The Progress Evaluation Scales: A system for assessing child and adolescent programs.

Presents the theoretical basis for selecting the Progress Evaluation Scale (PES) domains; describes the scales and their underlying dimensions; and summarizes the evidence for their generalizability, validity, and usefulness when applied to the assessment of programs for children and adolescents. The PES can be used to assess entry status; establish treatment goals; and measure outcome of various aspects of personal, social, and community adjustment. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological assessment of sexually abused children for legal evaluation and expert witness testimony.

This article presents the theory and practice behind the psychological assessment of sexually abused children using the posttraumatic stress disorder subcategories for abused children. Measurement of cognitive disturbances including intrusive recollections of the trauma, affective disturbances by simultaneously experienced high arousal and high avoidance symptoms, and observable behavioral changes are described, and practical approaches including case examples are presented. Included in this article is a discussion about the different standards of legal proof that psychologists must meet in the various kinds of child sexual abuse cases that they might be called upon to consult. Psychologists need to know basic child development and have the assessment skills to measure it as well as specialized training in the field of child abuse to avoid the perils of becoming overinvolved in these emotional cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between psychosocial adjustment and perception of maternal attitudes.

Divided a sample of 26 adult male hemophiliacs into 2 groups on the basis of their psychosocial adjustment. The poorly adjusted group rated their mothers as significantly higher in tendencies toward dominating overprotecting, and ignoring their children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hyperspectral remote sensing of cyanobacteria in turbid productive water using optically active pigments,chlorophyll a and phycocyanin

Nuisance blue-green algal blooms contribute to aesthetic degradation of water resources by means of accelerated eutrophication, taste and odor problems, and the production of toxins that can have serious adverse human health effects. Current field-based methods for detecting blooms are costly and time consuming, delaying management decisions. Methods have been developed for estimating phycocyanin concentration, the accessory pigment unique to freshwater blue-green algae, in productive inland water. By employing the known optical properties of phycocyanin, researchers have evaluated the utility of field-collected spectral response patterns for determining concentrations of phycocyanin pigments and ultimately blue-green algal abundance. The purpose of this research was to evaluate field spectroscopy as a rapid cyanobacteria bloom assessment method. In-situ field reflectance spectra were collected at 54 sampling sites on two turbid reservoirs on September 6th and 7th in Indianapolis, Indiana using ASD Fieldspec (UV/VNIR) spectroradiometers. Surface water samples were analyzed for in-vitro pigment concentrations and other physical and chemical water quality parameters. Semi-empirical algorithms by Simis et al. [Simis, S., Peters, S., Gons, H. (2005). Remote sensing of the cyanobacterial pigment phycocyanin in turbid inland water. American Society of Limnology and Oceanography 50(11): 237–245] were applied to the field spectra to predict chlorophyll a and phycocyanin absorption at 665 nm and 620 nm, respectively. For estimation of phycocyanin concentration, a specific absorption coefficient of 0.0070 m² mg PC^-1 for phycocyanin at 620 nm, a_PC^?(620), was employed, yielding an r² value of 0.85 (n = 48, p < 0.0001), mean relative residual value of 0.51 (σ = 1.41) and root mean square error (RMSE) of 19.54 ppb. Results suggest this algorithm could be a robust model for estimating phycocyanin. Error is highest in water with phycocyanin concentrations of less than 10 ppb and where phycocyanin abundance is low relative to chlorophyll a. A strong correlation between measured phycocyanin concentrations and biovolume measurements of cyanobacteria was also observed (r = 0.89), while a weaker relationship (r = 0.66) resulted between chlorophyll a concentration and cyanobacterial biovolume.     

Remote Estimation of Nutrients for a Drinking Water Source Through Adaptive Modeling

Morse Reservoir, a major water supply for the Indianapolis metropolitan area, IN, USA, experiences nuisance cyanobacterial blooms due to agricultural and point source nutrient loadings. Hyperspectral remote sensing data from both in situ and airborne AISA measurements were applied to an adaptive model based on Genetic Algorithms-Partial Least Squares (GA-PLS) by relating the spectral signal with total nitrogen (TN) and phosphorus (TP) concentrations. Results indicate that GA-PLS relating in situ spectral reflectance to the nutrients yielded high coefficients of determination (TN: R ²?=?0.88; TP: R ²?=?0.91) between measured and estimated TN (RMSE?=?0.07 mg/L; Range: 0.6–1.88 mg/L), and TP (RMSE?=?0.017; Range: 0.023–0.314 mg/L). The GA-PLS model also yielded high performance with AISA imaging data, showing close correlation between measured and estimated values (TN: RMSE?=?0.11 mg/L; TP: RMSE?=?0.02 mg/L). An analysis of in situ data indicated that TN and TP were highly correlated with chlorophyll-a and suspended matter in the water column, setting a basis for remotely sensed estimates of TN and TP. Spatial correlation of TN, TP with chlorophyll-a and suspended matters further confirmed that remote quantification of nutrients for inland waters is based on the strong association of optically active constituents with nutrients. Based on these results, in situ and airborne hyperspectral remote sensors can provide both quantitative and qualitative information on the distribution and concentration of nutrients in Morse Reservoir. Our modeling approach combined with hyperspectral remote sensing is applicable to other productive waters, where algal blooms are triggered by nutrients.     

Approximation Algorithms for the Class Cover Problem

We introduce the class cover problem, a variant of disk cover with forbidden regions, with applications to classification and facility location problems. We prove similar hardness results to disk cover. We then present a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for class cover that performs within a ln?n+1 factor of optimal, which is nearly tight under standard hardness assumptions. In the special case that the points lie in a d-dimensional space with Euclidean norm, for some fixed constant d, we obtain a polynomial time approximation scheme.     

Abstracts

Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society -