An investigation of early research experience and research self-efficacy.

Graduate students in psychology typically report that they either love research or hate research. Despite the fact that most doctoral students in psychology enter some type of clinical practice upon graduation, research is a requirement for all students enrolled in scientist-practitioner programs regardless of their career aspirations beyond graduation. Research advances knowledge in the field of psychology and often guides clinical practice, yet very few psychologists conduct research after graduate school (C. J. Gelso, 1993). Efforts have been undertaken to determine factors that contribute to graduate students' research productivity. One such factor may be research self-efficacy. This study examined the influence of early research experience as a factor to bolster research self-efficacy. Results indicated that supportive peers and mentors contributed to positive research experiences. Additionally, positive team research experiences significantly predicted research self-efficacy. Implications for training programs and students are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Printed antennas with variable conductive ink layer thickness

One of the complex tasks in mass production of RF electronics is printing the communication antenna using electrically conductive ink. For example, this is very common for radio- frequency identification (RFID) tags. Electrical properties of the ink are mostly determined by conductive (e.g. silver) particles mixed into the ink solution and the way they `connect' in the cured ink. It is also desirable to minimise the amount of ink used per antenna, because high-conducting metals like silver used in the ink are rather expensive. Metal-based inks have limited conductivity, so the thicker the cured ink layer will be the better the antenna radiation efficiency can be achieved, but also the higher will be the costs. In the paper, the authors report on the investigations of the possibility of minimising the amount of ink used per antenna. This can be achieved by printing thicker ink layers, where antenna structures are known to have high current density. Two common antenna structures and a dedicated antenna for passive RFID are used in the investigation. The main result of the paper is that radiation efficiency depends primarily on the total amount of ink used for printing the antenna, rather than on the variations of the layer thickness within the antenna structure     

Radar Interferometric Measurements With a Planar Patch Antenna Array

A planar patch antenna array has been made for radar interferometry. The antenna array consists of 32 rectangular patches on a ceramic loaded teflon substrate. The patches are individually coupled to the microwave electronics in two orthogonal circular polarizations. The radar interferometer is intended for topographic imaging in industrial environment, in this case, a blast furnace producing hot metal for the steel and metal industry. Ordinary imaging techniques with IR or visible radiation are not possible to use due to high temperatures, scattering from dust and particles. A model of blast furnace burden material surface was measured and detected.     

On the Estimation of Differential Entropy From Data Located on Embedded Manifolds

Estimation of the differential entropy from observations of a random variable is of great importance for a wide range of signal processing applications such as source coding, pattern recognition, hypothesis testing, and blind source separation. In this paper, we present a method for estimation of the Shannon differential entropy that accounts for embedded manifolds. The method is based on high-rate quantization theory and forms an extension of the classical nearest-neighbor entropy estimator. The estimator is consistent in the mean square sense and an upper bound on the rate of convergence of the estimator is given. Because of the close connection between compression and Shannon entropy, the proposed method has an advantage over methods estimating the Renyi entropy. Through experiments on uniformly distributed data on known manifolds and real-world speech data we show the accuracy and usefulness of our proposed method.     

Comparative robustness study of planar antennas

Is it possible to produce a planar dipole-like antenna with a reduced conductive area without any loss in either robustness or performance? The objective is to reduce the amount of expensive conductor to be used when applying a meshing technique to the printing of antennas. In this context, robustness means that the characteristics are maintained when the antenna is damaged, for example if it is scratched. This is particularly important for radio frequency identification tags in logistic systems. A general antenna robustness evaluation methodology, based on numerical simulations of a large number of randomly damaged antennas, is used for the antenna comparisons. The antenna performance degradation, based on the return loss (S₁₁) at 868 MHz, is monitored for some basic planar antennas. Finally, we show that it is possible to produce robust low-cost antennas using wire replacements for the solid planar antennas and thus, provided that the robustness requirement is moderate, replace the solid antenna with a thin conductor analogue     

Discounting,catastrophic risks management and vulnerability modeling

Traditional discounting dramatically affects the outcome of catastrophic risk management and spatio-temporal vulnerability modeling. The misperception of discount rates produces inadequate evaluations of risk management strategies, which may provoke catastrophes and significantly contribute to the increasing vulnerability of our society. This paper analyses the implication of potential catastrophic events on the choice of discounting. In particular, it shows the necessity of using proposed equivalent undiscounted stopping time criterion and Monte Carlo based stochastic optimization procedures.     

Luminescent Conjugated Oligothiophenes for Sensitive Fluorescent Assignment of Protein Inclusion Bodies

Small hydrophobic ligands identifying intracellular protein deposits are of great interest, as protein inclusion bodies are the pathological hallmark of several degenerative diseases. Here we report that fluorescent amyloid ligands, termed luminescent conjugated oligothiophenes (LCOs), rapidly and with high sensitivity detect protein inclusion bodies in skeletal muscle tissue from patients with sporadic inclusion body myositis (s‐IBM). LCOs having a conjugated backbone of at least five thiophene units emitted strong fluorescence upon binding, and showed co‐localization with proteins reported to accumulate in s‐IBM protein inclusion bodies. Compared with conventional amyloid ligands, LCOs identified a larger fraction of immunopositive inclusion bodies. When the conjugated thiophene backbone was extended with terminal carboxyl groups, the LCO revealed striking spectral differences between distinct protein inclusion bodies. We conclude that 1) LCOs are sensitive, rapid and powerful tools for identifying protein inclusion bodies and 2) LCOs identify a wider range of protein inclusion bodies than conventional amyloid ligands.     

Growth control of Listeria monocytogenes on cold-smoked salmon using a competitive lactic acid bacteria flora.

A Lactobacillus sake strain LKE5 and four strains of Carnobacterium piscicola were evaluated as biopreservation cultures to control the growth of Listeria monocytogenes on vacuum-packed, cold-smoked salmon stored at 5 degrees C. All five strains were antilisterial as live cultures in an agar diffusion assay. Cell-free supernatants of two strains of C. piscicola and L. sake LKE5 were also antilisterial because of the production of bacteriocins. The presence of high cell numbers of strains of C. piscicola had no influence on the sensory quality of cold-smoked salmon stored at 5 degrees C, but L. sake LKE5 caused strong sulfurous off-flavors and was rejected as a culture for biopreservation of cold-smoked salmon. A bacteriocin-producing strain of C. piscicola (A9b) initially caused a 7-day lag phase of L. monocytogenes, followed by a reduction in numbers of L. monocytogenes from 10(3) CFU/ml to below 10 CFU/ml after 32 days of incubation, coinciding with the detection of antilisterial compounds. The presence of a nonbacteriocin-producing strain of C. piscicola (A10a) prevented the growth of L. monocytogenes during the 32-day incubation. The growth of L. monocytogenes was strongly repressed on cold-smoked salmon in the presence of C. piscicola A9b and A 10a, respectively. The initial cell numbers of L. monocytogenes that were found on Oxford plates incubated at 25 degrees C reached low maximum cell counts of 10(4) and 2 x 10(3) after 14 and 20 days of storage in mixed culture with C. piscicola A9b and A10a.     

Testing and evaluation of a Hybrid III load sensing face

To detect localized facial forces in laboratory car crash conditions, a load sensing face (LSF) was developed. Piezoelectric sensors provide pressure time histories. Design properties and characteristics of the LSF are described, as well as the sensor technique used. Sled tests with a LSF equipped dummy are presented. The purpose was to evaluate the efficiency of the method in registering facial impact magnitude and location with different restraint and seat position combinations. The LSF was also used in drop testing of steering wheels. Various impact velocities and impact points as well as the reapeatability were studied.