NEW YORK (AP) ? There would be no "happily ever after" for Cinderella without her glitzy glass slippers, so careful attention was paid to the shoes for the princess-to-be's Broadway opening this weekend.
For "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella," which officially opens Sunday at the Broadway Theatre, costume designer William Ivey Long and footwear designer Stuart Weitzman created a pair of pumps so sparkly they "light up the upper balcony," Weitzman says.
"The shoe is its own character in the show, and it will inspire the dream for so many other women."
Shoe shopaholics and Carrie Bradshaw types surely have been inspired by the Cinderella fashion fantasy, muses Weitzman, a 26-year industry veteran. How could they not? After all, he says, Cinderella gets the shoes ? flattering, delicate and powerful all at once ? and then gets her Prince Charming.
When people describe the stunning bride or the prettiest red-carpet starlet, the comparison rarely ? if ever ? is made to Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.
It's always Cinderella, belle of the ball.
"Cinderella is the gold standard for aspiration," agrees Long. "The slippers are so iconic, and they are recognized worldwide."
He says their only rival might be Dorothy's red ruby slippers in "The Wizard of Oz."
Because the shoes are so famous, the designers had to work with a certain set of expectations: The shoes had to be romantic and sexy, have a sparkly fairy-dust touch ? and they had to be seen by everyone in the theater.
Actress Laura Osnes, who plays Cinderella, couldn't risk shards and splinters from real glass, so the designers used Plexiglas instead.
Weitzman employed a welded-construction technique that uses no screws, normally used in high heels, so Cinderella could have a seamless look.
"This is the most magical world I've been asked to conjure up," says Long, whose 60-plus show credits include costumes for "Chicago," ''Hairspray" and "The Boy From Oz." Instead of going all Disney or using the famous French illustrations that came a century before (Cinderella-style folk tales are hundreds of years older than that) as inspiration, Long decided to weave nature ? with an emphasis on butterflies and vines ? into his visual picture instead of a particular time or place.
The idea that Cinderella had to be the most beautiful woman in the room, with the most gorgeous dress and coveted shoes, is what guided him and Weitzman, Long says.
They had to walk a fine line to avoid anything too gimmicky, even working on the giant Broadway stage, so they decided against threading lights through the heel of the shoe or other special effects.
Weitzman knows how to create shoes that light up a room. For years, he made "million-dollar Oscar shoes," diamond-covered footwear that a celebrity would wear to the Academy Awards. He gave that up at the height of the recession, but says he can do pretty much the same dazzling look with crystals.
The designer says he could imagine his typical customer wearing a version of the Cinderella slipper at a summer party, a night at the opera or a night on the town. He adds: "It would be one sexy shoe with cool jeans."
Yes, his Clearly Timeless collection based on the fairy-tale footwear is being shipped to stores.
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Online:
http://www.cinderellaonbroadway
___
Samantha Critchell tweets fashion at "at" AP_Fashion and can be reached on Twitter at "at" Sam_Critchell.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. economy barely grew in the fourth quarter although a slightly better performance in exports and fewer imports led the government to scratch an earlier estimate that showed an economic contraction.
Another report on Thursday showed a drop in new claims for unemployment benefits last week, adding to a string of data that suggests the economy improved early this year.
Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.1 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said, missing the 0.5 percent gain forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.
The growth rate was the slowest since the first quarter of 2011 and far from what is needed to fuel a faster drop in the unemployment rate.
Still, much of the weakness came from a slowdown in inventory accumulation and a sharp drop in military spending. These factors are expected to reverse in the first quarter.
"The breakdown remains consistent with more positive future growth," TD Securities said in a note to clients.
Consumer spending was more robust by comparison, although it only expanded at a 2.1 percent annual rate.
Because household spending powers about 70 percent of national output, this still-lackluster pace of growth suggests underlying momentum in the economy was quite modest as it entered the first quarter, when significant fiscal tightening began.
However, data on retail sales and from the housing market has suggested a tax hike enacted in January did not deal a big blow to households. Incomes have grown for U.S. families who have also made inroads in reducing their debt burdens.
Most economists think economic growth will pick up substantially by the end of the year although a wave of federal spending cuts due to begin on Friday are also expected to dampen economic growth in the first half of the year.
Some investors were disappointed by the fourth-quarter GDP reading, and U.S. stock index futures briefly turned negative after the data. Treasuries held onto early gains. The dollar edged lower against the euro and the yen.
"The fact that we only eked into positive growth in Q4 will do little to instill optimism in the pace of the recovery," said Omer Esiner, an analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange.
Initially, the government had estimated the economy shrank at a 0.1 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2012. That had shocked economists.
