Sex and discipline differences in empathising, systemising and autistic symptomatology : evidence from a student population

Baron-Cohenʹs (2002) theory of autism suggests that deficits in theory of mind and weak central coherence in autism can be explained as features of an ‘extreme male brain’ in which empathising is weak and systemising is strong. The two studies presented investigate this theory by examining the relationships between theory of mind, central coherence, empathising, systemising and autistic-like symptomatology in a sample of undergraduates. Study 1 used 48 undergraduates in four equal groups of male and female science and humanities students. Consistent with the theory, there were sex differences in the expected directions on all tasks in the first study. Differences according to discipline were found only on the Block Design task. Individuals with the ‘male brain’ profile also tended to show higher levels of autistic symptomatology. There was no evidence of a link between empathising and social skills on one hand and systemising and central coherence on the other. In the second study, performance on the Mechanical Reasoning and the Social Skills Inventory tasks was compared with performance on the Baron‐Cohen Empathising and Systemising Quotients in a sub‐sample of 20 students from Study 1. Moderately significant correlations were found between the Systemising Quotient and the Mechanical Reasoning task and between the Empathising Quotient and the Social Skills Inventory. Findings are largely consistent with the distinction between empathising and systemising but raise some questions concerning the tasks used to measure these abilities

Evaluating The Effects of Signal Control Applications on Roundabout’s LOS Performance Using VISSIM Microsimulation Model

The existence of unbalanced and high traffic flows at roundabout have resulted in poor performance and safety concerns. Past research has shown that applications of signal control at problematic roundabouts had significantly improved its Level of Service (LOS) performance. This study investigates the effects of different signal phasing plans on the roundabout’s LOS performance using VISSIM microsimulation model. The findings revealed that both Approach-Signal-Control Roundabout ACSR and Two-Stop-Line Control Signalized Roundabout TSLSR signal phasing methods did not significantly improve the roundabout’s entry capacities. Partial signal control applications, however, have resulted in a significant reduction in vehicle delays and higher entry capacities. The results of this study provide a good overview to local traffic practitioners on how to evaluate and implement the signal control strategy at problematic roundabouts. &nbsp

Model-based optimal PEEP in mechanically ventilated ARDS patients in the Intensive Care Unit

Background: The optimal level of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) is still widely debated in treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients. Current methods of selecting PEEP only provide a range of values and do not provide unique patient-specific solutions. Model-based methods offer a novel way of using non-invasive pressure-volume (PV) measurements to estimate patient recruitability. This paper examines the clinical viability of such models in pilot clinical trials to assist therapy, optimise patient-specific PEEP, assess the disease state and response over time. Methods: Ten patients with acute lung injury or ARDS underwent incremental PEEP recruitment manoeuvres. PV data was measured at increments of 5 cmH(2)O and fitted to the recruitment model. Inspiratory and expiratory breath holds were performed to measure airway resistance and auto-PEEP. Three model-based metrics are used to optimise PEEP based on opening pressures, closing pressures and net recruitment. ARDS status was assessed by model parameters capturing recruitment and compliance. Results: Median model fitting error across all patients for inflation and deflation was 2.8% and 1.02% respectively with all patients experiencing auto-PEEP. In all three metrics' cases, model-based optimal PEEP was higher than clinically selected PEEP. Two patients underwent multiple recruitment manoeuvres over time and model metrics reflected and tracked the state or their ARDS. Conclusions: For ARDS patients, the model-based method presented in this paper provides a unique, non-invasive method to select optimal patient-specific PEEP. In addition, the model has the capability to assess disease state over time using these same models and methods

Evaluating The Effects of Signal Control Applications on Roundabout’s LOS Performance Using VISSIM Microsimulation Model

The existence of unbalanced and high traffic flows at roundabout have resulted in poor performance and safety concerns. Past research has shown that applications of signal control at problematic roundabouts had significantly improved its Level of Service (LOS) performance. This study investigates the effects of different signal phasing plans on the roundabout’s LOS performance using VISSIM microsimulation model. The findings revealed that both Approach-Signal-Control Roundabout ACSR and Two-Stop-Line Control Signalized Roundabout TSLSR signal phasing methods did not significantly improve the roundabout’s entry capacities. Partial signal control applications, however, have resulted in a significant reduction in vehicle delays and higher entry capacities. The results of this study provide a good overview to local traffic practitioners on how to evaluate and implement the signal control strategy at problematic roundabouts. &nbsp

Manual Saliran Mesra Alam (MSMA): Should urban planners be aware of it?

