Handover signalling for microcellular environments

A new strategy for routing handover signalling in microcellular environments is proposed. Simulation results show that time delay for handover packets travelling across the fixed network could be reduced by diverting the signalling through the air interface between the serving and the candidate base station (BS)     

Feedback Specificity, Learning Opportunities, and Learning.

Although increasing feedback specificity is generally beneficial for immediate performance, it can undermine certain aspects of the learning needed for later, more independent performance. The results of the present transfer experiment demonstrate that the effects of increasing feedback specificity on learning depended on what was to be learned, and these effects were partially mediated through the opportunities to learn how to respond to different task conditions during practice. More specific feedback was beneficial for learning how to respond to good performance and detrimental for learning how to respond to poor performance. The former relationship was partially mediated by feedback specificity's effect on learning opportunities during practice. The results have implications for designing feedback interventions and training to maximize the learning of various aspects of a task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Computer graphics tools for radiation treatment planning

The objective of radiation therapy treatment is to eradicate a cancerous tumor while keeping the damage to nearby healthy organs to a minimum. A variety of tools employing computer graphics exist to aid in the planning and verification of treatments. Three-dimensional (3D) image information available from sources such as computerized tomography (CT) scanners is used to define the sizes, shapes, and spatial locations of the tumor and normal structures in the form of transverse contours. These object definitions are displayed in 3D perspective to enable the determination of the best possible directions from which to aim radiation beams at the tumor. The beams may be shaped to match the outline of the tumor, and their intensities may be modified using compensating devices. The results of calculations done to predict the distribution of radiation dose throughout the body due to a given set-up of beams can be displayed to the user in many ways. Dose may be shown in the form of isodose contours overlaid on transverse CT images, or on reconstructed image planes of arbitrary orientation in space. There are also a number of methods of 3D display; dose can be shown on the surface of objects, or in the form of isodose surfaces relative to anatomical structures. Computer-generated beam film images may be used to verify patient set-up and tumor coverage.     

Unsteady combustion of solid propellants subject to dynamic external radiant heating

A theoretical and experimental investigation is conducted on the effect of a dynamic external radiant heat flux on the combustion of energetic materials. These studies have illustrated the need for including the effect of the mean radiant heat flux and in-depth absorption. Also, a method for obtaining the linear frequency response function over a range of frequencies from a single test using series of radiant pulses is demonstrated. Experimental results have been obtained for an AP/HTPB propellant.Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Published in Fizika Goreniya i Vzryva, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 31–36, May–June, 1993.     

"Mental Health" reconsidered: A special case of the problem of values in psychology.

"If we understand 'mental health' not as an unsatisfactory and vague theoretical concept but as a reasonably adequate rubric or label for an evaluative psychological perspective on personality… we can go about our business without wasting our efforts on the search for concensus on a unique set of mental health criteria when concensus is not to be had… . What is to be avoided is the surreptitious advocacy of values disguised under presumptive scientific auspices. The lists of psychological desiderata that psychologists have continued to propose, each reflecting the value commitments of its proponent, have this drawback." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2IR99S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training in projective testing: Survey of clinical training directors and internship directors.

Eighty-nine percent of directors of doctoral programs in clinical psychology accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA) and 84% of directors of APA-accredited internships responded to similar surveys on expectations, attitudes, and practices in the instruction of projective techniques. Directors of internship programs appeared to value projective techniques more than did directors of doctoral programs, and they expected students to have more experience with these techniques than is typically provided in doctoral programs. The two groups also differed significantly in where they believed the responsibility for correcting this imbalance should lie. In addition, 15% of directors of doctoral programs did not believe that training in projective techniques should be required, whereas only 4% of directors of internship programs expressed this view. This study documents the disparity between the average amount of training in projectives provided to students in doctoral programs and the proficiency expected of those students in their internships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of discrete emotions on young children's ability to discern fantasy and reality.

This study examined 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 128; 54% girls) ability to discriminate emotional fantasy and reality. Children viewed images depicting fantastic or real events that elicited several emotions, reported whether each event could occur, and rated their emotional reaction to the image. Children were also administered the Play Behavior Questionnaire and Pretend Action Tasks to assess play behaviors. Findings revealed age-related improvements in performance and biases in judgment based on the emotion depicted. Children reported that happy fantastic events could occur significantly more often than frightening and angry fantastic events and that happy real events could occur significantly more often than frightening and angry real events. Children's emotional reactions to the images but not play behaviors were significantly related to their fantasy-reality distinctions. Implications for the relation between emotions and children's fantasy-reality distinctions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on "The case of William McDougall."

Agrees that R. A. Jones's (see record 1988-03145-001) account of W. McDougall's decline and fall in the field of psychology in terms of the elaboration-likelihood model of R. E. Petty and J. T. Caciappo (1986) is plausible. However, McDougall's negative image surely had more important sources than the mass media. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)