The structure of adolescent peer networks.

Structural aspects of school-based peer networks of adolescents in 6th to 12th grade were mapped in 3 school systems. Female students were more connected to the peer network than were male students, and peer networks became more exclusive with increasing grade. The results also suggest that numeric minorities usually are less connected to school peer networks than the majority group. There was mixed evidence for hierarchical organization of the peer network. Best friends were highly embedded in friendship groups, but neither friendship group nor best friendship was highly embedded in social crowd. Adolescents name friends who are not in their friendship group and usually do not name everyone in the friendship group as a friend. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toddlers' language development: Sex differences within social risk.

Sex differences in the association between environmental risk and language development were examined in a longitudinal study of 54 high-social-risk families. Measures of the environment included information about family stress and coping, opportunities for cognitive and linguistic stimulation, the nature of learning experiences, and the affective quality of the infant–mother relationship. Despite apparently similar family conditions and early experiences, there were significant sex differences favoring girls on observational measures of spontaneous language production at 20 and 30 mo of age. For the group as a whole, sex differences on standardized tests at 24 and 36 mo of age were nonsignificant. In addition, relations between aspects of the learning environment and children's language performance differed for boys and girls, supporting a moderator interpretation of the findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electronic performance monitoring and social context: Impact on productivity and stress.

In a laboratory study, the presence of individual- or work-group-level electronic performance monitoring (EPM) was manipulated as participants worked on a data-entry task alone, as a member of a noninteracting aggregate, or as a member of a cohesive group. The pattern of results suggested the operation of a social facilitation effect, as highly skilled monitored participants keyed more entries than highly skilled nonmonitored participants. The opposite pattern was detected among low-skilled participants. No signs of social loafing were detected among group-monitored participants. Nonmonitored workers and members of cohesive groups felt the least stressed. The implications of these findings for organizations adopting EPM systems are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Computerized tomographic imaging is insensitive to density variation during scanning

It is claimed and demonstrated by example, that boundaries of regions, whose densities vary considerably during the scan time, are usually readily recognizable in comput(eriz)ed (computer-assisted) tomographic images, even when the number of measured (or given) projections is few enough that the images are strongly contaminated with ‘streak’ artefacts. Several illustrative examples are presented. The data was obtained from computer-generated phantoms, from physical phantoms measured with a low resolution computerized tomography (CT) scanner, and from high resolution CT measurement of a canine thorax.     

Confidentiality with minor clients: Issues and guidelines for therapists.

Confidentiality is fundamental to the therapeutic relationship; however, minors' rights regarding confidentiality are not clear. Legal issues in minors' voluntary consent to treatment are discussed, and a review of the clinical and developmental literature regarding minors' ability to provide informed consent to treatment is provided. Professional attitudes and actions regarding the best interests of and confidentiality with minor clients are also reviewed. Guidelines for deciding when it is appropriate to maintain a confidential therapeutic relationship with a minor and strategies for how to do so are suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

CIO Challenges in the Changing MIS Environment

Today's chief information officers (CIOs) are faced with several difficult tasks — meeting the changing technological needs of the MIS department, developing an efficient staff, and establishing themselves as knowledgeable executives with an important role in MIS and corporate management. This article presents the results of a survey of current CIOs, who described how they are managing their staffs, themselves, and the changing work load of the MIS department.     

Ingestive responses of human newborns to salty, sour, and bitter stimuli.

In 2 experiments a total of 204 16-90 hr old neonates were offered 2 fluids differing in taste for 3 min each. The volumes ingested were measured. Ss offered water and bitter and sour solutions did not ingest them differentially, which corroborated earlier observations with weaker solutions. A sucrose solution was used to raise baseline ingestion above that of water. Ss offered the sucrose solution with and without urea, citric acid, or sodium chloride consumed less of it when citric acid was added. They were indifferent to the addition of urea or sodium chloride. The failure to observe intakes lower than that of water suggests that newborns maximally inhibit their ingestion of water. The effect of sex, age, birth weight, and individual consistency on intake were assessed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of dependence, dependency threats, and pay secrecy on managerial pay allocations.

Using an in-basket exercise, we examined the pay allocations of 117 bank managers when dependence on subordinate expertise, dependency threats in the form of a pay demand, and pay secrecy were systematically varied. Results supported expectations that dependency threats would lead to higher pay raises in the high dependence but not in the low dependence condition. Because we used an alpha level of .05, the prediction that these effects would be enhanced under conditions of pay secrecy was not significant; however, because p?=?.07 for the pay secrecy condition, a second study was conducted to further explore the pay secrecy issue. This second study, involving a separate sample of 120 bank managers, assessed the possibility that pay secrecy would have the expected enhancing effect when the study situation incorporated visible, potentially negative consequences for the pay allocator if pay raises were influenced by dependence and dependency threats. Contrary to expectations, high dependence and high dependency threats had the anticipated positive effects on the pay allocations only when pay was open. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Collaborative eScience libraries

In the context of collaborative eScience, digital libraries are one of many distributed, interoperable resources available to scientists that facilitate both human and machine collaboration: machine collaboration in the form of standards such as the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting and human collaboration in the form of collaborative workspaces. This paper describes a set of collaborative workspaces created at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library, initial patterns of use, and additional user requirements determined based on these initial patterns of use.