Attribution and the double bind in paradoxical interventions.

Tested the hypothesis that clear identification of an internal, nonvolitional agent of therapeutic change would enhance therapeutic change and the maintenance of change in response to paradoxical interventions (PIs) and explored the double-bind explanation of PIs. 29 depressed (as determined by the Beck Depression Inventory [BDI]) college students were assigned to 1 of 3 interview treatments containing PIs: A no-elaboration condition contained only PIs; a developmental-meaning condition contained an additional paragraph explicitly identifying a developmental agent of change; and a metacommunication condition contained an additional paragraph explicitly identifying the paradoxical nature and intent of the treatment. At follow-up, Ss completed a battery that included the BDI, a self-perception inventory, and the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory. Results indicate that PIs that explicitly identified an internal, nonvolitional cause of change resulted in decreased external attribution of change but not greater therapeutic change. Explaining the double-bind aspects of PIs resulted in favorable client views of therapists but diminished the immediate therapeutic effects of the interventions. Results suggest that clients' perceptions of the qualities of their therapists and clients' attributions about the causes of their behaviors may not be causes of therapeutic change but simply additional dependent variables in the therapeutic process. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Microprocessor-Based Universal Regulator Using Dual-Rate Sampling

Standard single-rate sampling self-tuning regulators may not be able to effectively control fast-acting systems if the minimum computation time required is larger than the largest sampling period permissible. A dual-rate sampling self-tuning regulator that overcomes this problem by allowing a data sampling rate to be chosen consistent with the system time constants and a control output interval based on the computation time is described in this paper. This algorithm is also very suitable for implementation using fixed word-length processors as the quantization problems are minimized. The algorithm has been implemented on a microprocessor. Implementation details with emphasis on data acquisition, interrupt controlled sampling, time sufficiency test and scaling, and experimental results are also given.     

Effect of electrolyte concentration on the viscosity and voltammetry of supercritical solutions

The viscosity of a supercritical electrolyte solution is measured for the first time using a modified quartz crystal microbalance, and it is shown that ionic solvation leads to a significant structuring of the solvent and an appreciable increase in solution viscosity. Voltammetric investigations in the electrolyte solutions are used to confirm the magnitude of the viscosity changes, and these account for the appreciably lower than expected peak currents.     

Fire casualties and their relation to fire company response distance and demographic factors

Fatalities and injuries per structural fire in New York City have been compared by time of day, season, year, construction, region of the city, floor of origin, and occupancy. The relationship between response distance and fire casualties has also been studied.     

Effect of free monomer content on the drawing behavior of poly(methyl methacrylate)

Cold drawing has been used to produce oriented samples of various molecular weight grades of poly(methyl methacrylate), all of which exhibited marked strain hardening characteristics over a range of drawing temperatures. The differences between the yield and drawing behavior of the grades did not correlate with molecular weight but could instead be attributed to the plasticizing effect of additional free monomer, generated by degradation during melt processing of the polymer.     

A load frequency control algorithm based on a generalized approach

A generalized approach to load frequency control that combines discontinuous control and dual-mode control and uses variable-structure-systems concepts is developed. Using this approach, a novel load-frequency control algorithm is proposed. Studies on a multi-area power system, including generation rate constraint and governor dead-band, demonstrate the effectiveness of the control scheme     

Managing infrastructure for the next generation

Australia has a high ratio of infrastructure to population, much of it constructed in a peak period after the end of the Second World War.² This infrastructure is aging and becoming due for renewal. However the growth and easy finance conditions that gave rise to its initial development no longer exist and the costs of renewal need to be found in a more difficult economic climate. There is growing anecdotal evidence that some communities may face difficulty in funding renewal of their inherited infrastructure and there is the possibility that the high ratio of infrastructure to population may, in some cases, be unsustainable. Unfortunately, information to test this proposition does not generally exist. While Australian governments, at all levels, are now adopting accrual accounting practices and recording assets in their balance sheets, the attention to asset recording is of recent vintage. This has resulted in the need for large scale asset data capture exercises and large scale investment in information technology, but these are being carried out by individual agencies with little or no co-ordination regionally or across the whole of government. This paper reports a major exception to this pattern: an information management and data gathering project across the whole of Victoria, which has enabled all 78 councils involved to predict the cost and timing of their future infrastructure renewal liabilities (A$23.3 billion) in time to develop corrective planning strategies. By using independent consultants to gather data from every council in the state through a standard survey instrument and presenting the results of the data, after extensive data validation processes, on an aggregate, grouped and single council basis, councils now have the ability to compare themselves with others and with the general state picture. The future renewal challenge is now seen to be a general one, reflective of the times, rather than of individual past management practice, and as such is being tackled with greater vigor. Other States in Australia are now looking to adopt this renewal projection method. This paper also includes reference to the major strategies that are being adopted.     

A model for the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the Willamette River Basin (Oregon)

The Willamette River drains a 32,000 km2 basin (Basin) in northwestern Oregon. Owing to their persistence and toxicity, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in resident fish within the Basin at levels above consumption advisory thresholds are a human and environmental health concern. This concern may trigger a Willamette River Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for PCBs, at which time both their probable sources and the mechanism by which they came to be distributed throughout the Basin will be of considerable regulatory interest. Deposition within the Basin of some portion of global primary (1930-1980) and secondary (post-1980) emissions arriving via long-range advective transport in the atmosphere was posited as an explanation. This proposition was explored with a seasonally responsive, dynamic mass balance watershed-scale model that estimated concentrations of toxicologically relevant congeners (PCB-077, -118, -169) in various environmental media over a 90-year period, assuming advective inflow to the Basin's atmosphere to be the only PCB congener source. Model results suggest that rising air concentrations, and associated advective inflows, from increasing primary emissions between 1930 and 1975 (PCB-118 peak inflow, 1970, approximately equal to 11 kg y(-1)) and declining primary and secondary emissionsthereafter, could have yielded congener concentrations observed in air, soil, and fish between 1993 and 2003. The possibility that observed concentrations may be obtainable entirely with inputs from global legacy sources raises questions as to the efficacy of a TMDL directed primarily at local point or area sources. Better characterization of potential sources, and collection of additional soil and air data combined with more sophisticated modeling, appear to be necessary precursors to any PCB TMDL for the Willamette River.