Determinants of Human Operant Heart Rate Conditioning: A Systematic Investigation of Several Methodological Issues.

Three methodological issues of concern within the literature on human operant heart rate conditioning were assessed utilizing a number of techniques for data reduction. The type of statistical approach largely determined the conclusions to be drawn about 2 issues: (a) differences and similarities between heart rate acceleration and deceleration learning and (b) changes in conditioning over a number of sessions. Three techniques yielded data that confounded between- and within-session shifts in tonic heart rate. A fourth method of data reduction (contrasts between pretrial and trial responding) involved no such difficulty. This method of analysis most accurately represented changes in operant heart rate that occurred within and between conditioning sessions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Social psychology (5th edition).

Reviews the book, Social psychology (5th edition) by David O. Sears, Jonathan L. Freedman, and Letitia Anne Peplau (1985). This is the fifth edition of one of the field's most respected introductory texts, originally published in 1970. It continues to offer a scholarly, research-based overview of most areas of social psychology and strikes a reasonably good balance between classic and current contributions to the discipline. Moreover, the book is well-written, engaging, and likely to appeal both to the serious psychology major and to the casual student interested in what social psychology has to say about human affairs. The text is particularly strong in its treatment of research methodology, attitudes, and interpersonal relations. Social Psychology will undoubtedly continue to be one of the more successful texts in the field, and deservedly so. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electrophysiological correlates of melanocyte-stimulating hormone activity in the frog.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 55 male frogs (Rana pipiens) to examine (a) the electrophysiological activity of the preoptic hypothalamus, postoptic hypothalamus, and ventral forebrain in Ss injected with synthetic alpha melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH); and (b) pigmentary changes in Ss injected with MSH or receiving electrical stimulation in either the preoptic or postoptic hypothalamus. Injection of MSH into the dorsal lymph sac produced darkening of the skin and increased electrical activity in preoptic hypothalamic areas. Electrical stimulation of the preoptic hypothalamus elicited darkening which was similar in time course to MSH. Results are interpreted as indicating an autoregulatory preoptic hypothalamic inhibition of pituitary MSH release. (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation and selection processes in the recognition of ambiguous words.

Three experiments with 234 undergraduates investigated the role of meaning frequency in the processing of ambiguous words in isolation. Ss made lexical decisions to target words that were associates of the more frequent or less frequent meaning of a homograph prime. Exps I–II charted the time course of activation of the 2 meanings, showing that the dominant meaning was retrieved first, with the subordinate meaning activated more slowly. Subsequent to its retrieval, activation of the less frequent meaning decreased again. Exp III indicated that meaning selection was the result of allocation of attention to information related to the dominant meaning of the ambiguous word. Overall results suggest the selection process is active but difficult for the S to control and that the processing of ambiguous words in isolation may be conceived of as a 2-stage process: automatic selection followed by a 2nd, optional stage driven by the deliberate allocation of limited-capacity resources. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of purpose in the organization of information about behavior: Trait-based versus goal-based categories in person cognition.

Three experiments with 120 college students investigated (a) the role of observational purpose in the tendency to employ trait or goal categories in the organization of behavioral information and (b) the effects of goal-based vs trait-based organization of the information on Ss' ability to recall it. Exp I showed that Ss reading and categorizing a series of episodes for the purpose of recalling either the material or empathizing with the main character organized the episodes primarily in terms of the character's goals. In contrast, Ss whose purpose was either to form a personality impression of the character or to predict her future behavior organized the episodes primarily in terms of her traits. Exp II demonstrated that the categorizations produced by recall-oriented Ss in Exp I facilitated the ability of a new sample of Ss to remember the episodes, relative to the categorizations produced by impression-oriented or control Ss. Exp II provided evidence that the relatively goal-based structure of the recall-oriented categories probably mediated the effects observed in Exp II. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tests of NASA ceramic thermal barrier coating for gas turbine engines

A two-layer thermal barrier coating system with a bond coating of nickel-chromium-aluminum-yttrium (Ni-16Cr-6Al-0.6Y, in wt.%) and a ceramic coating of yttria-stabilized zirconia (ZrO₂12Y₂O₃, in wt.%) was tested for corrosion protection, thermal protection and durability. Full-scale gas turbine engine tests demonstrated that this coating eliminated burning, melting and warping of uncoated parts. During cyclic corrosion resistance tests made in marine diesel fuel products of combustion in a burner rig, the ceramic cracked on some specimens. However, metallographic examination showed no base metal deterioration.     

