Experimental study of plate‐reinforced composite deep coupling beams

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the behavior of deep coupling beams of span‐to‐depth ratio (1·17) fabricated according to the newly proposed plate‐reinforced composite (PRC) coupling beam design. Three PRC coupling beams of small span/depth ratio fabricated based on different approaches for load transfers between steel plates and reinforced concrete (RC) were tested under reversed cyclic loading. This paper presents the experimental results and compares the overall performance of these three specimens with two geometrically identical RC coupling beam specimens, one with diagonal reinforcement and the other with conventional reinforcement details, tested by previous researchers. It was found that the performance of PRC deep coupling beams of small span‐to‐depth ratio with properly designed plate anchorage in the wall regions can be comparable to that of diagonally reinforced coupling beams while being able to achieve a higher shear capacity without causing the problem of steel congestion. The proper design approach for the plate anchorage of PRC coupling beams was also identified. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Alcohol expectancies regarding sex, aggression, and sexual vulnerability: Reliability and validity assessment.

This study was designed to validate the Alcohol Expectancies Regarding Sex, Aggression, and Sexual Vulnerability Questionnaire. This instrument includes alcohol expectancies in 4 domains (aggression, sexual affect, sexual drive, and vulnerability to sexual coercion) for 3 targets (self, women, and men). Confirmatory factor analyses with 715 undergraduates supported the hypothesized factor structure for the entire sample, as well as for gender and ethnic subgroups. Each of the subscales had high internal consistency reliability, moderate test-retest reliability, and good discriminant validity. Multivariate analyses of variance supported the hypothesis that participants' alcohol expectancies for other people conformed to gender role stereotypes. Participants saw themselves as being less influenced by alcohol than were others. Implications for sexual assault prevention programs are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reliability and validity of the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale.

To investigate the reliability and validity of the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), 28 youth aged 6 to 17 years with Tourette's syndrome (TS) participated in the study. Data included clinician reports of tics and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) severity, parent reports of tics, internalizing and externalizing problems, and child reports of depression and anxiety. All children participated in a 2nd YGTSS administration by the same rater 48 days later. Good internal consistency and stability were found for the YGTSS scores. YGTSS scores demonstrated strong correlations with parent-rated tic severity (r = .58-.68). YGTSS scores were not significantly related to measures of clinician ratings of OCD severity (r = .01-.15), parent ratings of externalizing and internalizing behavior (r = -.07-.20), and child ratings of depression (r = .02-.26) and anxiety (r = -.06 -.28). Findings suggest that the YGTSS is a reliable and valid instrument for the assessment of pediatric TS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A public‐key based secure Mobile IP

The need of scaleable key management support for Mobile IP, especially the routeoptimized Mobile IP, is well known. In this paper, we present the design and the implementation of a public key management system that can be used with IETF basic and route optimized Mobile IP. The system, known as the Mobile IP Security (MoIPS) system, was built upon a DNS based X.509 Public Key Infrastructure and the innovation in cross certification and zeromessage key generation. The system can supply cryptographic keys for authenticating Mobile IPv.4 location management messages and establishing IPSec tunnels for Mobile IP redirected packets. It can also be used to augment firewall traversal of Mobile IP datagrams. A FreeBSD UNIX implementation of the MoIPS prototype is available for noncommercial uses.     

Particle filtering to combat inter-carrier interference in mobile communications

This paper deals with the effect of the Doppler spread in a mobile communication system. The Doppler effect in a moving mobile is computed by predicting the mobile velocity via particle filtering, an instance of Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) filtering. By calculating the Doppler spread in the receiver and adjusting the transmitter in the appropriate frequency, the performance of communication systems, such as Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) which suffer from loss of orthogonality due to frequency offset, can be improved. Moreover, it is shown that, via performance comparison of OFDM between the compensated and un-compensated for Doppler shift cases, a substantial improvement (O(10⁻¹)) can be achieved in terms of Bit-Error-Rate (BER) for expectedly large values of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)     

The relationship between Internet identification,Internet anxiety and Internet use

