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A new self-report scale for assessment of adolescent psychopathology: factor structure, reliability, validity, and diagnostic sensitivity.

This paper describes four studies on self-reported problems in 2,243 adolescent males and females, 12 to 17 years of age. In Study 1, principal-axis factoring of 102 items covering 11 problem domains revealed six factors comprising 49.5% of the variance. Study 2 used confirmatory factor analysis of a 64-item reduced set on a new sample of 408 adolescents. Goodness-of-fit indicators suggested that the six-factor model had excellent fit to the data. Study 3 used data from the 2,157 adolescents used in the first two studies. Coefficient alphas ranged from .83 to .92. Median test-retest reliability for the six factors was .86. There was a consistent structure of the correlation matrix across age and gender. Study 4 was a study of criterion validity, using an additional sample of 86 children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sensitivity and specificity were high, with an overall diagnostic efficiency of 83%. This new self-report scale, the Conners/Wells Adolescent Self-Report of Symptoms (CASS), may provide a useful component of a multimodal assessment of adolescent psychopathology.

Adolescent↗

Factor analysis, causal indicators and quality of life.

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) remains one of the standard and most widely used methods for demonstrating construct validity of new instruments. However, the model for EFA makes assumptions which may not be applicable to all quality of life (QOL) instruments, and as a consequence the results from EFA may be misleading. In particular, EFA assumes that the underlying construct of QOL (and any postulated subscales or 'factors') may be regarded as being reflected by the items in those factors or subscales. QOL instruments, however, frequently contain items such as diseases, symptoms or treatment side effects, which are 'causal indicators'. These items may cause reduction in QOL for those patients experiencing them, but the reverse relationship need not apply: not all patients with a poor QOL need be experiencing the same set of symptoms. Thus a high level of a symptom item may imply that a patient's QOL is likely to be poor, but a poor level of QOL need not imply that the patient probably suffers from that symptom. This is the reverse of the common EFA model, in which it is implicitly assumed that changes in QOL and any subscales 'cause' or are likely to be reflected by corresponding changes in all their constituent items; thus the items in EFA are called 'effect indicators.' Furthermore, disease-related clusters of symptoms, or treatment-induced side-effects, may result in different studies finding different sets of items being highly correlated; for example, a study involving lung cancer patients receiving surgery and chemotherapy might find one set of highly correlated symptoms, whilst prostate cancer patients receiving hormone therapy would have a very different symptom correlation structure. Since EFA is based upon analyzing the correlation matrix and assuming all items to be effect indicators, it will extract factors representing consequences of the disease or treatment. These factors are likely to vary between different patient subgroups, according to the mode of treatment or the disease type and stage. Such factors contain little information about the relationship between the items and any underlying QOL constructs. Factor analysis is largely irrelevant as a method of scale validation for those QOL instruments that contain causal indicators, and should only be used with items which are effect indicators.

Causality↗

Perceived quality of life in schizophrenia: relationships to sleep quality.

We examined the relationship between perceived quality of life (QOL) and subjective quality of sleep among schizophrenia patients, and its relation to symptom severity, side effects and emotional distress. One hundred and forty five schizophrenia patients were comprehensively evaluated with standardized measures of symptom severity, adverse effects, emotional distress, QOL, and sleep quality (the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, PSQI). Partial correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed. Poor sleepers reported lower mean scores on all QOL domains, they were more depressed and distressed, and had more adverse effects to medications with concomitant distress than good sleepers. The negative relationship between complaints of poor sleep quality and QOL measures remained significant when the confounding effect of depression, side effects, and distress was partialled from the correlation matrix. Daytime dysfunction (a component of the PSQI) accounted for 12.6% of the variance in QOL index scores. Thus, poor QOL reported by schizophrenia patients is substantially associated with poor sleep quality. This association appears both independently and synergistically with depression, distress and side effects of medications.

Adolescent↗

When fit indices and residuals are incompatible.

