Winifred Starbuck Scott (1906-2003).

Presents the obituary for Winifred Starbuck Scott (1906-2003), who served as American Psychological Association's Division of School Psychology president in 1964-1965. Dr. Scott is noted for her work in the area of school psychology and her extensive involvement in numerous divisions within APA. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

TouchTone: Interactive Local Image Adjustment Using Point‐and‐Swipe

Recent proliferation of camera phones, photo sharing and social network services has significantly changed how we process our photos. Instead of going through the traditional download‐edit‐share cycle using desktop editors, an increasing number of photos are taken with camera phones and published through cellular networks. The immediacy of the sharing process means that on‐device image editing, if needed, should be quick and intuitive. However, due to the limited computational resources and vastly different user interaction model on small screens, most traditional local selection methods can not be directly adapted to mobile devices. To address this issue, we present TouchTone, a new method for edge‐aware image adjustment using simple finger gestures. Our method enables users to select regions within the image and adjust their corresponding photographic attributes simultaneously through a simple point‐and‐swipe interaction. To enable fast interaction, we develop a memory‐ and computation‐efficient algorithm which samples a collection of 1D paths from the image, computes the adjustment solution along these paths, and interpolates the solutions to entire image through bilateral filtering. Our system is intuitive to use, and can support several local editing tasks, such as brightness, contrast, and color balance adjustments, within a minute on a mobile device.     

Knowing when not to use the Internet: Shyness and adolescents’ on-line and off-line interactions with friends

The goal of the study was to explore the content of on-line and off-line peer interactions among shy and non-shy adolescents. Participants were 148 ten-to-eighteen year old adolescents in Rome, Italy (n = 98) and Ottawa, Canada (n = 50). Participants completed self reports of shyness and loneliness and web logs of their interactions with friends both in person and on-line. Among the results, there was little general difference in the general content and emotion expressed during the two modalities of interaction with friends, both of which were used in a wide variety of ways. Importantly, shy participants used the on-line modality more extensively than their non-shy counterparts to express negative emotions and to convey content regarding negative exchanges with peers. Such use of electronic communication may be an important contributor to their loneliness.     

Embedding robotic surgery into routine practice and impacts on communication and decision making: a review of the experience of surgical teams

While an increasing number of healthcare providers are purchasing surgical robots because of anticipated improvements in patient outcomes, their implementation into practice is highly variable. In robotic surgery, the surgeon is physically separated from the patient and the rest of the team with the potential to impact communication and decision making in the operating theatre and subsequently patient safety. Drawing on the approach of realist evaluation, in this article we review reports of the experience of surgical teams that have introduced robotic surgery to identify how and in what contexts robotic surgery is successfully integrated into practice and how and in what contexts it affects communication and decision making. Our analysis indicates that, while robotic surgery might bring about a number of benefits, it also creates new challenges. Robotic surgery is associated with increased operation duration, which has implications for patient safety, but strategies to reduce it can be effective with appropriate support from hospital administration and nursing management. The separation of the surgeon from the team can compromise communication but may be overcome through use of standardised communication. While surgeon situation awareness may be affected by the separation, the ergonomic benefits of robotic surgery may reduce stress and tiredness and enhance surgeon decision making. Our review adds to the existing literature by revealing strategies to support the introduction of robotic surgery and contextual factors that need to be in place for these to be effective.     

Ferroelectricity in synthetic metals: Reality and hypotheses

Ferroelectricity is one of the demanded effects in fundamental and applied solid state physics. Till now, the ferroelectrics were available mostly in the inorganic world. The breakthrough of 2000s was an unexpected discovery of the ferroelectricity related to the charge ordering in quasi-1D organic conductors (TMTTF)₂X, and in some layered compounds. The achieved understanding of underlying mechanisms allows to speculate on synthesis of a would-be ferroelectric polymer: it must possess a combination of dimerizations of sites and bonds, one of which must be build-in and another spontaneous. The theory of these “combined Peierls states” predicts an existence of solitons (dimerization kinks) with non-integer variable charges—they are the walls separating domains with opposite electric polarization. The physics of these exotic solitons will serve to describe transient processes in ferroelectric polymers, linking optical- and low-frequency properties. The promising example of such an (AB)_x conjugated polymer has already appeared but was not yet tested for ferroelectricity. A wide chemical search is necessary because of a problematic competition of an anti-ferroelectric phase, whose occurrence depends on complicated details of the interchain coupling.     

