School psychologists' acceptability of behavioral and traditional assessment procedures for externalizing problem behaviors.

A national survey of school psychologists' acceptability of psychological assessment techniques in the area of externalizing problem behaviors was examined. School psychologists' ratings of 2 procedures, Behavioral Assessment (BA) and Traditional Assessment (TA), were compared using an analog case study methodology. Using a random sample of 500 National Association of School Psychologists members from the 1991–1992 membership directory, 339 Ss completed the Assessment Rating Profile after reading a hypothetical case summary describing a student with suspected externalizing problem behaviors. Results indicated statistically significant differences between assessment methods and ratings of acceptability. BA procedures were found to be more acceptable than TA procedures. Implications related to the acceptability of psychological assessment techniques, as well as implications for school psychology practitioners are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A system for recognizing a large class of engineering drawings

We present a system for recognizing a large class of engineering drawings characterized by alternating instances of symbols and connection lines. The class includes domains such as flowcharts, logic and electrical circuits, and chemical plant diagrams. The output of the system, a netlist identifying the symbol types and interconnections, may be used for design simulation or as a compact portable representation of the drawing. The automatic recognition task is divided into two stages: 1) domain-independent rules are used to segment symbols from connection lines in the drawing image that has been thinned, vectorized, and preprocessed in routine ways; 2) a drawing understanding subsystem works in concert with a set of domain-specific matchers to classify symbols and correct errors automatically. A graphical user interface is provided to correct residual errors interactively and to log data for reporting errors objectively. The system has been tested on a database of 64 printed images drawn from text books and handbooks in different domains and scanned at 150 and 300 dpi resolution     

Detection of melanoma by monitoring the intracellular fluorescein fluorescence polarization changes in lymphocytes

The effectiveness of detecting melanoma by measuring the intracellular fluorescein fluorescent polarization (IFFP) of patients' SCM (structuredness of the cytoplasmic matrix)-responding lymphocytes was examined. SCM-responding lymphocytes from 46 melanoma patients and 32 healthy volunteers were labeled with fluorescein diacetate and challenged with different stimuli, and the resulting polarization was determined. The polarizations (P) obtained upon stimulation with nothing (P-0), encephalitogenic factor (P-EF), phytohaemagglutinin (P-PHA), or melanoma antigen (P-MEL), and the ratios RR(ef) (P-EF/P-PHA) and RR(mel) (P-MEL/P-PHA) were lower for SCM-responding lymphocytes from the patients as a group than for those of the controls. The specificity and sensitivity of the IFFP tests (using cutoff values) to detect melanoma were 90.6 and 73.9%, respectively. The IFFP tests may facilitate the discrimination between melanoma patients and healthy subjects, and may be used in follow-up of patients with melanoma.     

High performance analog VLSI computational circuits

Simple linear voltage/current-controlled voltage-to-current (V-T) converters, which are to first-order insensitive to the threshold voltage variation, are introduced. The circuits can be used as basic building blocks to construct simple analog computational circuits, which can perform functions such as square rooting, squaring, multiplication, sum of squares, difference of squares, etc. Some of the key features are: good linearity, floating inputs [high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR)], simplicity, and good transconductance tuning range. The circuits can be realized with CMOS devices in saturation, however, BiCMOS devices extend their speed and input voltage range. Realistic simulations and experimental results clearly demonstrate the claims     

Stochastic complexity measures for physiological signal analysis

Traditional feature extraction methods describe signals in terms of amplitude and frequency. This paper takes a paradigm shift and investigates four stochastic-complexity features. Their advantages are demonstrated on synthetic and physiological signals; the latter recorded during periods of Cheyne-Stokes respiration, anesthesia, sleep, and motor-cortex investigation     

Long-wavelength 640×486 GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well infraredphotodetector snap-shot camera

A 9-μm cutoff 640×486 snap-shot quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) camera has been demonstrated. The performance of this QWIP camera is reported including indoor and outdoor imaging. The noise equivalent differential temperature (NEΔT) of 36 mK has been achieved at 300 K background with f/2 optics. This is in good agreement with expected focal plane array sensitivity due to the practical limitations on charge handling capacity of the multiplexer, read noise, bias voltage, and operating temperature     

Transgenic overproduction of islet amyloid polypeptide (amylin) is not sufficient for islet amyloid formation

Islet amyloid polypeptide forms islet amyloid deposits in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. We have generated transgenic mice which express human islet amyloid polypeptide in their pancreatic beta cells yet do not develop islet amyloid deposits despite producing levels of the amyloidogenic human peptide 2 - 3 fold higher than the native (mouse) peptide. To determine whether marked overproduction of islet amyloid polypeptide is a potential cause of islet amyloid formation, we increased expression of this transgene by producing homozygous transgenic animals and by making heterozygous mice experimentally insulin resistant with nicotinic acid. Pancreatic content of islet amyloid polypeptide-like immunoreactivity in homozygous and nicotinic acid-treated mice was 2-fold (25 +/- 7 fmol/microg; n = 6) and 3.5-fold (47 +/- 20 fmol/microg; n = 3) higher, respectively, than that of untreated heterozygous animals (13+/-2 fmol/microg; n = 11; both p < 0.05). Despite this marked increase in production of islet amyloid polypeptide, neither group of mice developed gross islet amyloid deposits even after 16 months of age. We conclude that overproduction of islet amyloid polypeptide, even as produced by extreme insulin resistance, is not in itself sufficient for islet amyloid formation.     

Surveillance after colorectal cancer surgery

Early diagnosis of local and distant recurrences of colorectal cancer remains difficult and there is no agreement on the effectiveness of follow-up in these patients. The aim of this study is to assess the value of our method of follow-up. We consider 239 patients with colorectal cancer and at least 2 years follow-up following radical resection. A local recurrence appeared in 26 patients (10.9%), a distant metastasis in 41 (17.1%), while in seven (2.9%) local and distant recurrences appeared simultaneously. Local recurrence was detected because of an increase in carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level in 15 patients (57.7%), during a scheduled endoscopy in four (15.4%) and because of symptoms in seven (26.9%). In seven patients (26.9%) a radical resection was possible. Distant metastases were detected by CEA levels in 20 patients (48.8%), by ultrasonography (U.S.) in 12 (29.3%) and by chest X-ray in five (12.2%). In 13 of 26 patients with liver metastases a resection was performed. This study shows that few patients benefit from follow-up and only CEA levels and liver U.S. performed intensively between 15 and 36 months after surgery are useful in early detection of recurrences. A modification of the follow-up to the single patient, according to the stage, location and grading of cancer, could improve the results, so lowering the costs of this expensive practice.