Alcohol/drug abuse, driving convictions, and risk-taking dispositions among trauma center patients

The objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between alcohol/drug abuse diagnoses, driving convictions (speeding, reckless driving, impaired driving, license violations), and risk-taking dispositions among a series of injured drivers admitted to a trauma center. The driving records of 778 patients were linked to diagnoses of psychoactive substance use disorders (PSUDs), admission blood alcohol concentration (BAC), mode of injury, and results of a risk-taking disposition survey. Twenty-nine percent of patients had one or more convictions in the 3 years before injury. Types of violation were not related to mode of injury. Although there was a positive association between prior impaired-driving convictions, current alcohol dependence, and a BAC+ status, a consistent pattern relative to other violations, PSUDs, and BAC status was not apparent. Risk-taking disposition scale scores indicated that patients without PSUDs and without convictions tended toward less risk-taking behavior than patients with PSUDs and with convictions. The complex inter-relationships between PSUDs, risk-taking dispositions, and being convicted of driving dangerously require additional study so that intervention programs and injury prevention initiatives can be targeted effectively.     

Social, behavioral and driving characteristics of injured pedestrians: a comparison with other unintentional trauma patients

Pedestrian injuries represent 11% of all motor vehicle related injuries in the USA. This study attempts to define the epidemiology of the pedestrian victim. Patients admitted to a regional adult trauma center were interviewed and evaluated for substance abuse. Pedestrians were compared with the remaining unintentional trauma patients with regard to demographics, socioeconomics, possession of a driver's license, injury prone behaviors, risk taking dispositions, and BAC levels using the Student's t-test and Pearson's chi2 statistic (alpha=0.05). Multivariate logistic regression models were built with pedestrian mechanism as the outcome. When compared to the remaining unintentional trauma population (N=661), pedestrians (N=113) were significantly more likely to be black, not married, unemployed, binge drinkers, alcohol dependent, drug dependent, BAC+, to have a low income, low educational achievement, younger age, and to not have a driver license. Black race, unemployment of 1 year or more, never licensed, lapsed license, revoked license and BAC>200 mg/dl showed statistical significance in the multiple logistic regression. Pedestrians represent a sub-population with a low socioeconomic status and high incidence of substance abuse. Unemployment, not having a driver's license, black race, and a BAC>200 mg/dl were strongly linked to being an injured pedestrian.     

The interplay between value and relatedness as bases for metacognitive monitoring and control: Evidence for agenda-based monitoring.

Two experiments are reported examining how value and relatedness interact to influence metacognitive monitoring and control processes. Participants studied unrelated and related word pairs, each accompanied by point values denoting how important the items were to remember. These values were presented either before or after each pair in a between-subjects design, and participants made item-by-item judgments of learning (JOLs) predicting the likelihood that each item would be remembered later. Results from Experiment 1 showed that participants used value and relatedness as cues to inform their JOLs. Interestingly, JOLs increased as a function of value even in the after condition in which value had no impact on cued recall. Participants in Experiment 2 were permitted to control study time for each item. Results showed that value and relatedness were simultaneously considered when allocating study time. These results support a cue-weighting process in which JOLs and study time allocation are based on multiple cues, which may or may not be predictive of future memory performance, and complements the agenda-based regulation model of study time (Ariel, Dunlosky, & Bailey, 2009) by providing evidence for agenda-based monitoring. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

High temperature combined with carbon dioxide enriched or reduced oxygen atmospheres for control of Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

Heat combined with controlled atmospheres increased mortality of Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) larvae when temperatures of ≥38°C were combined with carbon dioxide enriched or oxygen deficient atmospheres. Preconditioning of larvae to treatment temperature for 24 or 48 hr prior to controlled atmosphere treatments at 38°C significantly reduced larval mortality relative to a 1 hr preconditioning. Heat combined with controlled atmospheres can significantly reduce treatment time. However, if heat is applied prior to the application of controlled atmospheres, the time of treatment must be extended.     

