversion decrements occurred for relational features (Thatcher illusion changes, internal feature spacing), with smaller decrements for isolated features (presence/absence of facial hair or glasses). The one discrepancy was a relatively large inversion decrement for detecting changes to the eyes and mouth, which we had classified as an isolated feature change. However, this decrement disappeared when the features were presented out of the face context (Experiments 2 and 3), suggesting that it occurs because subjects spontaneously code relations between the features and the rest of the face. Although the results support the interpretation of disproportionate inversion effects as evidence of relational coding, the difficulty of classifying changes as isolated or relational highlights an undesirable ambiguity in the isolated-relational feature distinction. We therefore consider alternative construals of the configural coding notion.

Facial Expression↗
PubMed1989

Expertise and configural coding in face recognition.

Diamond & Carey (1986) have argued that expertise in face recognition depends on the ability to code configural properties in addition to isolated features. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments by comparing the effect of inversion on recognition of 'own race' (high expertise) and 'other race' (low expertise) faces. Use of configural information should be associated with a larger inversion effect than use of isolated features, and therefore inversion should produce a larger recognition decrement for own race than for other race faces. In Expt 1 there was a larger inversion effect in reaction times for recognition of own race faces than other race faces, for both European and Chinese subjects (ceiling effects made interpretation of accuracy difficult). In Expt 2 a larger own race inversion effect was found for recognition accuracy, when test face pairs were randomly selected, but not when they were matched on isolated features. Our results are largely consistent with the hypothesis that expertise is associated with greater use of configural information in faces.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Suckling in the rat: evidence for patterned behavior during sleep.

Electrophysiological recordings showed that 2-wk-old rats are actually asleep 66% of the time while suckling on the dam. The pups are no more likely to be awake while on the nipple than between nursing bouts. Sucking behavior, recorded electromyographically, occurred during sleep as well as during wakefulness. Pups were found to be asleep just prior to the dam's periodic milk ejections (ME) in 100% of 33 recorded instances and were briefly awakened by the ME, but 60% were asleep again within 30 s. These studies demonstrate the embedding of a vital early behavior pattern in the states of sleep.

Animal Population Groups↗
PubMed1982

Species identification and susceptibility to 17 antibiotics of coagulase-negative staphylococci isolated from clinical specimens.

A total of 299 isolates of gram-positive, catalase-positive, coagulase-negative cocci were isolated from a variety of specimens collected from patients at a large university hospital, and 281 (94%) were identified as staphylococci by established methods. Using the scheme of Kloos and Schleifer, we determined the species of the coagulase-negative staphylococci. Staphylococcus epidermidis was the cause of all bacteremias and the most commonly isolated species from bone, joint, and wound infections. Staphylococcus haemolyticus was the second most common isolate from wound infections, and Staphylococcus saprophyticus was the most commonly isolated species from urinary tract infections. Antibiograms to 17 antimicrobial agents were performed by a microdilution technique, and the results revealed that S. epidermidis was resistant to a water spectrum of antimicrobial agents than the other species of staphylococci were.

Adolescent↗