Long-term stability of 5-fluorouracil and folinic acid admixtures.

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) and d,1-folinic acid (FA) are used in association to treat a wide variety of malignancies. The stability and the compatibility of 5-FU and FA in combination in intravenous admixtures were studied under various storage conditions and with drug concentrations matching their clinical use (0.9% sodium chloride, 5% dextrose, protected from light or not). 5-FU and FA concentrations (mg/ml) were 6.5 or 50 and 4.0 or 30.8, respectively. Successive aliquots of the drugs mixtures were withdrawn during 60 h from 500 ml glass bottles and 500 ml polyvinyl chloride (PVC) bags (at room temperature) and during 120 h from cassettes (at 32 degrees C). Drug concentrations were measured by high performance liquid chromatography. For all conditions tested, the changes in 5-FU and FA relative to the initial concentrations remained within the assay reproducibility (10%). In complement, infrared Fourier transformation spectrophotometry has not shown a significant fixation of FA or 5-FU on the PVC bags, in all tested conditions. Under the conditions examined above 5-FU and FA can be mixed in the same container for their use in cancer chemotherapy. This can have practical consequences by simplifying the widely used treatment protocols associating 5-FU and FA.

Age and individual differences influence prospective memory.

The influence of age and individual ability differences on event-based prospective memory was examined using an adapted version of G. O. Einstein and M. A. McDaniel's (1990) task. Two samples of younger and older adults who differed in educational attainment, occupational status, and verbal ability were compared. Results yield comparable prospective performance for the younger groups and higher ability older adults; lower ability older adults performed more poorly by comparison. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that working memory span and recognition accounted for small but significant proportions of variance in prospective performance. The contribution of ability level to prospective memory remained significant even after statistically controlling for self-reported health and social activity characteristics. Implications for current views on prospective memory aging are discussed.

Extending the irrelevant speech effect beyond serial recall.

The irrelevant speech effect is the impairment of immediate memory by the presentation of to-be-ignored speech stimuli. The irrelevant speech effect has been limited to serial recall, but this series of 8 experiments demonstrates that it is considerably more general. Experiments 1-3 show that (a) irrelevant speech inhibits free recall more than does white noise, (b) irrelevant speech impairs free recall even when the speech occurs after the to-be-recalled items, and (c) free recall is inhibited even when the speech is meaningless. Experiment 4 failed to find an effect in free recall with 16-item lists. Experiments 5A-5C extend the effect to recognition of 8-, 12-, and 16-item lists, with both phonologically related and phonologically unrelated lure items. Experiment 6 extends the effect to a cued recall task that discourages the use of serial rehearsal of the to-be-remembered items.

Irrelevant speech, serial rehearsal, and temporal distinctiveness: a new approach to the irrelevant speech effect.

D. C. LeCompte (1994) showed that the irrelevant speech effect--that is, the impairment of performance by the presentation of irrelevant background speech--extends to free recall, recognition, and cued recall. The present experiments extended the irrelevant speech effect to the missing-item task (Experiments 1 and 2), thereby contradicting a key prediction of the changing state hypothesis, which states that tasks that do not involve serial rehearsal should not be affected by the presence of irrelevant speech. Temporal distinctiveness theory provides an alternative explanation of the irrelevant speech effect. Experiment 3 tested and confirmed a unique prediction of this theory.

Inadequacy of recall as a basis for frequency knowledge.

Subjects studied a word list comprising varying numbers of words from distinct semantic categories. The category names (trees, colors, etc.) were then re-presented, and for each name subjects either recalled as many exemplars as they could or estimated how many had been included in the list (Experiments 1 and 2). Recall was not sufficiently informative about actual category sizes to account for performance in the frequency estimation task. Moreover, it remained insufficiently informative when efforts were made to induce a recall-estimate strategy by requiring overt recall prior to estimation (Experiments 3-5), by using very small categories (Experiment 4), and by not showing the category name at study (Experiment 5), even though it did allow a partial account of estimation when the category exemplars were individually cued (Experiment 6). It is concluded that the role of recall in frequency estimation is much exaggerated.

Grouping in primary memory: the case of the compound suffix.

