Constructing a short form of the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire with adolescents and young adults.

The goal of the present studies was to construct and validate a short form of the 50-item Smoking Consequences Questionnaire (SCQ; T. H. Brandon & T. B. Baker, 1991), a measure of smoking outcome expectancies. In Study 1, a 21-item short form (S-SCQ) was derived from a sample of 107 young adults previously treated for substance abuse. In Study 2, the measure was cross-validated on 125 adolescents in treatment for substance abuse. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed good model fit and factorial invariance for the 4 S-SCQ subscales across both samples. Validation analyses on each sample found that subscale scores generally correlated significantly with smoking-related variables. The present studies provide initial evidence for the utility of the S-SCQ when used with young adults and adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A simple correlation for gas bubbles rising in power‐law fluids

Recently, the author (Rodrigue, 2001 a, b) proposed a generalized correlation for the steady rise of gas bubbles in uncontaminated viscous Newtonian fluids of infinite extent. It is the purpose of this note to show that this model can be modified for inelastic non‐Newtonian power‐law fluids. Using data taken from six different studies, it is shown that the modified model can predict quite nicely the bubble velocity for these non‐Newtonian inelastic fluids.     

A C-terminal region of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae transcription factor ADR1 plays an important role in the regulation of peroxisome proliferation by fatty acids

We examined the hypoxic tolerance phenomenon in vitro. Brief exposure to hypoxia induced the production of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) mRNA and protein in rat cortical neurons and protected them from hypoxic injury. Cortical neurons were cultured from 18th-day rat embryos in a serum-free medium and subjected to brief (4 h) and/or prolonged (24 h) hypoxia. Neuronal damage was assessed by quantifying lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity in the medium. After brief hypoxia, LDH release was identical to that of the controls, whereas prolonged hypoxia caused a significant increase in LDH release, indicating neuronal death. However, if brief hypoxia was applied 2 days prior to the prolonged hypoxia, no increase in LDH release was observed. The bFGF mRNA expression was assessed with Northern blot and protein immunoreactivity with Western blot analysis. The brief period of hypoxia caused a 2.5-fold increase in bFGF mRNA and considerable bFGF protein expression 1 day later, but prolonged hypoxia caused increase in the expression of bFGF mRNA at 2 days and no protein expression until 3 days after the start of the hypoxia. When cells were subjected to prolonged hypoxia 2 days after brief hypoxia, however, no increase in bFGF mRNA was observed, while bFGF protein was expressed continuously. We also observed that exogenously applied bFGF reduced neuronal injury produced by prolonged hypoxia. The results obtained with this model suggest that brief hypoxia induces bFGF protein and thus tolerance to subsequent lethal hypoxia. Basic FGF might play a role as a tolerance-associated factor in this process. Thus, an in vitro model is useful for assessing the response of cortical neurons to hypoxic stress and for researching new factors related to ischemic tolerance.     

A dynamic integration algorithm to model surfaces from multiple range views

This paper presents a dynamic integration algorithm to triangulate a surface from multiple range views. This integration technique is based on the reparameterization of the canonic subsets of the Venn diagram of the set of range views. We compute a model based onN views from a model based onN–1 views by processing only the surface segments visible in theN ^th view. An experimental result shows that the proposed integration algorithm can process complex multipart objects containing holes.     

A new family of sugar-inducible expression vectors for Escherichia coli

A set of 11 expression vectors was constructed, each of themharbouring a cloning cassette under the control of the promoter.Some of these vectors enable expression of foreign proteinsin the cytoplasm, while others include a synthetic sequencecoding for a very efficient secretion signal sequence. Otherfeatures are an fl origin of replication (in plus or minus orientation)and a promoter^up mutation that enhances the already very highlevel of expression from these vectors. With such a versatilevector family, cloning, sequencing and sitedirected mutagenesiscan be performed on the same vector, and the level of expressioncan be defined according to the specific constraints of a givenprotein.     

Psychologists, Congress, and public policy.

As professional psychologists become increasingly involved in shaping health care policy in our nation, it is imperative that they understand the various forces that influence congressional members to enact legislation. This article examines two major issues: (a) Congress's cautious and restrained approach to health care policy and (b) preemption and the relationship between Congress and the states. Understanding these issues will enable psychologists to become more effective representatives of both the professional and societal interests of professional psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive science: Making the whole different from the sum of its parts.

Reviews the book, From models to modules: Studies in cognitive science from the McGill workshops edited by I. Gopnik and M. Gopnik (1986). This book is only moderately successful in conveying the exciting advances that are beginning to appear as a result of the interdisciplinary efforts in cognitive science. The book's emphasis on language processes and linguistics will seriously limit its potential readership, although there are some contributions from outside that domain. Moreover, many of the chapters were not prepared with a general audience in mind, and to appreciate a number of the chapters fully the reader must have a strong linguistic background. A more severe problem is that the chapters are based on a series of workshops held at McGill University in 1982 and 1983. The sad consequences are that (a) the book is badly out of date (few references are more recent than 1983), (b) most of the contributions were not original but were based on ideas and results that were or were about to be in print at the time the workshops were held, and (c) many of the chapters are so short that they do not provide adequate depth of coverage. At this late date, the value of the book may be as a summary of a few of the early issues and methodologies that have captured the attention of cognitive scientists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

IDENTIFICATION OF NITROGEN COMPOUNDS AND THEIR EVOLUTIONDURINGAGEING NABSENCE ANDPRESENCE OF ADDITIVES EFFICIENCYOFHYDROTREATMENT

As established by several previous works, nitrogen compounds play a prominent role in the evolution of middle distillates containing cracked components, particularly regarding sediment formation and color evolution.

In a first part, this paper describes and compares stability properties of fuel blends using both an accelerated ageing method at 120°C (248°F ) and long term storage methods at 43°C(110°F) -ASTM 0 4625 - and at ambient temperature. Effectiveness of stabilizing additives is also evaluated. In mixtures containing LCOs, insoluble products are formed progressively during ageings, more or less rapidly according to the chemical constitution of the mixtures.

Then, it reports the complete identification of nitrogen compounds using gas chromatography equipped with a selective nitrogen detector and mass spectrometry showing that in light cycle oils, alkyl indoles and carbazoles are the main families.

Evolution of these compounds was followed kinetically during ageings in absence and presence of additives and alkyl indoles appeared as the moat evolutionary.

It appeared that some additives avoided evolutions of alkyl indoles without preventing sediment formation and color evolution. Oxidation mechanism involving nitrogen compounds should not be the only one to explain the storage evolutions of middle distillates.

Hydrotreatment converts all the alkyl indoles of LCO and prevents coloration end deposits in the storage of the mixtures of steaight-run distillates and LCOs.     

XML schema, tree logic and sheaves automata

XML documents may be roughly described as unranked, ordered trees and it is therefore natural to use tree automata to process or validate them. This idea has already been successfully applied in the context of Document Type Definition (DTD), the simplest standard for defining document validity, but additional work is needed to take into account XML Schema, a more advanced standard, for which regular tree automata are not satisfactory. In this paper, we introduce Sheaves Logic (SL), a new tree logic that extends the syntax of the – recursion-free fragment of – W3C XML Schema Definition Language (WXS). Then, we define a new class of automata for unranked trees that provides decision procedures for the basic questions about SL: model-checking; satisfiability; entailment. The same class of automata is also used to answer basic questions about WXS, including recursive schemas: decidability of type-checking documents; testing the emptiness of schemas; testing that a schema subsumes another one.This work was partially supported by the French government research grant ACI TRALALA and by IST Global Computing Profundis.