This paper reports a study investigating the relationship between Internet identification, Internet anxiety and Internet use. The participants were 446 students (319 females and 127 males) from two universities in the UK and one university in Australia. Measures of Internet identification and Internet anxiety were developed. The majority of participants were NOT anxious about using the Internet, although there were approximately 8% who showed evidence of Internet anxiety. There was a significant and negative relationship between Internet anxiety and Internet use. Those who were more anxious about using the Internet used the Internet less, although the magnitude of effect was small. There was a positive and significant relationship between Internet use and Internet identification. Those who scored high on the measure of Internet identification used the Internet more than those who did not. There was also a significant and negative relationship between Internet anxiety and Internet identification. Finally, males had a significantly higher Internet identification score than females. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Fluorescent peptide probes for high-throughput measurement of protein phosphatases

A homogeneous microplate assay for the serine/threonine protein phosphatases PP1 and PP2A, employing fluorescent-labeled phosphopeptides, has been developed. Phosphopeptides derived from a phosphoacceptor site in myelin basic protein were designed with a cysteine adjacent to the phosphoresidue, allowing site-selective labeling with dyes. The fluorescence emission from the environmentally sensitive fluorophore 7-fluorobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazole-4-sulfonamide was found to be sensitive to the phosphorylation status of an adjacent threonine residue. Upon complete dephosphorylation of the dye-labeled phosphopeptide, a 56% decrease in fluorescence intensity was observed. The change in fluorescence was correlated with the release of inorganic phosphate from the phosphopeptide as measured using the malachite green assay. Conjugation of the fluorophore to the phosphopeptide was found to have no adverse effect on catalysis. A series of four phosphopeptide substrates were developed and characterized to probe PP1 and PP2A activity. The optimum phosphopeptides were then used to determine inhibition parameters for three natural protein phosphatase inhibitors. The use of a peptide-based approach has introduced a degree of specificity not observed with many conventional phosphatase substrates, while retaining the advantages of a real-time homogeneous fluorescence-based format, making the assay ideal for high-density screening.     

The flathead catfish invasion of the Great Lakes

A detailed review of historical literature and museum data revealed that flathead catfish were not historically native in the Great Lakes Basin, with the possible exception of a relict population in Lake Erie. The species has invaded Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair, Lake Huron, nearly all drainages in Michigan, and the Fox/Wolf and Milwaukee drainages in Wisconsin. They have not been collected from Lake Superior yet, and the temperature suitability of that lake is questionable. Flathead catfish have been stocked sparingly in the Great Lakes and is not the mechanism responsible for their spread. A stocking in 1968 in Ohio may be one exception to this. Dispersal resulted from both natural range expansions and unauthorized introductions. The invasion is ongoing, with the species invading both from the east and the west to meet in northern Lake Michigan. Much of this invasion has likely taken place since the 1990s. This species has been documented to have significant impacts on native fishes in other areas where it has been introduced; therefore, educating the public not to release them into new waters is important. Frequent monitoring of rivers and lakes for the presence of this species would detect new populations early so that management actions could be utilized on new populations if desired.     

The phase composition and molecular motions of plasticized wheat gluten-based biodegradable polymer materials studied by solid-state NMR spectroscopy

The water plasticized wheat gluten (WG) materials were prepared by thermal processing and studied by dynamic mechanical analysis and solid-state NMR spectroscopy. The results indicate that the materials displayed a broad distribution of molecular motions and could be divided into different phases in terms of their mobility above the T_g. The rigid phase mainly consisted of proteins and starch with enhanced interactions between the two components via hydrogen bonding with water molecules. Lipid and water formed the mobile phase, however, lipid molecules were always more mobile than water. The intermediate phase consisted of plasticized starch and proteins (mainly proline and glutamine segments). The whole plasticized WG materials were heterogeneous at a scale of 20-30 nm, but the miscibility between proteins and starch was enhanced via increasing hydrogen bonding interactions with water molecules. Such strong hydrogen bonding acted as adhesion among these multi-components/phases over a wide range of temperature thus resulting in good mechanical properties of the materials. The results demonstrated that solid-state NMR techniques can provide valuable information of quantitative composition of phase structures with different mobility in a multi-component system and the chemical nature of each phase along with the interactions among these components/phases.