Efficacy of brief coping skills interventions that match different personality profiles of female substance abusers.

Female substance abusers recruited from the community were randomly assigned to receive 1 of 3 brief interventions that differentially targeted their personality and reasons for drug use. The 90-min interventions were: (a) a motivation-matched intervention involving personality-specific motivational and coping skills training, (b) a motivational control intervention involving a motivational film and a supportive discussion with a therapist, and (c) a motivation-mismatched intervention targeting a theoretically different personality profile. Assessment 6 months later (N?=?198) indicated that only the matched intervention proved to be more effective than the motivational control intervention in reducing frequency and severity of problematic alcohol and drug use and preventing use of multiple medical services. These findings indicate promise for a client-treatment matching strategy that focuses on personality-specific motives for substance abuse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Application of cognitive robotics in disassembly of products

Disassembly is a critical step to increase the value of end-of-life (EOL) products and to reduce the environmental footprint. Despite worldwide efforts, disassembly is still performed manually due to the uncertainty associated with the quality and the quantity of the returned EOL products. In this paper, a cognitive robotics based system is proposed to address this problem. The system is equipped with four cognitive functions: reasoning, execution monitoring, learning and revision. The proposed system is tested using LCD screens. The results show that the system is flexible enough to deal with any product models without prior information.     

Facing drift: a comparison of three methods

Drift is a common phenomenon in active sensors and, if left untreated, is generally the limiting factor in their performance. It is shown that drift and spread in sensor characteristics are tightly interwoven due to finite sensitivity to biasing parameters. Modern treatments of drift are dynamical under operating conditions, notably so chopping, the sensitivity variation method and the recently introduced van Putten-method. These methods differ in regards to drift-dependence on biasing. In their application to silicon flow sensors, the first two reduce but do not eliminate drift. The geometric van Putten-method leaves biasing invariant, which eliminates drift and obtains uniform sensor-characteristics leaving drift-free operation.     

Etude du fonctionnement d’un mélangeur à jonction métal-isolant-métal dans I’infrarouge lointain

Annals of Telecommunications - L’effet tunnel entre deux métaux permet de représenter la non-linéarité d’une diode mim (métal-isolantmétal). Le schéma...     

Blinded by anger or feeling the love: How emotions influence advice taking.

Across 2 experiments, the authors demonstrate that emotional states influence how receptive people are to advice. The focus of these experiments is on incidental emotions, emotions triggered by a prior experience that is irrelevant to the current situation. The authors demonstrate that people who feel incidental gratitude are more trusting and more receptive to advice than are people in a neutral emotional state, and people in a neutral state are more trusting and more receptive to advice than are people who feel incidental anger. In these experiments, greater receptivity to advice increased judgment accuracy. People who felt incidental gratitude were more accurate than were people in a neutral state, and people in a neutral state were more accurate than were people who felt incidental anger. The results offer insight into how people use advice, and the authors identify conditions under which leaders, policy makers, and advisors may be particularly influential. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Direct Ni Electroless Metallization of Poly(etherimide) without Using Palladium as a Catalyst

ELECTROLESS METALLIZATION of insulatingmaterials is currently used in industry since severaldecades.In its most common applications it consists ina redox reaction between Ni(+2)or Cu(+2)ions and astrong reducer(respectively hypophosphite,H2PO2,forNi(+2)and formaldehyde,HCHO,for Cu(+2))bothcontained in the same solution.The reaction initiationis generally catalyzed by palladium,then the redoxreaction goes on thanks to the remarkable property ofNi and Cu in their metallic state to …     

Modeling of mechanical alloying: Part III. Applications of computational programs

The computational modeling programs described in part II of this series are used in two ways. One is to compare program predictions to previous experimental data, thereby testing to some extent the utility of the programs. At this stage of their development, program “predictions” with respect to processing time, microstructural scale, and similar parameters are accurate to within a factor of 2 or so. Even so, the predictions offer support of the model developed in part I of this series and provide a vehicle for both model and process refinements. In addition to “testing” the model and the program in these manners, the effect of uncertainty in input material properties on program predictions is explored. Formerly Graduate Student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 Formerly Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Virginia