Defensive evaluation of antismoking messages among college-age smokers: The role of possible selves.

This study hypothesized that individuals respond to antismoking messages in a biased or defensive manner. The authors operationalized the personal relevance of smoking variously as smoking behavior (smoking status, rate, duration, and recent attempts to quit), endorsement of the smoker stereotype, and importance of smoking behavior as an identity within the self-concept (current self and possible selves). In the experiment, smokers (n?=&82) and nonsmokers (n?=?105) privately viewed several antismoking video segments. Smoking status, current smoking identity, and long-term future smoking identity were significantly associated with a defensive evaluation of antismoking messages. The study concludes that the concept of possible selves (H. Markus & P. Nurius, 1986) is critical in understanding college-age smoking and in the design of effective antismoking campaigns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compilation of the Pascal case statement

Pascal case statements can be compiled using a variety of methods, including comparison trees and branch tables. The scheme discussed here combines the two techniques to allow comparison trees with entries that are branch tables. The use of a combination of the two techniques is shown to adapt well to certain instances of case statements. Extensions to the standard case statement also require such a scheme to obtain an efficient implementation.     

Assigning Types to Processes

In wide area distributed systems it is now common for higher-order code to be transferred from one domain to another; the receiving host may initialise parameters and then execute the code in its local environment. In this paper we propose a fine-grained typing system for a higher-order π-calculus which can be used to control the effect of such migrating code on local environments. Processes may be assigned different types depending on their intended use. This is in contrast to most of the previous work on typing processes where all processes are typed by a unique constant type, indicating essentially that they are well typed relative to a particular environment. Our fine-grained typing facilitates the management of access rights and provides host protection from potentially malicious behaviour. Our process type takes the form of an interface limiting the resources to which it has access and the types at which they may be used. Allowing resource names to appear both in process types and process terms, as interaction ports, complicates the typing system considerably. For the development of a coherent typing system, we use a kinding technique, similar to that used by the subtyping of the system F, and order-theoretic properties of our subtyping relation. Various examples of this paper illustrate the usage of our fine-grained process types in distributed systems.     

Educational programmes for future employability of graduates in SMEs

There are many levels of learning, training, and upskilling within SMEs and these encapsulate varying combinations of formal and informal learning activities. However not all SMEs are proactive in their learning situations and a large proportion of SMEs are in constant ‘crisis management’ mode and therefore need to be encouraged to adopt a learning, training and upskilling environment if they want to survive and prosper. Recent research managed by the Programme for University and Industry Interface at the University of Limerick, Ireland (PUII in Available on line at: http://www.ul.ie/~puii/ (accessed January 21st, 2008)) was charged with identifying key skills and competencies required by individuals in SMEs to ensure their future generation employability. What clearly emerged from this piece of work was the articulation of a range of diverse interventions, which SMEs feel are required to enable them to expand their organizational capacity and the capability of their employees. However, the learning delivery models developed to date for the upskilling of individuals in industry have largely failed to get to the heart of the matter for the SME and are not sufficient to bridge the gap between the needs of the individual in the SME and the needs of the organization. To this end, SME-specific learning delivery models are urgently required to build and create innovative and sustainable learning environments in SMEs, which will simultaneously develop both the individual and the organization. This paper discusses the needs of SMEs in terms of learning and illuminates the need for new innovative programmes which will mark a new step in supporting the delivery on the global priority of educating and upskilling the workforce.     

