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People with mental illness can internalize public prejudice and negative emotional reactions to their group, leading to self-contempt. This study examined self-contempt related to having a mental illness as predictor of suicidality among 77 people with mental illness in Southern Germany. Self-contempt, depressive symptoms, hopelessness, and suicidality were assessed at baseline; suicidality was measured again 3 months later. High self-contempt at baseline predicted increased suicidality at follow-up, adjusting for baseline suicidality, symptoms, diagnosis, age, sex, and hopelessness. These results suggest that self-contempt may be a risk factor for suicidality and call for specific interventions targeting self-stigma and its emotional consequences.

This article is a history of the digital computer art and animation developed and created at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated, 1962–1968. Still and animated images in two dimensions and in stereographic pairs were created and used in investigations of aesthetic preferences, in film titles, in choreography, and in experimental artistic movies. Interactive digital computer music software was extended to the visual domain, including a real-time interactive system. Some of the artworks generated were exhibited publicly in various art venues. This article emphasizes work in digital programming. This pioneering work at Bell Labs was a significant contribution to digital art.

In recent years, Islamic terrorism has manifested itself with an unexpectedly destructive force. Despite the fact that Islamic terrorism commences locally in most cases, it has spread its terror worldwide. In August 2014, when troops of the self-proclaimed ‘Islamic State’ conquered areas of northern Iraq, they turned on the long-established religious minorities in the area with tremendous brutality, especially towards the Yazidis. Vast numbers of men were executed, and women and children were abducted and willfully subjected to sexual violence. With the aim of systematic destruction of the Yazidi community, the religious minority was to be eliminated and the will of the victims broken. The medical and mental health issues arising from the combination of subjective, collective, and cultural traumatization, as well as the subsequent migrant and refugee crisis, are therefore extraordinary and require novel and wise concepts of integrated medical care.

The ICD-10 offers the possibility of double coding of diagnoses in functional disorders on the one hand, somatoform disorders on the other side. The current S3 guideline for "dealing with patients with non-specific, functional and somatoform physical complaints" states that "[...] in most cases, the specialty of the (initial) examiner and not the clinical constellation seems to define how a diagnosis is made". Based on selective routine data of the Daimler BKK for the years 2008-2010 frequencies of specific functional diagnoses were compared with those of somatoform disorders, additional diagnoses analyzed and compared with epidemiological data from the Federal Health Monitoring System. The incidence found in epidemiological studies of somatoform disorders cannot be found in present routine data. Functional disorders were more frequently diagnosed than somatoform disorders. Certain additional diagnoses that may provide clues to etiological relations are rarely used. As the validity, reliability and purpose of ICD-10 invoicing diagnoses is debatable, there seems to be an imbalance relevant for the health care system. Non-adherence to the guidelines may prevent adequate quality and quantity of patient care.

Background: In many Western countries, after a motor vehicle collision, those involved seek health care for the assessment of injuries and for insurance documentation purposes. In contrast, in many less wealthy countries, there may be limited access to care and no insurance or compensation system. Objective: The purpose of this infodemiology study was to investigate the global pattern of evolving Internet usage in countries with and without insurance and the corresponding compensation systems for whiplash injury. Methods: We used the Internet search engine analytics via Google Trends to study the health information-seeking behavior concerning whiplash injury at national population levels in Europe. Results: We found that the search for “whiplash” is strikingly and consistently often associated with the search for “compensation” in countries or cultures with a tort system. Frequent or traumatic painful injuries; diseases or disorders such as arthritis, headache, radius, and hip fracture; depressive disorders; and fibromyalgia were not associated similarly with searches on “compensation.” Conclusions: In this study, we present evidence from the evolving viewpoint of naturalistic Internet search engine analytics that the expectations for receiving compensation may influence Internet search behavior in relation to whiplash injury. [JMIR Public Health Surveill 2017;3(1):e15]

