Intimacy, arousal, and small group crowding.

Tested an intimacy-arousal model of small group crowding. This model proposed that increased density produces its effect on crowding by increasing the level of intimacy between people, which in turn precipitates arousal. Under the appropriate circumstances, that type of arousal is labeled as crowding. An experiment with 129 male undergraduates manipulated the variables of level of gaze, expected compatibility, and room size in a small group setting. As hypothesized, increased gaze produced evidence of increased arousal on 2 measures. Further, a predicted Gaze Level?×?Expected Compatibility interaction was found on the ratings of crowding and confinement, with the most negative reactions occurring in the high gaze/low expected compatibility condition. The effect of room size per se was minimal compared to the interactive effects of intimacy and situational expectancy. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reliability in Digital Systems with Asymmetrical Failure Modes

Most present-day reliability schemes using redundancy to mask the failure of individual logic modules employ majority voting with the assumption that the replicated modules have symmetrical failure characteristics. An analysis is presented of such schemes when the modules exhibit asymmetrical failure modes; that is, the probability that a module fails with a 0 output is not equal to the probability that it fails with a 1 output. A general expression is presented which gives the reliability of a network consisting of n identical modules feeding a k-out-of-n voter. It is shown that a simple majority element does not always represent the optimal choice. Plots illustrating the results are included.     

Factors Influencing the Recruitment of Psychologists.

In APA's Project B (Clark, 1957), a large segment of professional psychologists were asked to recall reasons why they chose to enter the field of psychology. In terms of outlining factors motivating persons to select psychology as a career, and a future recruitment program for psychology, Project B doubtless will have far reaching implications. The question may be posed, however, whether factors professional psychologists recall as having been instrumental in their selection of psychology as a career are the factors influencing psychology majors now in college to make the same choice. The present study was, in part, an investigation of the applicability of the results of Project B to a sample of 211 graduate and undergraduate psychology majors. The trend of the results indicated that the graduate subjects who plan a career in psychology closely resemble the APA respondents, in that both groups give similar factors as important determinants in their selection of a career. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for glycogen structures associated with plasma membrane invaginations as visualized by freeze-substitution and the Thiery reaction in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

We have used a combination of freeze-substitution electron microscopy and specific reaction for polysaccharides to re-evaluate glycogen structures in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We also used mutant cells devoid of glycogen to confirm the glycogenic nature of the structures described. Previously described cytoplasmic aggregates were confirmed as glycogen granules. Moreover, an original structure was discovered. This is a ring of glycogen surrounding a finger- or pleat-like plasma membrane invagination. This structure could be physiologically significant in terms of channelling glucose to or from glycogen reserves.     

Approximation of a Direction of Nd in Bounded Coordinates

In this paper, we address the following problem: a direction in R ^d is given by a vector with large integral coordinates and we have to find a vector with bounded integral coordinates which realizes a good approximation of this direction. We present a short algorithm that efficiently computes an optimal approximation with respect to the distance to the direction. We then compare experimental results with those of a straightforward rounding algorithm with respect to the distance to the direction and to the angle with it.     

Myriad: scalable VR via peer‐to‐peer connectivity,PC clustering,and transient inconsistency

Distributed scene graphs are important in virtual reality, both in collaborative virtual environments and in cluster rendering. Modern scalable visualization systems have high local throughput, but collaborative virtual environments (VEs) over a wide‐area network (WAN) share data at much lower rates. This complicates the use of one scene graph across the whole application. Myriad is an extension of the Syzygy VR toolkit in which individual scene graphs form a peer‐to‐peer network. Myriad connections filter scene graph updates and create flexible relationships between nodes of the scene graph. Myriad's sharing is fine‐grained: the properties of individual scene graph nodes to share are dynamically specified (in C++ or Python). Myriad permits transient inconsistency, relaxing resource requirements in collaborative VEs. A test application, WorldWideCrowd, demonstrates collaborative prototyping of a 300‐avatar crowd animation viewed on two PC‐cluster displays and edited on low‐powered laptops, desktops, and over a WAN. We have further used our framework to facilitate collaborative educational experiences and as a vehicle for undergraduates to experiment with shared virtual worlds. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fuel specification,energy consumption and CO2 emission in oil refineries

The more stringent environmental quality specifications for oil products worldwide are tending to step up energy use and, consequently, CO₂ emissions at refineries. In Brazil, for example, the stipulated reduction in the sulfur content of diesel and gasoline between 2002 and 2009 should increase the energy use of Brazil's refining industry by around 30%, with effects on its CO₂ emissions. Thus, the world refining industry must deal with trade-offs between emissions of pollutants with local impacts (due to fuel specifications) and emissions of pollutants with global impacts (due to the increased energy use at refineries to remove contaminants from oil products). Two promising technology options for refineries could ease this clash in the near-to-mid term: the reduction per se of the energy use at the refinery; and the development of treatment processes using non-hydrogen consuming techniques. For instance, in Brazilian refineries, the expanded energy use resulting from severe hydrotreatment to comply with the more stringent specifications of oil products may be almost completely offset by energy saving options and alternative desulfurization techniques, if barriers to invest in technological innovations are overcome.     

Joint international evaluation of Milking Shorthorn dairy cattle for production traits

Pedigree information and test-day records for the first 3 parities of Milking Shorthorn dairy cattle from 5 countries were analyzed. After editing, the data included 1,018,528 test-day records from 68,653 cows. A multiple-lactation random regression test-day model with Legendre polynomials of order 4 and a Bayesian method were used to estimate variance components for both single and multiple-countries. Fixed effects included herd-test-day class and regressions on DIM within age at calving-parity-season of calving. Random effects included animal genetic, permanent environmental, and residual effects. Average daily heritabilities from single country analyses ranged from 0.33 to 0.47 for milk yield and from 0.37 to 0.45 for protein yield across lactations and countries. Common sires (66) and their daughters were identified for creating a connected data set for simultaneous (co)variance component estimation of milk yield across all 5 countries. Between-country genetic correlations were low, with values from 0.08 to 0.46 and standard deviations from 0.08 to 0.12. Estimated breeding values for milk were generated for each animal using the same test-day animal model. Correlations among country estimated breeding values were higher than genetic correlations. Top 100 bull lists were generated on the scale of each country, and genetic progress was assessed. Future evaluation with increased genetic ties among countries may facilitate international comparison of Milking Shorthorns.