Thursday's report showed the factors holding back the economy were mostly as initially estimated.
Inventories subtracted 1.55 percentage points from the GDP growth rate during the period, a little more of a drag than initially estimated. Defense spending plunged 22 percent, shaving 1.28 points off growth as in the previous estimate.
There were some relatively bright spots, however. Imports fell 4.5 percent during the period, which added to the overall growth rate because it was a larger drop than in the third quarter. Buying goods from foreigners bleeds money from the economy, subtracting from economic growth.
Also helping reverse the initial view of an economic contraction, exports did not fall as much during the period as the government had thought when it released its advance GDP estimate in January. Exports have been hampered by a recession in Europe, a cooling Chinese economy and storm-related port disruptions.
Excluding the volatile inventories component, GDP rose at a revised 1.7 percent rate, in line with expectations. These final sales of goods and services had been previously estimated to have increased at a 1.1 percent pace.
Business spending was revised to show more growth during the period than initially thought, adding about a percentage point to the growth rate.
Growth in home building was revised slightly higher to show a 17.5 percent annual rate. Residential construction is one of the brighter spots in the economy and is benefiting from the Federal Reserve's ultra-easy monetary policy stance, which has driven mortgage rates to record lows.
JOBLESS CLAIMS FALL
A separate report showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, suggesting some traction in the labor market recovery.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 344,000, the Labor Department said. The prior week's claims figure was revised to show 4,000 more applications received than previously reported.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-time applications to fall to 360,000.
A Labor Department analyst said no states were estimated.
While the level of jobless claims is near where it was in the early days of the 2007-09 recession, hiring has remained quite lackluster. Job gains have averaged 177,000 per month over the past six months.
The unemployment rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 7.9 percent in January. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the jobless rate was unlikely to reach more normal levels for several years.
High unemployment prompted the U.S. central bank last year to launch an open-ended bond buying program that it said it would keep up until it saw a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market.
(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
Trust. It's a valuable commodity. But serial twitter-sleuth evleaks has done enough to earn ours for this latest leak. A Windows Phone 8 device -- apparently known internally as the Tiara -- which will be one of the first to run the next revision of the mobile operating system (GDR2). With a reported 4.3-inch display, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera and 1GB of RAM, it bears more than a resemblance to another recent addition to the HTC fold. If you had hopes that it might also borrow from the firm's latest Android flagship design, then sorry to dash them, as the sources suggest otherwise. The Tiara moniker is unlikely to remain, with evleaks taking a stab at it coming to market mid-May, possibly as the HTC 8W. Not a bad guess. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see if all that trust is truly well placed.
Sometimes you have to take a step back, a time out from your life.
Sometimes you have to leave behind everything and everyone you know in order to really, truly discover and connect with yourself. To regroup and recalibrate. There's nothing wrong with this, in fact, it's absolutely necessary in order to continue growing as an individual -- to continue moving toward a fulfilling and passionate life.
When you stay close to the everyday of your life -- sometimes even your family, old school friends and the community you grew up in -- you tend to stagnate. You fall in line with their expectations of you, the expectations of what kind of person you should be, based on who you were before and where it is you live. It's hard to become the person you're truly meant to be when you're in a stagnant situation.
You have to go somewhere where no one knows your name, the scenery is different and there are new people, ideas, experiences abound. Somewhere where you're free to just be you and take the time to explore who it is you want to become.
Far away from the stifling expectations of the people who think they know you best.
And when you're ready... you can go back, if you so choose.
You might find there's a much better community of people, job, house or style for you and make the decision to never return to where you were (or who you were) before. Either is perfectly okay, so long as you make the decision for yourself.
But what if you really can't just move across the country, travel abroad or completely uproot your life? How do you take that step back and reconnect with yourself? Remember, it's about taking a time out, not uprooting your life.
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the phenomenal book Eat, Pray, Love has this to say about taking a step back, and I couldn't agree more:
If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared -- most of all -- to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself ... then truth will not be withheld from you.
You don't have to up and leave for Bali, quit your job or leave your husband to take a step back. You simply have to create space.
This could mean that you find 10 minutes every morning to start meditating. It could also mean signing up for a silent weekend retreat. Maybe it means booking a room in the next town over and staying overnight alone.
There isn't any right way to take a step back, but here are a few steps to get you started.
1) Get clear on what external expectations are stifling you.
Is it your job? Maybe it's your parents and what they want for you? Maybe it's your group of friends, the ones that haven't changed a bit since high school. Whatever it is, get clear on where you're feeling trapped by external expectations.
2) Plan your getaway!
