The Danube Programme: The Challenge of International River-Basin Management

This paper highlights the key issues which affected the design and implementation of water policy within the first phase of the Environmental Programme for the Danube River Basin. The programme represents one of several regional environmental initiatives in Eastern Europe which were designed to control pollution through the coordinated actions of national governments, international organizations, international financial institutions and non-governmental organizations.
The paper identifies three key controversial findings. Firstly, although the programme has been a valuable tool for the skills and technology transfer which are necessary to enable the Danube states to control water pollution, it has failed to generate the anticipated levels of capital investment or establish itself as a cornerstone of Danube basin management. Secondly, the policy process has been beset by political, economic, social and historical conflicts and power struggles between the participating parties. Thirdly, valuable lessons for the strategic and sustainable management of international river basins can be learned from the operational experiences of the Danube programme.     

Signal-detection analysis of group decision making.

How effectively can groups of people make yes-or-no decisions? To answer this question, we used signal-detection theory to model the behavior of groups of human participants in a visual detection task. The detection model specifies how performance depends on the group's size, the competence of the members, the correlation among members' judgments, the constraints on member interaction, and the group's decision rule. The model also allows specification of performance efficiency, which is a measure of how closely a group's performance matches the statistically optimal group. The performance of our groups was consistent with the theoretical predictions, but efficiency decreased as group size increased. This result was attributable to a decrease in the effort that members gave to their individual tasks rather than an inefficiency in combining the information in the members' judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Diversity of ability and cognitive style for group decision processes

This research investigates the potential for two forms of error diversity (ability diversity and diversity of cognitive style) to increase the accuracy of multi-agent group decision processes. An experimental methodology is employed that rigorously controls for the sources of error diversity. The results indicate that ability diversity decreases group decision errors by approximately 4%. Cognitive diversity is much more effective; decision errors are reduced by approximately 13% by groups formed from four cognitive classes. As sources of ability and cognitive diversity increase, the generalization error of the group decision decreases, and the prominence of the most capable member (i.e., expert) in the group diminishes. Thus, the popular reliance on using more capable members to create high performance homogenous groups may be misguided. This research indicates that a better strategy is to create groups of members that ‘think differently’ and cooperate to produce a group decision. Using this strategy, we are able to reduce the group decision error in two bankruptcy detection data sets by 11-47%. Reductions of this magnitude in high volume, high value, and repetitive decision environments characterizing the financial domain are extremely significant, where error reductions of even a fraction of a percent are welcome.     

Personality coherence: Moderating self–other profile agreement and profile consensus.

Traditional research on moderator variables in personality has focused on measures of relative consistency. In contrast, using Goldberg's (1992) adjectives representing the Big Five personality traits, the authors examined the applicability of moderator variables to measures of personality coherence. The authors considered 3 traditional moderator variables (interitem variability, construct similarity, and scalability) and one new moderator variable: the temporal stability of response patterns. Across 2 studies, individuals with temporally stable response patterns had higher levels of personality coherence, as measured by self-other profile agreement and informant profile consensus, than did individuals with less temporally stable patterns. By comparison, the normatively based moderator variables did not moderate self-other profile agreement and informant profile consensus. The implications for personality structure and coherence are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influences on the efficiency of prospective memory in younger and older adults.

The influence of 4 factors on age-related declines in prospective memory (PM) was considered in 2 experiments. The results of the experiments reveal that age-related differences in PM were not moderated by the degree of match between the nature of processing required in the ongoing activity and the defining features of the PM cue. Age-related differences in the accuracy of PM responses were primarily attributable to an increase in the number of omission errors committed by older adults. Age-related differences in PM were somewhat independent of the ability to recall the PM cues and intentions following task performance and were mediated by the cognitive resources of processing speed, inhibitory control, and working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

电脱盐操作条件的优化

通过对处理沙特轻质原油的常减压电脱盐装置主要工艺参数的优化,摸索出适宜的操作条件,即脱盐温度140～145℃,破乳剂加注量30～35 μg/g、注水量4％±0.2％,一、二级混合强度分别为0.05 MPa和0.06 MPa,从而使脱后原油盐含量降至3mg/L以下,水质量分数降至0.1％以下,为装置降低能耗、减轻设备腐蚀、安全平稳生产创造了条件。     

Incorporating parameter variability in multi-attribute evaluation

Most decision situations in business, manufacturing and service industries represent problems with multiple alternatives where more than one objective needs to be considered in evaluating mutually exclusive strategies. A variety of approaches have been proposed and employed for evaluating such multi-attribute problems. These approaches generally utilize single point or most likely estimates in the evaluation process. This paper addresses the problem of developing a probabilistic additive weighting methodology which facilitates the inclusion of variability in the evaluation procedure.     

Dual active material composite cathode structures for Li-ion batteries

The efficacy of composite Li-ion battery cathodes made by mixing active materials that possessed either high-rate capability or high specific energy was examined. The cathode structures studied contained carbon-coated LiFePO₄ and either Li[Li_0.17Mn_0.58Ni_0.25]O₂ or LiCoO₂. These active materials were arranged using three different electrode geometries: fully intermixed, fully separated, or layered. Discharge rate studies, cycle-life evaluation, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy studies were conducted using coin cell test structures containing Li-metal anodes. Results indicated that electrode configuration was correlated to rate capability and degree of polarization if there was a large differential between the rate capabilities of the two active material species.     

The ratio of initial/residual DNA damage predicts intrinsic radiosensitivity in seven cervix carcinoma cell lines

The single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay was used to measure radiation-produced DNA double-strand breaks (dsbs) in a series of seven cervical tumour cell lines (ME180, HT3, C33A, C41, SiHa, MS751 and CaSki). The proportion of DNA dsbs was measured immediately after radiation treatment (initial damage) and 16 h later after incubation at 37 degrees C (residual damage). Linear dose-response curves were seen for initial (slopes 0.23-0.66) and residual (slopes 0.16-0.87) DNA dsbs. Neither of the slopes of the linear regression analysis on the initial and on the residual DNA dsbs dose-response curves (range 0-80 Gy) correlated with SF2 (surviving fraction at 2 Gy) measured after high- (HDR) or low-dose-rate (LDR) irradiation. An association was evident between SF2 after HDR and LDR irradiation and the ratio of the absolute level of initial and residual damage after a single dose of 60 Gy. However, a significant correlation was found between HDR (r= -0.78, P = 0.04) and LDR (r = -0.86, P = 0.03) SF2 values and the ratio of the slopes of the initial and residual DNA dsbs dose-response curves (range 0.47-0.99), representing the fraction of DNA damage remaining. These results indicate that the neutral comet assay can be used to predict radiosensitivity of cervical tumour cell lines by assessing the ratio of initial and residual DNA dsbs.