Beyond Surprise: The Puzzle of Infants' Expressive Reactions to Expectancy Violation.

The reactions of 58 infants to expectancy violation by digitally filtering the experimenter's voice were studied in a cross-sectional design for ages 5, 7, 9, 11-12, and 14 months. The results show that behavioral freezing and changes in gaze direction, but not facial or vocal expression, are reliable responses to expectancy violation. The pattern suggests that a transition in the infant's capacity for cognitive evaluation of novel and discrepant events may occur around age 9 months. These findings confirm the consistent failure to find prototypical facial surprise reactions in research on novel or impossible situations. Componential theories of emotion, which predict adaptive behavior patterns from appraisal processes, may provide clues for underlying mechanisms and generate hypotheses on age-related changes in emotional expression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scaling of SEU mapping and cross section, and proton induced SEU atreduced supply voltage

New experimental study of heavy ion and proton induced SEU at reduced voltage (i.e. reduced critical charge) reveals interesting results. It is shown that the heavy ion cross section and microprobe mapping scale like the threshold LET and the parameter, which is almost invariant under bias changes, is the effective charge collection depth. For studying proton induced SEU and surface-barrier-detector spectra we use protons with energies from 5.6 to 300 MeV. The results are analyzed in view of the processes involved in low energy deposition by protons. Detailed calculations show the importance of straggling in proton direct ionization which might be the leading process in very sensitive devices like photodiodes     

An experimental study of the esthetic effect of facial profiles

In this study good-looking "male" and "female" as well as ugly facial profiles were shaped by 104 lay persons using an especially constructed device according to specific instructions. These profiles were photographed and subsequently evaluated using a series of parameters from soft tissue profile analyses. Although some significant mean value differences were found between the good-looking and ugly profile variants, they were not substantial. In contrast, markedly significant differences were revealed between the variances of all variables. In some instances the variance of the ugly profiles was more than 3 to 4 times higher than that of the good-looking profiles. These findings were convincingly confirmed when statistical distribution of the data was established and compared. This implies that perception of beauty is associated with regularity of facial features and is conveyed by measurement values which are located close to the mean. Ugliness is associated with extreme deviations from the latter in either direction. Apart from the facial proportions, the degree of convexity or concavity of facial profile and their sequence seem to be important for the esthetic effects. "Male" profiles in contrast to "female" profiles exhibited more conspicuous facial features such as pronounced convexity and concavity.     

Intelligent rotational direction control of passive robotic joint with embedded sensors

Passive compliant joints with springs and dampers ensure a smooth contact with the surroundings, especially if robots are in contact with humans, but the passive compliant joints cannot determine precisely the position of the members of the joint or direction of the collision force. In this paper was proposed the structure of a passive compliant robotic joint with conductive silicone rubber elements as internal embedded sensors. The sensors can operate as absorbers of excessive external collision force instead of springs and dampers and can be used for some measurements. Therefore, this joint presents one type of safe robotic mechanisms with an internally measuring system. The sensors were made by press-curing from carbon-black filled silicone rubber which is an electro active material. Various compression tests of the sensors were done. The main task of this study is to investigate the application of a control algorithm for detecting the direction of the robotic joint angular rotation when subjected to an external collision force. Soft computing methodology, adaptive neuro fuzzy inference strategy (ANFIS), was used for the controller development. The simulation results presented in this paper show the effectiveness of the developed method.     

Ideal Mate Personality Concepts and Compatibility in Close Relationships: A Longitudinal Analysis.

How 2 personalities may be best combined in a couple has often been answered in terms of similarity in partner's personality characteristics. However, results have been inconsistent. The present study proposed that relationship outcomes should depend more on the similarity between individuals' ideal mate personality concepts (IMPCs) and their partner's personality as both perceived by the self and selfreported by the partner. Study 1 introduces a new Q-sort to assess IMPCs and provides evidence for the interindividual variability and the short-term consistency of IMPC. By following nonmarried couples over a 9-month period, Study 2 replicated findings from Study 1 and demonstrated that, overall, the current concept of congruence predicts relationship outcomes better than both personality similarity and the partner's individual personality traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Survival in maturation ponds of coliform bacteria with transferable drug resistance

The behaviour of drug-resistant coliform bacteriasin a series of sewage maturation ponds was investigated. The average reduction through the ponds of coliforms resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, kanamycin, streptomycin or tetracycline was 6.83 per cent lower than that of drug-sensitive bacteria. This difference was mainly due to coliforms with transferable resistance (R⁺ coliforms) which increased from 0.86 per cent to 2.45 per cent through the ponds. The spectrum of transferable resistance of coliforms in the effluent did not differ notably from that of coliforms in the influent. The average incidence of Escherichia coli I among R⁺ coliforms decreased from 66.08 per cent to 62.09 per cent. This indicates that low-level transfer of R factors may occur in ponds. Possible mechanisms and the epidemiological significance of the increased survival of R⁺ coliforms in maturation ponds are discussed.