Experimental investigations of the effect of new passive safety systems on the temperature state of fuel elements

Results of experiments conducted on a large-scale integral PSB-VVéR bench and directed toward investigation of the performance of new passive safety systems for nuclear plants with a water-cooled power reactor, an additional system for passive flooding of the active zone, and a system for the passive removal of heat from steam generators are presented. __________ Translated from élektricheskie Stantsii, No. 9, September 2007, pp. 7–10.     

Does the gender of a patient or the gender of a therapist affect the treatment of patients with major depression?

The role of gender was examined in the process and outcome of therapy in the treatment of depressed outpatients seen in the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program. Patients received either interpersonal therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, imipramine plus clinical management, or placebo plus clinical management. None of the therapist-patient by gender groupings (i.e., therapist gender, therapist-patient gender matching vs. mismatching, or patients' beliefs about whether a male or female therapist would be more helpful) were significantly related to measures of treatment process and outcome, controlling for type of treatment and severity of pretreatment depressive symptoms. Findings were duplicated when examining the effects of gender within only the psychotherapeutic modes of treatment for the groupings of therapist gender and therapist-patient gender matching versus mismatching.     

Physiological arousal, dissonance, and attitude change: Evidence for a dissonance-arousal link and a "Don't remind me" effect.

Two experiments, with 80 undergraduates, replicated and extended research by R. T. Croyle and J. Cooper (see record 1984-11595-001) indicating that cognitive dissonance involves physiological arousal. In Exp I, Ss wrote counterattitudinal essays under conditions of high or low choice and, to assess arousal effects owing to effort, with or without a list of arguments provided by the experimenter. In high-choice conditions only and regardless of effort, Ss showed both arousal (heightened galvanic skin response) and attitude change. Arousal, however, did not decline following attitude change. The more effortful task (no arguments provided) produced increased arousal but not greater attitude change. In Exp II, the opportunity to change one's attitude following a freely chosen counterattitudinal essay was manipulated. As in Exp I, arousal increased following the essay but did not decline following a postessay attitude change opportunity. When Ss were not given an attitude change opportunity, however, arousal did decline. It is suggested that if dissonance is a drive state, drive reduction typically may be accomplished through gradual cognitive change or forgetting. (47 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Combinatorial algorithms for distributed graph coloring

Numerous problems in Theoretical Computer Science can be solved very efficiently using powerful algebraic constructions. Computing shortest paths, constructing expanders, and proving the PCP Theorem, are just few examples of this phenomenon. The quest for combinatorial algorithms that do not use heavy algebraic machinery, but are roughly as efficient, has become a central field of study in this area. Combinatorial algorithms are often simpler than their algebraic counterparts. Moreover, in many cases, combinatorial algorithms and proofs provide additional understanding of studied problems. In this paper we initiate the study of combinatorial algorithms for Distributed Graph Coloring problems. In a distributed setting a communication network is modeled by a graph $G=(V,E)$ of maximum degree $\varDelta $ . The vertices of $G$ host the processors, and communication is performed over the edges of $G$ . The goal of distributed vertex coloring is to color $V$ with $(\varDelta + 1)$ colors such that any two neighbors are colored with distinct colors. Currently, efficient algorithms for vertex coloring that require $O(\varDelta + \log ^* n)$ time are based on the algebraic algorithm of Linial (SIAM J Comput 21(1):193–201, 1992) that employs set-systems. The best currently-known combinatorial set-system free algorithm, due to Goldberg et al. (SIAM J Discret Math 1(4):434–446, 1988), requires $O(\varDelta ^2+\log ^*n)$ time. We significantly improve over this by devising a combinatorial $(\varDelta + 1)$ -coloring algorithm that runs in $O(\varDelta + \log ^* n)$ time. This exactly matches the running time of the best-known algebraic algorithm. In addition, we devise a tradeoff for computing $O(\varDelta \cdot t)$ -coloring in $O(\varDelta /t + \log ^* n)$ time, for almost the entire range $1 < t < \varDelta $ . We also compute a Maximal Independent Set in $O(\varDelta + \log ^* n)$ time on general graphs, and in $O(\log n/ \log \log n)$ time on graphs of bounded arboricity. Prior to our work, these results could be only achieved using algebraic techniques. We believe that our algorithms are more suitable for real-life networks with limited resources, such as sensor networks.     

Antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide-type vertical-cavity surface emitting lasers: comparison of full-vector finite-difference time-domain and 3-D bidirectional beam propagation methods

The cold-cavity modal characteristics of an antiresonant optical waveguide-type cylindrical vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) are investigated through numerical simulations using a three-dimensional (3-D) bidirectional beam propagation method (BD-BPM) and a full-vector axisymmetric finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Good agreement between the BPM- and FDTD-computed radial mode profiles as well as the mode-dependent radiation losses is obtained. The results of this paper establish the accuracy of the BD-BPM technique for simulating this class of devices and confirm effective-index method predictions that antiresonance conditions for cylindrical geometry devices (i.e., VCSELs) differ from those of planar geometry devices (i.e., edge emitters).     

Using SS coal in silicon production

The industrial use of Kuznetsk Basin SS coal in silicon production is considered. The influence of SS coal quality on the operation of electrothermal furnaces is studied.     

Calculation of Solid Particle Precipitation in Plate Thickener Using the Model of Two-Phase Convective Flow

The process of the industrial waste water purification from solid admixtures is considered. The possibilities are shown for using the two-phase convective flow model in the hydraulic construction design.     

Architecture and Physical Implementation of a Third Generation 65 nm, 16 Core, 32 Thread Chip-Multithreading SPARC Processor

This third-generation Chip-Multithreading (CMT) SPARC processor consists of 16 cores with shared memory architecture and supports a total of 32 main threads plus 32 scout threads. It is targeted for high-performance servers, and is optimized for both single- and multi-threaded applications. The 396 mm² chip is fabricated in an 11 metal layer 65-nm CMOS process and operates at a nominal frequency of 2.3 GHz, consuming a maximum power of 250 W at 1.2 V. This paper provides an overview of the architectural highlights and describes the physical implementation challenges and solutions including circuit innovations in memory arrays, register files, and floating-point hardware that boost the performance and circuit robustness with low area overhead.     

Spatial relations in the semantic SL language and its prototype,universal Dial language

The process of developing a way to describe spatial relations (SR) in the semantic SL language for the knowledge translation problem is described. To do this, a system of notions is introduced—a reference body and reference system (RS) as opposed to the notion of an orientation point used in analyzing the spatial relations of natural languages. The term “orientation” used to characterize types of motion is replaced by the more exact term “dynamics.” On the whole, the two-parametric scheme proposed by other authors is preserved for describing spatial relations. The notions of dynamics and topological zone are used as parameters. Values of parameters and a designation system are developed on the basis of SL principles. To conclude the work, examples of writing spatial relations using the mentioned parameters are given.