Long-term stability of communication deviance.

Communication deviance (CD), forms of communication that are not bizarrely thought disordered but are hard to follow and that make difficult the consensual sharing of attention and meaning, has been hypothesized as a nonspecific contributor of rearing parents to psychopathology of offspring, including schizophrenia. This hypothesis, or an alternative of genetic transmission, would gain plausibility if CD has long-term stability. CD was evaluated, using tape-recorded and reliably scored Rorschachs in 158 Finnish adoptees, and retested after a median interval of 11 years. Adolescent CD was not stably correlated with follow-up CD. However, initial CD at a mean age of 32 and follow-up CD were significantly correlated. Gender, genetic risk for schizophrenia, and DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) psychiatric diagnoses had no effect on adult CD stability. CD appears to be a stable, traitlike feature of adult but not adolescent functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Friction behavior of quenched and tempered steel in partial and gross slip conditions in fretting point contact

Tangential traction caused by friction in contacting surfaces is a major factor in fretting fatigue that increases stress levels and leads to a reduction in fatigue life. Friction in fretting contact was studied in partial, mixed and gross slip conditions on quenched and tempered steel. Measurements were made with sphere-on-plane contact geometry for polished and ground surfaces. Friction was evaluated from on-line energy ratio and, after the tests, from wear marks. A maximum friction coefficient of over 1.0 was measured at mixed slip zone with polished surfaces, whereas ground surfaces promote lower values in similar operating conditions. The friction coefficient dependence on load cycles and loading frequency is also presented and briefly discussed. The friction data and understanding thus gained is to be used for evaluation of crack initiation with the numerical fretting fatigue model.     

The field comparison of three measuring techniques for evaluation of the surface dust level in ventilation ducts

This paper reports the comparison of three measuring methods for quantifying the amount of dust on the inner surface of ventilation ducts: 1) a vacuum test method; 2) a gravimetric tape method; and 3) an optical method. Thirteen recently constructed buildings were selected for the field test in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The dust samples in each method were all taken from the same location in the duct. Most of the ducts sampled had no residual oil originating from the manufacturing process. The mean amount of dust measured with the vacuum test method was 1.3 g/m2 and the range was < 0.1-8.4 g/m2. The mean surface dust level measured using the gravimetric tape method was slightly lower, i.e. 1.2 g/m2 (< 0.1-5.0 g/m2). The mean cleanliness level of the ducts was 15% (2-41%) using the optical method. The wide variations and differences in the results of the different methods were caused by the unequal distribution of dust on the duct surfaces.     

Effectiveness of duct cleaning methods on newly installed duct surfaces

Two kinds of air duct cleaning methods, mechanical brushing with different brushes and compressed air cleaning, were compared in the laboratory and in newly built buildings. The ducts were contaminated either with test dust or with dust originated from a construction site. The amount of dust on the duct surface was measured with the vacuum test method and estimated visually before and after the cleaning. In addition, the cleaning times of the different techniques were compared and the amount of residual oil in the ducts was measured in the laboratory test. The brushing methods were more efficient in metal ducts, and compressed air cleaning was more efficient in plastic ducts. After the duct cleaning the mean amount of residual dust on the surface of the ducts was 相似文献   

瑞士驻沪总领事馆和德国驻上海总领事馆文化教育处的室内空间

瑞士总领事馆和德国驻沪领事馆文化教育处两个项目由上海意迅装饰设计工程有限公司（Shanghai laction Decoration Design ＆ Engineering Co., Ltd.）的建筑设计师Pirjo kiefer设计。两个项目的并置，可以看到设计师在处理室内不同员顶高度条件限制情况下的不同设计方法。[编者按]     

Application of Information Theory to the Design of 4th Generation Cellular Communication Systems

The design of 4th Generation Cellular Communication Systems will face manychallenges, including the need to achieve very high spectrum efficiency whencompared to 3rd Generation cellular systems. In this paper, we investigate thefundamental limits of DSSS-CDMA versus TDMA for achieving high spectrumefficiency by presenting the capacity regions for each including the effectsof multiple transmit and receive antennas. To assess the channel capacityregion for local area and wide area coverage, a channel model based uponuncorrelated Rayleigh fading and model with a strong spatial correlation andRicean component are evaluated. For multiple transmit and receive antennas,both open loop and closed loop capacity regions are assessed, where the closedloop capacity assumes channel state information at the transmitter and optimumpower allocation. Conclusions from the work include an assessment of whatapproaches hold the best promise for achieving high spectrum efficiency forfuture cellular communication systems. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Development of mass, density, and estimated mechanical characteristics of bones in Caucasian females

