There is a great need for new analgesics. The current problem in treatment of severe pain is that side effects limit the effectiveness of therapy. Glycine receptors are important in modulation of nociception, suggesting a novel class of analgesics. Previous studies in rats show that intrathecal administration of glycine agonists and amino acids structurally similar to glycine have antinociceptive effects. The effects of isovaline, a unique, non-proteogenic glycine-like aminoacid, have not been studied. Isovaline is absorbed from the gut and transported across the blood-brain-barrier. We examined the hypothesis that isovaline produces antinociception in mice. Administration of strychnine, an antagonist at glycine receptors, into the cisterna magna or lumbar intrathecal space resulted in allodynia, localized to the somatotopic distribution of the trigeminal and lumbar nerves. These findings provided a basis for models of lumbar and trigeminal neuralgia. Racemic isovaline blocked strychnine induced allodynia in both models without apparent side effects. We next investigated the antinociceptive effects of glycine-like amino acids in formalin foot assay, a conventional rodent model of acute and chronic pain. Antinociceptive effects were demonstrated on intrathecal administration of glycine, beta-alanine, and isovaline. Intravenous isovaline produced significant antinociceptive effects in the formalin foot model. The toxicity of isovaline and related amino acids were determined. Exploratory behavior, gait, and responses to stimuli were used to assess sedation. The rotarod test was used to examine central nervous system (CNS) and neuromuscular toxicities of intravenous isovaline. Lumbar administration of glycine and beta-alanine caused scratching and/or lower body weakness. Isovaline at 7-times intrathecal ED50 produced lower body weakness in some animals. None of the amino acids produced sedation comparable to morphine. At 6-times ED50, beta-alanine produced weakness. Both glycine (ED50) and beta-alanine (3x ED50) but not isovaline produced local nerve irritation. Intracisternal injection of glycine did not reverse allodynia and resulted in death. Neither R nor S enantiomers of isovaline impaired performance on the rotarod test. Isovaline has significant antinociceptive properties. Given the absence of apparent CNS or motor toxicity, isovaline has potential as a clinical analgesic.

Bakgrund: Språklig Snabbedömning (SB) är ett språkligt bedömningsmaterial framtaget för att på kort tid (< 1 h) kunna bedöma ett flertal språkliga förmågor. Användningen är utbredd i Västerbottens läns landsting men den praktiska användningen av bedömningsmaterialet har inte undersökts systematiskt. Frågeställning: Är resultaten av Språklig snabbedömning jämförbara med resultaten från bedömningar gjorda med normerade språkliga bedömningsmaterial? Metod: Data samlades in från arkiverade testmaterial för att kunna göra jämförelser mellan SB och kompletterande test. Totalt ingick 62 barn i undersökningen. Analysen genomfördes kvantitativt och kvalitativt genom att undersöka rankingen i olika material samt detaljgranska skillnader och likheter i upptäckta språkliga fel. Resultat: Den kvalitativa utvärderingen av SB visar att materialet ger resultat som ligger i linje med normerade test. Resultat för grammatisk språkförståelse och uttrycksförmåga ger liknande ranking av barnens förmågor som de normerade testen. När det gäller fonologisk uttrycksförmåga pekar resultaten på att SB upptäcker samma eller liknande fel men att fynden är färre än i de normerade testen. Slutsatser: Analysen visar att de delar i SB för vilka komparativ analys varit möjlig, inte skiljer sig systematiskt från de normerande testen. Detta tyder på åtminstone adekvat validitet med hänsyn tagen till testets längd. Däremot är känsligheten sämre än i de normerade och mer omfattande testen. Detta drabbar SB:s reliabilitet och resultaten påverkas kraftigare av slumpmässiga processer. En tillkommande faktor är att notationen i SB genomgående är mindre omfattande än i de normerade testen vilket medfört stora databortfall som man sannolikt skulle kunna undvika med noggrannare instruktioner för genomförande och notation. / Background: Språklig Snabbedömning (SB) is a material for assessing language abilities in children within the limits of a single visit (<1 h). Its use is widespread within the Västerbotten county but existing practice not been systematically reviewed. Research question: Are the results from Språklig Snabbedömning comparable to results from assessments made with standardized language tests. Method: Data have been collected from archived test results on SB and standardized tests, comprising a total of 62 children. Results: A comparison between SB and standardized tests on receptive and expressive language skills produced similar rankings. A qualitative assessment of SB suggests that the results are in line with the standardized tests. For the phonological skills, the results suggest that SB detects similar language errors but to a lesser extent than the standardized tests. Conclusions: The analysis shows that no clear systematic errors seem to be present in SB compared to the standardized tests. This suggests that SB has reasonable criterion validity. However, it is clear that sensitivity suffers compared to the standardized tests, which are more comprehensive. This negatively affects the reliability of SB and the results may be more sensitive to random errors. And addition, a confounding factor is that the notation in SB is generally less comprehensive than in the standardized tests, which has caused substantial loss of information due to internal non-responses. This situation could conceivably be ameliorated by providing more comprehensive instructions for test procedure and notation in the use of SB.

