Phase rule and independent components

Although the Gibbs phase rule remains one of the cornerstones of thermodynamics, its usefulness has been severely limited by a lack of suitable framework to find the number of independent components in a system. This paper rectifies this shortcoming. It offers a comprehensive method, with suitable examples, to enable the determination of the minimum number of independent composition-parameters, which are to be understood as ‘components’ in the Gibbsian sense. The method offered here is particularly useful for complex systems composed of several elements and many phases. The present work also helps dispel much of the confusion that had beset the concept of independent components since the early days of Gibbs.     

Phase rule and independent components

Although the Gibbs phase rule remains one of the cornerstones of thermodynamics, its usefulness has been severely limited by a lack of suitable framework to find the number of independent components in a system. This paper rectifies this shortcoming. It offers a comprehensive method, with suitable examples, to enable the determination of the minimum number of independent composition-parameters, which are to be understood as ‘components’ in the Gibbsian sense. The method offered here is particularly useful for complex systems composed of several elements and many phases. The present work also helps dispel much of the confusion that had beset the concept of independent components since the early days of Gibbs.     

The reliability of the achievement motive.

A test of the reliability of a measurement of the achievement motive through the use of projective techniques. The results did not confirm the findings of previous research in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

机械零件及系统可靠性分析方法

Failure Correlation between components sharing the same load is common in mechanical systems. A model to analyze the reliability of the mechanical components is developed. Then, the reliability models of series system and parallel system are derived, which take the failure correlation between different components into account. The results show that failure correlation has great influences on the reliability of both types of systems. Besides, the reliability of parallel system is more sensitive to the correlation than that of series systeme.     

Comprehensive reliability assessment and comparison of quality indicators and their components

To test whether conventional data reliability assessment overestimates reliability, an assessment and a comparison of the reliability of complex quality indicators and their simpler components were conducted. Medical records of 1078 Medicare cases with principal diagnoses of initial episodes of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were independently reabstracted at two national Clinical Data Abstraction Centers (CDACs). The inter-rater agreement beyond chance (kappa) of reabstracted and original quality indicators and key components were computed and compared. Results showed excellent agreement (kappas ranging from 0.88 to 0.95) for simple determinations of whether standard medical therapies were provided. Repeatability of eligibility status and the more complex determinations of whether "ideal" candidates were not treated showed moderate to excellent kappa values ranging from 0.41 to 0.79. A planned comparison of five similar quality indicators and their key components showed that the simpler treatment components, as a group, had significantly higher kappas than the more complexly derived eligibility components and composite indicators (Fisher's exact, p < 0.02). Reliability assessment of quality indicators should be based upon the repeatability of the whole indicator, accounting for both data and logic, and not just one simple element.     

The reliability of relationship satisfaction: A reliability generalization meta-analysis.

We conducted a reliability-generalization meta-analysis of 7 of the most frequently used measures of relationship satisfaction: the Locke–Wallace Marital Adjustment Test (LWMAT), the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (KMS), the Quality of Marriage Index, the Relationship Assessment Scale, the Marital Opinion Questionnaire, Karney and Bradbury's (1997) semantic differential scale, and the Couples Satisfaction Index. Six hundred thirty-nine reliability coefficients from 398 articles and 636,806 individuals provided internal consistency reliability estimates for this meta-analysis. We present the average score reliabilities for each measure, characterize the variance in score reliabilities across studies, and consider sample and study characteristics that are predictive of score reliability. Overall, the KMS and the LWMAT appear to be the strongest and weakest measures, respectively, from a reliability perspective. We discuss the importance of considering reliability invariance when making cross-group comparisons and provide recommendations for researchers when electing a measure of relationship satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The reliability, validity, and design of the Defining Issues Test.

Administered the Defining Issues Test (J. R. Rest, 1974, 1975) to 365 Ss in 3 age groups: junior high, high school, and college. Each scale score discriminated significantly among age groups, as did the Principled Reasoning (P) score. The validity of the P-score with respect to age group was estimated to be .48, and its reliability was estimated to be .70. The design of the test is criticized on the grounds that (a) some stages have many more items associated with them than do other stages (hence, scale scores are not comparable with one another); (b) different dilemmas have different numbers of items from a given stage; (c) there is a significant order artifact for Stage 3 and Stage 4 items; and (d) this order effect interacts with age. Finally, there was evidence in 3 of 6 dilemmas that an S's decision was correlated with his stage of reasoning. It is suggested that the relation of stage to age could be clarified if the design of the test were changed to eliminate the possible effects of decision. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The motivational components of goal setting.

Examined the relationships among goal setting, monetary incentives, 2 indexes of motivation (i.e., effort and direction of behavior), and performance. 60 17-19 yr olds were hired to work on a 1-wk job in a simulated company. Results suggest that goal setting and monetary incentives were related independently to measures of motivation and performance. Incentives, however, had no impact on whether or not Ss set performance goals. The importance of identifying the processes surrounding the effects of stated task goals and monetary incentives on performance is discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judging relative duration: The role of rule and instructional variables.