It has been more than seven years since Manual Saliran Mesra Alam or MSMA was first implemented by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID). Its control-at-source concept to guarantee zero development impact in both quantity and quality of runoff has revolutionized urban stormwater management in Malaysia. As highlighted in the manual, a succesful implementation of its principles and techniques though calls for involvement of various professionals including engineers, urban planners, environmental scientists, landscape architects and other professionals. Apart from civil engineers, not much is known about the other professionals involvement or awareness of MSMA. In light of this, this paper discusses the findings of a survey carried out to assess the levels of awareness, understanding and involvement of urban planning professionals in the implementation of MSMA. Questionnaires designed to assess the levels of awareness, understanding and involvement of the urban planning professionals in MSMA were distributed to randomly-selected urban planning professionals from government agencies and private firms. The study distributed a total of 150 questionnaire sets from which 92 were returned, giving a response rate of about 61%. The responses were then tabulated and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software and MS Excel spreadsheet. The tabulated results revealed that majority of the respondents were aware of MSMA and many claimed that they understood MSMA. However, upon further probing many of those who claimed to understand MSMA failed to correctly answer some basic questions about it. While some respondents may have been involved in the works that required using MSMA guidelines, their involvement were however superficial at best. Overall, majority of the respondents agreed that there was a general lack of awareness and understanding of MSMA among planning professionals, and they attributed this to a variety of reasons

Archiving scientific data

We present an archiving technique for hierarchical data with key structure. Our approach is based on the notion of timestamps whereby an element appearing in multiple versions of the database is stored only once along with a compact description of versions in which it appears. The basic idea of timestamping was discovered by Driscoll et. al. in the context of persistent data structures where one wishes to track the sequences of changes made to a data structure. We extend this idea to develop an archiving tool for XML data that is capable of providing meaningful change descriptions and can also efficiently support a variety of basic functions concerning the evolution of data such as retrieval of any specific version from the archive and querying the temporal history of any element. This is in contrast to diff-based approaches where such operations may require undoing a large number of changes or significant reasoning with the deltas. Surprisingly, our archiving technique does not incur any significant space overhead when contrasted with other approaches. Our experimental results support this and also show that the compacted archive file interacts well with other compression techniques. Finally, another useful property of our approach is that the resulting archive is also in XML and hence can directly leverage existing XML tools

Modelling colloids with Baxter's adhesive hard sphere model

The structure of the Baxter adhesive hard sphere fluid is examined using computer simulation. The radial distribution function (which exhibits unusual discontinuities due to the particle adhesion) and static structure factor are calculated with high accuracy over a range of conditions and compared with the predictions of Percus--Yevick theory. We comment on rigidity in percolating clusters and discuss the role of the model in the context of experiments on colloidal systems with short-range attractive forces.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. (For proceedings of "Structural arrest in colloidal systems with short-range attractive forces", Messina, December 2003

Simulation of Internal Undular Bores Propagating over a Slowly Varying Region

Internal undular bores have been observed in many parts of the world. Studies have shown that many marine structures face danger and risk of destruction caused by internal undular bores due to the amount of energy it carries. This paper looks at the transformation of internal undular bore in two-layer fluid flow under the influence of variable topography. Thus, the surface of the bottom is considered to be slowly varying. The appropriate mathematical model is the variable-coefficient extended Korteweg-de Vries equation. We are particularly interested in looking at the transformation of KdV-type and table-top undular bore over the variable topography region. The governing equation is solved numerically using the method of lines, where the spatial derivatives are first discretised using finite difference approximation so that the partial differential equation becomes a system of ordinary differential equations which is then solved by 4th order Runge-Kutta method. Our numerical results show that the evolution of internal undular bore over different types of varying depths regions leads to a number of adiabatic and non-adiabatic effects. When the depth decreases slowly, a solitary wavetrain is observed at the front of the transformed internal undular bore. On the other hand, when the depth increases slowly, we observe the generation of step-like wave and weakly nonlinear trailing wavetrain, the occurrence of multi-phase behaviour, the generation of transformed undular bore of negative polarity and diminishing transformed undular bore depending on the nature of the topography after the variable topography

Local scour and flow characteristics around a circular cylinder undergoing vortex-induced vibration

Vortex-induced vibration (VIV) has been extensively studied and the related findings presented in published literature. However, when the cylinder is placed near an erodible sand bed, interactions between the vibrating cylinder, flow field and local scour evidently will become very complex. The aim of this study is to provide an improved understanding of the interaction between the flow field, free vibrating cylinder and scour by using flow visualization and a new PIV measurement technique. The results show that the amplitude and frequency of the vibrating cylinder are closely related to the depth of the scour hole. Based on the qualitative observation and quantitative measurement of the flow field, vibrating cylinder and scour dimensions, three distinct scour stages are identified in this study. The characteristics of the turbulence intensity, formation and transmission of the vortices in each of these three scour stages are discussed in this paper