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Currently, there is no consensus on the best therapeutic approach to chronic tic disorders and comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). To address this issue, we evaluated the tolerability and efficacy of the noradrenergic tricyclic antidepressant desipramine hydrochloride in the treatment of children and adolescents with chronic tic disorders and comorbid ADHD.Forty-one children and adolescents with chronic tic disorders, including Tourette disorder and comorbid ADHD, were studied in a 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel trial. Desipramine was titrated weekly up to 3.5 mg/kg per day. We rated ADHD and tic symptoms weekly and monitored adverse effects, laboratory findings, and cardiovascular parameters.Treatment with desipramine (mean total daily dose, 3.4 mg/kg per day) was well tolerated without meaningful adverse effects. Desipramine significantly reduced core symptoms of ADHD (ADHD Rating Scale; 42% decrease from baseline relative to placebo, P.001), with equal response in inattentive symptoms and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms (P.001 for both). The ADHD response rate was robust (71% vs 0%; desipramine vs placebo, P.001). Likewise, desipramine significantly reduced tic symptoms (Yale Global Tic Severity Scale; 30% decrease from baseline relative to placebo, P.001), with equal response in motor and phonic tic symptoms (P.01 for both). The tic response rate was substantial (58% vs 5%; desipramine vs placebo, P.001). There were small but statistically significant differences between desipramine and placebo in heart rate and blood pressure.Treatment with desipramine was well tolerated and was associated with robust clinically significant reductions in tic and ADHD symptoms in children and adolescents with chronic tic disorders and ADHD diagnoses.

Background Despite long-standing clinical concerns, relatively little is known about the comorbidity between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and tic disorders. Therefore, we examined tic disorders in an ongoing prospective follow-up study of male subjects with ADHD, a sample unselected for any comorbid disorder. Methods One hundred twenty-eight male children and adolescents with ADHD and 110 male controls were comprehensively evaluated at baseline and 4 years later. We characterized tic disorders along with a wide range of neuropsychiatric correlates, including other comorbid disorders and indices of psychosocial function in multiple domains (school, cognitive, social, and family). Results Compared with controls, subjects with ADHD showed more tic disorders at baseline and more new onsets were reported at follow-up. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and tic disorders appeared to be independent in course: in contrast to low rates of ADHD remission, tic disorders mostly remitted. The age-adjusted rate of ADHD remission was 20% and that of tic remission, 65%. Tic disorders had little effect on the psychosocial functioning of subjects with ADHD. Conclusions These findings suggest that comorbidity with a tic disorder has a limited effect on ADHD outcome. However, because of the relatively small sample of subjects with tic disorders, our conclusions should be considered preliminary until confirmed in larger studies of medicated and unmedicated children with ADHD with and without tic disorders.

The relationship between static and dynamic power distributions and war is a central element in the realist literature of international politics. The distribution of power and shifts in these distributions are held to be a principal source of conflict in works from Thucydides to Waltz. Most attempts to test empirically for a structural association between capability distributions and conflict have treated disputes as independent events; however, over the last two centuries a disproportionate amount of interstate conflict has occurred in the context of extended dyadic rivalries. This study focuses on the conflict patterns of these “enduring rivals.” Based on a Markov chain analysis of 456 militarized disputes occurring between 1816 and 1986, the findings indicate that power parity and shifts toward parity are approximately twice as likely to be associated with war as is a condition of power preponderance. By definition, rival dyads have issues in conflict. Equality of power or shifts toward equality create a situation in which both sides can perceive the potential for successful use of force. The findings generated in this analysis indicate that with such power distributions war between rival nations is most probable.

This study presents national-level findings pertaining to the basic stochastic patterns of war duration and severity, and determines the effects of power system membership on those patterns. The results have theoretical and empirical relevance to general contagion hypotheses of war and specific import to the negative addiction (or war-weariness) thesis. Among the principal findings are indications that irrespective of the characteristics of past or current war behavior, in the long run: (1) a nation that fights a war has more than a one-in-three probability of fighting for over two years and sustaining over 15,000 battle fatalities; (2) major powers are more likely to fight severe wars and less likely to fight moderate wars than are minor powers, whereas they are equally likely to fight small wars; (3) major powers and minor powers have roughly equiprobable chances of fighting wars at short, moderate, and long duration levels. It is concluded that power distinctions among nations have significant effects on long-term probability patterns of war severity but not on war duration. Regarding war-to-war linkages, the probable duration or severity of a nation's next war is unaffected by the duration or severity of its last war. In other words, there is no evidence indicating either a systematic increase or decrease in war-to-war cost-tolerance levels. Therefore, decisions on allocations of resources in current or future wars appear to be unaffected by the past: a nation's aggregate capability (i.e. power status)—not its antecedent experience—is a determinant of the scale of its wars.

