The relationship between racial attitudes and social-cognitive development in children: An Australian study.

Positive and negative racial attitudes of 122 Euro-Australian children (60 girls and 62 boys) toward Euro-, Asian, and Aboriginal Australians were examined across the 5–6-, 7–9-, and 10–12-year age groups. Children were more positive toward Euro- and Asian Australians than toward Aborigines. The middle group were less negative toward Aborigines than were the older and younger groups. Greater maturity in the ability to reconcile different racial perspectives and to perceive between-race similarity was moderately related to greater racial tolerance. Although the results support the role of cognition in age-related changes in prejudice between ages 5 to 9, found by A. B. Doyle and F. E. Aboud (see record 1995-28726-001) in Canadian children, the differences in attitudes to the 2 other groups and the finding that older children's negativity did not differ from that of the youngest group suggest the influence of environmental in addition to cognitive factors in the development of prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Collection and Analysis of Pre-evacuation Times Derived from Evacuation Trials and Their Application to Evacuation Modelling

This paper presents data relating to occupant pre-evacuation times from university and hospital outpatient facilities. Although the two occupancies are entirely different, they do employ relatively similar procedures: members of staff sweep areas to encourage individuals to evacuate.However the manner in which the dependent population reacts to these procedures is quite different. In the hospital case, the patients only evacuated once a member of the nursing staff had instructed them to do so, while in the university evacuation, the students were less dependent upon the actions of the staff, with over 50% of them evacuating with no prior prompting. In addition, the student pre-evacuation time was found to be dependent on their level of engagement in various activities.     

Public perception related to a hydrogen hybrid internal combustion engine transit bus demonstration and hydrogen fuel

Hydrogen has been widely considered as a potentially viable alternative to fossil fuels for use in transportation. In addition to price competitiveness with fossil fuels, a key to its adoption will be public perceptions of hydrogen technologies and hydrogen fuel. This paper examines public perceptions of riders of a hydrogen hybrid internal combustion engine bus and hydrogen as a fuel source.     

High gain millimetric negative resistance low noise amplifiers

The limited gain available from GaAs FETs and HEMTs at millimetric frequencies can be overcome by using the devices in a negative resistance amplifier configuration. The advantage of the solid-state negative resistance amplifier over the transmission amplifier is that the gain available is not limited by the active device used. It has been shown that, over a narrow bandwidth, significantly higher gain can be obtained from a negative resistance amplifier, when compared to a transmission amplifier using the same device, while maintaining the same overall noise performance. This has been demonstrated experimentally using a 0.25 mu m HEMT device.<>     

What health professionals can do to identify and resolve patient dissatisfaction

BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction affects consistency of self-care, health outcomes, level of service utilization, choice of health professionals, and decisions to sue in the face of adverse outcomes. Understanding patients' specific dissatisfactions may help health professionals and administrators identify and rectify organizational deficiencies before they become costly. COMMON CAUSES OF COMPLAINTS: As part of a series of research projects, more than 12,000 patient/family complaint narratives were examined in which patients or patients' family members told interviewers or patient advocates about the care they received from their health professionals in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Complaints may be categorized as involving issues of care and treatment, communication, humaneness, access and availability, environment, and billing/payment. STRATEGIES FOR RESOLVING COMPLAINTS: Even though caregivers may not have control over all the factors that lead to dissatisfaction, they can often hear and address complaints. As a result, they may not only contribute to quality of care but improve the systems in which they practice. The challenges are how to prevent dissatisfaction in the first place, and, if it does occur, to identify and if possible rectify patient concerns. Three case studies are provided. CONCLUSION: All health professionals must be involved in efforts to resolve problems that compromise patient care. Some problems could be prevented if administrators and leaders used complaint data to recommend new policies and procedures or to identify and counsel with health care team members who generate disproportionate numbers of complaints. If all are involved in both prevention and problem solving, resources devoted to uncovering, understanding, and resolving patient complaints are likely to prove cost-effective.     

Hearing impairment, disability and handicap in elderly people living in residential care and in the community

The TFI-musculofasciocutaneous flap has become a standard procedure in recent years. Donor-site problems of this method, especially the biomechanical changes of the hip, the proximal femur and the knee joint are evaluated, employing biomechanical techniques. Harvesting of a TFL-flap leads to functional loss of the M. tensor fasciae latae and the iliotibial tract and band. This might lead to a weakening of active and passive stabilising structures of the hip and the knee joint. Loss of the iliotibial tract causes a loss of the lateral tension-band of the proximal femur and leads to a significant increase of shear forces on the proximal femoral shaft. The functionally important structures of the iliotibial tract for knee biomechanics are not influenced by harvesting of the TFL flap. Loss of the M. tensor fasciae latae leads to a mild reduction of hip flexion and internal rotation. The indication for a TFL-flap should consider the patient's activity to prevent overload damage of the proximal femoral shaft. In childhood, harvesting of the TFL flap is likely to influence the growing axial skeleton due to the loss of the iliotibial tract.     

The crystal structure of the human DNA repair endonuclease HAP1 suggests the recognition of extra-helical deoxyribose at DNA abasic sites

The structure of the major human apurinic/ apyrimidinic endonuclease (HAP1) has been solved at 2.2 A resolution. The enzyme consists of two symmetrically related domains of similar topology and has significant structural similarity to both bovine DNase I and its Escherichia coli homologue exonuclease III (EXOIII). A structural comparison of these enzymes reveals three loop regions specific to HAP1 and EXOIII. These loop regions apparently act in DNA abasic site (AP) recognition and cleavage since DNase I, which lacks these loops, correspondingly lacks AP site specificity. The HAP1 structure furthermore suggests a mechanism for AP site binding which involves the recognition of the deoxyribose moiety in an extrahelical conformation, rather than a 'flipped-out' base opposite the AP site.     

A semidistributed HEMT model for accurate fitting and extrapolationof S-parameters and noise parameters

A model is described for a low noise millimeter-wave HEMT device. It takes account of the distributed nature of the gate and drain electrodes by dividing the active region of the device into a number of slices. Each slice is modeled as an intrinsic HEMT with thermal noise sources and the slices are connected together through lossy reactances. The parameters of the first slice are made different from those of the remaining slices, in order to account for the inevitable differences in the field distribution in the gate feed region. The model parameters have been optimized numerically to fit the manufacturer's measured S-parameters and all four noise parameters, for a commercially available HEMT chip. A good fit has been achieved simultaneously to all of these parameters, and the model therefore provides a reasonable basis for extrapolation to higher frequencies. The significance of the distributed gate effect and the unequal slice effect is assessed by comparing the best fit achievable when these effects are not included