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Behavioral economics provides an empirically informed perspective on how individuals make decisions, including the important realization that even subtle features of the environment can have meaningful impacts on behavior. This commentary provides examples from the literature and recent government initiatives that incorporate concepts from behavioral economics in order to improve health, decision making, and government efficiency. The examples highlight the potential for behavioral economics to improve the effectiveness of public health policy at low cost. Although incorporating insights from behavioral economics into public health policy has the potential to improve population health, its integration into government public health programs and policies requires careful design and continual evaluation of such interventions. Limitations and drawbacks of the approach are discussed.

Some loosely framed hypotheses may be stated. (a) Psychiatry depends on science and considerably more besides. (b) Consideration of the clinical methods of psychiatry enables us to characterise six axioms of fundamental importance to the subject which are primary features of human experience, not derived from any theory, ethically neutral and in principle independent of culture. (c) These axioms do not belong to the world of science, in that they are unlikely ever to be fully comprehended by scientific methods. Although they can to a limited extent be studied scientifically, in essence they belong to that part of the world of human experience which is not amenable to scientific study. They are of critical importance to psychiatry, and may be of relevance to all clinical specialties. (d) Psychoanalytic theory and its derivatives contain much that has a bearing on these axioms. Insofar as there is a connection, the theory derives from the axioms rather than vice versa. (e) In their concern with the uniqueness of the individual, his/her inner feelings and thoughts, consciousness of self, empathy and transactions with others, the axioms have common ground with the group of disciplines known as the humanities. (f) Their relationship with the humanities is not such that one can at present identify specific advantages to the psychiatrist (or to the mentally ill person) that might accrue from studying particular topics in literature, art and music. (g) Among the humanities, the one subject that may prove to have relevance to appropriate theory and competent practice is philosophy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The p53 tumor suppressor gene is commonly mutated in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The most frequent mutation in HCC in populations exposed to a high dietary intake of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is an AGGarg-->AGTser missense mutation in codon 249 of the p53 gene. We analyzed HCCs from Monterrey, Mexico, for the codon 249ser hotspot mutation. We also analyzed the serum AFB1-albumin adduct levels of the donors and family members to measure the current AFB1 exposure in this population. Moreover, the presence of hepatitis B and/or C viral infection (HBV or HCV) was analyzed serologically in the patients. Tumor cells were microdissected from tissue sections and exon 7 p53 sequences were amplified by polymerase chain reaction from genomic DNA and sequenced directly. The serological tests for anti-p53 antibodies, HBV or HCV were done by ELISA. Immunohistochemical analysis of p53 protein was done using a polyclonal rabbit antiserum (CM-1). Eight of 21 cases were positive by p53 immunohistochemistry. Of the 16 cases sequenced for exon 7 of p53 three codon 249 AGGarg-->AGTser mutations were found. Serum antibodies recognizing p53 protein were found in one of 18 patients. Positive serology for HBV and/or HCV was found in 12 of 20 cases. The serum AFB1-albumin adduct levels in this population ranged from 0.54 to 4.64 pmol aflatoxin/mg albumin. These results indicate that dietary AFB1 and hepatitis viruses are etiological agents in the molecular pathogenesis of HCC in this geographic region of Mexico.

Little is known about the molecular mechanisms of lung carcinogenesis in women. We initiated an investigation of the role of gender in pulmonary carcinogenesis by analysis of p53 mutations, immunohistochemistry, serum antibodies and c-erbB-2 expression in a series of 63 male and 44 female lung cancer patients whose tumors were resected at the Mayo Clinic between 1991 and 1992. There were 102 smokers and 5 never smoked. Adenocarcinoma was the more frequent histological type in women (62%) than in men (41%). Sequence analysis of exons 5-8 in 42 females and 49 males identified 44 p53 mutations in 42 tumors (46%). Base substitution mutations showed a preponderance of G:C-->T:A transversions, which were more frequent in women than men (40 versus 25%) and in individuals exposed to asbestos. c-erbB-2 immunohistochemical staining was identified more frequently in females (nine cases) than males (two cases). Marked immunohistochemical staining for p53 positively correlated with the presence of missense mutations in exons 5-8 (81%, P < 0.001). Seven missense mutations (four in exon 5, two in exon 6, one in exon 8) were identified in five of nine patients who had serum antibodies recognizing p53; tumors from these patients were also strongly positive for p53 by immunohistochemistry. These and other results indicate gender differences in the genetic and biochemical alterations in lung cancer and generate hypothesis regarding gender differences in lung cancer susceptibility.

