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While cooccurrence matrices have been shown to be helpful in quantitating image texture, the amount of data associated with them can rapidly become unmanageable because a separate cooccurrence matrix can be calculated for each displacement vector chosen. Here, a method for choosing the direction of the displacement vector that is based on the most dominant edge obtained from gradient analysis is discussed. Also, the anatomy of the liver is used to suggest the most important intersample spacing in constructing cooccurrence matrices for the evaluation of diffuse liver disease.

The fourth edition of this text has been thoroughly updated and includes expanded chapters on Antarctica and outer space as well as new chapters on the geography of elections and the geography of war and peace. A chapter is devoted to outlaws and merchants of death which covers piracy, drug trafficing, the arms trade, and terrorism. Other additions include coverage of international economic sanctions, transnational corporations, refugees, and pollution across international boundaries. -from Publisher

Pieter van Laer and his followers — the so-called Bamboccianti — have usually been interpreted as realists or near-realists who painted simple, unassuming scenes of everyday life in seventeenth-century Rome. The testimony of their earliest critics gives us reason to suspect, however, that the Bamboccianti were actually pursuing a contrived form of painting that expressed meaning through irony and paradox. This idea is tested by examining one theme treated frequently by the artists in question — limekilns in Roman settings. By witty allusion to both the destruction and persistence of antiquity, pictures of Roman limekilns lead the viewer to contemplate a paradox regarding the nature of greatness and eternity. © 1988, College Art Association of America, Inc. All rights reserved.

Spectral analysis of Doppler ultrasound has been known to yield valuable information to assess the state of circulation in the peripheral blood vessels. In the past, the raw Doppler data have been directly input into a dedicated spectrum analyzer or, more recently, transformed on a microcomputer with the fast Fourier technique. The fast Hartley technique is used to transform these data. The Hartley transform has the advantages of being a purely real-numbered transform, and therefore for real Doppler data, is not only more conceptually straightforward, but also requires less computer memory, is simpler to calculate, and is better suited to large-scale integration implementation. © 1988 IEEE

Many special education students have the knowledge but are unable or unprepared to demonstrate that knowledge while taking a test. © 1988, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

This study examined the association among suicide attempts, parental alcoholism, psychopathology and drinking history in a sample of hospitalized alcoholics. Suicide attempters were found to have multiple psychiatric diagnoses (e.g., depression, antisocial personality disorder and substance abuse) and more severe psychiatric symptoms than nonattempters. Alcoholic suicide attempters also tended to have a parental history of alcoholism and began abusing alcohol at an early age. Alcohol abuse symptoms during the month before, and 6 month before, the current hospitalization were generally similar for suicide attempters and nonattempters. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

The effect of vasopressin on memory of a brightness discrimination reward task was investigated in 20 male Sprague-Dawley rats. Two measures of retention were used: resistance to extinction and savings scores on a reacquisition task given 45 days after the completion of extinction training. The effect of the peptide on both memory consolidation and retrieval was assessed. There were two major findings: (a) The peptide enhanced memory consolidation of the task whether measured after a short time interval (6 days) or after a long time interval (45 days after completion of extinction training) using a measure of trials to relearn the task, and (b) the peptide had no effect on memory retrieval. These results were compared to those of other studies designed to access memory consolidation and retrieval on appetitive tasks. The mechanisms of the peptide's effect on memory was briefly discussed with respect to three theories on the subject. This study extends the vasopressin research on memory consolidation by suggesting that it pertains to appetitive as well as to aversive tasks.

Technologic advances are changing hospice home care. A case study explores the clinical dilemmas and illustrates the educational and research agendas required to resolve them.

This study surveyed 202 undergraduate business majors regarding their perceptions of women in management. Research focused on male and female students' acceptance of women managers, the extent students perceived women managers as being accepted by others, and a comparison of descriptions of the typical male and female manager. Male students were found to be less accepting of women's dual role. Men perceived women managers as being less knowledgeable and possessing poorer managerial skills than male managers. Women managers were perceived as having greater interpersonal skills. Female students showed a greater preference for a male boss. Their descriptions of women managers were more positive regarding competency, but emphasized an interpersonal rather than a task orientation. The conclusion is made that perceptual stereotypes have not radically changed when compared to research reported in the 1970s. © 1988 Plenum Publishing Corporation.

A public shell is generally defined as an inactive public corporation. It may or may not have assets or a publicly trading stock. However, for purposes here it must have valid SEC and domicile-State legal standing to permit its reactivation by merger with, or acquisition of, an operating company. After many years of clouded regard because of promoters' stock abuses, acceptance of using a shell to go public has considerably widened. This has been due to clarified and tighter SEC policies, rising costs of an IPO, and innovative financial uses of a shell by businessmen and investment bankers. Supply of shells probably still greatly exceeds demand for shells because of the mortality rate of the waves of new issues of recent years, the lack of cleanness of many of these shells and still lagging sophistication in their use. Nevertheless, advertising analysis indicates that in the past year alone companies "going public the back door" has at least trebled the number a decade ago. The greater part of this increase, also, appears to be accountable by ventures. For venture start-ups public access via merger with a shell can produce economies in legal/accounting costs and opportunity cost in time. It is also a means of becoming public when an initial public offering is not feasible due to market condition or nature of business. If the stock is trading it can encourage initial venture capital investment. The concept impact can vault the stock price even before earnings eventuate. Or exciting prospects can entice an exaggerated price/earnings ratio on tiny earnings. These events can even facilitate additional financing to prolong viability. But once the venture decides to use a shell for public access, the caveats of the route must be considered. In addition to valid registration and cleanness, such aspects as stockholder list, market sponsorship, control and dilution problems must be matched to the venture's financial aims. Cost of the shell can vary between $25,000-$100,000 depending on the outcome of these considerations, terms of payment, and general attractiveness of the venture entering the shell. Finally, speculative merits of shell stocks compared with the OTC Index of Industrial Stocks show that for equal holding periods, a market basket of revived-shell stocks bought soon after revival and sold around their highs, during the past decade would have produced multiple total returns compared to the less speculative index market basket. This optimum buy-sell period usually fell between 18 months and two years. But these returns presume not only sagacious timing, but that sales of stock of the typically small companies constituting shell-revivals could actually be made at the prices shown in the National Securities Dealers Pink Sheets. Beyond the optimum holding period, shell-descended companies become increasingly subject to valuation factors similar to those accorded to long established companies in related industries. © 1988.