Again, this doesn't have to be some major, life-changing event. You don't have to do anything drastic, but start putting a plan into place to create some space. Maybe it's time to cash in some vacation days and take yourself out on a hike. Nature is an amazing place to reconnect. Maybe it's a matter of attending some personal development seminars instead of the usual night out with "the girls."
3) Take action and start stepping back.
Look at your schedule for the next week or month, depending on what you need to do. Where can you schedule it in? What needs to shift for this to happen? Do you need to start saving up for a trip? Researching groups online? Make a clear, step-by-step plan for what you need to do to make this happen and schedule it.
Leave a comment below...
Let me know where you need to create space in your life and how you intend to do it. Share one thing you're going to do today to make it happen.
For more by Stephenie Zamora, click here.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.
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Follow Stephenie Zamora on Twitter: www.twitter.com/StephenieZ
The Delvar, a Malta-flagged Iranian crude oil supertanker, is seen anchored off Singapore on March 1, 2012.
By Jonathan Saul, Reuters
LONDON - Iran is using old tankers, saved from the scrapyard by foreign middlemen, to ship out oil to China in ways that avoid Western sanctions, say officials involved with sanctions who showed Reuters corroborating documents.
The officials, from states involved in imposing sanctions to pressure Iran to curb its nuclear program, said the tankers - worth little more than scrap value - were a new way for Iran to keep its oil exports flowing by exploiting the legal limitations on Western powers' ability to make sanctions stick worldwide.
Officials showed Reuters shipping documents to support their allegation that eight ships, each of which can carry close to a day's worth of Iran's pre-sanctions exports, have loaded Iranian oil at sea. Publicly available tracking and other data are consistent with those documents and allegations.
"The tankers have been used for Iranian crude," one official said. "They are part of Iran's sanctions-busting strategy."
Dimitris Cambis, the Greek businessman who last year bought the ships - eight very large crude carriers, or VLCCs - to carry Middle East crude to Asia, flatly denied doing any business with Tehran or running clandestine shipments of its oil to China.
Cambis said he had not been involved in shipping before but had bought the tankers as part of a new venture he runs from the United Arab Emirates. He denied trading with Iran - though he has contacts there from his previous work in the oil industry.
Related story:?Skulduggery at sea: Iran uses tankers off Malaysia to evade oil embargo
He denied his vessels have loaded oil from Iran while at anchor in the Gulf. Known as ship-to-ship transfers, or STS, such movements are hard to track as crews can switch off tracking beacons or not update their recorded positions for periods to conceal that one vessel has come alongside another.
Cambis also explained a stop in Iran by one of his tankers - recorded in publicly available tracking data - as having been only for an emergency repair, not to load an oil cargo.
"There is no Iranian vessel that has done any STS with us," Cambis told Reuters in Athens in response to the officials' allegations of taking oil from Iranian tankers owned by Tehran shipping group NITC. "We have nothing to do with NITC."
The officials involved with sanctions dispute his account and showed documents detailing several ship-to-ship loadings. They said all eight of the tankers were involved in Iran trade.
In one instance in early December, according to the shipping documents shown to Reuters by the officials, an NITC tanker named Marigold loaded Iranian crude onto the Leycothea, one of Cambis's eight ships, while both were at anchor off the UAE emirate of Sharjah. Public tracking showed Cambis's tanker made a call about a month later to Zhanjiang oil terminal in China.
Loading at sea lets vessels pick up a cargo without visiting the country of origin of the crude. Officials allege the tankers are also used as offshore storage for Iranian oil which can then be transferred onward to other ships, concealing its origins.
Officials in Iran, which rejects Western allegations it is seeking nuclear weapons, did not respond to requests for comment.
Muddying waters Experts on sanctions law said that by operating outside the European Union, ship-owners had no clear obligation to observe rules barring EU companies from buying Iranian oil, though banks and insurers with EU or U.S. business ties are giving a wide berth to firms they suspect of dealing with Iran, given U.S. and EU efforts to penalize such firms within their own jurisdiction.?
"Such ships would be used to delete traces of a trade taking place," a London-based ship broker said.
While Iran has its own substantial tanker fleet, capable of carrying over 72 million barrels, the 2 million barrels that each of the eight tankers can move would be a useful addition to its capacity, analysts said - particularly as their foreign ownership and management could help conceal the Iranian origin of the oil, making it easier to obtain insurance, finance and other ship services that are affected by EU and U.S. sanctions.
Cambis said that between August and November he bought the eight ships: Leycothea, Glaros, Nereyda, Ocean Nymph, Seagull, Zap, Ocean Performer and Ulysses I. The first five are now managed by his firm, Sambouk Shipping, in Sharjah and he is in the process of transferring management of the remaining three.