The psychiatric community seems determined to ground its medical legitimacy on principles that confuse diagnoses with disease. If mental illnesses are diseases of the CNS, they are diseases of the brain, not the mind. If mental illnesses are the names of (mis)behaviour, they are forms of behaviour, not diseases. Psychiatric metaphors have the same role in medicine as religious metaphors have in theology. Religion is, among other things, the institutionalised denial of a finite life. Psychiatry is, among other things, the institutionalised denial of the tragic nature of life: individuals who want to reject the reality of free will and responsibility can medicalise life, and entrust its management to health professionals. Psychiatrists have succeeded in persuading the scientific community, the courts, the media, and the general public that the conditions they call mental disorders are diseases, that is, phenomena independent of motivation or will. The more firmly psychiatrically based ideas take hold of the collective American mind, the more foolishness and injustice they generate. Long ago, the law makers agreed to let psychiatrists literalise the metaphor of mental illnesses. Thus, the Americans With Disabilities Act (AWDA), scheduled to be fully implemented by July 1992, covers claustrophobia, personality problems, and mental retardation, though unlike DSM–III–R it excludes kleptomania, pyromania, compulsive gambling, and transvestism. The literal language of psychiatry allows motivated actions to be called ‘diseases'. Other examples of behaviour for which psychiatrists have disease names, and which AWDA implicitly accepts as genuine diseases, include dysmorphophobia, multiple personality disorder, frotteurism, hypoactive sexual desire disorder, and factitious disorder with physical symptoms. However, it remains an open question whether premenstrual syndrome will achieve similar recognition in DSM–IV. Diseases occur naturally, whereas diagnoses are artefacts; why do psychiatrists make diagnoses?

Psychiatry is under threat from developments within mental health care. In educating future psychiatrists, more emphasis should be placed upon: collaborative research; integrated teamwork, without interprofessional rivalry; work in primary care; the non-scientific components of psychiatry, centred upon relationships with patients; less dogmatic attitudes for or against psychoanalysis; psychiatry as a branch of medicine; and modern management and audit methods. Younger psychiatrists should be encouraged to take responsibility for shaping the future of the profession.

Between 1977 and 1984 the pass rates for the Preliminary Test for UK/Eire candidates varied between 64% and 84% whilst those for overseas candidates were in the range 23% to 42%. Corresponding figures for the Membership Examination were 61% to 70% and 25% to 43% respectively. During those years overseas candidates were in the majority, comprising 60-65% of those taking the Preliminary Test and 50-55% of those taking the Membership Examination. Over the last two years the proportions have fallen to 40-50%.

SummaryThree groups of patients were identified during a study of men who had recently suffered an acute myocardial infarction: those with psychiatric morbidity antedating the infarction, those with psychiatric morbidity immediately following the infarction and those with no significant psychopathology. Compared to the other two groups, patients with psychiatric morbidity before the infarction were more likely to be unmarried, unemployed and to have received previous psychiatric treatment. They also obtained higher scores for neuroticism and psychoticism on personality assessment. Patients whose symptoms have been precipitated by the infarction resembled the psychologically healthy group with regard to their demographic characteristics and personality. Their symptoms tended to be transient, improving without special psychiatric treatment.

SynopsisIncreases in barbiturate tolerance and in scores on certain cognitive tests were found to have occurred after the treatment of elderly depressives. These changes were related to original severity of illness and to the extent of improvement, as well as to a number of other clinical features including age at first attack. The reported findings lent support to theories linking depressive illness with reduction in cortical arousability.

SynopsisA feasibility study for a controlled trial of a certain type of formal psychotherapy is described. Patients referred by consultant psychiatrists in the Inner London Area were carefully selected and fully assessed before random allocation to one of three treatment procedures. The results indicate that the trial as initially envisaged is not feasible. The reasons for this conclusion are discussed.

SUMMARY Using a standardized interview, psychiatric morbidity was diagnosed in 35 out of 100 consecutive male patients one week after admission to hospital following a first acute myocardial infarction. Sixteen of these patients had been psychiatrically ill before the infarction and their psychiatric symptoms and social difficulties persisted throughout the 12 month period of observation. In contrast, patients whose psychiatric morbidity had been precipitated by the infarction tended to have transient symptoms and fewer problems of social adjustment. Measures of psychiatric morbidity one week after the attack did not predict subsequent mortality or difficulty in returning to work. Only a history of heavy smoking was significantly associated with mortality during the ensuing 12 months. Patients who regarded their illness as a loss or a threat had greater psychiatric morbidity than those who regarded it as an insignificant event.