Appending a nominally irrelevant item, or "suffix," to the end of a short list of items impairs recall of the list. Appending a second such item, however, does not increase the impairment. The research reported here shows that the impairment can in fact be increased if the suffix items are physically dissimilar. Thus, Experiments 1-4 show that memory for a sequence of digits is impaired more by the addition of two zeros uttered in different voices than by either a single zero or two zeros uttered in the same voice. Experiment 5 shows a similar pattern of results in the visual modality, with physical similarity defined by typefont. The findings are contrary to at least two theories of the suffix effect but can be accounted for by assuming that physically similar items tend to form a cohesive group.

Role of study strategy in recall of mixed lists of common and rare words.

Experiment 1 confirmed previous findings that common words are more recallable than are rare words when the 2 kinds of words are presented in separate lists but not when they are presented in the same list. Experiment 2 showed much the same pattern when an orienting task was performed during word presentation. In Experiment 3 common words were found to be more recallable than rare words even for mixed lists when no warning was given of the memory test, although the effect was less pronounced than for pure lists. In Experiment 4 stronger measures were taken to preclude anticipation of the memory test, and the effect of word commonness was found to be just as pronounced with mixed lists as it was with pure lists. It was suggested that lists are studied in a way believed to optimize recall and that mixed lists foster a strategy of favoring the rare words.

Irrelevant speech and irrelevant tones: the relative importance of speech to the irrelevant speech effect.

Irrelevant auditory stimuli disrupt immediate serial recall. In the equipotentiality hypothesis, D. M. Jones and W. J. Macken (1993) made the controversial prediction that speech and tones have an equivalent disruptive effect. In the present study, 5 experiments tested their hypothesis. Experiments 1-4 showed that meaningful speech disrupts recall more than do tones. Experiments 3 and 4 provided some evidence that meaningful speech disrupts recall more than does meaningless speech, and Experiment 4 showed that even meaningless speech disrupts recall more than do tones. Using slightly different experimental procedures, Experiment 5 showed that letters disrupt recall more than do tones. Implications of these results for a number of theories of primary memory and the irrelevant speech effect are discussed.

Short-term memory for the timing of auditory and visual signals.

Short-term memory for the timing of irregular sequences of signals has been said to be more accurate when the signals are auditory than when they are visual. No support for this contention was obtained when the signals were beeps versus flashes (Experiments 1 and 3) nor when they were sets of spoken versus typewritten digits (Experiments 4 and 5). On the other hand, support was obtained both for beeps versus flashes (Experiments 2 and 5) and for repetitions of a single spoken digit versus repetitions of a single typewritten digit (Experiment 6) when the subjects silently mouthed a nominally irrelevant item during sequence presentation. Also, the timing of sequences of auditory signals, whether verbal (Experiment 7) or nonverbal (Experiments 8 and 9), was more accurately remembered when the signals within each sequence were identical. The findings are considered from a functional perspective.

An irrelevant speech effect with repeated and continuous background speech.

The irrelevant speech effect is the impairment of task performance by the presentation of to-be-ignored speech stimuli. Typically, the irrelevant speech comprises a variety of sounds, but previous research (e.g., Jones, Madden, & Miles, 1992) has suggested that the deleterious effect of background speech is virtually eliminated if the speech comprises repetitions of a sound (e.g., "be, be, be") or a single continuous sound (e.g., "beeeeeee"). Four experiments are reported that challenge this finding. Experiments 1, 2, and 4 show a substantial impairment in serial recall performance in the presence of a repeated sound, and Experiments 3 and 4 show a similar impairment of serial recall in the presence of a continuous sound. The relevance of these findings to several explanations of the irrelevant speech effect is discussed.

A comparison of item and source forgetting.

The purpose of the present research was to compare memory for an item with memory for the item's source. Experiment 1 investigated discrimination between two external sources: each item in a list of words was spoken in either a male or a female voice. Subjects received a test of item recognition and a test of source monitoring at each of four delay intervals (immediate, 30 min, 48 h, 1 week). In contrast with previous research, no evidence of differential forgetting rates for item and source information was found. With delay intervals of 0 and 48 h, Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 while adding a reality monitoring condition that required discrimination between an internal (i.e., self-generated) and an external source. Subjects were better at making internal-external discriminations than at making external-external discriminations, but both types of source monitoring declined at the same rate as memory for the items themselves.

