Ethnic pride and self-control related to protective and risk factors: Test of the theoretical model for the strong African American families program.

Objective. To test a theoretical model of how ethnic pride and self-control are related to risk and protective factors. Design. A community sample of 670 African American youth (mean age = 11.2 years) were interviewed in households. Main Outcome Measures. Measures of cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and sexual behavior (lifetime to past month). Results. Structural modeling analyses indicated parenting was related to self-control and self-esteem, and racial socialization was related to ethnic pride. Self-control and self-esteem variables were related to levels of deviance-prone attitudes and to perceptions of engagers in, or abstainers from, substance use and sexual behavior. The proximal factors (behavioral willingness, resistance efficacy, and peer behavior) had substantial relations to the criterion variables. Participant gender and parental education also had several paths in the model. Results were generally similar for the 2 outcome behaviors. Conclusions. In this population, self-esteem and self-control are related to parenting approaches and have pathways to attitudes and social perceptions that are significant factors for predisposing to, or protecting against, early involvement in substance use and sexual behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

PREPARATION OF HYDROTHERMALLY TREATED LRC/WATER FUEL SLURRIES

The hot-water coal drying process is a means of thermally beneficiating and dewatering lignite and subbituminous coal for the purpose of preparing dense low-rank coal/water fuel. In hot-water coal drying, which is a form of hydrothermal treatment, low-rank coal in a water slurry is treated at elevated temperatures of 513 to 623  K and at pressures in excess of the equivalent saturated steam pressures lo minimize vaporization of the water. This produces a coal product which contains less than one-third the inherent moisture of the raw coal and which is resistant to moisture reabsorption. The hydrothermally treated coal/water slurry resulting from the process can be concentrated by mechanical means (centrifuge, pressure filter)to form a pumpable coal/water fuel with greater than 60 weight percent bone-dry solids content and with an energy content greater than 15·4 MJ/Kg (6600 Btu/lb). Hydrothermal treatment also beneficiates the coal by reducing oxygen and minerals. Over 94 percent of the energy content of the raw coal remains in the product. Low-rank coal/water fuel is typically a pseudoplastic fluid, and for some low-rank coals, the slurry is stable towards settling, without the use of additives.     

Differential Game Theory Applied to a Model of the Arms Race

The arms race model of L. F. Richardson is considered within a differential game theoretic context. Five different approaches to the game are considered and the results compared. The particular model considered is a three nation arms race model which becomes a three player differential game. The five approaches to the game are the minimax, Nash, and Pareto approaches as well as two coalition approaches: C.P.O. (Coalitive Pareto Optimality) and N.C.O. (Nash Coalitive Optimality). Some suggestions are made for future research and some possible economic, social, and political implications of this work are considered.     

Low-cycle fatigue behavior of Mn/N stainless steels

The low-cycle fatigue behavior of AISI 201 and 202, Mn/N stabilized austenitic stainless steels has been investigated. The fatigue life under controlled strain cycling conditions was determined and correlated with microstructural and fractographic observations. It was determined that both α′ (BCC) and ε (HCP) martensitic phases formed as a result of either monotonie or cyclic deformation in both steel compositions, but the two differed considerably in the amount of martensites formed. AISI 201 steel formed up to 90 vol. pet of α′ and was found to have a shorter fatigue life than AISI 202, which only formed a few tenths of a percent of α′. Comparisons with three other austenitic stainless steels are made.

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Formerly a Research Assistant     

Immediate and long-term recognition and generalization of advertised products as a function of age and presentation mode.

