Changes in the thermophysical properties of microcrystalline cellulose as function of carbonization temperature

Thermophysical properties of carbon materials derived from microcrystalline cellulose have been studied under vacuum and compared with earlier measurements conducted under nitrogen to better understand the influence of porosity, composition, microstructure, and atmosphere effects. The effective thermal conductivity in vacuum is lower than that observed in nitrogen primarily due to the conductivity of nitrogen gas. Radiation effects in both atmospheres were determined to be negligible. Reduction of thermal diffusivity in nitrogen was attributed to the effects of nitrogen gas phonon scattering. The trends for electrical and thermal property changes with structure are similar but not identical due to the differences in electron and phonon transport mechanisms.     

Film music influences how viewers relate to movie characters.

Film music has powerful aesthetic effects on the perception and understanding of screen content, but does it also influence viewers' sense of connection with movie characters thereby creating antecedents for an experience of empathy? Participants viewed clips showing characters' neutral or ambiguous reaction to an event, person, or object. Viewers rated character likability and their certainty about characters' thoughts in three conditions: thriller music, melodrama music, and no music. The effect of music conditions differed significantly from the no music condition. Compared to melodramatic music, thriller music significantly lowered likability and certainty about characters' thoughts. During subsequent cued recall of screen content, thriller music increased anger attributions and lowered sadness attributions, while melodramatic music increased love attributions and lowered fear attributions. The study provides evidence that film music can influence character likability and the certainty of knowing the character's thoughts, which are antecedents of empathetic concern and emphatic accuracy. Thus film music may be regarded as modulating antecedents of empathic concern and empathic accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fabrication of switchable liquid crystal devices using surface relief gratings in photopolymer

Holographically recorded surface relief gratings in dry, self-developing acrylamide based photopolymer were used to fabricate two types of switchable liquid crystal (LC) device. One is an electrically switchable LC diffraction grating and the other is an electrically switchable polarization rotator. The electrically switchable diffraction grating was characterized by measuring the dependence of the intensity in the first diffracted order on the applied electric field. The polarization rotator was characterized by studying the influence of the applied electric field on the twist angle and the variation of intensity in the zero and the first orders of diffraction.     

Adult age differences in learning from positive and negative probabilistic feedback.

Objective: Past research has investigated age differences in frontal-based decision making, but few studies have focused on the behavioral effects of striatal-based changes in healthy aging. Feedback learning has been found to vary with dopamine levels; increases in dopamine facilitate learning from positive feedback, whereas decreases facilitate learning from negative feedback. Given previous evidence of striatal dopamine depletion in healthy aging, we investigated behavioral differences between college-aged and healthy older adults using a feedback learning task that is sensitive to both frontal and striatal processes. Method: Seventeen college-aged (M = 18.9 years) and 24 healthy, older adults (M = 70.3 years) completed the Probabilistic Selection task, in which participants are trained on probabilistic stimulus-outcome information and then tested to determine whether they learned more from positive or negative feedback. Results: As a group, the older adults learned equally well from positive and negative feedback, whereas the college-aged group learned more from positive than negative feedback, F(1, 39) = 4.10, p effect = .3. However, these group differences were not due to older individuals being more balanced learners. Most individuals of both ages were balanced learners, but while all of the remaining young learners had a positive bias, the remaining older learners were split between those with positive and negative learning biases (χ2(2) = 6.12, p     

Computer-Assisted Electrochemistry With The Model 276 Interface

ABSTRACT

The use of a commercial IEEE-488 interface for computerized electrochemistry is described. Detailed instructions are provided for setting up and runnning a chronoamperometric experiment and for post-processing the resultant data. Various data smoothing techniques are evaluated.     

Characterisation of inhomogeneous inclusions in Darwin glass using ion beam analysis

Darwin glass is an impact glass resulting from the melting of local rocks during the meteorite impact that formed the 1.2 km diameter Darwin Crater in western Tasmania. These glass samples have small spheroidal inclusions, typically a few tens of microns in diameter, that are of great interest to the geologists. We have analysed one such inclusion in detail with proton microbeam ion beam analysis (IBA). A highly heterogeneous composition is observed, both laterally and in depth, by using self-consistent fitting of photon emission and particle backscattering spectra. With various proton energies near 2 MeV we excite the ¹²C(p,p)¹²C resonance at 1734 keV at various depths, and thus we can probe both the C concentration, and also the energy straggling of the proton beam as a function of depth which gives information on the sample structure. This inclusion has an average composition of (C, O, Si) = (28, 56, 16) mol% with S, K, Ca, Ti and Fe as minor elements and Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn and Br as trace elements. This composition includes, at specific points, an elemental depth profile and a density variation with depth consistent with discrete quartz crystals a few microns in size.