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Biomedical subjects

S D Lane

Publications and source records attributed to S D Lane.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Generalization of cross-modal stimulus equivalence classes: operant processes as components in human category formation.

This study employed a stimulus-class rating procedure to explore whether stimulus equivalence and stimulus generalization can combine to promote the formation of open-ended categories incorporating cross-modal stimuli. A pretest of simple auditory discrimination indicated that subjects (college students) could discriminate among a range of tones used in the main study. Before beginning the main study, 10 subjects learned to use a rating procedure for categorizing sets of stimuli as class consistent or class inconsistent. After completing conditional discrimination training with new stimuli (shapes and tones), the subjects demonstrated the formation of cross-modal equivalence classes. Subsequently, the class-inclusion rating procedure was reinstituted, this time with cross-modal sets of stimuli drawn from the equivalence classes. On some occasions, the tones of the equivalence classes were replaced by novel tones. The probability that these novel sets would be rated as class consistent was generally a function of the auditory distance between the novel tone and the tone that was explicitly included in the equivalence class. These data extend prior work on generalization of equivalence classes, and support the role of operant processes in human category formation.

Acoustic Stimulation↗

Antisocial personality disorder and alcohol-induced aggression.

This study compared the effects of alcohol on aggressive responding between subjects with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and subjects without ASPD. Eighteen alcohol drinking subjects (10 subjects without ASPD and 8 subjects with ASPD) underwent testing on a laboratory measure of aggression, the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm, after consumption of placebo and three doses of alcohol (0.25 g/kg, 0.5 g/kg, and 1.0 g/kg). There was a significant difference in the effect of alcohol on aggressive responding on the Point Subtraction Aggression Paradigm between subjects with ASPD and subjects without ASPD. Subjects with ASPD had a greater increase in aggressive responding after alcohol, compared with non-ASPD subjects. There was no difference between the two groups in the effect of alcohol on monetary-reinforced responding.

Adult↗

Television minidramas: social marketing and evaluation in Egypt.

Television has been extensively used to communicate health messages for over a decade in Egypt. Viewers of the evening soap operas have been seeing six commercials for family planning, oral rehydration solution (ORS), and immunizations. People of all social classes can sing the jingles of the most popular ads. The producers of these health spots use increasingly sophisticated story lines, settings, and characters representing rural peasants, played by popular and well-liked actors. Evaluation of the content and impact of these messages has lagged behind the creative sophistication of their production. This article reviews the context and content of televised health messages in Egypt during the 1980s, critically assesses the evaluation of mass media health education, and suggests strategies for more effective evaluation. The author worked for some years with a private donor agency that funded the production of a number of televised health commercials in Egypt.

Attitude to Health↗

Verbal self-reports of emergent relations in a stimulus equivalence procedure.

During a preliminary training phase, college students were taught to categorize each of their responses accurately in a conditional discrimination task as either correct or incorrect. Next, in the absence of self-reports, subjects acquired conditional discriminations (involving novel stimuli) prerequisite to the formation of two four-member equivalence classes. The self-report procedure was reinstated during probe sessions that tested for untrained relations indicative of equivalence class formation. Interspersed trials involving trained relations provided a positive control, and trials with no class-consistent comparison provided a negative control. Eight of 10 subjects demonstrated equivalence class formation; all accurately reported their performance on trained relations and on trials with no class-consistent comparison. Subjects also reported their performance on most untrained (emergent) relations accurately, but in several instances self-reports indicated failure or uncertainty despite nearly perfect emergent-relations performance. These inconsistencies add to a growing body of literature that suggests there are differences between individual types of emergent relations. We suggest that the present procedure may be helpful in understanding these differences and other equivalence-related effects.

Adult↗

From population control to reproductive health: an emerging policy agenda.

This article reviews the background to the current debates between advocates of population control and reproductive health as frameworks for national and international health policies. Population control has been a dominant metaphor in international family planning programs since the 1960s. Population control has frequently meant pursuing a single-minded goal of fertility limitation, often without sufficient attention to the rights of family planning clients. This narrow focus has led to some coercive policies, numerous ethical violations, and ineffective family planning programs. In the last decade there has been the beginning of a policy shift, advocated by a growing number of activists and researchers in women's health, from population control to reproductive health. A reproductive health framework would provide a broader programmatic focus that could bring needed attention to such issues as sexually transmitted diseases, infertility, abortion, reproductive cancers and women's empowerment generally.

Female↗

Sociocultural aspects of blindness in an Egyptian delta hamlet: visual impairment vs. visual disability.

Through ophthalmological exams, structured interviews and participant observation, this study examines the experience of blindness in rural Egypt, and finds that villagers' subjective assessments of their vision differ substantially from ophthalmic measurements of their vision. Individuals with profound visual loss remain independent in their daily activities and contribute to their families' subsistence. While they may agree that they have "weak eyesight," they do not perceive themselves to be disabled. Stigmatizing attitudes that the blind are completely dependent and unable to fulfill their social roles further encourage those with decreased vision to deny the extent of their visual loss.

Adolescent↗

Roles, work, health perceptions and health resources of women: a study in an Egyptian delta hamlet.

Women's health needs can only be described and programs to address them implemented with an understanding of women's multiple roles and responsibilities. A life-cycle approach to examining women's roles and responsibilities provides a useful framework to achieve such understanding. This paper describes the results of a study conducted in a rural village in Egypt that examines the daily life experiences of women, their work, their family responsibilities, their health perceptions and their health resources. We argue that programs designed to address women's health needs must consider these critical aspects of their lives. This argument is based on the premise that women's health needs have been neglected and efforts to ameliorate this situation should be a top priority in the international health care agenda of the 1990s.

Adolescent↗

Ethno-ophthalmology in the Egyptian delta: an historical systems approach to ethnomedicine in the Middle East.

Ethnomedical studies of the Middle East may be enriched by a long-term historical perspective, which takes into consideration the complex syncretism, through time, of both literate and nonliterate medical systems in this region, as well as the tumultuous history of conquest and colonialism in the Middle East. In this paper, the authors place the seemingly idiosyncratic, local, 'ethno-ophthalmological' practices of one northern Egyptian community, which is afflicted by the binding eye disease, trachoma, into a broader historico-political context, through examination of the four major literate medical systems of Egypt and the imperialistic forces responsible for their entrenchment.

Bloodletting↗

Fatal interstitial pneumonitis following high-dose intermittent chlorambucil therapy for chronic lymphocyte leukemia.

Interstitial lung disease has been reported in association with numerous alkylating agents and other chemotherapeutic drugs. Chlorambucil has only rarely been implicated in this complication. We report a case of a 74-year-old man with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who received high-dose intermittent chlorambucil and prednisone every two weeks. Following several of these courses of therapy, respiratory distress occurred 9 to 12 days after the chlorambucil was given. During the final episode, open lung biopsy was performed and demonstrated typical changes of drug-induced pneumonitis, with interstitial infiltrates and fibrosis and proliferation of type II alveolar lining cells.

Aged↗