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The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a behavioral parent therapy (BPT) program in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using multidimensional evaluations, the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Teacher Report Form (TRF). Between 2001 and 2005, the parents of 21 preschool children with ADHD were divided into six groups and participated in a series of 11 BPT sessions. Before and after BPT, the parents completed the CBCL, and the teachers completed the TRF. The behavioral and emotional problems of the children showed improvement after the BPT sessions, specifically for the following categories: internalizing problems, anxious/depressed syndromes, somatic complaints, externalizing problems, rule-breaking behaviors, aggressive behaviors, social problems, thought problems, and attention problems. In the DSM-oriented scale of the CBCL, affective problems, anxiety problems, somatic problems, ADHD problems, oppositional defiant disorder problems, and conduct disorder problems showed significant improvements. On the DSM scale of the TRF, Inattention syndrome improved significantly after the BPT sessions, while other syndromes showed non-significant changes. We conclude that the BPT program significantly improved the childrens behavioral problems at home and inattention problems at school.

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A robust model reference backstepping (multiple-surfaces) controller is proposed for radial pneumatic motor motion systems with variable inlet pressure and mismatched uncertainties (time-varying payload). A radial pneumatic motor is first modeled by a non-autonomous equation with consideration of a ball screw table. A practical integral action and robust action are included in the backstepping design to compensate for the disturbance, mismatched uncertainty, and to eliminate the steady state error. The motion system is proved to have asymptotically stable performance and the experimental results show that the proposed controller is able to track the reference model output signal and maintain steady-state error.

Vehicular exhaust comprises more than 95% of the air pollution in Taiwan's largest city, Taipei. On average, all commuters in Taipei travel 13.6 km daily, while motorcycle commuters travel 12.2 km. The convenience and mobility of motorcycles makes them irreplaceable in Taiwan city traffic but they add significantly to air pollution problems. In order to improve air pollution conditions, some new types of vehicles have been proposed, such as fuel-cell-driven and hybrid energy vehicles. In this study, we develop a model pneumatic hybrid motorcycle system and simulate its acceleration and mileage (km/L) performance. The results show that the pneumatic hybrid motorcycle can improve efficiency with an appropriate control strategy for driving operation.