In other movements indicated by the shipping documents, the Nereyda was also involved in a separate ship-to-ship transfer with NITC's Rainbow in the Gulf in November, while the Glaros took an offshore transfer from the Marigold there in December.
The Nereyda was later recorded arriving at a terminal in China in December. The Glaros appears to have remained in the Gulf since that December transfer, according to tracking data.
Asked about publicly available ship tracking data showing that the Glaros stopped at Iran's Larak Island oil terminal on October 20 last year, Cambis provided what he said was an affidavit by the ship's master describing an emergency repair carried out by Iranian divers when the tanker was headed to Saudi Arabia.
The master, named as I. Bonoutas, could not be reached for comment. Cambis denied loading any oil in Iran. After its stop at Larak, Glaros's next recorded visits, according to ship tracking data, were at Chinese ports between November 24 to December 1.
The eight tankers, built up to 20 years ago, can carry about 16 million barrels of oil among them, shipping databases show.
Iranian crude exports declined to an average of 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2012, down about 1 million bpd from 2011 levels, data from the International Energy Agency showed.
NITC blacklisted The eight tankers were bought last year for a total of about $204 million, ship trading sources said - reflecting prices only 3-4 percent above their worth as raw metal. The purchases have been the object of considerable discussion among ship brokers - not least because they would more typically have been broken up.
A ship dealer based in London said, however: "They can carry on trading for as long as people are willing to employ them.
"There's really not much that any authorities can do."?
NITC has been blacklisted by the West and the EU has imposed an outright ban on providing ship insurance that would benefit Iran. The exit from Iran of top providers of ship certification, vital for port access, and the removal of Iranian vessels from international registries have added to operational challenges.
While NITC has expanded its fleet in recent months, experts say access to additional foreign tankers would give Tehran more flexibility in maintaining exports.
"The key word for the Iranians is resistance as in the Supreme Leader's declaration of a resistance economy," said Scott Lucas, a specialist on Iran at Birmingham University.
"This is not an economy which is going to produce growth but it is one which is going to try and avoid a domestic collapse."
More related stories
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Scotland's Cardinal Keith O'Brien will not attend the conclave to elect a new pope ? on Monday he resigned after being accused of "inappropriate acts," the same day that Pope Benedict decided an internal report on the leak of papal documents by the Pope's butler would remain secret. ?NBC's Anne Thompson reports.
By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News
A potentially explosive report into embarrassing leaks from the Vatican will be seen by only two people ? Pope Benedict XVI and the man who succeeds him.
Italian newspapers have already angered the Vatican by suggesting that the report found evidence of corruption, blackmail and a gay sex ring, and that it triggered Benedict?s decision earlier this month to give up the papacy.
The Vatican said in a statement Monday that Benedict, who commissioned the report on leaks from three cardinals, is the only person who knows its contents and will make them available only to the next pope.
The pontiff also praised the cardinals for showing "the generosity, honesty and dedication of those who work in the Holy See," considering "the limitations and imperfections of the human component of each institution."
Over the weekend, the Vatican took the unusual step of lashing out at the Italian press ? accusing it of "unverifiable or completely false news stories"?designed to influence the conclave that will pick the next pope.
Father Thomas Reese, author of "Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church," said that Benedict?s decision to keep the report secret was not a surprise.
"The Vatican doesn?t like to do its laundry in public," he said.
In any event, he added, the new pope could always decide to make the report public. Benedict?s decision simply gives him cover in case he wants to keep it private, Reese said.
Javier Barbancho / AFP - Getty Images
Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Look back at his life from childhood through his papacy.
The pope ordered the report on what has become known as the Vatileaks scandal last year after documents became public that deeply embarrassed the church, including some of Benedict?s own correspondence and letters alleging corruption.
Benedict pardoned the ex-butler, Paolo Gabriele, just before Christmas.
The pope, 85, announced earlier this month that he would abdicate, the first leader of the Catholic Church to do so since the Middle Ages. His last day is Thursday. A conclave to pick successor begins next month.
The decision to keep the leaks report secret adds a layer of intrigue to what has already been a tumultuous papal transition.
Just Monday, the most senior cleric in Britain, Cardinal Keith O?Brien, resigned after The Observer newspaper reported that three priests and a former priest had accused him of inappropriate behavior going back 30 years.
Also Monday, the pope changed Vatican law to allow his successor to be picked sooner ? as soon as all the voting cardinals are in place in Rome. Under previous law, the conclave could not have begun before March 15.
