Autonomous Clustering Research Articles

The autonomic nervous system and cluster headache.

The autonomic nervous system and cluster headache.

Personality vulnerability, psychiatric diagnoses, and symptoms: Cluster analyses of the sociotropy-autonomy subscales

To determine whether psychiatric outpatients represented distinct personality types with respect to sociotropy and autonomy, the Sociotropy and Autonomy Scale (SAS; Beck, Epstein, Harrison, & Emery, 1983) was administered to 2,067 psychiatric outpatients with predominantly DSM-III-R mood or anxiety disorders. Both agglomerative-hierarchical and nonhierarchical cluster analyses performed on the six subscales of the SAS revealed four personality types—Independence, Dependence, Individualistic Achievement and Low Scoring Controls. Loglinear analyses failed to reveal significant differences between clusters in specific Axis I diagnoses, though a significantly higher proportion of the sociotropic Dependent type had a Dependent or Avoidant personality disorder. The autonomous Independent and sociotropic Dependent clusters also had higher levels of self-reported and clinically rated depression and anxiety than did the Individualistic Achievement and Low Scoring groups. The implications of these results for understanding the relationship between personality and psychopathology are discussed.

Induced Industrial Clustering and Efficiency: An Exploratory Study of Gujarat's Industrial Estates

Product-specific clusters of small industrial units in advanced economies have demonstrated the efficacy of industrial clustering for economic development. Suggesting that this approach may be of relevance to developing countries such as India as well, the authors here focus on the industrial estates in Gujarat, among the most industrialised states in India, and conclude that even induced clustering, which the industrial estate experiment represents, can lead to collective efficiency, like autonomous clustering in advanced countries.

Relations of sociotropic and autonomous personality characteristics to specific symptoms in depressed patients.

A number of writers have suggested that two sets of personality characteristics are associated both with vulnerabilities to depression in response to different classes of events and with different clinical presentations of depression. The present study examined the relations between levels of sociotropic and autonomous personality characteristics and specific, theoretically derived clusters of symptoms in 80 unipolar depressed patients. As was predicted, sociotropy was related to the cluster of symptoms associated with the concept of anxious-reactive depression and was unrelated to the autonomous symptoms cluster. In contrast, the predicted relations of autonomous personality characteristics and symptoms were not found. These results support the idea that the symptom picture in depression may be related to personality characteristics, but they also suggest that the measurement of autonomy may require revision.

Effects of Maternal Epidural Anesthesia on Neonatal Behavior

Lidocaine may be expected to have a greater effect on neonatal neurobehavior than chloroprocaine because of differences in pharmacology. However, recent reports have been contradictory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (BNBAS) score would be lower when lidocaine is used as a local anesthetic than when chloroprocaine is used, and that any effects would be related to cord blood drug levels. Ninety-nine healthy mother/infant pairs were studied. Clinical characteristics, pharmacological data, and BNBAS scores were collected and analyzed using statistical techniques that included stepwise multiple regression and repeated measures analysis of variance. The results showed, that at less than 5 hr of age, the chloroprocaine group performed significantly better on the motor cluster. At 3 days of age, the chloroprocaine group did significantly better on the autonomic cluster. Cord venous concentrations of lidocaine were the only drug variables that correlated with performance on the autonomic items; the higher the concentration, the poorer the BNBAS score. All of the cluster scores showed significant improvement with age except for regulation of state. Furthermore, the route of delivery was significantly related to regulation of state with cesarean babies performing better. Finally, a three-way interaction (test X delivery X drug) was found for the orientation cluster. The data suggest that the difference in performance on the BNBAS associated with lidocaine is very subtle and that other perinatal factors can influence performance on the BNBAS more than the type of local anesthetic used.

Effects of Maternal Epidural Anesthesia on Neonatal Behavior

Lidocaine may be expected to have a greater effect on neonatal neurobehavior than chloroprocaine because of differences in pharmacology. However, recent reports have been contradictory. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (BNBAS) score would be lower when lidocaine is used as a local anesthetic than when chloroprocaine is used, and that any effects would be related to cord blood drug levels. Ninety-nine healthy mother/infant pairs were studied. Clinical characteristics, pharmacological data, and BNBAS scores were collected and analyzed using statistical techniques that included stepwise multiple regression and repeated measures analysis of variance. The results showed, that at less than 5 hr of age, the chloroprocaine group performed significantly better on the motor cluster. At 3 days of age, the chloroprocaine group did significantly better on the autonomic cluster. Cord venous concentrations of lidocaine were the only drug variables that correlated with performance on the autonomic items; the higher the concentration, the poorer the BNBAS score. All of the cluster scores showed significant improvement with age except for regulation of state. Furthermore, the route of delivery was significantly related to regulation of state with cesarean babies performing better. Finally, a three-way interaction (test × delivery × drug) was found for the orientation cluster. The data suggest that the difference in performance on the BNBAS associated with lidocaine is very subtle and that other perinatal factors can influence performance on the BNBAS more than the type of local anesthetic used.