Sandtray therapy with a 24-year-old woman in the residual phase of schizophrenia.

Sandtray therapy is a clinical tool for helping a client express and understand his or her unconscious dynamics. It utilizes a sandtray and anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand figurines in the room for the client to select from. These figurines cover a wide range of people, situations, and objects, from the most ordinary to the mythical. The client makes a story in the sand, which the client and therapist then discuss. It is standard therapeutic wisdom that one should not use techniques involving fantasy with psychotic clients since it is typically too hard for both them and the clinician to contain those fantasies in a healthy manner. Although this is very often true, the authors offer an example of how they were able to use sandtray to great therapeutic advantage with a schizophrenic client in the residual phase of schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Respirometric Assessment of Primary Sludge Fermentation Products

This study investigates the potential of primary sludge fermentation for the generation of readily biodegradable substrate. Experimental evaluation indicates that uncontrolled fermentation converted 22% of the initial volatile suspended solids in the sludge into soluble biodegradable chemical oxygen demand (COD). More than 85% of the soluble COD generated was associated with the formation of short chain volatile fatty acids (VFAs). The recoverable fraction of the fermented sludge supernatant may potentially increase the biodegradable COD content of the primary effluent by 5%. The VFA composition predominantly involved acetic and propionic acids as reported in the literature. Due to the high VFA content, activated sludge Model No. 1 could not predict the COD fractionation in the primary sludge; activated sludge Model No. 3 provided a better interpretation of the oxygen uptake profile through initial storage of the VFAs in the sludge.     

Method for Measuring Dipole Parameters of Isolated Hearts and Muscles?Application to Frog Gastrocnemius

Resistor networks were developed to measure the magnitude, direction, and location of the resultant dipole moment of isolated hearts or muscles located at the center of a fluid-filled dish. With the network connected to the dish electrodes, these quantities could be determined from only four bipolar voltage measurements. Energized muscle strips were simulated by dipping pieces of metal of different lengths into the electrolyte. The resultant location was found to be midway between the centers of the two pieces, rather than at the gap between them.     

Isolation of a spotted fever group rickettsia from the Pacific Coast tick, Ixodes pacificus, in Oregon

A rickettsia of the spotted fever group was isolated on three occasions from Ixodes pacificus in western Oregon. These isolations, and additional evidence furnished by complement fixation tests on guinea pigs inoculated with other Oregon ticks of this species, indicate that the association of this rickettsia with the Pacific Coast tick may be widespread. This is the first isolation of a spotted fever group rickettsia from I. pacificus. Because the Oregon isolates are mildly virulent for guinea pigs they resemble the Western U and Rickettsia montana strains of rickettsiae. However, preliminary evidence from cross-immunofluorescence tests of mouse antisera suggests the Tillamook and Grants Pass strains are antigenically different from all known spotted fever group agents.     

A Capital Budgeting Heuristic Algorithm Using Exchange Operations

A heuristic algorithm for solving capital budgeting problems is described. The algorithm proceeds from an initial solution, obtained with the use of ranking procedures, and progressively improves the solution through exchange operations. Computational experience in solving a set of 30-variable, 5-constraint problems is described and the approach to optimal values with increasing computation time is shown. The results show considerable time advantage over 0-1 implicit enumeration techniques. In only two of twenty-eight problems were the solutions nonoptimal, and in these two cases the objective function values for the heuristic solutions were within 0.5 percent of those for the optimal solutions. A brief investigation was conducted on larger problems (60 variables, 5 constraints); the time advantage is even greater on problems of that size. Details of the problems and their optimal solutions are available to interested readers upon request to the author.     

Phosphorus removal in the activated sludge process

The results from this research suggest that both calcium phosphate precipitation and enhanced biological uptake play a role in phosphorus removal in the activated sludge process when a non-nitrifying, anaerobic-aerobic system is used to treat a low calcium wastewater. The primary removal mechanism was found to be biological uptake, as calcium phosphate precipitation accounted for only 15–27% of the total phosphorus removed. Calcium phosphate precipitation in the aerobic unit was enhanced because of the pH increase in that reactor. This was the result of low CO₂ production (indicated by low specific oxygen uptake values) and intense aeration which caused excessive CO₂ stripping in the aerobic unit     

A dynamical model for generating synthetic electrocardiogram signals

A dynamical model based on three coupled ordinary differential equations is introduced which is capable of generating realistic synthetic electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The operator can specify the mean and standard deviation of the heart rate, the morphology of the PQRST cycle, and the power spectrum of the RR tachogram. In particular, both respiratory sinus arrhythmia at the high frequencies (HFs) and Mayer waves at the low frequencies (LFs) together with the LF/HF ratio are incorporated in the model. Much of the beat-to-beat variation in morphology and timing of the human ECG, including QT dispersion and R-peak amplitude modulation are shown to result. This model may be employed to assess biomedical signal processing techniques which are used to compute clinical statistics from the ECG.     

Analysis of octyl- and nonylphenol and their ethoxylates in water and sediments by liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry

The ubiquitous presence of alkylphenol ethoxylates in the environment as well as concern for endocrine disruption effects in biota caused by their degradation products (such as octyl- and nonylphenol) has raised interest in the environmental fate of these compounds. As part of an effort to model their behavior in a subestuary of the Chesapeake Bay, a quantitative method for the analysis of octyl- and nonylphenol, and their ethoxylates (1-5) in water and sediment was developed. Extraction procedures are based on solid-phase extraction techniques. Identification and quantitation of the analytes is done by liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Instrument detection limits for the compounds ranged from 0.1 to 9 pg injected on column, which allowed method detection limits of 0.04-3 ng/L in water and 0.2-13 ng/g of dry weight in sediment. The method was used to analyze water and sediment from the Back River, MD, where concentrations for the individual compounds ranged from <8 to 200 ng/L in water and <9 to 6700 ng/g of dry weight in sediment. Additionally, structural information obtained in the mass spectrometer is presented that supports previous observations that nonylphenol and its ethoxylates are composed mainly of isomers with a tertiary alpha-carbon.     

Cranes for Building Construction Projects

Cranes have come to symbolize building construction itself. They perform indispensable services in moving materials and components vertically and horizontally. Used since antiquity, their history is interrelated with the development of new power sources that replaced man and mule, first steam and later internal combustion, diesel, and electric engines. Mobile cranes can be rapidly deployed to lift heavy loads. New models with telescoping booms and all-terrain travel capability, compact urban machines, and even hybrids with tower cranes are beginning to replace the familiar lattice boom truck cranes. Mobile cranes have dominated the North American market, but a cultural change appears to be taking place toward tower cranes for building projects. Tower cranes, common in Europe for decades, are globally gaining in popularity with surging real estate developments. Ideal for dense urban environments and coming with a small footprint, they are available in a growing diversity of sizes and configurations. Sophisticated electronic controls and operator assistance devices are enhancing their safe and productive operation. While cranes occupy a central role on midrise and high-rise building projects, they operate in conjunction with other types of supporting equipment that are an essential part of the overall equipment array on today’s industrialized construction sites.