Price elasticity and the growth of computer spending

The price of computers is a key factor in explaining the growth of computer spending. However, it remains unclear whether the price elasticity of the demand for computers is constant over time. Findings on the pattern of price elasticity will have important implications in the study of information technology (IT) innovation diffusion. To test the hypothesis of dynamic price elasticity, we extend existing growth models to include a price factor with different elasticity specifications. Nested specifications of three growth models were tested using spending data from 1955 to 1984 adjusted by a quality price index for computers. The results indicate that three out of four competing models depict dynamic price elasticity over the investigated period. A similar pattern is also observed when the models are estimated using more recent data on mainframe computer spending. Our results underscore the dynamic behavior of price sensitivity in computer spending over time. They offer a new perspective to study innovation attributes and to examine their impacts empirically over time. Implications for information systems (IS) management and IT suppliers are also discussed     

Trainable blotch detection on high resolution archive films minimizing the human interaction

Film archives are continuously in need of automatic restoration tools to accelerate the correction of film artifacts and to decrease the costs. Blotches are a common type of film degradation and their correction needs a lot of manual interaction in traditional systems due to high false detection rates and the huge amount of data of high resolution images. Blotch detectors need reliable motion estimation to avoid the false detection of uncorrupted regions. In case of erroneous detection, usually an operator has to remove the false alarms manually, which significantly decreases the efficiency of the restoration process. To reduce manual intervention, we developed a two-step false alarm reduction technique including pixel- and object-based methods as post-processing. The proposed pixel-based algorithm compensates motion, decreasing false alarms at low computational cost, while the following object based method further reduces the residual false alarms by machine learning techniques. We introduced a new quality metric for detection methods by measuring the required amount of manual work after the automatic detection. In our novel evaluation technique, the ground truth is collected from digitized archive sequences where defective pixel positions are detected in an interactive process.     

Frequency instability in Er/Yb fiber grating lasers due to heatingby nonradiative transitions

Heating of the Er/Yb-codoped fiber lasers due to strong pump absorption was found to cause large frequency fluctuation in addition to lasing wavelength shift. Laser frequency fluctuation of up to 1.7 GHz was measured by using an absorption line of an acetylene gas cell. The large frequency fluctuation was reduced to less than 80 MHz with proper cooling of the laser     

Design and Testing of a Graphite Foam-Based Supercooler for High-Heat-Flux Cooling in Optoelectronic Packages

The feasibility of using graphite foam as a heat sink and heat spreader in optoelectronic packages is assessed. A “supercooler” is designed, fabricated, and tested to verify its cooling capability under high heat flux conditions in a typical optoelectronic package. The supercooler uses graphite foam as a primary heat transfer material. Water is soaked into the graphite foam, and under evacuated pressure, boiling is initiated under the heating region to provide enhanced cooling. Experiments were conducted for a heat flux of up to 400 W/cm² deposited over a heating area of 0.5 mm × 5 mm. Two-dimensional transient temperature distributions were recorded using a high-speed infrared camera. Data were obtained for steady heating, and for periodic heating with frequency up to 8 Hz. Results show that the supercooler is very efficient in dissipating heat away from the heating region. The average cooling rate during the cooling period exceeds 170 K/s.     

Off-state drain breakdown mechanisms of VDMOS with anti-JFET implantation

Efficiency, reliability, and cost are the important design considerations of a vertical double diffused MOSFET (VDMOS) because of its high-voltage applications in consumer electronics. To minimize the cost, the devices were normally fabricated on an epitaxial layer which was grown on a highly-doped substrate. Meanwhile, it was proposed that the efficiency of a VDMOS can be enhanced by conducting an anti-JFET implant to reduce the “ON” resistance of the transistor. This paper reports the effects of anti-JFET implant on the reliability and the blocking capability of the VDMOS. Experimental results show that the anti-JFET implant can reduce the ON resistance by suppressing the channel depletion due to the parasitic JFET and enhance the breakdown voltage by moving the high-field region to the surface channel region. However, it deteriorates the device reliability greatly because the oxide quality was deteriorated and the hot holes generated in the surface high-field region could be easily injected into the gate oxide and hence caused larger subthreshold conduction and drain breakdown at lower voltage.     

Kinder training: Play-based consultation to improve the school adjustment of discouraged kindergarten and first grade students.

Examined the effects of Kinder Training on selected kindergarten and first grade students' behavior, social skills, and early literacy skills, as well as its effects on teacher behavior in the classroom. Kinder Training involves the teacher in play sessions with a child who is exhibiting discouragement in the classroom. The participants in this study included 7 kindergarten teachers, 4 kindergarten paraprofessionals, 3 first grade teachers, and their 14 selected students (median age 5 yrs, 9 mo). The teacher conducts play sessions while receiving supervision from a counselor, learning skills that are both appropriate for the playroom and valuable for the classroom. As a result of the play sessions, the teacher–student relationship is enhanced, the student feels more encouraged in the classroom, and the teacher transfers the newly obtained skills to his or her work with other students. This transfer included an increase in facilitative statements, encouragement, and limit-setting. Additionally, the teachers decreased the number of praise statements and ineffective limit-setting. The results suggest that Kinder Training is an effective intervention for struggling students and a successful proactive approach for teacher skill development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Calculation of thermodynamic quantities of metals and alloys by the statistical moment method

The thermodynamic properties of metals and alloys are studied using the moment method in the statistical dynamics, which allows us to take into account the anharmonicity of thermal lattice vibrations and size mismatch of constituent atoms, going beyond the quasi-harmonic approximation. Within the fourth-order moment approximation, the free energy and equilibrium lattice spacing of the binary alloys are given explicitly in terms of the effective pair potentials and the second- and fourth-order vibrational constants. The long-range order (LRO) parameter η and order-disorder transition temperatures (ODTs) T_c of binary alloys are obtained by solving the explicit transcendental equations. The numerical calculations of thermodynamic quantities for Cu₃Au and β-CuZn alloys show that the inclusion of the anharmonicity of lattice vibration plays an essentially important role in determining the phase stabilities of metals and alloys.