Validation of selected temperament and personality questionnaires for diagnosing drivers’ aptitude for safe driving. A Polish study

This paper presents the results of a study aimed at validating psychological questionnaires evaluating temperamental and personality features. It discusses their usefulness in diagnosing drivers’ aptitude for safe driving and working as professional drivers. Three psychological questionnaires were validated: the Formal Characteristics of Behaviour – Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire – Revised and Short Scale (EPQ-R (S)) and the Impulsiveness Questionnaire (IVE). Three groups of drivers (n = 246) aged 19–75 participated in the study. Group I (professional drivers; n = 96) and Group II (nonprofessional drivers; n = 75) had never been involved in road crashes, whereas Group III (nonprofessional drivers; n = 75) were offenders involved in fatal injury road crashes. Criterion-related validity, Cronbach's alpha and Guttman split-half reliability coefficient were in assessing the psychometric properties of the questionnaires. There were some significant differences between Groups II and III for most traits. However, contrary to expectations, higher Emotional Reactivity, Perseveration and lower Endurance as well as higher Neuroticism, Impulsiveness and Venturesomeness were determined for Group II than for Group III. Additionally, the temperament and personality profile of Group II turned out to be less fitted to the profile of safe drivers than that of Group III, whose profile was actually similar to that of Group I. This seems to result from a high tendency for a positive self-presentation among Group I and Group III (a significantly higher result on the Lie scale in comparison with Group II). The results suggest that if psychological tests are to decide on whether a person may be a professional driver or may drive vehicles, the three questionnaires (FCB-TI, EPQ-R(S) and IVE) do not provide a valid diagnosis of professional drivers’ aptitude because of drivers’ high tendency for positive self-presentation. However, they can be used in job counselling and in screening high-risk drivers.     

Compact DSOP and Partial DSOP Forms

Given a Boolean function f on n variables, a Disjoint Sum-of-Products (DSOP) of f is a set of products (ANDs) of subsets of literals whose sum (OR) equals f, such that no two products cover the same minterm of f. DSOP forms are a special instance of partial DSOPs, i.e. the general case where a subset of minterms must be covered exactly once and the other minterms (typically corresponding to don’t care conditions of f) can be covered any number of times. We discuss finding DSOPs and partial DSOPs with a minimal number of products, a problem theoretically connected with various properties of Boolean functions and practically relevant in the synthesis of digital circuits. Finding an absolute minimum is hard, in fact we prove that the problem of absolute minimization of partial DSOPs is NP-hard. Therefore it is crucial to devise a polynomial time heuristic that compares favorably with the known minimization tools. To this end we develop a further piece of theory starting from the definition of the weight of a cube c as a functions of the number of fragments induced on other cubes by the selection of c, and show how cube weights can be exploited for building a class of minimization heuristics for DSOP and partial DSOP synthesis. A set of experiments conducted on major benchmark functions show that our method, with a family of variants, always generates better results than the ones of previous heuristics, including the method based on a BDD representation of f.     

Electrochemical characterization of alternate conducting carbazole-bisthiophene units

An electrochemical and theoretical character of alternate copolymer of carbazole and bithiophene units was investigated. Polymerization is processed as two steps bielectronic oxidation of molecule. With monoelectronic oxidation is connected stable radical cation with spin located mainly on carbazole. The electrochemical properties of polymer are dependent on thickness of film deposited on electrode. In case of the thin layers one it is observed characteristic redox couple of carbazole oxidation to radical cation. Analysis of polymer behavior and results of spectrochemical measurements indicate on mixed type of electroconductivity.Molecular structures, HOMO-LUMO gaps and nature of highest occupied and lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals were also studied in presented work for oligomers ranging from monomer to octamer. The studies applied density functional theory (DFT).     

Andreas Ritter von Ettingshausen (1796–1878)

Abstract

Andreas Ritter von Ettingshausen (figure 1) was born on 25 November 1796 in Heidelberg where his father was stationed with the Austrian military headquarters. His father was frequently transferred from one place to another in the call of duty and the young Ettingshausen was just as frequently transferred from one school to another.     

