A Comparison Between a Modified and a Traditional Expressive Writing Intervention and Their Effect on Alexithymia and Emotional Expressivity

The current study examined the effect of a modified expressive writing intervention compared to a traditional intervention and their effect on alexithymia and emotional expressivity while controlling for attachment style and social desirability among 150 undergraduate and graduate college students. The survey was administered online using a Qualtrics online survey tool. Participants were randomly divided into six groups: (a) low alexithymia/traditional intervention, (b) moderate alexithymia/traditional invention, (c) high alexithymia/traditional intervention, (d) low alexithymia/modified intervention, (e) moderate alexithymia/ modified intervention, and (f) high alexithymia/ modified intervention. The three groupings of levels of alexithymia—low (61) alexithymia—were based on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20, Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994) pretest score. The intervention involved undergoing a writing task in two sessions: writing a short essay using the two-treatment assignment (modified versus traditional) in a span of a week. After the participants completed the two sessions of writing, they were administered follow-up surveys of the Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ, Gross & John, 1997) and TAS-20 to obtain posttest scores for emotional expressivity and levels of alexithymia. Two different survey questionnaires were used to control for social desirability and attachment style: the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale short form (Beretvas, Meyers, & Leite, 2002) and the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). Statistical analysis for this study was a repeated measures multivariate analysis of covariance. The present study did not detect any effect of either expressive writing condition on alexithymia or emotional expressivity in college students with low, moderate, and high levels of alexithymia, whereas the two covariates, social desirability and emotional attachment style, did indeed affect participants’ levels of alexithymia and emotional expressivity. The current research added to a growing body of literature on the efficacy of expressive writing prompts as treatments for alexithymia and provided a foundation for future research

Μη γραμμική μοντελοποίηση μονοκύλινδρου πετρελαιοκινητήρα με συμβολικά μαθηματικά

125 σ.Αντικείμενο της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η διερεύνηση της δυναμικής κινητήρων. Συγκεκριμένα προσεγγίζεται η κίνηση ενός μονοκύλινδρου πετρελαιοκινητήρα, ελαστικά εδρασμένου σε μια άκαμπτη βάση. Η ανάλυση βασίζεται σε μια απλοποιημένη, αφαιρετική και μη γραμμική μοντελοποίηση του κινητήρα, με χρήση συμβολικών μαθηματικών, σαν ένα ανάστροφο και περιορισμένο διπλό εκκρεμές στο οποίο εφαρμόζονται σταδιακά αποσβέσεις και κρουστικά φορτία. Από τα αποτελέσματα συνάγεται ότι η ευρύτερη ταλαντωτική συμπεριφορά του συστήματος εξαρτάται τόσο από το μέγεθος των συντελεστών απόσβεσης όσο και από την σύζευξη μεταξύ του εκκρεμούς (κινητήρα) και της έδρασης.The dynamics of rotating systems is the topic of this thesis. As a familiar example of a simple rotating device, which can be used to demonstrate well-known features, the motion of a mono-cylinder reciprocating engine, flexible mounted in a rigid surface is analysed. Based on the abstract modelling as a double pendulum damping and periodic parametric impacts given by impulses are introduced step by step and various forms are derived. In particular, it is shown that not only the size of the ‘coupling’ between the engine and the mounting but also damping factors, govern the resulting oscillations. Besides the specific results concerning the motion of the system, the example can serve as a simple illustration of complicated dynamics in the presence of wave impacts or defects.Παναγιώτης Σ. Τζάνο

Model for LMFBR core transient analysis in real-time

This paper discusses the modeling of LMFBR core transients. It is shown that with a proper choice of shape functions a nodal approximation of the coolant, cladding, and fuel temperature distributions leads to adequately accurate power and temperature predictions, as well as adequately short computation times

Optimization of material distributions in fast breeder reactors

"MIT-4105-6."Based on a Sc. D. thesis submitted by C.P. Tzanos to the Dept. of Nuclear Engineering, 1971Includes bibliographical references (pages 188-190)AT(30-1)-410

Reactor shutdown system unavailability improvement by using a system of continuous data validation

Objective is to show that the unavailability of the scram initiation function of the reactor shutdown system (RSS) can be significantly reduced by using a system of continuous data validation and manual scram as a redundant and diverse means of cutting off the power supply to the control rod drives. A continuous data validation system that can be used for that purpose is currently under development at Argonne National Laboratory and is envisioned to operate as follows. Direct sensor measurements of safety-important parameters are fed to the system every few seconds. These direct measurements and analytic measurements generated in real-time from an analytic plant model are compared for consistency. Through this comparison instrumentation and other plant component failures can be identified, and validated values of safety-important parameters can be generated even in the presence of a significant number of instrumentation common-cause failures

