Mother-child emotional availability in ecological perspective: Three countries, two regions, two genders.

This study used a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability (EA), a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Altogether 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home observations when the children were 20 months old. In terms of country, Italian mothers were more sensitive and optimally structuring, and Italian children were more responsive and involving, than Argentine and U.S. dyads. In terms of region, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and boys from metropolitan areas were more responsive than boys from rural areas. In terms of gender, mothers of girls were more sensitive and optimally structuring than mothers of boys, and daughters were more responsive and involving than sons. Understanding how country, region, and gender influence EA exposes forces that shape child development, parent-infant interaction, and family systems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Out-of-plane reflection and refraction of light by anisotropic optical antenna metasurfaces with phase discontinuities

Experiments on ultrathin anisotropic arrays of subwavelength optical antennas display out-of-plane refraction. A powerful three-dimensional (3D) extension of the recently demonstrated generalized laws of refraction and reflection shows that the interface imparts a tangential wavevector to the incident light leading to anomalous beams, which in general are noncoplanar with the incident beam. The refracted beam direction can be controlled by varying the angle between the plane of incidence and the antenna array.     

Imidazolium poly(butylene terephthalate) ionomers with long-term antimicrobial activity

Imidazolium poly(butylene terephthalate) ionomers with ionic groups located randomly along the polymer chain or selectively as end-groups (telechelic) have been prepared in order to determine their antimicrobial (AM) activity. Two different approaches have been followed for the linkage of the imidazolium to the polymer backbone: a covalent bond and an ionic aggregation to sulfonated groups covalently bonded to the polymer. The ionic groups have been linked to the polymer in order to improve the long-term AM activity since the low molecular weight additives commonly used tends to migrate toward the surface during use. We have found that imidazolium ionomers present AM activity comparable with that of commercial antimicrobial agents such as Triclosan. The AM activity depends on the polymer architecture, the telechelic approach being more active compared to the random approach. We have proved that imidazolium ionomers retain their high AM activity even after 6 days in water at 60 °C while Triclosan consistently loses his activity.     

Optimization of Si-implanted thermistors for high resolution calorimeters to be used in a neutrino mass experiment

A procedure of optimization of Si-implanted thermistors was started, with the final aim to develop bolometers with a resolution of a few eV in the keV range. The initial approach was to assume that a thermal decoupling between phonons and hopping electrons establishes inside the thermistors, with consequent reduction of the sensitivity and incomplete transfer of the particle generated phonons to the conduction electrons. This assumption however failed in explaining the collected experimental data, which can be described much more satisfactorily introducing an electric field dependance of the thermistor resistance. This alternative interpretation modifies the parameter choice for an optimum deviceOn leave from Department of Physics, University of Zaragoza, Spain     

Reactive blending of commercial PET and PC with freshly added catalysts

Reactive blending of commercial poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and bisphenol A polycarbonate (PC), with catalysts added in the form of powder dispersed on the polymers just before melt mixing, was performed in a Brabender Plasticord 2000 apparatus at 275°C. Catalytic activity of the catalysts freshly added to polymers was found to be much higher as compared with that of the residues of the same type of catalysts remaining in PET after its synthesis. Furthermore, the catalytic activity appeared to be strongly dependent on the structure of the ligand that influences the catalyst solubility in the polymer melt. N.m.r. spectroscopy, selective degradation of PC fragments, solubility tests in methylene chloride and d.s.c. measurements made it possible to range the catalysts studied according to their catalytic activity.     

Semantic image interpretation of gamma ray profiles in petroleum exploration

This paper presents the S-Chart framework, an approach for semantic image interpretation of line charts; and the InteliStrata system, an application for semantic interpretation of gamma ray profiles. The S-Chart framework is structured as a set of knowledge models and algorithms that can be instantiated to accomplish chart interpretation in all sorts of domains. The knowledge models are represented in three semantic levels and apply the concept of symbol grounding in order to map the representation primitives between the levels. The interpretation algorithms carry out the interaction between the high-level symbolic reasoning, and the low-level signal processing. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the S-Chart framework, we developed the InteliStrata system, an application in Geology for the semantic interpretation of gamma ray profiles. Using the developed application, we have interpreted the charts of two gamma ray profiles captured in petroleum exploration wells, indicating the position of stratigraphic sequences and maximum flooding surfaces. The results were compared with the interpretation produced by an experienced geologist using the same data input. The system carried out interpretation that were compatible with the geologist interpretation over the data. Our framework has the advantage of allowing the integration of existing domain ontologies with domain independent visual knowledge models and also the ability of grounding domain concepts in low-level data.     

Towards a core ontology for robotics and automation

In this paper, we present the current results of the newly formed IEEE-RAS Working Group, named Ontologies for Robotics and Automation. In particular, we introduce a core ontology that encompasses a set of terms commonly used in Robotics and Automation along with the methodology we have adopted. Our work uses ISO/FDIS 8373 standard developed by the ISO/TC184/SC2 Working Group as a reference. This standard defines, in natural language, some generic terms which are common in Robotics and Automation such as robot, robotic device, etc. Furthermore, we discuss the ontology development process employed along with the problems and decisions taken.