Judgments of social justice: Compromises between equality and efficiency.

Political economists agree that a trade-off exists between equality and efficiency. Using a hypothetical society paradigm, the mean income (representing efficiency) and income variability (representing equality) of distributions of wealth and the correlation between wealth and effort within a society were manipulated. Ss made all pairwise comparisons of distributions within societies of differing meritocracy. A "maximin" principle best described trade-off resolution strategies when effort and outcome were weakly linked: People maximized the minimum standard of living within a society. A compromise principle best described preferences when income was tightly linked to effort: People rejected distributions in which some citizens fell below the "poverty line" but maximized efficiency above this constraint. Ideological polarization was pronounced under moderate meritocracy; here liberals could focus on the role of chance and conservatives on the role of effort and ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electron-Impact Cross Sections for Dipole- and Spin-Allowed Excitations of Hydrogen,Helium, and Lithium

Electron-impact excitation cross sections are presented for the dipole- and spin allowed transitions from the ground states to the np ²P states for hydrogen and lithium, and to the 1snp ¹P states for helium, n = 2 through 10. Two scaling formulas developed earlier by Kim [Phys. Rev. A 64, 032713 (2001)] for plane-wave Born cross sections are used. The scaled Born cross sections are in excellent agreement with available theoretical and experimental data.     

西九龙填海区概念规划竞赛

In April 2001,the Govemment launched the West Kowllon Reclamation Concept Plan Competition to invite conceptral proposals for the development of a prominent 40-hectare waterfront site at the southern tip of the West Kowloon Reclamation into am integrated arts,cultural and entertainment district.The objective of the Competition is ,through the development,to enhance Hong Kong＇s positions as Asia＇s premiere centre of arts,culture and entertainment and create a new look for Victoria Harbour.The Competition attracted 161 entries,of which 71 were from Hong Kong and 90 were from elsewhere,covering some 30conntries.Adjudication of the Competition entries was made by a 10-member panel of Jury,chaired by Lord Rothschild.     

Group therapy for adult women survivors of child sexual abuse: Differentiation of completers versus dropouts.

Examined intake profiles of 54 depressed women survivors of child sexual abuse presenting for a specialized group therapy program at a community mental health center. The 32 therapy completers were compared with the 22 dropouts. Both groups possessed extensive and severe childhood and adult abuse histories. Both were extremely socially disadvantaged and clinically impaired as measured on the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI). Dropouts were more likely to have been battered as children and to have been sexually abused only within the family. Completers were more likely to have been multiply offended both by intrafamilial and extrafamilial perpetrators. The groups differed in terms of marital status and extent of economic dependence on spouse. Dropouts appeared to be more actively enmeshed in the abuse cycle at the time of therapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Estimation three-dimensional motion of rigid objects from noisyobservations

An estimate is made of the motion of a rigid body from two noisy 2-D perspective projections using the least-squares method and the algebra of R.Y. Tsai and T.S. Huang (1984). The accuracy of the estimated motion parameters is influenced by the position of the features of the object used in the calculation. Four test variables are derived that indicate how the accuracy is affected, and they are used for discarding inaccurate estimates. Monte Carlo tests demonstrate the obtained accuracy     

NMR Studies of Diffusion-Coherence Phenomena in Red Cell Suspensions: Current Status

Pulsed field-gradient spin-echo (PGSE) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) diffusion experiments conducted on some heterogeneous systems have been observed to show periodicities in the data. These “coherence patterns” are manifest in the normalized PGSE signal intensities as a function of the spatial wave vector q in so-called q-space plots. The sample that to our knowledge best reveals these coherence patterns is suspensions of red blood cells (RBC). The origin of these patterns and their mathematical and physical underpinnings are now well established. We have used computer simulations of molecular diffusion in lattices of RBC and other cells to aid in the interpretation and analysis of the corresponding experimental data. The aim of this review is to present the current status of NMR q-space studies of RBC suspensions that show the diffusion-coherence effect.     

Age-related slowing and the time course of semantic priming in visual word identification.

Investigated, in 4 experiments, the time course of semantic priming effects during 2 forms of visual word identification, lexical decision and pronunciation. On each trial, a target letter string was preceded by a single-word priming context. The effects of varying the stimulus onset asynchrony between the prime and the target indicated that the time course of semantic priming was equivalent for young and older adults. There were no consistent differences between lexical decision and pronunciation in the time course of semantic priming. The age differences associated with response selection were greater than would be predicted by generalized age-related slowing. The semantic priming effects were also inconsistent with a generalized slowing model, but the reliability of these effects was substantially lower than the reliability of the other task-related variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Religious Participation, Interleukin-6, and Mortality in Older Adults.

This study prospectively examined the relationship between religious attendance, interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels, and mortality rates in a community-based sample of 557 older adults. Attending religious services more than once weekly was a significant predictor of lower subsequent 12-year mortality and elevated IL-6 levels (> 3.19 pg/mL), with a mortality ratio of .32 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.15,0.72; p