Related:
Britain?s top cardinal quits amid priests? allegations
This story was originally published on Mon Feb 25, 2013 9:59 AM EST
Persistent negative attitude can undo effectiveness of exposure therapy for phobiasPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Russell Fazio Fazio.11@osu.edu 614-688-5408 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio Because confronting fear won't always make it go away, researchers suggest that people with phobias must alter memory-driven negative attitudes about feared objects or events to achieve a more lasting recovery from what scares them the most.
Ohio State University psychology researchers determined that people who retained negative attitudes about public speaking after exposure therapy were more likely to experience a return of their fear a month later than were people whose attitudes were less negative. The fear returned among those with unchanged attitudes even if they showed improvement during the treatment.
The scientists also developed a way to evaluate attitudes immediately after the completion of exposure therapy. The tool both confirms their argument that persistent negative attitudes can undo therapy's effects and offers clinicians a way to assess whether a few more sessions of treatment might be in order.
It is well known among psychologists that the return of fear is common in the months after exposure therapy for people with phobias. The Ohio State scientists say this could be because the treatment tends to focus on building skills to fight the fear. What sometimes remains unaddressed is the automatic negative attitude that plagues the average person with a phobia.
These attitudes are based on such a powerful association between a feared object say, a spider and a negative feeling about the species so strong that a person with a phobia can't see or even think about a spider without experiencing that automatic negative reaction, which leads to avoidance behavior.
"In exposure therapy, people can learn some skills to control the negativity and fear that got automatically activated and be able to perform well despite that activation. But if that's all that happens, then the person may still very likely have a problem because there will be situations where their confidence will end up being eroded, they won't be able to manage their fear and they will have a failure experience," said Russell Fazio, professor of psychology at Ohio State and a senior author of the study.
"The other thing treatment can do is actually change the likelihood that that negativity or fear is automatically activated when one is placed in that situation. We argue that treatment will provide more persistent improvement if it succeeds in changing that attitude representation.
"Overall, we'd like to see if clinicians can get people to view success in therapy not as a limited experience, but instead as an opportunity to really learn something about themselves. To the extent that we promote that generalization, we're going to promote attitude change," he said.
Phobias affect nearly 9 percent of American adults, or about 20 million people, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
The research is published in a recent issue of the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy.
The study involved 40 adults ranging in age from 18 to 46 years who met criteria for social anxiety disorder in the context of public speaking. Fazio and colleagues measured their fear and attitudes with a variety of questionnaires, and also recorded participants' heart rate and subjective units of distress, a rating scale from no anxiety to extreme anxiety, while they were delivering a speech at various time points in the study.
In the treatment, each participant was given three minutes to prepare a five-minute speech on two topics selected at random. They delivered the speeches without notes before a small live audience and in front of a video camera. The overall treatment included an initial discussion about public speaking anxiety and four of these exposure trials.
Participants also completed the critical assessment tool, called the Personalized Implicit Association Test, before and after treatment. The test was modified specifically for this study based on Fazio's longstanding research program on these kinds of automatic evaluations.
Essentially, the test measured the ease with which participants could associate "public speaking" with "things I like" versus "things I don't like." Researchers used the test to gauge any change in the attitude about public speaking as a result of the exposure trials. The advantage of the measurement approach, Fazio said, is that it provides a snapshot of individuals' attitudes toward public speaking without requiring them to assess and report their feelings.
Statistical analysis showed that on average, all participants' fear was reduced after completion of the treatment based on numerous measures. But one month later, an average of 49.2 percent of participants had experienced a return of their fear and results of the association test showed that people with persistent negative attitudes were the ones whose fear of public speaking returned.
Two measures in particular were traced to participants whose attitudes remained negative heart rate and anticipatory anxiety. Both measures were more likely to be elevated at the one-month follow-up in participants whose post-treatment association tests indicated that they still felt negative about public speaking.
Why is such an assessment beneficial? Fazio noted that people who devote time to a treatment program want to believe it's working. They also tend to want to please their therapists.
"There is a lot of pressure to believe and to report that it is going well," Fazio said. "Another part is people are not very well calibrated at reporting the extent to which they've improved. So there's value in having another way of getting inside the person's head."
What this study does not reveal, however, is who is more likely to retain the automatic negative attitude and whose attitude is more likely to change as a function of treatment.
Exposure therapy is considered effective because it forces people with phobias to stop avoiding what they fear and allows them to learn that they can encounter what they fear and survive. Fazio and colleagues hope to extend this work by developing supplemental components in exposure therapy that would more explicitly attack the activation of negative attitudes.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Co-authors include Michael Vasey, Casaundra Harbaugh, Adam Buffington and Christopher Jones, all of Ohio State's Department of Psychology.
