Private self-consciousness and the five-factor model of personality: Distinguishing rumination from reflection.

A distinction between ruminative and reflective types of private self-attentiveness is introduced and evaluated with respect to L. R. Goldberg's (1982) list of 1,710 English trait adjectives (Study 1), the five-factor model of personality (FFM) and A. Fenigstein, M. F. Scheier, and A. Buss's (1976) Self-Consciousness Scales (Study 2), and previously reported correlates and effects of private self-consciousness (PrSC; Studies 3 and 4). Results suggest that the PrSC scale confounds two unrelated, motivationally distinct dispositions—rumination and reflection—and that this confounding may account for the "self-absorption paradox" implicit in PrSC research findings: Higher PrSC scores are associated with more accurate and extensive self-knowledge yet higher levels of psychological distress. The potential of the FFM to provide a comprehensive framework for conceptualizing self-attentive dispositions, and to order and integrate research findings within this domain, is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of surfactant dosed water on solid transport in above ground near horizontal drainage systems

Surfactants play an increasing part in the makeup of waste water from building drainage systems. The determination of the concentration of surfactants in drainage flows is complicated by the wide range of actual concentration levels revealed by manufacturers of commercially available cleaning products and soaps and the dilution of this by varying quantities of water in the drainage systems, due to the unsteady flows from appliance discharge. A methodology of determining the relationship between the surfactant concentration and solid velocity is tested, whereby the concentration of surfactant in the water flow was progressively increased and solid velocity measured. This method proved difficult as surfactant levels accumulated in the system made it impossible to determine real concentration levels. An alternative approach of determining surfactant concentration levels as a result of appliance discharge proved more useful. This methodology lead to the determination of realistic concentration levels of surfactants in a drainage line. Solid velocities were found to increase as a result of the presence of surfactants. This modification has a significance in the area of water conservation as it shows that systems perform better, even with reduced water usage appliances, as a result of the presence of surfactants.     

To Drive Is Human

We perform an enormous number of functions while driving, and a computer trying to match a human driver must face all of them. Cornell University researchers offer an insider's perspective on the issues the DARPA Grand Challenge competitors faced in creating a humanlike driver - without the human. In preparing for the Grand Challenge, Cornell University's team divided the driving problem into three basic tasks: (i) localization - knowing where you are, (ii) sensing - seeing what's around you, and (iii) path planning _etermining how to get to a destination. Creating a vehicle capable of driving itself therefore required finding computational solutions to each of these three tasks     

The effect of temperature on the growth and persistence of Salmonella in fermented liquid pig feed

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effect of temperature on the fate of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar typhimurium DT104:30 in fermented liquid pig feed. These were (1) by co-inoculation of feed with S. typhimurium DT104:30 and Pediococcus pentosaceus, as the fermenting organism, and (2) by fermenting feed for 48, 72 or 96 h prior to inoculation with S. typhimurium DT104:30. In co-inoculated feed incubated at 20 degrees C, S. typhimurium DT104:30 persisted for at least 72 h. In contrast, in feed incubated at 30 degrees C, no S. typhimurium DT104:30 were detectable 48 h after inoculation. In prefermented feed, S. typhimurium DT104:30 died four to five times faster in feed maintained at 30 degrees C (D(value) 34-45 min) compared with feed maintained at 20 degrees C (D(value) 137-250 min). This was not entirely due to differences in lactic acid concentration as feed fermented for 72 or 96 h at 20 degrees C and feed fermented for 48 h at 30 degrees C contained similar concentrations of lactic acid (160-170 mM). Low numbers of S. typhimurium DT104:30 were still detectable in fermented feed 24 h after inoculation at 20 degrees C. In contrast, none were detectable 6-7 h after inoculation at 30 degrees C. The results of these studies indicate that it would be advisable for pig producers to control the temperature of liquid feed tanks to reduce the risk of Salmonella contamination.     

