From fuzzy logic toward plurimonism: the science of active and empathic observation.

Plurimonism is a new philosophy and method of science. It holds that the revolution in computer science and artificial intelligence has reached the point that all the sciences in general can now account for the complex relations of an irreducible plurality of unique observers engaged in describing the same event. Plurimonism seeks to describe the conscious and unconscious relations of the scientific observer during the act of observation of a given event while preserving the historical uniqueness and indivisible identity of each such observer. Using the framework of plurimonism, we mathematically formulate the problem of empathy. This self-reflective mathematical model entails four components of the empathic process involving two observers. They are: 1) the self; 2) the self's-other; 3) the other; and 4) the other's-self. It measures the degree of accuracy of the therapist-observer's empathy, as well as conscious and unconscious processes involved in the patient-observer's idealization and the therapist-observer's confidence in clinical psychotherapy. Ratings are obtained from both patient and therapist from four different points of view. The plural views of the patient's global assessment of functioning (GAF) are from: 1) the therapist's view (TGAF); 2) the patient's view (PGAF); 3) the therapist empathic view (TEGAF), which represents the therapist's estimate of PGAF; and 4) the patient's empathic estimate of the TGAF. The GAF scale is the standard dimensional 100-point-scale measure used in psychiatry for recording a patient's functioning. The patient's estimate of the therapist's degree of accuracy as well as the therapist's confidence in his or her empathic accuracy is also represented. Three formulae are presented that describe the degree of the therapist's empathic accuracy, the patient's over-idealization/under-idealization, and the therapist's over-confidence/under-confidence. The concept of empathy is here restricted to mean the degree to which one observer can take the point of view of another observer when both are observing the same thing.     

Selective reaching: Evidence for action-centered attention.

Most studies of selective attention briefly present static 2-dimensional stimuli and require arbitrary responses such as verbal naming or a keypress. Many of perceptual-motor interactions with the environment, however, require reaching directly toward an object while ignoring other objects in the scene. A series of experiments examines selective attention in the latter reaching situation. Effects previously observed in the traditional experimental procedures were obtained, suggesting that the models developed (which propose inhibitory mechanisms, for example) apply to ecologically valid situations. Attention accesses action-centered internal representations during such tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quantitative analysis of branching in poly(ortho ester) networks

A direct method to quantify the branching attributable to fully reacted hexane-1,2,6-triol (HT) in poly(ortho ester) networks is reported. The method was based on the presence of free hydroxyl groups on incompletely reacted HT in the poly(ortho ester) matrix that were “tagged” prior to matrix hydrolysis. HT molecules that were completely reacted, i.e., acting as cross-linker, within the polymer matrix would have no free hydroxyl groups available for “tagging” and posthydrolysis would be present as free HT. Experimentally, the matrix was swollen in p-dioxane, then phenyl isocyanate (PhCNO) was added to “tag” the hydroxyl groups in the presence of a stannous octoate catalyst. After removal of excess PhCNO, the matrix was hydrolyzed under mild acidic conditions. Any “untagged” HT was subsequently derivatized into trimethylsilyl ethers and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC). The level of branching determined by this direct chemical method correlated well with conventional swell ratio measurements. Furthermore, the extent of hydrolysis of the polymer backbone covalent bonds were also measured by this method since the resulting hydroxyl groups were “tagged” by PhCNO. All polyols were analyzed simultaneously by GC. Application of this method in characterization of the solid-state hydrolysis of a poly(ortho ester) network was demonstrated. The degradation profiles of the branch sites and other backbone ortho ester bonds showed that the hydrolysis was initially slow, becoming progressively rapid. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Dimensional modelling of wood pyrolysis using a nodal approach

New gasification installations and techniques are being tested today but they all struggle with mainly the same drawbacks such as removal of various pollutants in the producer gas or clogging of material pathways.This work is oriented on developing a new model for the non-oxidative pyrolysis step of a gasification process as a part of a wider research conducted on the overall gasification of wood waste. A batch reactor is modelled by means of nodal modelling, a technique widely used for simple heat transfer processes. Additionally to the heat transport inside the batch reactor the model uses a simple and versatile generic chemistry and simplified mass transfer principles. Thermal data from modelling is compared with data obtained from an experimental batch pyrolysis reactor using wood sawdust and cutter shavings. Experimental and theoretical results regarding thermal phenomena are in good agreement.     

