Description:
This paper describes a model for future training in clinical and counselling psychology. The model is based on the results of psychotherapy outcome research, and the development of empirically supported therapies, as well as recent developments in the use of information technology in psychotherapeutic interventions. It is also argued that developments such as the increasing cost of mental health interventions, the wide disparities in access to specialised mental health assistance, and the rise of the mental health consumer movement all provide a context for recommendations as to optimum developments in training for clinical and counselling psychologists.
Description:
It is central to the control of manipulators to calculate the set/sets of joint-displacements which correspond to a given spatial pose (position and orientation) of the end-effector. This problem, which is referred to as the inverse position problem, represents one of the most difficult mathematical challenges in the field of robotics, particularly when performed for calibrated robots (or robots with general structures). In such cases, closed form solutions are too impractical to implement and iterative solutions suffer from numerical singularities. In the present work a procedure is introduced to obtain multiple inverse position solutions for serial robotic structures. For calibrated robots, the procedure involves a simple iterative technique designed to ensure fast convergence and eliminate the occurrence of singularity. However, inverse position solutions for spherical-wrist manipulators will be obtained in a straight-forward non-iterative fashion. A published kinematic notation, referred to as the phi -model, was used to develop the system equations.
Description:
Liquid effluents that arise in the landfilling of municipal solid wastes, both leachate and gas condensates, can replace some or all of the conventional coal flotation reagents. The waste management industry currently must treat these effluents, to destroy contained organics, prior to their discharge to the environment and hence they are available at no cost, or even with "dollars attached". These landfill-derived liquids contain valuable short-chain fatty acids (e.g. valeric and caproic acids) that act as both frother and collector in flotation processes. They can be further concentrated by membrane filtration to reduce the transport costs of such liquids and the ease of their use in coal recovery systems. This paper will discuss how these liquids are formed in landfills, their typical compositions and how they can be employed to recover fine coal. Data from both conventional flotation feeds (-0.5 mm) and column flotation feeds (-0.1 mm) is presented.
Description:
Objective: The suicide rate in Australia is cause for concern, especially the increase in attempted and completed suicides in rural and regional locations. The present study examined reasons for choosing not to commit suicide as a function of residential location. Method: The study involved 655 Victorian residents from four population-based strata; urban, regional city, regional town, and rural. Results: Results from the Reasons for Living Inventory revealed significant differences as a function of residential location. Overall, residents in rural locations reported having significantly more to live for than their urban counterparts. Further analysis of six reasons for living (child, family, moral, social, coping and death-related concerns) showed a pattern whereby residents in rural locations reported having the most to live for, followed by regional residents, and urban residents who reported having the least to live for. Conclusions: These findings are in contrast to increase of suicide rates in rural areas, and highlight the need for a greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying suicidal behaviour.
Description:
In attempting to eliminate disease caused by drinking polluted surface water, millions of shallow surface wells were drilled into the Ganges delta alluvium in Bangladesh. The latest statistics indicate that 80% of Bangladesh and an estimated 40 million people are at risk of arsenic poisoning-related diseases because the ground water in these wells is contaminated with arsenic. The clinical manifestations of arsenic poisoning are myriad, and the correct diagnosis depends largely on awareness of the problem. Patients with melanosis, leuco-melanosis, keratosis, hyperkeratosis, dorsum, non-petting edema, gangrene and skin cancer have been identified. The present article reviews the current arsenic contamination of ground water, hydrological systems, groundwater potential and utilization and environmental pollution in Bangladesh. This paper concludes by clarifying the main actions required to ensure the sustainable development of water resources in Bangladesh.
Description:
We study topical and sub-topical functions (i.e., functions f : Rn → R = [-∞, +∞] which are increasing in the natural partial ordering of Rn and additively homogeneous, respectively additively sub-homogeneous), and downward sets (i.e., subsets of ℝn which contain, along with each element, all smaller elements), in the framework of abstract convex analysis, with the aid of the additive min-type coupling function
Description:
Small-area population densities and counts were estimated for Australian census collection districts (CDs), using Landsat TM imagery. A number of mathematical and statistical refinements to previously reported methods were explored. The robustness of these techniques as a practical methodology for population estimation was investigated and evaluated using a primary image for model development and training, and a second image for validation. Correlations of up to 0.92 in the training set and up to 0.86 in the validation set were obtained between census and remote sensing estimates of CD population density, with median proportional errors of 17.4% and 18.4%, respectively. Total urban populations were estimated with errors of + 1% and - 3%, respectively. These results indicate a moderate level of accuracy and a substantial degree of robustness. Accuracy was greatest in suburban areas of intermediate population density. There was a general tendency towards attenuation in all models tested, with high densities being under-estimated and low densities being over-estimated. It is concluded that the level of accuracy obtainable with this methodology is limited by heterogeneity within the individual CDs, particularly large rural CDs, and that further improvements are in principle unlikely using the aggregated approach. An alternative statistical approach is foreshadowed.
Description:
Accurate use of robots in an off-line programming mode is only possible through a proper calibration procedure. In this procedure, the end-effector is made to move along a set of known spatial poses where the positional errors are to be measured and employed in mathematical models. The models are subsequently solved for the manipulator dimensions (geometric parameters) using suitable regression techniques. Calibration is usually performed using either aggregate or independent-axis models. While the aggregate models result in all the system parameters being worked out simultaneously, the independent-axis models are meant to work out the geometric particulars of each joint-axis individually. In the present work, the independent-axis technique is used for the analysis with new mathematical models proposed to overcome the drawbacks of the existing methods. Moreover, the techniques employed here result in the prediction of transmission error functions and the modelling of the joint motion dependencies. This is a new concept in the field of robot calibration. Finally, the models proposed have been used to calibrate an ASEA IRB/L6 robot and the results are reported at the end of the paper.
Description:
Accurate use of robots in an off-line programming mode is only possible through a proper calibration procedure. In this procedure, the end-effector is made to move along a set of known spatial poses where the positional errors are to be measured and employed in mathematical models. The models are subsequently solved for the manipulator dimensions (geometric parameters) using suitable regression techniques. Calibration is usually performed using either aggregate or independent-axis models. While the aggregate models result in all the system parameters being worked out simultaneously, the independent-axis models are meant to work out the geometric particulars of each joint-axis individually. In the present work, the independent-axis technique is used for the analysis with new mathematical models proposed to overcome the drawbacks of the existing methods. Moreover, the techniques employed here result in the prediction of transmission error functions and the modelling of the joint motion dependencies. This is a new concept in the field of robot calibration. Finally, the models proposed have been used to calibrate an ASEA IRB/L6 robot and the results are reported at the end of the paper.
Description:
In this article, we study the nonlinear penalization of a constrained optimization problem and show that the least exact penalty parameter of an equivalent parametric optimization problem can be diminished. We apply the theory of increasing positively homogeneous (IPH) functions so as to derive a simple formula for computing the least exact penalty parameter for the classical penalty function through perturbation function. We establish that various equivalent parametric reformulations of constrained optimization problems lead to reduction of exact penalty parameters. To construct a Lipschitz penalty function with a small exact penalty parameter for a Lipschitz programming problem, we make a transformation to the objective function by virtue of an increasing concave function. We present results of numerical experiments, which demonstrate that the Lipschitz penalty function with a small penalty parameter is more suitable for solving some nonconvex constrained problems than the classical penalty function.