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Biomedical subjects

J Dunn

Publications and source records attributed to J Dunn.

263 records · Page 15Linked to original sources
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Theory of mind, emotion understanding, language, and family background: individual differences and interrelations.

Individual differences in young children's social cognition were examined in 128 urban preschoolers from a wide range of backgrounds. comprehensive assessments were made of children's false-belief understanding, emotion understanding, language abilities, and family background information was collected via parent interview. Individual differences in children's understanding of false-belief and emotion were associated with differences in language ability and with certain aspects of family background, in particular, parental occupational class and mothers' education. The number of siblings that children had did not relate to their social cognition. Individual differences in false-belief and emotion understanding were correlated, but these domains did not contribute to each other independently of age, language ability, and family background. In fact, variance in family background only contributed uniquely to false-belief understanding. The results suggest that family background has a significant impact on the development of theory of mind. The findings also suggest that understanding of false-belief and understanding of emotion may be distinct aspects of social cognition in young children.

Affect↗
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"I got some swords and you're dead!": violent fantasy, antisocial behavior, friendship, and moral sensibility in young children.

Relations between an early interest in violent fantasy and children's social understanding, antisocial and emotional behavior, and interactions with friends were investigated in 40 "hard-to-manage" preschoolers and 40 control children matched for gender, age, and school and ethnic background. Children were filmed alone in a room with a friend, and tested on a battery of cognitive tests, including false-belief, executive function, and emotion understanding tasks. Teachers reported on their friendship quality. At age 6 years, the children's understanding of the emotional consequences of antisocial and prosocial actions was studied. The hard-to-manage group showed higher rates of violent fantasy; across both groups combined, violent fantasy was related to poor executive control and language ability, frequent antisocial behavior, displays of anger and refusal to help a friend, poor communication and coordination of play, more conflict with a friend, and less empathic moral sensibility 2 years later. The usefulness of a focus on the content of children's pretend play-in particular, violent fantasy-as a window on children's preoccupations is considered.

Age Factors↗
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[Increase in the search for treatment by crack users in 2 outpatient clinics at the city of Sao Paulo from 1990 to 1993].

UNLABELLED: An increase in crack use epidemiological research and police data. Currently, in Brazil, no data are available linking the route of administration and attendance to treatment for cocaine dependence. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this paper was to analyze the changes in cocaine routes of administration in a cocaine dependent population treatment in two outpatient public services (PROAD and UDED). METHOD: Standardized interview data, collected at admission to treatment were compared from 1990 to 1993. The prevalence rates of smoked ("crack"), injected and snorted cocaine were compared. RESULTS: The percentage of patients who reported "crack" cocaine use increased from 17% in 1990 to 64% in 1993 (p < 0.01) The prevalence of snorted cocaine remained stable in the period of time analyzed, being the most frequent route reported. The intravenous route tended to decrease from 40% in 1990 to 28% in 1993. CONCLUSION: The implications of the increase of "crack" cocaine users who sought treatment are discussed. These data are important in planning prevention and treatment strategies, mainly in AIDS prevention.

Adolescent↗
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Psychoactive drug use by medical students: a review of the national and international literature.

Non-medical drug use among medical students is a major concern among researchers and policy makers in several countries, not only because of the personal harmful consequences that may arise from this behavior, but also for the social consequences. This article aims to evaluate national and international data available on non-medical drug-use among medical students and risk factors associated with these problems, as well as social and institutional implications. Prevalence rates, in Brazilian and international samples, of alcohol and drug use, abuse and dependence, reasons for onset, methodological issues, and the role of medical education are presented, compared and discussed. The authors suggest some issues that should be a addressed in order to deal with this complex situation.

Brazil↗
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Nurses' attitudes towards alcoholism: factor analysis of three commonly used scales.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the psychometric properties of three scales commonly used to measure attitudes and beliefs about alcoholism. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study using a systematic sample. SETTING: Hospital São Paulo (a public general tertiary hospital) and the adjoining Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil. PARTICIPANTS: 310 nurses and nursing teachers. INSTRUMENTS: The Marcus Alcoholism Questionnaire, The Seaman Mannello Nurses' Attitudes Towards Alcohol and Alcoholism Scale and The Tolor-Tamarin Attitudes Towards Alcoholism Scale, which were combined into one self-administered questionnaire. ANALYSIS: The scales were re-grouped into their original formats and each underwent a principal components analysis with orthogonal rotation of factors. RESULTS: Each scale was found to consist of three main factors. There was some degree of overlap in the nature of the factors that the scales measured but each scale also measured something unique. CONCLUSION: The results of this comparative analysis could be used as a basis for developing a new scale covering all the important attitudinal groups identified by this study.

