DSM-IV field trials for oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder in children and adolescents

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the field trials for oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder was to select valid diagnostic thresholds for these disorders and to compare the psychometric properties of DSM-IV criteria for oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder with previous DSM diagnostic formulations. METHOD: Structured diagnostic interviews, standardized clinician's validation diagnoses, and multiple measures of impairment were obtained for 440 clinic-referred children and adolescents aged 4-17 years. RESULTS: A diagnostic threshold of four symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder optimized identification of impaired children, improved agreement somewhat with the clinician's validation diagnosis, and had somewhat better test-retest agreement than DSM-III-R. In the case of conduct disorder, the optimal time window for ascertainment of symptoms was clarified. A diagnostic threshold of three symptoms of conduct disorder maximized accurate identification of impaired children and agreement with the clinician's validation diagnosis and resulted in slightly better test-retest agreement than DSM-III-R. Compared with the DSM-III-R definition, the DSM-IV definition of oppositional defiant disorder was somewhat more prevalent, but the prevalence of conduct disorder was essentially unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: DSM-IV definitions of oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder are somewhat better than DSM-III-R definitions in terms of internal consistency and test-retest agreement, and the validity of the DSM-IV definition of oppositional defiant disorder is slightly better than that of DSM-III-R.     

The death of Chatterton,or photography and the law

Abstract

It seems destiny that all that is connected with the young British poet, Thomas Chatterton, must be filled with controversy. The furore which arose concerning his publication of the Rowley poems was only intensified by the writer's untimely death.     

Hydrogen from renewable palm kernel shell via enhanced gasification with low carbon dioxide emission

Hydrogen economy has become more attractive with the energy crises and environmental issues associated with fossil fuel utilization more so with the discovery that hydrogen can be produced from renewable biomass. This provides good prospects to Malaysia that generates abundant palm wastes. Nevertheless, there is still limited knowledge on kinetics parameters for hydrogen production from palm kernel shell (PKS) gasification. Hence, this work aims to develop a mathematical model that is able to describe the kinetics of steam gasification of PKS with in situ CO₂ capture while considering tar formation. A mean-squared error minimization approach has been used to estimate the kinetics parameters of the gasification process. Using the calculated kinetics parameters the process efficiencies are profiled with respect to the effect of gasification temperature, steam/biomass ratio and sorbent/biomass ratio. The parametric study indicates that the three variables promote hydrogen production at different degree of influence. This developed model can be further extended to incorporate optimization study on the potential clean production of hydrogen from PKS.     

Haven or hell? Telework,flexibility and family in the e-society: a Marxist analysis

The reconfiguration of the home-work boundary that at-home telework entails has significant implications for gender issues and the use of ubiquitous information and communications technologies (ICTs). By presenting a Marx-inspired dialectical analysis of the family and home as both ‘haven and hell’, we develop a critique of proposed advantages for women home workers. Not only do we question the ability of ICTs to deliver the promises made on their behalf – we show how this socio-technical innovation may in fact contribute to compounding the double-burden of work associated with gender roles within the home. Contemporary critical understanding of the e-society should incorporate the influence of at-home teleworking because of its implications for the use of ubiquitous ICTs in the home environment, the shaping of work relations and its impact on gender issues. This increasing use of ICTs outside of the workplace is matched by the growing consensus within the European Union on the desirability of flexible working coupled with family friendly policies. This paper explores some of the rhetoric and research surrounding the proposed benefits of at home ‘telework’ and the likely cost–benefits, from an employee's perspective, in terms of increased freedom, reduced burden and ‘flexibility’.     

Quenching by oxygen of excited states of dyes on cotton investigated with diffuse reflectance laser flash photolysis and singlet oxygen detection

Diffuse reflectance laser flash photolysis was successfully employed to study the triplet states of dyes adsorbed on or chemically attached to cotton. This technique, together with the detection of singlet oxygen from dyes on cotton, made it possible to investigate the diffusion of oxygen in cotton fibres and the mobility of dyes adsorbed onto cotton. Absorption by the triplet states of aluminium phthalocyanine chloride and eosin and the phosphorescence of singlet oxygen produced by sensitisation with rose bengal was used to monitor oxygen diffusion and dye mobility by measuring differences in triplet lifetimes, singlet oxygen lifetimes and in signal intensities. It was found that swollen cotton allows diffusion of oxygen in the fibres. However, a noticeable effect on the triplet state of adsorbed aluminium phthalocyanine chloride is only observed if oxygen is removed or added by thorough evacuation or oxygenation of the samples over several days. Singlet oxygen was quenched dynamically by adsorbed dyes, which were found to be immobilised on the fibres, demonstrating that oxygen is mobile within the fibres at the molecular level.     

The complexity of counting colourings and independent sets in sparse graphs and hypergraphs

We consider certain counting problems involving colourings of graphs and independent sets in hypergraphs. Using polynomial interpolation techniques, we show that these problems are #P-complete. Therefore, efficient approximate counting is the most one can realistically expect to achieve. Rapidly mixing Markov chains which can be used for approximately solving some of these counting problems have been recently developed by the author and others. Received: June 19, 1998.     

Implementation of an 8-Core, 64-Thread, Power-Efficient SPARC Server on a Chip

The second in the Niagara series of processors (Niagara2) from Sun Microsystems is based on the power-efficient chip multi-threading (CMT) architecture optimized for Space, Watts (Power), and Performance (SWaP) [SWap Rating = Performance/(Space _* Power) ]. It doubles the throughput performance and performance/watt, and provides >10times improvement in floating point throughput performance as compared to UltraSPARC T1 (Niagara1). There are two 10 Gb Ethernet ports on chip. Niagara2 has eight SPARC cores, each supporting concurrent execution of eight threads for 64 threads total. Each SPARC core has a floating point and graphics unit and an advanced cryptographic unit which provides high enough bandwidth to run the two 10 Gb Ethernet ports encrypted at wire speeds. There is a 4 MB Level2 cache on chip. Each of the four on-chip memory controllers controls two FBDIMM channels. Niagara2 has 503 million transistors on a 342 mm² die packaged in a flip-chip glass ceramic package with 1831 pins. The chip is built in Texas Instruments' 65 nm 11LM triple-Vt CMOS process. It operates at 1.4 GHz at 1.1 V and consumes 84 W.     

Fungal colonization of sago starch in Papua New Guinea

Sago starch is an important source of dietary carbohydrates in lowland Papua New Guinea. Over the past 30 years there have been sporadic reports of severe illness following consumption of sago starch. A common assumption is that fungal metabolites might be associated with the illness, leading to the need for a more thorough investigation of the mycoflora of sago starch. Sago starch was collected from areas of high sago consumption in Papua New Guinea for fungal analysis (69 samples). Storage methods and duration were recorded at the time of collection and pH on arrival at the laboratory. Yeasts were isolated from all samples except two, ranging from 1.2 x 10(3) to 8.3 x 10(7) cfu/g. Moulds were isolated from 65 of the 69 samples, ranging from 1.0 x 10(2) to 3.0 x 10(6) cfu/g. Of 44 samples tested for ergosterol content, 42 samples showed the presence of fungal biomass. Statistical analyses indicated that sago starch stored for greater than five weeks yielded significantly higher ergosterol content and higher numbers of moulds than sago stored for less than five weeks. The method of storage was also shown to influence mould numbers with storage in natural woven fibre containers returning significantly greater numbers than present in other storage methods tested. Potentially mycotoxigenic genera of moulds including Aspergillus and Penicillium were commonly isolated from sago starch, and as such storage factors that influence the growth of these and other filamentous fungi might contribute to the safety of traditional sago starch in PNG.