Humans compared 2 durations according to different rules. Some judged which duration lasted longer, some judged whether the duration ratio was less or greater than 3:1, and others judged according to a same-different rule. Under each condition, ? of the participants had advance knowledge of the rule, whereas the others acquired the discrimination solely on the basis of informative feedback. Discrimination was affected by both factors. Same-different and ratio comparisons were less accurate than ordinal comparisons. Rule knowledge affected the ratio and same—different comparisons but did not affect judgments about which duration lasted longer. Debriefing of uninformed participants revealed that most guessed that the rule involved judging which duration lasted longer. These results highlight the role of linguistic variables in humans' relational comparisons of duration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The TAPS Project. 9: The reliability of the Patient Attitude Questionnaire

The development of the hospital and community versions of the Patient Attitude Questionnaire is described. The instrument rates the attitudes of psychiatric patients towards their treatment settings and staff, and is framed specifically to assess attitudinal change during the transfer of patients from hospital. For the items rated using the kappa coefficient of agreement, the mean test-retest reliability value was 0.51, and the average inter-rater value was 0.82. This study shows that long-term psychiatric patients are able to give clear and consistent views about their living arrangements--views that should be sought and respected by staff.     

The couple version of FACES III: Validity and reliability.

512 Australian couples completed the couple version of D. H. Olson's (1985) Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale III (FACES III), which was devised to measure family functioning. While the items of FACES III were all useful in discriminating between couples high and low on the 2 factors (adaptability and cohesion), the construct validity was not supported by factor analyses. Construct validity problems may be overcome, at least to some extent, by using a 17-item version of the scale consisting of a 10-item cohesion factor and a 7-item change factor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of the Hebbian learning rule on research in behavioural neuroscience.

Hebb's principal theoretical propositions, the cell assembly and the nature of synaptic change, were generated at a time when the focus of work in behavioural neuroscience was directed at understanding issues such as the principles governing the behaviour of animals in neuropsychological studies of learning and memory and the role of drives in the control of behaviours like sex and feeding and drinking. It was not until attention shifted to understanding the neural underpinnings of learning and memory that Hebb's propositions had an impact on behavioural neuroscience as they provided a simple, and testable, mechanism for synaptic plasticity observed both in learning and in other forms of experience-dependent neural change. But much of the field remains interested in other issues such as sensation and perception, motivation, attention, and so on, and to date, Hebb's propositions have had little impact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rater reliability and the heterogeneity of scale anchors.

"Raters (N=200) used 5-category rating scales, which varied in the heterogeneity of the verbal anchors defining the end categories, to rate for preference value two lists of ten foods. The food lists differed in the homogeneity of food stimuli on each list. Measures of individual rater reliability and rater bias were computed and analyzed as to the effect of scale and list differences. Reliability was significantly smaller for the more homogeneous list and increased linearly as a function of the heterogeneity of the end anchors. Rater bias was unaffected by either scale or list differences." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scoring reliability on the WAIS-R.

WAIS-R protocols from 2 vocational counseling clients (aged 34 and 41 yrs) were scored by 19 psychologists and 20 graduate students. Regardless of scorer's experience level, mechanical scoring error produced summary scores varying by as much as 4–28 IQ points. For both protocols and both scoring groups, scoring agreement with the actual Full Scale IQ scores ranged from 32 to 35%. Over 77% of the scores were within 1 standard error of measurement (SEM) of the true scores. It is urged that IQs be reported in conjunction with a precision range based on the SEM of the test. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cope's rule, the island rule and the scaling of mammalian population density

Cope's rule--the generalization that animal taxa tend to evolve toward larger body size--suggests that there are widespread net selective advantages to being large. Size-abundance relationships within bird and desert rodent guilds show that larger species usually do control more energy locally, and thus maintain larger populations than expected for their body size, implying that larger individuals are relatively better at obtaining and using local resources. But we report here results that show that this is not generally the case among mammal species. Within dietary groups containing only small species, larger species usually do better, but within those that contain the largest mammals, small species tend to control more energy. This suggests that in mammals there is an optimum body size for energy acquisition at about 1 kg. Thus, net adaptive advantages of large individuals for resource control cannot be used as a general explanation for evolutionary size increase in mammals, although other proposed explanations for Cope's rule are unaffected. Instead, these results suggest a partial explanation for another widespread ecotypic pattern, the 'island rule': that on islands, small mammal species evolve to larger size and large species to smaller size. If on an island a species' usual competitors and predators are absent, it should often tend to evolve toward the optimum body size, and the adaptive advantages of doing so would be greatest for populations starting at body-size extremes.     

Q methodology and Newton's fifth rule.

Proposes that Newton's 5th rule of reasoning was an attempt to deal with the de novo induction of hypotheses and that Q-sort methodology (QSM) solves this problem. The potential contribution of QSM to a genuine science of subjective psychology is noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Criterion shift rule and perceptual homeostasis.

Proposes a criterion shift rule that considers that the bases employed for evaluative judgments are displaced in the direction of a preceding or simultaneously encountered value. Consequences of this displacement have been discovered and rediscovered numerous times, and the many guises under which it has appeared in the literature are identified, including the diabatic effect, adaptation with negative aftereffect, attunement, and the law of contrast. The rule has been found to apply to a variety of perceptual judgments, such as those involving curvature of lines, visual area, linear and rotary movement, phonetic boundaries, and auditory localization. It also governs the systematic aftereffects produced by wearing distorted spectacles and the various examples of the context-contingent McCollough effect. The continual rediscovery of the aspects of the criterion shift rule are explained in terms of Le Chatelier's principle. It is contended that this rule may be involved in the central tendency effect observed when large numbers of judgments are made in laboratory studies, and it may contribute to experimental biases encountered when individuals make more than a single judgment in laboratory studies. It is suggested that the criterion shift rule reflects a continuing calibration of evaluative systems normally ensuring that behavior based on perception remains appropriate to current conditions. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)