Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-56).

Bakgrund: I DSM-5 (2013) kombinerades de två diagnoserna ’Asperger’s syndrome’ och ’Autistic Disorder’, bland andra, till ’Autismspektrumtillstånd’ (AST) tillsammans med högre kriterier för att uppnå diagnosen. Denna uppsats är avsedd att undersöka utkomsten av denna förändring och dess konsekvenser för dess mottagare av diagnoserna tio år senare i en Svensk vårdkontext och vanliga uppfattningar om diagnosen.Resultat: En tematisk analys (TA) med fyra deltagare resulterade i en fördjupad analys av det praktiska kliniska arbetet kring klassificering av individer med AST som gav insikter om varför en del av oron inför förändringen inte besannats och hur samhället ser på mottagare av diagnosen. Slutsats: Diagnosen i sig är inte den huvudsakliga beståndsdelen i mottagande av bistånd i svensk vårdkontext. En individs funktionshinder ska vara den viktigaste faktorn i detta, och att inte uppnå en lämplig diagnos gör en person undantagen från insatser. Samhället uppfattas inte heller ha nått en nivå av förståelse för vad AST innebär, även om acceptansen för diagnosen verkar har ökat. / Background: In DSM-5 (2013) the two diagnoses ‘Asperger’s Syndrome’ and ‘Autistic Disorder’, amongst others, were combined to ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’ (ASD) along with higher criteria to achieve the diagnose. This paper is intended to investigate what came of this change and its implications for its recipients of the diagnoses ten years later in a Swedish caregiving context and common conceptions of the diagnose.Results: A Thematic Analysis (TA) with four participants resulted in an in-depth analysis of the practical clinical work regarding the classification of individuals with ASD providing insights as to why the change has not had some of the apprehension it entailed and how the society regards recipients of the diagnose. In this also, an investigation of the diagnosis throughout the history of DSM.Conclusion: The diagnose per se is not the main constituent in receiving of aid in the Swedish care context. An individual’s disability is supposed to be the main factor in this but not achieving a suitable diagnose makes one exempt. Society as well has not perceivably reached a level of understanding of what ASD entails though acceptance for it seemingly has increased.