The Word Completion Memory Test (WCMT): a new test to detect malingered memory deficits.

In recent years, much research has focused on developing tests to detect malingering. A drawback of existing tests is their poor ability to detect malingerers possessing more "sophisticated" knowledge of neuropsychological deficits. The current study presents preliminary validation data on a new measure, the Word Completion Memory Test (WCMT), which is the first malingering test to utilize a sophisticated coaching methodology in its development. The WCMT was administered to control participants, memory-impaired patients, and coached simulators. The coached simulators were provided with specific information about and examples of memory deficits commonly experienced following closed head injury (CHI; e.g., anterograde vs. retrograde amnesia). They also read a detailed scenario describing the lifestyle and motivations likely experienced by CHI litigants, and then practiced their roles by taking a quiz about their deficits. Results showed that 93% of coached simulators and 100% of control and memory-impaired participants were correctly classified by the WCMT.

The paradoxical increase in involuntary admissions after the revision of the Civil Commitment Law in Belgium.

The revision in 1990 of the Mental Health Commitment Law in Belgium, which was initially intended to decrease the use of civil commitment, has resulted in a paradoxical increase in involuntary hospital admissions. To understand the reasons for this increase, the relative importance of the various factors involved, notably the criteria of mental illness, dangerousness and clinical treatability, is examined.

The revision of the mental health commitment law in Belgium: the medical viewpoint.

Recently, the 1850 commitment law in Belgium has undergone dramatic revisions. These changes were implemented mainly at the request of law reformers who were concerned about the implications for civil liberties of institutionalization and who took into account the modern psychiatric treatment successes. Despite the fact that this legislation has promoted better progress in comparison with the original one, it has only been approved by the legal profession. The medical profession on the contrary is very critical and considers that this new measure gives few possibilities for the management of the doctor-patient relationship. The aim of the authors is to discuss, from a medical viewpoint, the advantages and disadvantages of the new law and to deliver some practical and ethical considerations.

Organic disease and associated psychopathology in a patient group with conversion symptoms.

The author examines the relationship between conversion symptoms and organic disease Over 20% of patients with conversion symptoms suffer from an organic pathology. These patients show also evidence of concurrent psychiatric disorders. The author suggests to view conversion as a symptom rather than a diagnosis.

[Adjustment problems of students in first year of university studies (author's transl)]. / Les problèmes d'adaptation des étudiants en première année d'études universitaires.

First year university students constitute a high risk of adolescents. The student, old adolescent and young adult, must face many adjustment problems while his personality development is not yet accomplished. He obtains the status of intellectual worker and must integrate in the university community life, but is in a dependency situation. It is thus necessary that the university takes preventive measures concerning various risks, in assuring the students both welcome and advanced information.

The management of drug-resistant, persistent and unpleasant auditory hallucinations.

This article attempts to give an overview of the main cognitive-behavioral therapeutic approaches in order to reduce persistent, unpleasant and drug-resistant auditory hallucinations. These procedures are based on operant conditioning principles and cognitive self-management techniques. A brief case history is reported to illustrate the therapeutic interventions.

[Clinical and therapeutic approach of the borderline patient in psychiatric clinic (author's transl)]. / Approche clinique et thérapeutique du patient borderline en clinique psychiatrique.

The author summarises the evolution of the borderline concept in the literature. He emphasizes the specificity of the pathological objectal relation and the lack of development of the ego in the separation-individualisation phase. The clinical approach of the borderline patient shows the lability of interpersonal relations of the borderline patient and the presence of a variable and polymorphic symptomatology. The author gives some considerations which are essential in undertaking a treatment with the borderline patient during a brief hospitalisation in a psychiatric service. This type of treatment is based on an early clinical diagnosis, a homogenous, logical and adequate attitude of the therapeutic team, the organisation of an adequate therapeutic team where the patient can learn to accept his own pathological findings and the initiation of an individual psychotherapy.

Emotional distress in a first-year university population.

An investigation of the emotional distress was conducted among a large sample of first-year university students. Results of the study indicate the presence of high levels of emotional distress. The data also show evidence of strong significant intercorrelations among the variables of emotional concern. It is concluded that there exists a high risk group of first-year university students, who complain of various emotional symptoms.