Outcome of different treatment mixes in a multidimensional neuropsychological rehabilitation program.

Within a clinical demonstration program, 59 traumatically brain-injured patients were treated with 1 of 3 mixes of treatment. Mix 1 included cognitive remediation (CGR), small-group interpersonal (SGI) communication training, therapeutic community activities, and personal counseling. Mix 2 was similar to Mix 1 but stressed SGI exercises and eliminated CGR. Mix 3 emphasized CGR and eliminated SGI exercises. The efficacy of the treatment mixes was evaluated with performance on neuropsychological tests, improved independence in functional activities, measures of intra- and interpersonal functioning, and vocational outcome. Ss' participation in the program, irrespective of treatment mix, yielded improvements in (1) self-image, (2) quality of interpersonal relatedness and interaction, (3) involvement with others in naturalistic settings, and (4) vocational outcome. Overall, data point to the superiority of the balanced mix (Mix 1) over Mixes 2 and 3. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Solving educational problems: Working across institutional, cultural and political differences.

The resources of various settings located in one geographic area of a state were linked in an attempt to resolve educational problems. Using the concept of collegium as the mechanism for working together, the assumptions governing these efforts are presented, rationale for successes and failures are discussed, and suggestions are made on how such undertakings may relate to the field of school psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of temperature on methyl radical generation over Sr/La2O3 catalysts

The role of gas phase CH₃ radicals in the oxidative coupling of CH₄ over 1 wt% Sr/La₂O₃ is supported by the observations that (i) this is a very effective catalyst for the generation of CH₃ · radicals and (ii) the concentration of CH₃ · radicals increases with temperature over the range of 450 °C–800 °C.     

Can being scared cause tummy aches? Naive theories, ambiguous evidence, and preschoolers' causal inferences.

Causal learning requires integrating constraints provided by domain-specific theories with domain-general statistical learning. In order to investigate the interaction between these factors, the authors presented preschoolers with stories pitting their existing theories against statistical evidence. Each child heard 2 stories in which 2 candidate causes co-occurred with an effect. Evidence was presented in the form: AB→E; CA→E; AD→E; and so forth. In 1 story, all variables came from the same domain; in the other, the recurring candidate cause, A, came from a different domain (A was a psychological cause of a biological effect). After receiving this statistical evidence, children were asked to identify the cause of the effect on a new trial. Consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian model, all children were more likely to identify A as the cause within domains than across domains. Whereas 3.5-year-olds learned only from the within-domain evidence, 4- and 5-year-olds learned from the cross-domain evidence and were able to transfer their new expectations about psychosomatic causality to a novel task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aspects of three-dimensional constrained Delaunay meshing

Presented in this paper are the theoretical aspects of node addition to a non-convex, multiboundary mesh of tetrahedral elements as used in finite element modelling. The method used is derived from Watson¹ and Shenton and Cendes² and is extended to deal with node addition on inter-material boundaries. Several situations are identified that result in an illegal insertion polyhedron (IP), these could be caused by the ‘constrained’ nature of the mesh, adjacent objects with different material properties, or degenerate node configurations. A new Delaunay algorithm is described that checks for illegal cases of the IP and then corrects them, this checking relies on the consistent ordering of the element nodes. It is shown that a particular type of illegal IP can easily be identified and corrected using this technique. The Delaunay algorithm is then applied to automatic mesh generation, and modification to the basic Delaunay algorithm is described so that previously meshed edges and faces of the current object being meshed are not deleted during the addition of subsequent nodes. This ‘protection’ method only becomes viable by recognizing the node ordering sense of the IP faces.     

Bound for Minkowski metric or quadratic metric applied to VQcodeword search

A bound for a Minkowski metric based on L_p distortion measure is proposed and evaluated as a means to reduce the computation in vector quantisation. This bound provides a better criterion than the absolute error inequality (AEI) elimination rule on the Euclidean distortion measure. For the Minkowski metric of order n, this bound contributes the elimination criterion from the L₁ metric to L _n metric. This bound can also be an extended quadratic metric which can be a hidden Markov model (HMM) with a Gaussian mixture probability density function (PDF). In speech recognition, the HMM with the Gaussian mixture VQ codebook PDF has been shown to be a promising method     

Hindshaker, a novel myelin mutant showing hypomyelination preferentially affecting the spinal cord

Animals with spontaneous mutations affecting myelin formation have provided useful information about the genetic and cellular mechanisms regulating normal and abnormal myelination. In this paper we describe a novel murine mutation termed hindshaker (hsh), which is inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. Affected mice are characterised by a variable tremor of the hind end which commences at about 2 weeks of age and largely disappears in animals older than 6 weeks. There is hypomyelination affecting predominantly the spinal cord, although the optic nerves and brain are involved to a much lesser degree. The defect of thinly myelinated and naked axons is maximal at 20 days of age and largely resolves with time so that in the adult most axons are myelinated. The myelin structure appears normal and immunostains for the major proteins. Although the distribution of oligodendrocytes in the spinal cord is similar to normal during the period of hypomyelination, there are fewer mature cells. The hsh mutation appears to delay the maturation of oligodendrocytes, particularly in the spinal cord. Additionally, there is a considerable variation in phenotypic expression and in penetrance when the mutation is expressed on different genetic backgrounds, suggesting the hsh locus is subject to the influence of modifying gene(s). Identification of the hsh gene should identify a factor important in the development of oligodendrocytes, particularly those in the spinal cord.     

FORUM for International Cooperation on Fire Research

The FORUM for International Cooperation on Fire Research is an informal group of people committed to fire research and the application of fire-research results. Since it was formed in 1988, the FORUM has brought together organizational leaders who direct resources for fire research throughout the world. This article is reprinted from the Nordic Fire Safety Engineering Symposium, Development and Verification of Tools for Performance Codes, August 30–September 1, 1993, in Espoo, Finland.     

Multicluster,mobile, multimedia radio network

A multi-cluster, multi-hop packet radio network architecture for wireless adaptive mobile information systems is presented. The proposed network supports multimedia traffic and relies on both time division and code division access schemes. This radio network is not supported by a wired infrastructure as conventional cellular systems are. Thus, it can be instantly deployed in areas with no infrastructure at all. By using a distributed clustering algorithm, nodes are organized into clusters. The clusterheads act as local coordinators to resolve channel scheduling, perform power measurement/control, maintain time division frame synchronization, and enhance the spatial reuse of time slots and codes. Moreover, to guarantee bandwidth for real time traffic, the architecture supports virtual circuits and allocates bandwidth to circuits at call setup time. The network is scalable to large numbers of nodes, and can handle mobility. Simulation experiments evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme in static and mobile environments.This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation, ARPA/CSTO under Contract J-FBI-93-112 Computer Aided Design of High Performance Wireless Networked Systems.