It is possible that the maximum likelihood method can give an inconsistent result when the DNA sequences are generated under a tree topology which is in the Felsentein Zone and analyzed with a misspeci ed model. Therefore, it is important to select a good substitution model. This thesis rst explores the e ects of di erent degrees and types of model misspeci cation on the maximum likelihood estimates. The results are presented for tree selection and branch length estimates based on simulated data sets. Next, two Pearson's goodness-of- t tests are developed based on binning of site patterns. These two tests are used for testing the adequacy of substitution models and their performances are studied on both simulated data sets and empirical data.

I examined the relationship between performance on the Quick Spell Test (Bowers, 1996) and reading ability in an archival sample of Grade 3 (N = 192) and Grade 4 (N = 149) children from Kirby, Parrila, Deacon, and Wade-Woolley’s (2004-2007) longitudinal study. The data included a battery of phonological awareness, naming speed, phonological decoding, orthographic processing, and reading ability measures administered in both grades. I found that the Quick Spell Test was a good concurrent predictor of reading ability in Grade 3, but not a good longitudinal predictor. Orthographic processing and phonological decoding were consistently good predictors of the relationships between the Quick Spell Test and reading ability and of the difference in variance between the Quick Spell Test subscales. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2007-08-23 16:08:11.688

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Matrix Sentence Tests consist of syntactically fixed but semantically unpredictable sentences each composed of 5 words (name, verb, quantity, adjective, object). Test sentences are generated by choosing 1 of 10 alternatives for each word to form sentences such as

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the possible use of the Rorschach Inkblot Test to indicate empathic ability. The measure of empathy which was used was the Hogan Empathy Scale (1969).The Hogan Scale was administered to 181 students and two groups were chosen on the basis of the results: a high empathy group of 14 students, and a low empathy group of 15 students. These 29 subjects were then given a group Rorschach Inkblot Test. A Hotelling T2 for contrasting groups was done on the two sets of scores, and no significant difference was found to exist between the Rorschach scores of the contrasting groups. Several reasons for this failure to find a difference were proposed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of rational desensitization therapy on the reduction of the test anxiety of college students. The feasibility of this approach to test anxiety reduction was examined by comparing the reduction of anxiety of four experimental groups of subjects with the anxiety reduction of subjects in a control group. Students indicating that they had test anxiety were randomly assigned to groups based on the limitations of their schedules. Students assigned to the control group did not participate in the treatment phase of the study. Students comprising the sample were enrolled in Human Growth and Development (Educational Psychology 250) classes during the Spring Quarter of 1971. No exclusions from the study were made on the basis of age, sex, marital status, education, color or creed.The basic design of the study included the selection of test anxious college students. These students attended an orientation and pre treatment testing session. Thirty-two students comprised the original treatment group and twenty-eight were chosen as the control group. Four experimental groups met twice a week for five weeks with an experimentor. The control group of students took the pre and post treatment tests but did not attend group treatment sessions.An analysis of covariance was used to test for significance between the means of the experimental and control groups. In instances where heterogeneity of the regression line was found, a factorial design was used to analyze the level by treatment level interaction of the experimental and control groups on the pre and post tests. Fifteen null hypothesis were tested with the .05 level of confidence necessary for rejection.No significant differences were obtained in the reduction of test anxiety between the means of the composite four rational desensitization groups and the control group as shown by the Suinn Test Anxiety Behavior Scale and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. However, the changes were larger for the Suinn and Taylor Scales than for the Digit Symbol sub-test of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale.An analysis of the results on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, the Suinn Test Anxiety Behavioral Scale and the Digit Symbol sub-test of the WAIS revealed F values of 3.81. 3.55 and 1.53 respectively. An F value of 4.03 was needed for significance at the .05 confidence level.Subjective data, such as comments from experimenters and verbal feedback from subjects who participated in the experimental groups, offer support to warrant continued investigation of rational desensitization therapy as a viable approach to the reduction of test anxiety and to the possibility of its applicability to other types of behavior disorders.

Testing plays an important role in the wireless protocol stack development. In order to free the testers out of the shielded chamber, allow both the developers and the testers to use the test systems remotely and maximize the expensive test system usage. An automated test framework is highly demanded. In this thesis, the design of the automated test framework is introduced. There are four main components in the test framework. They are the front end, scheduler, test engine and data storage. The architecture and the protocol among these components are described. Further, the evaluation of the scheduler is conducted based on the queueing theory. Based on the simulation result, a good scheduling algorithm is proposed. Compared with the original scheduling algorithm, the new algorithm improves the performance of the low priority users significantly when the test systems are limited. Moreover, the detail design of the test engine is presented. With the control of the intelligent test engine, the automated test framework has the capability to launch the test cases automatically, catch the commands sent by the test system and manipulate the SUT (System Under Test) without human’s interrupt. It fulfills the objective of automation. The automated test framework has been deployed and is working well.