Sample Entropy Statistics and Testing for Order in Complex Physiological Signals

Sample Entropy (SampEn) statistics have provided insight into the amount of order present in several types of complex physiological time series, particularly the heart rate dynamics of premature infants. Very little, however, is known of SampEn's statistical properties and this has hindered strategies for optimization and significance testing. This article shows that SampEn statistics are asymptotically Gaussian under general conditions. A straightforward point estimate of the statistic's variance is developed and compared to empirical results obtained from complex surrogate data. Statistical tests are developed to quantify the amount and scale of order detected in a signal. These tests are used to show that significant order is, in fact, being detected in the heart rate dynamics of neonates, and to suggest strategies for optimizing the analysis parameters.     

浅论拓展高校大学生党员后续教育的新途径

加强对大学生党员后续教育工作是保持党的先进性的需要。高校应积极通过完善理论学习机制,健全党员发展和组织管理机制,创新党员后续教育新途径,不断强化大学生的党员意识,提供发挥作用的实践渠道,发挥学生党员的先锋模范作用,从而增强高校党建工作的实效性。     

从毛泽东的自律作风看党员干部加强自身修养的必要性

在党的廉政建设中 ,我们重温和回顾毛泽东廉洁自律的作风 ,对于当前加强党员干部自身修养 ,从根本上筑起反腐倡廉的长城 ,具有重大的现实意义。     

空中交通管理系统安全评价研究

针对以往空中交通管理系统安全评价的不全面性,提出要从＂隐性＂和＂显性＂层面对空中交通管理系统的安全状况进行准确评估。在＂隐性＂层面以空管系统的人、设备、环境和管理为基本因素,建立空中交通管理＂隐性＂层面评价指标体系,并在空管安全评价中首次利用了Kaufm ann和Gupta模糊德尔菲法求取指标的隶属度,避免了利用专家打分的模糊性和不准确性,为＂隐性＂层面准确评估提供了坚实的基础;在＂显性＂层面提出了集值统计模型,并利用落影函数计算出指标的威胁度。最终结合实例对中国空管系统的安全状况进行了评价。实证分析表明,该方法能较为准确地反应中国空管系统的安全状况,具有较好的参考价值。     

Political extremism,group membership and personality traits: who accepts violence? / Extremismo político,pertenencia al grupo y rasgos de personalidad: ¿Quién acepta la violencia?

Abstract

Identity fusion theory proposed that fused individuals have a visceral feeling of oneness with the group and this leads them to engage in radical, violent pro-group behaviours. Other approaches to group extremism link acceptance of violence to right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO). We extended previous research on fusion in three ways. First, by exploring if identity fusion is a significant predictor of the willingness to fight for a group, when controlling for group identification, left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), RWA and SDO. Secondly, we controlled for a membership in a group known for radical action directed at out-groups, namely football hooligans. Finally, we added a second outcome variable, which is the acceptance of violent change of the current social system. The participants were self-described football hooligans (N = 24) and undergraduate students (N = 155). Regression analyses revealed that the strongest predictor of willingness to defend in-group was identity fusion, with RWA and group identification significant as well. RWA and LWA emerged as the strongest predictors of acceptance of violent change. The effect of group membership wasn’t significant.     

Infants' discrimination of consonant contrasts in the presence and absence of talker variability

To learn speech-sound categories, infants must identify the acoustic dimensions that differentiate categories and selectively attend to them as opposed to irrelevant dimensions. Variability on irrelevant acoustic dimensions can aid formation of robust categories in infants through adults in tasks such as word learning (e.g., Rost and McMurray, 2009) or speech-sound learning (e.g., Lively et al., 1993). At the same time, variability sometimes overwhelms learners, interfering with learning and processing. Two prior studies (Kuhl & Miller, 1982; Jusczyk, Pisoni, & Mullennix, 1992) found that irrelevant variability sometimes impaired early sound discrimination. We asked whether variability would impair or facilitate discrimination for older infants, comparing 7.5-month-old infants' discrimination of an early acquired native contrast, /p/ vs. /b/ (in the word forms /pIm/ vs. /bIm/), in Experiment 1, with an acoustically subtle, non-native contrast, /n/ vs. /ŋ/ (in /nIm/ vs. /ŋIm/), in Experiment 2. Words were spoken by one or four talkers. Infants discriminated the native but not the non-native contrast, and there were no significant effects of talker condition. We discuss implications for theories of phonological learning and avenues for future research.     