Background: Without stimulation, the human brain spontaneously produces highly organized, low-frequency fluctuations of neural activity in intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs). Furthermore, without adequate explanatory nociceptive input, patients with somatoform pain disorder experience pain symptoms, thus implicating a central dysregulation of pain homeostasis. The present study aimed to test whether interactions among pain-related ICNs, such as the default mode network (DMN), cingular‐insular network (CIN) and sensorimotor network (SMN), are altered in somatoform pain during resting conditions. Methods: Patients with somatoform pain disorder and healthy controls underwent resting functional magnetic resonance imaging that lasted 370 seconds. Using a data-driven approach, the ICNs were isolated, and the functional network connectivity (FNC) was computed. Results: Twenty-one patients and 19 controls enrolled in the study. Significant FNC (p < 0.05, corrected for false discovery rate) was detected between the CIN and SMN/anterior DMN, the anterior DMN and posterior DMN/SMN, and the posterior DMN and SMN. Interestingly, no group differences in FNC were detected. Limitations: The most important limitation of this study was the relatively short resting state paradigm. Conclusion: To our knowledge, our results demonstrated for the first time the resting FNC among pain-related ICNs. However, our results suggest that FNC signatures alone are not able to characterize the putative central dysfunction underpinning somatoform pain disorder.

Functional disorders in urology are troubling for both patients and physicians. Moreover, advances in recent research promise to provide biological insights into psycho-neuro-endocrino-immunological pathways that are one important facet of chronic urogenital inflammations. We present a case of a middle-aged woman with long-lasting recurrent cystitis for which especially a psychosomatic approach helped to understand and cure the disorder. Altogether, as practitioners treat subjects, not illnesses, a biopsychosocial understanding of human disease should be taken into account in cases of chronic recurrent cystitis.

Background Decrease of chest pain perception under placebo conditions has been frequently observed. The aim of this study was to examine whether placebo-induced chest pain improvement could be the result of changes in coronary blood flow. We, therefore, performed an experiment to investigate whether a verbal suggestion (VS) integrated in a cardiologic procedure has an impact on diameters of coronary arteries. Methods A total of 30 chest pain patients with normal diagnostic angiograms were assigned to a VS or a control group (CG). Saline solution was administered intracoronarily to both groups. The VS group received a standardized VS, implying coronary vasodilation. The CG remained without VS. Coronary end points were the changes in percentage diameter stenosis, Minimal lumen diameter and reference diameter of the index coronary segment before and 60 seconds after the administration of saline. Furthermore, changes in hemodynamics, psychological distress, and chest pain perception were recorded. Results The VS led to coronary vasoconstriction in comparison with CG (change in mean percentage diameter stenosis ± SD 3.2% ± 6.3% vs −1.7% ± 6.8%, P = .062; change in mean minimal lumen diameter ± SD −0.18 ± 0.32 mm vs 0.06 ± 0.23 mm, P = .029, no relevant change in the reference diameter). At the same time, the degree of chest pain perception was significantly reduced in the VS group (−0.7 ± 1.3) compared with the CG (0.3 ± 1.3), P = .024. Conclusion The findings of this study suggest that a VS results in a biological alteration within coronary arteries. Contrary to expectation, the VS led to vasoconstriction, whereas chest pain perception decreased.

INTRODUCTION: In spite of intensive research, chronic recurrent cystitis is etiologically a still insufficiently understood clinical picture. CASE REPORT: A 52-year-old patient presented with recurrent cystitis that had been treated exclusively somatically for years for which at least a psychosomatic co-pathogenesis of magnitude of the discomfort was diagnostically representable as well as being of therapeutic utility. CONCLUSION: In recollection of a bio-psychosocial understanding of human diseases, psychosomatic considerations should be undertaken at last but not least in patients with persistent cystitis.

Bell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated (BTL), the Research and Development arm of ATT describe some the significant innovations and discoveries that came from Bell Labs; and discuss the factors that made Bell Labs so innovative.

The Bell Labs of decades ago was well recognized as a national treasure for its pioneering innovations and its creation of new knowledge. However, the breakup of the Bell System that occurred in 1984 resulted in considerable change for research and development in telecommunication. This paper reviews that history and, in anticipation of continuing uncertainty and a possible impending crisis, examines possible options for the future to assure leadership by the United States in basic research in telecommunication.

