Exposure Reconstruction for the TCDD-Exposed NIOSH Cohort Using a Concentration- and Age-Dependent Model of Elimination

Recent studies demonstrating a concentration dependence of elimination of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) suggest that previous estimates of exposure for occupationally exposed cohorts may have underestimated actual exposure, resulting in a potential overestimate of the carcinogenic potency of TCDD in humans based on the mortality data for these cohorts. Using a database on U.S. chemical manufacturing workers potentially exposed to TCDD compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), we evaluated the impact of using a concentration- and age-dependent elimination model (CADM) (Aylward et al., 2005) on estimates of serum lipid area under the curve (AUC) for the NIOSH cohort. These data were used previously by Steenland et al. (2001) in combination with a first-order elimination model with an 8.7-year half-life to estimate cumulative serum lipid concentration (equivalent to AUC) for these workers for use in cancer dose-response assessment. Serum lipid TCDD measurements taken in 1988 for a subset of the cohort were combined with the NIOSH job exposure matrix and work histories to estimate dose rates per unit of exposure score. We evaluated the effect of choices in regression model (regression on untransformed vs. ln-transformed data and inclusion of a nonzero regression intercept) as well as the impact of choices of elimination models and parameters on estimated AUCs for the cohort. Central estimates for dose rate parameters derived from the serum-sampled subcohort were applied with the elimination models to time-specific exposure scores for the entire cohort to generate AUC estimates for all cohort members. Use of the CADM resulted in improved model fits to the serum sampling data compared to the first-order models. Dose rates varied by a factor of 50 among different combinations of elimination model, parameter sets, and regression models. Use of a CADM results in increases of up to five-fold in AUC estimates for the more highly exposed members of the cohort compared to estimates obtained using the first-order model with 8.7-year half-life. This degree of variation in the AUC estimates for this cohort would affect substantially the cancer potency estimates derived from the mortality data from this cohort. Such variability and uncertainty in the reconstructed serum lipid AUC estimates for this cohort, depending on elimination model, parameter set, and regression model, have not been described previously and are critical components in evaluating the dose-response data from the occupationally exposed populations.     

Reconciling commodities and personal relations in industrial society

Conclusions I began this article with Colin Campbell's lament about the productionist bias in sociology and the related point that most sociologists concerned with consumption have ignored private meanings and small-scale structures in favor of public meanings and large-scale structures. This article calls attention to and builds on an emerging alternative approach to what happens after production, using an understanding of the social nature of objects that springs from Marcel Mauss's distinction between gifts and commodities.Mauss's model directs attention to the conflict in industrial societies between the two realms of commodity exchange and gift exchange, which I have cast as the conflict between the world of work and the world of family, and as the contrast between commodities and possessions. Thus, the model directs attention to the fact that objects are not simply transformed in production and displayed in consumption. However important these facts may be for understanding objects and society, they do not exhaust the important ways that people experience, use, and think about the objects that surround them. In particular, Mauss's model throws into relief the problematic nature of the objects that surround us and that we use in our social relations. And in doing so it directs attention to the ways that people try to reconstruct and redefine those objects by transforming them into personal possessions. This transformation makes objects acquired as commodities suitable for gift transactions, and hence suitable for the key task of recreating social relationships and social identities, the task of creating, not merely defining, who we are and how we are related to each other.Although the Maussian model addresses many of the links between people in the worlds of work and the home, and many of the ways that objects are part of these links, I am concerned here primarily with the ways that people can appropriate commodities in the process of purchase: shopping. This concern with shopping points out the social significance of retail trade, which I take to include advertising and shopping. This is not simply a passive conduit between production and consumption. Instead, it is an important point at which objects begin to leave the realm of work, commodities, and commodity relations and enter the realm of home, possessions, and gift relations. Shopping is an ubiquitous activity in industrial society and one that is highly significant culturally: we spend vast amounts of time, energy, money, and attention on it. Doubtless part of the reason for this is utilitarian, for we need to buy to live, but it would be foolish to reduce the significance of shopping to some combination of the need of individuals to acquire in order to survive and the need of companies to generate demand in order to profit. Thus, retail trade needs to be seen as well as a set of relations and transactions between seller and buyer that define and are defined by the objects and services involved, their history, and their future. My focus on purchasing food in supermarkets has the advantage of throwing into relief the problem of appropriation, because of the impersonality of object and social relations in large, self-service supermarkets. However, the very extremity of this example can create a false impression. As I noted, in other forms of shopping the social relations between buyer and seller, like the social identity of objects, can be more personal. This personality can be real, as when buyer and seller know each other or where the object is hand-made or even unique. Alternatively, it can be more purely symbolic, as when the selling company touts itself or its employees as friendly and caring or where the manufacturer advertises the personal nature of its commodities. In some cases, indeed, the manufacturing or trading company can present itself in such a way that the company itself becomes the person with whom the purchaser transacts. In addition, because of the focus on the appropriation of commodities in purchasing, I have touched only briefly on production and the world of work more generally. As does life at home, so life at work involves the transaction of objects and labor. Relations at work, then, will shape and be shaped by the nature of what is transacted. Co-workers who transact things that are more clearly stamped with their own identity, as among service workers and craft producers, will likely have more personal relations with fellow workers than will those who transact things that are themselves relatively impersonal, as in assembly-line production. This variability in the objects and relations at work suggests that people will have diverse understandings of work, and hence of manufactured objects more generally, which will affect the need they feel to appropriate commodities. In all, though, the point of this article is simple. People use objects to create and recreate personal social identities and relationships, and in industrial capitalist societies these objects are likely to be produced and purchased as commodities and understood as manufactures in Miller's sense. Our experience with and understanding of the production and sale of objects will affect the way we use them in transactions that create and recreate social identity and relationship, and will affect our understanding of the social identities and relationships that are created and recreated. Thus, the objects that people use in social relationships mediate between realms of economy and society, between the public realms where those objects are produced and distributed, and the private realms where those objects are transacted as part of social reproduction. The fact of this mediation and its effects on people's understanding of objects and social relations deserve careful attention.

