Your search

Meeting students’ learning needs in acute care settings is challenging. The authors discuss dual assignment in the pediatric setting with beginning nursing students. © 1992 Lippincott-Raven Publishers.

The backpropagation method is modified by replacing sigmoid function by sinusoidal function. The leaving law is also modified. The modified procedure shows great improvement over the original BP in terms of the number of neurons and the learning time. © 1992 IEEE.

In Experiment 1, the choice responses of 8 pigeons were observed during 50 periods of transition. Each condition began with equal probabilities of reinforcement on 2 response keys and switched to unequal probabilities. With the ratio of the 2 probabilities held constant, preference for the higher probability developed more rapidly when the 2 probabilities were high than when they were low. In Experiment 2, each condition began with 2 equal variable-interval schedules, but later 1 key delivered 60%, 75%, or 90% of the reinforcers. The rate of approach to asymptotic performance was roughly the same with all 3 reinforcement percentages. These and previous results pose difficulties for some well-known models of acquisition, but the results are well described by a simple model that states that the strength of each response is independently increased by reinforcement and decreased by nonreinforcement.

In a discrete-trials procedure with pigeons, a response on a green key led to a 4-s delay (during which green houselights were lit) and then a reinforcer might or might not be delivered. A response on a red key led to a delay of adjustable duration (during which red houselights were lit) and then a certain reinforcer. The delay was adjusted so as to estimate an indifference point-a duration for which the two alternatives were equally preferred. Once the green key was chosen, a subject had to continue to respond on the green key until a reinforcer was delivered. Each response on the green key, plus the 4-s delay that followed every response, was called one “link” of the green-key schedule. Subjects showed much greater preference for the green key when the number of links before reinforcement was variable (averaging four) than when it was fixed (always exactly four). These findings are consistent with the view that probabilistic reinforcers are analogous to reinforcers delivered after variable delays. When successive links were separated by 4-s or 8-s “interlink intervals” with white houselights, preference for the probabilistic alternative decreased somewhat for 2 subjects but was unaffected for the other 2 subjects. When the interlink intervals had the same green houselights that were present during the 4-s delays, preference for the green key decreased substantially for all subjects. These results provided mixed support for the view that preference for a probabilistic reinforcer is inversely related to the duration of conditioned reinforcers that precede the delivery of food.

In Experiment 1, the choice responses of 8 pigeons were observed during 50 periods of transition. Each condition began with equal probabilities of reinforcement on 2 response keys and switched to unequal probabilities. With the ratio of the 2 probabilities held constant, preference for the higher probability developed more rapidly when the 2 probabilities were high than when they were low. In Experiment 2, each condition began with 2 equal variable-interval schedules, but later 1 key delivered 60%, 75%, or 90% of the reinforcers. The rate of approach to asymptotic performance was roughly the same with all 3 reinforcement percentages. These and previous results pose difficulties for some well-known models of acquisition, but the results are well described by a simple model that states that the strength of each response is independently increased by reinforcement and decreased by nonreinforcement.

A survey of college students concerning their knowledge and attitudes towards informational privacy was conducted. Virtually all subjects surveyed considered their personal privacy to be important to them. However, the survey results suggest considerable misunderstanding and misinformation regarding informational privacy. In addition, students showed little faith that their personal information was being securely protected against unauthorized disclosure. Indeed, they seemed to expect a considerable measure of privacy violation with respect to their student records.

We assessed the beliefs of 49 college students regarding the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), condom use, and sexual behaviors related to AIDS prevention. Roy's modes of self-concept, interdependence, and role function were used as a framework to find psychosocial determinants that influence safer sex practices. Interdependence was measured by a sexual regard scale. Beliefs regarding both AIDS beliefs and condom were very positive. Students were selectively using safer sex practices; most reported avoiding high-risk partners, but only 39% were using condoms. No significant associations were found among the four independent measures of AIDS beliefs, condom beliefs, self-esteem, and sexual regard or with the dependent measure, AIDS safer sex practices. A two-hour safer sex educational module did change several beliefs but did not increase safer sex practices. Most participating students stated they had a good understanding of how AIDS was spread, they knew how to use condoms correctly, and they discussed AIDS with friends and parents.

Social support has a significant effect on the response to illness and treatment. The au thors present some of the findings and practical applications originating from a collaborative study, including a clinical indicator tool for the diabetic patient. This information gives the home health care professional an expanded knowledgebase to use in developing individualized care plans for the elder home care diabetic. © 1992, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

One of the problems which many companies face is the distribution of inventory from one or more centrally located distribution centers. The retail, industry, and in particular the women's clothing industry, faces the additional problem that not only does the merchandise have to be distributed but it must be distributed in such a way that every store gets a reasonable spread of colors and sizes. This research attempts to optimize the multi-criteria allocation objective by developing a computer algorithm. In order to be implemented any algorithm developed must be computationally efficient due to the size of the industry and other system related programming constraints. The algorithm which was developed not only provided a solution which was a marked improvement regarding the color spread of the merchandise but was also efficient enough to be immediately implemented on a national basis. © 1992.

This paper presents the theoretical basis and the associated perceptions of race relations that characterized a race relations competence workshop which served as the educational component of an overall program to improve race relations among managers within the fictitiously named XYZ Corporation. Workshop activities combined didactic and experiential methods and focused on group and individual levels of learning based on embedded intergroup relations theory. An assessment of the race relations competence workshop was carried out as part of an overall effort to evaluate the race relations improvement program in the company. Employing measures of both global evaluation and perceptions of race relations among managers, the study showed that Blacks evaluated the workshop more favorably than Whites, that reports of having information about the workshop were positively associated with favorable evaluations of the workshop, that workshop participants more than nonparticipants were likely to perceive Whites as hurting Blacks and less likely to perceive Blacks as hurting Whites. Additional analyses showed that, while the workshop generally had favorable effects for participants, the groups most likely to show unfavorable consequences were White male first level managers younger than 41 years and White female first level managers older than 40 years.

By 1965, Taiwan has changed from a labor surplus economy into a labor shortage economy. This article examines how rising demand for labor due lo rapid economic growth in Taiwan has been met since 1965. This article attempts to answer 1) Where did the labor supply come from? 2) Has all of the potential labor supply been tapped and exhausted? 3) Is it possible for labor shortage and unutilized labor reserve to occur simultaneously? The authors hope that this study will lead to a better understanding of the limitation of the free market mechanism and help identify the proper public policies to enhance labor utilization.

One of the major problems in the development of computer- A ssisted systems for geologic mapping is how to individualize the system to meet user needs. Ideally, the system should be responsive to specifications of desired types of output structures. Also the system should be able to incorporate the user's knowledge of regional characteristics into the feature extraction/selection and classification components. Automatic techniques for classification of remote sensing data typically require relatively large, labeled training sets which are well-organized with respect to the desired mapping between input and output patterns. The present paper focuses on the feature extraction/selection component of the system. Kohonen self-organizing feature maps in conjunction with image processing procedures for linear feature extraction are used for explorative data analysis, feature selection, and construction of exemplar patterns. The results of training Kohonen feature maps with different pattern sets and different feature combinations provide insight into the nature of pattern relationships which enables the user to develop sets of positive and negative training patterns for the classification component. © 1992 SPIE. All rights reserved.