Individual differences in working memory capacity explain the relationship between general discrimination ability and psychometric intelligence

The close association between psychometric intelligence and general discrimination ability (GDA), conceptualized as latent variable derived from performance on different sensory discrimination tasks, is empirically well-established but theoretically widely unclear. The present study contrasted two alternative explanations for this association. The first explanation is based on what Spearman (1904) referred to as a central function underlying this relationship in the sense of the g factor of intelligence and becoming most evident in GDA. In this case, correlations between different aspects of cognitive abilities, such as working memory (WM) capacity, and psychometric intelligence should be mediated by GDA if their correlation is caused by g. Alternatively, the second explanation for the relationship between psychometric intelligence and GDA proceeds from fMRI studies which emphasize the role of WM functioning for sensory discrimination. Given the well-known relationship between WM and psychometric intelligence, the relationship between GDA and psychometric intelligence might be attributed to WM. The present study investigated these two alternative explanations at the level of latent variables. In 197 young adults, a model in which WM mediated the relationship between GDA and psychometric intelligence described the data better than a model in which GDA mediated the relationship between WM and psychometric intelligence. Moreover, GDA failed to explain portions of variance of psychometric intelligence above and beyond WM. These findings clearly support the view that the association between psychometric intelligence and GDA must be understood in terms of WM functioning.

Job satisfaction of Swiss general practitioners with and without proficiency certificate in homeopathy

Introduction: Job satisfaction and therefore wellbeing of physicians is an important issue in high quality and safety of health care provision. The role of additional qualification in complementary medicine (CM) for job satisfaction of general practitioners (GPs), however, has not been explored. This study compared job satisfaction of conventional and homeopathic Swiss GPs. Methods: Participants of the Swiss Family Doctors Conference 2013 and members of the Swiss Association of Homeopathic Physicians participated in the survey. They indicated the extent of job satisfaction on 17 questions covering patient care, work-related burden, income-prestige, personal rewards, and professional relations. Results: Data of n = 125 GPs with homeopathic proficiency certificate and data of n = 143 GPs without any proficiency certificate in CM were analyzed. Overall job satisfaction was high and did not differ between the groups. However, due to lower number of patients per day, homeopathic GPs reported higher satisfaction in relations with patients and with workload, and lower satisfaction with income and in relations with peers compared to conventional GPs. Controlling for further confounding variables (e.g. working hours per week, practice setting), homeopathic GPs reported less satisfaction with their income than their conventional colleagues. Conclusions: Longer consultation time and lower number of patients homeopathic GPs see per day, may allowthem to unfold a deeper and more satisfying relationship with their patients and to lessen the workload. However, this comes along with financial discontent compared to conventional GPs. Certification in homeopathy and increased consultation time, respectively, may represent a way to enhance GPs’ job satisfaction.

GENERAL WELL-BEING AND USE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT

Research interest on well-being and social support has focused largely on social factors as related to attaining and maintaining well-being, self-perceptions of well-being and to a lesser extent the relationship of current level of self-perceived well-being to use of formal or informal sources of social support. This study analyzed responses to the General Well-Being Schedule of 6,913 subjects (25-74 years) interviewed during the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1971-1975). The purpose of this analysis was to relate the level of GWBS scores to the use of social support, both informal (family and friends) and formal (community professionals).^ Study questions addressed were whether well-being level was related to selection of a specific social support resource and/or rate of use of resources and whether gender differences were apparent in level of well-being and social support use. Because age, sex, race, socioeconomic status (income and education) and marital status may confound the relation between level of GWB and type of social support chosen, the association between these variables with GWB and use of social support were considered. For analysis, test scores were grouped into four categories and for detailed analysis, two categories: low (0-70) and high (71-110). Cross tabulations and percentages were computed and the chi-square test of significance was used.^ Although 16 to 25 percent of the sample population reported low well-being, less than 10 percent used formal resources to discuss emotional, mental or behavior problems. Medical resources, mostly physicians, were the most used formal social supports. Informal social support was important for all well-being levels where 65-77% of each category reported using this resource.^ While well-being level does not appear to serve as a screener/selector of type of formal social support used, it is related to rates of use. Females reported slightly lower well-being than males, and except in the lowest well-being group, had higher rates of social support use. Findings support the conclusion that perceived well-being is related to use of social support such that the lower the well-being, the greater tendency to use formal and/or informal social support. ^

Impact of hormonal therapy on survival and racial disparities in a large community-based cohort of older men with local/regional prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (CaP) is the most diagnosed non-cutaneous malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer mortality among United States males. Major racial disparities in incidence, survival, as well as treatment persist. The mortality is three times higher among African Americans (AAs) compared with Caucasians. Androgen carcinogenesis has been persistently implicated but results are inconsistent; and hormone manipulation has been the main stay of treatment for metastatic disease, supportive of the androgen carcinogenesis. The survival disadvantage of AAs has been attributed to the differences in socioeconomic factors (SES), tumor stage, and treatment. We hypostasized that HT prolongs survival in CaP and that the racial disparities in survival is influenced by variation in HT and primary therapies as well as SES. To address these overall hypothesis, we first utilized a random-effect meta-analytic design to examine evidence from randomized trials on the efficacy of androgen deprivation therapy in localized and metastatic disease, and assessed, using Cox proportional hazards models, the effectiveness of HT in prolonging survival in a large community-based cohort of older males diagnosed with local/regional CaP. Further we examined the role of HT and primary therapies on the racial disparities in CaP survival. The results indicated that adjuvant HT compared with standard care alone is efficacious in improving overall survival, whereas HT has no significant benefit in the real world experience in increasing the overall survival of older males in the community treated for local/regional disease. Further, racial differences in survival persist and were explained to some extent by the differences in the primary therapies (radical prostatectomy, radiation and watchful waiting) and largely by SES. Therefore, given the increased used of hormonal therapy and the cost-effectiveness today, more RCTs are needed to assess whether or not survival prolongation translates to improved quality of life, and to answer the research question on whether or not the decreased use of radical prostatectomy by AAs is driven by the Clinicians bias or AAs's preference of conservative therapy and to encourage AAs to seek curative therapies, thus narrowing to some degree the persistent mortality disparities between AAs and Caucasians. ^

