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We present experimental studies of the current pumped through a dynamic quantum dot over a wide range of magnetic fields. At low fields we observe a repeatable structure indicating increased confinement of the electrons in the dynamic dot. At higher fields (B>5T), we observe a structure which changes markedly from device to device suggesting that in this regime the transport is sensitive to local disorder. The results are significant for the development of dynamic quantum dot pumps as quantum standards of electrical current. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychiatric problems are rampant among the aged, yet the psychiatric profession has not developed sufficient resources for training the necessary number of practitioners able and willing to treat elderly psychiatric patients. The management of psychiatric problems in old age differs substantially from that in younger age groups. The elderly patient is likely to have multiple needs and to require diverse services. Fundamental goals in training geriatric psychiatrists should focus on differential diagnosis and treatment, pharmacologic issues, consultation, community resources, and psychiatric, medical, and psychosocial aspects of care. The authors describe a curriculum tailored to meet these goals.

The authors examined 100 psychiatric patients who were 60 years old and older for orthostatic hypotension and symptoms of dizziness and falling. Almost 40% of the patients complained of dizziness and falling, although only 27% had systolic orthostatic hypotension. Drug treatment, particularly the combination of tricyclics with other orthostatic hypotension-inducing drugs, was the most important factor accounting for the dizziness and falling. Underlying medical illness, particularly heart disease, also correlated significantly with the patients' symptoms.

Three hundred twenty respondents in selected geographic areas were interviewed with a structured questionnaire that included the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. Dimensional analysis indicates that some items are not pure measures of the constructs they were originally intended to assess. Moreover, some of the dimensions within the scale apparently convey different meanings to different segments in the population. In addition, different dimensions within the scale have varying demographic correlates. The analysis suggests that in order for the scale to be a truly useful device for assessing depressive symptomatology in a general population, additional items need to be added and some questions need to be followed by probes to clarify the exact frame of reference of the respondents.

One hundred community-dwelling psychiatric outpatients, 60 years and older, were evaluated for factors associated with symptoms of dizziness, falling, and orthostatic hypotension. Thirty-nine percent complained of dizziness or falling, and 34% had systolic orthostatic hypotension. Together, systolic and diastolic blood pressure drop, type of somatic illness, type and number of drugs, and psychiatric diagnosis accounted for 50% of the variance in dizziness and falling. Type of illness, drug category, and psychiatric diagnosis accounted for only 19% of the variance in orthostatic hypotension. Statistical analysis showed that systolic orthostatic hypotension, disease classification, and type and number of drugs taken contribute independently to dizziness and falling. In geriatric psychiatric patients, careful attention to orthostatic hypotension, concurrent somatic illness, and number and type of medication is essential to the prevention of dizziness, falling, and their consequences.

Different presentations of depression may occur in the elderly. Complaints of physical illness are especially common and pseudodementia may be the presenting picture. Overtreated hypertension which can be well controlled with diuretics is a common cause of depression in the elderly. Taking the patient off the drug known to cause depression will often solve the problem.

Depressive symptomatology, marital satisfaction and functioning, job satisfaction, and social relationships were investigated in 320 respondents comprising 160 married couples. Responses to the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale indicated that 13% of the respondents had scores similar to those obtained by patients with diagnosed depressions and an additional 27% had scores comparable to those of persons with other psychiatric problems. Responses to a variety of questions about the respondents' social life, job satisfaction, and marital function indicate that increased depressive symptomatology in this general population is associated with a decline in satisfaction and functioning in these areas. The data suggest that this association is not solely due to response bias but is associated with a real decline in function, particularly in the area of child rearing.

(1) This paper presents the results of a field study designed to investigate the hypothesis that persons presumed heterozygous for phenylketonuria are more vulnerable to mental disorder than other persons. Three-hundred-and-thirty-one persons were interviewed, including 108 parents of phenylketonuric offspring, 102 parents with non-phenylketonuric mentally retarded offspring, and 121 parents of children with cystic fibrosis. (2) Information was collected by means of a standard interview schedule which inquired into mental health problems of the interviewees as well as their parents and siblings. Interviews were coded according to an explicit code. Mental Health was evaluated by a set of indices constructed by assigning numerical values to certain items in the code and summing related items. These indices served as operational definitions of mental illness. (3) Analysis of variance was used to evaluate data derived. (4) Decreasing social class appeared to be associated with increasing scores on the indices. In addition, men and women scored significantly differently on many of the indices. In general, differences due to sex and social class were in the direction which would have been expected if the indices had been measuring the problem areas we were trying to evaluate. (5) The parents of phenylketonuric children did not score differently from the other two groups, indicating that they were not more susceptible to mental health problems than the controls, at least as measured by our operational definitions. (6) Some of the problems associated with field studies of psychiatric disease are discussed.

We have presented a series of constructs which were developed to measure the relative mental health of the members of three small populations. These constructs were highly concrete, and each of the 331 respondents investigated could be assigned a numerical rating without the use of clinical judgements of trained personnel. These constructs proved to be intercorrelated to a large degree. It was demonstrated that the size of the correlation between constructs was not always an accurate reflection of relationships within the population, so that certain relationships which were highly significant for men proved to be insignificant for women, and vice versa. The heterogeneous nature of the population could be shown to lead to two kinds of errors when data was looked at only for the population as a whole. (1) Loss or diminution of relationships which were true for one group but not the other; (2) errors in the interpretation of the significance of a relationship. It was pointed out that these errors probably represent general difficulties in the analysis of data from psychiatric studies.

A group of 29 college students who had been arrested or nominated as having participated in a street disturbance aimed at producing social change were interviewed. The interview schedule was highly similar to one which had been used to investigate attitudes toward violence in a random, representative sample of American men. The data collected from the arrestees are compared with data from college students in the national sample. This study shows that the arrestees are more likely to think that violence is necessary to produce social change than are college students generally, and are more likely to believe that existing social institutions are inadequate. As a group, the arrestees are more identified with white student demonstrators and black protestors than are college students generally. The arrestees are also likely to regard the police as untrusworthy, looking for trouble, and apt to dislike people like themselves. In addition to the negative attitudes toward the police held by the student arrestees, they are more likely to regard police actions as violence (and hence provocative) than are other college students. The arrestees are far more likely than other college students to cleave to humanistic values. However, most of the differences between the arrestees and other American college students could be predicted from a general model of the justification of violence, so that it appears that the student activists' beliefs differ not so much in kind from those of other Americans as they do in degree.