Neighbours or Enemies? Competing Variants Causing Differences in Transitional Dialects

The aim of this study is to show how clusteranalysis can shed light on very complexvariation in a transitional dialect zone ineastern Finland. In the course of history thisarea has been on the border between Sweden andRussia and the population has clearly been oftwo kinds: the Savo people and the Karelians.It is a well-known fact that there is variationamong these dialects, but the spread and extentof the variation has not been demonstrated previously.The idiolects of the area were studied in thelight of ten phonological and morphologicalfeatures. The material consisted of recordingsof 198 idiolects, totalling around 195 hoursand representing 19 parishes. The variation wasanalysed using hierarchical cluster analysis.While the analysis showed the extent of thevariation between idiolects and parishes, italso demonstrated how the effects of the oldparishes, borders and settlements are stillvisible in the dialects. On the parish level,the data formed clear clusters that correspondwith the main dialects in the area and itssurroundings. On the idiolect level, however,the speakers from the surrounding areas formedfairly homogenous clusters but the idiolectsfrom the Savonlinna area were spread acrossalmost all clusters.     

Population Decline in Non-Metropolitan Australia: Impacts and Policy Implications

Despite the overall growth of the Australian population there are significant levels of population decline in some regions. Depopulation has often been caused by technological and economic change. In some cases this trend creates a vicious cycle of population loss, service decline and further out-migration. The public policy maker is faced with a difficult balance between equity and efficiency considerations as regional population decline leads to increasing per capita costs of service and infrastructure provision. This paper highlights regions in Australia which are experiencing depopulation, examining causes, impacts and policy implications.     

Effects of H2S addition on hydrogen ignition behind reflected shock waves: Experiments and modeling

Hydrogen sulfide is a common impurity that can greatly change the combustion properties of fuels, even when present in small concentrations. However, the combustion chemistry of H₂S is still poorly understood, and this lack of understanding subsequently leads to difficulties in the design of emission-control and energy-production processes. During this study, ignition delay times were measured behind reflected shock waves for mixtures of 1% H₂/1% O₂ diluted in Ar and doped with various concentration of H₂S (100, 400, and 1600 ppm) over large pressure (around 1.6, 13, and 33 atm) and temperature (1045–1860 K) ranges. Results typically showed a significant increase in the ignition delay time due to the addition of H₂S, in some cases by a factor of 4 or more over the baseline mixtures with no H₂S. The magnitude of the increase is highly dependent on the temperature and pressure. A detailed chemical kinetics model was developed using recent, up-to-date detailed-kinetics mechanisms from the literature and by changing a few reaction rates within their reported error factor. This updated model predicts well the experimental data obtained during this study and from the shock-tube literature. However, flow reactor data from the literature were poorly predicted when H₂S was a reactant. This study highlights the need for a better estimation of several reaction rates to better predict H₂S oxidation chemistry and its effect on fuel combustion. Using the kinetics model for sensitivity analyses, it was determined that the decrease in reactivity in the presence of H₂S is because H₂S initially reacts before the H₂ fuel does, mainly through the reaction H₂S + H ? SH + H₂, thus taking H atoms away from the main branching reaction H + O₂ ? OH + O and inhibiting the ignition process.     

Understanding how people process health information: A comparison of tailored and nontailored weight-loss materials.

Health information tailored to meet individuals' unique needs has been shown to be more effective than generic information in promoting risk-reducing behavior changes. To explore mechanisms underlying tailoring's effectiveness, this study randomly assigned 198 overweight adults to receive weight-loss materials that were either (a) tailored to the individual, (b) in an American Heart Association (AHA) brochure, or (c) AHA-content formatted to look like tailored materials. Participants who received tailored materials had more positive thoughts about the materials, positive personal connections to the materials, positive self-assessment thoughts, and positive thoughts indicating behavioral intention than those who received either of the untailored materials. The tailoring of health information can significantly improve the chances the information will be thoughtfully considered and can stimulate prebehavioral changes such as self-assessment and intention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)