The growths in capacity of various generations of transmission technology were studied. The results show that the growth rates for different transmission technologies are themselves increasing, which means that the pace of transmission technology is accelerating. What is somewhat surprising is that long-distance rates are not decreasing more steeply. What is not surprising is the bandwidth glut in backbone networks. However, the increasing availability of transmission capacity in the bandwidth-rich world of the future could herald a return to circuit switching for data telecommunication.

Conversion disorder is a medical condition in which a person has paralysis, blindness, or other neurological symptoms that cannot be clearly explained physiologically. To date, there is neither specific nor conclusive treatment. In this paper, we draw together a number of disparate pieces of knowledge to propose a novel intervention to provide transient alleviation for this condition. As caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) has been demonstrated to modulate transiently a variety of cognitive functions associated with brain activations, especially in the temporal-parietal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and insular cortex, there is evidence to assume an effect in specific mental disorders. Therefore, we go on to hypothesize that lateralized cold vestibular caloric stimulation will be effective in treating conversion disorder and we present provisional evidence from one patient that supports this conclusion. If our hypothesis is correct, this will be the first time in psychiatry and neurology that a clinically well-known mental disorder, long considered difficult to understand and to treat, is relieved by a simple or common, non-invasive medical procedure.

Chronicles the USA’s provision of telecoms services from the early 1970s. States it is unknown whether competition has been a success and whether today’s competition is better than Bell’s monopoly position of old. Pinpoints competition and subsidization and looks at how the US system works. Concludes that for competition proper all subsidy forms should be eliminated, which means access charge, etc., but wonders whether this could actually happen?

This article explores the divergences and convergences and convergences between the worlds of analog and of digital. It reviews some of the basic concepts of digital conversion and then compares and contrasts analog and digital signals, including their application to telephone and television signals. Issues arising from the use of digital and analog compression to save bandwidth are discussed. Lessons learned from the use of compression of cellular telephone signals are applied to the world of digital television.

This article summarizes and discusses the FCC orders for reforming universal service (FCC Order 97–157) and access charges (FCC Order 97–158) that were issued in May, 1997. Also included in the article is a summary and discussion of FCC Order 97–159 which makes some changes in price cap regulation. The article starts with a short tutorial on access charges. It then summarizes the FCC Orders and analyzes their financial impact. The article concludes with some personal observations on the course, thus far, of telecommunications reform in the United States.

A number of systems using communications satellites to provide telephone and data services are reviewed and compared in terms of their features and orbital characteristics. Analyses are performed of their technological, financial, market and regulatory aspects. The conclusion is that the many low Earth-orbit systems have a very doubtful future.

Three decades ago, such terms as computer art, virtual reality and computer animation had not yet entered our vocabulary. This was a time for the experimentation and innovation that produced today's industry of computer art and animation, along with new media for creative experiences with computers. The author has used digital computers in a variety of the visual arts, including still images, stereoscopic images, computer holography, three-dimensional animation, four-dimensional animation, interactive stereoscopic displays and input devices and, ultimately, three-dimensional force-feedback, the latter becoming a major component of today's virtual reality. This research and experimentation in computer art was performed during the 1960s, and in this article he reminisces and decribes his early work.

Persistent pain is not a normal part of aging. Nevertheless, many older patients have long-lasting, more or less medically unexplained pain symptoms and, consequently, are often severely disabled, incur high health care costs, and have high comorbidity rates. Moreover, the effects of early traumatization, especially due to wars, and even below the level of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are apparent. However, the developmental and neurobiological underpinnings of somatoform pain disorder, especially in pain-prone elderly patients, and its correlations with a history of war traumatization even decades after the incident remain unclear. Furthermore, a management strategy for this disorder tailored to older people and their special needs is lacking. Adequate therapeutic regimens such as adjusted psychotherapeutic procedures for elderly patients can only be promoted through a better understanding of the neurobiological and biographical underpinnings of this still controversial disorder.