Neurocognitive function in monozygotic twins discordant for combat exposure: Relationship to posttraumatic stress disorder.

Neuropsychological deficits have been reported among trauma survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is often assumed that these cognitive difficulties are toxic consequences of trauma exposure. Alternatively, they may reflect preexisting characteristics that contribute to the likelihood of developing PTSD. To address this possibility, the authors evaluated cognitive performance in monozygotic twin pairs who were discordant for combat exposure. Pairs were grouped according to whether the combat-exposed brother developed PTSD. The combat-unexposed cotwins of combat veterans with PTSD largely displayed the same performance as their brothers, which was significantly lower than that of non-PTSD combat veterans and their brothers. The results support the notion that specific domains of cognitive function may serve as premorbid risk or protective factors in PTSD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Treatment outcomes for adolescent substance abuse at 4- and 7-month assessments.

This randomized clinical trial evaluated individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), family therapy, combined individual and family therapy, and a group intervention for 114 substance-abusing adolescents. Outcomes were percentage of days marijuana was used and percentage of youths achieving minimal use. Each intervention demonstrated some efficacy, although differences occurred for outcome measured, speed of change, and maintenance of change. From pretreatment to 4 months, significantly fewer days of use were found for the family therapy alone and the combined interventions. Significantly more youths had achieved minimal use levels in the family and combined conditions and in CBT. From pretreatment to 7 months, reductions in percentage of days of use were significant for the combined and group interventions, and changes in minimal use levels were significant for the family, combined, and group interventions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bayesian networks for system reliability reassessment

This paper proposes a methodology to apply Bayesian networks to structural system reliability reassessment, with the incorporation of two important features of large structures: (1) multiple failure sequences, and (2) correlations between component-level limit states. The proposed method is validated by analytical comparison with the traditional reliability analysis methods for series and parallel systems. The Bayesian network approach is combined with the branch-and-bound method to improve its efficiency and to facilitate its application to large structures. A framed structure with multiple potential locations of plastic hinges and multiple failure sequences is analyzed to illustrate the proposed method.     

SA-Mediated Regulation and Control of Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Rice

Environmental or abiotic stresses are a common threat that remains a constant and common challenge to all plants. These threats whether singular or in combination can have devastating effects on plants. As a semiaquatic plant, rice succumbs to the same threats. Here we systematically look into the involvement of salicylic acid (SA) in the regulation of abiotic stress in rice. Studies have shown that the level of endogenous salicylic acid (SA) is high in rice compared to any other plant species. The reason behind this elevated level and the contribution of this molecule towards abiotic stress management and other underlying mechanisms remains poorly understood in rice. In this review we will address various abiotic stresses that affect the biochemistry and physiology of rice and the role played by SA in its regulation. Further, this review will elucidate the potential mechanisms that control SA-mediated stress tolerance in rice, leading to future prospects and direction for investigation.     

Distributed control over structured and packet‐dropping networks

In this paper we consider distributed control of n dynamic agents to optimize an overall system performance metric. Due to limited communication resources, there exist structured interconnections among the agents and the interest is placed on synthesizing a suitably distributed control law to provide a given performance level. Based on a Youla–Kucera (Y–K) parameterization approach, the problem of designing a distributed controller to deliver given performance levels for different network topologies is shown to be convex in the Y–K parameter Q. Furthermore, if in addition to structured interconnections, packet drops exist in information transmission among the agents, we provide convex conditions to guarantee mean square (MS) stability and to optimize ℋ︁₂ system performance. The proposed method is also extended to deal with systems of triangular structure. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.