The pursuit of failure and the idealization of unhappiness.

Presents a psychoanalytic account of unconscious mental processes involved in entrenched psychical suffering, arguing that reported failures have been pursued at least as much and as actively as they have been the result of inescapable adversity. Patients in this regard often indulge in inappropriate self-blaming and thus compound their sense of failure and unhappiness. Freudian tenets of the pursuit of failure by those who are "wrecked by success" are examined. Case examples are presented to illustrate contradictory infantile meanings of success, failure, happiness, and unhappiness. Although disturbed ideal-self development appears to characterize both sexes, the unconscious active pursuit of failure seems more prevalent in men and the unconscious idealization of unhappiness in women. This relative sex difference is attributed to sexist influences on women, typical fantasies and problems of early development, and the analyst's interpretive activity that inevitably influences the dialogic construction of psychoanalytic life histories and that varies among and within schools of psychoanalytic thought. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Classification System for Reliability Models

There has been little attempt to introduce a general classification system for reliability models analogous to those in other areas of applied probability, notably queueing systems. Thus there has been an unavoidable confusion in the literature and considerable unnecessary duplication of investigative effort. This paper argues the case for a classification system analogous to that in use for queues; identifies necessary features of such a system; and proposes a partial classification system. To be successful such a system must not only be a relatively convenient summary of diverse models, but must have the general support of the reliability community.     

The Scholastic Aptitude Test "explains" why college men major in science more often than college women.

Used the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to predict the major field choices of 20,809 undergraduates at 4 large universities. Major field was coded on a science-nonscience continuum, and it could be predicted almost as accurately as GPA. The SAT Mathematics subtest (SAT-M) received virtually all of the weight in the prediction equation. Semi-partial correlation was performed to determine if the aforementioned prediction was a mere artifact of sex differences. Results suggest that (a) mathematical ability is an important determinant of major field choice, and (b) the male-female difference in major field choice is largely mediated by the sex difference in mathematical ability. A remedy is suggested for female underrepresentation in science fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stabilization of linear multivariable systems by output feedback

Absfract-A method is developed for improving the stability of linear multivariable systems using output feedback. The technique, which utilizes a gradient approach, has been mechanized in a digital computer program. Illustrative results are given for a seven-state two-feedback model of the Saturn V booster.     

Aging induced shape instability in an elastically bent uranium + 7.5 wt pct niobium + 2.5 wt pct zirconium alloy

The uranium +7.5 wt pct niobium +2.5 wt pct zirconium alloy when quenched from 1073 K was found to exist at room temperature as a metastable phase which was a slight tetragonal distortion of the elevated temperature body-centered-cubic (bcc) phase. Flat, asquenched specimens have been elastically deformed in four-point bending to maximum outer fiber stresses below the stress required for plastic deformation to occur but into a range of stress where pseudoelastic behavior has been observed. Aging of these elastically bent specimens in an oil bath at 423 K, while constrained by the bending jig, resulted in a permanent deflection and shape change. Further isothermal aging, after removal from the bending apparatus, caused increasing deflection and continued shape instability in spite of the absence of the applied load. X-ray examination of samples cut from a bent and aged specimen revealed important preferred orientation and lattice parameter differences between the tension and compression regions and the high and low stress parts of the specimen. These observations are described and compared to previous findings on quenched samples of this alloy that had been either deformed separately or aged separately. A rationalization of the shape instability is presented. Elastic twin nucleation and growth, preferred orientations, solute segregation and the interplay of all these seem to be involved.     

Oxytocin analogues with combined high smooth muscle and negligible antidiuretic activities. Investigation of position 7 in neurohypophyseal hormones

The proline residue in position 7 of oxytocin occupies one of the four corner positions in the two beta turns proposed for the preferred conformation of the pituitary hormone. It has been suggested that synthetic modifications of the residues in these corner positions will yield analogues in which one or more of the biological activities of the parent hormone is highly accentuated in terms of potency relative to other activities. In a continued effort to test this hypothesis the following analogues of oxytocin were prepared: [7-glycine]oxytocin, [1-beta-mercaptopropionic acid,7-glycine]oxytocin, [7-alanine]oxytocin, and [1-beta-mercaptopropionic acid,7-alanine]oxytocin. These peptides were found to possess the following specific activities, respectively: rat uterotonic, 65 +/- 2, 355 +/- 3, 22 +/- 1, 123 +/- 4; avian vasodepressor, 5.3 +/- 0.8, 17 +/- 0.4, 4.8 +/- 0.1, 9.8 +/- 0.5; rat antidiuretic, less than0.01, 0.062, 0.081 +/- 0.01, 0.17 +/- 0.01; rat pressor, 0.3, 0.5, 0.4, 0.5 unit/mg. Thus the analogues retain high uterotonic activity but exhibit strongly diminished renal and vascular activities relative to oxytocin. Especially noteworthy is [1-beta-mercaptopropionic acid,7-glycine]oxytocin with its high uterotonic activity but very low antidiuretic and pressor activities. The activity profile of this analogue combined with the fact that it is only slowly enzymatically degraded warrants further investigations of this peptide for clinical applications.     

Accurate reflection or systematic distortion? A reply to Block, Weiss, and Thorne.

Clarifies the authors' systematic distortion hypothesis (SDH) with reference to the J. Block et al (see record 1980-29222-001) critique. The "bipolar redundancy" effect is found to be an artifact of reduced variance in matrices of uncorrelated traits. It is contended that the SDH remains well supported and that the evidence for the existence of covarying, memory-based ratings remains dubious. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Théorie de l’information. Structure et modélisation d’un réseau de connexion

The authors study the switching network structures with emphasis on the information theory aspects of the problem (definition of combinatorial power and complexity). Different routing rules and rearranging algorithms are surveyed. Finally, a numerical simulation points out the extensivity concept which is useful in the study of switching networks models of reduced size.