Survey of Psychological Services to Clients With Disabilities: The Need for Awareness.

Objective: To identify barriers to, strategies for, and supports for psychological services for clients with disabilities. Design: Mail survey. Participants: Four hundred eighty-one psychologists who were American Psychological Association members. Measure: A survey that ascertained psychologists' perceptions of access barriers, success factors, and support needs in providing services to clients with disabilities, as well as experiences with bias or sensitivity. Results: Barriers to service provision include funding, accessibility, lack of provider knowledge, limited training in disability issues and services, and lack of sensitivity. Conclusions: Additional training for psychologists in disability issues, legal requirements regarding public accommodations, and disability resources is needed. Psychologists with disabilities may be an important resource. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rheology of Particulate Suspensions in Ceramic Industry

The rheological behavior of solid/liquid suspensions is largely influenced by the size and concentration of the solid particles. This work deals exclusively with ceramic suspensions used in the Portuguese ceramic industry, i.e., several Portuguese clays and feldspars, and also suspensions made of mixtures of these two materials. The flow tests conducted showed that, generally, the suspensions had a pseudoplastic character, approaching Newtonian behavior as concentration decreased, although, in some cases, a real plastic behavior was also observed, as in the case of very fine clays with a wide particle size distribution and high solids content. Moreover, it was possible to relate, for each material, both the flow behavior index and the fluid consistency coefficient with the solids concentration and particulate size. As the particle diameter decreases the suspensions become less Newtonian: the flow behavior index decreases and the consistency coefficient increases. A similar trend was detected, for each material, with the increase of solids concentration. However, with the results obtained, it was not yet possible to establish an analytical correlation between those variables, but since the ceramic industry deals with very complex suspensions, additional information on the rheological behavior of the pastes is a step forward to more predictive flow calculations.     

Roughness Evolution of Previously Milled Samples Along a Polishing Test

In the present work results about roughness evolution along a polishing operation with corundum disks of size Norton 400 are presented. Hardened steel and hardened stainless steel samples were previously subjected to ball-end milling or side milling with cylindrical tool at different cutting conditions. Roughness height parameters Ra and Rt, as well as parameters related to the Abbott-Firestone curve such as Rk, Rpk, and Rvk, and shape parameters such as Rsk and Rku were studied. It is usually considered that a polishing operation is complete when Ra does not decrease significantly with more polishing time. In the present paper, an alternative method for determining the end of a polishing test is presented. Roughness is measured both in the longitudinal and in the transversal direction with respect to cutting marks, and it is assumed that the polishing operation is finished when longitudinal values equal transversal values, provided that from that moment on roughness values do not decrease significantly. Moreover, it is recommended to measure parameter Rvk in addition to or even instead of Ra, in order to obtain information about the presence of valleys from the previous milling operation.     

Plastic Deformation of Single-Crystal Diamond Nanopillars

Diamond is known to possess a range of extraordinary properties that include exceptional mechanical stability. In this work, it is demonstrated that nanoscale diamond pillars can undergo not only elastic deformation (and brittle fracture), but also a new form of plastic deformation that depends critically on the nanopillar dimensions and crystallographic orientation of the diamond. The plastic deformation can be explained by the emergence of an ordered allotrope of carbon that is termed O8-carbon. The new phase is predicted by simulations of the deformation dynamics, which show how the sp³ bonds of (001)-oriented diamond restructure into O8-carbon in localized regions of deforming diamond nanopillars. The results demonstrate unprecedented mechanical behavior of diamond, and provide important insights into deformation dynamics of nanostructured materials.     

