Effect of bleaching agents on chemical composition of enamel

A very rare case of Teratoma of the bladder in an eight year old girl is presented. The diagnosis was made on cyctoscopy and confirmed histopathologically. Complete excision was possible. No recurrence was seen at four years follow up. Only one such case has been reported in the literature and this is the first such case reported from India and Asian continent.     

Evaluative conditioning may incur attentional costs.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to changes in the liking of an affectively neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, or CS) after pairing this stimulus with an affect-laden stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, or US). Several authors proposed that EC incurs little or no attentional cost. Using a rigorous design, we provide evidence that a reduction in attentional resources may have a negative impact on EC. Additional analyses also revealed that participants correctly encoded fewer CS–US pairings when their attentional resources were depleted. Replicating Pleyers, Corneille, Luminet, and Yzerbyt’s (2007) findings, EC was also obtained only for CSs that could be correctly linked to their associated US in the context of an identification task. This research clarifies the role of higher order processes in EC and has significant practical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aware and (Dis)Liking: Item-Based Analyses Reveal That Valence Acquisition via Evaluative Conditioning Emerges Only When There Is Contingency Awareness.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to changes in the liking of an affectively neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) following the pairing of that stimulus with another stimulus of affective value (the unconditioned stimulus, or US). In 3 experiments, the authors assessed contingency awareness, that is, awareness of the CS-US associations, by relying on participants' responses to individual items rather than using a global method of assessment. They found that EC emerged on contingency aware CSs only. Of note, whether the CSs were evaluated explicitly (Experiments 1 and 2) or implicitly (Experiment 3) did not make a difference. This pattern supports the idea that awareness of the CS-US associations may be required for valence acquisition via EC. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Problem solving in the treatment of childhood obesity.

This study randomized obese children from 67 families to groups that received a 6-month family-based behavioral weight-control program plus parent and child problem solving, child problem solving, or standard treatment with no additional problem solving. The standard group showed larger body mass index (BMI) decreases than the parent?+?child group through 2 years, with significant differences in the percentage of children who showed large BMI changes. Significant statistical and clinical improvements were observed over time in child behavior problems and parental distress. Parent problem solving increased in the parent?+?child condition relative to the other conditions, whereas child problem solving increased equally in all conditions. The bulk of evidence suggests that problem solving did not add to treatment effectiveness beyond the standard family-based treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Computationally Convenient Distributional Assumptions for Common-Value Auctions

Although the mathematical foundations of common-value auctions have been well understood since Milgrom and Weber (1982), equilibrium bidding strategies are computationally complex. Very few calculated examples can be found in the literature, and only for highly specialized cases. This paper introduces two sets of distributional assumptions that are flexible enough for theoretical and empirical applications, yet permit straightforward calculation of equilibrium bidding strategies.     

On the perceptual performance limitations of echo cancellers in wideband telephony

In this paper, standard echo canceller performance measures are evaluated in terms of psychoacoustic aspects of human hearing. The focus is on wideband speech communications systems with long round-trip delays of 200 ms and up present in the transmission path. The results of a simple acoustic echo cancellation experiment are analyzed with a standard psychoacoustic model, revealing that steady-state echo return loss enhancement and mean square error cannot be used to determine whether residual echo is perceivable in the presence of background noise. In addition, a simple modification to the normalized least mean square (NLMS) algorithm is introduced by adding a perceptual preemphasis filter. Simulation results and listening tests show that it is possible to improve the perceived performance of an echo canceller during convergence by placing greater emphasis on frequencies at which the human auditory system is most sensitive.