Healthy aging. A women''s issue

In this thesis, Korean prisoners' health behavior and the characteristics of their medical utilization were surveyed and analysed. Because prisoners are inclined to be mediators of communicable diseases or unhealthy behaviors between prison institution and the outside world, health care for prisoners is directly related to the national population. Data were collected through a self-administered survey of 5 Korean prisons out of a total of 38 correctional facilities and analysed in accordance with a causal model based on a path frame, by serial multiple regressions on health behavior, health status, and medical utilization, etc. According to the survey analysis, while prisoners were generally concerned with their health much more than they were before imprisonment, they perceived that their health status had deteriorated after imprisonment, and that their need for health services was increasing gradually during their time in prison. In the path analysis on the causal relations among variables related to the prisoners' health status and medical utilization, the prisoners' characteristics affected their health concern and health behavior, and subsequently affected their health status and medical utilization, respectively. To sum up these exploratory studies on prisoners' health behavior and health service utilization, some efforts to organize a health care system embracing the correctional institution and health care administration should be made on the level of establishing a health care delivery system for special social groups like prisoners.     

Preparation, Hardness, and Fracture Toughness of Tantalum Oxynitride Ceramics

Tantalum oxynitride powder with a baddeleyite crystal structure was synthesized and densified by hot pressing in Ar and under high pressure using a belt-type high-pressure apparatus. The tantalum oxynitride powder could not be densified completely under hot-pressing conditions at 1400°C. The use of high pressure resulted in dense materials. The samples showed a hardness of 16–17 GPa and a fracture toughness of 3–4 MPa·m^1/2. The hardness is higher compared with that of ZrO₂ and HfO₂ ceramics. The fracture toughness corresponds to the value of fully stabilized ZrO₂ due to the absence of any transformation toughening mechanism.     

Exploring the Gender Gap in Engineering: A Re‐Specification and Test of the Hypothesis of Cumulative Advantages and Disadvantages

Researchers using the hypothesis of cumulative advantages and disadvantages argue that the accumulation of small advantages for men and small disadvantages for women contributes to the gender gap in engineering. This paper uses data from a 1998 survey of engineering undergraduates to test a re‐specification of this hypothesis that treats the gender distribution of advantages and disadvantages as an empirical question. We considered four sets of factors that have been shown to promote choice of an engineering major, persistence in engineering, and progress in engineering: family background, high school participation in mathematics and science, university participation in engineering, and integration into engineering. We found gender differences for each set of factors. We also found that men and women accumulate different advantages and disadvantages as they move through the education pipeline. By demonstrating that the accumulation of advantages and disadvantages is gendered, these results highlight the importance of examining the impact of micro‐inequities on the persistence and progress of men and women in engineering.     

Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion.

We present here new evidence of cross-cultural agreement in the judgment of facial expression. Subjects in 10 cultures performed a more complex judgment task than has been used in previous cross-cultural studies. Instead of limiting the subjects to selecting only one emotion term for each expression, this task allowed them to indicate that multiple emotions were evident and the intensity of each emotion. Agreement was very high across cultures about which emotion was the most intense. The 10 cultures also agreed about the second most intense emotion signaled by an expression and about the relative intensity among expressions of the same emotion. However, cultural differences were found in judgments of the absolute level of emotional intensity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distributed System for Coastal Infrastructure Modeling and Assessment

The client/server computer architecture of the Internet provides an efficient mechanism for implementing effective civil infrastructure monitoring and assessment applications. Systems functionality that is enabled by this important technology includes remote and real-time data acquisition, distributed model execution and control, multiuser access to and monitoring of decision support systems, and efficient systems expansion and maintenance. With the dramatic increase in available infrastructure data and the continued improvement in the reliability and robustness of these technologies, widespread design, implementation, and use of distributed infrastructure modeling systems will become common. This paper describes the design and development of a prototype infrastructure modeling system incorporating these technologies that has recently been implemented to help decision makers manage the coastal infrastructure of the Great Lakes.     

Immune Cognition and Vaccine Strategy: Pathogenic Challenge and Ecological Resilience

We continue to study the implications of IR Cohen's work on immune cognition for vaccine strategies when simple elicitation of sterilizing immunity fails, using a mathematical model derived from the large deviations programme of applied probability. Our work makes explicit the linkage between an individual's 'immunocultural condensation' and embedding social or historical structures and processes, in particular power relations between groups. We use methods adapted from the theory of ecosystem resilience to explore the consequences of the sudden 'perturbation' caused by infection, in the context of such embedding. The methodology open pathways in the design of vaccine strategy which are closed by simplistic genetic or cross-sectional 'inequality' analyses that — in effect — either reify 'race' or deny the persisting burdens of racism.     

Optical parametric oscillation in MgO:LiNbO3 driven by adiode pumped single frequency Q-switched laser

Optical parametric oscillation tunable over the 940-1220-nm spectral region has been obtained from a monolithic magnesium-oxide-doped lithium niobate ring resonator. The monolithic optical parametric oscillator (OPO) was pumped by the 532-nm second harmonic of a diode-laser-pumped single-frequency Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. The exceptional frequency and amplitude stability of the single-frequency pump source provided stable OPO output pulses     

Microstructural Analysis and Transport Properties of Thermally Sprayed Multiple-Layer Ceramic Coatings

Multilayer, graded ceramic/metal coatings were prepared by an air plasma spray method on Ti-6Al-4V, 4140 steel and graphite substrates. The coatings were designed to provide thermal barriers for diesel engine pistons to operate at higher temperatures with improved thermal efficiency and cleaner emissions. A systematic, progressive variation in the mixture of yttria-stabilized zirconia and bondcoat alloys (NiCoCrAlYHfSi) was designed to provide better thermal expansion match with the substrate and to improve thermal shock resistance and cycle life. Heat transfer through the layers was evaluated by a flash diffusivity technique based on a model of one-dimensional heat flow. The aging effect of the as-sprayed coatings was captured during diffusivity measurements, which included one heating and cooling cycle. The hysteresis of thermal diffusivity due to aging was not observed after 100-h annealing at 800 °C. The measurements of coatings on substrate and freestanding coatings allowed the influence of interface resistance to be evaluated. The microstructure of the multilayer coating was examined using scanning electron microscope and electron probe microanalysis.