Frequency Dependent Conductivity of the Fibonacci-Chain

A real-space-renormalization method for the frequency dependent conductivity of the periodic approximants of the Fibonacci chain is developed. This scheme is based on the known 2×2 transfer matrices and additional 5×5 matrices which allow an efficient numerical evaluation of the Kubo formula. Numerical results are presented.     

Epidemic Simulation for Training in Public Health Management

Epidemiological simulation models to be used primarily to augment the teaching of epidemiology to medical students and other individuals concerned with public health and control of epidemics are presented. Interactive simulations are used to expose students to ``realistic' epidemic situations and permit them to experiment with various control strategies. Criteria by which simulations for such teaching purposes may be evaluated are proposed and operating simulations, MEASLES and INFLU, are described in detail. Information is provided regarding user experience with the above simulations.     

Managing the Risks of Outsourcing Agreements

Outsourcing relieves an organization from the burden of carrying out complex activities. It also relieves an organization over its control of those activities. An organization can minimize this loss of control by managing certain risks associated with outsourcing before it enters into an outsourcing agreement.     

Compounding wood‐polymer composites with in‐line drying technology

Composite decking has moved into the mainstream of commercialization. Manufacturers must have a process that can achieve high rates for a reasonable capital investment. The equipment must also be able to process a variety of materials so as to take advantage of formulation changes that increase quality and/or reduce costs. A single‐step process is discussed that converts nondried cellulosic fibers and polyolefin resins into finished retail decking. The effect on process conditions, particularly moisture removal, is discussed. Technical as well as commercial issues are addressed. The focus of this article is the need for an integrated manufacturing system to provide the maximum economic return on investment. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 11:166–169, 2005. © 2005 Society of Plastics Engineers     

The high-temperature work function behavior of polycrystalline osmium

The thermionic emission behavior of randomly oriented polycrystalline osmium was investigated. Osmium exhibited a low thermionic work function of 4.68 eV at 1800 K which increased rapidly to 5.21 eV at 2600 K. The high temperatures and low pressures of these tests were designed to minimize any residual gas interactions with the sample surface. Still, the possibility that residual gases had some effect on the measured work function was not altogether ruled out. An allotropic phase transformation was considered as a possible explanation for the varying work function; however, X-ray diffraction experiments could not substantiate a new high-temperature phase.     

Smoking and moods in adolescents with depressive and aggressive dispositions: Evidence from surveys and electronic diaries.

Surveys and electronic diaries were used to examine depressive and externalizing dispositions as they relate to smoking and moods in 170 early adolescents. Negative moods were prevalent, with anger and anxiety reported on 26%–60% and sadness on 16%–40% of occasions. The risk of smoking, urges to smoke, and alcohol intake were elevated in teens with aggressive and depressive dispositions, as were diary reports of feeling hassled, angry, and sad. Girls high in depression and aggression also reported more anxiety, stress, and fatigue and less happiness and well-being than did their peers. For boys, depression seemed to dampen the elevated smoking risks associated with externalizing behaviors. Discussion focuses on gender differences in personality–smoking linkages, adolescent negative affectivity, the unique contributions of survey and diary methods, and the promise of targeted preventive interventions such as affect regulation training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion recognition from faces and prosody following temporal lobectomy.

The anteromedial temporal lobe has been found to participate in processing emotion, but there are unresolved discrepancies in the literature. To address this issue, the authors investigated recognition of emotion from faces and from prosody in 26 participants with unilateral temporal lobectomy (15 left, 11 right) and in 50 brain-damaged controls. Participants with right, but not left, temporal lobectomy did significantly worse in recognizing fear from facial expressions. There were no group differences in recognizing emotional prosody. Neither IQ nor basic perceptual function accounted for task performance; however, there was a moderate negative correlation between extent of amygdala damage and overall performance. Consistent with some prior studies, these findings support a role for the right anteromedial temporal lobe (including amygdala) in recognizing emotion from faces but caution in drawing conclusions from small group samples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Uniqueness and convergence of solutions to average run length integral equations for cumulative sum and other control charts

The Average Run Length (ARL) is the most frequently used performance measure for selecting and designing Cumulative SUM (CUSUM) as well as other control charts. The derivation of a closed form expression for the ARL of a CUSUM chart, in terms of its design parameters, is intractable. The ARL is often computed as a numerical solution to an integral equation. In this paper, we establish that the ARL is the unique solution to the integral equation under some weak regularity conditions. We prove that numerical algorithms based on Gauss-Legend re and Simpson quadratures provide accurate approximations to the ARL. We develop the proof by establishing the convergence of numerical approximations to the unique solution of the integral equation. Finally, we demonstrate that the integral equation approach and the theory established in this paper easily extend to other control schemes. In particular, we consider an example with a Shewhart chart with correlated observations from an AR(I) process.     

Synchrotron X-ray microdiffraction reveals rotational plastic deformation mechanisms in polycrystalline thin films

Understanding the mechanical response of polycrystalline materials on the mesoscopic scale remains a challenge as it is largely determined by grain-to-grain interactions and the discrete underlying microstructure. We conducted in situ synchrotron Laue microdiffraction experiments to map local strain tensors and orientations over polycrystalline thin gold films for different applied biaxial strain states. The experimental results demonstrate stress relaxation to be accompanied by cooperative transport of dislocation density leading to rotational plastic deformation heterogeneities. We propose a disclination model of closed dislocation walls and consider the geometry of transformations corresponding to a Burgers circuit enclosing the multipole disclination configuration. The observed stress-driven rotational deformation of the grain is shown to be described by the change in rotational closure failure associated with a Burgers circuit around the multipole disclination configuration. This concept is further advanced in a non-Euclidian geometry to demonstrate that the observed microrotation is captured by higher-order gradients in a micropolar continuum theory.