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Psychological Vulnerability and Problem Gambling: The Mediational Role of Cognitive Distortions

Despite numerous studies demonstrating the influence of cognitive distortions on gambling problem severity, empirical data regarding the role of psychological vulnerability on the latter is limited. Hence, this study assesses the mediating effect of cognitive distortions between psychological vulnerability (personality and mood), and gambling problem severity. It also verifies whether the relationships between these variables differs according to the preferred gambling activity. The sample is composed of 272 male gamblers [191 poker players; 81 video lottery terminal (VLT) players] aged between 18 and 82 years (M = 35.2). Bootstrap analysis results revealed that cognitive distortions mediate the effect of narcissism on gambling problem severity for both groups. The level of depression for VLT players significantly predicted gambling problem severity, both directly and indirectly via the mediating effect of cognitive distortions. Mediation analyses also indicated that narcissism had an indirect impact on problem gambling through cognitive distortions for both groups. These findings suggest that certain vulnerabilities related to personality and mood may influence cognitive distortion intensity and gambling problem severity. In addition, psychological vulnerabilities could differ based on preferred gambling activity. These results may be useful for prevention policies, identifying high risk gamblers and planning psychological interventions.     

How Ego Depletion Affects Sexual Self-Regulation: Is It More Than Resource Depletion?

Rational thinking and decision making are impacted when in a state of sexual arousal. The inability to self-regulate arousal can be linked to numerous problems, like sexual risk taking, infidelity, and sexual coercion. Studies have shown that most men are able to exert voluntary control over their sexual excitation with various levels of success. Both situational and dispositional factors can influence self-regulation achievement. The goal of this research was to investigate how ego depletion, a state of low self-control capacity, interacts with personality traits—propensities for sexual excitation and inhibition—and cognitive absorption, to cause sexual self-regulation failure. The sexual responses of 36 heterosexual males were assessed using penile plethysmography. They were asked to control their sexual arousal in two conditions, with and without ego depletion. Results suggest that ego depletion has opposite effects based on the trait sexual inhibition, as individuals moderately inhibited showed an increase in performance while highly inhibited ones showed a decrease. These results challenge the limited resource model of self-regulation and point to the importance of considering how people adapt to acute and high challenging conditions.     

Ausbildung zum Ausbildungssupervisor für Verhaltenstherapie

Psychotherapy requires a high qualification which is gained mainly in practical training. Own treatments of mentally ill patients during training requires close-meshed supervision. This also has to meet the highest standards, which require a systematic training as a training supervisor. This article discusses the various aspects that have to be taken into consideration in behavior therapy. Beyond adherence to therapy manuals, extremely complex interaction processes have to be taken into account that cannot be substantiated by the classical behavior therapy. To this extent, supervision appears as a bridge between science and the art of psychotherapy.     

Mental health status of the Hmong Americans in 2011: three decades revisited

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the Hmong in America and encompasses their mental health status for the past 35 years. Since their mass arrival to the United States in 1975, limited research has been compiled to track the specific mental health issues that affect this collective community alone. Major chronological research findings were compiled for this article and specific findings concerning the Hmong and their mental health issues were compared to findings for other Southeast Asian groups. In conclusion, the findings of this article indicate that the Hmong still have higher rates of being diagnosed with depression, the lowest help-seeking behaviors in utilizing Western medicine, and the lowest arithmetic average of "happiness" scaled on an assessment tool. The purpose of this article is to better steer future research projects that entail tracking and differentiating the specific mental health domains of the Hmong.     

Temporal Patterns of Accuracy Confidence in Social Judgments: A New Method and Initial Results

An integrated, computer-based system was developed to record participants’ continuous judgment changes on a revised form of the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT-15). Consistent with the considerable research on “thin slice” judgments, the mean latency for greater than chance accuracy confidence was just 16 s (median = 10 s) for the ten one-part scenes on the IPT. There was also a clear and strong linear trend for increasing accuracy confidence across the first 25 s of the ten one-part scenes. For the five-two-part scenes, where comparative judgments were required (e.g., which statement is truthful, which is a lie?), no clear pattern of increasing accuracy confidence was found, with mean scores hovering near chance. The utility of the new system for analyzing the time course of social judgments is discussed and the potential reasons for the contrasting results for the one-part and two-part scenes were examined.     

Impact of interaction with a partner or friend on the exposure effects of pornography and erotica

Past studies on the effects of sexually explicit materials on women have tended to study them alone, in pairs, or in groups of strangers. By contrast, our study randomly assigned women to bring either a same-sex friend or a male partner to reflect more natural viewing conditions. Discussion between the participant and her companion followed exposure to the sexual images. Women who viewed pornography maintained their (quite high) level of negative mood, whereas women who viewed erotica experienced a substantial improvement in mood. The sex of the companion did not have a direct influence on participants' mood, with discussion improving mood across the board. However, participants' ratings of their satisfaction with the discussion were significantly influenced by the sex of their companion. We suggest that future research should focus more on the interpersonal aspects of male-female relationships when exploring the effects of sexually explicit materials on heterosexual women.