University of Memphis

About: University of Memphis is a education organization based out in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 7710 authors who have published 20082 publications receiving 611618 citations. The organization is also known as: U of M.

Predictors of grief following the death of one's child: the contribution of finding meaning.

Abstract: This study examined the relative contribution of objective risk factors and meaning-making to grief severity among 157 parents who had lost a child to death. Participants completed the Core Bereavement Items (CBI; Burnett, Middleton, Raphael, & Martinek, 1997), Inventory of Complicated Grief (ICG; Prigerson et al., 1995), questions assessing the process and degree of sense-making and benefit-finding, and the circumstances surrounding their losses. Results showed that the violence of the death, age of the child at death, and length of bereavement accounted for significant differences in normative grief symptoms (assessed by the CBI). Other results indicated that the cause of death was the only objective risk factor that significantly predicted the intensity of complicated grief (assessed by the ICG). Of the factors examined in this study, sense-making emerged as the most salient predictor of grief severity, with parents who reported having made little to no sense of their child's death being more likely to report greater intensity of grief. Implications for clinical work are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 64:1–19, 2008.

Does grief counseling work

Abstract: Most bereavement caregivers accept as a truism that their interventions are helpful. However, an examination of the bereavement intervention literature suggests that the scientific basis for accepting the efficacy of grief counseling may be quite weak. This article summarizes the findings of four recent qualitative and quantitative reviews of the bereavement intervention literature. It then discusses three possible explanations for these surprising findings and concludes with recommendations for both researchers and clinicians in thanatology that could help to focus efforts to answer the questions of when and for whom grief counseling is helpful.

Cardiorespiratory events recorded on home monitors: Comparison of healthy infants with those at increased risk for SIDS.

Abstract: ContextHome monitors designed to identify cardiorespiratory events are frequently used in infants at increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), but the efficacy of such devices for this use is unproven.ObjectiveTo test the hypothesis that preterm infants, siblings of infants who died of SIDS, and infants who have experienced an idiopathic, apparent life-threatening event have a greater risk of cardiorespiratory events than healthy term infants.DesignLongitudinal cohort study conducted from May 1994 through February 1998.SettingFive metropolitan medical centers in the United States.ParticipantsA total of 1079 infants (classified as healthy term infants and 6 groups of those at risk for SIDS) who, during the first 6 months after birth, were observed with home cardiorespiratory monitors using respiratory inductance plethysmography to detect apnea and obstructed breathing.Main Outcome MeasuresOccurrence of cardiorespiratory events that exceeded predefined conventional and extreme thresholds as recorded by the monitors.ResultsDuring 718 358 hours of home monitoring, 6993 events exceeding conventional alarm thresholds occurred in 445 infants (41%). Of these, 653 were extreme events in 116 infants (10%), and of those events with apnea, 70% included at least 3 obstructed breaths. The frequency of at least 1 extreme event was similar in term infants in all groups, but preterm infants were at increased risk of extreme events until 43 weeks' postconceptional age.ConclusionsIn this study, conventional events are quite common, even in healthy term infants. Extreme events were common only in preterm infants, and their timing suggests that they are not likely to be immediate precursors to SIDS. The high frequency of obstructed breathing in study participants would likely preclude detection of many events by conventional techniques. These data should be important for designing future monitors and determining if an infant is likely to be at risk for a cardiorespiratory event.

Earthquake triggering by seismic waves following the Landers and Hector Mine earthquakes

Abstract: The proximity and similarity of the 1992, magnitude 7.3 Landers and 1999, magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine earthquakes in California permit testing of earthquake triggering hypotheses not previously possible. The Hector Mine earthquake confirmed inferences that transient, oscillatory ‘dynamic’ deformations radiated as seismic waves can trigger seismicity rate increases, as proposed for the Landers earthquake1,2,3,4,5,6. Here we quantify the spatial and temporal patterns of the seismicity rate changes7. The seismicity rate increase was to the north for the Landers earthquake and primarily to the south for the Hector Mine earthquake. We suggest that rupture directivity results in elevated dynamic deformations north and south of the Landers and Hector Mine faults, respectively, as evident in the asymmetry of the recorded seismic velocity fields. Both dynamic and static stress changes seem important for triggering in the near field with dynamic stress changes dominating at greater distances. Peak seismic velocities recorded for each earthquake suggest the existence of, and place bounds on, dynamic triggering thresholds. These thresholds vary from a few tenths to a few MPa in most places, depend on local conditions, and exceed inferred static thresholds by more than an order of magnitude. At some sites, the onset of triggering was delayed until after the dynamic deformations subsided. Physical mechanisms consistent with all these observations may be similar to those that give rise to liquefaction or cyclic fatigue.

The Impact of Security Analysts' Monitoring and Marketing Functions on the Market Value of Firms

Abstract: In this study, we examine the impact of security analysts' monitoring and marketing functions on firms' market value. We postulate that security analysts' monitoring of corporate performance helps motivate managers, thus reducing the agency costs associated with the separation of ownership and control. We also argue that the information intermediary function provided by security analysts helps expand the breadth of investor cognizance. Consistent with these conjectures, this study finds that analyst following exerts a significant and positive impact on firms' market value. We also find evidence that security analysts have a stronger incentive to follow stocks of high quality companies, since such stocks arc easier to market. Hence, the security analysis activities appear to be determined, in part, by the marketing considerations of brokerage companies.