FTU toroidal magnet power supply slow control using ITER CODAC Core System

FTU (Frascati Tokamak Upgrade) three-level slow control system has undergone several enhancements during its lifetime, involving essentially the supervisory and medium level, while the lower level is still mainly based on old Westinghouse Numalogic PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller). The legacy PLC controlling the toroidal magnet flywheel generator, named MFG1, is now being replaced with a more modern Siemens Simatic S7 PLC, because of its versatility an the ability to be integrated via standard networking protocol.The upgrade to this family of Siemens PLCs, which in the meantime has been selected as standard by ITER CODAC, has made MFG1 slow control an ideal candidate to deploy ITER CODAC software technologies and architecture to a running plant in an operating tokamak environment. A project has thus been started to port MFG1 control to ITER CODAC I&C architecture using the software package CODAC Core System to interface the PLC with the ITER standard systems for instrumentation and control, Plant System Host (PSH) and Mini-CODAC, developing dedicated HMI (Human–Machine Interface) and realizing the communication layer between MFG1 plant system and FTU supervisor.This paper will give a full account of the project and will report the results that have been obtained up to now, focusing also on the definite advantages provided by a distributed control architecture compared to the supervisor-dependent one still running at FTU, in view of future fusion devices.     

Self-ratings and judges' ratings of heterosexual social anxiety and skill: A generalizability study.

The performance of 79 male undergraduates in 2 heterosexual social situations was rated by questionnaires (including the Social Anxiety and Skill Questionnaire), self-ratings in role plays, self-ratings of videotapes of role plays, ratings by confederates, and ratings of videotaped role plays by judges. These ratings were characterized with respect to mode, method, and situation facets; the consistency of ratings was obtained under different conditions of these facets, which were investigated by use of a generalizability approach in which estimates of variance components and generalizability coefficients were calculated. Self-report and judges' ratings of anxiety and social skill based on a fairly large number of observations were found to be at best moderately generalizable across the various facets investigated; the relationship between anxiety and skill was found to vary considerably among the various methods; substantial proportions of variance, indicative of level differences, were found within judges for anxiety ratings and within judges and methods for skill ratings; and substantial proportions of variance were influenced by mode of measurement. The implications of these findings for obtaining reliable ratings of heterosexual social anxiety and skill are discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growing or just getting along? Technical and adaptive competence in coping among adolescents

This study examined coping among African American adolescents with learning disabilities. Ninety-seven African American adolescents and their mother or primary caregiver participated in the study. The study centered on a new conceptual distinction between technical competence in coping and adaptive competence in coping. Technical competence referred to short-term, reactive attempts at coping based on individuals' abilities to find techniques for reducing their feelings of distress. Adaptive competence referred to longer-term, developmental processes of adaptive change that resulted in more global benefits for the individual. Past literature was reassessed on the basis of this conceptual distinction, and a new model of technical and adaptive competence in coping was proposed based on developmental theory. Perceptions of coping efficacy and the incidence of behavioral problems were regressed on measures of technical and adaptive competence in coping. Results were explored first as a general test of the model on the total sample, and second as a comparative analysis between gender subsamples. Total sample findings were consistent with hypothesized results. Technical competence was a better predictor of feelings of efficacy and adaptive competence was a better predictor of behavioral problems. Gender subsample differences were significant and supported a picture of gender-typed approaches to coping.     

Intestinal transplantation. The first Swedish transplantation of the small intestine in an adult patient with pseudoobstruction

Recent advances, first and foremost the development of new immunosuppressive agents, have markedly improved the outcome of intestinal transplantation, which is a treatment option for patients with serious intestinal diseases who have become dependent on total parenteral nutrition. The first small bowel transplantation in Sweden was performed at Huddinge Hospital in 1997, in the adult patient with intestinal pseudo-obstruction. The article reports the course of this patient and an update of international progress in intestinal transplantation.     

