A portable,solid-state anomaloscope

Various methods of assessing color vision are discussed. The anomaloscope is concluded to be the best of these, but it is not widely used because of complexity and cost considerations. The design of a portable, solid-state anomaloscope that uses tristate light-emitting diodes is described. This device has many of the desirable features of the standard Nagel-type anomaloscope and can be constructed at a fraction of the price.     

A microcomputer-controlled solid-state dark adaptometer

A low-cost microprocessor-controlled light-emitting diode (LED) dark adaptometer is described. The apparent intensities of red and green stimuli are controlled by changing the duty cycles of LED display elements which are operated at constant pulse repetition rates. The psychophysical method of limits is used to obtain threshold data. Stimulus parameters and test procedures are under software control. The design utilizes programmable integrated circuitry that may be used with a variety of microprocessors.     

A portable solid-state stimulus programmer

This paper describes a miniature solid-state timing device particularly useful for presenting repetitive signal sequences in classical conditioning experiments. The device uses transistors, silicon-controlled rectifiers, and four-layer diodes, and is powered by 20-hour rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries. Visual monitoring is provided for the unelapsed ITI and battery charge. Ranges are; ITI, 15 sec. to 5 min., ISI, 0–50 secs., CS duration, 0.5 to 30 sec., US duration, 0.5 to 30 sec. The CS and US durations are adjustable and the onset of the latter may be at any time after the CS onset. Cycling is continuous and automatic; the outputs are in the form of relay closures.     

A solid-state device for presenting moving shadows

The use of luminescent panels controlled by solid-state circuitry to produce moving shadows is described. Advantages include lack of vibration, noise, and heat.     

A day unit for families

The Family Day Unit at the Maryborough Hospital, London, carries out an intensive treatment programme for highly dysfunctional families. Up to ten families attend the Unit five days per week from nine a.m. to three p.m. They stay for a period of at least three months and not longer than fifteen months. Normally some twenty to thirty patients, adults and children, attend every day. This paper gives the reasons for setting up this Family Day Unit. The aims and structure of the Unit are described, the treatment method outlined and some preliminary results are discussed.     

Reactive solid-state dewetting

High-temperature annealing in air of thick crystalline silver films deposited on high-purity nickel foils promotes solid-state dewetting, whereas no hole through the film is produced when annealing under high purity argon. Scanning electron microscopy observations of the film surface and of cross-sections reveal that dewetting occurs only if a nickel oxide layer forms at the silver-nickel interface, as a result of oxygen diffusion through the silver film. The main dewetting mechanism over short times (1h 1120K in air) is observed to be the condensation, at the silver-nickel oxide interface, of vacancies into voids which grow towards the free surface of the silver film.     

A breakdown in the family unit

In his article, "Autonomy and beneficence in the family," David J. Doukas describes the dynamic relationship between the family and the physician. He points out: "the family covenant spells out the obligations of all parties to give and receive respect and beneficial care within the realm of medical practice"....While this model may provide a framework for ethical discussion under certain circumstances, it falls short in several major respects....     

A family-oriented psychiatric inpatient unit.

This article presents the structure and policies of a psychiatric inpatient unit that was developed with the goal of fully integrating family-oriented treatment approaches into its therapeutic program. There is an explanation of different methods to involve families in the hospital treatment process and delineation of a variety of treatment techniques specific for families of inpatients. The role of the nursing staff is described as well as some of the contradictions and paradoxes that are inherent in this type of inpatient unit.     

A solid-state cumulative recorder for an analog registry of accumulative events

A solid-state device for providing graphic records of various behavioral and physiological events in much the same manner as does the electromechanical cumulative recorder is described. This transistorized version of the cumulative recorder produces a noise-free (electrical and acoustical) analog cumulative record on analog recorders. The circuit provides for such features as: built-in calibrator; internal-reset oscillator; variable incremental step amplitude; and a FET op-amp to provide a constant. drift-free output level over long and extended reset periods. The output of the device can be displayed on one channel of a polygraph recorder with adjacent channels providing physiological and behavioral data to produce a real time correlation of analog and event signals.     

A comparative study of rodent ultrasonic vocalizations during copulation

The temporal patterning of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) during copulation was recorded for male-female pairs of Djungarian hamsters (Phodopus campbelli), prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), and montane voles (Microtus montanus). Each species appears to utilize a single major frequency band for USVs, centered around 31 kHz for the vole species and 71 kHz for hamsters. Djungarian hamsters exhibited low rates of USVs prior to introduction of the female and following ejaculation, but a high USV rate during periods of copulatory activity. Both vole species called at high rates during all stages of the copulatory sequence, although calling rates decreased following ejaculation. Anesthetization trials, where one pair member was awake and the other anesthesized, suggest that it is the male of each species that produces most USVs. The results were compared with six other muroid species for which data on the temporal patterning of USVs during copulation are available. These data extend our knowledge of the patterning of USVs during copulatory behavior and suggest the need for additional comparative investigations.     

A detector of sonic and ultrasonic vocalizations with frequency readout

An electronic apparatus to detect vocalizations between 4 and 50 kHz and to provide frequency readout is described. A frequency-to-voltage converter changes vocalizations to their analog. A peak-and-hold circuit retains and gates the maximal value of this analog voltage while it is accessed by a chart recorder or computer. Provision is made to lock out noise by inhibiting the device’s response to all signals lower than those associated with a selectable cutoff frequency. In preliminary tests of the apparatus, vocal signals of two rats in a common cage were recorded while the animals were subjected to a brief, intermittent bout of faradic shock to the feet. All recorded vocalizations occurred at frequencies below 26 kHz.     

Fundamental unit structures: A theory of ratio scalability

A theory of nonassociative measurement structures is developed which produces a natural generalization of associative measurement (i.e., extensive structures), and representation and uniqueness theorems are established for these generalized structures, and it is shown that in many cases these representations are ratio scales. The methods of proof strongly relate the structure of the automorphism group of the nonassociative structure to its underlying concatenation operation.     

A device to enable the automatic recording of rodent ultrasonic vocalizations

The difficulty of recording rodent ultrasonic vocalizations simultaneously with other behavior patterns has been overcome by the use of the apparatus described. The electronic circuitry automatically digitally codes specified frequencies of rodent ultrasounds on a behavioral recording device. A reliability study of its performance in recording vocalizations of copulating Mongolian gerbils, during experimental tests, is also described.     

A solid-state device for eliminating electrical noise and biopotentials in electromyographic (EMG) recordings

A small, low-cost, integrated circuit device is described. This circuit reduces electrical noise, such as that produced from a poor electrode-skin interface and power-line interference (60 Hz). Advantages of this device, with regard to use in electrically noisy environments and with long cables, are discussed.     

A small-to-large unit progression in metaphonological awareness and reading?

The paper reports a series of studies of reading and metaphonological processing by children in their second year in primary school(aged 6 years). An earlier study had established that, in the first year of learning, performance was characterized by a small-unit approach in which graphemes and phonemes were emphasized. In the second year, reading became more sensitiveto the frequencies of rime structures in the lexicon. Capacity to generate word analogies for nonwords also showed increasing commitment to rime-based responses, and this trend was strongly linked to reading age. The present results suggest that a small-unit approach to reading is augmented by a large-unit approach as development proceeds. This trend was reflected in performance on a test of explicit phonological awareness. When asked to report the segment of sound shared by two spoken words, Primary 1 children were poor in reporting shared rimes but relatively adept in reporting shared phonemes. During Primary 2 there was an improvement in ability to report shared rimes, and this trend was also related to reading age. These results are discussed in relation to the influence of instruction and the nature of the orthography in determining the course of reading development.