The Role of the Prefrontal Cortex in the Maintenance of Verbal Working Memory: An Event-Related fMRI Analysis.

Neuroimaging studies have been inconclusive in characterizing the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) for maintaining increasingly larger amounts of information in working memory (WM). To address this question, the authors collected event-related functional MRI data while participants performed an item-recognition task in which the number of to-be-remembered letters was parametrically modulated. During maintenance of information in WM, the dorsolateral and the ventrolateral PFC exhibited linearly increasing activation in response to increasing WM load. Prefrontal regions could not be distinguished from one another on the basis of load sensitivity, but the dorsolateral PFC had stronger functional connectivity with the parietal and motor cortex than the ventrolateral PFC. These results suggest an increasingly important role for the PFC in actively maintaining information as the amount of that information increases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Trends in ecstasy use in the United States from 1995 to 2001: Comparison with marijuana users and association with other drug use.

This study aims to estimate changes in the prevalence of ecstasy use over time, analyze the overlap of ecstasy use and other drug use, and compare other drug use in ecstasy versus marijuana users. The authors hypothesized that ecstasy users early in the "epidemic" would be polydrug users and that associations between ecstasy and other drug use would diminish as the prevalence of ecstasy use increased. Data were drawn from public use data files from the 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Ecstasy use increased in the U.S. population and the prevalence was greater in younger age groups. Ecstasy users were likely to use a variety of other drugs; however, association of ecstasy use with other drug use was strongest early in the "epidemic," diminishing as the number of new users increased. Later, more drug-naive adolescents and young adults began experimenting with ecstasy. These results can orient prevention strategies that target ecstasy users. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Soot and other Products Formation from the Submerged Carbon Arc in Halogenated Solvents

A series of selected halomethanes were treated with the submerged carbon arc using graphite electrodes at 10A. CCl₄ and CHCl₃ produce abundant soot which is double in comparison to the soot produced by arcing CH₂Cl₂ and is one order of magnitude higher than the amount of soot produced by arcing hydrocarbons such as n-hexane or decalin and two orders of magnitudes higher in comparison to the amounts of soot produced by arcing alcohols. It was found a anticorrelation between the amount of polyynes present in the solution of the arced solvent and the amount of soot produced by arcing. In the case of CCl₄ and CHCl₃ no polyynes were detected by liquid chromatographic analysis (HPLC-DAD), while polyynes were detected in CH₂Cl₂ and are present in higher concentration in arced hydrocarbon solutions. The soot produced from halomethanes was analyzed by FT-IR spectroscopy in comparison to the soot produced by arcing hydrocarbons and alcohols. Furthermore, the soot from halomethanes was analyzed by HPLC-DAD after extraction with acetonitrile and found to contain a mixture of halogenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Also CHClBr and CH₂I₂ were arced between graphite electrodes. The former compound produces free bromine and soot; bromine causes halogenation of the polyynes. In the case of the latter compound, free iodine is released from the arc and the amount of soot produced is comparable to that obtained by arcing CH₂Cl₂.     

Polyynes Production in a Solvent-Submerged Electric Arc Between Graphite Electrodes. III. Chemical Reactivity and Stability Toward Air, Ozone, and Light

Since polyynes are easily accessible with the submerged electric arc synthesis between graphite electrodes, the chemical behavior of polyynes solutions in different solvents has been explored. It has been found that surprisingly the polyynes solutions, with polyynes having up to 16 carbon atoms arranged in a chain, are stable in air over 1 week time in the dark. These solutions react relatively slowly with ozone while add rapidly and completely bromine. The polyynes solutions are instead quite easily photolyzed under the action of UV radiation both in air and under N₂. Two different light sources were used in the study: a low pressure mercury lamp emitting almost a monochromatic radiation at 254 nm and an high pressure mercury lamp emitting in a broad wavelength range in the ultraviolet. With the former monochromatic light source, it has been demonstrated the possibility to perform a selective photolysis of selected polyynes in a mixture of homologous series.     

Harmonic solution of semiconductor transport equations for microwave and millimetre-wave device modelling

The hydrodynamic transport equations for charges in a semiconductor have been solved for a periodic excitation by means of a harmonic approach, in order to model microwave and millimetre-wave active devices. The solution is based on the expansion of physical variables in a Fourier series in the time domain, and on discretisation in the space domain. A waveform-balance technique in the TD is used to solve the nonlinear equations system. This approach allows for a longer time step with respect to standard TD solutions for most cases of interest, greatly reducing simulation time by at least two orders of magnitude in typical cases. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 14: 36–48, 2004.     

A comparative study of two proposed CCC-r charts for high quality processes and their application to an injection molding process

High-quality industrial processes, characterized by a low fraction of non-conforming items, require paying special attention to the statistical control methods employed since traditional Shewhart's control charts are no longer suitable. In this article, CCC-r charts are considered based on the cumulative count of conforming items inspected until r non-conforming items are observed. However, even though these charts have shown to be useful for high-quality processes, they are characterized by a biased average run length (ARL). In order to help engineers interested in this control methodology to select the best option, a computational study of statistical validation was performed to compare the two most outstanding procedures for the cases r = 2, 3, and 4. The performance was evaluated based on the ARL under control. The application of the CCC-r chart to a real process is shown with data from an automobile parts plant. Finally, analysis and discussion of the results are presented.     

Selective Exposure and Reinforcement of Attitudes and Partisanship Before a Presidential Election

Right before the 2008 U.S. presidential election, this 2‐session online field study examined consequences of selective exposure to political messages on accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the first session, participants indicated attitudes toward political issues and their partisanship, which allowed measuring accessibility of attitudes and of partisanship. In the second session, participants browsed articles. Four issues were covered by 8 articles, with 2 articles featuring opposing perspectives. Selective exposure was unobtrusively logged. Finally, participants completed measures for attitudes and partisanship again. Selective exposure to attitude‐consistent articles was linked to greater attitude accessibility. The indirect impact of selective exposure on partisanship accessibility through attitude accessibility was significant.     

Optimization of Green Multiple Emulsions Processing to Improve Their Physical Stability

The effect of processing protocol on physical stability and the microstructure of water‐in‐oil‐in‐water multiple emulsions containing a mixture of two amphiphilic copolymers with opposed hydrophilic‐lipophilic balance as emulsifiers and a green solvent, 2‐ethylhexyl lactate, as the dispersed phase, has been assessed. Emulsions were obtained in at least two steps: a homogenization step by using a rotor‐stator device, followed by one or two homogenization steps carried out in a high‐pressure device that used microfluidizer technology. To study the microstructure and physical stability of these emulsions, a combination of different techniques, such as transmitted‐light optical microscopy, globule size distribution, viscous flow tests, and multiple light scattering measurements, were performed.     

A metaheuristic-based downlink power allocation for LTE/LTE-A cellular deployments

The explosive growth of cellular networks makes their deployment and maintenance more and more complex, time consuming, and expensive. Self-Organizing Networks have been recognized as a promising way to alleviate this problem by minimizing human intervention in such processes. This paper introduces a novel multiobjective framework, based on evolutionary optimization, aiming at improving network performance and users Quality of Service. By tuning the transmitted power at each cell, average intercell interference levels are minimized. The design of the proposed scheme is feasible for distributed implementations in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced networks and its operation is compatible with current specifications. The framework is able to provide effective network-specific optimization and obtained results show that gains in terms of network capacity and cell edge performance are 5 and 10 %, respectively. Energy savings always accompanied such enhancements with reductions up to 35 %.