A good deal of recent psychological research on urban behavior has been generated by Milgram's overload model. This model suggests that high levels of urban stimulation overload people, and have negative effects on their perception of the city and responses to others. This paper proposes a more “balanced” approach to urban stimulation which derives largely from the work of Berlyne & Wohlwill. Drawing upon theory and research on optimal level of stimulation and adaptation level, it is proposed that stimuli which are intense, complex and/or novel may lead to positive as well as negative effects; and that this may vary across persons or over time A preliminary research study is presented that confirms the importance of urban complexity as an organizing variable; and suggestions for future research and urban application are offered.

Previous research has shown that noise interferes with social cues from a person in need of help and reduces helping behavior. The research reported here investigates the role of other variables, such as nonverbal cues and sex of the participants involved, that may naturally accompany noise in influencing prosocial behavior. Two experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that noise alone may not reduce helping behavior, among other hypotheses. The results of the laboratory study were inconclusive because of the possible interference of demand characteristics. The results of a field study on the streets of a major city supported the major hypothesis and revealed that sex of the participants involved was the major predictor of helping behavior. The results were discussed in terms of adaptation to arousing stimuli and environmental load theories.

The phenomenon of obedience is usually considered on an individual level, although typically acts of obedience are committed by an individual who is acting within an organizational framework. This paper discusses how the structure and function of the hierarchical organization alters the perspective by which individuals view their actions, and changes an individual's perception of his or her role and responsibility. Organizational dehumanization and act fragmentation and their function in the facilitation of evil acts are considered.

This paper summarizes the results of an experiment to assess the impact of introducing computer-assisted instruction (CAI) into an individualized educational program that previously used only print media. Participants were young adults (ages 16 to 22) enrolled in the Job Corps, a Federal vocational and educational program for the economically and educationally disadvantaged. An experimental group, with CAI added to their curriculum, was compared to a control group on pretest and posttest gains in reading and mathematics achievement. Multiple regression analysis yielded significantly greater reading achievement gains for the experimental group compared to the control group when adjusted for the effects of several covariates. No statistically significant differences were found in mathematics.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore methods in social science research that do not rely on deception. Implicit in this inquiry into scientifically valid methods that minimize the risk of harm to research participants is the assumption that methods involving deception raise serious ethical and practical questions. Here, the term research participants refers not only to subjects but also to the experimenter and persons working for the experimenter. One of the aims of this chapter is to identify the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the alternative methods proposed in order to encourage both their use and further research into their advantages and limitations.

A Preliminary Test of Dependency This article reports the results of a preliminary test of "dependency theory," based on a statistical comparison of seventeen Latin American countries. The concept of dependency has been applied with increasing frequency to the development problems of Latin America and Africa, and a considerable amount of data related to the subject has been amassed from United Nations sources and from historical case studies.' For the most part, however, these data have previously been used to build and illustrate dependency theory, rather than to subject it to the possibility of disproof.2 In this study, we have attempted to cull from the burgeoning theoretical literature a variety of disprovable, bivariate propositions which we operationalized and tested in the Latin American setting.

This study presents a stochastic interpretation of domestic conflict processes. It determines the probabilistic patterns of two dimensions of political violence and examines the effects of system structure on those patterns. Specifically, system structure appears to influence both the type and magnitude of conflict within nations. Among the principal findings are indications that (1) centrist regimes suppress civil violence more quickly and efflciently than either polyarchic or personalist systems, (2) turmoil is more likely to occur in polyarchies than in centrist nations, and (3) internal war is less probable in either polyarchic or centrist systems than in personalist states. In short, centrist systems manifest less violence and for briefer durations than either polyarchic or personalist states. Indeed, in the long run the future levels of internal war (none, moderate, or high) for personalist nations are equiprobable, irrespective of the current level of violence. The distribution is unique to the personalist group of states and suggests that revolutionary behavior is strongly associated with this system structure. In recent years the internal conflict processes of nations have become the subject of considerable theoretical and empirical inquiry. Most of the work in this area has focused upon proximate causal elements in the initiation of violent political behavior. Empirical studies have usually involved the attempt to weight mathematically various factors presumed to influence the form, intensity, or extent of civil strife and to integrate these factors in general causal models. In contrast, this study presents a stochastic interpretation of domestic conflict processes. It determines probability patterns of two dimensions of political violence. At a simple level the question is whether the presence or absence of conflict at a given time is dependent upon the presence or absence of conflict at a prior point in time; and if linkages do exist, are they of short- or long-term duration? The violence-breeds-violence thesis forms the broad theoretical background * This project was funded by the University of Mississippi through a Faculty Research