Stabilization of pluronic gels in the presence of different polysaccharides

Several different polysaccharides have been added to pluronic F127 (poloxamer 407) gels to test their ability to stabilize the gels against dissolution in aqueous media over time. The studied polysaccharides include κ‐carrageenan, chitosan, hyaluronic acid, pectin, alginate, hydroxyethylcellulose, and ethyl(hydroxyethyl)cellulose. Although all the considered polysaccharides slowed down the dissolution time of the pluronic gels, unmodified polysaccharides only had a modest stabilization effect. However, hydrophobic modification of polysaccharides with a sufficiently long hydrocarbon chain (C₁₆) was found to partly prevent the gels from dissolving for more than 6 months. Shorter hydrocarbon chains did not have the same effect, even at high degrees of hydrophobicity. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40465.     

Mathematical modelling of adult hippocampal neurogenesis: effects of altered stem cell dynamics on cell counts and bromodeoxyuridine-labelled cells

In the adult hippocampus, neurogenesis—the process of generating mature granule cells from adult neural stem cells—occurs throughout the entire lifetime. In order to investigate the involved regulatory mechanisms, knockout (KO) experiments, which modify the dynamic behaviour of this process, were conducted in the past. Evaluating these KOs is a non-trivial task owing to the complicated nature of the hippocampal neurogenic niche. In this study, we model neurogenesis as a multicompartmental system of ordinary differential equations based on experimental data. To analyse the results of KO experiments, we investigate how changes of cell properties, reflected by model parameters, influence the dynamics of cell counts and of the experimentally observed counts of cells labelled by the cell division marker bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). We find that changing cell proliferation rates or the fraction of self-renewal, reflecting the balance between symmetric and asymmetric cell divisions, may result in multiple time phases in the response of the system, such as an initial increase in cell counts followed by a decrease. Furthermore, these phases may be qualitatively different in cells at different differentiation stages and even between mitotically labelled cells and all cells existing in the system.     

Hereditary Prostate Cancer: Genes Related,Target Therapy and Prevention

Prostate cancer (PCa) is globally the second most diagnosed cancer type and the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in men. Family history of PCa, hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) and Lynch syndromes (LS), are among the most important risk factors compared to age, race, ethnicity and environmental factors for PCa development. Hereditary prostate cancer (HPCa) has the highest heritability of any major cancer in men. The proportion of PCa attributable to hereditary factors has been estimated in the range of 5–15%. To date, the genes more consistently associated to HPCa susceptibility include mismatch repair (MMR) genes (MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2) and homologous recombination genes (BRCA1/2, ATM, PALB2, CHEK2). Additional genes are also recommended to be integrated into specific research, including HOXB13, BRP1 and NSB1. Importantly, BRCA1/BRCA2 and ATM mutated patients potentially benefit from Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase PARP inhibitors, through a mechanism of synthetic lethality, causing selective tumor cell cytotoxicity in cell lines. Moreover, the detection of germline alterations in MMR genes has therapeutic implications, as it may help to predict immunotherapy benefits. Here, we discuss the current knowledge of the genetic basis for inherited predisposition to PCa, the potential target therapy, and the role of active surveillance as a management strategy for patients with low-risk PCa. Finally, the current PCa guideline recommendations are reviewed.     

Giving form to computational things: developing a practice of interaction design

The computer is no longer the center of attention. Thus, what we design is no longer the interface to the computer. Rather, what we design is a thing or an environment in which a computer might be used to create certain desired effects. Indeed, interaction design in a sense becomes the practice of giving form to artifacts or environments rather like any of the other design disciplines that we have know for centuries. However, giving form to computational things is highly complex and somewhat different than most other form-giving practices due to its temporal form element—its ability to change between states. Thus, an interaction design practice needs to encompass this temporal form giving in combination with physical form giving and performances of the interaction gestalt. In this paper, I propose this trinity of forms as a framework to unfold the practice of interaction design. I further demonstrate how computational composites present a way to work with the temporal form and the physical form in a process not too different from any traditional form-giving practice. Lastly, I point to some tools and techniques to deal with the interdependencies of the three form elements and thereby also demonstrate that a form-giving practice of interaction design is already well under way.