The self-description data configuration model

ITER will consist of roughly 160 plant systems I&C delivered in kind which need to be integrated into the ITER control infrastructure. To make the integration of all these plant systems I&C, a smooth operation, the CODAC (Controls, Data Access & Communications) group release every year the core software environment which consists of many applications. In this paper we would like to describe what configuration data and how it is modeled in the version 2. The model is based on three views, the physical one which lists the components with their signals, the functional view which describes the control functions and variables required to implement them and the control view which links the two previous views. We use Hibernate as an ORM (Object Relational Mapping) framework with a PostgreSQL database and Spring as a framework to handle transactions.     

Seminar training in APA-approved internship programs: Is there a core curriculum?

Survey data from 110 predoctoral internship programs show that the average program required 143 hrs of seminars. Although the seminar offerings were diverse, many internships had a core program that included seminars in assessment, professional issues, neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, and psychotherapy. MANOVA revealed no differences in number of hours required of each seminar across types of facilities. Results are discussed in the context of the recent literature on clinical psychology training and the need for better communication among all involved in graduate-level psychology training. (7 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child functional independence and maternal psychosocial stress as risk factors threatening adaptation in mothers of physically or sensorially handicapped children.

This study investigated the contribution of child functional independence and maternal psychosocial stress to the adaptation of 119 mothers. Each mother had a child, aged 2–18 yrs, with a physical or sensory disability. Multiple dimensions of each construct were measured through self-report. Child functional independence did not uniquely explain variation in mothers' adaptation. However, maternal stress was uniquely associated with maternal mental health, but not physical health or social functioning, even when controlling for demographic status, disability type, and functional independence. Daily hassles and handicap-related psychosocial stress in particular put mothers at risk for reporting mental health problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Handicap-related problems in mothers of children with physical impairments

Cancer chemoprevention is defined as the prevention of cancer by the administration of diet supplements or drugs. A drug discovery effort should therefore focus on finding agents that will avert the process of intraepithelial neoplasia which precedes invasive cancer. Over 30 agents developed by the chemoprevention program at the National Cancer Institute are being tested against intraepithelial neoplasia of many organ sites in more than 80 clinical trials. Two basic mechanisms underlie the onset and development of intraepithelial neoplasia. First is the development of the two precursor lesions of chronic diffuse epithelial hyperplasia and genomic instability, the latter being produced by "mutator" mutations in genes responsible for genomic stability, by gene copy amplification or loss from DNA breakage-fusion-anaphase-bridge cycles, by unequal sister chromatid exchange, and by accumulation of double minutes. Second is the development of multicentric intraepithelial neoplastic lesions which independently progress through each of the following processes at a continuously accelerating rate: clonal evolution, hyperproliferation, production of genomic structural variants, and apoptosis. Recommended chemoprevention strategies based on these mechanisms are (i) the development of better technology for early diagnosis, (ii) the development of multiple agents that block intralesional proliferation at steps along the signal pathway of mitotic signal transduction and along the signal pathway of synthesis of daughter cell components, (iii) the development of nontoxic anti-inflammatory agents, anitoxidants, antimutagens, and proapoptotics, (iv) the avoidance of "clonal escape" through use of drug combinations, and (v) the use of computer-assisted quantitative image analysis to assay modulation of surrogate end points in chemoprevention clinical trials.     

Hope and social support as resilience factors against psychological distress of mothers who care for children with chronic physical conditions.

On the basis of the multivariate conceptual model proposed by J. L. Wallander et al (1989), perceptions of hope and social support were hypothesized to serve as resilience factors against distress in mothers of children with chronic physical conditions. Relationships among these variables were tested. Ss were 111 mothers of 5 to 18-yr-old children who had cerebral palsy, spina bifida, or insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Tests used included the Hope Scale, Social Support Questionnaire-6, Brief Symptom Inventory, and Parents of Children With Disabilities Inventory. There were no differences in distress among mothers raising children with different conditions. Both hope and social support were associated negatively and uniquely with distress in these mothers. Perceptions of hope moderated the relationship between disability-related stress and maladjustment, suggesting a buffering effect when stress is high. However, hope did not appear to be a mediator of the relationship between social support and distress. These findings enhance our conceptual understanding of distress in maternal caregivers of children with a chronic physical condition. They also support improving sense of hope as is done in some problem-solving training programs to enhance coping in distressed individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)