Alcoholism↗
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Climatic conditions and the reporting of sun-protective behavior survey data: a brief report.

Two hundred thirty-one spectators at a Cricket match in Brisbane, Australia, were interviewed and observed to determine their sun protective behaviors, and these behaviors were compared to the temperature and amount of cloud cover at the time of the study. People tended to protect themselves from the sun when there was less cloud cover and temperatures were higher.

Cross-Sectional Studies↗
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Sterilization using pulsed white light.

Pulsed light is a non-thermal sterilization method that uses brief intense pulses or flashes of white light to kill micro-organisms. This article discusses tests performed on blow/fill/seal containers. The results suggest that pulsed light has potential as a terminal sterilization method for filled and sealed transmissive products and packages. It also examines the effectiveness of pulsed light in eliminating water-borne pathogenic organisms.

Animals↗
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Antithymocyte gamma globulin, low-dosage cyclosporine, and tapering steroids as an immunosuppressive regimen to avoid early kidney failure in heart transplantation.

Cyclosporine is a powerful immunosuppressive agent that unfortunately has significant renal toxicity. Two risk factors associated with a high incidence of kidney failure in patients receiving cyclosporine have been described in the literature. In an effort to decrease the possibility of renal toxicity with the use of cyclosporine, we use low-dosage cyclosporine, antithymocyte gamma globulin, and tapering dosages of steroids as an immunosuppressive regimen. Twenty-one patients had orthotopic heart transplants from January 1985 to January 1986. Sixteen of 21 patients or 70% had at least one high risk factor for kidney failure. There were no episodes of acute kidney failure, and the blood urea nitrogen and creatinine levels that were recorded over an average of 8.5 months per patient did not increase significantly from preoperative values. Seventeen of 21 or 81% of the patients are alive and functioning fully. The incidence of rejection per patient was 0.9, and there were no biopsy-proven severe rejections. One patient died at 5 months; the autopsy showed generalized moderate rejection. There were 0.24 episodes of infection per patient, with one patient who died from Pneumocystis pneumonia. With this immunosuppression protocol, early postoperative kidney dysfunction was avoided. The incidences of rejection and infection were within acceptable range, and the quality of life in the 17 survivors is excellent.

Acute Kidney Injury↗
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Investigation of pulsed light for terminal sterilization of WFI filled blow/fill/seal polyethylene containers.

A study was performed to assess the ability of pulsed light to sterilize water for injection in blow/fill/seal polyethylene containers. Pulsed light uses intense, short duration flashes of broad spectrum white light to produce high levels of microbial kill. In a first phase of testing, containers of 0.5, 5, 15, and 120 mL nominal volume were inoculated with Bacillus pumilus endospores, Bacillus subtilus variety niger strain globigii endospores, Bacillus stearothermophilus endospores, and Aspergillus niger conidiospores. Approximately 10(6) colony forming units of each test spore were individually inoculated into 22 replicate containers of each sample volume. Two of these containers served as inoculation recovery controls, and 10 were treated using each of two pulsed light exposure methods: single-sided treatment, or treatment within a reflective cavity. Both treatments employed flashes of intense broad spectrum pulsed light delivered at one flash per second. Cavity treatment used 10 flashes to treat each container within a reflective cavity containing a single lamp. Cavity treatment yielded no recoverable survivors for any of the challenge spores from the contents of any of the 160 total samples. Single-sided treatment used 20 approximately 1-J/cm2 flashes from a single lamp-reflector projecting onto one side of the container. Single-sided treatment yielded no recoverable survivors from the contents of the containers for any of the bacterial endospores tested, but Aspergillus niger survival was detected in 4 of the 40 single-side treated samples. A second phase of tests examined the pulsed light inactivation of Bacillus pumilus spores for a range of inoculation levels. High levels of Bacillus pumilus spore kill were obtained using only a few cavity flashes. The results show that pulsed light can provide high levels of microbial lethality and possesses potential for use as a terminal sterilization method for water for injection in filled, sealed polyethylene containers.

Bacteria↗