The writing performance of inverted and noninverted right- and left-handers.

Compared the writing performance of 33 inverted and 37 noninverted left-handed and right-handed writers (undergraduates). Inverted writers wrote as quickly and as well as noninverted writers when writing with the preferred writing posture but were superior to the latter group when performances with the nonpreferred posture were compared. There was no evidence that left-handers with either writing position were faster with the nonpreferred hand, in direct contradiction to R. Gregory and J. Paul's (see record 1981-11652-001) frequently cited claim that inverted left-handers write faster with the nonpreferred hand. Findings are also related to the J. Levy and M. L. Reid (see record 1977-05149-001) model of writing posture and cerebral organization. Results question attempts by educators to discourage use of the inverted writing posture. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Symbolic control of visual attention: The role of working memory and attentional control settings.

This study examined how 1 symbol is selected to control the allocation of attention when several symbols appear in the visual field. In Experiments 1-3, the critical target feature was color, and it was found that uninformative central arrows that matched the color of the target were selected and produced unintentional shifts of attention (i.e., involuntary, initiated slowly, producing long-lasting facilitatory effects). Experiment 4 tested whether such selection is the result of an attentional filter or of a competition bias due to a match of incoming information against integrated object representations stored in working memory. Here, the critical feature was shape and color was irrelevant, but matching color arrows were still selected. Thus, features of objects in working memory will bias the selection of symbols in the visual field, and such selected symbols are capable of producing unintentional shifts of attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance as a function of increased minority hiring.

Examined the impact of increasing the percentage of hires (above the T. A. Cleary [1968] fair-hiring level) from minority groups with demonstrated lower average job performance. Increased minority hiring resulted in only a small performance loss, even when minority hiring exceeded the minority applicant representation. However, when minorities were hired at a rate equal to or greater than their applicant representation, the expected performance loss among the hired minorities was much greater than performance loss across all hires. More important, the discrepancy in performance between majority and minority hires increased as minority hiring increased. With minority hiring above the level of minority applicant representation, this discrepancy exceeded the population difference in performance between the 2 groups. These findings suggest additional considerations when raising minority hiring above minority applicant representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Health insurance status and the use of emergency and other outpatient services by adults with sickle cell disease

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To evaluate insurance status and frequency of use of emergency services in adults with sickle cell disease. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of visits. SETTING: Emergency department and outpatient clinics of an urban university hospital. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred seventy-two subjects, who made 771 visits to the ED during 1990. RESULTS: Of the 172 subjects, 31 were covered by commercial insurance, 32 were covered by Medicare, and 109 were covered by Medicaid or were uninsured. Insurance status and frequency of use of emergency services were independent (P > .05). On discriminant analysis, Medicaid-covered and uninsured subjects were correctly classified, but commercially insured and Medicare subjects were not. Medicaid and uninsured subjects were more likely to be younger and to live closer to the hospital (P < .00005). High-frequency users of emergency services were discriminated from low-frequency users. High-frequency users were more likely to be younger, to be users of primary-care services, and to live closer to the hospital (P = .0004). CONCLUSION: Provision of primary-care services or stable insurance in the form of commercial insurance or Medicare did not decrease use of emergency services in subjects with sickle cell disease in a group of patients selected from one urban academic ED.     

Single nucleotide polymorphism data analysis - State-of-the-art review on this emerging field from a signal processing viewpoint

The basic structural units of the genome are nucleotides. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is a mutation at a single nucleotide position. This paper discusses several major problems in SNP data analysis and review some existing solutions in this work. Generally speaking, a rich set of SNP analysis problems are cast in the signal processing framework. Our objective is to offer a state-of-the art review on this topic from a signal processing viewpoint so that researchers in the signal processing field can grasp the important domain knowledge to overcome the barrier between the two fields     

Geographic constraints on passive solar domestic hot water systems due to pipe freezing

The supply and return piping of passive solar domestic hot water systems (SDHWS) is typically exposed to ambient weather conditions, and damaging pipe freeze is a major concern. This paper presents a pipe-freeze model that accounts for hot water draws and uses 30 years of actual weather data. The simulation results are cast in terms of pipe-freeze probabilities. Using contour maps of the continental United States, the pipe-freeze probabilities for residential, commercial, and seasonal passive SDHWS are presented for various pipe and insulation geometries.     

The polymerization of alkyl substituted acetylenes using metal halide based initiators: The bulky substituent effect

Summary The polymerization of 1-hexyne, 3,3-dimethyl-1-butyne, 2-hexyne and 1-chloro-1-hexyne by using metal halide based initiators was studied. By analogy with ionic ring opening polymerization systems, living acetylene polymerizations resulted when backbiting and interchain reactions were suppressed, i.e., k_tr, k_t=0. Large acetylenic substituents suppress the formation of cis-cisoidal propagating chains and subsequently eliminate backbiting reactions and also propagating carbene interchain reactions. Possible explanations for differences in polymer dispersities which result under different reaction conditions were also provided.     

Mechanisms of resistance in a human cell line exposed to sequential topoisomerase poisoning

Camptothecins are a new class of anticancer drugs that target DNA topoisomerase I; current efforts are directed toward elucidating optimal combinations of these drugs with other antineoplastic agents. A rationale for the use of sequential therapy involving the combination of camptothecins with topoisomerase II-targeting drugs, such as etoposide, has arisen from observations of increased topoisomerase II protein levels in cell lines resistant to camptothecin. In an effort to understand potential mechanisms of resistance to this strategy, we developed a U-937 cell subline, denoted RERC, that is capable of surviving exposure to sequential topoisomerase poisoning. The RERC cells are 200-fold resistant to camptothecin, 8-fold resistant to etoposide, and 10-fold hypersensitive to cisplatin compared to the parental U-937 cells. Biochemical analyses indicate that the resistant phenotype involves alterations in both topoisomerase I and topoisomerase IIalpha. Topoisomerase I catalytic activity in the resistant cells is similar to that of the parental line but is resistant to camptothecin. Moreover, the resistant cells express a single mRNA species of topoisomerase I that codes for a mutation in codon 533. In addition, topoisomerase IIalpha protein levels are decreased 10-fold in the resistant line, coincident with a two-fold decrease in the expression of topoisomerase IIalpha mRNA. Collectively, these results indicate that resistance to sequential topoisomerase poisoning may involve a reduction in total cellular topoisomerase activity.     

The Michigan benchmark: towards XML query performance diagnostics

We propose a micro-benchmark for XML data management to aid engineers in designing improved XML processing engines. This benchmark is inherently different from application-level benchmarks, which are designed to help users choose between alternative products. We primarily attempt to capture the rich variety of data structures and distributions possible in XML, and to isolate their effects, without imitating any particular application. The benchmark specifies a single data set against which carefully specified queries can be used to evaluate system performance for XML data with various characteristics.