A systematic review of the methods used to assess race and racial disparities in uterine fibroid research

Context: Black women are reported to have a higher prevalence of uterine fibroids, and a threefold higher incidence rate and relative risk for clinical uterine fibroid development as compared to women of other races. Uterine fibroid research has reported that black women experience greater uterine fibroid morbidity and disproportionate uterine fibroid disease burden. With increased interest in understanding uterine fibroid development, and race being a critical component of uterine fibroid assessment, it is imperative that the methods used to determine the race of research participants is defined and the operational definition of the use of race as a variable is reported for methodological guidance, and to enable the research community to compare statistical data and replicate studies. ^ Objectives: To systematically review and evaluate the methods used to assess race and racial disparities in uterine fibroid research. ^ Data Sources: Databases searched for this review include: OVID Medline, NML PubMed, Ebscohost Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Plus with Full Text, and Elsevier Scopus. ^ Review Methods: Articles published in English were retrieved from data sources between January 2011 and March 2011. Broad search terms, uterine fibroids and race, were employed to retrieve a comprehensive list of citations for review screening. The initial database yield included 947 articles, after duplicate extraction 485 articles remained. In addition, 771 bibliographic citations were reviewed to identify additional articles not found through the primary database search, of which 17 new articles were included. In the first screening, 502 titles and abstracts were screened against eligibility questions to determine citations of exclusion and to retrieve full text articles for review. In the second screening, 197 full texted articles were screened against eligibility questions to determine whether or not they met full inclusion/exclusion criteria. ^ Results: 100 articles met inclusion criteria and were used in the results of this systematic review. The evidence suggested that black women have a higher prevalence of uterine fibroids when compared to white women. None of the 14 studies reporting data on prevalence reported an operational definition or conceptual framework for the use of race. There were a limited number of studies reporting on the prevalence of risk factors among racial subgroups. Of the 3 studies, 2 studies reported prevalence of risk factors lower for black women than other races, which was contrary to hypothesis. And, of the three studies reporting on prevalence of risk factors among racial subgroups, none of them reported a conceptual framework for the use of race. ^ Conclusion: In the 100 uterine fibroid studies included in this review over half, 66%, reported a specific objective to assess and recruit study participants based upon their race and/or ethnicity, but most, 51%, failed to report a method of determining the actual race of the participants, and far fewer, 4% (only four South American studies), reported a conceptual framework and/or operational definition of race as a variable. However, most, 95%, of all studies reported race-based health outcomes. The inadequate methodological guidance on the use of race in uterine fibroid studies, purporting to assess race and racial disparities, may be a primary reason that uterine fibroid research continues to report racial disparities, but fails to understand the high prevalence and increased exposures among African-American women. A standardized method of assessing race throughout uterine fibroid research would appear to be helpful in elucidating what race is actually measuring, and the risk of exposures for that measurement. ^

Exploring cognition processes in second language acquisition: the case of cognates and false-friends in EST

This article explores one aspect of the processing perspective in L2 learning in an EST context: the processing of new content words, in English, of the type ‘cognates’ and ‘false friends’, by Spanish speaking engineering students. The paper does not try to offer a comprehensive overview of language acquisition mechanisms, but rather it is intended to review more narrowly how our conceptual systems, governed by intricately linked networks of neural connections in the brain, make language development possible, creating, at the same time, some L2 processing problems. The case of ‘cognates and false friends’ in specialised contexts is brought here to illustrate some of the processing problems that the L2 learner has to confront, and how mappings in the visual, phonological and semantic (conceptual) brain structures function in second language processing of new vocabulary. Resumen Este artículo pretende reflexionar sobre un aspecto de la perspectiva del procesamiento de segundas lenguas (L2) en el contexto del ICT: el procesamiento de palabras nuevas, en inglés, conocidas como “cognados” y “falsos amigos”, por parte de estudiantes de ingeniería españoles. No se pretende ofrecer una visión completa de los mecanismos de adquisición del lenguaje, más bien se intenta mostrar cómo nuestro sistema conceptual, gobernado por una complicada red de conexiones neuronales en el cerebro, hace posible el desarrollo del lenguaje, aunque ello conlleve ciertas dificultades en el procesamiento de segundas lenguas. El caso de los “cognados” y los “falsos amigos”, en los lenguajes de especialidad, se trae para ilustrar algunos de los problemas de procesamiento que el estudiante de una lengua extranjera tiene que afrontar y el funcionamiento de las correspondencias entre las estructuras visuales, fonológicas y semánticas (conceptuales) del cerebro en el procesamiento de nuevo vocabulario.