The neighborhoods they live in: The effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes.

Provides a comprehensive review of research on the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent well-being. The 1st section reviews key methodological issues. The following section considers links between neighborhood characteristics and child outcomes and suggests the importance of high SES for achievement and low SES and residential instability for behavioral/emotional outcomes. The third section identifies 3 pathways (institutional resources, relationships, and norms/collective efficacy) through which neighborhoods might influence development, and which represent an extension of models identified by C. Jencks and S. Mayer (1990) and R. J. Sampson (1992). The models provide a theoretical base for studying neighborhood mechanisms and specify different levels (individual, family, school, peer, community) at which processes may operate. Implications for an emerging developmental framework for research on neighborhoods are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Satellite-based snow identification and its impact on monitoring photovoltaic systems

Earth observation allows the separation of snow cover and cloudiness using multispectral measurements. Several satellite-based snow monitoring services are available, ranging from regional to world-wide scales. Using these data enables photovoltaic (PV) plant management to differentiate between failures due to snow coverage on a PV system and other error sources. Additionally, yield estimates for solar siting are improved. This paper presents a validation study from January to April 2006 comparing satellite-based datasets with ground measurements from German and Swiss meteorological stations. A false alarm rate, an error due to irradiance underestimation, the availability of daily data, and the classification accuracy are introduced as quality metrics. Compared to Switzerland, generally a higher accuracy is found in all datasets for Southern Germany. The most significant difference among the datasets is found in the error pattern shifting from too much snow (which results in an error due to underestimation of irradiance) to too little snow detection, causing a false alarm in PV monitoring.Overall, the data records of the Land Surface Analysis Satellite Application Facility (LSA SAF), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS) are found to be most suitable for solar energy purposes. The IMS dataset has a low false alarm rate (4%) and a good data availability (100%) making it a good choice for power plant monitoring, but the error due to underestimation relevant in site auditing is large with 59%. If a cumulative snow cover algorithm is applied to achieve information every day as needed both for power plant monitoring and site auditing, both the DLR and the LSA SAF datasets are comparable with classification accuracies of 70%, false alarm rates of 37% and 34%, respectively, and errors due to irradiance underestimation in 26% and 27% of all coincidences.     

Development of a roadmap for advanced ceramics: 2010–2025

A roadmap for advanced ceramics for the period from 2010 to 2025 has been developed to provide guidelines for future investments for policy makers, scientists and industry alike. Based on questionnaires, interviews and a final workshop with well-balanced participation of members from industry and academia three roadmaps on application fields and two roadmaps on scientific areas have been developed and contrasted. The three application fields selected are: (i) electronics, information and communication; (ii) energy and environment; (iii) mechanical engineering and the two scientific fields are: (a) structural and functional properties; (b) process technology. Within these fields the tremendous growth opportunities for ceramics as an enabling technology are highlighted and manifold suggestions for future development are provided.     

Forgetting rates in modality memory for young, mid-life, and older women.

Administered a mixed-modality (visual and auditory) continuous recognition task, followed immediately by a final recognition test, to 16 women in each of 3 age groups (18–23 yrs, 38–50 yrs, and 60–74 yrs). Ss gave recognition responses for both the words and their presentation modality. Although older Ss remembered less information about input mode than did the 2 younger groups, the age decrement was not the result of faster forgetting of such information by the elderly. When a ceiling effect at the initial lag was taken into account, forgetting rates for both words and input mode were comparable across the adult life span. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs depends on current mood state.

In two studies we tested the hypothesis that endorsement of dysfunctional beliefs depends on current mood state for persons who are vulnerable to depression. The first study showed that reports of dysfunctional beliefs vary with spontaneous diurnal mood fluctuations in 47 depressed psychiatric patients. The effect of mood state was highly significant (p?     

Metamemory and attributions as mediators of strategy use and recall.

