The likelihood of violent behaviour: Predictions, postdictions, and hindsight bias.

Studied the effects of variations in base rate (BR) information and temporal context on predictions of violence and hindsight bias (HB). 270 undergraduates estimated the likelihood of violent offenders committing another violent offense based upon fictitious case history information. Ss were given 1 of 2 population BRs of the likelihood of reoffending (30% or 70%) and a recidivism estimation question that was phrased either predictively, predictively with a given outcome of either recidivism or no recidivism, or postdictively. Although different offenders were perceived as differentially likely to reoffend, estimated likelihood of recidivism was affected by neither BR nor temporal phrasing of the estimation task. A 2nd study of 182 undergraduates, using shorter case histories, also found no BR effect. HB effects were weak and inconsistent in both studies. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Algorithms for qualitative analysis of complex systems

Algorithms are proposed that construct first integrals and Lyapunov functions for stability analysis of stationary solutions of differential equations describing mechanical systems of linked bodies.Translated from Kibernetika i Sistemnyi Analiz, No. 1, pp. 138–148, January–February, 1992.     

Conservation of water resources problems of small rivers in Russia

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 8, pp. 1–5, August, 1994.     

Synthesizing plans that contain actions with context-dependent effects1

This paper presents a method of solving planning problems that involve actions whose effects change according to the situations in which they are performed. The approach is an extension of the conventional planning methodology in which plans are constructed through an iterative process of scanning for goals that are not yet satisfied, inserting actions to achieve them, and introducing subgoals to these actions. This methodology was originally developed under the assumption that one would be dealing exclusively with actions that produce the same effects in every situation. The extension involves introducing additional subgoals to actions above and beyond the preconditions of execution normally introduced. These additional subgoals, called secondary preconditions, ensure that the actions are performed in contexts conducive to producing the effects we desire. This paper defines and analyzes secondary preconditions from a mathematically rigorous standpoint and demonstrates how they can be derived from regression operators.     

A Microscopic study of the transformation of sphalerite particles during the roasting of zinc concentrate

The formation of zinc ferrite (ZnFe₂O₄) during the roasting of iron-bearing zinc concentrates requires substantial additional processing to recover the zinc from this compound by leaching and to eliminate the iron from the leachate. The phase changes that occur in the particles of a typical industrial zinc sulfide concentrate during roasting in a fluidized bed at 1223 K were investigated by the use of light microscopy, electron microprobe analysis, and SEM with EDS. The processes which the iron undergoes during its eventual transformation into ferrite have been clarified by examination of the phases and the morphology of partially roasted marmatitic sphalerite particles (Zn, Fe)S, and by reference to the known phase equilibria involved in the Zn-Fe-S-0 system. The oxidation of ironbearing sphalerite occurs in three stages. The first involves the selective diffusion of most of the iron to the particle surface resulting in the formation of an iron oxide shell enclosing a largely unreacted zinc sulfide kernel. In the second stage, this kernel is oxidized to form a solid solution of zinc oxide and iron oxide. The iron is initially present in the ferrous state but, with the disappearance of the sulfide kernel, is oxidized to ferric iron. In the final stage, this dissolved iron oxide and the iron oxide shell react with the surrounding zinc oxide to form the refractory spinel zinc ferrite.     

Determining hearing threshold from brain stem evoked potentials.Optimizing a neural network to improve classification performance

Feed-forward neural networks in conjunction with back-propagation are an effective tool to automate the classification of biomedical signals. Most of the neural network research to date has been done with a view to accelerate learning speed. In the medical context, however, generalisation may be more important than learning speed. With the brain stem auditory evoked potential classification task described in this study, the authors found that parameter values that gave fastest learning could result in poor generalisation. In order to achieve maximum generalisation, it was necessary to fine tune the neural net for gain, momentum, batch size, and hidden layer size. Although this maximization could be time consuming, especially with larger training sets, the authors' results suggest that fine tuning parameters can have important clinical consequences, which justifies the time involved. In the authors' case, fine tuning parameters for high generalisation had the additional effect of reducing false negative classifications, with only a small sacrifice in learning speed