British female academics and comparative psychology: Attempts to establish a research niche in the early 20th century.

Why was there a preponderance of women engaged in laboratory-based studies of animal behavior in Britain in the early years of the 20th century? As a new experimental subject with recently neglected potential, animal psychology then represented an opportunity for women to make further inroads into academic science. Because the study of psychology before World War I offered negligible professional opportunities for the application of the subject, the intake of students was restricted. Perhaps this encouraged academic access to it by aspiring female scientists who felt that career prospects, uncertain and socially unexpected of them in any case, were worth chancing for greater long-term rewards. The academic circumstances and contributions of 3 British female pioneers in experimental comparative psychology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Termites live in a material world: exploration of their ability to differentiate between food sources.

Drywood termites are able to assess wood size using vibratory signals, although the exact mechanism behind this assessment ability is not known. Important vibratory characteristics such as the modal frequencies of a wooden block depend on its geometry and boundary conditions; however, they are also dependent on the material characteristics of the block, such as mass, density and internal damping. We report here on choice experiments that tested the ability of the drywood termite Cryptotermes secundus to assess wooden block size using a solid wooden block paired with a composite block, the latter made of either wood and aluminium or wood and rubber. Each composite block was constructed to match mass or low-frequency vibratory modes (i.e. fundamental frequency) of the solid wooden block. The termites always chose the blocks with more wood; they moved to the solid wooden blocks usually within a day and then tunnelled further into the solid wooden block by the end of the experiment. Termites offered composite blocks of wood and rubber matched for mass were the slowest to show a preference for the solid wooden block and this preference was the least definitive of any treatment, which indicated that mass and/or damping may play a role in food assessment. This result clearly shows that the termites were not fooled by composite blocks matched for mass or frequency, which implies that they probably employ more than a single simple measure in their food assessment strategy. This implies a degree of sophistication in their ability to assess their environment hitherto unknown. The potential importance of alternative features in the vibrational signals is discussed.     

数学专业方向设置的问题初探——基于广东工业大学数学专业优化与调整的七年实践

通过在广东工业大学数学专业7年的专业调整实践，探索了广东工业大学应用数学学院以信息科学、统计科学为数学专业方向的社会时代背景，说明了各个专业方向培养的侧重点和就业前景，阐明了传统学科专业与新增专业方向的联系与区别。     

Visual thinking in arts education: Homage to Rudolf Arnheim.

The influence of Arnheim's work on the author's research began with an experiment on the perception of visual balance. Two later research projects emerged from the profound influence of Arnheim's stance toward creation in the visual arts as a serious, cognitive endeavor. A series of meta-analyses were first conducted to test the claim that learning in the arts transfers to nonarts cognitive domains, but little evidence was found. Past research on the transfer hypothesis was found to be lacking because of its failure to assess learning in the parent domain. Therefore, a new research project was carried out to identify kinds of learning in the parent domain of visual arts. We identified eight thinking dispositions developed in serious visual arts classes, setting the stage for more plausible transfer studies. This study demonstrates that the visual arts inculcate basic skills in perception and cognition that exist both in the arts and sciences. All of the skills the authors describe can, with some modification, be transferred to the science laboratory. As Rudolf Arnheim has taught us, visual thinking is everywhere. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grand theories of personality cannot be integrated.

Comments on the original article "A New Big Five: Fundamental Principles for an Integrative Science of Personality," by Dan P. McAdams and Jennifer L. Pals (see record 2006-03947-002). McAdams and Pals (April 2006) presented a new model to integrate the field of personality psychology. Cultural and evolutionary factors interact with an individual's basic traits, characteristic adaptations, and life narratives, which in turn are linked to roles, demands, and behaviors. The current authors welcome McAdams and Pals's (2006) model for providing a way to integrate much of the previously disparate empirical findings in personality psychology. However, the current authors also think that McAdams and Pals (2006) overstated the inclusiveness of the model, and more generally, the current authors dispute their assertion that the grand theories of personality can be integrated within a single model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

DILIGENT: integrating digital library and Grid technologies for a new Earth observation research infrastructure

This paper introduces DILIGENT, a digital library infrastructure built by integrating digital library and Grid technologies and resources. This infrastructure allows different communities to dynamically build specialised digital libraries capable to support the entire e-Science knowledge production and consumption life-cycle by using shared computing, storage, content, and application resources. The paper presents some of the main software services that implement the DILIGENT system. Moreover, it exemplifies the provided features by presenting how the DILIGENT infrastructure is being exploited in supporting the activity of user communities working in the Earth Science Environmental sector. This work is partially funded by the European Commission in the context of the DILIGENT project, under the 2nd call of FP6 IST priority.     

A longitudinal examination of the social-cognitive model applied to high school girls' choices of nontraditional college majors and aspirations.

This study tested a partial version of R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, and G. Hackett's (1994) social-cognitive career theory model. Among 204 high school girls who attended science, math, and engineering (SME) career conferences, the authors used a 4-year longitudinal design to predict the choice of an SME college major and SME self-efficacy and outcome expectations in college. In addition, among students who had declared SME majors, variables assessed in high school and college were used to predict aspirations to become leaders in SME fields. The results generally provided empirical validation of the model. Regression analyses revealed that college SME outcome expectations were associated with plans to become a leader in an SME field. Implications for research and interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A heuristic algorithm for distributed control in manufacturing systems

Distributed Problem Solving Networks (DPSN) provide a means for interconnecting intelligent problem solver nodes that can solve only a part of a problem depending on their ability in the problem domain. The decomposition of a problem into subproblems, and the selection of nodes to solve them can be regarded as the generation of an AND/OR tree, and the solution of the problem as a search for a solution tree. Introducing measurements for the cost of a solution tree, we present an algorithm to find one having minimal cost under certain conditions. A Flexible Manufacturing System consisting of a network of flexible workcells is used as an example.     

硬件握手双向选通型串行通信共享器的设计

本文介绍了ＩＢＭ－ＰＣ系列计算机通过ＲＳ－２３２Ｃ串行口与多个单片微机组成的分布式系统中一种可双向选通串行通信共享器的设计方法。给出通信共享器的设计电路；并对电路工作原理进行了详细剖析。     

实现CDMA最佳多用户检测的神经网络方法

提出并讨论了两种实现码分多址系统中最佳多用户检测的神经网络方法。一种基于离散Ｈｏｐｆｉｅｌｄ神经网络，另一种基于采用反向传播算法的多层感知器神经网络。理论分析和计算机模拟都证实了这两种神经网络方法的可行性，优越性和实用性。前者适用“固定”用户情况；后者既可用于“固定”用户吼适用于移动用户的情况，因而在未来的ＣＤＭＡ个人通信网中有较好的应用前景。