Standard chi-square-based fit indices for factor analysis and related models have a little known property: They are more sensitive to misfit when unique variances are small than when they are large. Consequently, very small correlation residuals indicating excellent fit can be accompanied by indications of bad fit by the fit indices when unique variances are small. An empirical example of this incompatibility between residuals and fit indices is provided. For illustrative purposes, an artificial example is provided that yields exactly the same correlation residuals as the empirical example but has larger unique variances. For this example, the fit indices indicate excellent fit. A theoretical explanation for this phenomenon is provided using relationships between unique variances and eigenvalues of the fitted correlation matrix.

Humans↗

A meta-analytic examination of the goal orientation nomological net.

The authors present an empirical review of the literature concerning trait and state goal orientation (GO). Three dimensions of GO were examined: learning, prove performance, and avoid performance along with presumed antecedents and proximal and distal consequences of these dimensions. Antecedent variables included cognitive ability, implicit theory of intelligence, need for achievement, self-esteem, general self-efficacy, and the Big Five personality characteristics. Proximal consequences included state GO, task-specific self-efficacy, self-set goal level, learning strategies, feedback seeking, and state anxiety. Distal consequences included learning, academic performance, task performance, and job performance. Generally speaking, learning GO was positively correlated, avoid performance GO was negatively correlated, and prove performance GO was uncorrelated with these variables. Consistent with theory, state GO tended to have stronger relationships with the distal consequences than did trait GO. Finally, using a meta-correlation matrix, the authors found that trait GO predicted job performance above and beyond cognitive ability and personality. These results demonstrate the value of GO to organizational researchers.

Employee Performance Appraisal↗

Measurement of psychological disorders using cognitive diagnosis models.

Cognitive diagnosis models are constrained (multiple classification) latent class models that characterize the relationship of questionnaire responses to a set of dichotomous latent variables. Having emanated from educational measurement, several aspects of such models seem well suited to use in psychological assessment and diagnosis. This article presents the development of a new cognitive diagnosis model for use in psychological assessment--the DINO (deterministic input; noisy "or" gate) model--which, as an illustrative example, is applied to evaluate and diagnose pathological gamblers. As part of this example, a demonstration of the estimates obtained by cognitive diagnosis models is provided. Such estimates include the probability an individual meets each of a set of dichotomous Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (text revision [DSM-IV-TR]; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria, resulting in an estimate of the probability an individual meets the DSM-IV-TR definition for being a pathological gambler. Furthermore, a demonstration of how the hypothesized underlying factors contributing to pathological gambling can be measured with the DINO model is presented, through use of a covariance structure model for the tetrachoric correlation matrix of the dichotomous latent variables representing DSM-IV-TR criteria.

Cognition Disorders↗

Principles and practice in reporting structural equation analyses.

Principles for reporting analyses using structural equation modeling are reviewed, with the goal of supplying readers with complete and accurate information. It is recommended that every report give a detailed justification of the model used, along with plausible alternatives and an account of identifiability. Nonnormality and missing data problems should also be addressed. A complete set of parameters and their standard errors is desirable, and it will often be convenient to supply the correlation matrix and discrepancies, as well as goodness-of-fit indices, so that readers can exercise independent critical judgment. A survey of fairly representative studies compares recent practice with the principles of reporting recommended here.

Humans↗

The path analysis controversy: a new statistical approach to strong appraisal of verisimilitude.

A new approach for using path analysis to appraise the verisimilitude of theories is described. Rather than trying to test a model's truth (correctness), this method corroborates a class of path diagrams by determining how well they predict intradata relations in comparison with other diagrams. The observed correlation matrix is partitioned into disjoint sets. One set is used to estimate the model parameters, and a nonoverlapping set is used to assess the model's verisimilitude. Computer code was written to generate competing models and to test the conjectured model's superiority (relative to the generated set) using diagram combinatorics and is available on the Web (http://www.vanderbilt.edu/quantmetheval/downloads.htm).

Humans↗

Occurrence of heavy metals and sodium, potassium and calcium in human teeth.

