A picture book reading intervention in day care and home for children from low-income families.

The effects of an interactive book reading program were assessed with children from low-income families who attended subsidized day-care centers in New York. The children entered the program with language development in standard English vocabulary and expression that was about 10 mo behind chronological age on standardized tests. Children were pretested and assigned randomly within classrooms to 1 of 3 conditions: (1) a school plus home condition in which the children were read to by their teachers and their parents, (2) a school condition in which children were read to only by teachers, and (3) a control condition in which children engaged in play activities under the supervision of their teachers. Training of adult readers was based on a self-instructional video. The intervention lasted for 6 wks, at which point children were posttested on several standardized measures of language ability that had been used as pretests. These assessments were repeated at a 6 mo follow-up. Educationally and statistically significant effects of the reading intervention were obtained at posttest and follow-up on measures of expressive vocabulary. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the Lavrentiev phenomenon

Additional assumptions, besides convexity and coercivity, are investigated to guarantee that the Lavrentiev phenomenon does not occur in a basic problem of the calculus of variations. Dedicated to Professor S. Faedo on his 70th birthday Work partially supported by the National Science Foundation under grant MCS-82-02-033.     

The hemostatic system and thrombohemorrhagic complications during the hemosorption treatment of patients with chronic glomerulonephritis with nephrotic syndrome

Effects were studied of hemosorption on the system of homeostasis in patients with chronic glomerulonephritis presenting with nephrotic syndrome. An optimum graphic express method of control of the homeostasis system state was found, permitting predicting thrombohemorrhagic complications after single-session hemosorption (significance 99.9%). Strategies were identified for correction of changes in coagulogrammes in such patients along with devising measures to prevent the above complications.     

Low-Noise Ultralinear Line Repeaters for the L5 Coaxial System

Two major characteristics of the coaxial cable that are of paramount importance in the design of coaxial line repeaters are the nominal cable loss and the variation in the cable loss due to seasonal variations in cable temperature. As a result, there are two types of line repeaters used to equalize for the cable loss characteristics. One is a low-noise ultralinear fixed-gain amplifier. It is designated the basic repeater and is used to equalize for the nominal loss of the coaxial cable. The second type, called the regulating repeater, includes a basic repeater plus additional circuitry which automatically corrects for dynamic variations in cable loss due to temperature. Some of the important design techniques that are used to achieve these low-noise ultralinear repeaters are described. In addition, an analysis of the steady-state response of a tandem string of regulating repeaters is included.     

A Low-Capacitance Multielectrode Probe for Use in Extracellular Neurophysiology

A multielectrode structure containing integrated junction-FET input stages is described. Photoengraved microelectrodes are utilized to obtain high dimensional precision, small size, and extremely low capacitive coupling between electrodes. The interelectrode capacitance is less than 0.01 pf. The integrated input devices (JFET's) reduce the impedance levels on the recording channels to less than 500 ohms, virtually eliminating crosstalk and stray noise pickup from the system. The n-channel JFET's operate as source-followers from a common 2.5 volt drain supply and have input impedances greater than 100 megohms at 1 kHz. A simple external preamplifier ensures stable operation and easy interfacing with conventional recording and display equipment. Special considerations in the design of low-noise completely integrated input stages for use with metal microelectrodes are discussed in detail. As a result of the low interelectrode coupling in this structure, simultaneous recording and stimulation from closely adjacent areas of brain should be possible with virtually no stimulus artifact.     

Raman spectroscopy of mesophase pitches

Raman spectra have been measured for mesophase pitches prepared from different starting materials. The spectra exhibited the two major absorption peaks characteristic of other carbonaceous materials. The relative intensities of these peaks have been related to molecular size and to the degree of order in the mesophase. A comparison of Raman data for carbonaceous materials shows that the absorption frequency of the longer wavelength band is related to the degree of graphitization.     

Crystallization and vitrification in aqueous systems

Some key ideas and experimental findings concerning the probability that crystallization of a liquid or its binary solutions will occur at moderate cooling rates are discussed. The use of cryoprotectants and of pressure to favourably influence these probabilities is rationalized, and some of the newer findings on small sample supercooling phenomena are reviewed.     

Parallel developments in aprotic and protic ionic liquids: physical chemistry and applications

This Account covers research dating from the early 1960s in the field of low-melting molten salts and hydrates,which has recently become popular under the rubric of "ionic liquids". It covers understanding gained in the principal author's laboratories (initially in Australia, but mostly in the U.S.A.) from spectroscopic, dynamic, and thermodynamic studies and includes recent applications of this understanding in the fields of energy conversion and biopreservation. Both protic and aprotic varieties of ionic liquids are included, but recent studies have focused on the protic class because of the special applications made possible by the highly variable proton activities available in these liquids.