Social phobia (SP) has onset during early adolescence, and is associated with significant impairment in social and educational functioning of adolescents. Therefore, valid and easy-to-use tools for screening and identification of SP among adolescent community populations are needed. We investigated both construct and discriminative validity, and screening properties of the 17-item Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) relative to SP diagnoses based on a semi-structured clinical interview (K-SADS-PL), in a sample of 752 12 to 17-year-old Finnish students from general population. The SPIN demonstrated good properties to differentiate adolescents with SP and those with sub-clinical SP symptoms (SSP), from adolescents without SP. The SPIN also differentiated adolescents with SP from those with depressive and disruptive disorders. In this sample 27% of participants scored above the previously suggested SPIN cut-off (15 points) for adolescent SP. We suggest using a somewhat higher cut-off score, 24 points, when using the SPIN as a screen for SP in general adolescent populations. This cut-off score resulted in a sensitivity of 81.2%, a specificity of 85.1%, a positive predictive value of 26.9%, and a negative predictive value of 98.6% in relation to the SP diagnosis in our sample. To screen for both SP and SSP, 19 points as a cut-off score produced satisfactory diagnostic efficiency statistics. The SPIN appears to have good properties for screening and identification of adolescent SP.

Background: The Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT) assesses everyday memory by means of tasks which mimic daily challenges. The objective was to examine the validity of the Brazilian version of the RBMT to detect cognitive decline.

Methods: 195 older adults were diagnosed as normal controls (NC) or with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD) by a multidisciplinary team, after participants completed clinical and neuropsychological protocols.

Results: Cronbach's α was high for the total sample for the RBMT profile (PS) and screening scores (SS) (PS = 0.91, SS = 0.87) and for the AD group (PS = 0.84, SS = 0.85), and moderate for the MCI (PS = 0.62, SS = 0.55) and NC (PS = 0.62, SS = 0.60) groups. RBMT total scores, Appointment, Pictures, Immediate and Delayed Story, Immediate and Delayed Route, Delayed Message and Date contributed to differentiate NC from MCI. ROC curve analyses indicated high accuracy to differentiate NC from AD patients, and, moderate accuracy to differentiate NC from MCI.

Conclusions: The Brazilian version of the RBMT seems to be an appropriate instrument to identify memory decline in Brazilian older adults.

L'objectif de cette étude est de définir à terme un outil fiable de dimensionnement d'assemblages collés pour favoriser l'utilisation de cette technique d'assemblage, en particulier, dans le domaine des structures marines et sous-marines. Un dispositif de type "Arcan", adapté pour l'étude du comportement d'un assemblage "métal-métal", a été développé pour se concentrer sur l'analyse du comportement de la colle en films minces. Pour analyser la cinématique de la déformation du joint de colle nous avons utilisé un système de mesure sans contact par corrélation d'images. Ainsi différentes caractéristiques du comportement non-linéaire de la colle ont été observées. Les premiers résultats obtenus pour les collages mixtes (acier, aluminium, composite) montrent des comportements similaires de la colle pour la procédure proposée. De plus, des contrôles de qualité par DSC, et des études de cuisson par DMA sont réalisées pour vérifier la conformité de la procédure de collage.

Deficiencies of vitamins B12, B3 and folate, abnormalities of cortisol metabolism, Wilson's disease, renal and hepatic failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypo- and hypernatremia, thyroid and parathyroid dysfunction, hyper- and hypoglycemia and Marchiafava–Bignani disease are metabolic and endocrinological abnormalities that may be associated with cognitive impairment. In some cases these abnormalities may be causative of impaired cognition and in other situations merely associated with cognitive impairment. The existence of these conditions provides some justification for routine investigations commonly performed on patients presenting with possible early dementia.

The p-values are often implicitly used as a measure of evidence for thehypotheses of the tests. This practice has been analyzed with different approaches. It is generallyaccepted for the one-sided hypothesis problem, but it is often criticized for the two-sided hypothesisproblem. We analyze this practice with a new approach to statistical inference. First we select gooddecision rules without using a loss function, we call them experts. Then we define a probabilitydistribution on the space of experts. The measure of evidence for a hypothesis is the inductiveprobability of experts that decide this hypothesis.

The validity of standardised ossessment instruments and their normative data is a significant issue in school psychology. Consequently, this study of 515 coeducational Queensland Year 5 students investigated the generalisability and robustness of the norms of two contemporary self-concept instruments, the Self-Description Questionnaire-I (SDQ-I; Marsh, 1988) and the Perception of Ability Scale for Students (PASS; Boersma & Chapman, 1992). Both tests have received praise for their theoretical construct but have been criticised for the regionalisation of their norming populations.The results of this study demonstrated that the Queensland students had higher mean PASS self-concept scores than the North American students used in the norming of all the PASS scales. For the SDQ- I, a similar distribution pattern was shown for Queensland students and SDQ-I norming sample, with the exception of small variability with Reading and Mothematics self-concepts scales. Issues associated with interpreting and reporting of assessment results and with the assessment responsibilities of educational psychologists and counsellors are discussed.