[Psychosocial aspects of coping with tinnitus and psoriasis patients. A comparative study of suicidal tendencies, anxiety and depression]. / Psychosoziale Aspekte der Krankheitsverarbeitung bei Tinnitus- und Psoriasis-Patienten. Eine Vergleichsstudie hinsichtlich Suizidalität, Angstlichkeit und Depressivität.

BACKGROUND: Treatment of tinnitus is primarily the task of ENT specialists, while treatment of the psychiatric diseases lies in the hand of psychotherapists. Different from mostly very apparent dermatological diseases, the severity level of tinnitus can often only be determined by psychological test batteries as well as a specific psychosomatic exploration. In this study patients with psoriasis were compared with tinnitus patients regarding quality of life, anxiety, depression and imminent suicidal tendencies, in order to realize the psychological impact and find appropriate instruments for treatment. METHODS: Between February and April 2005, 89 tinnitus patients, who underwent in-patient therapy in a neurootological and psychosomatic hospital, and 105 psoriasis patients, who had in-patient treatment from October 1999 until October 2004 in a specialized clinic, were examined with psychological tests, which included the Tinnitus questionnaire proposed by Goebel und Hiller, the Symptoms Check List of Derogatis SCL-90-R, the HADS and the suicide rating according to Pöldinger. RESULTS: Tinnitus in-patients suffered significantly more from suicidal tendencies, depression and anxiety in contrast to patients with psoriasis, who suffered more from problems associated with their outward appearance. CONCLUSION: The use of a specific psychological test diagnostic is very helpful in the hand of the ENT specialist, but the Tinnitus questionnaire of Goebel and Hiller enables an initial screening.

Quantitative NMR spectroscopy--applications in drug analysis.

NMR spectroscopy being a primary ratio method of measurement is highly suitable to evaluate the quality of drugs. NMR spectroscopy can be used for the identification of a drug substance, the identification and quantification of impurities arising from the synthesis pathway and degradation, or residual solvents as well as the determination of the content in the assay. This review gives an overview of the application of quantitative NMR spectroscopy in International Pharmacopoeias and for licensing purposes.

[Is there a feature-positive effect in classical conditioning in humans?]. / Gibt es einen Feature-Positive-Effekt beim klassischen Konditionieren im Humanbereich?

Jenkins and Sainsbury (1969, 1979) first described an asymmetry in pigeon's operant discrimination learning which they called a feature-positive effect. Subsequent studies demonstrated that other animals as well as humans also show a similar asymmetry. The effect is often explained as being caused by a bias in information processing which results from the neglect of negative information as a discriminative cue. The effect has also been observed in classical conditioning experiments, but not yet with human subjects. Sometimes, however, a reversal of the asymmetry, i.e., a feature-negative effect, has been observed. The experiment reported here primarily intended to demonstrate a feature-positive effect in a classical conditioning procedure with human subjects. Secondly, we also wanted to test an alternative explanation of the feature-positive effect. We found that a substantial feature-positive effect does indeed occur during classical conditioning in human subjects. Our results, however, did not fully support the alternative explanation based on rule learning.