Using a standardized interview, psychiatric morbidity was diagnosed in 35 our of 100 consecutive male patients one week after admission to hospital following a first acute myocardial infarction. Sixteen of these patients had been psychiatrically ill before the infarction and their psychiatric symptoms and social difficulties persisted throughout the 12 month period of observation. In contrast, patients whose psychiatric morbidity had been precipitated by the infarction tended to have transient symptoms and fewer problems of social adjustment. Measures of psychiatric morbidity one week after the attack did not predict subsequent mortality or difficulty in returning to work. Only a history of heavy smoking was significantly associated with mortality during the ensuing 12 months. Patients who regarded their illness as a loss or a threat had greater psychiatric morbidity than those who regarded it as an insignificant event.

One week after a first myocardial infarction 35 out of 100 consecutive men patients aged under 65 were found by standardised clinical interview to have psychiatric morbidity. In 16 the morbidity had been evident before the infarct, and these patients showed a wider range of psychopathology than those whose symptoms had been precipitated by the infarct. The results suggest that psychiatric morbidity in patients with heart disease is not necessarily a result of the disease process. Thus characterising psychiatric morbidity and identifying the patients' individual needs are important if rehabilitation is to be effective.

The pre-natal environment may modify the state of development of the child at birth by influencing the rate or duration of pre-natal growth. Size of litter, for example, has a substantial effect on both, for in multiple pregnancy foetal growth is retarded during the last weeks of gestation, and onset of labour is earlier than in single pregnancy (McKeown and Record, 1952). Parity also influences the rate of foetal growth, which is greater in later born than in first born (McKeown and Record, 1953), but it has only a small effect on duration of gestation (Karn and Penrose, 1951). Maternal age has little influence on rate of growth, and none on duration of gestation when a correction is introduced for length of cycle (Gibson and Dougray, 1953). These environmental influences are modified after birth. They may be removed, as in the case of the gross pre-natal handicaps associated with multiple pregnancy, or turned in another direction, as in the case of the differences related to birth order (the pre-natal environment favours later born; the post-natal environment favours first born). Postnatal growth therefore reflects both

Previous investigations concerning growth in the human subject are mainly restricted in scope to consideration of increments in height, in weight, and less often in more specific measurements, related to a chronological time-scale. There has been little attempt to interpret such anthropometric material against the background of accredited principles which have been established for other species by the method of experimental embryology. The importance of regional differential growth as the essential feature of the gross morphogenetic, as opposed to histogenetic, aspect of development has been variously emphasized, notably by Child (1915). The study of continuous changes in body proportions from foetus to adult was also brought into focus by D'Arcy Thompson j* (1917), who pointed out that the growth intensity of the body conforms with a more or less regular pattern, the relative growth ratios of parts of the body being defined by an orderly system of growth gradients. Anthropo metric investigation need not, therefore, be fruitless if directed to evaluating how relative growth of different dimensions during particular phases of development contributes to changes of bodily shape characteristic of the sexes. In this way, we may bring into focus problems which await interpretation in terms of our advancing knowledge of cell metabolism. Part I of the present series (Hogben, Waterhouse, and Hogben, 1948) explored certain features of differential growth in relation to qualitative changes taking place at puberty, indicating specific hormonal influences on three sexually-differential indices of body build, viz. bispinous width of pelvis, bisacro mial width of shoulders, and neck girth. It is now

Since the mid 1940's explosive charges have been widely used by offshore seismic exploration companies, by the U. S. Navy, and by other groups to generate high‐intensity acoustic pulses for seismic and sonar‐related activities. In the late 1950's offshore exploration groups began to develop alternate energy sources, and in the mid 1960's a number of non‐explosive impulse and cw marine sound sources were introduced and soon dominated the offshore exploration field. Despite their relatively low‐energy levels, these sources have since been tailored to reproducibly generate acoustic spectra concentrated in the range below 100 Hz at efficiency levels that have allowed them to completely replace shallow‐detonated explosives. This report briefly describes important characteristics of four classes of nonexplosive acoustic impulse sources developed for offshore seismic exploration purposes and compares their acoustic signatures with those of explosive SUS charges used in sonar propagation studies. The total energy levels of SUS and several nonexplosive impulse sources are compared and acoustic levels, bubble pulse, and the spectral characteristics of the signatures are discussed and methods for defining and controlling these characteristics are briefly described. [Work supported by ONR/LRAPP.]

This case demonstrates what many faculty and staff have come to recognize: the university’s policies and processes with which to address and resolve complaints of harassment and assault are unclear, ineffective, and unfair. Many of us in recent years have observed how inadequate, contradictory, and often self-defeating the process has proved. This situation cannot stand. The university administration needs to support and preserve the general culture of profound pedagogical commitment and collegial trust at Brock.