An efficient and versatile algorithm for computing the covariancefunction of an ARMA process

Computation of an ARMA covariance function is a common ingredient in analysis and synthesis of various problems in stochastic control, estimation, and signal processing. Several approaches can be used for this purpose. In this paper, we present an algorithm based on simple polynomial calculations. Compared with alternative strategies, it has small computational load, shows good numerical robustness, and can be extended to handle multivariable ARMA processes, even with complex-valued coefficients     

Glutathione transferase isoenzyme patterns in the rat ovary

It is well known that disturbance of calcium homeostasis has a significant role in the development of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Our recent data suggest that acute treatment with the calcium antagonist verapamil can improve some behavioral deficits in an experimental model of AD. Therefore, the present study was done to establish the effect of chronically administered verapamil on cognitive and noncognitive behavior of rats with bilateral electrolitical lesions of nucleus basalis manocellularis (NBM)--an animal model of AD. The NBM lesions produce a deficit in performance of diverse behavior tests: active avoidance (AA), low level of fear (the open field test) as well as aggressive (the test of foot-shock induced aggression) and depressive (the learned helplessness test) behavior. Verapamil (1.0, 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 mg/kg i.p.) or saline solution (1 ml/kg i.p.) were injected 24 hr after the lesion of NBM and then repeatedly administered during the next 8 days (twice a day). Performance of the two-way active avoidance test, the open field test, the foot shock-induced aggression test and the learned helplessness test were done on day 4 after the last verapamil or saline treatment (day 13 after the lesion). Verapamil in doses of 2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg significantly ameliorated the deficit in the performance of AA, the open field behavior, and the depression, but not the aggressive behavior. The obtained beneficial effect of chronic administered verapamil suggests that the regulation of calcium homeostasis during the early period after NBM lesions might be a reasonable way to prevent the behavioral deficits in an experimental model of AD.     

ESPRIT-like estimation of real-valued sinusoidal frequencies

Subspace-based estimation of multiple real-valued sine wave frequencies is considered in this paper. A novel data covariance model is proposed. In the proposed model, the dimension of the signal subspace equals the number of frequencies present in the data, which is half of the signal subspace dimension for the conventional model. Consequently, an ESPRIT-like algorithm using the proposed data model is presented. The proposed algorithm is then extended for the case of complex-valued sine waves. Performance analysis of the proposed algorithms are also carried out. The algorithms are tested in numerical simulations. When compared with ESPRIT, the newly proposed algorithm results in a significant reduction in computational burden without any compromise in the accuracy.     

Alcohol use, driving records, and crash culpability among injured motorcycle drivers

Alcohol use, driving records, crash culpability, and crash conviction rates for 165 injured motorcycle drivers (MTCDs) were studied. Of the 165 MTCDs, 53.3% tested positive for alcohol (BAC+). Culpability determinations (n = 150) revealed that 83% of BAC+ and 46% of BAC- MTCDs caused their crashes (p < 0.001). Driving records (n = 145) revealed the following prevalence of one or more convictions for BAC+ and BAC- MTCDs: impaired driving (29% vs. 7%, p < 0.001); speeding (74% vs. 58%, p < 0.05); and reckless driving (68% vs. 44%, p < 0.002). Of the surviving culpable impaired MCTDs (n = 48), 16.7% received crash-related convictions, 12.5% received alcohol-related convictions. The reasons for the low conviction rates are probably multifactoral.     

InAs/AlSb double-barrier structure with large peak-to-valleycurrent ratio: a candidate for high-frequency microwave devices

Negative differential resistance (NDR) in InAs/AlSb/InAs/AlSb/InAs double-barrier structures with peak-to-valley current (PVC) ratios as large as 11 at room temperature and 28 at 77 K is reported. This is a large improvement over previous results for these materials and is also considerably better than those obtained for the extensively studied GaAs/AlGaAs material system. The peak current density was also improved by reducing the barrier thickness, and values exceeding 10⁵ A/cm² have been observed. These results suggest that InAs/AlSb structures are interesting alternatives to conventional GaAs/AlGaAs structures in high-frequency devices. NDR in a InAs/AlSb superlattice double-barrier structure with a lower PVC ratio than in the solid barrier case has also been observed. This result indicates that valley current contributions arising from X-point tunneling are negligible in these structures, consistent with the large band offset     

On the constrained MUSIC technique

A constrained MUSIC technique, recently proposed for bearing estimation, is shown to be a version of the beam-space MUSIC. This observation places the constrained MUSIC in a class of bearing estimators whose statistical performance is well understood