Alliance and Dropout in Family Therapy for Adolescents With Behavior Problems: Individual and Systemic Effects.

This study examined the relationship between alliance and retention in family therapy. Alliance was examined at the individual (parent and adolescent) and family levels (within-family differences). Participants were 34 families who received functional family therapy for the treatment of adolescent (aged 12-18 years) behavior problems. Families were classified as treatment dropouts (n=14) or completers (n=20). Videotapes of the first sessions were rated to identify parent and adolescent alliances with the therapist. Results demonstrated that individual parent and adolescent alliances did not predict retention. However, as hypothesized, dropout cases had significantly higher unbalanced alliances (parent minus adolescent) than did completer cases. These findings highlight the importance of alliances in functional family therapy and suggest that how the alliance operates in conjoint family therapy may be a function of systemic rather than of individual processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Action of chelators on solid iron in phosphate-containing aqueous solutions

To study the effect of strong iron-ligands on steel corrosion, mild steel electrodes were immersed in solutions containing 20 mM phosphate buffer (pH=7.2) and between 0.01 mM and 1 M of either the iron(II)-chelators 2,2^′-bipyridine or FerroZine, or the iron(III)-chelators citrate or acetylacetonate. Resulting surface reactions were investigated by quantifying the electrochemical potential (E), the electrochemical polarization resistance (R_p), the corrosion current (I_corr) and the release of iron into solution. The surface was further analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM/SEM-EDAX) and atomic force microscopy. Concentrations of 0.1 mM of any of the chelators led to slight, temporary changes in E, I_corr and R_p. Concentrations of 10 mM resulted in characteristic changes of E, which were the same for all chelators and in the precipitation of FePO₄ in the case of citrate and acetylacetonate, or vivianite [Fe₃(PO₄)₂ · 8H₂O] in the case of bipyridine and FerroZine. Concentrations of 1 mM of both iron(III)-chelators led to a temporary drop of E similar to that found with 0.1 mM chelator. With iron(II)-chelators, E dropped to about −500 mV before oscillating for several days. The amplitudes of the oscillations were up to 200 mV with periods of 30 and 20-25 min for bipyridine and FerroZine, respectively.     

An X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic investigation into the chemical structure of deposits formed from hexamethyldisiloxane/ oxygen plasmas

The effect of oxygen addition to microwave-sustained plasmas of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) has been investigated. Attention was directed to the solid products formed on aluminium substrates (plasma deposits). To enable a quantitative analysis of these, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of standard silicon-containing materials was carried out. When suitable charge correction is applied to the XP spectra of HMDSO/O₂ plasma deposits, a number of very clear trends emerge. From changes in elemental composition, core line binding energies (Si2p, C 1s, and O 1s) and widths, we show how oxygen addition to the plasma affects the chemical nature of the plasma deposit. The data reported also provide (some limited) information on the reactions taking place in the plasma.     

A Skeleton-based Approach for Detection of Perceptually Salient Features on Polygonal Surfaces

The paper presents a skeleton‐based approach for robust detection of perceptually salient shape features. Given ashape approximated by a polygonal surface, its skeleton is extracted using a three‐dimensional Voronoi diagramtechnique proposed recently by Amenta et al. [ 3 ]. Shape creases, ridges and ravines, are detected as curvescorresponding to skeletal edges. Salient shape regions are extracted via skeleton decomposition into patches.The approach explores the singularity theory for ridge and ravine detection, combines several filtering methodsfor skeleton denoising and for selecting perceptually important ridges and ravines, and uses a topological analysisof the skeleton for detection of salient shape regions. ACM CSS: I.3.5 Computational Geometry and Object Modeling     

Contact melting inside an elastic capsule

An approximate mathematical model of contact melting of an unfixed material in elastic cylindrical and spherical capsules is developed. Since the density of the solid is higher than that of the melt, the melting solid resides at the bottom supported by a thin layer of the generated, convecting, melt, and the capsule swells. The main characteristic scales and non-dimensional parameters, which describe the principal features of the melting process and the liquid flow, are found. Linearisation with regard to the Stefan number as well as the small difference between the densities of the solid and liquid enables us to derive a closed-form evolution equation for the motion of the solid, which also determines the melting rate. Numerical solution of the evolution equation shows that the swelling of the capsule during melting, which is caused by the decrease of the density during phase transition, leads to slowing down of the melting process. This effect is due to flattening of the lower surface of the capsule, which entails fall of the pressure along with thickening of the molten layer. The latter determines the decrease of the melting rate.