Heavy metals and Na, Ca, and K were determined in human teeth during 1992/1993 in the Polish towns of Katowice and Istebna. In the relatively clean region of the southern part of Poland (Istebna) the content of heavy metals in the teeth of inhabitants was several times lower than in Katowice (Silesian industrial centre). Ratios of the concentration of Pb:Fe and Pb:Mn in teeth may be an indicator of the pollution. The analysis of the correlation matrix shows the differences in accumulation of metals in teeth for inhabitants of the two investigated towns. The differences of the mean concentration of metals Pb, Ni, Cd, Zn, Co, Mn, Cr, Na and Ca in teeth of inhabitants of Katowice and Istebna were significant (p < 0.05) according to Student's t-test for independent samples.

Adolescent↗

Novel application of S-nitrosoglutathione-Sepharose to identify proteins that are potential targets for S-nitrosoglutathione-induced mixed-disulphide formation.

Site-specific S-glutathionylation is emerging as a novel mechanism by which S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) may modify functionally important protein thiols. Here, we show that GSNO-Sepharose mimicks site-specific S-glutathionylation of the transcription factors c-Jun and p50 by free GSNO in vitro. Both c-Jun and p50 were found to bind to immobilized GSNO through the formation of a mixed disulphide, involving a conserved cysteine residue located in the DNA-binding domains of these transcription factors. Furthermore, we show that c-Jun, p50, glycogen phosphorylase b, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, creatine kinase, glutaredoxin and caspase-3 can be precipitated from a mixture of purified thiol-containing proteins by the formation of a mixed-disulphide bond with GSNO-Sepharose. With few exceptions, protein binding to this matrix correlated well with the susceptibility of the investigated proteins to undergo GSNO- but not diamide-induced mixed-disulphide formation in vitro. Finally, it is shown that covalent GSNO-Sepharose chromatography of HeLa cell nuclear extracts results in the enrichment of proteins which incorporate glutathione in response to GSNO treatment. As suggested by DNA-binding assays, this group of nuclear proteins include the transcription factors activator protein-1, nuclear factor-kappaB and cAMP-response-element-binding protein. In conclusion, we introduce GSNO-Sepharose as a probe for site-specific S-glutathionylation and as a novel and potentially useful tool to isolate and identify proteins which are candidate targets for GSNO-induced mixed-disulphide formation.

Binding Sites↗

Self-report approach to assessing benefit derived from amplification.

The ultimate goal of hearing aid selection procedures is successful use of amplification in everyday communication. The need to validate selection procedures is widely recognized, but the development of relevant criterion measures is a prerequisite to evaluation of predictive validity. This study explored the feasibility of using a self-report method of measuring success with amplification. A 64-item questionnaire was administered to 128 experienced hearing aid users who rated the benefit received from amplification in a variety of situations. Internal consistency reliability was excellent (alpha = .96), indicating that the perceived benefit is sufficiently consistent across situations to yield reliable measures of individual differences among patients. Factor analysis of the interitem correlation matrix, however, led to the identification of four types of situations that might be assessed separately: (a) noisy situations; (b) quiet situations with the speaker in proximity; (c) situations with reduced signal information; and (d) situations with nonspeech stimuli. In general, patients reported significantly more benefit from their aids in quiet situations than in noise. A self-report methodology for measuring successful use of amplification in daily life appears promising as a criterion measure in predictive validation studies of hearing aid selection procedures.

Adult↗

The beliefs of nurses who were involved in a whistleblowing event.

