Artificial neural networks for coordination and control: The portability of experiential representations

It is time to locate connectionist representation theory in the new wave of robotics research. The utility of representations developed in artificial neural networks (ANNs) during learning has been demonstrated in cognitive science research since the 1980s. The research reported here puts learned representations to work in a decentered control task, the disembodied arm problem, in which a mobile robot operates an arm fixed to a table to pick up objects. There is no physical linkage between the arm and the robot and so the robot's point of view must be decentered. This is done by developing a modular Artificial Neural Net system in three stages: (i) a classifier net is trained with laser scan data to output transformationally invariant position classes; (ii) an arm net is trained for picking up objects; (iii) an inter net is trained to communicate and coordinate the sensing and acting. The completed system is shown to create new nonsymbolic transformationally invariant representations in order to perform the effective generalization of decentered viewpoints.     

Use of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale to measure success in a psychosocial day program

This study contrasted six subscales of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) to determine their sensitivity to psychosocial treatment outcome. An expanded version of the BPRS was administered to 216 clients on admission to a day program. The subscale measuring hostility and suspiciousness discriminated at intake clients who were therapeutically discharged from clients who did not complete the program and predicted discharge status after the investigators controlled for the effects of demographic variables. Significant reductions in scores were obtained on five subscales for a subset of clients to whom the BPRS was readministered before discharge. The results support the use of the expanded BPRS as an evaluative tool in psychosocial rehabilitation programs.     

Effect of hygiene measures, water sanitation and oral rehydration therapy on diarrhea in children less than five years old in the south of Ivory Coast

BACKGROUND: Gastric sucrose permeability is a noninvasive marker that reliably increases in association with gastrointestinal injury due to use of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs. Despite the effect of Helicobacter pylori infection on the gastric mucosa, in a previous study we were unable to demonstrate that H. pylori infection was associated with abnormal gastric sucrose permeability. Our goal in this study was to explore further whether H. pylori infection changed gastric permeability; therefore, we evaluated the effect of treatment of H. pylori infection on gastric permeability to sucrose and the relation of sucrose permeability to density of polymorphonuclear leukocytes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Five hundred milliliters of a solution containing 100 gm of sucrose was ingested by the subject at bedtime. Overnight urine was collected and assayed for sucrose by high-performance liquid chromatography. Sucrose permeability was assessed both before and approximately 4 weeks after anti-H. pylori therapy. RESULTS: Seventeen asymptomatic H. pylori-infected volunteers participated; 8 were cured. Sucrose permeability was in the range commonly found in normal controls both before and after anti-H. pylori therapy (mean excretion, 76.3 mg; range, 13-171 mg). Gastric sucrose permeability correlated with the density of polymorphonulcear cell infiltration of the mucosa. Cure of the H. pylori infection was associated with a small but significant decrease in sucrose permeability (98.8 +/- 18 mg to 51.7 +/- 9.8 mg (p = .01). Sucrose permeability was greater in those with a high density of mucosal polymorphonuclear cells compared to those with lower scores (119.5 +/- 4 vs 71.4 +/- 13 for those with scores > or = 5 compared to scores < or = 4; p = .023). Failed therapy resulted in an increase in the mucosal density of polymorphonuclear infiltration and sucrose permeability (56.4 +/- 13 mg-99.7 +/- 19 mg pretreatment vs posttreatment, respectively; p = .031). CONCLUSION: H. pylori gastritis causes a small but measurable increase in gastric permeability to sucrose that may reflect epithelial transmigration of neutrophils.     

Study of the heart rate and energy expenditure of ponies during transport

The energy expenditure and heart rate of five Shetland ponies were measured during transport and compared with the values recorded while they were at rest and walking. Secondary aims of the study were to investigate whether there was any correlation between heart rate and energy expenditure and whether different orientations affected the values to different degrees. The measurements were recorded at one-minute intervals while the ponies were at rest, walking and being transported in four different orientations, on journeys lasting 30 minutes. There were significant increases (P < 0.001) in both heart rate and energy expenditure during transport which were similar to those associated with walking, and there was a strong correlation between the two measurements. There was no conclusive evidence that orientation affected the measurements, but it appeared that rear facing transport might have had the least effect.     

Peer evaluation. A visual picture

To meet the criteria of role accountability, nursing competence and ongoing staff development, an improved peer-evaluation system was designed to continuously monitor these new roles. This peer-evaluation process converts evaluation input into data, giving staff a visual picture of how their performance compares within their peer group. This peer-evaluation process was designed as a tool to assist in staff growth and development, not as a punitive system.     

Repair of extensive ionizing-radiation DNA damage at 95 degrees C in the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus

We investigated the capacity of the hyperthermophile Pyrococcus furiosus for DNA repair by measuring survival at high levels of 60Co gamma-irradiation. The P. furiosus 2-Mb chromosome was fragmented into pieces ranging from 500 kb to shorter than 30 kb at a dose of 2,500 Gy and was fully restored upon incubation at 95 degrees C. We suggest that recombination repair could be an extremely active repair mechanism in P. furiosus and that it might be an important determinant of survival of hyperthermophiles at high temperatures.