Molecular mechanics analysis of drug-resistant mutants of HIV protease

Drug-resistant mutants of HIV-1 protease limit the long-termeffectiveness of current anti-viral therapy. In order to studydrug resistance, the wild-type HIV-1 protease and the mutantsR8Q, V32I, M46I, V82A, V82I, V82F, I84V, V32I/I84V and M46I/I84Vwere modeled with the inhibitors saquinavir and indinavir usingthe program AMMP. A new screen term was introduced to reproducemore correctly the electron distribution of atoms. The atomicpartial charge was represented as a delocalized charge distributioninstead of a point charge. The calculated protease–saquinavirinteraction energies showed the highly significant correlationof 0.79 with free energy differences derived from the measuredinhibition constants for all 10 models. Three different protonationstates of indinavir were evaluated. The best indinavir modelincluded a sulfate and gave a correlation coefficient of 0.68between the calculated interaction energies and free energiesfrom inhibition constants for nine models. The exception wasR8Q with indinavir, probably due to differences in the solvationenergy. No significant correlation was found using the standardmolecular mechanics terms. The incorporation of the new screencorrection resulted in better prediction of the effects of inhibitorson resistant protease variants and has potential for selectingmore effective inhibitors for resistant virus.     

基于短路电流模拟程序及故障录波的同时性故障分析

对电力系统中发生的同时故障或多点故障进行分析通常是一项极具挑战性的工作。短路电流计算程序的不断发展使得多点故障建模成为可能,故障录波及微机继电保护装置记录的故障波形为分析故障提供了极为有力的资料。描述英国国家电网公司美国分部(NG USA)结合短路电流模拟程序及故障录波分析再现同时性故障或多点故障的发展过程。通过对2个案例的分析研究,展现综合使用现场故障录波及短路电流模拟程序进行故障分析的优越性。     

Studies on synthesis and dehydrogenation behavior of magnesium alanate and magnesium–sodium alanate mixture

Magnesium alanate (Mg(AlH₄)₂) has been synthesized by mechanochemically activated metathesis reaction involving MgCl₂ and NaAlH₄. Its dehydrogenation kinetics and storage capacity has been studied by using Sievert's type apparatus. We have obtained dehydrogenation capacity of 2.7 wt% H₂ from Mg(AlH₄)₂+2NaCl during the first decomposition step at and 1.1 wt% H₂ during second step decomposition at . Efforts were carried out to reduce NaCl content from the product using Soxhlet extraction technique. The Soxhlet extracted product gives the total dehydrogenation capacity of 4.7 wt% H₂. To enhance the storage capacity, we have synthesized a complex hydride consisting of mixture: xMg(AlH₄)₂+yNaAlH₄ (0<x<1,y1). In the alanate mixture 0.5Mg(AlH₄)₂+NaAlH₄, the dehydriding temperature of NaAlH₄ gets lowered by (from to ) with 4 times faster desorption kinetics. The total hydrogen liberated in 180 min from NaAlH₄+0.5Mg(AlH₄)₂(+NaCl) mixture at has been observed to be 3.7 wt% H₂.     

Bioactivities of crude caffeine: Antioxidant activity, cyclooxygenase-2 inhibition, and enhanced glucose uptake

Thousands of tons of crude caffeine are produced annually in the decaffeination of coffee. Crude caffeine is further purified to obtain pure caffeine, and the non-caffeine residue is typically discarded as waste. In the present study, we discovered that crude caffeine possessed unexpected bioactive properties. Crude caffeine had potent hydrophilic antioxidant activity (145 μmol Trolox equivalent (TE)/g) and lipophilic antioxidant activity (66 μmol TE/g). It also inhibited cyclooxygenase-2 with a higher potency (IC₅₀, 20 μg/ml) than 2-acetoxybenzoic acid (aspirin, IC₅₀, 190 μg/ml). Crude caffeine increased glucose uptake 1.45-fold in cultured human skeletal muscle cells and 2.20-fold in adipocytes. In contrast, pure caffeine, which accounts for approximately 90% of the crude caffeine mass, was found to possess negligible antioxidant activity and did not inhibit cyclooxygenase-2, nor stimulate glucose uptake. We believe crude caffeine has potential health benefits and may serve as a novel functional ingredient in the food industry.