Optical properties of undoped and oxygen doped CuCl films on silicon substrates

Semiconductor photonic emitters operating in the UV range remain an elusive goal. Attention has focused mainly on III-Nitrides. However, a large lattice constant difference between the III-Nitride layers and the compatible substrates results in high densities of misfit dislocations and consequently the device performance is adversely affected. An alternative novel material system, γ-CuCl on silicon, is investigated. Properties of the exciton luminescence from vacuum deposited undoped and oxygen doped CuCl films on Si are studied using temperature dependent photoluminescence spectroscopy. Oxygen doping degrades the optical quality and introduces an intermediate state leading to negative thermal quenching behaviour.     

Day hospital and residential addiction treatment: Randomized and nonrandomized managed care clients.

Male and female managed care clients randomized to day hospital (n=154) or community residential treatment (n=139) were compared on substance use outcomes at 6 and 12 months. To address possible bias in naturalistic studies, outcomes were also examined for clients who self-selected day hospital (n=321) and for clients excluded from randomization and directed to residential treatment because of high environmental risk (n=82). American Society of Addiction Medicine criteria defined study and randomization eligibility. More than 50% of followed clients reported past-30-day abstinence at follow-ups (unadjusted rates, not significant between groups). Despite differing baseline severities, randomized, self-selecting, and directed clients displayed similar abstinence outcomes in multivariate longitudinal models. Index treatment days and 12-step attendance were associated with abstinence (p     

Towards standards for the validation of expert systems

The paper provides a basis for the standardization of the validation of knowledge-based systems. The place of validation within the development process is discussed and a model is proposed. Knowledge-based system validation problems are decomposed using sequences of independent and dependent generic tasks. A model for validation of KBS causal processes as well as performance outcomes is presented. Practical applications to real systems are described.     

Traumatic head injury: A challenge to rehabilitation psychologists.

Traumatic head injury is a tragedy for all whom it affects. Many families of injured individuals report that the most painful aspects of the injury are the lack of accurate information available to them at all points following the injury and the fact that, because a head injury's effects are so different from those of other illnesses and injuries, no one seems to understand. It is hoped that this Special Issue of Rehabilitation Psychology will not only help more people to understand, but will also impel some readers to participate in the search for answers. In pulling these papers together, I struggled with the question of whether to include papers from the wide spectrum of rehabilitation efforts in which psychologists are involved (including neuropsychological assessment, cognitive retraining, vocational rehabilitation, etc.), or to focus on one major area. Given the increasing number of books that provide the broader perspective, I have chosen the latter route, including papers dealing with the psychosocial issue that is a prerequisite for success in other areas—how patients and their families come to terms with the injury and its consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress and rewards in women's multiple roles: The case of women in the middle.

Examined stress and rewards experienced by 95 women who were simultaneously occupying the roles of caregiver, mother, and wife. The study examined role-specific stress and rewards as predictors of well-being (physical health, positive affect, negative affect, and role overload) and examined the effects of an accumulation of role stress and role rewards across these 3 roles. Role rewards contributed unique variance to well-being, even after role stress had been considered. An accumulation of role stress across roles was related to poorer well-being, whereas an accumulation of role rewards was related to better well-being. Findings indicate that caregivers' experiences in multiple roles could both detract from and enhance their mental and physical health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance and design evaluation of the RAID-II storage server

RAID-II is a high-bandwidth, network-attached storage server designed and implemented at the University of California at Berkeley. In this paper, we measure the performance of RAID-II and evaluate various architectural decisions made during the design process. We first measure the end-to-end performance of the system to be approximately 20 MB/s for both disk array reads and writes. We then perform a bottleneck analysis by examining the performance of each individual subsystem and conclude that the disk subsystem limits performance. By adding a custom interconnect board with a high-speed memory and bus system and parity engine, we are able to achieve a performance speedup of 8 to 15 over a comparative system using only off-the-shelf hardware.     