Temperature dependence of ac-losses in multifilamentary Bi-2223 tapes between 4.2 K and Tc

The ac-losses of twisted multifilamentary Bi-2223/Ag tapes were measured in the temperature range between 4.2 K and the critical temperature T_c∼110 K. Stacks of tapes in perpendicular and in parallel field were investigated. The loss measurement is performed by the standard magnetisation technique, the absolute loss value is obtained by a calorimetric calibration measurement. For a fixed ac-field amplitude the energy loss per cycle Q is determined, at a given temperature, as a function of frequency f. The extrapolation to f→0 gives the hysteresis loss. Coupling losses are obtained from the slope of the loss curve Q(f) in the low frequency range ωτ?1. The measured total losses as a function of temperature show, at small field amplitudes, a minimum around 50 K. This is explained by the different temperature dependence of hysteresis and coupling losses. While coupling losses decrease with increasing temperature, hysteresis losses increase for field amplitudes below the penetration field. Coupling losses show a much weaker temperature dependence than the silver conductivity, which is explained by the existence of an interfacial resistance between filaments and silver matrix. Measured hysteresis losses were compared with available theoretical models and good agreement was found in parallel field.     

Analysis of heterogeneous fluorescence photobleaching by video kinetics imaging: The method of cumulants

The method of cumulants has been applied to digital video fluorescence microscopy. The method is used to reconstruct the distribution of fluorescent molecules before the initiation of fluorescence photobleaching, and to characterize heterogeneous photobleaching by imaging one or more of the cumulants of the bleaching decay rate. Using the pipelined pixel processor of the image analysis system for the bulk of the calculations, rather than the general-purpose host-computer CPU, the video kinetics imaging can be performed in near real-time. The method is applied to chick embryo myotubes labelled with fluorescein-conjugated α-bungarotoxin. The pre-bleach fluorescence distribution is derived, and the image of fluorescein fluorescence is separated from glutaraldehyde-induced autofluorescence on the basis of the spatially resolved average photobleaching decay rate.     

Fast bundle algorithm for multiple-instance learning

We present a bundle algorithm for multiple-instance classification and ranking. These frameworks yield improved models on many problems possessing special structure. Multiple-instance loss functions are typically nonsmooth and nonconvex, and current algorithms convert these to smooth nonconvex optimization problems that are solved iteratively. Inspired by the latest linear-time subgradient-based methods for support vector machines, we optimize the objective directly using a nonconvex bundle method. Computational results show this method is linearly scalable, while not sacrificing generalization accuracy, permitting modeling on new and larger data sets in computational chemistry and other applications. This new implementation facilitates modeling with kernels.     

Enantiomer separation of amino acids by complexation with chiral reference compounds and high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry: preliminary results and possible limitations

We present a new method for separation of enantiomers with high-field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS), coupled to mass spectrometric detection. Upon addition of an appropriate chiral reference compound to the analyte solution and subsequent ionization of the solution by electrospray ionization, analyte enantiomers formed diastereomeric complexes, which were potentially separable by FAIMS. The methodology being developed is intended to be general, but here amino acid analytes are specifically considered. In the examples presented herein, six pairs of amino acid enantiomers were successfully separated as metal-bound trimeric complexes of the form [MII(L-Ref)2(D/L-A)-H]+, where MII is a divalent metal ion, L-Ref is an amino acid in its L form acting as chiral reference compound, and A is the amino acid analyte. For example, D- and L-tryptophan were separated in FAIMS as [NiII(L-Asn)2(D-Trp)-H]+ and [NiII(L-Asn)2(L-Trp)-H]+. As FAIMS separation typically takes place over a time scale of only a few hundred milliseconds, the presented separation method opens new possibilities for rapid analysis of one analyte enantiomer in the presence of the other enantiomer. Preliminary quantification results are presented, which suggest that fast and sensitive quantitative chiral analyses can be performed with FAIMS. Method limitations are discussed in terms of diverse phenomena, which are not yet understood.