Abnormal Activation of Temporoparietal Language Areas During Phonetic Analysis in Children With Dyslexia.

Event-related magnetic fields were recorded using magnetoencephalography in children with (n=12) and without (n=11) dyslexia while they discriminated between pairs of syllables from a voice onset time series (/ga/-/ka/). Nonimpaired readers exhibited left-hemisphere predominance of activity after the resolution of the N1m, whereas children with dyslexia experienced a sharp peak of relative activation in right temporoparietal areas between 300 and 700 ms post-stimulus onset. Increased relative activation in right temporoparietal areas was correlated with reduced performance on phonological processing measures. Results are consistent with the notion that deficits in appreciating the sound structure of both written and spoken language are associated with abnormal neurophysiological activity in temporoparietal language areas in children with dyslexia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive load of navigating without vision when guided by virtual sound versus spatial language.

A vibrotactile N-back task was used to generate cognitive load while participants were guided along virtual paths without vision. As participants stepped in place, they moved along a virtual path of linear segments. Information was provided en route about the direction of the next turning point, by spatial language ("left," "right," or "straight") or virtual sound (i.e., the perceived azimuth of the sound indicated the target direction). The authors hypothesized that virtual sound, being processed at direct perceptual levels, would have lower load than even simple language commands, which require cognitive mediation. As predicted, whereas the guidance modes did not differ significantly in the no-load condition, participants showed shorter distance traveled and less time to complete a path when performing the N-back task while navigating with virtual sound as guidance. Virtual sound also produced better N-back performance than spatial language. By indicating the superiority of virtual sound for guidance when cognitive load is present, as is characteristic of everyday navigation, these results have implications for guidance systems for the visually impaired and others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Solution Method for Beams on Nonuniform Elastic Foundations

This technical note presents an analytical method, accompanied by a numerical scheme, to evaluate the response of beams on nonuniform elastic foundations, namely, when the foundation modulus is k = k(x). The method employs a Green’s function formulation, which results in a system of nonsingular integral equations for the distributed reaction q(x). These equations can be discretized in a straightforward manner to yield a system of linear algebraic equations that can be solved by elementary numerical techniques.     

Affective and social-behavioral correlates of physical and social anhedonia in schizophrenia.

The association between scales measuring physical and social anhedonia, self-reports of affective response to emotion-eliciting films, and role play measures of social skill was evaluated in patients with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar affective disorder. It was hypothesized that patients with schizophrenia would report significantly greater anhedonia than the bipolar patients and that higher scores on the anhedonia scales (AHSs) would be related to attenuated reports of the experience of positive affect and poorer social skill. Patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder did not differ in ratings of anhedonia, but both groups had higher physical and social AHSs than did bipolar patients. Higher scores on the physical AHS, but not the social AHS, were related to attenuated reports of positive affect following viewing of affect-eliciting films in schizophrenia-schizoaffective disorder patients. Neither AHS was related to role play measures of social skill performance for any patient group. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Promoting self-directed hemodialysis: Measurement and cognitive-behavioral intervention.

Developed a behavioral observation system to define and measure degree of self-directed treatment of hemodialysis. A 5-step cognitive-behavioral strategy to improve degree of self-directed treatment was also developed and tested preliminarily. The strategy included an initial rationale, decisional counseling, behavioral contracting, self-monitoring, and staff support/problem solving. Four nurses used this approach with 4 elderly patients (mean age 70.5 yrs). A multiple-baseline-across-Ss design revealed substantial and relatively rapid improvements in degree of self-directedness associated with the intervention for the 3 patients who remained healthy throughout the study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

THE AUTOMATION OF THE LAY-UP AND CONSOLIDATION OF PEEK*GRAPHITE FIBER COMPOSITES*

The processing of PEEK/graphite fiber composites is characterized by an inordinate amount of hand labor. This greatly increases the cost, time, and inaccuracy involved in production. Automation of the lay-up and consolidation steps are a prerequisite for the widespread application and acceptance of these, as well as all, high performance materials. Automated techniques for the lay-up and consolidation of PEEK/graphite fiber composites have been developed and are presented in this paper. Discrete part lay-up schemes utilize robotic manipulators and specially constructed tables and allow any lay-up configuration to be automatically produced at high production rates. The size of the discrete parts was limited to 4 by 4 meters by design, not by any inherent difficulties. This size can be increased by enlarging the lay-up table. The length of a continuous sheet was limited by the length of the PEEK/graphite fiber prepreg material currently available. Its width was also restricted to 4 meters by design, but also can be increased to the desired width. Continuous consolidation methods were designed for both discrete and continuous parts. Heating is performed by quartz radiative heaters and consolidation pressure is produced by pressure rollers. These processes were designed taking into consideration     

Notes toward a standard object-oriented DDL and DML

Software developers seek a standard object-oriented database management system as a substrate on which to build object-oriented products. Convinced of the real value of object-oriented benefits, independent software vendors seek a platform to minimize development risk. A minimalist position is compared to the object-oriented database programming language position and the latter is shown to to be the cleanest but pragmatic considerations may intervene.     

Polarisation-insensitive coherent receiver using a double balanced optical hybrid system

A prototype polarisation-insensitive double balanced receiver for coherent lightwave communication is demonstrated and described in the letter. This receiver has been tested in a 40Mbit/s DPSK self-heterodyne system. The maximum variation in the amplitude of the recovered data is only about 0.8 dB under random variation of the signal polarisation. The cause of this variation is also discussed.     

Adaptive mesh generation applied to switched-reluctance motordesign

The design of switched-reluctance motors (SRMs) requires the calculation of the phase flux linkage of the motor as a function of rotor position and exciting current. The authors describe a new method to establish this variation using finite element techniques. The mesh preparation, boundary source and material data, equation solution, and extraction of machine data from the solution are all done completely automatically. The designer is thus removed from the numerical analysis chores that, formerly, greatly reduced effectiveness. The method has also been applied to flux linkage against position determination in permanent magnet machines