高校毕业生党员组织关系管理问题的思考

迫于严峻的就业和生存压力,越来越多的毕业生党员在离校后成了“流动党员”“口袋党员”.根本原因在于有的党员党性意识不强、组织观念淡薄,本质上,与高校学生党员发展教育管理质量有关,还与原就读学校和接收地党组织对毕业生党员服务的实效性有关.应把提高学生党员质量作为解决毕业生党员组织关系管理问题的根本措施,切实加强和改进毕业生党员离校前与离校后的教育管理.     

Waste Package Performance Evaluations for the Proposed High-Level Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Mountain

The evaluation studies of the proposed repository for long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, are underway. Fulfillment of the requirements for limiting dose to the public, which includes containment of the radioactive waste emplaced in the proposed repository and subsequent slow release of radionuclides from the Engineered Barrier System (EBS) into the geosphere, will rely on a robust waste container design, among other EBS components. Part of the evaluation process involves sensitivity studies aimed at elucidating which model parameters contribute most to the waste package and overlying drip shield degradation characteristics. The model parameters identified for this study include (1) general corrosion rate parameters and (2) stress corrosion cracking (SCC) parameters. Temperature dependence and parameter uncertainty are evaluated for the general corrosion rate model parameters while for the SCC model parameters, uncertainty treatment of stress intensity factor, crack initiation threshold, and manufacturing flaw orientations are evaluated. Based on these evaluations new uncertainty distributions are generated and recommended for future analyses. Also, early waste package failures due to improper heat treatment were added to the waste package degradation model. The results of these investigations indicate that the waste package failure profiles are governed by the manufacturing flaw orientation model parameters.     

Differences in Pharmacokinetics Between Children and Adults—II. Children''s Variability in Drug Elimination Half-Lives and in Some Parameters Needed for Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling

In earlier work we assembled a database of classical pharmacokinetic parameters (e.g., elimination half-lives; volumes of distribution) in children and adults. These data were then analyzed to define mean differences between adults and children of various age groups. In this article, we first analyze the variability in half-life observations where individual data exist. The major findings are as follows. The age groups defined in the earlier analysis of arithmetic mean data (0-1 week premature; 0-1 week full term; 1 week to 2 months; 2-6 months; 6 months to 2 years; 2-12 years; and 12-18 years) are reasonable for depicting child/adult pharmacokinetic differences, but data for some of the earliest age groups are highly variable. The fraction of individual children's half-lives observed to exceed the adult mean half-life by more than the 3.2-fold uncertainty factor commonly attributed to interindividual pharmacokinetic variability is 27% (16/59) for the 0-1 week age group, and 19% (5/26) in the 1 week to 2 month age group, compared to 0/87 for all the other age groups combined between 2 months and 18 years. Children within specific age groups appear to differ from adults with respect to the amount of variability and the form of the distribution of half-lives across the population. The data indicate departure from simple unimodal distributions, particularly in the 1 week to 2 month age group, suggesting that key developmental steps affecting drug removal tend to occur in that period. Finally, in preparation for age-dependent physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling, nationally representative NHANES III data are analyzed for distributions of body size and fat content. The data from about age 3 to age 10 reveal important departures from simple unimodal distributional forms-in the direction suggesting a subpopulation of children that are markedly heavier than those in the major mode. For risk assessment modeling, this means that analysts will need to consider "mixed" distributions (e.g., two or more normal or log-normal modes) in which the proportions of children falling within the major versus highweight/fat modes in the mixture changes as a function of age. Biologically, the most natural interpretation of this is that these subpopulations represent children who have or have not yet received particular signals for change in growth pattern. These apparently distinct subpopulations would be expected to exhibit different disposition of xenobiotics, particularly those that are highly lipophilic and poorly metabolized.