Great psychologists and their times: Scientific insights into psychology's history: Book review.

This book (D. K. Simonton [2002]; see record 2002-17019-000) organizes a series of studies into a single volume on eminence in psychology. The reviewer contends that this is not a typical work on the history of psychology but prides itself as a work based largely on "historiometric methods" (with some results of psychometric studies included). Historiometrics is the use of archival data in almost any available form and bringing it to bear on questions of greatness or eminence in a particular field or fields. Hence, one can study the greatness of scientists, politicians, literary figures, and so on by counting their works, citations, analyzing the content of their works for various components, examining generational factors, biographical factors, personal factors, and so on. Technical details are few and the book reads somewhat like an advanced undergraduate textbook that of course enhances its accessibility but occasionally leads to rather superficial analyses. Despite these quibbles, it does stand as a solid representative of the historiometric tradition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Unified Subdivision Scheme for Polygonal Modeling

Subdivision rules have traditionally been designed to generate smooth surfaces from polygonal meshes. In this paper we propose to employ subdivision rules as a polygonal modeling tool, specifically to add additional level of detail to meshes. However, existing subdivision schemes have several undesirable properties making them ill suited for polygonal modeling. In this paper we propose a general set of subdivision rules which provides users with more control over the subdivision process. Most existing subdivision schemes are special cases. In particular, we provide subdivision rules which blend approximating spline based schemes with interpolatory ones. Also, we generalize subdivision to allow any number of refinements to be performed in a single step.     

Instructional demands and ratings of overt and hidden pain during hypnotic analgesia.

16 highly hypnotizable (Carlton University Responsiveness to Suggestion Scale) undergraduates rated the intensity of cold pressor pain during a baseline trial and again during 3 hypnotic analgesia trials. During each analgesia trial, Ss were instructed to give overt reports that reflected consciously experienced pain and covert reports that reflected the intensity of "hidden" pain. Treatment instructions administered before the 1st analgesia trial did not specify the relationship between overt and covert pain. Instructions given before the remaining 2 analgesia trials indicated that hidden pain would be either more or less intense than overt pain. Until they were given explicit information about the relative intensities of the pain, Ss reported no differences in the magnitude of overt and covert pain, contrary to the dissociation hypothesis of hypnotic analgesia. Consistent with social psychological formulations of the hidden observer phenomenon, Ss reported both higher covert than overt pain and lower covert than overt pain, depending on the instructions they were administered. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The epistemology question in psychology.

That psychologists are debating epistemological questions appears to be a relatively recent phenomenon only if one has no appreciation for the history of the discipline. Whether we evoke the writings of Wundt, Hull, Tolman, or more recent cognitive psychologists, it is impossible to escape the recurrence of certain fundamental questions on the nature of psychological knowledge and the justification of that knowledge. Even Skinner is a remarkably adept epistemologist despite his avowal that theories of learning are not necessary. But psychology has been enthralled for the better part of this century by a caricature of the very science it would become, and, while it has been consistently and severely criticized for this mistake, it has shown itself to be remarkably immune to such criticism. Part of the reluctance to change has stemmed from the lack of a serious indigenous alternative to the hackneyed version of logical empiricism and its operationist credo that have held sway over the discipline for the better part of its life. The papers included in the present issue of Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne are a small wedge into the broader conversation concerning what it means to have psychological knowledge. Each of these was part of a symposium presented at the Canadian Psychological Association Meetings in Montreal in 1988 by the Section on the History and Philosphy of Psychology. Each of the four papers argues (a) against the status quo of the shop-worn operationism and its attendant claims which pass for epistemology in psychology, and (b) for a renewed emphasis of either some one form of realism or constructionism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obfuscation for Cryptographic Purposes

Loosely speaking, an obfuscation O of a function f should satisfy two requirements: firstly, using O, it should be possible to evaluate f; secondly, O should not reveal anything about f that cannot be learnt from oracle access to f alone. Several definitions for obfuscation exist. However, most of them are very hard to satisfy, even when focusing on specific applications such as obfuscating a point function (e.g., for authentication purposes). In this work, we propose and investigate two new variants of obfuscation definitions. Our definitions are simulation-based (i.e., require the existence of a simulator that can efficiently generate fake obfuscations) and demand only security on average (over the choice of the obfuscated function). We stress that our notions are not free from generic impossibilities: there exist natural classes of function families that cannot be securely obfuscated. Hence we cannot hope for a general-purpose obfuscator with respect to our definition. However, we prove that there also exist several natural classes of functions for which our definitions yield interesting results.     

