Physical Maltreatment Victim to Antisocial Child: Evidence of an Environmentally Mediated Process.

The well-documented finding that child physical maltreatment predicts later antisocial behavior has at least 2 explanations: (a) Physical maltreatment causes antisocial behavior, and (b) genetic factors transmitted from parents to children influence the likelihood that parents will be abusive and that children will engage in antisocial behavior. The authors tested these hypotheses in the representative Environmental-Risk cohort of 1,116 twin pairs and their families, who were assessed when the twins were 5 and 7 years old. Mothers reported on children's experience of physical maltreatment, and mothers and teachers reported on children's antisocial behavior. The findings support the hypothesis that physical maltreatment plays a causal role in the development of children's antisocial behavior and that preventing maltreatment can prevent its violent sequelae. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optimum design of linear tuned mass dampers for structures with nonlinear behaviour

This paper investigates the optimum design of tuned mass dampers (TMDs) for the seismic protection of inelastic structures. A single linear TMD is treated and is assumed to be applied to a single nonlinear degree of freedom system, described by the Bouc–Wen hysteretic model. The seismic load is modelled by a stationary filtered stochastic process to consider its intrinsic stochastic nature. The optimization problem is set by taking into consideration three different possible objective functions (OFs): the maximum of the peak structural displacement standard deviation, the average hysteretic dissipated energy of a protected building with reference to an unprotected one, and a functional damage that considers the two indexes previously described. Different numerical examples and parametric analysis are shown to confront the three optimization criteria and to determine the best tuning frequency and damping ratio of the TMDs to be used in the structure. Results confirm that the application of a TMD system reduces the amount of the hysteretic dissipated energy, which is a direct measure of damage in the structure, and so it is beneficial for the protection of buildings that develop a nonlinear behaviour under severe dynamic loadings.     

When public opposition defeats alternative water projects - The case of Toowoomba Australia

Located approximately 100 km west of Brisbane, Toowoomba is home to approximately 95,000 people. Surface water from dams is the main source of water for the city. In 2006 the residents of Toowoomba were invited to vote in a referendum (plebiscite) concerning whether or not an indirect potable wastewater reuse scheme should be constructed to supply additional water to the area. At that stage dam levels in Toowoomba were at approximately twenty percent of capacity. Toowoomba residents, after intense campaigning on both sides of the referendum debate, voted against the proposal. In July 2008 dam levels dropped to eleven percent. Stage 5 water restrictions have been in place since September 2006, subsequently mains water must not be used for any outdoor uses. This paper describes in detail how public opposition in the case of Toowoomba's referendum, defeated the proposal for a water augmentation solution. Reasons for the failure are analysed. In so doing, the paper provides valuable insights with respect to public participation in indirect potable reuse proposals, and discusses factors including politics, vested interest and information manipulation. This paper is significant because of the lack of detailed information published about failed water infrastructure projects.     

Improving the performance of linear inverse solutions by inverting the resolution matrix

This paper proposes a new strategy for improving the localization capabilities of linear inverse solutions, based on the relationship between the real solution and the estimated solution as described by the resolution matrix equation. Specifically, we present two alternatives based on either the partial or total inversion of the resolution matrix and applied them to the minimum norm solution, which is known for its poor performance in three-dimensional (3-D) localization problems. The minimum norm transformed inverse showed a clear improvement in 3-D localization. The strong dependence of localization errors with the eccentricity of the sources, characteristic of this solution, disappears after the proposed transformation. A similar effect is illustrated, using a realistic example where multiple generators at striate areas are active. While the original minimum norm incorrectly places the generators at extrastriate cortex, the transformed minimum norm localizes, for the example considered, the sources at their correct eccentricity with very low spatial blurring.     

Underlay Device to Device Communication with Imperfect Interference Channel Knowledge

The objective of any night vision system is to enable a person to see in the dark. A low-contrast image puts a contrast constraint on the human observer visibility at night. This is the basic reason for the large number of accidents at night. This research presents two proposed approaches to enhance the visibility of the infrared (IR) night vision images through an efficient histogram processing. The first approach is based on contrast limited adaptive histogram equalization. The second proposed approach depends on histogram matching. The histogram matching uses a reference visual image for converting night vision images into good quality images. The obtained results are evaluated with quality metrics such as entropy, average gradient, contrast improvement factor and sobel edge magnitude.     

Introducing an Efficient Statistical Model for Automatic Modulation Classification

Journal of Signal Processing Systems - Nowadays, Automatic Modulation Classification (AMC) plays an important role in many applications of cooperative and non-cooperative communication such as...