Three hundred and thirty healthy Finnish girls and premenopausal women, aged 7-47 years, were examined to evaluate the natural development of bone mineral mass and density from early childhood to menopause. Bone mineral content (BMC,g) and areal density (BMD, g/cm2) were measured from the spine (L2-L4), femoral neck, trochanter region of the femur, and distal radius using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). In addition, the bone mineral apparent density (BMAD, g/cm3) was assessed from the above described skeletal sites, and the mechanical competence of the femoral neck was estimated. Special attention was paid to the timing of the peak values of these bone parameters as well as to the evidence of premenopausal bone loss. The BMC, BMD, and BMAD of the spine, femoral neck, and trochanter region of the femur achieved peak values around the age of 20, and the bone loss seemed to start soon thereafter. In contrast, the bone mass of the distal radius slightly increased between the ages of 20 and 47. In the femoral neck, the estimated bending strength achieved its peak value around the age of 20 and showed a slight decrease during the following decades. The highest body weight and neck-length adjusted strength values of the femoral neck were, however, found in early childhood, with the values decreasing linearly thereafter. In conclusion, this study supports previous findings of rapid bone mineral accumulation in late adolescence, and occurrence of the peak bone mass and density around the age of 20. Premenopausal bone loss seems to occur in the proximal femur and lumbar spine. Our observations of femur strength development imply that from childhood to menopause the mechanical strength of the femoral neck is well adjusted to the biomechanical loading requirements of the body.     

Predictive synchronization and restoration of corrupted velocity samples

Incremental pulse encoders are widely applied to digital speed measuring. The velocity samples obtained by measuring the pulse length contain different types of error. This combined error can be considered as a corrupting noise component that needs to be reduced before the velocity information is utilized, e.g., for feedback control. To ensure smooth and rapid response of the control system, the noisy velocity signal has to be filtered without delaying the primary component. Conventional low-pass filters always cause lag into the primary signal, and thus they cannot be used if fast tracking of the reference velocity is required. To overcome this problem, predictive filters are used in this work to realize a novel signal processing method, capable of synchronizing and restoring the corrupted and unevenly spaced samples. A cascade predictor structure is proposed for good overall noise attenuation. A software implementation of the proposed algorithm has been developed and tested on the TMS320C25 signal processor.     

Identification of single microbial particles using electro-dynamic balance assisted laser-induced breakdown and fluorescence spectroscopy

Online characterization of fungal and bacterial spores is important in various applications due to their health and climatic relevance. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the capability of the combination of electro-dynamic balance assisted laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) techniques for the online detection of single fungal spores (Aspergillus versicolor and Penicillium brevicompactum) and bacteria (Bacillus aureus). The method enabled sensitive and repeatable LIBS analysis of common elemental components (Ca, Na, and K) from single microbial particles for the first time. Significant differences in the concentrations of these elements were observed between the species, e.g., bacterial spores had over three orders of magnitude higher Ca concentration (2 × 10^?12 g/particle) compared to fungal spores (3–5 × 10^?16 g/particle). The LIF analysis has previously been used to distinguish bioaerosols from other aerosols due to their fluorescence ability. This study showed that combination of LIF and LIBS analysis is a promising tool for identification of different bioaerosol particle types.

Copyright © 2016 American Association for Aerosol Research     

Rational modification of ligand-binding preference of avidin by circular permutation and mutagenesis

Chicken avidin is a key component used in a wide variety of biotechnological applications. Here we present a circularly permuted avidin (cpAvd4-->3) that lacks the loop between beta-strands 3 and 4. Importantly, the deletion of the loop has a positive effect on the binding of 4'-hydroxyazobenzene-2-carboxylic acid (HABA) to avidin. To increase the HABA affinity of cpAvd4-->3 even further, we mutated asparagine 118 on the bottom of the ligand-binding pocket to methionine, which simultaneously caused a significant drop in biotin-binding affinity. The X-ray structure of cpAvd4--> 3(N118M) allows an understanding of the effect of mutation to biotin-binding, whereas isothermal titration calorimetry revealed that the relative binding affinity of biotin and HABA had changed by over one billion-fold between wild-type avidin and cpAvd4-->3(N118M). To demonstrate the versatility of the cpAvd4-->3 construct, we have shown that it is possible to link cpAvd4-->3 and cpAvd5-->4 to form the dual-chain avidin called dcAvd2. These novel avidins might serve as a basis for the further development of self-organising nanoscale avidin building blocks.