Phase stability of ternary blends

The phase behavior of ternary blends of tetramethyl polycarbonate (TMPC), polycarbonate (PC), and styrenic polymers has been examined by experiment and analyzed in terms of thermodynamic theories. The phase boundaries were predicted using both the modified Flory-Huggins theory and the lattice fluid theory. The boundaries predicted using the lattice fluid theory agree best with the experimental results. The experimental phase behavior of ternary blends was compared with binary blends having exactly the same chemical components and compositions except that the TMPC and PC units were present in the form of a copolycarbonate in the binary. The miscible region of these ternary blends is much narrower than that of the corresponding binary blends, even though the entropic and energetic terms of such ternary blends are more favorable than those of the binary blends. It is shown that a negative value of noncombinatorial free energy in multicomponent systems is not a sufficient condition for miscibility, because of asymmetries of mer-mer interactions. A comparison of the stability conditions for these binary and ternary blends shows that increasing the degrees of freedom tends to destabilize the mixture.     

Variability in stepping direction explains the veering behavior of blind walkers.

Walking without vision results in veering, an inability to maintain a straight path that has important consequences for blind pedestrians. In this study, the authors addressed whether the source of veering in the absence of visual and auditory feedback is better attributed to errors in perceptual encoding or undetected motor error. Three experiments had the following results: No significant differences in the shapes of veering trajectories were found between blind and blindfolded participants; accuracy in detecting curved walking paths was not correlated with simple measures of veering behavior; and explicit perceptual cues to initial walking direction did not reduce veering. The authors present a model that accounts for the major characteristics of participants' veering behavior by postulating 3 independent sources of undetected motor error: initial orientation, consistent biases in step direction, and, most important, variable error in individual steps. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mechanism of alloying element vaporization during laser welding

Vaporization of alloying elements is a serious problem in the laser welding of many important engineering alloys. Since the available mass transfer correlations are not applicable for credible assessment of the rates of transport of vaporized species in the gas phase, the role of gas phase mass transfer in the overall vaporization of alloying elements was examined by conducting several critical experiments. The rates of transport of alloying elements in the weld pool were determined from numerically computed fluid flow fields. Since the weld pool is surrounded by plasma during laser welding, the role of plasma in the vaporization of alloying elements was physically modeled by allowing molten copper drops to vaporize isothermally both in the presence and absence of plasma. The transport of alloying elements in both liquid and gas phases was found to be rapid and the overall vaporization rates were controlled by the plasma influenced intrinsic vaporization of alloying elements at the weld pool surface. The experimentally obtained rates of vaporization of alloying elements from laser melted stainless steel weld pools were compared with the corresponding theoretically calculated values.     

The advancing-front mesh generation method revisited

This paper presents a mesh generation method of the advancing-front type which is designed in such a way that the well-known difficulties of the classical advancing-front method are not present. The retained solution consists of using the first steps of a Voronoï–Delaunay method to construct a background mesh which is then used to govern the algorithm. The two-dimensional case is considered in detail and possible extensions to adaption problems and three dimensions are indicated.     

Response of depressed adolescents to cognitive-behavioral treatment: Do differences in initial severity clarify the comparison of treatments?

Evaluated the impact of pretreatment depression severity and functional impairment on the response of 2 samples of older depressed adolescents (115 Ss total divided into low-severity groups and high-severity groups) to 2 group cognitive-behavioral treatments. Differences between the 2 active treatments and between active treatment and a waiting-list control condition were expected to be greater in the more severely depressed-impaired group. Improvement for the 2 active treatments in comparison to the control condition was greater in the more severely depressed group in one of the samples but not the other. The prediction that the relative effectiveness of the 2 treatments would be accentuated in the more severely depressed adolescents received no support in either sample. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accounting for case manager effects in the evaluation of mental health services.

Three methods of accounting for case manager effects in tests of the efficacy of mental health services are explored. These methods include (1) treating the case manager as a fixed factor, (2) treating the case manager as a random factor, and (3) examining service effects within the case manager. They are demonstrated with data from a nationally known case management program serving individuals with serious and persistent mental illness. Specifically, 3 conceptually distinct types of services provided or brokered by case managers are identified: habilitation-rehabilitation, community support, and traditional psychiatric services. The effectiveness of each in improving clients' adjustment is then examined with multiple regression adjustment strategies and each of the 3 methods to account for case manager effects. The results provide strong support for effects attributable to case managers and some support for the efficacy of habilitation-rehabilitation and community support services beyond the effects of traditional psychiatric services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of the inertia tensor in haptically perceiving where an object is grasped.

When an object is held and wielded, a time-invariant quantity of the wielding dynamics is the inertia tensor Iij. Examination of Iij as a function of different locations at which a cylindrical object is grasped revealed that the off-diagonal components of Iij, the products of inertia, related most systematically to grip position. In 3 experiments, Ss wielded an occluded rod held at an intermediate point along its length and reproduced, with the other hand, the felt grip position on a visible rod. In Exp 1, the wielded rods were homogeneous; in Exps 2 and 3, weights were added on either side of the grasp, with different manners of grasp contrasted in Exp 3. In all 3 experiments, perceived hand position was predicted by Iij. Discussion is focused on the role of Iij's eigenvalues in perceiving the magnitudes of objects and Iij's eigenvectors in perceiving hand–object relations (e.g., position of grasp). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent psychopathology: II. Psychosocial risk factors for depression.

In a prospective study of adolescent depression, adolescents (N?=?1,508) were assessed at Time 1 and after 1 yr (Time 2) on psychosocial variables hypothesized to be associated with depression. Most psychosocial variables were associated with current (n?=?45) depression. Formerly depressed adolescents (n?=?217) continued to differ from never depressed controls on many of the psychosocial variables. Many of the depression-related measures also acted as risk factors for future depression (n?=?112), especially past depression, current other mental disorders, past suicide attempt, internalizing behavior problems, and physical symptoms. Young women were more likely to be, to become, and to have been depressed. Controlling for the psychosocial variables eliminated the gender difference for current and future but not for past depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inhibition of gene expression by steroid hormone receptors via a negative glucocorticoid response element: evidence for the involvement of DNA-binding and agonistic effects of the antiglucocorticoid/antiprogestin RU486

We have used a negative glucocorticoid response element (nGRE) from the bovine prolactin promoter linked to the gene for chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (PRL3CAT) to study the inhibition of gene expression by steroid hormone receptors. This nGRE increased basal expression from a heterologous promoter in COS-7 cells. In the presence of cotransfected glucocorticoid (GR), androgen, or progesterone receptor (PR) expression vectors and their cognate ligands, the expression of PRL3CAT could be repressed, indicating that these steroid receptor subfamily members could function through the same negative response element. No repression was observed with the estrogen receptor, showing that the repressive effect was specific for members of the GR-subfamily. Mutation of three amino acids within the GR-DNA binding domain that determine the specificity of GR-GRE interaction abolished the ability of the GR to inhibit the expression of PRL3CAT, demonstrating the requirement for DNA binding of the GR in the mechanism of repression. The antiglucocorticoid/antiprogestin RU486 when bound to PR or GR also repressed the expression of the PRL3CAT, but higher concentrations of RU486 were required to obtain an effect with the GR when compared to the PR. RU486 was unable to antagonize the effect of progestins on PRL3CAT and only partially antagonized the glucocorticoid repression. Thus, regarding the repression of PRL3CAT, RU486 acted as an agonist when bound to the PR and as a partial agonist when bound to the GR.