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Notes: Habituation and dishabituation of the heart rate, skin conductance, and alpha blocking components of the orienting reflex to an auditory stimulus were examined for brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged Ss. The non-brain-damaged group displayed the expected habituation for all of these response variables but the brain-damaged group displayed evidence of habituation only for the skin conductance measure. The brain-damaged group also displayed higher initial skin conductance response amplitudes and smaller initial alpha blocking responses to the auditory stimulus than did the non-brain-damaged group. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for mechanisms of habituation and for other psychological deficits in brain-damaged patients.

Notes: Autonomic and somatic concomitants of simple reaction time performance were examined in normal and brain-damaged patients. The reaction time task involved a warning stimulus preceding the execution stimulus by a variable foreperiod. The normal Ss displayed the expected relationships between performance and physiological activity, such that fast reaction times were associated with greater HR deceleration, larger electrodermal response magnitudes, and less EMG activity during the preparatory foreperiod of the task. BD Ss, however, generally displayed either no relationships between autonomic or somatic activity and reaction time or a relationship opposite to that seen in normals, namely, that slower reaction times were associated with larger autonomic responses to the warning stimulus. The results were discussed in terms of two possible mechanisms which may be operative in the BD Ss: (1) that their autonomic responsivity becomes “dissociated” from changes in the external environment, and (2) that such “dissociated” activity may represent or reflect an active source of interference with the S's ability to attend to or to efficiently execute the task.

Notes: In order to study the role of central factors in controlling autonomic arousal, hospitalized control, brain-damaged, and alcoholic patients were tested for responsivity to the cold pressor test. During the last 30 sec of a 1 min immersion, half of the Ss were given a motor task consisting of 12 reaction time trials. The dependent variable was the cutaneous vasomotor response measured by a plethysmograph. Hospital controls showed strong rebound tendencies on recovery and well-modulated responses during immersion. The brain-damaged had plethysmograph responses which after immersion showed little or no tendency to recover. Alcoholics manifested intermediate tendencies. Hospital controls who received the motor task during immersion had a reduction in response whereas brain-damaged Ss in the same condition showed increased response. Also noted were two distinctly different plethysmograph response profiles to the cold pressor: vasodilation and vasoconstriction.

Notes: The present popularity for the discussion of the merits of ground-water management has resulted in a dirth of papers espousing the theoretical principles for such management. The vast majority of the authors of such papers favor the control of ground-water pumpage based upon “appropriated” (permitted by State government) water rights. In Texas, the private ownership of ground water is guaranteed by the Texas Constitution. This right of private ownership has been reaffirmed many times by court case, and embodied in House Bill 162, 51st Legislature, 1949, and recodified as Chapter 52 by House Bill 343, 62nd Legislature, 1971. Under this law, local ground-water conservation districts were created, whereunder ground-water basin management has been practiced in Texas for over two decades.Chapter 52 gives broad powers to ground-water districts created thereunder, and specifically delegates authority to such districts to promulgate and enforce rules “… to provide for conserving, preserving, protecting, recharging and preventing waste of the underground water…” The Texas Legislature, the Texas Water Rights Commission, and county commissioner's courts may create underground water conservation districts, with the Water Rights Commission delineating the underground reservoir or subdivisions thereof.The first ground-water district created pursuant to Chapter 52, and the largest district in Texas, covering 8,149 square miles in the Texas High Plains, is the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1. This District is governed by a five-member Board of Directors elected for two-year terms by qualified voters residing within the District. Each of the 15 counties in the District also has an elected five-member County Committee and, in most cases, an office and a County Secretary.This report outlines the procedures for the creation of ground-water conservation districts, and summarizes the structure, powers, and functions of the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1.Although ground water in Texas is recognized as private property, and therefore, is subject to the “absolute ownership” doctrine, the residents and landowners of the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District No. 1 recognized over 21 years ago that ground water is held in public trust, and thereby provided for its management by this District under the “reasonable use” doctrine.