Pleasant events, activity schedules, and depressions.

Instructed 3 groups of 10 undergraduates each (depressed, psychiatric controls, and normal controls) to rate their moods and indicate the number of pleasant activities engaged in each day for 30 days. A significant association between mood and pleasant activities was found. There were large individual differences in regard to the magnitude of the correlation between mood and activity, but differences between groups failed to attain statistical significance. Results are interpreted as consistent with the major tenet of the behavioral theory of depression, i.e., that there is an association between rate of positive reinforcement and intensity of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal self-disclosure: Expectancy and situational effects.

96 male undergraduates, selected from a pool of 169 because of their high or low scores on the Jourard Self-Disclosure Questionnaire (JSDQ), were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions of specific expectancy, in which they were told that they would find it either easy or difficult to self-disclose to a stranger interviewer, and 1 of 3 conditions of interviewers' behavior (personal, impersonal, or no disclosure). The JSDQ, scored for anticipated self-disclosure but not for recalled self-disclosure, predicted observed performance. The specific expectancy manipulation and the intimacy level of topics also had significant effects on self-disclosure. A 3-way interaction between generalized and specific expectancy and topic intimacy was also found. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term memory: A comparison between frontal and nonfrontal right- and left-hemisphere brain-damaged patients.

Tested 2 groups of brain-damaged patients (n = 60 and 17) and 2 groups of controls (n = 28 and 7) on 4 different short-term memory tasks, each designed to measure the amount of information registered (0-sec delay recall) and retained after a delay of 10 sec. in 1 of 3 (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) sensory modalities, using a variety of stimulus materials. Differences between the brain-damaged and control groups were largely due to the reduced capacity of the brain damaged to register information. Ss with anterior cerebral damage did more poorly than Ss with posterior damage on both visual and auditory short-term memory tasks. No significant differences were found between right- and left-hemisphere-damaged Ss. (26 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quadratic behavior of fiber Bragg grating temperature coefficients

We describe the characterization of the temperature and strain responses of fiber Bragg grating sensors by use of an interferometric interrogation technique to provide an absolute measurement of the grating wavelength. The fiber Bragg grating temperature response was found to be nonlinear over the temperature range -70 degrees C to 80 degrees C. The nonlinearity was observed to be a quadratic function of temperature, arising from the linear dependence on temperature of the thermo-optic coefficient of silica glass over this range, and is in good agreement with a theoretical model.     

Predicting the structure of screw dislocations in nanoporous materials

Extended microscale crystal defects, including dislocations and stacking faults, can radically alter the properties of technologically important materials. Determining the atomic structure and the influence of defects on properties remains a major experimental and computational challenge. Using a newly developed simulation technique, the structure of the 1/2a <100> screw dislocation in nanoporous zeolite A has been modelled. The predicted channel structure has a spiral form that resembles a nanoscale corkscrew. Our findings suggest that the dislocation will enhance the transport of molecules from the surface to the interior of the crystal while retarding transport parallel to the surface. Crucially, the dislocation creates an activated, locally chiral environment that may have enantioselective applications. These predictions highlight the influence that microscale defects have on the properties of structurally complex materials, in addition to their pivotal role in crystal growth.     

A Unified Nomenclature for Plant Fibres for Industrial Use

Cellulose in the cell wall occurs in microfibrils of various sizes. Fibre should refer only to single elongated plant cells, fibre bundle to assemblages of fibres. Fibres and bundles can be of various cell types (most sclerenchyma), sizes, volume fractions of cellulose and degree of lignification. Usage of any other terms is liable to lead to confusion. Fibre bundles for industrial use should be defined only by their dimensions, botanical origin and the extraction procedures used.     

Combining multiple matchers for fingerprint verification: A case study in biosecure network of excellence

We report on experiments for the fingerprint modality conducted during the First BioSecure Residential Workshop. Two reference systems for fingerprint verification have been tested together with two additional non-reference systems. These systems follow different approaches of fingerprint processing and are discussed in detail. Fusion experiments I volving different combinations of the available systems are presented. The experimental results show that the best recognition strategy involves both minutiae-based and correlation-based measurements. Regarding the fusion experiments, the best relative improvement is obtained when fusing systems that are based on heterogeneous strategies for feature extraction and/or matching. The best combinations of two/three/four systems always include the best individual systems whereas the best verification performance is obtained when combining all the available systems.     

An autowave based methodology for deformable object simulation

This paper presents a new methodology for deformable object simulation by drawing an analogy between autowaves and elastic deformation. The potential energy stored in an elastic body as a result of a deformation caused by an external force is propagated among mass points by non-linear autowaves. The novelty of the methodology is that autowave techniques are established to describe the potential energy distribution of a deformation for extrapolating internal elastic forces, and non-linear material properties are modelled with non-linear autowaves other than geometric non-linearity. A haptic virtual reality system has been developed for deformation simulation with force feedback. The proposed methodology not only deals with large-range deformations, but also accommodates isotropic, anisotropic and inhomogeneous materials by simply modifying diffusion coefficients.