Review of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth edition.

This article discusses the Stanford-Binet, Fourth Edition (1986). Psychologists using it for the first time may be surprised to discover that the test resembles a new test more than a revision of the old instrument. Differences between this edition and earlier versions are noted. For example, reliance on age levels is gone from the new test. Other changes in test format are discussed. Also noted are problems the test presents for the examiner. For example, instructions and scoring guidelines are sometimes inadequate. The article reviews the adequacy of the technical manual, standardization of the test, the internal consistency reliability of this Fourth Edition, and its validity. The reviewers suggest that practitioners may wish to become well-acquainted with the new Stanford-Binet so that its use might be an option for them, but they should not give the test a superior rating just because of its name. Given the hefty cost of the instrument and the time needed to master it, potential users with limited budgets and limited time may well find that their evaluation needs can be adequately filled by using another test of cognitive ability already in their possession. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the accurate calibration of an electrochemical oxygen meter in the 10−7 bar range

A method for the accurate standardization of an electrochemical oxygen meter, in the 10^–6-10^–7 bar range is described. The method is based on the use of an electrochemical oxygen leak and a chemical getter pump. In this manner problems connected with traces of hydrogen, originating from the pyrolysis of water, and traces of oxygen of unknown origin are overcome.     

A parameter for defining the energetic efficiency of the cathodic process at high temperature,high current density electrolysis of steam

The electrocatalytic activity for the cathodic reduction of steam at high temperature on metals and oxides at the interface with zirconia base electrolytes have been comparatively analysed. Except the case of the urania-yttria solid solution at temperatures higher than 1273 K, all the cathodic layers investigated up to now showed two different behaviours depending on the current density. At low current density the polarization curves follow Tafel's law. Above certain values of the c.d., which depend on temperature, the applied potential showed a linear relationship with a slope corresponding to the a.c. impedance, thus indicating in such conditions the overall cathodic reaction takes place without any additional overvoltage. This behaviour suggests the introduction of a simple parameter defining the highest possible energetic yield that can be obtained by any individual cathodic material under high current density conditions.     

Application of the LP-DP approach to Andong and Imha parallel reservoirs,Korea

This paper presents an application of a previously developed linear programming-dynamic programming (LP-DP) methodology to the operation of Andong and Imha parallel reservoirs in South Korea. The model allows for multioptimization of power generation and municipal, industrial, and irrigation water use. It is shown that the annual average energy and the annual average water supply generated from the joint operation of the two parallel reservoirs by the LD-DP approach is 15.2 and 1.7% more than the contracted power production and water supply respectively.     

Inhibition of phosphatases and increased Ca2+ channel activity by inositol hexakisphosphate

Inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6), the dominant inositol phosphate in insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells, inhibited the serine-threonine protein phosphatases type 1, type 2A, and type 3 in a concentration-dependent manner. The activity of voltage-gated L-type calcium channels is increased in cells treated with inhibitors of serine-threonine protein phosphatases. Thus, the increased calcium channel activity obtained in the presence of InsP6 might result from the inhibition of phosphatase activity. Glucose elicited a transient increase in InsP6 concentration, which indicates that this inositol polyphosphate may modulate calcium influx over the plasma membrane and serve as a signal in the pancreatic beta cell stimulus-secretion coupling.     

Ion-exchanged glass waveguides with low birefringence for a broad range of waveguide widths

Optical communications networks require integrated photonic components with negligible polarization dependence, which typically means that the waveguides must feature very low birefringence. Recent studies have shown that waveguides with low birefringence can be obtained, e.g., by use of silica-on-silicon waveguides or buried ion-exchanged glass waveguides. However, many integrated photonic circuits consist of waveguides with varying widths. Therefore low birefringence is consequently required for waveguides having different widths. This is a difficult task for most waveguide fabrication technologies. We present experimental results on waveguide birefringence for buried silver-sodium ion-exchanged glass waveguides. We show that the waveguide birefringence of the order of 10(-6) for waveguide mask opening widths ranging from 2 to 10 microm can be obtained by postprocessing the sample through annealing at an elevated temperature. The measured values are in agreement with the values calculated with our modeling software for ion-exchanged glass waveguides. This unique feature of ion-exchanged waveguides may be of significant importance in a wide variety of integrated photonic circuits requiring polarization-independent operation.     

Guidelines for Word Alignment Evaluation and Manual Alignment

The purpose of this paper is to provide guidelines for building a word alignment evaluation scheme. The notion of word alignment quality depends on the application: here we review standard scoring metrics for full text alignment and give explanations on how to use them better. We discuss strategies to build a reference corpus, and show that the ratio between ambiguous and unambiguous links in the reference has a great impact on scores measured with these metrics. In particular, automatically computed alignments with higher precision or higher recall can be favoured depending on the value of this ratio. Finally, we suggest a strategy to build a reference corpus particularly adapted to applications where recall plays a significant role, like in machine translation. The manually aligned corpus we built for the Spanish-English European Parliament corpus is also described. This corpus is freely available.     

Protoporphyrin IX sensitized photohemolysis: stoichiometry of the reaction and repair by reduced glutathione

Protoporphyrin IX acts as a sensitizer in the photohemolysis of bovine erythrocytes by binding to a limited number of membrane sites. The cholesterol-specific antibiotic lucensomycin competes with protoporphyrin in binding to the membranes. The possibility of cholesterol peroxidation as a primary event in photohemolysis is supported by the repairing effect of exogenous cholesterol and by the increased susceptibility of the photosensitized erythrocytes to lucensomycin. Glutathione, if present within the erythrocyte, postpones the onset of lysis; if added after irradiation, it may repair the membrane damage and prevent hemolysis. This effect appears to be related to a redox reaction (possibly involving glutathione peroxidase) between reduced glutathione and the cholesterol peroxide molecules.