Chromium speciation in coal and biomass co-combustion products

Chromium speciation is vital for the toxicity of products resulting from co-combustion of coal and biomass. Therefore, understanding of formation processes has been studied using a combination of X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy and thermodynamic equilibrium calculations. The influence of cofiring on Cr speciation is very dependent on the type of fuel. Cr(VI) contents in the investigated fly ash samples from coal and cofiring average around 7% of the total chromium. An exception is cofiring 7-28% wood for which ashes exhibited Cr(VI) concentrations of 12-16% of the total chromium. Measurements are in line with thermodynamic predictions: RE factors of Cr around 1 are in line with volatile Cr only above 1400 °C; lower Cr(VI) concentrations with lower oxygen content and Cr(III) dissolved in aluminosilicate glass. Stability of Cr(VI) below 700 °C does not correlate with Cr(VI) concentrations found in the combustion products. It is indicated that Cr(VI) formation is a high-temperature process dependent on Cr evaporation (mode of occurrence in fuel, promoted by organic association), oxidation (local oxygen content), and formation of solid chromates (promoted by presence of free lime (CaO) in the ash). CaCrO(4)(s) is a probable chemical form but, given different leachable fractions (varying from 25 to 100%), different forms of Cr(VI) must be present. Clay-bound Cr is likely to dissolve in the aluminosilicate glass phase during melting of the clay.     

Conditioned fear-induced tachycardia in the rat: vagal involvement

The effects of conditioned fear on gross activity, heart rate, PQ interval, noradrenaline and adrenaline were studied in freely moving rats. Subcutaneous (s.c.) injections of atropine methyl nitrate (0.5 mg/kg) during rest resulted in a significant shortening of the PQ interval, indicating that the PQ interval can be used as a measure of vagal activity. Conditioned fear was induced by 10-min forced exposure to a cage in which the rat had previously experienced footshocks (5 x 0.5 mA x 3 s). In non-shocked controls, an increase in gross activity was found and a pronounced tachycardia, without changes in PQ interval. Conditioned fear rats showed immobility behaviour, associated with a less pronounced tachycardia and an increase in PQ interval. Noradrenaline was similarly increased in both groups, whereas adrenaline was increased in conditioned fear rats only. To further evaluate the role of the vagus, rats were exposed to conditioned fear after pre-treatment with atropine methyl nitrate (0.5 mg/kg, s.c.). Again, immobility was observed with a concomitant tachycardia, but without an increase in PQ interval. These results indicate that the autonomic nervous system is differentially involved in heart rate regulation in conditioned fear rats and in non-shocked controls: in non-shocked controls a predominant sympathetic nervous system activation results in an increase in heart rate, whereas in conditioned fear rats the tachycardiac response is attenuated by a simultaneous activation of sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system.     

Involvement of amino acid residues 423-429 of human protein S in binding to C4b-binding protein

Human protein S binds to C4b-binding protein (C4BP) both in plasma and in a system using purified proteins. Amino acid residues 420-434 of the first disulfide loop of the sex hormone binding globulinlike domain of protein S are involved in the interaction of protein S with C4BP. To define the involvement of specific polar amino acids within residues 420-434, we studied in parallel synthetic protein S peptides and recombinant protein S variants containing the same amino acid replacements, K423E, E424K, Q427E and K429E. Synthetic peptide analogs of peptide PSP-420 (residues 420-434) were assayed for binding C4BP and as inhibitors of complex formation. The PSP-420 peptide and the analogous peptide with the substitution E424K, but not the peptides containing the substitutions K423E and K429E, were able to bind C4BP. Recombinant proteins with mutations of K423E, Q427E and K429E showed reduced affinity for C4BP compared to plasma protein S, recombinant wild type protein S, or E424K-protein S. These results suggest that Lys-423, Gln-427 and Lys-429 of protein S are important for normal binding to C4BP. The anti-protein S monoclonal antibody LJ-56, raised against peptide PSP-420, recognizes only free protein S and inhibits complex formation with C4BP. Antibody LJ-56 recognized the E424K and Q427E peptides but not the K423E or K429E peptides. Similarly, the E424K and Q427E protein S mutants were recognized by LJ-56, whereas the K423E and K429E protein S mutants were not recognized. This suggests that both in the peptide PSP-420 and in protein S, Lys-423 and Lys-429 significantly contribute to binding to antibody LJ-56. These results demonstrate that protein S residues 423, 427 and 429, but not residue 424, are involved in binding to both the antibody LJ-56 and to C4BP. When peptides PSP 420 and SL-6 (residues 447-460) with carboxyterminal amide or carboxylate moieties were compared to their ability to inhibit C4BP-protein S complexation, PSP-420-amide was the most potent. This finding together with the other results described here supports the hypothesis that the residues 420 and 434 in protein S provides a major binding site for C4BP.     

Artificial neural network representations for hierarchical preference structures

In this paper, we introduce two artificial neural network formulations that can be used to assess the preference ratings from the pairwise comparison matrices of the Analytic Hierarchy Process. First, we introduce a modified Hopfield network that can determine the vector of preference ratings associated with a positive reciprocal comparison matrix. The dynamics of this network are mathematically equivalent to the power method, a widely used numerical method for computing the principal eigenvectors of square matrices. However, this Hopfield network representation is incapable of generalizing the preference patterns, and consequently is not suitable for approximating the preference ratings if the pairwise comparison judgments are imprecise. Second, we present a feed-forward neural network formulation that does have the ability to accurately approximate the preference ratings. We use a simulation experiment to verify the robustness of the feed-forward neural network formulation with respect to imprecise pairwise judgments. From the results of this experiment, we conclude that the feed-forward neural network formulation appears to be a powerful tool for analyzing discrete alternative multicriteria decision problems with imprecise or fuzzy ratio-scale preference judgments.