Adolescent egocentrism and formal operations: Tests of a theoretical assumption.

The theoretical relation between adolescent egocentrism and formal operations was addressed in 2 studies. In Study 1, this relation was assessed with the Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES; R. Enright et al, see PA, Vols 63:5127 and 65:10218) and a battery of formal reasoning tasks administered to 183 6th-, 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders. The results reveal only significant negative or nonsignificant correlations between the measures in early adolescence. There was also no evidence of significant developmental covariation from early to middle adolescence. The validation effort was extended in Study 2 to include 2 measures of adolescent egocentrism (AES and the Imaginary Audience Scale [IAS; D. Elkind and R. Bowen, see PA, Vol 62:5769]) and a 2nd battery of formal operations problems. These measures were administered to 117 7th-, 9th-, and 11th-graders and to 56 undergraduates. There was once again no evidence of significant developmental covariation among the measures. The correlations between the AES and IAS were modest, reflecting differences in the nature and content of the measures. It is concluded that little support exists in this study or in the literature for the crucial theoretical assumption of adolescent egocentrism. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complexity theory of parallel time and hardware

The parallel resources time and hardware and the complexity classes defined by them are studied using the aggregate model. The equivalence of complexity classes defined by sequential space and uniform aggregate hardware is established. Aggregate time is related to (bounded fanin) circuit depth and, similarly, aggregate hardware is related to circuit width. Interelationships between aggregate time and hardware follow as corollaries. Aggregate time is related to the sequential resource reversal. Simultaneous relationships from aggregate hardware and time to sequential space and reversal are shown (and conversely), and these are used as evidence for an “extended parallel computation thesis.” These simultaneous relationships provide new characterizations for the simultaneous parallel complexity class NC and for the complementary class SC. The evaluation of monotone planar circuits is shown to be in NC, in fact in LOGCFL.     

Feasibility Study of Batteryless Temperature Transponders Using Miniature Microwave Cavity Resonators

Batteryless temperature transponders have been constructed and tested. The design employs a sensing element consisting of a miniature cavity resonator loaded with a ceramic material of high dielectric constant and large temperature coefficient of resonant frequency. This is connected by thin coaxial cable to a small dipole or sector antenna. Prototypes with sensors 3 mm in diameter have been fabricated and can resolve temperature differences of 0.1°C in air. Signals have been obtained from transponders implanted in anesthetized rats, but antenna orientation is a critical and limiting factor that will require further efforts before a system is capable of operating in freely roaming animals.     

Evidence for Remote Effects of Dreissenid Mussels on the Amphipod Diporeia: Analysis of Lake Ontario Benthic Surveys, 1972–2003

The status of invasive dreissenid mussels (Dreissena polymorpha and D. bugensis) and native amphipods (Diporeia spp.) in Lake Ontario was assessed in 2003 and compared with historical data. D. polymorpha (zebra mussels) were rarely observed in 2003, having been displaced by D. bugensis (quagga mussels). D. bugensis expanded its depth range from 38 m depth in 1995 to 174 m in 2003 and this dreissenid reached densities averaging 8,000/m² at all sites < 90 m. During the same time period, Diporeia populations almost completely disappeared from 0–90 m depth, continuing a declining trend from 1994–1997 reported in previous studies. The average density of Diporeia in the 30–90 m depth interval decreased from 1,380/m² to 63/m² between 1997 and 2003. Prior to 2003, areas deeper than 90 m represented a refuge for Diporeia, but even these deep populations decreased, with densities declining from 2,181/m2 in 1999 to 545/m2 in 2003. Two common hypotheses for the decline of Diporeia in the Great Lakes are food limitation and a toxin/pathogen associated with dreissenid pseudofeces. The Diporeia decline in deep waters preceded the expansion of D. bugensis to these depths, and suggests that shallow dreissenid populations remotely influence profundal habitats. This pattern of decline is consistent with mechanisms that act from some distance including nearshore dreissenid grazing and downslope transport of pseudofeces.     

