Intimacy, power and control: A brief report on the interpretation of Dutton and Browning's videotape studies of wife assault.

Discusses the contributions and limitations of D. G. Dutton's and J. J. Browning's (1988) videotape studies of wife assault. These studies demonstrate that batterers are most sensitive to scenes of emotional abandonment. It is suggested, however, that these findings should be interpreted with an awareness that the videotape manipulations are not necessarily representative of the whole class of possible stimulus manipulations. More confidence in the conclusions may be derived from replication of the intimacy findings across a range of topics. Improved manipulation of the dominance variable is also advised. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of LED Lamp for Visible Light Communications

Wireless Personal Communications - Visible light communications (VLC) are an emerging technology that uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodiodes to provide high-speed communication between...     

Biodiversity offsets in South Africa – challenges and potential solutions

South Africa has a decade of experience designing and implementing biodiversity offsets. In the absence of explicit national policy on biodiversity offsets, the country has relied on existing legal provisions in environmental law as the basis for offset requirements, supported by provincial guidelines. South Africa’s periodic national biodiversity surveys provide scientifically rigorous quantification and mapping for individual ecosystems and finer scale surveys identify biodiversity priority areas, primed as ‘offset receiving areas’. Yet despite enabling factors the use of offsets has frequently been inadequate to deliver intended biodiversity outcomes. Challenges include: (a) the absence of national policy to drive and shape offset implementation; (b) insufficient capacity to evaluate, design and implement offsets; (c) inconsistent decision-making; (d) problems establishing sustainable financing mechanisms; and (e) inadequate enforcement and monitoring, linked to poor drafting of licencing conditions and/or insufficient capacity to monitor implementation. South Africa’s experience provides valuable insights into the challenges and potential solutions for making offsets work for biodiversity conservation and offers important lessons for the development and implementation of biodiversity offsetting in other developing countries.     

Multi-sensor Fusion Based on Asymmetric Decision Weighting for Robust Activity Recognition

Neural Processing Letters - The recognition of human activity has been deeply explored during the recent years. However, most proposed solutions are mainly devised to operate in ideal conditions,...     

Bank erosion in a macrotidal tropical river: Exploring the relative impact of boat wash on riverbank erosion

Macrotidal tropical rivers are dynamic systems where wet‐season floods and tidal flows cause significant riverbank erosion and sediment transport. This study aimed to explore patterns of riverbank erosion and deposition in a large, tropical, macrotidal river in Northern Australia; the Daly River. In particular, we aimed to determine if recreational boat use was impacting bank erosion in this dynamic river. Erosion pins were installed at multiple levels on both banks at 10 sites along a 34 km reach of the river. Measurements were made every four to six weeks during the low water dry season, and opportunistically during the wet season (flooding period) and seasonal transition periods. A bank geotechnical assessment, riverbed cross‐sections and site bathymetry were undertaken. Whilst the wet season was a period of substantial erosion (mean rate of 0.64 mm day^?1), the highest mean erosion rate (3.6 mm day^?1) was observed in the early dry season (April to May), a period of stabilizing water levels but greatest boat traffic. Bank erosion at this time was measured on both sides of the river and the inside of meander bends, which is atypical of normal riverine bank erosion patterns, and indicative of erosion due to boat wash. As the dry season progressed, significant spatial differences in erosion rates were evident, where erosion was observed at sites upstream of a large shallow sand bar, while sites downstream from the sand bar gained material through the deposition of tidally transported sediment. This study highlights the importance of understanding the significance and interaction of various erosive factors in tropical tidal rivers and has demonstrated that boat wash may be an important contributor to dry season bank erosion in these systems. We encourage management agencies to consider the role of boats in any future river management program in these systems.     

Adsorption dynamics and interfacial properties of thiol-based cobalt terpyridine monolayers

Spontaneously adsorbed monolayers of [Co(ttp-CH₂-SH)₂](PF₆)₂ have been formed on platinum microelectrodes by exposure to micromolar solutions of the complex in 0.1 M TBABF₄ in acetonitrile, ttp-CH₂-SH is 4′-(p-(thiolmethyl)-phenyl)-2,2′:6′,2″-terpyridine. Resonance Raman spectroscopy on roughened polycrystalline platinum macro electrodes show that the molecule undergoes adsorption through the sulphur atom onto the platinum surface. The monolayers show reversible and well defined cyclic voltammetry when switched between Co²⁺ and Co³⁺ forms, with a peak to peak splitting of 0.040 ± 0.005 V up to 200 V s⁻¹ and an FWHM of 0.138 ± 0.010 V. Adsorption is irreversible leading to the maximum surface coverage, 6.3 ± 0.3 × 10⁻¹¹ mol cm⁻² for 2.5 ≤ [Co(ttp-CH₂-SH)₂] ≤ 10 μM. The rate of monolayer formation appears to be controlled not by mass transport or interfacial binding but by surface diffusion of the complex. The surface diffusion coefficient is 5.5 ± 1.1 × 10⁻⁷ cm² s⁻¹ indicating that prior to formation of an equilibrated monolayer, the adsorbates have significant mobility on the surface. The electron transfer process across the monolayer-electrode interface has been probed by high speed chronoamperometry and the standard heterogeneous electron transfer rate constant, k°, is approximately 3.06 ± 0.03 × 10⁴ s⁻¹. The reorganization energy is at least 18.5 kJ mol⁻¹.     

Elastic anisotropy and extreme Poisson’s ratios in single crystals

The relationship between elastic anisotropy and extreme Poisson’s ratio behaviour (either positive or negative) in single-crystalline materials has been investigated using experimentally determined single-crystal elastic constants for a wide range of solid materials. This makes use of a recently proposed elastic anisotropy index that is applicable to all crystal symmetries. For many real materials we find a striking correlation between the value of the elastic anisotropy index and the magnitudes of maximum and minimum Poisson’s ratios this is independent of crystal symmetry. This structure–property relationship provides new examples of auxetics and shows that negative Poisson’s ratios are actually not uncommon among many classes of inorganic (and organic) materials, including elemental metals, alloys, ionic solids, molecular solids and giant covalent networks.     

Transposition of an Exothermic Reaction From a Batch Reactor to an Intensified Continuous One

The implementation of chemical syntheses in a batch or semi-batch reactor is generally limited by the removal or the supply of heat. A way to enhance thermal performances is to develop multifunctional devices like heat exchanger/reactors. In this work, a novel heat exchanger/reactor is characterized in terms of residence time, pressure drops, and thermal behavior in order to estimate its capacities to perform an exothermic reaction: the oxidation of sodium thiosulfate by hydrogen peroxide. Experimental results highlight the performances of the heat exchanger/reactor in terms of intensification, which allows the implementation of the oxidation reaction at extreme operating conditions. These conditions are finally compared to the ones of a classical batch reactor.