BACKGROUND: Nursing codes of ethics bind nurses to the role of patient advocate and compel them to take action when the rights or safety of a patient are jeopardized. Reporting misconduct is known as whistleblowing and studies indicate that there are personal and professional risks involved in blowing the whistle. AIM: The aim of this study was to explore the beliefs of nurses who wrestled with this ethical dilemma. DESIGN: A descriptive survey design was used to examine the beliefs of nurses in Western Australia who reported misconduct (whistleblowers) and of those who did not report misconduct (nonwhistleblowers). METHODS: The instrument listed statements from current ethical codes, statements from traditional views on nursing and statements of beliefs related to the participant's whistleblowing experience. Respondents were asked to rate each item on a five-point Likert format which ranged from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Data were analysed using a Pearson's correlation matrix and one-way ANOVA. To further explore the data, a factor analysis was run with varimax rotation. RESULTS: Results indicated that whistleblowers supported the beliefs inherent in patient advocacy, while nonwhistleblowers retained a belief in the traditional role of nursing. Participants who reported misconduct (whistleblowers) supported the belief that nurses were primarily responsible to the patient and should protect a patient from incompetent or unethical people. Participants who did not report misconduct (nonwhistleblowers) supported the belief that nurses are obligated to follow a physician's order at all times and that nurses are equally responsible to the patient, the physician and the employer. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that nurses may respond to ethical dilemmas based on different belief systems.

Adult↗

RAPD variation and population genetic structure in Prunus mahaleb (Rosaceae), an animal-dispersed tree.

We examined the patterns of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) variation among seven Prunus mahaleb (Rosaceae) populations extending over approximately 100 km2 to examine local differentiation in relation to spatial isolation due to both geographical distance and differences in elevation. No less than 51. 4% of the RAPD loci were polymorphic, but very few were fixed and among-population variation accounted for 16.46% of variation in RAPD patterns. Mean gene diversity was 0.1441, with mean Nei's genetic diversity for individual populations ranging between 0.089 and 0.149. Mean GST value across loci was 0.1935 (range, 0.0162-0.4685), giving an average estimate for Nm of 1.191. These results suggest extensive gene flow among populations, but higher GST and lower Nm values relative to other outcrossing, woody species with endozoochorous dispersal, also suggest a process of isolation by distance. The combined effect of both geographical and elevation distances and nonoverlapping flowering and fruiting phenophases on the GST matrix was partially significant, revealing only marginal isolation of the P. mahaleb populations. The matrix correlation between estimated Nm values among populations and the geographical + elevation distance matrices (r = -0.4623, P = 0.07), suggests a marginal trend for more isolated populations to exchange less immigrants. Long-distance seed dispersal by efficient medium-sized frugivorous birds and mammals is most likely associated to the high levels of within-population genetic diversity. However, vicariance factors and demographic bottlenecks (high postdispersal seed and seedling mortality) explain comparatively high levels of local differentiation.

Animals↗

Platelet aggregation of migraineurs during and between attacks.

Platelet aggregation induced by ADP, collagen and platelet-activating factor was studied in common (migraine without aura) and classical migraine (migraine with aura) patients during and between attacks. The EC50* values for ADP and platelet-activating factor were significantly higher, whilst that for collagen was significantly lower in classical migraine patients during headache-free intervals compared to healthy volunteers. The EC50 values obtained for common migraine sufferers during symptom-free periods were similar to those of controls. During attacks, the EC50 value for ADP, but not for collagen and platelet-activating factor, was significantly higher than that of the controls. In healthy subjects a positive correlation was found between ADP and collagen-induced aggregation. In contrast, there was a U-shaped correlation matrix in classical migraine patients. The present observations show that platelet aggregation is altered in migraine patients and this raises the possibility that platelet-activating factor may be involved in the pathogenesis of migraine.

Adenosine Diphosphate↗

Electron tunneling dynamics in anharmonic bath.

Tunneling transition probability for a particle interacting with an anharmonic bath is found in a time-dependent Hartree approximation. The general expression is presented in terms of medium Keldysh functions that are assumed to be known. Furthermore, the transition probability is calculated in the noninteracting-blip approximation where the rate constant does not exhibit an activation dependence at high temperatures. The reorganization energy E(r) and the renormalized reaction heat epsilon are expressed in terms of the correlation matrix for a solvent and internal modes in both quantum and classical regimes. It is shown that E(r) and epsilon are temperature dependent.