The way stylized language means: Pattern matching in the child ballads

This paper suggests ways in which the pattern-matching capability of the computer can be used to further our understanding of stylized ballad language. The study is based upon a computer-aided analysis of the entire 595,000- word corpus of Francis James Child'sThe English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882–1892), a collection of 305 textual traditions, most of which are represented by a variety of texts. The paper focuses on the Mary Hamilton tradition as a means of discussing the function of phatic language in the ballad genre and the significance of textual variation.Cathy Lynn Preston is a Research Associate, Computer Research in the Humanities, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is interested in folklore, particularly oral narrative; popular literature of the 18th- and 19th-century, particularly broadside and chapbook; the works of John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Hardy; Middle English romance and lyric. Her major publications areA KWIC Concordance to Jonathan Swift's A Tale of a Tub, The Battle of the Books, and A Discourse Concerning the Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, A Fragment, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1984) (co-authored with Harold D. Kelling), andA KWIC Concordance to Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1989).     

Counter-Propagation Neural Networks for Molecular Sequence Classification: Supervised LVQ and Dynamic Node Allocation

A modified counter-propagation (CP) algorithm with supervised learning vector quantizer (LVQ) and dynamic node allocation has been developed for rapid classification of molecular sequences. The molecular sequences were encoded into neural input vectors using an n–gram hashing method for word extraction and a singular value decomposition (SVD) method for vector compression. The neural networks used were three-layered, forward-only CP networks that performed nearest neighbor classification. Several factors affecting the CP performance were evaluated, including weight initialization, Kohonen layer dimensioning, winner selection and weight update mechanisms. The performance of the modified CP network was compared with the back-propagation (BP) neural network and the k–nearest neighbor method. The major advantages of the CP network are its training and classification speed and its capability to extract statistical properties of the input data. The combined BP and CP networks can classify nucleic acid or protein sequences with a close to 100% accuracy at a rate of about one order of magnitude faster than other currently available methods.     

Target groups for preventing AIDS among intravenous drug users: II. The "hard" data studies.

Studies were reviewed with respect to three different target groups for preventing AIDS among intravenous (IV) drug users by (a) providing drug abuse treatment for those who want to stop injecting drugs, (b) providing "safer" injection for those who are likely to continue injecting, and (c) preventing drug injection among those who are at high risk for beginning to inject. The studies reviewed were limited to those that include "hard" data: validated self-reports, seroprevalence outcomes, or self-reports of behavior that is opposed to any of the demand characteristics generated by the research setting. For two groups of current IV drug users—those entering drug treatment and those continuing to inject—these hard data studies show rapidly induced AIDS risk reduction but suggest a need for large-scale change maintained over long time periods. In terms of preventing initial injection, alternative forms of intense drug use have emerged but have not supplanted drug injection, and basic knowledge of AIDS does not appear to deter initial drug injection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

回收塑料的重新稳定化

高价值的应用是取得塑料回收在经济上成功的关键。部分应用实例说明聚烯烃的重新稳定化所带来的特点和益处及在PET回收中的产品升级的可能性，其中具体说明对材料的性能和长效性能的影响。     

On Asymmetric Market Model with Heteroskedasticity and Quantile Regression

The capital asset pricing model is widely used in financial risk management due to its simplicity and utility in a variety of situations. Many of the constructs of this market model are widely used in investment, but the simple assumptions of a constant beta coefficient and variance in the original market model are not convincing from the empirical viewpoint. In this paper we propose a general asymmetric market model embedding both the leverage effect of market news and the previous return to express the instability of beta and the error with heteroskedasticity to capture the time-varying conditional variance. Because extreme values occur quite frequently in financial markets, the quantile regression is employed to explore the different behaviors in the market beta and lagged autoregressive effect for different quantile levels. We analyze fifteen stocks, which are heavily traded in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, to demonstrate the empirical performance of our methodology. The evidence indicates that each market beta and impact of negative news vary with different quantile levels, capturing different states of market conditions.