The dynamics of daily events and well-being across cultures: When less is more.

The authors examined cultural and individual differences in the relation between daily events and daily satisfaction. In a preliminary study, they established cross-cultural equivalence of 50 daily events. In the main study, participants in the United States, Korea, and Japan completed daily surveys on the 50 events and daily satisfaction for 21 days. The multilevel random coefficient model analyses showed that (a) the within-person association between positive events and daily satisfaction was significantly stronger among Asian American, Korean, and Japanese participants than among European American participants and (b) the within-person association between positive events and daily satisfaction was significantly weaker among individuals high in global life satisfaction than among those low in global life satisfaction. The findings demonstrate a weaker effect of positive events on daily well-being among individuals and cultures high in global well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditional associative learning is impaired in cerebellar disease in humans.

Eight patients with lesions restricted to the cerebellum were compared with a total of 25 age-matched controls on an reaction time (RT) task allowing the recording of simple and choice RTs as well as RTs to abstract visual patterns signifying the particular movement to be performed. In all conditions the actual movements required (either a left or a right button press) remained the same, but the cognitive requirements of the task varied. In the abstract patterns condition, the significance of the various patterns with regard to the required movement had to be learned by the Ss. The patients with cerebellar lesions were particularly impaired in this condition. It is concluded that the cerebellum is involved not just in the timing of movements but also in the decision process as to which movement should be performed under particular circumstances. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dynamic thread mapping of shared memory applications by exploiting cache coherence protocols

In current computer architectures, the communication performance between threads varies depending on the memory hierarchy. This performance difference must be considered when mapping parallel applications to processor cores. In parallel applications based on the shared memory paradigm, the communication is difficult to detect because it is implicit. Furthermore, dynamic mapping introduces several challenges, since it needs to find a suitable mapping and migrate the threads with a low overhead during the execution of the application. We propose a mechanism to detect the communication pattern of shared memory applications by monitoring cache coherence protocols. We also propose heuristics that, combined with our communication detection mechanism, allow the mapping to be performed dynamically by the operating system. Experiments with the NAS Parallel Benchmarks showed a reduction of up to 13.9% of the execution time, 30.5% of the cache misses and 39.4% of the number of invalidation messages.     

Intrinsic dissipation in atomic force microscopy cantilevers

In this paper we build a practical modification to the standard Euler-Bernoulli equation for flexural modes of cantilever vibrations most relevant for operation of AFM in high vacuum conditions. This is done by the study of a new internal dissipation term into the Euler-Bernoulli equation. This term remains valid in ultra-high vacuum, and becomes particularly relevant when viscous dissipation with the fluid environment becomes negligible. We derive a compact explicit equation for the quality factor versus pressure for all the flexural modes. This expression is used to compare with corresponding extant high vacuum experiments. We demonstrate that a single internal dissipation parameter and a single viscosity parameter provide enough information to reproduce the first three experimental flexural resonances at all pressures. The new term introduced here has a mesoscopic origin in the relative motion between adjacent layers in the cantilever.     

Discovering and restoring changes in object positions using an autonomous robot with laser rangefinders

This paper describes an object rearrangement system for an autonomous mobile robot. The objective of the robot is to autonomously explore and learn about an environment, to detect changes in the environment on a later visit after object disturbances and finally, to move objects back to their original positions. In the implementation, it is assumed that the robot does not have any prior knowledge of the environment and the positions of the objects. The system exploits Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping (SLAM) and autonomous exploration techniques to achieve the task. These techniques allow the robot to perform localisation and mapping which is required to perform the object rearrangement task autonomously. The system includes an arrangement change detector, object tracking and map update that work with a Polar Scan Match (PSM) Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) SLAM system. In addition, a path planning technique for dragging and pushing an object is also presented in this paper. Experimental results of the integrated approach are shown to demonstrate that the proposed approach provides real-time autonomous object rearrangements by a mobile robot in an initially unknown real environment. Experiments also show the limits of the system by investigating failure modes.     

Alcohol's Effect on Triggered Displaced Aggression.

The authors examined alcohol's effect on triggered displaced aggression, the hostile reaction to a second provoking person after provocation from a first. Participants consumed an alcoholic or a nonalcoholic beverage. Subsequently, one individual provoked all of them with moderate intensity. Then, 2 groups were studied: those who received or who failed to receive a second provocation of minimal intensity. Consistent with prior research, participants who received a second, minimal provocation displayed more aggression than those who did not. After participants drank alcohol, the magnitude of this difference was significantly greater, indicating that alcohol increases triggered displaced aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Storage technologies for wind power in the Columbia River Gorge

The transition from traditional energy sources to renewable has gained popularity and acceptance in recent years. This has been driven mainly by the current level of pollution, global warming, decommission of old nuclear power plants and the increasing cost of conventional energy sources. Nevertheless, one of the many steps to overcome is the seasonality or intermittency of renewable energy sources such as wind power. In recent years, new technologies have come up to address this problem, so the energy can be stored for future purposes. This paper analyses these energy storage alternatives for a specific case in the Columbia River Gorge for wind power. A hierarchical decision model is developed with criteria including political, social, environmental, technical and economical. The main conclusions highlight that the economical and technical criteria are among the most important ones for decision-makers.     

Sex differences in the recall of affective experiences

Three studies tested hypotheses for sex differences in the recall of life events: differences in (a) affect intensity at encoding, (b) affect intensity at retrieval, (c) rehearsal, (d) detail of encoding, and (e) artifacts such as motivation or verbal ability. In Study 1 (N = 419), women recalled more positive (p < .01) and more negative (p < .05) life events than men. Differences in retrieval mood were not found. Study 2 (N = 55) replicated the recall differences and showed that neither rehearsal nor artifacts were responsible. Sex differences in recalling neutral everyday events also were obtained (p < .05), suggesting that affect intensity was not responsible. In Study 3 (N = 132), affective reactions to events were unrelated to recall, but sex differences in the detail of encoding (p < .001) were related to recall (p < .05). Sex differences in autobiographical memory are reliable and may be due to differences in the detail of encoding.     

Heat exchange between strands and guide rollers in the secondary cooling zone of a slab continuous casting machine

Measuring of temperatures at different distances from the surface of the guide rollers without inside cooling in the secondary cooling zone of slab caster. Computation of the temperature field of the rollers and the flows of heat into and out of the rollers by using mathematical models. Discussion about the influence of the length of the strand and the cooling conditions. Comparison with the heat transfer by spray cooling.