Psychotherapy and the placebo effect.

The theoretical and methodological problems involved in studies concerned with the "placebo effect" are presented. There is a need for more theoretically oriented research and for "a greater emphasis upon control factors and other methodological considerations." Future research should be directed towards a further understanding of the influence of non-specific factors in psychotherapy. 39 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Iowa European corn borer sex pheromone isolation and identification of four C14 esters

Four C₁₄ straight-chain acetate esters—(Z)-11-tetradecenyl acetate, (E)-11-tetradecenyl acetate, (E)-9-tetradecenyl acetate, and tetradecyl acetate—were isolated and identified from the diethyl ether extracts of the abdominal tips of adult female European corn borers,Ostrinia nubilalis (Hübner). The compounds were isolated using a combination of high-resolution gel-permeation, adsorption highpressure liquid, and micropreparative gas chromatography. Identifications were made by gas chromatography, a combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, and microdegradative chemical methods.Mention of a commercial or proprietary product in this paper does not constitute a recommendation or an endorsement of that product by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Energy Research and Development Administration.Joint contribution: Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; Energy Research and Development Administration; and Journal Paper No. J-8565 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station. Project 2183.     

Calculation and Digital Display of Whole Blood Oxygen Saturation by Analog Techniques

An electronic analog system has been developed which performs the double scale calculation from the Wood oximeter and gives a single output as a log ratio and also gives a digital display of oxygen saturation, with simultaneous recording of these parameters if desired. This system, built of commercially available analog components, consists of operational amplifiers to amplify the output of the red and infrared photocells, logarithmic devices to calculate the optical density as sensed by these two photocells, a division circuit to calculate the log ratio, a scaling circuit to facilitate digital display in percent oxygen saturation, and a digital voltmeter.     

Electrochemical behavior of a snake-cage cation exchange membrane. Membrane potential

Membrane potential differences of a polymethacrylate–polyacrylamide snake-cage membrane were measured at 25°C. The principal theories of membrane potential have been tested. The fixed-charge theory is only valid in a range of high membrane permselectivity. The relation developed by the kinetic approach and the thermodynamics of irreversible processes verify the experimental results, but the calculation of some parameters, often improperly assumed to be constant, is not unquestionable. Quasithermodynamics (Scatchard's relation) probably give the best estimates of the membrane potential on the basis of the independent values of transport numbers of counterion and water.     

Review of The therapeutic community. A new treatment method in psychiatry.

Reviews the book, The therapeutic community. A new treatment method in psychiatry by Maxwell Jones in collaboration with A. Baker, T. Freeman, J. Merry, B. A. Pomryn, J. Sandler, and Joy Tuxford (1953). This monograph by a British social psychiatrist and his collaborators describes an attempt to develop a new method for the vocational and psychological rehabilitation of those most difficult of all nonpsychotic psychiatric patients, the chronically unemployable neurotics, psychopaths, and character disorders. Sponsored by the Ministries of Health, Labour, and Pensions, an Industrial Neurosis Unit was established with a small staff of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, government "disablement resettlement" officers, occupational instructors, a research technician, and nurses. Patients with psychiatric disabilities who had particular employment problems were sent to this unit from around the country. Regarded as a progress report on the first stages of a long-term effort, this monograph is indeed valuable. True, it is short on theory and the discussion of group dynamics, and the therapeutic process is somewhat superficial. Nevertheless, the manner in which ongoing research is integrated with the therapeutic process as an essential feature of the total program is gratifying, whatever the limitations of the actual data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time–frequency approach to extraction of selected second-order cyclostationary vibration components for varying operational conditions

In this paper, the authors propose a method for extracting second-order cyclostationary components from a vibration signal. For a known cyclic frequency, the proposed algorithm allows to estimate the amount of energy of each cyclic component of interest in the time–frequency domain. In this way, the resulting representation contains only the chosen second-order cyclostationary component that manifests itself as a number of carrier frequencies modulated by the harmonic signal of selected frequency.     

The benefits of adaptive parametrization in multi-objective Tabu Search optimization

In real-world optimization problems, large design spaces and conflicting objectives are often combined with a large number of constraints, resulting in a highly multi-modal, challenging, fragmented landscape. The local search at the heart of Tabu Search, while being one of its strengths in highly constrained optimization problems, requires a large number of evaluations per optimization step. In this work, a modification of the pattern search algorithm is proposed: this modification, based on a Principal Components’ Analysis of the approximation set, allows both a re-alignment of the search directions, thereby creating a more effective parametrization, and also an informed reduction of the size of the design space itself. These changes make the optimization process more computationally efficient and more effective – higher quality solutions are identified in fewer iterations. These advantages are demonstrated on a number of standard analytical test functions (from the ZDT and DTLZ families) and on a real-world problem (the optimization of an axial compressor preliminary design).     

Validation of a Difussion Model Using Moisture Profiles Measured by Means of TD-NMR in Apples (Malus domestica)

Time domain nuclear magnetic resonance has been used to obtain experimental moisture profiles of apples during convective drying. The drying curves obtained at temperatures of 50 °C, 60 °C, 70 °C, 80 °C and 90 °C during convective drying have been modelled using a diffusion model, solved by a finite elements method. The parametric identification was carried out by comparing the experimental and simulated drying curves, and the validation of the model was conducted by comparing the experimental and the simulated moisture profiles. The proposed diffusion model including solid shrinkage and temperature influence on the diffusion coefficient allowed an adequate prediction of not only the drying curves (MRE?=?5.4?±?0.8%) but also the moisture profiles (MRE?=?11.0?±?1.7%). These results support the hypotheses admitted to formulate the mathematical equations of the model and demonstrate the usefulness of this methodology to validate the proposed model.