As a complementary medical procedure, acupuncture has a significant impact on the treatment of acute and chronic pain. Though the physiological mechanisms behind this method are still unclear, acupuncture has been claimed to rely also on changes in the central nervous system. Recent functional imaging studies indicate that the so-called default mode network (DMN) which consists of cortical midline structures and lateral parietal regions plays an important role in these processes. This brief overview describes the effects of analgesic acupuncture on the DMN architecture. The stronger interplay between systems dedicated to endogenous analgesia (periaqueductal gray), affective processing (anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala), memory (hippocampus), and self-projective thinking (DMN) following this therapy supports the notion that acupuncture is a mind-body therapy which helps to reintegrate important neural dimensions of inner life and to establish psychophysical pain homeostasis.

BackgroundMultisomatoform disorder is characterised by severe and disabling bodily symptoms, and pain is one of the most common and impairing of these. Furthermore, these bodily symptoms cannot be explained by an underlying organic disorder. Patients with multisomatoform disorder are commonly found at all levels of healthcare and are typically difficult to treat for physicians as well as for mental health specialists.AimsTo test whether brief psychodynamic interpersonal therapy (PIT) effectively improves the physical quality of life in patients who have had multisomatoform disorder for at least 2 years.MethodWe recruited 211 patients (from six German academic out-patient centres) who met the criteria for multisomatoform disorder for a randomised, controlled, 12-week, parallel-group trial from 1 July 2006 to 1 January 2009 (International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number ISRCTN23215121). We randomly assigned the patients to receive either 12 weekly sessions of PIT (n = 107) or three sessions of enhanced medical care (EMC, n = 104). The physical component summary of the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) was the pre-specified primary outcome at a 9-month follow-up.ResultsPsychodynamic interpersonal therapy improved patients' physical quality of life at follow-up better than EMC (mean improvement in SF-36 score: PIT 5.3, EMC 2.2), with a small to medium between-group effect size (d = 0.42, 95% CI 0.15–0.69, P = 0.001). We also observed a significant improvement in somatisation but not in depression, health anxiety or healthcare utilisation.ConclusionsThis trial documents the long-term efficacy of brief PIT for improving the physical quality of life in patients with multiple, difficult-to-treat, medically unexplained symptoms.

Although relaxation and imagination techniques have repeatedly proven their effectiveness in asthma, nothing is known about the immunological effects of these complementary interventions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the brief relaxation technique of functional relaxation (FR) with guided imagery (GI) on serum IgE in adult patients with dust mite allergic asthma in a randomized, controlled trial. Sixty-four patients were treated over a 4-week period and assessed at baseline, after treatment and after 4 months for follow-up. Due to its significant role in the pathophysiology of allergic asthma, the serum IgE was employed as outcome measure in this investigation. Participation in FR, GI, and FR/GI led to decreases in serum IgE (IU/mL) of -54.7 +/- 67.1, -49.5 +/- 93.4, and -28.4 +/- 93.9 compared with an increase of 27.7 +/- 43.2 in CI. Our study confirmed a positive and clinically relevant effect of FR and GI on total serum IgE levels.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a frequently disabling and almost invariably distressing disease with a high overall prevalence. Numerous trials identified the importance of psychogenic and emotional etiological factors, and this is obvious in clinical practice. Although relaxation techniques are frequently recommended, there is still a lack of evidence for their efficacy in the management of IBS. This study therefore aims to determine the efficacy of functional relaxation (FR) in IBS.The subjects were 80 patients with IBS.Participants were randomly allocated either to FR or to enhanced medical care (EMC: treatment as usual plus two counseling interviews) as control intervention with 2 weekly sessions over the 5-week trial each. Thirty-nine (39) patients completed FR and 39 received EMC.An impairment-severity score (IS) was employed as the primary outcome parameter with assessment at baseline, after treatment, and again after 3-month follow-up.FR was significantly superior to EMC with a standardized effect size of 0.85. The achieved effects through FR remained stable in terms of psychic and bodily impairment after 3-month follow-up.The results of our trial suggest a positive effect of FR training on subjective functional impairment in the IS, if provided in addition to treatment as usual (TAU). There appears to be a clinically relevant long-term benefit of FR as a nonpharmacological and complementary therapy approach in IBS.

