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.

de Bruijn notation as a nested datatype

Abstract: “I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Adventures of Sherlock Holmesde Bruijn notation is a coding of lambda terms in which each occurrence of a bound variable x is replaced by a natural number, indicating the ‘distance’ from the occurrence to the abstraction that introduced x. One might suppose that in any datatype for representing de Bruijn terms, the distance restriction on numbers would have to be maintained as an explicit datatype invariant. However, by using a nested (or non-regular) datatype, we can define a representation in which all terms are well-formed, so that the invariant is enforced automatically by the type system. Programming with nested types is only a little more difficult than programming with regular types, provided we stick to well-established structuring techniques. These involve expressing inductively defined functions in terms of an appropriate fold function for the type, and using fusion laws to establish their properties. In particular, the definition of lambda abstraction and beta reduction is particularly simple, and the proof of their associated properties is entirely mechanical.

Coupled bending–torsional dynamic stiffness matrix for beam elements

Abstract: Explicit expressions for the coupled bending–torsional dynamic stiffness matrix of a uniform beam element are derived in an exact sense by solving the governing differential equation of the beam. Implementation of the derived dynamic stiffness matrix in a space frame computer program is discussed with particular reference to an established algorithm to enable vibration analysis of coupled systems to be made. The application of the theory is demonstrated by an illustrative example wherein the results for a cantilever beam with a substantial amount of coupling between bending and torsion are highlighted. The correctness of the theory is confirmed to a high degree of accuracy by computed results and numerical checks.

A systematic review of the evidence of clozapine's anti-aggressive effects.

Abstract: Reducing the risk of violent and aggressive behaviour in patients with schizophrenia remains a clinical priority. There is emerging evidence to suggest that the second-generation antipsychotic, clozapine, is effective at reducing this risk in patients with schizophrenia and some evidence to suggest that it may be best in selected patients. We conducted a systematic literature search in March 2011 of all prospective and retrospective studies, which investigated clozapine's anti-aggressive effects in a variety of mental disorders. The review identified six animal studies, four randomized controlled trials, 12 prospective non-controlled studies and 22 retrospective studies, with four case studies. We found considerable evidence in support of clozapine's ability to reduce violent and aggressive behaviour. Clozapine's anti-aggressive effect was most commonly explored in patients with schizophrenia, with less evidence available for other psychiatric disorders, including borderline personality disorder, autistic spectrum disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and learning disability. There was mixed evidence to address the question of whether or not clozapine was any more effective than other antipsychotics. In the case of schizophrenia, there was evidence to suggest that clozapine's anti-aggressive effect was more marked particularly in those with treatment-resistant illness. Its anti-aggressive effects appeared to be 'specific', being to some extent greater than both its more general antipsychotic and sedative effects. There were significant methodological inconsistencies in the studies we identified, particularly surrounding patient recruitment criteria, the definition and measurement of violence and the lack of randomized, controlled trials. Data on therapeutic monitoring were also limited. Clozapine can reduce violence and persistent aggression in patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. It may offer an advantage over other antipsychotics, although perhaps exclusively in the case of traditionally defined 'treatment resistance' or more broadly defined 'complex cases' with co-morbidity. Larger, randomized, blinded, controlled studies with robust characterization of participants, and standardized measures of violence and aggression are, however, needed to fully understand this link and explore the possible mechanisms.

Facial Emotion Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract: A body of work has developed over the last 20 years that explores facial emotion perception in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). We identified 25 behavioural and functional imaging studies that tested facial emotion processing differences between patients with BPD and healthy controls through a database literature search. Despite methodological differences there is consistent evidence supporting a negative response bias to neutral and ambiguous facial expressions in patients. Findings for negative emotions are mixed with evidence from individual studies of an enhanced sensitivity to fearful expressions and impaired facial emotion recognition of disgust, while meta-analysis revealed no significant recognition impairments between BPD and healthy controls for any negative emotion. Mentalizing studies indicate that BPD patients are accurate at attributing mental states to complex social stimuli. Functional neuroimaging data suggest that the underlying neural substrate involves hyperactivation in the amygdala to affective facial stimuli, and altered activation in the anterior cingulate, inferior frontal gyrus and the superior temporal sulcus particularly during social emotion processing tasks. Future studies must address methodological inconsistencies, particularly variations in patients’ key clinical characteristics and in the testing paradigms deployed.

Structure of the influenza virus; the relation between biological activity and chemical structure of virus fractions.

Abstract: Influenza virus elementary bodies can be disintegrated by treatment with ether with the liberation of two types of smaller particle, soluble antigen and red cell agglutinin.Soluble antigen derived from the elementary body is identical in serological and chemical behaviour with soluble antigen recovered from infected tissues. Its chemical properties are those of a ribonucleoprotein.The agglutinin is an enzyme, with a protein part carrying the enzymic activity and a combining group with affinity for red cells. The agglutinin does not react in complement-fixation tests by the short fixation technique, but by the use of prolonged fixation or by indirect complement fixation it can be shown to contain a strain specific antigen and also a non-specific antigen. The specific antigen is identical with the specific complement-fixing antigen demonstrable in the intact elementary body, and has combining affinity for red blood cells. The non-specific antigen is probably similar to the protein part of the soluble antigen. No evidence has been found that the agglutinin contains either carbohydrate or nucleic acid.From the ether used to disintegrate the elementary body a serologically active lipid can be recovered which has properties suggesting that it is derived from the host cell.The author is greatly indebted to Dr L. Dmochowski for assistance in experiments involving high-speed centrifugation, to Sir Macfarlane Burnet and Dr G. L. Ada for supplies of receptor-destroying enzyme, to Dr E. S. Duthie for crystalline trypsin and chymotrypsin, and to Dr R. R. Porter for a sample of crystalline ribonuclease.