Journal Article↗

Quantum transport in chains with noisy off-diagonal couplings.

We present a model for conductivity and energy diffusion in a linear chain described by a quadratic Hamiltonian with Gaussian noise. We show that when the correlation matrix is diagonal, the noise-averaged Liouville-von Neumann equation governing the time evolution of the system reduces to the [Lindblad, Commun. Math. Phys. 48, 119 (1976)] equation with Hermitian Lindblad operators. We show that the noise-averaged density matrix for the system expectation values of the energy density and the number density satisfies discrete versions of the heat and diffusion equations. Transport coefficients are given in terms of model Hamiltonian parameters. We discuss conditions on the Hamiltonian under which the noise-averaged expectation value of the total energy remains constant. For chains placed between two heat reservoirs, the gradient of the energy density along the chain is linear.

Journal Article↗

Fisher's theorems for multivariable, time- and space-dependent systems, with applications in population genetics and chemical kinetics.

We study different physical, chemical, or biological processes involving replication, transformation, and disappearance processes, as well as transport processes, and assume that the time and space dependence of the species densities are known. We derive two types of Fisher equations. The first type relates the average value of the time derivative of the relative time-specific rates of growth of the different species to the variance of the relative, time-specific rates of growth. A second type relates the average value of the gradient or the divergence of the relative, space-specific rates of growth to the space correlation matrix of the relative, space-specific rates of growth. These Fisher equations are exact results, which are independent of the detailed kinetics of the process: they are valid whether the evolution equations are linear or nonlinear, local or nonlocal in space and/or time and can be applied for the study of a large class of physical, chemical, and biological systems described in terms of time- and/or space-dependent density fields. We examine the implications of our generalized Fisher relations in population genetics, biochemistry, and chemical kinetics (reaction-diffusion systems). We show that there is a connection between the enhanced (hydrodynamic) transport of mutations induced by population growth and space-specific rate vectors: the velocity of enhanced transport is proportional to the product of the diffusion coefficient of the species and the space rate vector; this relation is similar to a fluctuation-dissipation relation in statistical mechanics.

Analysis of Variance↗

Platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 is phosphorylatable by c-Src, binds Src-Src homology 2 domain, and exhibits immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif-like properties.

Platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM-1) is 130-kDa member of the immunoglobulin gene superfamily that localizes to cell-cell borders of confluent endothelial cells and has been shown to play a role in the control of endothelial sheet migration and leukocyte transmigration through the endothelium. The cytoplasmic tail plays an important role in the modulation of PECAM-1 function. Mutation of tyrosine 663 or 686 in the cytoplasmic tail reduces phosphorylation and mutation of 686 is associated with a reduction in PECAM-1-mediated inhibition of cell migration (1). We have previously noted that these two tyrosine residues are surrounded by consensus sequences for Src homology 2 (SH2) domain binding (1, 2), and the experiments presented explore the potential for PECAM-1-Src and PECAM-1-SH2 domain interactions. PECAM-1 is more highly phosphorylated in endothelial cells overexpressing c-Src, and in in vitro kinase assays, c-Src can phosphorylate a glutathione S-transferase (GST)-PECAM cytoplasmic tail fusion protein. The phosphorylated fusion protein associates with the bead-bound c-Src. This association appears to be mediated by Src-SH2 domain, because PECAM-1 can be precipitated by a GST-Src-SH2 affinity matrix. The binding to the GST-Src-SH2 affinity matrix correlates directly with the level of PECAM-1 phosphorylation, because more PECAM-1 is precipitated from c-Src overexpressors and from wild-type rather than Tyr663 --> Phe and Tyr686 --> Phe mutant PECAM-1 expressors. Yet unidentified phosphoproteins can also be coimmunoprecipitated with wild-type but not mutant PECAM-1. Finally, we note the similarity of the PECAM-1 cytoplasmic domain sequence to the immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif. Our data begin to delineate how tyrosines 663 and 686 may play a role in mediating PECAM-1 signal transduction.

Genes, src↗