A study was conducted to determine the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of caller-ID from a user perspective. A questionnaire exploring the degree of concern raised by a range of events was completed by 43 US postgraduate students. It was found that caller-ID was of much greater concern than the problem it is intended to solve - not knowing who is calling before answering the telephone.

Picturephone service — a two-way, switched, video telephone system — was developed and marketed by AT&T in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The market did not respond to the service offering, and the service was withdrawn — in other words, picturephone service was a market failure, although the technology was an impressive success. This article reviews the history of the Bell System's effort to market picturephone service and presents the reasons for its market failure. The results of market research are interweaved with the author's personal experience with visual communications to support the inescapable conclusion that most business customers and residential consumers simply had little need for two-way, face-to-face visual telecommunication. The reasons for the picturephone's market failure had little to do with either technology or cost. Picturephone service simply had little incremental value compared to a telephone call — and perhaps even negative value for some users.

Questions the effectiveness of regulation and the openness of markets in telecommunications, when government has a vested stake momentarily in a telecoms provider. Looks at various countries’ways of handling such as global alliances, and gives recommendations to safeguard sales of public property, using a Figure to give extra emphasis and explanations.

Technology has had considerable impact on education and the university, but the Internet - today's newest technology - will not lead to the death of the university. While there is clearly a role for virtual education over the Internet, the conventional university will survive since students are well served by a real, physical, educational experience.

Objective This preliminary study investigates the neural substrates of empathy-induced pain in multisomatoform pain patients “with vs. without” a history of sexual abuse during childhood. Methods Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and behavioral measurements, we compared eight abused with eight nonabused patients using an established empathy-for-pain paradigm. Results Higher activations in left lateral and medial superior frontal gyrus as well as a nonsignificant activation of the right supplementary motor area in abused patients were detected. The nonabused participants showed higher activation of left hippocampus. There was no significant difference in subjective pain ratings between the groups. Conclusion Although the number of participants still needs to be increased, our main findings mirror the clinical impression and support the notion of perturbed neuroprocessing of grievous stimuli in chronic pain patients with a history of sexual abuse.

Bell Labs is a costly development house, and the products designed and developed there do not appear competitive in price and features. Since divestiture it is no longer fair that AT&T foot most of the research bill for the US telecommunications industry as a whole. Everyone concerned would benefit from the creation of a national telecommunications research institute funded by a tax on the gross revenue of all service providers.

Examines policy implications of over‐the‐air’s impending demise to cable and direct broadcast satellites in the USA. Looks at policy questions and the different types of broadcasters. In conclusion, says that TV has been going through a gradual but fundamental change, but stresses that on the other hand, radio is a wonderful means to reach many people simultaneously, although TV has only a visual modality, whereas radio is best for people on the move.

Background: Asthma is a frequently disabling and almost invariably distressing disease that has a high overall prevalence. Although relaxation techniques and hypnotherapeutic interventions have proven their effectiveness in numerous trials, relaxation therapies are still not recommended in treatment guidelines due to a lack of methodological quality in many of the trials. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the efficacy of the brief relaxation technique of functional relaxation (FR) and guided imagery (GI) in adult asthmatics in a randomized controlled trial. Methods: 64 patients with extrinsic bronchial asthma were treated over a 4-week period and assessed at baseline, after treatment and after 4 months, for follow-up. 16 patients completed FR, 14 GI, 15 both FR and GI (FR/GI) and 13 received a placebo relaxation technique as the control intervention (CI). The forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1) as well as the specific airway resistance (sRaw) were employed as primary outcome measures. Results: Participation in FR, GI and FR/GI led to increases in FEV1 (% predicted) of 7.6 ± 13.2, 3.3 ± 9.8, and 8.3 ± 21.0, respectively, as compared to –1.8 ± 11.1 in the CI group at the end of the therapy. After follow-up, the increases in FEV1 were 6.9 ± 10.3 in the FR group, 4.4 ± 7.3 in the GI and 4.5 ± 8.1 in the FR/GI, compared to –2.8 ± 9.2 in the CI. Improvements in sRaw (% predicted) were in keeping with the changes in FEV1 in all groups. Conclusions: Our study confirms a positive effect of FR on respiratory parameters and suggests a clinically relevant long-term benefit from FR as a nonpharmacological and complementary therapy treatment option.

