The development of a brief version of the Nurse's Observation Scale For Inpatient Evaluation (NOSIE-30).

Psychiatric hospitals typically do not use reliable and valid clinical instruments when recording behavioral observations. This could be attributable to these instruments being perceived as too complicated and time consuming to routinely administer. The goal of the present study was to examine if a briefer version of the 30 item Nurses' Observation for Inpatient Evaluation (NOSIE); could be developed without compromising the reliability and the factorial validity of the scale. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed with a combined sample of 67 persons (with 4,973 total numbers of observations) from two settings, by randomly assigning participant observations to either phase one (full-scale model, 30-item NOSIE) or to phase two (reduced-scale model, 12-item NOSIE). The results indicated that the reduced 12-item model with the correlated latent structures appears to be the best representation of the observed data. The potential clinical usefulness of a reduced item model of the NOSIE is discussed in light of these results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children’s response to adult disgust elicitors: Development and acquisition.

Little is known about when or how different disgust elicitors are acquired. In Study 1, parents of children (0–18 years old) rated how their child would react to 22 disgust elicitors. Different developmental patterns were identified for core, animal, and sociomoral elicitors, with core elicitors emerging first. In Study 2, children (2–16 years old) were exposed alone and then with their parent to a range of elicitors derived from Study 1. Self-report, behavioral, and facial expression data were obtained along with measures of contagion, conservation, and contamination. Convergent evidence supported the developmental patterns reported in Study 1. Evidence for parent–child transmission was also observed, with parents of young children emoting more disgust to their offspring and showing greater behavioral avoidance. Moreover, child reactivity to animal and sociomoral elicitors and contamination correlated with parental responsiveness. Finally, young children who failed to demonstrate contagion and conservation knowledge were as reactive to core elicitors and contamination as children of the same age who demonstrated such knowledge. These findings are interpreted within an evolutionary framework in which core disgust responses are acquired early to promote avoidance of pathogens. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stable and noniterative bidirectional beam propagation method

We present a family of bidirectional beam propagation methods based on the application of Pade approximants to the square-root expressions appearing in the transition operator. We show that the numerical instability associated with the use of real Pade primes can be removed by using branch-cut rotation of the square-root operator     

Characterization of hyperbranched polyol polyesters based on 2,2‐bis (methylol propionic acid) and pentaerythritol

Hyperbranched polyesters (HBPs) of fourth and fifth generation were synthesized by procedures involving one step (HBP4, HBP5), step by step (HBP4P, HBP5P), and combination of both of them (HBP1‐4, HBP1‐5) using 2,2‐bis(methylol)propionic acid (DMPA), pentaerythritol (PE), and acid catalysis. The characterization of the polyesters was done by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), rheology on solution, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and acid and hydroxyl values. The degree of branching of polyesters (DB) and the average molecular mass and polymerization degree _NMR were calculated by Frey and Fréchet methods and (DP)_NMR, respectively, being higher for HBP4P sample. The molecular structure of polyesters depends mainly on of the synthesis method. The hydroxyl values were larger than 430 mg/g KOH for all HBPs, and the conversion was controlled between 90 and 93% to avoid excessive cyclization reactions. The steady shear viscosities at different temperatures and at 41.77 s^?1 shear rate were measured for all HBPs solutions in dimethyl formamide (DMF) showing a shear thickening behavior. The flow activation energies (E_a) were calculated by Arrhenius equation. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Electrochemical behaviour and antioxidant capacity of anthocyanins from Chilean red wine,grape and raspberry

The anthocyanin fractions were extracted from Cabernet Sauvignon red wine, skins of Vitis vinifera grapes and raspberry fruits (Rubus idaeus). In red wine extract, 16 anthocyanins were identified, malvidin-3-O-glucoside being the main anthocyanin, which comprised 53.6% of the total anthocyanin in grape extract. Raspberry extract contained mainly delphinidin-3-O-glucoside and cyanidin-3-O-glucoside. The antioxidant capacity of the extracts was assayed by electrochemical methods. Best resolution of the oxidation peaks for the extracts and diluted wine was obtained by pulse differential voltammetry. The wine diluted 20× presented values of P1 (443 mV) and P2 (676 mV) similar to those corresponding to wine extract, and to the anthocyanin malvidin-3-O-glucoside. The antioxidant capacity of anthocyanins in extracts of wine, grape skin and raspberry fruit was also determined by the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) method.     

MoDALAS: addressing assurance for learning-enabled autonomous systems in the face of uncertainty

Software and Systems Modeling - Increasingly, safety-critical systems include artificial intelligence and machine learning components (i.e., learning-enabled components (LECs)). However, when...     

Melt grafting of glycidyl methacrylate onto polypropylene and reactive compatibilization of rubber toughened polypropylene

Free radical melt grafting of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) onto polypropylene (PP) was studied. The extent of GMA grafting and the molecular weight of the functionalized PP copolymers were controlled by carefully manipulating various reaction factors, such as monomer concentration, initiator concentration, reaction temperature, and molecular weight of the starting PP homopolymer. The use of a second monomer, styrene, in the grafting process helped to increase GMA grafting further and reduce chain scission. The GMA modified PP copolymer was found to be able to reactively compatibilize PP/acrylonitrile-co-butadiene-co-acrylic acid rubber (NBR) blends. Up to an eight-fold increase in the impact energy of the PP/NBR blend was obtained. The compatibilizing capacities of the reactive copolymers, in terms of impact energy improvement of the PP/NBR blend, were found not to be exclusively dependent on the total concentration of reactive functionalities in the matrix of the blend. The characteristics of the reactive copolymers, i.e., the extent of functionalization and the molecular weight, were found to have significant influences on the compatibilizing capacity. A large amount of moderately functionalized copolymer offers better compatibilization performance than a small amount of highly functionalized copolymer. A significant drop in impact energy was observed with declining molecular weight of the copolymer.     

采用MEMS技术高选择性、电子调谐式低温滤波器

描述了一种使用HTS/AuMEMS 开关电容器阵的低插损电子调谐式滤波器。同步将每个谐振器的电容值以相同变化量变化,两极滤波器就得到调谐。单极谐振器在3500～5000之间的K 系数得到了证明。在77K 平均Q 值为7000 时的总调谐范围大约为25%。