Contact: Russell Fazio, (614) 688-5408; Fazio.11@osu.edu
Written by Emily Caldwell, (614) 292-8310; Caldwell.151@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Persistent negative attitude can undo effectiveness of exposure therapy for phobiasPublic release date: 26-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Russell Fazio Fazio.11@osu.edu 614-688-5408 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio Because confronting fear won't always make it go away, researchers suggest that people with phobias must alter memory-driven negative attitudes about feared objects or events to achieve a more lasting recovery from what scares them the most.
Ohio State University psychology researchers determined that people who retained negative attitudes about public speaking after exposure therapy were more likely to experience a return of their fear a month later than were people whose attitudes were less negative. The fear returned among those with unchanged attitudes even if they showed improvement during the treatment.
The scientists also developed a way to evaluate attitudes immediately after the completion of exposure therapy. The tool both confirms their argument that persistent negative attitudes can undo therapy's effects and offers clinicians a way to assess whether a few more sessions of treatment might be in order.
It is well known among psychologists that the return of fear is common in the months after exposure therapy for people with phobias. The Ohio State scientists say this could be because the treatment tends to focus on building skills to fight the fear. What sometimes remains unaddressed is the automatic negative attitude that plagues the average person with a phobia.
These attitudes are based on such a powerful association between a feared object say, a spider and a negative feeling about the species so strong that a person with a phobia can't see or even think about a spider without experiencing that automatic negative reaction, which leads to avoidance behavior.
"In exposure therapy, people can learn some skills to control the negativity and fear that got automatically activated and be able to perform well despite that activation. But if that's all that happens, then the person may still very likely have a problem because there will be situations where their confidence will end up being eroded, they won't be able to manage their fear and they will have a failure experience," said Russell Fazio, professor of psychology at Ohio State and a senior author of the study.
"The other thing treatment can do is actually change the likelihood that that negativity or fear is automatically activated when one is placed in that situation. We argue that treatment will provide more persistent improvement if it succeeds in changing that attitude representation.
"Overall, we'd like to see if clinicians can get people to view success in therapy not as a limited experience, but instead as an opportunity to really learn something about themselves. To the extent that we promote that generalization, we're going to promote attitude change," he said.
Phobias affect nearly 9 percent of American adults, or about 20 million people, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
The research is published in a recent issue of the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy.
The study involved 40 adults ranging in age from 18 to 46 years who met criteria for social anxiety disorder in the context of public speaking. Fazio and colleagues measured their fear and attitudes with a variety of questionnaires, and also recorded participants' heart rate and subjective units of distress, a rating scale from no anxiety to extreme anxiety, while they were delivering a speech at various time points in the study.
In the treatment, each participant was given three minutes to prepare a five-minute speech on two topics selected at random. They delivered the speeches without notes before a small live audience and in front of a video camera. The overall treatment included an initial discussion about public speaking anxiety and four of these exposure trials.
Participants also completed the critical assessment tool, called the Personalized Implicit Association Test, before and after treatment. The test was modified specifically for this study based on Fazio's longstanding research program on these kinds of automatic evaluations.
Essentially, the test measured the ease with which participants could associate "public speaking" with "things I like" versus "things I don't like." Researchers used the test to gauge any change in the attitude about public speaking as a result of the exposure trials. The advantage of the measurement approach, Fazio said, is that it provides a snapshot of individuals' attitudes toward public speaking without requiring them to assess and report their feelings.
Statistical analysis showed that on average, all participants' fear was reduced after completion of the treatment based on numerous measures. But one month later, an average of 49.2 percent of participants had experienced a return of their fear and results of the association test showed that people with persistent negative attitudes were the ones whose fear of public speaking returned.
Two measures in particular were traced to participants whose attitudes remained negative heart rate and anticipatory anxiety. Both measures were more likely to be elevated at the one-month follow-up in participants whose post-treatment association tests indicated that they still felt negative about public speaking.
Why is such an assessment beneficial? Fazio noted that people who devote time to a treatment program want to believe it's working. They also tend to want to please their therapists.
"There is a lot of pressure to believe and to report that it is going well," Fazio said. "Another part is people are not very well calibrated at reporting the extent to which they've improved. So there's value in having another way of getting inside the person's head."
What this study does not reveal, however, is who is more likely to retain the automatic negative attitude and whose attitude is more likely to change as a function of treatment.
Exposure therapy is considered effective because it forces people with phobias to stop avoiding what they fear and allows them to learn that they can encounter what they fear and survive. Fazio and colleagues hope to extend this work by developing supplemental components in exposure therapy that would more explicitly attack the activation of negative attitudes.
###
This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Co-authors include Michael Vasey, Casaundra Harbaugh, Adam Buffington and Christopher Jones, all of Ohio State's Department of Psychology.
