The feasibility and outcome of clinic plus Internet delivery of cognitive-behavior therapy for childhood anxiety.

Seventy-two clinically anxious children, aged 7 to 14 years, were randomly allocated to clinic-based, cognitive-behavior therapy, the same treatment partially delivered via the Internet, or a wait-list control (WL). Children in the clinic and clinic-plus-Internet conditions showed significantly greater reductions in anxiety from pre- to posttreatment and were more likely to be free of their anxiety diagnoses, compared with the WL group. Improvements were maintained at 12-month follow-up for both therapy conditions, with minimal difference in outcomes between interventions. The Internet treatment content was highly acceptable to families, with minimal dropout and a high level of therapy compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Microstructure and domain configurations in ferroelectric PbTiO3 and Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin fims

Ferroelectric domain configurations in PbTiO₃ and Pb(Zr_xT_1−x)O₃ (PZT, x = 0.3 or 0.5) thin films have been studied by transmission electron microscopy. The PbTiOg and PZT thin films have been deposited by the ionized cluster beam technique and radio frequency sputtering, respectively. The grain size in these thin films is typically less than 0.5 μm. Lamellar 90°-domain features have been observed in both PbTiO₃ and PZT (30/70) samples. The domain walls correspond to the {011} twin boundaries. La-doping and Ca-modification are shown to affect the microstructure of the PZT films. No clear domain feature occurs in the PZT thin film that has composition near the morphotropic phase boundary. The effects of grain sizes are briefly discussed.     

Digit pipelined arithmetic on fine-grain array processors

In this paper, we present a novel scheme for performing fixed-point arithmetic efficiently on fine-grain, massively parallel, programmable architectures including both custom and FPGA-based systems. We achieve anO(n) speedup, wheren is the operand precision, over the bit-serial methods of existing fine-grain systems such as the DAP, the MPP and the CM2, within the constraints of regular, near neighbor communication and only a small amount of on-chip memory. This is possible by means of digit pipelined algorithms which avoid broadcast and which operate in a fully systolic manner by pipelining at the digit level. A base 4, signed-digit, fully redundant number system and on-line techniques are used to limit carry propagation and minimize communication costs. p ]Although our algorithms are digit-serial, we are able to match the performance of the bit-parallel methods, while retaining low communication complexity. Reconfigurable hardware systems built using field programmable gate arrays (FPGA's) can share in the speed benefits of these algorithms. By using the organization of logic blocks suggested in this paper, problems of placement and routing that exist in such systems can be avoided. Since the algorithms are amenable to pipelining, very high throughput can be obtained.     

Addiction to altruism? Opponent-process theory and habitual blood donation.

Explores the possibility that one of undoubtedly several interacting motives behind commitment to regular blood donation is the development of an affective "addiction" to the behavior, based on initial anxiety, through the mechanisms postulated by opponent-process theory. Pre- and post-donation responses to 1,846 blood donation experiences were subjected to correlational and regression analyses. Support was found for the relevance of opponent-process theory to the development of positive affective responses to donation. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of interests and the predictive and concurrent validity of the 1981 Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory for college majors.

116 of the 162 Occupational scales of the 1981 revision of the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) were constructed with new criterion samples. This study (a) assessed the concurrent and predictive validity of the revised SCII and explored its usefulness for predicting college majors (Exp I) and (b) examined the differential effect of stable and unstable interests during college on the validity of the SCII (Exp II). Data were analyzed for 354 females and 261 males who completed the SCII as college freshmen; 81% were still enrolled in school at the time of this study. Results indicate that the revised SCII can be used to predict college majors, having concurrent and predictive validity comparable to previous forms of the SCII. It was slightly more predictive for females than for males. Findings also show that the majority of Ss had stable interests during their college careers. The revised SCII was significantly more predictive of college majors for Ss who were satisfied with their majors or who had stable interests than it was for those who were dissatisfied or had unstable interests. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dependence of electrical properties of polycrystalline cvd si films on grain size and impurity doping concentrationa,b

The electrical properties of sets of simultaneously grown p-type polycrystalline Si films, deposited by SiH₄ pyrolysis on polycrystalline high-purity alumina substrates and B-doped during growth, were determined by Hall-effect measurements in the temperature range 77-420K as functions both of impurity doping concentration N (~10^l5 to ~10²⁰cm⁻³) and average grain size (≈1 to ≈125μm) in the film. Room temperature data showed rapidly increasing resistivities and rapidly decreasing free-carrier concentrations for doping below a critical concentration N_m and distinct mobility minima at that concentration, with the value of N_m being larger the smaller the average grain size. Measurements as a function of sample temperature showed the intergrain barrier height E_b, decreasing from a maximum value of ~0.4eV at the critical concentration to very small values (~0.01eV) for concentrations above 10¹⁹cm⁻³, with a functional dependence close to E_b ∝l/N^1/2 and E_b for any given concentration being larger the smaller the average grain size. Results are interpreted in terms of the grain-boundary trapping model. Trapped carrier densities in the grain boundaries were calculated to range from ~5×l0¹¹cm⁻² at N≈N_m to ~5×l0¹²cm⁻² for N>10¹⁹cm⁻³, the density being higher the smaller the grain size, and evidence was found for an energy distribution of traps in the Si bandgap, rather than a fixed density at a single discrete energy level. The observed relationship between N_m and average grain size nearly coincides with that of the model for films with ~lμm grain size but sharply departs from it for larger grain sizes, indicating probable applicability of the model for grain sizes up to that range. ^aThis work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energythrough its San Francisco Operations Office under Contract DE-AC03-79ET23045 and monitored by the Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, CO. bThese results were first described at the 22nd Electronic Materials Conference, Ithaca, NY, June 21–27, 1980, Paper No. M4.     

Sex differences in children's response to training on a visual-spatial test.

In a study with 133 children in Grades 1, 3, and 5, a brief training procedure designed to improve performance on the Children's Embedded Figures Test, a test of visual ability, resulted in significant improvement for girls but not for boys. No sex difference was observed among children receiving this training. The implications for theories of sex differences in visual–spatial ability are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Failure to find homology in rat, cat, and monkey for functions of a subcortical structure in avoidance conditioning.

Notes that electrolytic lesions of the centrum-medianum and parafascicularis complex of the thalamus produce, in the rat, large deficits of both acquisition and retention of active-avoidance responses, especially in the 2-way shuttle-box test. The effect of such lesions on 26 male cats and 6 male and 2 female macaques was examined. It was found that lesions in the cat did not produce significant effects, either with acoustical or visual CS, during postoperative relearning. Moreover, rate of extinction was not affected. Negative results were also found in monkeys. These lesions did not modify the threshold of flinch or jump responses to electric shock in either species. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)