Mutual information based registration of multimodal stereo videos for person tracking

Research presented in this paper deals with the systematic examination, development, and evaluation of a novel multimodal registration approach that can perform accurately and robustly for relatively close range surveillance applications. An analysis of multimodal image registration gives insight into the limitations of assumptions made in current approaches and motivates the methodology of the developed algorithm. Using calibrated stereo imagery, we employ maximization of mutual information in sliding correspondence windows that inform a disparity voting algorithm to demonstrate successful registration of objects in color and thermal imagery. Extensive evaluation of scenes with multiple objects at different depths and levels of occlusion shows high rates of successful registration. Ground truth experiments demonstrate the utility of the disparity voting techniques for multimodal registration by yielding qualitative and quantitative results that outperform approaches that do not consider occlusions. A basic framework for multimodal stereo tracking is investigated and promising experimental studies show the viability of using registration disparity estimates as a tracking feature.     

Fast, large-scale model predictive control by partial enumeration

Partial enumeration (PE) is presented as a method for treating large, linear model predictive control applications that are out of reach with available MPC methods. PE uses both a table storage method and online optimization to achieve this goal. Versions of PE are shown to be closed-loop stable. PE is applied to an industrial example with more than 250 states, 32 inputs, and a 25-sample control horizon. The performance is less than 0.01% suboptimal, with average speedup factors in the range of 80-220, and worst-case speedups in the range of 4.9-39.2, compared to an existing MPC method. Small tables with only 25-200 entries were used to obtain this performance, while full enumeration is intractable for this example.     

A multiparameter wearable physiologic monitoring system for space and terrestrial applications.

A novel, unobtrusive and wearable, multiparameter ambulatory physiologic monitoring system for space and terrestrial applications, termed LifeGuard, is presented. The core element is a wearable monitor, the crew physiologic observation device (CPOD), that provides the capability to continuously record two standard electrocardiogram leads, respiration rate via impedance plethysmography, heart rate, hemoglobin oxygen saturation, ambient or body temperature, three axes of acceleration, and blood pressure. These parameters can be digitally recorded with high fidelity over a 9-h period with precise time stamps and user-defined event markers. Data can be continuously streamed to a base station using a built-in Bluetooth RF link or stored in 32 MB of on-board flash memory and downloaded to a personal computer using a serial port. The device is powered by two AAA batteries. The design, laboratory, and field testing of the wearable monitors are described.     

Estimating standard errors of accuracy assessment statistics under cluster sampling

Cluster sampling is a viable sampling design for collecting reference data for the purpose of conducting an accuracy assessment of land-cover classifications obtained from remotely sensed data. The formulas for estimating various accuracy parameters such as the overall proportion of pixels correctly classified, the kappa coefficient of agreement, and user's and producer's accuracy are the same under cluster sampling and simple random sampling, but the formulas for estimating standard errors differ between the two designs. If standard error formulas appropriate for cluster sampling are not employed in an accuracy assessment based on this design, the reported variability of map accuracy statistics is likely to be grossly misleading. The proper standard error formulas for common map accuracy statistics are derived for one-stage cluster sampling. The validity of these standard error formulas is verified by a small simulation study, and the standard errors computed according to the usual simple random sampling formulas are shown to underestimate the true cluster sampling standard errors by 20–70% if the intracluster correlation is moderate.     

Prediction of fatigue behaviour in stress-concentrators of arbitrary geometry

A new method is outlined which aims to predict high-cycle fatigue behavior of components which fail from stress-concentrators. This involves examination of the stress field in the vicinity of the stress-concentrator, and comparison with stress fields for cracks at known stress intensities. Methods which are currently used for simple notch geometries can thus be generalised, making the approach applicable to stress concentrators of any geometry. The method of prediction is shown to be stable, providing a solution of good accuracy when compared to analytical methods for standard specimen geometries. Favourable comparisons with experimental data have been achieved both for standard notches and for a corner geometry which represents a typical component case.