Contact: Russell Fazio, (614) 688-5408; Fazio.11@osu.edu
Written by Emily Caldwell, (614) 292-8310; Caldwell.151@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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The Pentax MX-1 ($499.95 direct) is the company's first attempt at a compact digital camera with a larger-than-average image sensor. The 12-megapixel shooter packs a 1/1.7-inch BSI-CMOS sensor, but its exterior is what turned heads when it was announced at CES. Available in silver or black, it simply exudes style. The top and bottom plates are painted brass, and the paint will wear over time to develop a patina that classic camera lovers will appreciate. When it comes to performance, The MX-1 doesn't come close to ousting our current high-end compact Editors' Choice, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100 from its perch, but its rating would likely improve if a firmware update is able to alleviate some of its quirks.
Design and Features The MX-1's design is reminiscent of its namesake, the Pentax MX, a 35mm SLR that was the company's flagship camera in the late 1970s. The MX-1 is much smaller than an SLR, it measures about 2.4 by 4.8 by 2 inches and weighs 13.8 ounces. It's not too far off in size from the 12.2-ounce Olympus XZ-2, which measures 2.6 by 4.4 by 1.9 inches. Both cameras feature a 4x (28-112mm f/1.8-2.5 equivalent) lens, but the Olympus features a hot shoe that can accommodate an external flash or electronic viewfinder.
Control layout is one of the MX-1's strong points. You'll find a Mode Dial, EV Compensation Dial, and Movie Record button on the brass top plate, along with the shutter release, zoom control, and Power button. The rear of the camera features a control dial so you can quickly adjust aperture, shutter speed, or other settings. Rear buttons include Exposure Lock, Drive Mode, Focus Mode, Flash control, and ISO control. There's also the Pentax Green Button, which can be used to undo any changes you've made when shooting in Program mode. The Green shooting mode is equivalent to the "smart automatic" modes found on competing cameras.
The sharp, 921k-dot, 3-inch rear display boasts a 3:2 aspect ratio, slightly wider than the 4:3 ratio of the MX-1's image sensor. And the display is hinged so that it can tilt up or down. Nikon's take on this type of camera, the Coolpix P7700 also sports a 921k-dot display, but one with a vari-angle design that lets you swing it out to the side of the camera. One feature that works in the MX-1's favor is the digital level that appears along the top and right side of the display, which checks both horizontal orientation and the camera's yaw forward and back. This makes it possible to get shots where you are plumb with your subject, which be difficult when using an LCD for composition. The level can be turned on or off via the camera's menu system. If it's on, it's always on?even when you minimize the information displayed on the LCD by hitting the rear OK button. There's no optical viewfinder?the only cameras in this class that offer them are the Canon PowerShot G15 and the Fujifilm X20.
While neither is common enough to be an expected feature in this level of camera, Pentax chose not to include GPS or Wi-Fi in the MX-1. If you're looking for a Wi-Fi-enabled camera with a bigger sensor and a fast lens, take a look at the Samsung EX2F, it has one of the better wireless implementations we've tested. The Canon PowerShot S110 also has Wi-Fi, and can add GPS information to your photos when paired with a smartphone. ?The previous-generation PowerShot S100, which can still be found at retail, has a dedicated GPS module, but no Wi-Fi support.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) ? A homeless Kansas City man will soon have well over $100,000 after returning an engagement ring to a woman who accidentally dropped it in his cup earlier this month.
"I think in our world we often jump to like the worst conclusion, and it just makes you realize that there are good people out there," said Sarah Darling, whose fianc? set up a website seeking donations for Billy Ray Harris, the man who found the ring. By Monday, more than 6,000 people had donated more than $145,000 to the fund.
Harris, who frequently panhandles on Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, discovered the ring about an hour after Darling dumped spare change from her coin purse into his cup. She had taken off her ring earlier that day and put it with the coins.
"The ring was so big that I knew if it was real, it was expensive," Harris told KCTV.
Darling was horrorstruck when she realized the next day what she had done. She went back to Harris, squatted beside him and told him that she might have given him something valuable.
"'Was it a ring?'" he recalled asking her. "And she says, 'Yeah.' And I said 'Well, I have it.' "
Darling gave Harris all the cash she had in her wallet at the time.
"It seemed like a miracle," Darling said. "I thought for sure there was no way I would get it back."
In explaining why he didn't keep the ring, Harris said he had a religious upbringing.
"My grandfather was a reverend," Harris said. "He raised me from the time I was 6 months old and thank the good Lord, it's a blessing, but I do still have some character."