Natural convection in a uniformly heated pool

In the event of a core meltdown accident, to prevent reactor vessel failure from molten corium relocation to the reactor vessel lower head, the establishment of a coolable configuration has been proposed by flooding with water the reactor cavity. In Reference 3, it was shown that for the heavy-water new production reactor (NPW-HWR) design, this strategy, e.g., the rejection of decay heat to a containment decay heat removal system by boiling of water in the reactor cavity, could keep the reactor vessel temperature below failure limits. The analysis of Ref. 3 was performed with the computer code COMMIX-1AR/P, and showed that natural convection in the molten-corium pool was the dominant mechanism of heat transfer from the pool to the wall of the reactor vessel lower head. To determine whether COMMIX adequately predicts natural convection in a pool heated by a uniform heat source, in Ref. 4, the experiments of free convection in a semicircular cavity of Jahn and Reineke were analyzed with COMMIX. It was found that the Nusselt (Nu) number predicted by COMMIX was within the spread of the experimental measurements. In the COMMIX analysis of Ref. 4, the semicircular cavity was treated as symmetric. The objective of the work presented in this paper was to extend the COMMIX validation analysis of Ref. 4 by removing the assumption of symmetry and expanding the analysis up to the highest Rayleigh (Ra) number that leads to a steady state. In conclusion, this work shows that the numerical predictions of natural convection in an internally heated pool bounded by a curved bottom are in reasonably good agreement with experimental measurements

Seamless approach for precipitations within the 0-3 hours forecast-interval

Presentación realizada en la 3rd European Nowcasting Conference, celebrada en la sede central de AEMET en Madrid del 24 al 26 de abril de 2019

Thermal-hydraulic unreliability of passive systems

Advanced light water reactor designs like AP600 and the simplified boiling water reactor (SBWR) use passive safety systems for accident prevention and mitigation. Because these systems rely on natural forces for their operation, their unavailability due to hardware failures and human error is significantly smaller than that of active systems. However, the coolant flows predicted to be delivered by these systems can be subject to significant uncertainties, which in turn can lead to a significant uncertainty in the predicted thermal-hydraulic performance of the plant under accident conditions. Because of these uncertainties, there is a probability that an accident sequence for which a best estimate thermal-hydraulic analysis predicts no core damage (success sequence) may actually lead to core damage. For brevity, this probability will be called thermal-hydraulic unreliability. The assessment of this unreliability for all the success sequences requires very expensive computations. Moreover, the computational cost increases drastically as the required thermal-hydraulic reliability increases. The required computational effort can be greatly reduced if a bounding approach can be used that either eliminates the need to compute thermal-hydraulic unreliabilities, or it leads to the analysis of a few bounding sequences for which the required thermal-hydraulic reliability is relatively small. The objective of this paper is to present such an approach and determine the order of magnitude of the thermal-hydraulic unreliabilities that may have to be computed

