Listen to my words, give meaning to my sorrow: a study in cognitive constructs in middle-age bereaved widows.

This research examined how women widowed in midlife give meaning to the experience of loss in the process of grief resolution following the first year of bereavement. Qualitative data were gathered from women between the ages of 51 and 56 through interviews guided by critical reflection. Six themes emerged in the meaning-making process: emotional dissonance, identification of previously held assumptions, reflections on current life experiences-testing the assumptions, identification of self as survivor, changes in sense of self and ways of knowing, and changes in perspectives. Findings indicated that the crisis of loss challenged basic assumptions about self, relationships, and life options and initiated a need to find new perspectives that would incorporate loss and provide for meaningful life direction. Perspective transformation began to occur after the first year following loss, when the initial crisis of survival and anguish had abated, and was most effectively achieved several years after the death. Implications are presented for the bereaved, practitioners who assist the bereaved, adult educators, and researchers.

Continuing education needs of nurses employed in nursing facilities.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the self-perceived learning needs of nurses, both RNs and licensed practical nurses (LPNs), employed in nursing facilities. Questionnaires were used to gather data from 319 nurses employed in 14 nursing facilities, representing 10% of all nursing facilities in North Carolina. A total of 164 nurses returned usable questionnaires. The nurses indicated a large number of continuing education needs, with Management Skills, Drug Therapy/Interactions, and Behavioral Problems being particularly important. Night shift nurses and nurse educators had different leaning needs when compared to other subsets of nurses.

Cardiovascular reactivity to stress: an examination of familial trends.

Mental stress elicits changes in cardiovascular functioning such as increases in blood pressure and heart rate and leads to biochemical changes which may facilitate the development of cardiovascular disease. This study examined the correlations between levels of cardiovascular change seen in healthy fathers and their sons who underwent stress testing (cold pressor test and mental arithmetic). No correlation between fathers' and sons' levels of reactivity were found. Certain personality traits such as hostility and anger directed inward have previously been shown to correlate with both reactivity and presence of arterial disease. In this study, hostility levels and assertiveness levels were measured and were found to correlate modestly with reactivity in the fathers but not in the sons. Sons showed less assertiveness and greater hostility overall; thus, restriction of the range of these variables may limit potential correlations with physiological measures in this group. Finally, although no family trends were observed, several of the adolescents did show extreme changes under stress, suggesting reactivity is a trait which is expressed early in life.

Behavioral, but not physiological, adaptation to repeated separation in mother and infant primates.

Mother and infant squirrel monkeys were subjected to a series of brief separations in order to evaluate how behavioral and physiological responses change following multiple exposures to stress. Beginning when the infants reached three months of age, their behavioral and hormonal responses were assessed during six 1-hr separations; and additional five dyads served as controls for the effect of repeated disturbance. The separated infants showed a marked and progressive decrease in distress calling across time, but no change was observed in the high levels of agitated activity or the plasma cortisol response to separation. This finding questions the traditional use of distress vocalizations as a measure of stress and indicates that certain types of behavior can change independently of physiological arousal responses, which may continue to occur even after repeated exposures to stress.

Gamma-gamma directional correlation study of model membranes.

Measurements of the perturbed gamma-gamma directional correlation were made for the 173-247 keV cascade in 111Cd at the In ion site in dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine liposomes. A time-dependent electric quadrupole interaction was observed. Below the order in equilibrium fluid phase transition temperature the exponential damping coefficient was lambda 2 = 0.033 +/- 0.007 ns-1. Above the transition temperature the coefficient was lambda 2 = 0.015 +/- 0.006 ns-1 indicating a twofold increase in molecular mobility in the disordered phase. Absolute values for the motional correlation time, tau c, were estimated to be on the order of a few nanoseconds. The presence of cholesterol was found to cause no significant difference in the molecular mobility of the phosphatidylcholine head groups in the ordered and fluid states.

Macromolecular conformation in solution. Study of carbonic anhydrase by the positron annihilation technique.

The structural features of carbonic anhydrase (carbonate hydro-lyase; EC 4.2.1.1) in aqueous solution were probed by the positron annihilation technique. The data obtained under varying conditions of temperature, pH, and enzyme concentration were interpreted in terms of the free volume model. The change of enzymic activity with temperature is accompanied by a change in free volume of the protein. Upon thermal denaturation an irreversible change in free volume of the molecule occurred. At low temperatures the protein-water interactions were investigated. These results are discussed in terms of current concepts of structure-function relationships in proteins. This study shows the sensitivity of the positron annihilation method toward the structure of proteins related to their overall conformation and to the nature of bound water.