Northampton Community College

About: Northampton Community College is a education organization based out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3410 authors who have published 4582 publications receiving 130398 citations. The organization is also known as: Northampton County Area Community College.

The shape of nuclear falls and their effect on the perception of pitch and prominence: peaks vs. plateaux.

Abstract: This article investigates the perceptual effect of a high plateau in the intonation contour. Plateaux are flat stretches of contour and have been observed associated with high tones in Standard Southern British (SSB) English. The hypothesis that plateaux may make the accents with which they are associated sound higher in pitch than sharp peaks of the same maximum frequency is tested experimentally. In the first experiment listeners heard pairs of resynthesized utterances where the nuclear accent differed only in shape, not frequency. They indicated which stimulus they thought contained the higher pitched accent. Results showed that plateau-shaped accents sound higher than peaks. In the second experiment the effect of a plateau on prominence relations within an utterance is investigated. Listeners heard resynthesized sentences, and compared two accents. One group indicated which accent sounded higher in pitch and the other indicated which sounded more prominent. Results again indicated that plateau-shaped accents sound higher in pitch and also more prominent; judgments of pitch and prominence were very similar to one another. The results from both experiments indicated that accent shape is a perceptually important variable, although such a fine level of detail is not taken into account by autosegmental-metrical theories of intonation.

Test of the arson action system model in an incarcerated population

Abstract: Canter and Fritzon (Legal and Criminological Psychology, 3, 73–96, 1998) proposed a new model of differentiating arsonists based on the action system model. This is a replication of their study utilising interviews with 65 inmates from one prison, HMP Grendon. A smallest space analysis (SSA) supported an action system model of four distinct modes, adaptive, expressive, integrative and conservative, reflecting Canter and Fritzon's four distinct themes of arson (Canter and Fritzon, 1998). Two themes relate to expressive acts–(a) those arsons targeted at a person and (b) those at an object. The remaining two relate to instrumental acts–(c) those targeted at a person and (d) those at an object. Using four scales, which related to the four themes, 55 (85%) of the acts could be assigned to either one or two adjoining themes. The study gives further support to the utility of the action system model and the model of firesetting behaviour proposed by Canter and Fritzon, when using a different method of data collec...

Cognitice appriasal, vulnerability and coping: An integrative analysis of appraisal and coping mechanisms

Abstract: Research on stress has generally concluded that stress occurs within the person as a result of their cognitive appraisal of experience. However although a number of cognitive theories of emotion exist, an integrative analysis of cognitive appraisal and vulnerability to stress has not been produced. This report contains two studies. Study 1 draws together the major variables identified in the literature in an analysis of their power to differentiate between a clinical sample (n = 48), a self-help group (n = 54), and a control sample (n = 509). The analysis shows that achievement motivation, attributional style, problem-solving style, emotional reactivity; hopelessness, perceived control and perceived social support are significant discriminators. In a second study the relationship between these variables and aspects of life stress, work stress, life satisfaction, depression, anxiety, and positive affect were investigated. Again the data support an explanatory role for these variables. The suggesti...

On the gap between the quadratic integer programming problem and its semidefinite relaxation

Abstract: Consider the semidefinite relaxation (SDR) of the quadratic integer program (QIP): ** where Q is a given symmetric matrix and D is diagonal. We consider the SDR gap **. We establish the uniqueness of the SDR solution and prove that ** if and only if γr:=n−1max{xTVVTx:x ∈ {-1, 1}n}=1 where V is an orthogonal matrix whose columns span the (r–dimensional) null space of D−Q and where D is the unique SDR solution. We also give a test for establishing whether ** that involves 2r−1 function evaluations. In the case that γr<1 we derive an upper bound on γ which is tighter than **. Thus we show that `breaching' the SDR gap for the QIP problem is as difficult as the solution of a QIP with the rank of the cost function matrix equal to the dimension of the null space of D−Q. This reduced rank QIP problem has been recently shown to be solvable in polynomial time for fixed r.