It is sometimes difficult to discriminate high functioning pervasive developmental disorders (HFPDD) from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders (AD/HD) in young children because of the behavioral similarities between the two. For adequate diagnosis, understanding fundamental differences in their social cognitive abilities might become significant. In order to detect the differences in social cognitive abilities between AD/HD and HFPDD, a new test, the Metaphor and Sarcasm Scenario Test (MSST) was developed. One hundred and ninety-nine normal school children (the control group), 29 AD/HD children and 54 HFPDD children were involved. The results showed that the inability to understand a sarcastic situation was specific to children with HFPDD, both children with AD/HD and HFPDD could not equally understand metaphor. The correlation between the comprehension of sarcasm and success in the theory of mind task was remarkably high but not for comprehension of metaphor. In conclusion, the MSST has the potential to discriminate HFPDD from AD/HD in young children.

Self-assembly of conducting polymers, which are often used as photoabsorbing, charge-transporting, and photoemission layers of organic photovoltaic and light-emitting devices, were comprehensively studied by means of slow precipitation from polymer solutions upon addition of a vapor of nonsolvents. Polymers such as polyfluorene and polythiophene having a single monomer component hardly formed defined and discrete objects but only gave ill-defined aggregates. In contrast, alternating copolymers typically having both fluorene and thiophene components in their repeating unit self-assembled into well-shaped spheres with diameters ranging from several hundreds of nanometers to several micrometers. Such clear differences in terms of the assembling geometries derive from the rigidity and crystallinity of the polymers, where the copolymers possess large steric hindrance on their backbone that reduces planarity of the polymers and inhibits anisotropic crystal growth, leading to the formation of structurally isotropic spheres. Changing the assembling parameters can systematically control diameter and deviation of the spheres. Furthermore, photocarrier lifetimes of the spheres were markedly enhanced by more than 3 orders of magnitude in comparison with those of cast films from their solutions. This research gives a useful guide for preparation of colloidal crystals from π-conjugated polymers toward their optoelectronic applications.

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