Early referential understanding: Infants' ability to recognize referential acts for what they are.

Previous research has documented infants' ability to follow adults' line-of-regard and pointing gestures by 9–22 mo of age, but it has not been clear whether infants appreciate that such cues are a priviledged source of information about word reference. Study 1 demonstrated that this is understood by at least 19–20 mo: Infants used referential cues to guide a new word–object mapping even though this required that they ignore competition from temporal contiguity. In Study 2, the effects observed in Study 1 were not obtained with actions that served to enhance the salience of an object nonreferentially (e.g., manipulating without looking), suggesting that infants appreciate that actions that accompany labeling are not necessarily referential. Taken together, these indicate that language learning is grounded in a relatively rich understanding of cues to reference, at least from late infancy on. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Combining evidences for evidential reasoning

An iterative procedure is described as a generalization of Bayes' method of updating an a priori assignment over the power set of the frame of discernment using uncertain evidence. In the context of probability kinematics the law of commutativity holds and the convergence is well behaved. the probability assignments of each updating evidence is retained. A general assignment method is also discussed for combining evidences without reference to any prior. the methods described here can be used in the field of Artificial Intelligence for common-sense reasoning and more specifically for treating uncertainty in Expert Systems. They are also relevant for nonmonotonic reasoning, abduction, and learning theory.     

The influence of acceleration forces on nucleation,solidification, and deformation processes in tin single crystals

Growth orientations are given for 50 gram and 2 gram single crystals of tin grown at acceleration levels of 1 through 7-g. Acceleration gradients produce a preferred growth orientation effect not previously observed for tin. Convection currents at approximately 5-g encourage multiple nucleation and subsequent random orientation of growth direction. The macromosaic substructure in the 99.95 pct tin does not obey the(RG) ^-1 growth relationship. The shape of the growth interface changes smoothly as the acceleration force increases, with the direction and magnitude of the change dependent on growth orientation. Deformation effects such as recrystallization and twinning are observed at acceleration levels greater than 2-g. A {431} twin plane was obtained for crystals grown at 6-g’s.     

Identification of metabolites of dieldrin (HEOD) in the faeces and urine of rats

Two metabolites of HEOD have been isolated by chromatographic techniques, one from the faeces and one from the urine of rats fed for six months on a diet containing HEOD. The molccular formulae of the urinary and faecal metabolites are respectively C₁₂ H₇ O₂ Cl₅ and C₁₂ H₈ O₂ Cl₆. Structural formulae for the two compounds are suggested.     

The future role of breeder reactors in utility planning

Numerous considerations, chiefly related to cost, contribute to the growth pattern of electric generation. Although water reactors will undoubtedly dominate U.S. nuclear expansion into the 1980s, the high-gain fast breeder holds the greatest economic advantage over the long term. The factors leading to this conclusion are presented and analyzed here, and some predictions are made for the 20-year period beginning in 1986.     

Changes in the cyclic 3', 5'-adenosine monophosphate system of rat mammary gland during lactation cycle.

Several aspects of the cyclic 3', 5'-adenosine monophosphate system of rat mammary glands were investigated including effects of stage of pregnancy and lactation upon tissue cyclic 3', 5'-adenosine monophosphate amounts and adenyl cyclase, cyclic 3', 5'-adenosine monophosphate phosphodiesterase, and protein kinase activities. Cyclic 3', 5'-adenosine monophosphate decreased at early lactation, and this decrease coincided with an increase in phosphodiesterase activity. Adenyl cyclase activity remained unchanged from late pregnancy to end of lactation. At late pregnancy, activity of protein kinase was about the same as during lactation indicating that increase in protein kinase activities in the glands precedes increases in activities of other major enzymes and the increase in ribonucleic acids in late pregnancy or early lactation. Epinephrine, prolactin, growth hormone, thyroxine, and prostaglandine caused 60, 80, 140, 200, and 270% increases in adenyl cyclase activity in vitro.