The differential effect of induced muscular tension (drive) on discrimination in schizophrenics and normals.

In a discrimination task where the performance of schizophrenics and normals did not differ, an increase in muscular tension led to greater decrement in schizophrenics than in normals. The difference in decrements was interpreted as being due to the activating or energizing effects of increased drive. The results were compatible with an account utilizing a response strength ceiling, with schizophrenics considered as having greater reactivity to drive conditions or lower response strength ceilings than normals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

VERBAL ASSOCIATIVE STABILITY AND COMMONALITY AS A FUNCTION OF STRESS IN SCHIZOPHRENICS, NEUROTICS, AND NORMALS.

4 ASSOCIATIONS TO EACH OF 16 STIMULUS WORDS, 8 JUDGED TO BE ANXIETY WORDS AND 8 NEUTRAL WORDS, WERE OBTAINED UNDER RELAXED AND TIME-PRESSURE CONDITIONS FROM EACH OF 40 SCHIZOPHRENICS, 32 NEUROTICS, AND 27 NORMALS ON 2 SUCCESSIVE DAYS. SCHIZOPHRENICS AND NEUROTICS WERE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS STABLE THAN NORMALS IN THEIR ASSOCIATIONS, AND SCHIZOPHRENICS WERE SIGNIFICANTLY LESS STABLE THAN NEUROTICS IN THEIR RESPONSES TO ANXIETY WORDS. TIME PRESSURE MADE SCHIZOPHRENICS EVEN LESS STABLE AND NEUROTICS MORE STABLE. THE ASSOCIATIONS OF SCHIZOPHRENICS WERE MORE UNCOMMON THAN THOSE OF NEUROTICS OR NORMALS. ALL GROUPS GAVE MORE UNCOMMON RESPONSES WHEN RESPONDING TO ANXIETY WORDS AS COMPARED TO CONTROL WORDS. THE RESULTS SUGGEST THAT A PARTIAL DISORGANIZATION OF VERBAL HABITS IS AN ASPECT OF SCHIZOPHRENIC THOUGHT DISTURBANCE, AND THE RESULTS ARE CONSISTENT WITH A RESPONSE-STRENGTH CEILING INTERPRETATION OF THIS DISORGANIZATION. (19 REF.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictive utility of the Revised Suicide Potential Scale.

Data were drawn from 63 fatal suicides, 324 nonfatal suicide attempters, and 95 nonsuicidal controls. The Revised Suicide Potential Scale (RSPS) correctly predicted 68.4% of the nonsuicidal group and misclassified 31.6% as suicidal. It is felt that the use of the RSPS is considerably useful where higher suicidal base rates are common, e.g., hospitals, crisis clinics, and suicide prevention services. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

URBAN CRIME: ITS BIG CITY DIMENSIONS

Crime is one of the most pressing problems facing America's largest cities. With one-fifth of the nation's population, the largest cities account for forty-seven percent of serious violent offenses. In some states over half of statewide criminal violence occurs in one or two cities. The problem, however, extends far beyond actual victimization, by creating an environment of fear which threatens economic and social life and entourages disinvestment and flight. Cities present widely differing crime profiles, reflecting variations in both the character and intensity of criminal activity. Newer, growing cities generally have lower violent crime rates than older, declining cities, although criminal violence is stabilizing or declining in a number of historically high crime centers. Policy initiatives are hampered by crime's concentration in older, less affluent neighborhoods of central cities and its intraracial character. Demographic and economic trends portend a diminution of violent crime, but not necessarily of criminality. Any lessening of violence and fear, however, enhances the prospects of big city revitalization.     

Behavioral contingencies and self-mutilation in Lesch-Nyhan disease.

Lesch-Nyhan syndrome is a rare, sex-linked, recessive disease that is accompanied by severe self-mutilation, especially finger biting. Evidence is presented suggesting that parental response patterns may contribute to the genesis of the self-injurious behavior (SIB). The therapeutic effectiveness of punishment, positive reinforcement of either SIB or non-SIB, and time-out learning paradigms were evaluated in 5 Ss aged 3–13 yrs. Electric skin shock failed to suppress the behavior. Positive reinforcement of non-self-injury and time-out from social reinforcement were consistently and rapidly effective, indicating a complex interaction of genetic and environmental factors in the production of SIB. Elimination or major reductions in incidence of SIB was maintained during follow-up periods of 2 yrs. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optic nerve head segmentation

Reliable and efficient optic disk localization and segmentation are important tasks in automated retinal screening. General-purpose edge detection algorithms often fail to segment the optic disk due to fuzzy boundaries, inconsistent image contrast or missing edge features. This paper presents an algorithm for the localization and segmentation of the optic nerve head boundary in low-resolution images (about 20 microns/pixel). Optic disk localization is achieved using specialized template matching, and segmentation by a deformable contour model. The latter uses a global elliptical model and a local deformable model with variable edge-strength dependent stiffness. The algorithm is evaluated against a randomly selected database of 100 images from a diabetic screening programme. Ten images were classified as unusable; the others were of variable quality. The localization algorithm succeeded on all bar one usable image; the contour estimation algorithm was qualitatively assessed by an ophthalmologist as having Excellent-Fair performance in 83% of cases, and performs well even on blurred images.     