<p>Interest in central nervous-immune system interactions was inspired largely by the work on conditional immunomodulation (Ader and Cohen, 1975, 1985). Ader and Cohen (1975) reported that rats trained such that a taste cue (saccharine, SAC) predicted an injection of an immunosuppressant (cyclophosphamide, CY) subsequently exhibited a conditional immunosuppression in response to SAC alone.</p> <p>Experiments 1-3 were designed to evaluate reports of conditional immunosuppression after training with SAC and CY. Rats received either one or three training sessions in which SAC presentation was followed by CY injection. Upon reexposure to the SAC, antibody formation to sheep red blood cells was assessed. Rats which were trained with SAC and CY had antibody titers that did not differ from saline controls, which rats which SAC and CY in a nonpredictive manner had suppressed antibody titers.</p> <p>Experiments 4 and 5 assessed the effectiveness of environmental and drug state cues in signalling CY injections. In Experiments 4 and 5, the effect of training was to attenuate the unconditional immunosuppression produced by the CY.</p> <p>Experiments 6 and 7 further assessed conditioning with pentobarbital predicting CY. After conditioning, some animals were rested until the residual effects of the CY had dissipated. When reexposed to the pentobarbital after this period, these animals had antibody titers that were significantly elevated above those of animals that never received the CY. Other animals received seven pentobarbital injections during the rest period. These animals demonstrated extinction of the conditioned response.</p> <p>Experiment 8 assessed the effectivness of conditioning when the unconditional stimulus was antigenic rather than pharmacologic. After sensitization, rats received antigen injections paired with an environmental cue. Upon reexposure to the cue, trained rats had increased levels of rat mast cell protease II in their serum. As this protease is found only in mucosal mast cells, these results suggest that mucosal mast cells may be activated by a cue for antigen.</p> <p>In a final experiment, physiological correlates of conditional mast cell activity were examined. Ussing chambers were employed to assess responsivity of intestinal epithelium after exposure to a cue for antigen. Results indicated that sensitivity to in vitro antigen was altered in rats exposed to a cue for antigen. These results, and those of the previous studies, support the hypothesis that the nervous and immune systems communicate, and that this communication may be functionally important.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>There is reason to believe that birds feeding in flocks enjoy several different types of advantage relative to birds that feed alone. Most relevant to this thesis, flocking can facilitate individual birds' discovery of potential foraging sites. In the present research, both the long-term consequences of social feeding socially were examined in Burmese junglefowl (Gallus gallus spadiceus). The results of experiments presented in Chapter 2 indicated that junglefowl can learn to select either a type of feeding site or a location in which to feed simply by observing feeding companions. Social interaction biased the foraging behaviour of fowl for at least two days after interaction occurred.</p> <p>In experiments described in Chapter 3, junglefowl used information acquired during the exposure to videotaped companions to orient their own subsequent feeding behaviour. Different aspects of the feeding behaviours of video-taped tutor fowl influenced different aspects of their observers' feeding behaviour. For example, during testing, observer birds' latencies to initiate pecking were reduced by pervious exposure to the sight of conspecifics feeding, while the orientation of observers' pecking was influenced only when observers had both seen and heard feeding companions. The final study, presented in Chapter 4, indicated that observer fowl, even while feeding, were themselves able to learn about foraging sites where videotaped companions fed.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>This thesis research focused on the contributions of word decoding from print and of reliance on story organization to children's story comprehension. Two experiments were conducted, whose findings contribute to our understanding of developmental and individual differences in reading comprehension. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 3 to 6 read silently, read orally, or listened to well-organized and poorly organized stories. Both amount recalled and reliance on text organization increased with grade. Listening, which required no analysis of print, yielded equivalent comprehension to silent reading; demonstrating that differences in reading comprehension cannot be attributed only to differences in word-decoding skills. Furthermore, oral reading which required the decoding of each word in text, improved the comprehension and recall of good stories, especially for the poorest comprehenders. At each grade level a group of poor readers was identified who showed little sensitivity to story organization, in either silent reading or listening.</p> <p>In the second experiment, the nature of the oral-reading benefit was examined by having Grade 6 poor readers read well-organized and poorly organized stories silently and aloud. The experiment showed that oral reading increased recall for well-organized, but not for poorly organized text. This finding suggests that oral reading served to increase text organization, rather than to direct attention to the word level. The poorest comprehenders also gained from an advance organizer that stressed the problem structure of the stories.</p> <p>The first experiment identified children in each grade, up to Grade 6, who did not spontaneously rely on story organization in reading and remembering stories. The second experiment showed, however, that when story organization was made available and salient, such children were able to use it to help them read and remember stories. Finally, the results of Experiment 2 demonstrated the importance of specific diagnosis prior to developing treatment programs for poor readers.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract General hospital psychiatry operates between the somatic and psychiatric approaches concerning the treatment of patients, combining knowledge from both somatic and psychiatric medicine. To establish its position, the general hospital psychiatry has to specify its role and means when rendering services. This study revealed how consultation had been arranged in six Finnish polyclinics of general hospitals. The goal was to find out which types of patients were referred to the consultation of the general hospital psychiatry and the extent of collaboration of the consulting psychiatrist with colleagues from other medical disciplines. Moreover, the focus of attention was on whether there were operational differences between the polyclinics of the University Hospital of Oulu and other hospitals. The work was also addressed to probing operational differences, if any, pertaining to people under or over 65. Additionally, one aspect to be clarified was how requests for psychogeriatric consultations and the responses of the consulting psychiatrists had developed during the five years period of the study. This study was part of a broad European Consultation Liaison Working Group effort aimed at clarifying the organization of general hospital psychiatry in 56 units in 11 European countries. The Finnish material consisted of 1255 patients, of whom 202 were over 65. The research methods applied here were psychiatric interviewing of clinical patients, and filling in of data collection forms following the instructions of the ECLW Group. The current work revealed that the number of psychiatric consultations was less than expected considering the incidence of psychiatric symptoms among somatically ill patients. Of the general hospital patients, elderly people were especially underrepresented. More than 90% of the patients who had a psychiatric consultation were diagnosed with a psychiatric problem. Thus the general hospital made available psychiatric treatment via psychiatric consultation, with a recommendation for future psychiatric care for more than half of the patients. However, one third of the patients under 65 and quarter of those above that age had already had on going psychiatric treatment. In view of this type of situation the position of the general hospital appears problematic. The object of consultation was in 90% of the cases the patients themselves, but in Oulu, almost half of the consultations were due to the personnel of the somatic disciplines in charge of the of the patients. The action mode in separate general hospitals was connected to established traditions, although the history of general hospital psychiatry is short and faces constraints put forward by the somatic hospitals. Collaboration between psychiatric and somatic disciplines was facing increasing difficulties during the five years observation period, probably due to economic recession.

