Review of Arthur R. Jensen (2006)--Clocking the mind: Mental chronometry and individual differences.

Reviews the book Clocking the Mind: Mental chronometry and individual differences by Arthur Jensen (see record 2006-20276-000). Mental chronometry, as Arthur Jensen stresses, is the study of reaction time (RT) in its various guises, contexts, and applications. As with respect to much of experimental psychology (cognitive and other), there is a venerable past here lying in the background, providing a wide-ranging context in which to embed our current (that is, our 40-odd year) preoccupation with RT as a primary dependent measure in cognitive psychology. This recent book, Clocking the Mind: Mental Chronometry and Individual Differences (published by Elsevier), weds both differential psychology's concern with the measurement of individual differences in RT (e.g., Austin, Deary, Gibson, McGregor, & Dent, 1998) and experimental psychology's concern with "the effects of manipulating various external conditions on variation in the measurements of RT" (p. 1). The reader of this journal will most probably be more familiar with the latter use of RT in the literature, especially when embedded within such familiar experimental tasks as those tapping both Garner and Stroop effects (Pansky & Algom, 1999). The book should be perused with care in order to ensure the further profitable use of RT in both experimental and differential lines of research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

多部件设备维修问题研究及遗传算法求解

合理组织设备维修，缩短设备维修时间是生产运营管理的一个重要环节。本文探讨了多部件设备维修的有效组织问题。考虑到维修工人对拆分后设备的不同部分具有不同的维修效率，提出了一种基于维修时间优化的决策方法，将其与经典指派方法进行了比较；进一步地，对这一NP-hard问题设计了遗传算法，通过数值例子讨论了其求解有效性。     

Absence makes the adaptations grow fonder: Proportion of time apart from partner, male sexual psychology, and sperm competition in humans (Homo sapiens).

Sperm competition occurs when the sperm of multiple males concurrently occupy the reproductive tract of a female and compete to fertilize an egg. We used a questionnaire to investigate psychological responses to the risk of sperm competition for 237 men in committed, sexual relationships. As predicted, a man who spends a greater (relative to a man who spends a lesser) proportion of time apart from his partner since the couple's last copulation reported (a) greater sexual interest in his partner, (b) greater distress in response to his partner's sexual rejection, and (c) greater sexual persistence in response to his partner's sexual rejection. All effects were independent of total time since the couple's last copulation and the man's relationship satisfaction. Discussion addresses limitations of the current research and situates the current results within the broader comparative literature on adaptation to sperm competition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

企业实施精益生产的探讨

通过描述造成企业经济效益差的原因之一——浪费，提出了如何实施精益生产，消除企业浪费，以提高企业经济效益．     

The time course of spoken word learning and recognition: Studies with artificial lexicons.

The time course of spoken word recognition depends largely on the frequencies of a word and its competitors, or neighbors (similar-sounding words). However, variability in natural lexicons makes systematic analysis of frequency and neighbor similarity difficult. Artificial lexicons were used to achieve precise control over word frequency and phonological similarity. Eye tracking provided time course measures of lexical activation and competition (during spoken instructions to perform visually guided tasks) both during and after word learning, as a function of word frequency, neighbor type, and neighbor frequency. Apparent shifts from holistic to incremental competitor effects were observed in adults and neural network simulations, suggesting such shifts reflect general properties of learning rather than changes in the nature of lexical representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time stepping schemes for coupled displacement and pore pressurē analysis

 The paper investigates the performance of various time stepping schemes for coupled displacement and pore pressure analysis. A number of alternative forms of the automatic time stepping method proposed by Sloan and Abbo (1999a) are also presented. These alternative schemes use different updates for the displacements and pore pressures and also adopt different starting conditions for the iterations. The automatic schemes are compared with an implicit θ-method, as well as an explicit method, through analysis of a variety of problems involving undrained loading, drained loading, and consolidation for Mohr-Coulomb and critical state models. As expected, the numerical results confirm that the explicit scheme is neither accurate nor robust. Although the implicit θ-method is accurate and fast, it fails to give a solution in a number of cases where the time step is large. The automatic schemes are shown to be accurate, fast and generally robust. Two of the automatic schemes proposed never fail to furnish a solution for the cases considered. In addition, all the automatic schemes are able to constrain the time-stepping (temporal integration) error in the displacements and pore pressures to lie near a prescribed tolerance, provided the iteration error tolerance is properly chosen. For complex soil models, it is important that the latter is set sufficiently small in order for the schemes to be able to constrain the time-stepping error to lie within a prescribed tolerance. Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Mike Crisfield, for his cheerfulness and cooperation as a colleague and friend over many years.     

Robustness issues in optimal control of unstable plants

This paper presents a robustness analysis of the optimal solution of the step tracking problem in a one-degree of freedom control architecture, for the discrete-time multivariable (MIMO) case. It is shown that the resulting closed loop becomes arbitrarily fragile, i.e. the sensitivity peak becomes arbitrarily large, for certain reference directions. The cause of this problem is that the optimal controller depends on the reference direction. The paper shows that this dependence can be eliminated with an alternative formulation of the optimal problem where the cost is averaged over all reference directions.     

A Detection-Theoretic Model of Echo Inhibition.

A detection-theoretic analysis of the auditory localization of dual-impulse stimuli is described, and a model for the processing of spatial cues in the echo pulse is developed. Although for over 50 years "echo suppression" has been the topic of intense theoretical and empirical study within the hearing sciences, only a rudimentary understanding of its mechanisms has emerged. In this article, psychometric functions and results from matching studies are used in developing a model that specifies the perceived position of the echo pulse as a normal deviate, with an expectation that is a logistic function of the echo delay and a variance that depends on interaural time difference. Loss of information in the echo event is quantified as a decline in the efficiency with which the binaural system receives information from the lag impulse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biases in Social Comparative Judgments: The Role of Nonmotivated Factors in Above-Average and Comparative-Optimism Effects.

Biases in social comparative judgments, such as those illustrated by above-average and comparative-optimism effects, are often regarded as products of motivated reasoning (e.g., self-enhancement). These effects, however, can also be produced by information-processing limitations or aspects of judgment processes that are not necessarily biased by motivational factors. In this article, the authors briefly review motivational accounts of biased comparative judgments, introduce a 3-stage model for understanding how people make comparative judgments, and then describe how various nonmotivational factors can influence the 3 stages of the comparative judgment process. Finally, the authors discuss several unresolved issues highlighted by their analysis, such as the interrelation between motivated and nonmotivated sources of bias and the influence of nonmotivated sources of bias on behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prediction of spectral reflectance factor distribution of automotive paint finishes

It is necessary to determine the accurate reflectance of painted surfaces for the review of paint finishes by computer graphics (CG) before actual painting of the exterior color of automobiles, and for quality control during production and inspection processes. We have optimized a method for measuring reflectance by using a statistical technique. We have found that the reflectance of a painted surface is best measured at an incident angle of 60° and at five aspecular angles of 10°, 18°, 28°, 40°, and 90°. Our method makes it possible to accurately reproduce reflection characteristics of paint finishes containing special flake pigments, such as pearl mica. Also it was proved that our method can apply not only to solid and metallic coatings but to all painted surfaces. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 30, 275–282, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20125