Aging and everyday memory: A cross-cultural study.

Performance on computer-simulated, everyday memory tasks was found to deteriorate with age in 434 Belgian (aged 14–88 yrs) and 434 American Ss matched on gender and age. This age-related memory decline was reasonably consistent across samples. Difficulties in cross-cultural research and the advantages of ecologically valid measurement instruments are discussed. Instruments included a grocery list selective reminding test, the Wechsler Memory Scale, the Benton Visual Retention Test, and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Restricted proteolysis of legumin of broad beans: Effect on thermodynamic properties of aqueous solutions and interaction with ficoll

Thermodynamic properties of aqueous solutions of both native and modified legumin of broad beans (Vicia faba L.) have been examined. A restricted trypsin-induced proteolysis was used to modify protein structure. Evaluation of protein affinity to ficoll in aqueous solutions showed that modified protein possessed higher hydrophilicity. Thermodynamic properties of diluted solutions were used to predict the phase behaviour in concentrated systems containing protein and ficoll. At specific concentrations of native legumin, the system can separate in two phases, whereas in the case of modified protein the single-phase behaviour of the system was predicted for any concentrations of both components. The experimental data obtained in concentrated systems confirmed predictions of thermodynamic analysis of diluted solutions.     

Neue Entwicklungen beim Hohlkatoden‐Gasflusssputtern. New Developments in Hollow Cathode Gas Flow Sputtering

The gas flow sputter technique was invented a few years ago particularly for the inexpensive fabrication of sophisticated ceramic layers. Meanwhile, it has matured and become increasingly powerful. Today it is on the verge of being applied in industrial fabrication processes. The present article gives an overview over the method, its characteristics and the numerous applications.     

Smart help for operator performance

Our emphasis in this paper has been on the knowledge-based and cognitive issues pertinent for improved interactions between workers and manufacturing computer systems. We believe that these techniques are as necessary and applicable to manufacturing as to any other vocation, especially as the difference in collar color of shop people becomes less noticeable in their increasing role as knowledge workers.     

A systematic transition to flexible manufacturing

The transition from basic automation to flexible manufacturing is an expensive and tedious procedure. It requires meticulous planning and almost clairvoyant forecasting to insure that the initial flexibility obtained is sufficient to allow growth and expansion in the future. This paper will suggest a systematic and methodological approach to achieve optimal flexibility and describe the present results of its application to an ongoing system transformation.

Conclusions based on existing levels of completion are presented along with identification of critical and non critical flexibility requirements. The considerations and steps taken are summarized in a procedural format which may then be applied to a wide variety of system transformations.     

Intelligent structuring and exploration of digital music collections

In this paper we present a general approach to the automatic content-based organization and visualization of large digital music collections. The general methodology consists in extracting musically and perceptually relevant patterns (‘features’) from the given audio recordings (e.g., mp3 files), using topology-preserving data projection methods to map the entire music collection onto two-dimensional visualization planes (possibly in a hierarchical fashion), and using a new display metaphor (the ‘Islands of Music’) to display the inherent structure of the music collection to the user. It is shown how arbitrary meta-data can be integrated into the visualization process, and how similarity according to different viewpoints can be defined and exploited. The basic methodology is briefly described, three prototype systems are presented, and a general discussion of the practical application possibilities of such technologies is offered.     

Improving user security behaviour

Many organisations suspect that their internal security threat is more pressing than their external security threat. The internal threat is predominantly the result of poor user security behaviour. Yet, despite that, security awareness programmes often seem more likely to put users to sleep than to improve their behaviour. This article discusses the influences that affect a user's security behaviour and outlines how a well structured approach focused on improving behaviour could be an excellent way to take security slack out of an organisation and to achieve a high return for a modest, low-risk investment.     

Refactoring and converting a TTCN-2 test suite

When deploying TTCN-3 at Nokia, we converted two TTCN-2 test systems to TTCN-3. We explain to which extend we have been able to do the conversion automatically. The conversion tool used provided a syntactically and semantically correct conversion of the TTCN-2 code. We define some improvements made on the tool to increase readability and maintainability of the resulting code. We cover aspects of converting also the non-TTCN-2 parts and describe the experiences we made as a set of lessons learnt.