Measurement of retinal vessel widths from fundus images based on 2-D modeling

Changes in retinal vessel diameter are an important sign of diseases such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis and diabetes mellitus. Obtaining precise measurements of vascular widths is a critical and demanding process in automated retinal image analysis as the typical vessel is only a few pixels wide. This paper presents an algorithm to measure the vessel diameter to subpixel accuracy. The diameter measurement is based on a two-dimensional difference of Gaussian model, which is optimized to fit a two-dimensional intensity vessel segment. The performance of the method is evaluated against Brinchmann-Hansen's half height, Gregson's rectangular profile and Zhou's Gaussian model. Results from 100 sample profiles show that the presented algorithm is over 30% more precise than the compared techniques and is accurate to a third of a pixel.     

Sub-100 mK Cooling Using Normal-Metal\backslash Insulator\backslash Superconductor Tunnel Junctions

Normal-metal \(\backslash \) insulator \(\backslash \) superconductor (NIS) junctions can be used as solid-state refrigerators since the hottest electrons preferentially tunnel from the normal metal into the superconductor. In this paper, we present NIS junctions optimized to cool electrons from a bath temperature of 100 mK. We measure a temperature reduction of the electrons in the refrigerator junctions from 100 to 26 mK which agrees with device models. Independent measurements of the electron temperature using thermometer junctions measure a temperature decrease from 100 to 48 mK. Theories explaining the difference in measured temperatures are discussed.     

The change in the peroxide values of corn and cottonseed oils under various storage conditions

Summary The relation between the formation of peroxides in corn and cottonseed oils and the development of rancidity have been studied under three types of storage conditions. A direct relation was shown to exist between them but the exact peroxide value at which organoleptic rancidity sets in depends upon such conditions as the amount of oxygen available, the temperature and the amount of surface exposed. Light exerts an accelerating influence upon the formation of peroxides as is shown by other work of the author’s now in the course of publication.     

Nuclear fission power for 21st century needs: Enabling technologies for large-scale, low-risk, affordable nuclear electricity

We examine the principal concerns regarding provision of a large fraction of human energy needs with nuclear fission reactor-derived electricity, and offer robust physics and engineering responses to each of them. We then propose a representative system-level integration of these solutions to the longstanding problems that have confronted nuclear fission-based power. This integration obviates all fuel supply issues, including the entire set of isotopic enrichment ones, while rendering comparably useful as nuclear fuels all of the actinide elements and isotopes. It entirely avoids transport and reprocessing and the full set of ad hoc waste disposal issues, and completely precludes all those involving proliferation/diversion of fissile isotopes into weapons' programs. It offers high-grade heat in pressurized helium gas for thermodynamically efficient, economically appealing, environmentally attractive combined-cycle conversion to electricity while robustly avoiding prospects of internal overheating of any portion of the reactor's core or fuel. It provides highly redundant means of any desired statistical reliability for prevention of core meltdown in LOCA circumstances. It provides zero biospheric hazard in event of either natural or man-made catastrophe. It requires – indeed, admits of – no operator control actions, other than initial start-up and final shutdown commands, so that operator errors are entirely precluded; during the half-century of potentially full-power operational life in between these two commands, it thermostatically regulates in an entirely automatic manner its own nuclear power generation to match the heat removed from its core in a time-varying fashion. The thorium-burning variant of this new class of reactors involves no long-lived actinide isotopes, thereby obviating a present-day keystone issue of long-term reactor waste storage and disposal. Each of these novel features is technologically separable, so that these new reactor design concepts may be applied piecewise to enhance prospects of nuclear reactor-centered power generation in many different utilization circumstances. However, synergisms arising from their full integration seem likely to be compellingly attractive in most situations, for a constellation of economic and safety reasons. We therefore project a bright future for cheap electricity safely obtained in >10 TWe quantities from nuclear power reactors of this new type, moreover over multi-century time frames. We observe that pertinent aspects of neutron physics and modern technology together offer a far richer spectrum of possibilities for nuclear power reactors than has been significantly explored through the present; the present architecture is merely exemplary.