News & notes.

This column presents information of interest to Division 26 members. Included are a candidate's statement from Division member Ludy T. Benjamin, Jr., who is running for President of the American Psychological Association. Also included are a report on the February 1998 Meeting of the APA Council of Representatives; information about the Wallace Russell Fund, nominations for division offices, fellows nominations, and division membership; meeting announcements; and information about access restrictions to the Stanley Milgram papers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

面向头肩序列图像的质量可精细扩展视频编码方法

FGS编码方法具有细粒度的可扩展能力,能很好地适应网络带宽的动态变化,被认为是一种适合于网络视频传输的编码方案.但现有的MPEG-4 FGS编码标准效率低,限制了其进一步的推广应用.因此,本文面向视频应用中常见的头肩序列图像,实现了一种质量可精细扩展的视频编码方法.该方法采用H.26L对基本层进行编码,采用基于DCT变换的SPIHT方法对原始图像与基本层重建图像之间的残差进行编码得到增强层的码流.然后将复杂背景下的人脸检测与跟踪技术与选择性增强技术结合起来,对人脸区域优先编码.实验结果表明,该方法不仅编码效率高于现有的MPEG-4 FGS标准,码流具有可精细扩展的特性,还可以选择性地提高人脸区域重建图像的主观感受水平.     

Identification and characterization of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains isolated from West African sorghum beer

The occurrence and characterization of yeasts isolated from sorghum beer produced in Ghana and Burkina Faso, West Africa, were investigated. The yeasts involved in the fermentations were found to consist of Saccharomyces spp. almost exclusively. Of the isolates investigated, 45% were identified as Saccharomyces cerevisiae, whereas more than half of the isolates (53%) had physiological properties atypical of S. cerevisiae or any other member of the complex sensu strictu, as they were able to assimilate only glucose, maltose and ethanol as carbon sources. Both ITS-PCR RFLP and PFGE strongly indicated that these isolates were related to S. cerevisiae, regardless of their phenotypic characteristics. Sequencing of the D1/D2 domain of the 26S rDNA confirmed the close relatedness to S. cerevisiae with 0.5% nucleotide differences. The MAL1 and MAL3 loci were found for all isolates as the only recognized MAL loci. Besides, for 40% of the isolates the MAL61 probe hybridized to a position of about 950 kbp, which has not formerly been described as a MAL locus. The results showed that the spontaneous fermentation of West African sorghum beer is dominated by a variety of strains of S.cerevisiae not previously described, among which starter cultures should be selected.     

Towards useful and usable interaction design tools: CanonSketch

Despite all the effort dedicated to bringing better User-Centered Design (UCD) tools to market, current studies show that the industry is still dominated by tools that do not support the activities and workstyles of designers. Also, there is a growing need for interaction design tools aimed at software engineers, a problem related to bringing usability into the software engineering processes.

We propose a new workstyle model that can be effectively used to envision, design and evaluate a new generation of innovative interaction and software design tools, aimed at integrating usability and software engineering.

We illustrate the effectiveness of our model by describing a new tool, called CanonSketch, that was built in order to support UCD in terms of the dimensions in our workstyle model. We also describe an evaluation study aimed at contrasting paper prototyping with our tool as well as the level of workstyle support.     

News and notes.

This section of News & Notes provides information for members of APA's Division 26. Topics covered include obtaining information about the Society for the History of Psychology; the Council of Representative Report from the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association from August, 2007; a call for papers for Cheiron: The International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences 40th Annual Meeting; and member news, including presentations, publications, appointments, and information about The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of Measurement Systems with a Small Number of Observers

The standard R&R study for evaluation of measurement systems assumes that participating observers constitute a random sample. Often there are only a few observers, all of them included in the study. An alternative measure for the gauge R&R is proposed for this situation, and it is shown that this may improve the perception of the quality of the measurement system markedly, especially with only a few observers. Finally it is shown that a simple estimator can be used, with a bias limited to just a few percent.     

RESEARCH ON RAPID-PROTOTYPING/PART MANUFACTURING (RP&M) FOR THE CONTINUOUS FIBER REINFORCED COMPOSITE

The process that makes the continuous fiber reinforced composite by rapid prototyping/part manufacturing process (RP&M) was investigated. The effects of the fiber's moving speed, the fiber's tension force, and the viscosity of the resin on the content of resin in the resulting composite, and the impregnation between the fiber and the resin were studied. Furthermore, a corresponding process was designed, and a set of devices was made to simulate the RP&M process. The results lay a foundation for designing and manufacturing the nozzle device, which is the key part in the RP&M equipment for continuous fiber composites.     

News & notes.

Presents information that may be of interest to Division 26 members. Included are a link to the Division's website, as well as instructions for subscribing to the electronic mail list; a draft of Division 26's program at the 2000 American Psychological Association Annual Convention; and information about the 31st annual meeting of Cheiron. Also included are a report on the fourth colloquium of the Groupe d'études Pluridisciplinaires d'Historie de la Psychologie, which focused on the history of child psychology, and notes about personal accomplishments of several Division members. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Error estimation in the approximation of the solution of nonlinear fuzzy Fredholm integral equations

Using a fixed point technique, the sequence of successive approximations and a recent quadrature formula for fuzzy-number-valued functions, it is constructed a numerical method for the solution of nonlinear fuzzy Fredholm integral equations. Moreover, the error estimate of the method and a criterion to stop the corresponding algorithm are given.