The process by which metamemory and academic causal attributions relate to recall was examined with hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Several alternative conceptualizations of metamemory were used: general metamemory unrelated to the specific task; task-specific metamemory; memory monitoring; and both general and task-specific attributions. In order to examine the additive benefits of strategy and monitoring instructions, 81 4th graders were assigned to 1 of 4 instructional conditions: Strategy Only, Process Monitoring Only, Strategy Plus Process Monitoring, or Practice-Control group. Regression analyses indicated that the relationships between metamemory and recall depended on how metamemory was assessed and on the timing of the child's engagement with the recall task. Whereas general metamemory was significantly related to recall on the posttest and near-transfer tasks, task-specific metamemory became more relevant for transfer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Taste response to mixtures: Analytic processing of quality.

The tastes of 100 mM sodium chloride (NaCl), 100 mM sucrose, and 1 mM quinine hydrochloride in mixtures were investigated in golden hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) with a conditioned taste aversion (CTA) paradigm. CTAs, established in golden hamsters by injection of lithium chloride, were quantified as percent suppression of control 1-hr stimulus intake. CTAs for 10 of 15 stimulus pairs with common components symmetrically cross-generalized, suggesting that component qualities were recognized in binary and ternary mixtures. However, CTAs to quinine were hardly learned and were weakly expressed when quinine was mixed with NaCl, and generalizations from multiple to single stimuli were stronger than vice versa (i.e., asymmetric). The behaviors reflect peripheral inhibition and/or central mixture suppression. Nonetheless, components retain their distinct qualities in mixtures, suggesting that taste processing is analytic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A multi-shock concept for spacecraft shielding

The results of an advanced spacecraft shielding program conducted at the NASA Johnson Space Center Hypervelocity Impact Research Laboratory (HIRL) are presented. The results include two new aspects of shielding design: the geometrical configuration and the type of material used for the shield. The geometrical configuration of the shield will be the prime focus of this paper due to its application over a large range of materials. The uniqueness of this concept is in the utilization of a multi-shock (MS) shielding technique where ultra-thin (t_s) spaced (ΔS), shield elements are used to repeatedly shock the impacting projectile (diameter d_p) to a high enough energy state to cause melting and vaporization at velocities which normally would not produce these results. Although the concept of multi-sheet shields has been proposed and tested many times (Christiansen, 1987; Gehring, 1970; Rajendra and Elfer, 1989; Richardson, 1970), the t_s/d_p ratio has always been large enough that the shield material has provided a large percentage of the debris plume mass which the back sheet must withstand. This concept does not produce the same results. The low t_s/d_p adds very little shield material to the debris plume allowing a substantial decrease in the thickness (strength) of the backsheet and the proper spacing between sheets prevents the debris plume from destroying successive sheets prior to the particulates reaching the sheet. The present concept, using aluminum as an analog for comparison to a dual sheet (aluminum) “Whipple shield” results in a 30% reduction in weight.

The use of other materials with this concept can result in even greater weight savings. The concept was tested at normal impact, oblique impact, and low velocity impact (2.7 km/s) and performed as well as an equivalent dual sheet shield. The scaling characteristics of the new cincept were tested and verified for impacting projectiles of mass 45 milligrams and 1.27 grams at velocities of 6.7 km/s. The new concept provides a shield which can be tailored to meet many design requirements, produce minimal secondary debris particles, provide a means for designing an augmentable shielding system, and most important reduce the weight of debris shielding.     

Longitudinal prediction of child outcomes from differing measures of parenting in a low-income sample.

This study examined predictions from preschool parenting measures to middle childhood cognitive and socioemotional child outcomes to explore whether parenting assessment methodologies that require more time, training, and expense yield better predictions of child outcomes than less intensive methodologies. Mother-child dyads (N=278) in low-income African American families were assessed when the child was in preschool, using maternal report, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment-Short Form (P. Baker & F. Mott, 1989; R. Bradley & B. Caldwell, 1984), and structured observational measures of parenting. Child outcomes reported by children, mothers, teachers, and direct assessment were collected 4 years later. All parenting methodologies showed some predictive value; however, observational parenting measures showed the strongest and most consistent predictions of child outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)