The basic principles of electric power distribution are reviewed. The technological issues that need to be conquered to utilize powerlines for two-way telecommunication are summarized. The conclusion is that there are many formidable technological obstacles to the practical use of powerlines for telecommunication. ELECTRIC POWER DISTRIBUTION The basic concepts employed in electric power distribution are well over 100 years old and are mostly the visions of Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla. Edison contributed the basic concepts of end-to-end service, including generation, distribution, metering, switches, and highresistance light bulbs. Tesla contributed the alternating current motor which then made alternating current practical. Electric power is generated by a variety of sources, including steam produced from the combustion of oil and coal or from nuclear energy, water turning turbines, and wind turning generators. An early major innovation in the distribution of electric power was the use of alternating current (ac). The earlier direct current (dc) required ever larger diameters of copper wire to keep the power losses acceptable. These losses occur when electricity flows through the resistance in the distribution wires causing them to heat up and are proportional to product of the resistance of the wire and the square of the current: I2R in equation form. Since all the currents going to the various users of electric power add, the total current soared. The early practical solution was many local power generating plants. This situation changed dramatically with alternating current. The electric transformer (invented by Lucian Gaulard and Josiah Willard Gibbs and first built by William Stanley in 1885) works only with alternating current and allows ac voltages to be transformed from one value to another. But as voltages change, the currents correspondingly change in the opposite direction to keep the electric power into the transformer the same as the output power. Thus by using higher voltages, the currents could be reduced thereby keeping the I2R losses under control in the distribution system. Homes in the United States are served by three power wires. One wire is a common ground. Each of the other two wires has a nominal voltage of 120 volts with respect to ground. Every few homes are served by a step-down power transformer which reduces the input voltage of the few

This paper explores the divergences and convergences between the worlds of analog and of digital. The paper reviews some of the basic concepts of digital conversion and then compares and contrasts analog and digital signals, including their application to telephone and television signals. Issues arising from the use of digital and analog compression to save bandwidth are discussed. Lessons learned from the use of compression of cellular telephone signals are applied to the world of digital television

The historical evolution and progression of television technology is reviewed as a framework for understanding the developments that are occurring today in television technology. New developments in television technology—such as high definition, wide-screen, digital, and interactive—are described. The various technological uncertainties that will help shape the future of television technology are discussed

A television-like scanned-display system has been successfully implemented on a Honeywell DDP-224 computer installation. The scanned image is stored in the core memory of the computer, and software scan conversion is used to convert the rectangular coordinates of a point to the appropriate word and bit in an output display array in core storage. Results thus far indicate that flicker-free displays of large amounts of data are possible with reasonably fast graphical interaction. A scanned image of size 240 X 254 points is displayed at a 30 frame-per-second rate.

1draws highly relevant conclusions for measles control. Simons and colleagues rightly take the S/N (proportion of susceptibles in the total population) as directly aff ecting transmission. However, if, as we assume, they have used fi rstorder kinetics for disease transmission and arrived at a form similar to that of annual proportion of deaths in a fi xed population, the power of “e” must be a constant multiplied by time “t”, which equals 1 year here. Yet S/N can never be expected to remain constant, especially for a highly infectious disease such as measles. 2

Looks at how different, alternative, forms of communication helped cope with the September 11 crisis in the most tragic of times. States if there is any real lesson to be learned from the tragedy, in terms of telecommunications – it is true, in terms of crisis that many forms of alternative communication are of great benefit.

Broadband to the home is here again, this time in the form of optical fibre capable of carrying a host of two-way interactive and one-way broadcast audio and video services, ranging from simple telephony to video-on-demand. Although many seem eager to jump on the ‘broadbandwagon’, I claim that the technology, consumer, market and industry are all very hazy and doubtful. Hence, a wise strategy would be to remain on the sidelines and let the broadbandwagon pass by.