Japan said a Chinese government ship briefly entered its territorial waters off disputed islands on Saturday, as the Japanese premier vowed he would not tolerate Beijing's incursions into the area.
A Japanese coast guard vessel (bottom) monitors a Chinese fisheries patrol boat in the East China Sea in 2011.
The fisheries patrol boat entered the waters in the East China Sea at 4:48 pm (0748 GMT) and was sailing some 19 kilometres northwest of Uotsuri, one of the Senkaku islands, Japan's coastguard said in a statement.
But the Chinese ship moved out of the zone after about an hour, watched by a Japanese coastguard vessel, it said.
Beijing claims the Japanese-controlled islands, which it calls the Diaoyus.
The incident was the latest in a series, with Japan claiming in one case that Chinese vessels had locked weapons-targeting radar onto a ship and a helicopter. Beijing denied the charge.
Saturday's incident came as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, now on his first visit to the United States since he took office late December, vowed that he would not tolerate any challenge to control over the contested islands.
"We simply cannot tolerate any challenge now and in the future. No nation should make any miscalculation or underestimate the firmness of our resolve," Abe said Friday in Washington.
Speaking after talks with President Barack Obama at the White House, however, Abe cautioned that "I have absolutely no intention to climb up the escalation ladder".
The dispute between Asia's two largest economies intensified in September when Tokyo nationalised three islands in the chain, in what it said was a mere administrative change of ownership.
Apple is already working on its next generation iPad and the design has allegedly already leaked in China. As a result we get these images of a case, which is supposedly a custom fit for the upcoming fifth generation of the iPad. The popular accessory maker MiniSuit claims to have got the specifications and the design from a reliable source.
Judging by the case, the next-generation iPad will have a design, which is very much alike that of the iPad mini.The slate should have a narrower design with thinner bezels on either side of the display.
Apple?s iPad in the making will feature the microphone at the back of the device unlike its fourth-generation iPad, which had the microphone on the top. Apple?s rumored iPad is expected to launch in the month of June but as usual take all this with a grain of salt.
Robert Gibbs, President Barack Obama's former press secretary, says that he was once instructed by the White House not to acknowledge the administration's use of drones.
"When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was, you're not even to acknowledge the drone program," Gibbs said on MSNBC's "Up With Chris Hayes" on Sunday. "You're not even to discuss that it exists."
Or, to paraphrase an oft-quoted line from David Fincher's 1999 film "Fight Club": The first rule of the drone program is you do not talk about the drone program.
Gibbs, who was recently hired by MSNBC as a contributor, called the proposition "inherently crazy."
"You're being asked a question based on reporting of a program that exists," Gibbs, who served as White House press secretary from 2009 to 2011, said. "So you're the official government spokesperson acting as if the entire program?pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."
Obama's former spokesman said that while the administration has recently expressed the need to be more transparent about its use of drones, certain aspects of that program are "highly sensitive" and will likely remain secret.
?I have not talked to him about this, so I want to be careful," Gibbs said, "but I think what the president has seen is, our denial of the existence of the program when it?s obviously happening undermines people?s confidence overall in the decisions that their government makes.?
Zeke Tallahassee the space janitor needs your help to escape from the chase of the huge worm. Could you help him? Let?s go on checking the arcade game Worm Run.
Worm Run is an exciting running styled, side-scrolling arcade game developed by Golden Ruby Games, and designed for both iPhone and iPad. The iOS game features gorgeous retro-style game graphics, modern-retro and chiptune-style music, and simple swipe controls. All you need to do in the game is to swipe the screen with your finger in order to keep the space janitor running without stopping, and escaping from the chase of the terrible worm, moreover, using collected Grubies you can also purchase various items for higher challenge. Apart from that, the arcade game comes with five unique worlds and supports Game Center with achievements and leaderboards.
Worm Run with a size of 27.5 MB is compatible with iPhone (optimized for iPhone 5), iPod touch and iPad running iOS 5.1 or later. The iOS game is priced at $6 USD. If you?re interested, jump to App Store for more details.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. ? Officials say the offices of two Virginia congressmen received letters with a suspicious powder inside, though the material does not appear to be hazardous.
Virginia Beach Fire Battalion Chief Tim Riley says the substance found in a letter received Friday at Rep. Scott Rigell's office posed no immediate threat. A news release issued by Rigell's office says no staffers were hurt, and that the subject and intent of the letter were not known.
In Chesapeake, Rep. Randy Forbes' office also reported receiving a letter containing a powdery substance. Capt. Scott Saunders of the Chesapeake Fire Department told WTKR-TV that the material appeared to be wax residue from the envelope seal.
Neither Republican was at the offices when the letters arrived.
? Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Public release date: 26-Feb-2013
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