The seminal article by Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and Richman (1994/1982; Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27, 197-209. Reprinted from Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities, 2, 3-20, 1982) is credited with sparking a resurgence of clinical and research attention to functional assessment and analysis procedures, which have now become an expected professional standard and practice in situations involving problem behaviors. TASH and JASH have played a substantial role over the years in promoting positive behavioral support approaches that include functional assessment as a critical foundational component. To provide a historical context for this special issue, this article briefly describes the prevalence of different types of functional assessment and analysis procedures reported in articles in JASH involving individuals exhibiting problem behaviors. copyright 2000 by The Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps.

A new design of closely intermeshing co-rotating twin-screw compounding extruder, developed at Brunel University, has been utilized in the development of quantitative techniques for characterization of dispersive and distributive mixing in thermoplastics materials prepared by extrusion compounding. Image analysis procedures were used to quantify mixing of polypropylene composites containing calcium carbonate filler using reflected light microscopy on polished surfaces, and transmitted light microscopy of microtomed pigmented sections. Stereological statistics have been applied to raw sample data; results are discussed in relation to mechanistic phenomena influencing particle agglomeration, dispersion and distribution of fillers in thermoplastics. Dispersive or intensive mixing determined from calcium carbonate filled polypropylene specimens showed that processing parameters had no significant influence except when filler was added midway along the machine although the melting zone was highlighted as having a marked effect on the rate of filler dispersion. Premixing of filler and polymer introduced additional agglomeration into the filler. A series of model experiments were undertaken to assess the influence of specific parameters. In this context moisture content emerged as having the single most important effect on filler compaction. Distributive or extensive mixing of carbon black pigmented specimens was very significantly affected by the presence of segmented disc elements at the end of the screws. These elements produced more than a six-fold increase in distributive mixing in the extrudate.

The analysis procedures employed in earthquake engineering can be classified as linear static, linear dynamic, nonlinear static and nonlinear dynamic. Linear procedures are usually referred to as force controlled and require less analysis time and less computational effort. On the other hand, nonlinear procedures are referred to as deformation controlled and they are more reliable in characterizing the seismic performance of buildings. However, there is still a great deal of unknowns for nonlinear procedures, especially in modelling the reinforced concrete structures. Turkey ranks high among all countries that have suffered losses of life and property due to earthquakes over many centuries. These casualties indicate that, most regions of the country are under seismic risk of strong ground motion. In addition to this phenomenon, recent studies have demonstrated that near fault ground motions are more destructive than far-fault ones on structures and these effects can not be captured effectively by recent nonlinear static procedures. The main objective of this study is developing a simple nonlinear dynamic analysis procedure which is named as &ldquo / Dynamic Pull Analysis&rdquo / for estimating the seismic response of multi degree of freedom (MDOF) systems. The method is tested on a six-story reinforced concrete frame and a twelve-story reinforced concrete frame that are designed according to the regulations of TS-500 (2000) and TEC (1997).