Numerical modelling of natural water colour: Implications for remote sensing and limnological studies

Based on suggested earlier optical models of Lakes Ontario and Ladoga, numerical modelling experiments have been carried out to the effect of revealing the responsiveness of chromaticity coordinates (x, y, z), dominant wavelength (lambda dom) and associated spectral purity (p) to the abundance in water of optically active components (OAC), i.e., phytoplankton (chl), suspended minerals (sm) and dissolved organic carbon (doc). It has been shown that highly turbid waters (i.e., waters with high chl and sm concentrations) with low content of doc display colour varying from green to brownish. High turbidity or large doc concentration invariably is characteristic of waters with brown colour. With growing OAC content in water, the chromaticity coordinates and, consequently, the dominant wavelength lambda dom tend asymptotically to respective limit values that seem to be intrinsically characteristic of natural waters. It is also shown that the colour purity p asymptotically tends to values of about 35-45 per cent (with the only exception for waters containing exclusively chl and this in small quantities (0.5mu gl-1)) when concentrations of one or more OAC are over 10 (in respective concentration units). These findings clearly indicate that neither panchromatic nor two-channel ratio images could be meaningful for an unambiguous inference of water quality parameters. Furthermore, the correspondence between water colour physical characteristics (i.e., x, y, z, lambda dom and p) and water colour scales traditionally used in limnology is established.     

Generating request streams on Big Data using clustered renewal processes

The performance evaluation of large file systems, such as storage and media streaming, motivates scalable generation of representative traces. We focus on two key characteristics of traces, popularity and temporal locality. The common practice of using a system-wide distribution obscures per-object behavior, which is important for system evaluation. We propose a model based on delayed renewal processes which, by sampling interarrival times for each object, accurately reproduces popularity and temporal locality for the trace. A lightweight version reduces the dimension of the model with statistical clustering. It is workload-agnostic and object type-aware, suitable for testing emerging workloads and ‘what-if’ scenarios. We implemented a synthetic trace generator and validated it using: (1) a Big Data storage (HDFS) workload from Yahoo!, (2) a trace from a feature animation company, and (3) a streaming media workload. Two case studies in caching and replicated distributed storage systems show that our traces produce application-level results similar to the real workload. The trace generator is fast and readily scales to a system of 4.3 million files. It outperforms existing models in terms of accurately reproducing the characteristics of the real trace.     

An open-source,FireWire camera-based,Labview-controlled image acquisition system for automated,dynamic pupillometry and blink detection

The dynamic, accurate measurement of pupil size is extremely valuable for studying a large number of neuronal functions and dysfunctions. Despite tremendous and well-documented progress in image processing techniques for estimating pupil parameters, comparatively little work has been reported on practical hardware issues involved in designing image acquisition systems for pupil analysis. Here, we describe and validate the basic features of such a system which is based on a relatively compact, off-the-shelf, low-cost FireWire digital camera. We successfully implemented two configurable modes of video record: a continuous mode and an event-triggered mode. The interoperability of the whole system is guaranteed by a set of modular software components hosted on a personal computer and written in Labview. An offline analysis suite of image processing algorithms for automatically estimating pupillary and eyelid parameters were assessed using data obtained in human subjects. Our benchmark results show that such measurements can be done in a temporally precise way at a sampling frequency of up to 120 Hz and with an estimated maximum spatial resolution of 0.03 mm. Our software is made available free of charge to the scientific community, allowing end users to either use the software as is or modify it to suit their own needs.     

A Personalization Effect in Multimedia Learning: Students Learn Better When Words Are in Conversational Style Rather Than Formal Style.

Students received a personalized or nonpersonalized version of a narrated animation explaining how the human respiratory system works. The narration for the nonpersonalized version was in formal style, whereas the narration for the personalized version was in conversational style in which "the" was changed to "your" in 12 places. In 3 experiments, students who received the personalized version scored significantly higher on transfer tests but not on retention tests than did students who received the nonpersonalized version. The results are consistent with a cognitive theory of multimedia learning in which personalization causes students to actively process the incoming material. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Oxide defects in a vacuum investment-cast ni-based turbine blade

Samples from large turbine blades for power generation, investment-cast in vacuum from a nickel-based superalloy, were investigated. Samples were cut from regions near the top of the casting that contained freckle defects. The microstructures of these segregated regions were compared with those from nonsegregated adjacent regions using both optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The segregated areas revealed a high density of carbides and a network of cracks. Samples were prepared by carefully fracturing along the cracks so as to observe the surfaces of the cracks. Observation by SEM revealed the presence of inclusions identified as films that appeared to have initiated the growth of carbides. Fractures of random areas of the nonsegregated alloy revealed that the films were numerous and widely distributed. In all cases, the films were principally oxides (and/or possibly nitrides) of aluminum and chromium. It was hypothesized that the films had originated by entrainment of the surface film on the liquid metal during the turbulent pouring of the casting. The films could, therefore, be assumed to be double, because the entrainment mechanism is a folding action. It follows that the doubled-over films constitute (1) the observed cracks and (2) the substrates for carbide precipitation. Evidence from other alloy systems is presented to support this conclusion.