F-ταχεοδιασπορά ωλενίου και περονιαίου νεύρου σε άπω και εγγύς ερεθισμό

Είναι γενικά παραδεκτό ότι τα F - wave με το μικρότερο λανθάνοντα χρόνο παράγονται από τους μεγάλους σε διάμετρο νευρώνες που άγουν τα ερεθίσματα με τη μεγαλύτερη ταχύτητα, ενώ τα F - wave με το μεγαλύτερο λανθάνοντα χρόνο παράγονται από τους βραδείας μετάδοσης μικρούς νευρώνες. Αυτή η άποψη αμφισβητήθηκε από κάποιους ερευνητές, οι οποίοι πρότειναν ότι η διαφορά μεταξύ των λανθανόντων χρόνων (F-χρονοδιασπορά), θα μπορούσε να εξηγηθεί επαρκώς με την καθυστέρηση που υπάρχει κατά μήκος των περιφερικών νευρικών κλάδων και η οποία είναι ανάλογη με την απόσταση κάθε κινητικής μονάδας από το ηλεκτρόδιο καταγραφής. Για να ξεκαθαρίσουμε αυτό το ζήτημα, καταγράψαμε τα F – wave από μία απομακρυσμένη και μία εγγύς περιοχή του ίδιου νεύρου. Η κλασσική θεώρηση θα επιβεβαιωνόταν εάν η F - χρονοδιασπορά είναι χαμηλότερη στον εγγύς ερεθισμό, όπου υπολογίζεται η αγωγιμότητα σε μικρότερες αποστάσεις. Δέκα υγιή άτομα (5 άνδρες και 5 γυναίκες, ηλικίας 27,6 ± 4,1) προσφέρθηκαν εθελοντικά να συμμετέχουν στη μελέτη. Σαράντα διαδοχικά ερεθίσματα εφαρμόσθηκαν στο ωλένιο νεύρο στον καρπό και τον αγκώνα και στο περονιαίο στην ποδοκνημική και κάτωθεν της κεφαλής της περόνης. Οι ελάχιστοι λανθάνοντες χρόνοι (Flatmin) και οι μέγιστοι (Flatmax) καθώς και οι αντίστοιχες ταχύτητες αγωγιμότητας των F - wave (FCVs) υπολογίστηκαν από τον τύπο: FCVx= (2*Distance/ Flatmin - Mlat - 1) *[(Flatmin - 1)/(Flatx - 1)], όπου x = κάθε κύμα F. Αποτελέσματα: Για το ωλένιο νεύρο η χρονοδιασπορά F, δηλαδή η Flatmax - Flatmin, ήταν σημαντικά μικρότερη στον αγκώνα (μέση τιμή ± σταθερή απόκλιση = 2,5 ± 0,7) σε αντίθεση με τον καρπό (3,8 ± 1,0 ζεύγος t-test, p = 0,003). Ομοίως για το περονιαίο, η χρονική διασπορά F ήταν μικρότερη στην κεφαλή της περόνης (3,7 ± 1,7) έναντι της ποδοκνημικής (5,2 ± 2,0, p = 0,003). Το εύρος των FCV ήταν σχετικά μικρότερο κατά μήκος του τμήματος αγκώνας - σπονδυλική στήλη (ΣΣ) (7,3 ± 2,5, όρια ομάδας των FCV: 56 - 76 m/s) έναντι του τμήματος καρπός - ΣΣ (9,1 ± 2,7, p = 0,06, 54 - 72 m/s). Ομοίως μικρότερη ήταν κατά μήκος του τμήματος κεφαλή περόνης - ΣΣ (4.3 ± 1.9, 40 - 52 m/s) έναντι του τμήματος ποδοκνημική - ΣΣ (5.3 ± 2.2, p = 0.05, 38 – 50 m/s). Τα ευρήματά μας έδειξαν ότι η τιμή της F - χρονoδιασποράς εξαρτάται από τη θέση διέγερσης, που είναι χαμηλότερη στην κεντρική διέγερση. Είναι ένα αξιόπιστο μέτρο των ιδιοτήτων αγωγιμότητας των κινητικών νευρώνων. Επιπλέον, οι ταχύτητες αγωγής των F – wave, όπως συμβαίνει και στις μετρήσεις των απαντήσεων Μ, ήταν μεγαλύτερες κατά μήκος των κεντρικών τμημάτων.It is a general understanding that F - waves of shorter latency are generated by fast conducting large neurons, while those of longer latency by slow conducting small neurons. This view has been questioned by researchers who proposed that latency difference (F - chronodispersion) could be as well explained by unequal delayed along the distal neural branches depending on the distance of each motor unit from the recording electrode. To clarify this issue, we recorded F - waves from a distal and a proximal site of the same nerve. The classical view will be justified if F - chronodispersion is lower at proximal stimulation, where conduction along shorter distances is estimated. Ten healthy subjects (aged 27.6 ± 4.1, 5 females) were volunteered. Forty consecutive stimuli were applied to the ulnar nerve at the wrist and elbow and to the peroneal at the ankle and knee. F - wave latency minimum and maximum (Flatmin, Flatmax) were measured and corresponding conduction velocities (FCVs) were estimated by the formula: FCVx= (2*Distance / Flatmin - Mlat - 1) *[(Flatmin - 1)/(Flatx - 1)], where x=each F - wave. Results: For the ulnar nerve, F - chronodispersion, i.e. Flatmax - Flatmin, was significantly shorter at the elbow (mean±sd 2.5±0.7) as opposed to the wrist (3.8±1.0 paired t-test, p= 0.003); likewise for the peroneal nerve, F - chronodispersion was shorter at the knee (3.7±1.7) vs the ankle (5.2±2.0 p=0.003). FCV range was relative shorter along elbow - spinal cord (sc) segment (7.3±2.5; group limits of FCVs: 56-76m/s) vs wrist - sc (9.1±2.7, p=0.06; 54-72); similarly shorter along knee - sc (4.3±1.9; 40-52m/s) vs ankle - sc (5.3±2.2, p=0.05; 38-50m/s). Our findings showed that F - chronodispersion value depends on the stimulation site, being lower at proximal stimulation. It is a reliable measure of motor neuron conduction properties. Moreover, FCVs, like M-response estimated CVs, where faster along proximal parts