Self-control is a complex and multifaceted construct that can be regarded as an individual trait that follows its own developmental trajectory. In the presented study we used NAS-50 for the assessment of self-control in adolescents and young adults. Since the questionnaire has not been used before in underage participants we tested its reliability in adolescent and adult samples. We also investigated possible age and gender differences in self-control abilities as well as relations between NAS-50 and behavioral measures of cognitive control and impulsivity. Although the sample was quite small, the reliability of the questionnaire was similar to the results achieved by its authors. According to the predictions in the literature we did not find relations between NAS-50 and behavioral measures of cognitive control and impulsivity. We also did not observe significant age differences in the assessment of self-control abilities. The theoretical relevance of our results is discussed.

Most satellites stationed in space use catalytic propulsion systems for attitude control and orbit adjustment. Hydrazine is consumed extensively as liquid monopropellant, in the thrusters. Catalytic reactor is the most important section in the catalytic thruster. Ammonia and nitrogen gases are produced as a result of complete catalytic decomposition of hydrazine in the reactor, causing an increase in temperature and a rise in specific impulse. Ammonia is subsequently decomposed, leading to nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Decomposition of ammonia leads to a decrease in temperature, molecular weight and specific impulse. The latter phenomenon is unavoidable. The effect of ammonia decomposition on the reactor temperature, molecular weight of gaseous products and conclusively on specific impulse was studied in this article. At adiabatic state, thermodynamic analysis revealed that the maximum and minimum temperatures were 1655 K and 773 K, respectively. The highest molecular weight was obtained at ammonia conversion of zero and the lowest when ammonia conversion was 100%. The maximum specific impulse (305.4 S) was obtained at ammonia conversion of zero and completely conversion of ammonia, the minimum specific impulse (about 213.7 s) was obtained. For specific impulse, the result of thermodynamic calculation in this work was validated by the empirical results.

The symbolistic poetry of Alexander Blok is connected with the thinking of both philosophers and psychoanalysts about the world and the man inscribed in it by the phenomenon of “I”. When coming into contact with transcendence, the poet crosses the demarcation line dividing the rational and irrational world, consciousness and unconsciousness. In the first period of creativity, the Russian symbolist nourishes his imagination, infl uenced by the philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev, with longing for the ideal of femininity. The driving force of the Blok’s imagination becomes, understood after Freud, the desire to meet the ideal residing in the oneiric space, and then to unite with it at the dual level (physical and spiritual). From the psychoanalytic perspective, the cycle Verses about the Beautiful Lady is both an attempt to go beyond awareness and search for the sense of a poetic image, its original source in the unconscious, as well as entering into the mirror phase described by J. Lacan. Beautiful Lady plays a role of what the French psychiatrist appoints as an objet petit a: this object is essentially unreachable and that is why it raises a great desire in the lyrical subject. The mechanism of the transition from chaos to unity, though only apparent in Blok’s works, is identical to the psycho-physical experience of the child, observing himself in the mirror.

In recent years, with the rapid development of digital components, digital electronic computers, especially microprocessors, digital controllers have replaced analog controllers on many occasions. The application of digital controller makes the performance analysis of impulsive system more and more important. This paper considers global exponential stability (GES) of impulsive delayed nonlinear hybrid differential systems (IDNHDS).Through the application of the Lyapunov method and the Razumikhin technique, a series of uncomplicated and useful guiding principles have been obtained. The results of a numerical simulation are presented to demonstrate that the method is correct and effective.

The article describes and compares two OFDM based communications schemes for reducing the effects of the combination of Narrowband Interference (NBI) and Impulsive Noise (IN), which are noise types typical in Power Line Communication (PLC). The two schemes are Modified BPSK-OFDM (called MBPSK, for brevity) and QFSK-OFDM (called QFSK, for brevity), which are non-conventional OFDM schemes. We give a description of the two schemes, showing how they are derived and also show their similarities and eventually compare their performances. Performance simulation results, in terms of bit error rate, are given to compare the systems under the effect of IN and NBI. The popular Middleton Class A model is used for modelling IN. The results show that MBPSK scheme outperforms the QFSK scheme in terms of minimum distance, and hence in terms of bit error probability when no preprocessing is performed. However, under clipping/nulling, both schemes eventually reach the bit error rate floor.

In the paper, maximal values x_e(τ) of the solutions x(t) of the linear differential equations excited by the Dirac delta function are determined. The analytical solutions of the equations and also the maximal positive values of these solutions are obtained. The analytical formulae enable the design of the system with prescribed properties. The complementary case to the earlier paper is presented. In an earlier paper it was assumed that the roots si are different, and now we consider the case when s₁ = s₂  = … = s_n.

To overcome the detrimental influence of α impulse noise in power line communication and the trap of scarce prior information in traditional noise suppression schemes , a power iteration based fast independent component analysis (PowerICA) based noise suppression scheme is designed in this paper. Firstly, the pseudo-observation signal is constructed by weighted processing so that single-channel blind separation model is transformed into the multi-channel observed model. Then the proposed blind separation algorithm is used to separate noise and source signals. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is verified by experiment simulation. Experiment results show that the proposed algorithm has better separation effect, more stable separation and less implementation time than that of FastICA algorithm, which also improves the real-time performance of communication signal processing.