Female counselor–client dyads: Effects of counselor age, client marital status, and intimacy level of presenting problem on perceptions of counselors.

Explored the impact of counselor age, level of intimacy of clients' presenting problems, and client marital status on perception of counselors and the counseling relationship with 48 married females (mean age 21.9 yrs) and 48 unmarried females (mean age 26.3 yrs). Ss viewed a series of 3 videotapes, which were counterbalanced for level of intimacy of client's presenting problems and depicted initial interviews between young female clients and either younger or older female counselors. After viewing each individual vignette, Ss completed a counselor rating form, a client satisfaction form, and manipulation checks for presenting problem intimacy and counselor age. Overall, differences in presenting problems and counselor age were perceived as intended. Ss' marital status was unrelated to any measures. Counselors were judged as most expert, attractive, and trustworthy when dealing with presenting problems that were least intimate. Ss anticipated greater satisfaction with younger rather than older counselors only for the least intimate presenting problem. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

R&D project scheduling when activities may fail

An R&D project typically consists of several stages. Due to technological risks, the project may have to be terminated before completion, each stage having a specific likelihood of success. In the project planning and scheduling literature, this technological uncertainty has typically been ignored and project plans are developed only for scenarios in which the project succeeds. In this paper we examine how to schedule projects in order to maximize their expected net present value when the project activities have a probability of failure and when an activity's failure leads to overall project termination. We formulate the problem, show that it is NP-hard, develop a branch-and-bound algorithm that allows us to obtain optimal solutions and provide extensive computational results. In the process, we establish a complexity result for an open problem in single-machine scheduling, namely for the discounted weighted-completion-time objective with general precedence constraints.     

Buckling of columns constructed of bimodular materials

The problem treated here is the bifurcation buckling of a uniform, slender, cantilever column constructed of a bimodular material, which has a different Young's modulus in tension than it has in compression. Solution is obtained by three different approximate techniques: finite difference, segmentation (transfer matrix), and energy. The numerical results are found to be in very close agreement with each other.     

Transient behavior of time‐between‐failures of complex repairable systems

It is well known for complex repairable systems (with as few as four components), regardless of the time‐to‐failure (TTF) distribution of each component, that the time‐between‐failures (TBFs) tends toward the exponential. This is a long‐term or ‘steady‐state’ property. Aware of this property, many of those modeling such systems tend to base spares provisioning, maintenance personnel availability and other decisions on an exponential TBFs distribution. Such a policy may suffer serious drawbacks. A non‐homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) accounts for these intervals for some time prior to ‘steady‐state’. Using computer simulation, the nature of transient TBF behavior is examined. The number of system failures until the exponential TBF assumption is valid is of particular interest. We show, using a number of system configurations and failure and repair distributions, that the transient behavior quickly drives the TBF distribution to the exponential. We feel comfortable with achieving exponential results for the TBF with 30 system failures. This number may be smaller for configurations with more components. However, at this point, we recommend 30 as the systems failure threshold for using the exponential assumption. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wind-driven rain as a boundary condition for HAM simulations: Analysis of simplified modelling approaches

While the numerical simulation of moisture transfer inside building components is currently undergoing standardisation, the modelling of the atmospheric boundary conditions has received far less attention.     

Alternative mechanisms for improvements in fluid ability performance among older adults.

To cross-validate and extend previous work regarding fluid ability training, I randomly assigned 256 community-living older participants to either induction training, stress inoculation training, or no-contact control groups. Practice effects were common to almost all of the ability measures, whereas training effects were specific to measures of inductive reasoning. Both training groups demonstrated greater immediate posttest gains in Letter Sets performance relative to control groups, which were maintained to the greatest extent one month later for the induction training group. The control and stress inoculation groups experienced slight declines one month later, although performance differences still favored the latter. For Letter Series, one week follow-up findings favored both induction and stress inoculation conditions, whereas only the stress inoculation group demonstrated gains at one month follow-up. No differential pattern of training transfer to other components of Gf–Gc was observed. These data suggest alternative means by which the facilitation of intellectual competence in older adults may be accomplished. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)