The severity of drunken driving as perceived by drunken drivers

Men convicted of drunken driving rated this particular offence as significantly less serious than men from a control group who had no convictions for drunken driving offences. Instead of shame and guilt feelings preventing the person from committing further acts of drunken driving, prosecution and court appearance seems to have a detrimental effect on the offender's attitudes to this type of criminal behaviour.     

Ferroelectric ceramics for information storage and display

The electrooptic properties of hot-pressed lead zirconate titanate ceramics and their applications are reviewed. Coarse-grained, bismuth-doped ceramics with average grain size greater than 2 ?m have light scattering properties that can be varied by switching the orientation of the ferroelectric polarization. Fine-grained bismuth-or lanthanum-doped ceramics have an effective birefringence that can be varied either by applying an external electric field (conventional electrooptic effect) or by partially switching the remanent polarization (electrooptic memory effect). Ba, Sn, or La modifications of the lead zirconate titanate system produce materials with improved switching characteristics and electrooptic effects similar to those of fine-grained bismuth-or lanthanum-doped ceramics. Lanthanum modified lead zirconate titanate (PLZT) is significantly more transparent than other electrooptic ceramics. The PLZT system includes materials with electrooptic memory and either linear or quadratic electrooptic effects. The electrooptic properties of modified lead zirconate titanate ceramics, especially PLZT, combined with localized switching and modulation capabilities are particularly suitable for information storage and display devices.

     

Influence of some hypnotist and subject variables on hypnotic susceptibility.

Randomly assigned 48 21-56 yr. Old females to 1 of 4 groups given different information with regard to a hypnotist's warmth and experience. The 6 male graduate student hypnotists had previously been judged on their objective warmth and competent appearance. Following structuring, all ss underwent individual hypnotic induction. As predicted, ss run by the objectively warmer, more competent appearing es obtained significantly higher susceptibility scores. Structured warmth produced significant differences only in ss run by the objectively less warm es. Both structured warmth and experience affected ss' subjective impressions of whether they thought they had been hypnotized. The complex relationship between antecedent variables and the various objective and subjective dependent indicators of hypnotic phenomena are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electrical analogue for a partial differential equation

The electrical analogue provides a useful approach to the solution of Partial Differential Equations. A general purpose analogue for PDEs would be a useful peripheral for a small digital computer, enabling it to handle quickly, cheaply and with reasonable accuracy problems which otherwise require substantial computational time on large machines.In this paper the author discusses the design of an analogue for ?²U + U_x = 0, suitable for further extension as a computer controlled general analogue. It is shown that AC networks, using capacitors as passive elements, offer substantial advantages over other analogues. The use of buffer amplifiers at each node greatly simplifies the unilateral impedance problem, but introduces unidirectional error components. These errors are analysed, and specifications for suitable amplifiers are obtainedExperimental results on small (20 node, 90 node) models confirm the satisfactory performance of the analogue, and the author predicts that large scale (> 900 nodes) models will yield results accurate to better than 99.9%, with less than 100 ms settling times     

Factorial validity of the CNSE..

A number of shortcomings have been noted in factorial studies of the Child Nowicki-Strickland Internal–External (CNS–IE) scale. Using different computational procedures, factor analysis of the CNS–IE responses of 2 independent samples of British schoolchildren (N?=?188; mean age 14.85 yrs) produced a factor that correlated significantly better with socialization than the total scale score. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the factorial validity of the CNS–IE scale and the utility of locus of control subscales. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Salmonella carriage in an Irish pig herd: correlation between serological and bacteriological detection methods

Salmonella carriage in pigs represents a serious health problem that undoubtedly contributes to the spread of human disease. Thus, the efficient and reliable testing of farm animals for bacteria such as Salmonella is an important aspect of any efficient control strategy. Serological analysis of 15 meat juice samples detected antibodies against Salmonella in some. but not all, of the animals identified bacteriologically as harboring the pathogen, indicating a lack of correlation between the bacteriological and serological methods used for Salmonella detection. The results suggest that testing by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay is appropriate at the herd level, with culture methods preferable for individual animal analysis. A novel culture protocol detected Salmonella in the cecal contents of 15 pigs, whereas a method based on the European Standard identified only 9 pigs as being Salmonella-positive. During the study, an unusual finding was the relatively high incidence of Salmonella London carriage in the pigs tested.     

Feature ranking and best feature subset using mutual information

A new algorithm for ranking the input features and obtaining the best feature subset is developed and illustrated in this paper. The asymptotic formula for mutual information and the expectation maximisation (EM) algorithm are used to developing the feature selection algorithm in this paper. We not only consider the dependence between the features and the class, but also measure the dependence among the features. Even for noisy data, this algorithm still works well. An empirical study is carried out in order to compare the proposed algorithm with the current existing algorithms. The proposed algorithm is illustrated by application to a variety of problems.     

Hexachlorocyclohexanes in the North American atmosphere

Annually integrated air concentrations of alpha- and gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) were determined in 2000/2001 at 40 stations across North America using XAD-based passive air samplers to understand atmospheric distribution processes on a continental scale. Elevated levels of gamma-HCH in the atmosphere of the Canadian Prairies are consistent with the ongoing use of lindane as a seed treatment on canola and confirm the feasibility of detecting the agricultural use of a pesticide using long-term integrated passive air sampling. In contrast to gamma-HCH, the atmospheric concentrations of alpha-HCH show a rather uniform distribution across Canada and the United States, which is expected for a chemical with no current use on the continent. Higher levels in the atmosphere over Atlantic Canada can be explained by alpha-HCH evaporating from the waters of the Labrador Current, which is supported bythe chiral composition of alpha-HCH and the temperature dependence of its atmospheric concentrations along the east coast of Canada. Similarly, alpha-HCH is volatilizing from Lake Superior. Atmospheric HCH levels increase with elevation in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The results suggest that evaporation, in particular from cold water bodies, is an important source of alpha-HCH to the North American atmosphere. Low levels of HCHs in Central America hint at efficient degradation under tropical conditions. Chiral analysis shows that (+)-alpha-HCH is often enriched in air over continental areas and at the Pacific Coast, which is opposite to the enantiomeric enrichment in the proximity to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean. Passive air sampling is a powerful tool to discern the large-scale variability of semivolatile and persistent organic chemicals in the atmosphere.