Examined 30 preschoolers' (aged 3–5 yrs), 30 kindergartners', and 30 2nd graders' immediate and long-term recognition memory for advertised products following an audio, video, or audiovisual presentation of commercials. A 3?×?3 factorial design was employed, with presentation mode (visual only, auditory only, and combined auditory and visual) and age of S as the factors. Ss recognized advertised products more often following exposure to visual or audiovisual commercial presentations than to auditory presentations. Age differences were detected for immediate and long-term product recognition. An errors analysis revealed that Ss of all 3 ages reported being exposed to nonadvertised foods that were members of the same class as the advertised products more frequently than would have been expected by chance. Findings are discussed in terms of the generalized effects of children's TV advertising. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scan-Along Polygonal Approximation for Data Compression of Electrocardiograms

Three fast and efficient "scan-along" algorithms for compressing digitized electrocardiographic data are described. These algorithms are "scan-along" in the sense that they produce the compressed data in real time as the electrocardiogram is generated. The algorithms are based on the minimum perimeter polygonal approximation for digitized curves. The approximation restricts the maximum error to be no greater than a specified value. Our algorithms achieve a compression ratio of ten on a database of 8000 5-beat abnormal electrocardiograms sampled at 250 Hz and a compression ratio of eleven on a database of 600 3-beat normal electrocardiograms (different from the preceding database) sampled at 500 Hz.     

The flowing-afterglow technique,and approach to the study of polymer thermal degradation

We describe here a relatively new analytical method^1–3 for following the thermal reaction history of polymers by quantitatively detecting the evolution of gases and some volatiles by flowing-afterglow spectroscopy. The thermal and oxidative stability of common plastics in many industrial and defense applications is of wide interest. We have studied the evolution of moisture and carbon dioxide from Li₂CO₃/Orlon-filled diallyl phthalate (DAP) composites and have briefly examined the thermal stability of Estane 5703, a polyester-based thermoplastic polyurethane. The results of these preliminary studies have shown the utility of FLAG spectroscopy as a means toward our understanding polymer stability and lifetimes in specified environments. FLAG data, combined with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) data, have extended our knowledge of Li₂CO₃/Orlon/DAP and Estane aging processes. The DAP composites evolve H₂O and CO₂ at near ambient temperatures, and we have described the kinetics of gas evolution and have attempted to describe the mechanism of thermal degradation. In the 25–120°C temperature range Estane 5703 evolves CO₂ as a decomposition product and some adsorbed moisture.     

Decision strategies that maximize the area under the LROC curve

For the 2-class detection problem (signal absent/present), the likelihood ratio is an ideal observer in that it minimizes Bayes risk for arbitrary costs and it maximizes the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve [AUC]. The AUC-optimizing property makes it a valuable tool in imaging system optimization. If one considered a different task, namely, joint detection and localization of the signal, then it would be similarly valuable to have a decision strategy that optimized a relevant scalar figure of merit. We are interested in quantifying performance on decision tasks involving location uncertainty using the localization ROC (LROC) methodology. Therefore, we derive decision strategies that maximize the area under the LROC curve, A(LROC). We show that these decision strategies minimize Bayes risk under certain reasonable cost constraints. The detection-localization task is modeled as a decision problem in three increasingly realistic ways. In the first two models, we treat location as a discrete parameter having finitely many values resulting in an (L + 1) class classification problem. In our first simple model, we do not include search tolerance effects and in the second, more general, model, we do. In the third and most general model, we treat location as a continuous parameter and also include search tolerance effects. In all cases, the essential proof that the observer maximizes A(LROC) is obtained with a modified version of the Neyman-Pearson lemma. A separate form of proof is used to show that in all three cases, the decision strategy minimizes the Bayes risk under certain reasonable cost constraints.     

Heat-flow near a North Atlantic fracture zone

Fifteen new heat-flow measurements are reported, fourteen of which are located in or near a fracture zone near 43°N on the mid-Atlantic Ridge. These data, combined with earlier nearby measurements, show the fracture zone to have an observable, positive effect on the regional heat-flow field. A good correlation is observed between large near-bottom water potential temperature gradients and the occurrence of significant variations with depth in the measured rate of heat-flow. One measurement was taken in the Horseshoe abyssal plain west of Gibraltar and gave a value of 1.38 μcal/cm²s.