Custom Integrated Circuits

Contains table of contents for Part III, table of contents for Section 1 and reports on eleven research projects.IBM CorporationMIT School of EngineeringNational Science Foundation Grant MIP 94-23221Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/U.S. Army Intelligence Center Contract DABT63-94-C-0053Mitsubishi CorporationNational Science Foundation Young Investigator Award Fellowship MIP 92-58376Joint Industry Program on Offshore Structure AnalysisAnalog DevicesDefense Advanced Research Projects AgencyCadence Design SystemsMAFET ConsortiumConsortium for Superconducting ElectronicsNational Defense Science and Engineering Graduate FellowshipDigital Equipment CorporationMIT Lincoln LaboratorySemiconductor Research CorporationMultiuniversity Research IntiativeNational Science Foundatio

Guidelines for Modeling and Reporting Health Effects of Climate Change Mitigation Actions.

BACKGROUND: Modeling suggests that climate change mitigation actions can have substantial human health benefits that accrue quickly and locally. Documenting the benefits can help drive more ambitious and health-protective climate change mitigation actions; however, documenting the adverse health effects can help to avoid them. Estimating the health effects of mitigation (HEM) actions can help policy makers prioritize investments based not only on mitigation potential but also on expected health benefits. To date, however, the wide range of incompatible approaches taken to developing and reporting HEM estimates has limited their comparability and usefulness to policymakers. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this effort was to generate guidance for modeling studies on scoping, estimating, and reporting population health effects from climate change mitigation actions. METHODS: An expert panel of HEM researchers was recruited to participate in developing guidance for conducting HEM studies. The primary literature and a synthesis of HEM studies were provided to the panel. Panel members then participated in a modified Delphi exercise to identify areas of consensus regarding HEM estimation. Finally, the panel met to review and discuss consensus findings, resolve remaining differences, and generate guidance regarding conducting HEM studies. RESULTS: The panel generated a checklist of recommendations regarding stakeholder engagement: HEM modeling, including model structure, scope and scale, demographics, time horizons, counterfactuals, health response functions, and metrics; parameterization and reporting; approaches to uncertainty and sensitivity analysis; accounting for policy uptake; and discounting. DISCUSSION: This checklist provides guidance for conducting and reporting HEM estimates to make them more comparable and useful for policymakers. Harmonization of HEM estimates has the potential to lead to advances in and improved synthesis of policy-relevant research that can inform evidence-based decision making and practice. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP6745

Avoidance and Fear Day by Day in Social Anxiety Disorder

Objective: Theories assert that avoidance maintains maladaptive anxiety over time, yet a clear prospective test of this effect in the day-by-day lives of people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) is lacking. Method: We used intensive longitudinal data to test prospective relationships between social fear and social avoidance in 32 participants with SAD who reported on a total of 4256 time points. Results: Results suggested that avoidance strongly predicted future anxiety, but only in a minority of people with SAD. Relationships between anxiety and avoidance varied considerably across individuals. Pre-registered tests found that the strength of autocorrelation for social fear is a good target for future testing of prediction of exposure response. Participants with lower autocorrelations were less likely to show between-session habituation. Conclusions: Overall, results suggest avoidance maintains fear in SAD for at least some individuals, but also indicates considerable variability. Further intensive longitudinal data is needed to examine individuals with SAD across varying time courses

Feasibility and utility of idiographic models in the clinic: A pilot study

AbstractIntroduction: Idiographic, or individual-level, methodology has been touted for its potential clinical utility. Empirically modeling relationships between symptoms for a single individual may offer both the client and therapist information that is useful for case conceptualization and treatment planning. However, few studies have investigated the feasibility and utility of integrating idiographic models in a clinical setting.Methods: Clients (n = 12) completed ecological momentary assessment regarding psychological symptoms five times per day for three weeks. Clients also generated predictions about the associative and directed relationships in their networks. Graphical vector autoregression was used to generate contemporaneous and directed networks from each client's data, and both clients and therapists completed self-report questionnaires regarding the feasibility and utility of these methods.Results: Results indicated that the idiographic model structures varied widely across participants and differed markedly from the client's own predictions. Clients found the models useful, whereas their therapists demonstrated a more tempered response.Discussion: These results echo previous findings suggesting that clients are willing to complete intensive data collection and are interested in the output, whereas therapists may be less open to idiographic methods. We provide recommendations for future implementation of personalized models in clinical settings

Data

Data for the project needed to conduct the analyses for the pre-registered hypotheses and described exploratory hypotheses

Insight: Anticipating the Future, Assessing the Impact (semester?), IPRO 341: Insight IPRO 341 Final Report Sp06

The first objective of IPRO 341 is to research four areas in which nanotechnology is being applied. Through this research the team will gain a basic understanding of the workings behind nanotechnology and determine applications which may interest our target audience (see second objective). The second objective of IPRO 341 is to determine a target audience. Since this semester’s team will focus on public assessment and education, a target audience must be chosen to present our research findings to. The third objective of IPRO 341 is to assess the current level of knowledge which the target audience has pertaining to nanotechnology. By determining what the audience already knows about the subject the team can organize and present the necessary information. The fourth objective of IPRO 341 is to educate our target audience. Public education of nanotechnology and its applications is the mission of this IPRO team. All previous objectives are part of this encompassing goal of public education. The team will work on putting together a tool for public education which can be used by the target audience to gain knowledge on the subject of nanotechnology. The team also plans to spread interest of the tool so that it may be used to educate the public.Deliverables for IPRO 341: Insight: Anticipating the Future, Assessing the Impact for the Spring 2006 semeste