Considerable excitement has been generated in Europe and North America in videotex - namely, the concept of electronic access in the home to centrally - located computerized databases containing vast amounts of data. However, the public offering of such services has thus far been unsuccessful in achieving significant penetrations in the residential market. Videotex is examined in this paper to illuminate possible reasons for its failure thus far in the residential marketplace. Comparisons are made with somewhat similar on-line systems for accessing computerized data-bases and for performing transactions and transmitting messages to other people. The final conclusion is that most consumers simply do not have a need nor a desire to access vast computerized data-bases of general information. Videotex or any other similar system that attempts to satisfy consumer needs for information in such a fashion will surely fail.

Within the last few years videotex has attracted considerable attention. Unfortunately, but as frequently is the case with novel services that are still evolving, a precise definition of videotex is somewhat difficult to obtain. To some people the term videotex applies to a wide variety of time-shared computer services for the home and business market, while to others, the term videotex is very specific perhaps best exemplified by the UK Prestel service. In its most narrow and specific meaning, videotex is a subset of online, time-shared computer services. It utilizes the home TV set for display to access a large, central database of frames of general information in colour with graphics. The database is organized in a tree fashion, and the main target is the home market.

Interactions between two pairs of subjects were conducted face‐to‐face and over a two‐way closed‐circuit television medium and were tape recorded. The speech for each subject over each medium was edited to remove silent intervals and the resulting edited speech segments, each about 1 minute in duration, were analyzed by a computer implementation of the cepstrum method of fundamental‐frequency determination. The speech of all four subjects showed a statistically significant rise in fundamental frequency ranging from 3.89% to 7.83% for the closed‐circuit television condition relative to the face‐to‐face condition. This result could imply that two‐way closed‐circuit television is a more tense or stressful medium than face‐to‐face communication. Alternatively, the effect could be explained by such other factors as a rise in speech level caused by a greater perceived distance between the participants in the closed‐circuit television condition.

Divestiture of the US Bell System in 1984 caused concern about the future of research and development activities conducted at Bell Labs. This article 4describes the history of R&D in the Bell System, and in the organizations which have been formed since divestiture, and looks at likely future trends in research. In terms of both staffing and funding levels, no major changes have occurred as a result of divestiture. However, competitive pressures on AT&T may cause AT&T Bell Labs to be more secretive and proprietary about its research. There is also cause for concern about the stability of funding levels. Vigilance is warranted for the future.

A Picturephone® two way visual communications system was operational from March 1973 to April 1976 at the Bethany-Garfield Hospital in Chicago, and achieved metered usage as high as 1800 calls per month. To assist the AT&T Marketing Department in its visual communications market exploration programme, interviews of Bethany-Garfield personnel who had access to the system were conducted. When asked to rate a number of individual features of the system, the high and medium users rated the fast access feature above all others. Thus the main reason for the high usage of the Picturephone system appears to have been less related to its visual communications feature than to its ‘hot-line’ capability to reach contacts quickly.

A digital computer and automatic plotter have been used to generate three-dimensional stereoscopic movies of the three-dimensional parallel and perspective projections of four-dimensional hyperobjects rotating in four-dimensional space. The observed projections and their motions were a direct extension of three-dimensional experience, but no profound "feeling" or insight into the fourth spatial dimension was obtained. The technique can be generalized to n-dimensions and applied to any n-dimensional hyperobject or hypersurface.

A television-like scanned-display system has been successfully implemented on a Honeywell DDP-224 computer installation. The scanned image is stored in the core memory of the computer, and software scan conversion is used to convert the rectangular coordinates of a point to the appropriate word and bit in an output display array in core storage. Results thus far indicate that flicker-free displays of large amounts of data are possible with reasonably fast graphical interaction. A scanned image of size 240 X 254 points is displayed at a 30 frame-per-second rate.

Man is a creature restricted to a world of three spatial dimensions in which he is reasonably free to move about at will except for the arbitrary territorial boundaries imposed by different nations. Man also lives in another dimension over which he presently has no control other than to watch its continual forward movement in the mechanical and electrical gadgets he has devised to measure this dimension which he calls time. Many people call time the fourth dimension, but because of its many unique qualities I would rather consider time as a special dimension. Therefore, in this paper the fourth dimension is a fourth purely spatial dimension not to be confused with time.