Model and Observations of Dielectric Charge in Thermally Oxidized Silicon Resonators

This paper investigates the effects of dielectric charge on resonant frequency in thermally oxidized silicon resonators hermetically encapsulated using “epi-seal.” $ hbox{SiO}_{2}$ coatings are effective for passive temperature compensation of resonators but make the devices more susceptible to charging-related issues. We present a theoretical model for the electromechanical effects of charge trapped in the dielectrics within the transduction gap of a resonator. Observations of resonance frequency against varying resonator bias voltage are fitted to this model in order to obtain estimates for the magnitude of the trapped oxide charge. Statistics collected from wet- and dry-oxidized devices show that lower fixed oxide charge can be expected upon dry oxidation. In addition, observations of time-varying resonator frequency indicate the presence of mobile oxide charge in a series of voltage biasing and temperature experiments. $hfill$[2009-0088]      

The asymmetric Heck reaction: recent developments and applications of new palladium diphenylphosphinopyrrolidine complexes

The development of the intermolecular and intramolecular asymmetric Heck reactions catalysed by palladium complexes of chiral diphosphine ligands, mainly (R)–BINAP, is reviewed. Recent developments using chiral phosphinamine ligands, including some preliminary results on the application of new diphenylphosphinopyrrolidine ligands to the intermolecular asymmetric Heck, are presented. These ligands show good regioselectivities but moderate enantioselectivities when compared to the phosphinooxazoline ligands. The latter class has extended the range of substrates to which the asymmetric Heck can be applied and exhibit better reactivities, regioselectivities and enantioselectivities when compared to (R)–BINAP. The exploitation of the intramolecular asymmetric Heck reaction in total synthesis is demonstrated through asymmetric approaches to a range of bioactive natural products. Some of the more recent mechanistic investigations of the Heck reaction are also discussed. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Trust and Partial Typing in Open Systems of Mobile Agents

We present a partially typed semantics for Dπ, a distributed π-calculus. The semantics is designed for mobile agents in open distributed systems in which some sites may harbor malicious intentions. Nonetheless, the semantics guarantees traditional type-safety properties at good locations by using a mixture of static and dynamic type-checking. We show how the semantics can be extended to allow trust between sites, improving performance and expressiveness without compromising type safety.     

Multivariate analysis of attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic data to confirm the origin of honeys

Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and chemometrics were used to verify the origin of honey samples (n=150) from Europe and South America. Authentic honey samples were collected from five sources, namely unfiltered samples from Mexico in 2004, commercially filtered samples from Ireland and Argentina in 2004, commercially filtered samples from the Czech Republic in 2005 and 2006, and commercially filtered samples from Hungary in 2006. Samples were diluted with distilled water to a standard solids content (70 degrees Brix) and their spectra (2500-12 500 nm) recorded at room temperature using an FT-IR spectrometer equipped with a germanium attenuated total reflection (ATR) accessory. First- and second-derivative and standard normal variate (SNV) data pretreatments were applied to the recorded spectra, which were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) regression analysis, factorial discriminant analysis (FDA), and soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA). In general, when an attenuated wavelength range (6800-11 500 nm) rather than the whole spectrum (2500-12 500 nm) was studied, higher correct classification rates were achieved. An overall correct classification of 93.3% was obtained for honeys by PLS discriminant analysis, while FDA techniques correctly classified 94.7% of honey samples. Correct classifications of up to 100% were achieved using SIMCA, but models describing some classes had very high false positive rates.     

Lawrence A. (Larry) Kurdek (1951-2009).

This is an obituary on the life of developmental psychologist, Lawrence A. Kurdek. He was a leader in the study of child and adult relationships, died on June 11, 2009. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Saccharides of Developing Wheat Grain Determined by 13C-NMR Spectroscopy

Automated carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of saccharides from wheat serially harvested through one growing season showed variation of glucose, fructose, sucrose and maltose similar to previous analyses. In a diurnal series glucose and fructose concentrations fluctuated periodically but were relatively unaffected by light and dark. Qualitative ¹³C-NMR showed myo-inositol, glycerol, 1-kestose, 6-kestose, and glucofructans with glucose: fructose ratios up to 1:12. With increasing chain length there were increasing proportions of 6–2 over 1–2 linkages. Sugars previously reported but not found here included xylose, arabinose, mannose, galactose, raffinose, fructosyl raffinose, stachyose, melecitose and maltotriose.