Religiosity and emotional disturbance: A test of Ellis's thesis in his own counseling center.

Assessed the validity of A. Ellis's (1971, 1973, 1981) contention that being religious was negatively correlated with mental health. 28 very religious, 34 atheist, and 33 religiously-neutral individuals seeking consultation were compared on the frequency and number of 8 reported problems. Contrary to Ellis's prediction, there were no significant differences among the groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electroluminescence spectroscopy for reliability investigations of 1.55 μm bulk semiconductor optical amplifier

This paper demonstrates the complementary relation between functional parameters and electroluminescence spectroscopy for reliability investigations of 1550 nm Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers of 700 μm length active region. Ageing tests have been set to 270 mA-100 °C-1500 h and realized on two different wafers showing more impact on wafer 1 than on wafer 2. Our investigations are particularly focused on interpretation of electroluminescence spectra, from reference and aged SOAs of wafer 1, leading to an improvement of degradation mechanisms understanding. The shift rate to lower energies of the recombination energy peak at 1550 nm, as reported by electroluminescence spectra between reference and aged SOAs in relation with the decrease of optical power measured at 200 mA for the degraded SOA and completed by I(V) characterizations, suggest occurrence of non radiative deep centers near the buried ridge structure in relation with the cleaning process uniformity of interfaces before epitaxial overgrowth. These defects mainly trap majority injected carriers instead of minority carriers reducing the luminescence in the active zone. By monitoring the most sensitive failure indicator (pseudo-threshold current), lifetime distributions are also calculated to determine failure rate, between 150 and 200 FITs over 15 years for operating conditions (25 °C-200 mA) using experimental degradation laws and statistic computations, demonstrating the overall robustness of this technology.     

A tool shelf for tracking design decisions

An extensible conceptual model for recording design decisions and other supporting information is described along with the tool shell OSC in which it is embedded. The OSC shell consists of a design database and a family of query, manipulation, and extension facilities. The design database maintains a record of the design process. The extension facilities can be used to enrich the design database scheme incrementally and create new query or manipulation facilities. The core model provides a base language for describing the design process. Extension facilities augment this basis with more powerful, customized facilities. The implementation of the OSC shell using ESSAIM, an expert-system shell based on Smalltalk, is discussed     

Satellite-to-Satellite Range-Rate Measurement

The measurement of range rate between two low-orbiting spacecraft with a precision of better than 1 ?m/s provides a means for sensing global gravity variability. An analysis is given to show the conditions under which this precision can be realized, with emphasis on the requirements of NASA's Geopotential Research Mission. Experimental results obtained with a millimeter-wave demonstration system are presented along with a proposed design for a spaceborne instrument.     

Time-series detection of perspiration as a liveness test in fingerprint devices

Fingerprint scanners may be susceptible to spoofing using artificial materials, or in the worst case, dismembered fingers. An anti-spoofing method based on liveness detection has been developed for use in fingerprint scanners. This method quantifies a specific temporal perspiration pattern present in fingerprints acquired from live claimants. The enhanced perspiration detection algorithm presented here improves our previous work by including other fingerprint scanner technologies; using a larger, more diverse data set; and a shorter time window. Several classification methods were tested in order to separate live and spoof fingerprint images. The dataset included fingerprint images from 33 live subjects, 33 spoofs created with dental material and Play-Doh, and fourteen cadaver fingers. Each method had a different performance with respect to each scanner and time window. However, all the classifiers achieved approximately 90% classification rate for all scanners, using the reduced time window and the more comprehensive training and test sets.     

Computer-controlled ion-selective electrode switch

The construction of a microcomputer-controlled electrode switch for use in potentiometric determinations is described. This can be coupled to most of the analytical equipment usually found in laboratories, to enable a setting up of automatic systems capable of performing sequential determinations with several ion-selective electrodes. The assessment of its analytical usage and behaviour are discussed.