Intensification in Auckland: Issues and Policy Implications

This article identifies issues around the Auckland Region's strategy for urban intensification and discusses the ensuing policy implications. Medium density housing forms an important element of the strategy for growth management. Implications for its success are primarily drawn from research into a major housing development in Waitakere City. It is argued that for ideological, political and technical reasons the strategy could be easily undermined. The article also suggests that something of a paradigm shift is underway in urban planning.     

Measurement invariance in longitudinal clinical research assuming change from development and intervention.

Valid and reliable measures of psychological and behavioral constructs are critical to clinical research, particularly longitudinal treatment research, in which multiple groups are compared over time for possible changes within and between constructs as a result of intervention or development. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis is a class of statistical procedures that can be used to test multiple hypotheses about these relationships simultaneously while controlling for measurement error. The procedures have been applied primarily to testing between-construct relationships in nonexperimental studies, with relatively little emphasis on establishing whether measures are sufficiently invariant across groups and across time to permit these tests. This article uses an empirical example of a longitudinal experimental prevention study with 2 groups to illustrate the use of SEM, first, to systematically test measurement invariance across groups at each wave of measurement, and second, after establishing measurement invariance, to test structural invariance longitudinally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of cholesterol and 25-hydroxycholesterol on smooth muscle cell and endothelial cell growth

Auto-oxidation products of cholesterol may play a role in atherogenesis. In order to determine whether cholesterol or 25-hydroxycholesterol, a cholesterol auto-oxidation product, affected growth of vessel wall cells, sparse and confluent cultures of rabbit thoracic aorta smooth muscle cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cells were exposed to these compounds for 88 hr. The compounds were administered at 10⁻⁴, 10⁻⁵, 10⁻⁶ or 10⁻⁷ M in either ethanol or fetal bovine serum (FBS) vehicle. Cells were counted electronically, and the results were expressed as the percent growth in experimental vs control wells. Cholesterol did not inhibit cell growth under any experimental condition. 25-Hydroxycholesterol had the following effects: inhibited confluent smooth muscle cell growth at 10⁻⁴ M in ethanol vehicle only; inhibited sparse smooth muscle cell growth in a dose-related manner at 10⁻⁴, 10⁻⁵ and 10⁻⁶ M in ethanol vehicle, but in FBS vehicle inhibited at only 10⁻⁴ and 10⁻⁵ M; inhibited confluent human umbilical vein endothelial cells at 10⁻⁴ M in ethanol vehicle only; and inhibited sparse human umbilical vein endothelial cell growth at 10⁻⁴ and 10⁻⁵ M in ethanol vehicle only. Thus, rabbit aortic smooth muscle cell growth was more sensitive to inhibition by 25-hydroxycholesterol than human umbilical vein endothelial cell growth was. Part of this work was presented at the 10th Annual Hugh Lofland Conference on Arterial Wall Metabolism, Boston, MA, in 1985 and at the 70th Annual FASEB Meeting, St. Louis, MO, in 1986. It is published in abstract form (Fed. Proc.45;684, 1986).     

Accuracy of knowledge of family history of cardiovascular disorders.

Compared 292 undergraduates' reports of their parents' and grandparents' histories of 6 medical disorders (atherosclerosis, heart attack, hypertension, kidney disease, migraine headaches, and stroke) with the parents' reports. Ss also completed measures assessing frequency of contact with parents, comfort in discussing health matters with parents, and importance of health to Ss; Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale; and the Health Locus of Control Scale. Results show moderate agreement concerning the parents' health, especially when reports were negative, but substantial disagreement concerning the grandparents' health. Demographic and personality variables did not predict accuracy of Ss' reports of parental hypertension, the most frequently reported disorder. Among the disorders, differences in agreement of reporting arose; the most salient condition, heart attack, had the highest agreement for both parents and grandparents. Results suggest that caution is necessary in evaluating family health information from Ss in research and from target individuals in prevention programs. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)