No description available.

No description available.

This study sought to clarify the nature of the relationship between conduct disorder (CD), early-onset alcohol abuse (EOAA), some other externalizing-related constructs and adult violent antisociality (VA). It addressed two key questions: (i) whether EOAA mediated the link between CD and VA; and (ii) whether the effects of EOAA on VA were, in turn, mediated by impulsiveness, ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vm-PFC) dysfunction and social deviance as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). It tested the hypothesis that in the context of early disinhibitory psychopathology, e.g. CD, EOAA disrupts the neural substrates of self-regulation in vm-PFC during a critical neurodevelopmental period (i.e. before age 20). Consequently, on entry into adulthood the vm-PFC is functionally impaired and personality suffers maladaptive development which would then take the form of increased impulsiveness and social deviance, placing the individual at high risk of violent antisocial behaviour. Using a cross sectional design, DSM-IV Axis I and II disorders, psychopathy, impulsiveness, vm-PFC functioning, history of drug and alcohol use, and both amount and severity of violence were assessed in 100 patients with personality disorders detained in secure hospital settings. Patients identified as having a history of EOAA, compared with those with no alcohol abuse history, were more impulsive, scored higher on the social deviance factor of psychopathy (PCL-R F2), were more conduct disordered, and showed a higher level of VA. Regression analysis showed that CD, EOAA, impulsiveness and PCL-R F2 significantly predicted VA, although PCL-R F2 rendered the effects of CD insignificant when used conjointly in regression analysis. A multiple mediation model explaining about 20% of the variance in VA showed that EOAA partially mediated the effects of CD on VA, after controlling for age, cannabis misuse and ADHD. A separate multiple mediation model explaining 50% of the variance in VA showed that PCL-R F2 and impulsiveness partially mediated the effect of EOAA on VA. However, contrary to the prediction arising from the hypothesis, the effects of vm-PFC functioning on VA were insignificant. Although the study suffered from some limitations, results suggest that both impulsiveness and social deviance contribute importantly to a pathway leading from CD through adolescent alcohol abuse to maladaptive personality development and adult VA.

This study examined the relationship between Type A coronary-prone behavior pattern, academic achievement and life satisfaction. The subjects were 87 undergraduates selected for their extreme scores on the Jenkins Activity Survey, Form T. There were 41 Type As and 46 Type Bs. Along with the Jenkins Activity Survey, Form T the participants were administered a life satisfaction survey similar to Soper's (1979) and their official academic gradepoint average was obtained from the Academic Records office. A point-biserial correlation indicated that there was a significant (p The various relationships and their possible explanations and indications were discussed in depth. Significance of the results for changing Type A behavior was considered. Problems and suggestions for future research were mentioned briefly.