Retrospective Versus Prospective Statements and Outcome of Presidential Elections

This study investigates retrospective and prospective voting from a communication perspective, looking to see whether there is relationship between election outcome and the relative emphasis U.S. presidential candidates place on retrospective (past) versus prospective (future) utterances in campaign messages. The sample includes a variety of presidential campaign messages (acceptance addresses, primary and general television spots, debates, direct mail advertising) from several campaigns (1948–2004) by numerous candidates. In the primary phase of the campaign, there is no difference between winners and losers in relative emphasis on retrospective and prospective statements. However, in the general phase of the presidential campaign, winners use a significantly larger proportion of retrospective (and a smaller proportion of prospective) utterances than losers. Furthermore, the relationship between emphasis on retrospective utterances and election outcome was larger for incumbents than challengers (but significant for both types of candidates). These findings support retrospective voting in the general, but not the primary, campaign.     

Component-Based is Architecture

Advances in distributed architectures and the Internet have had a strong influence on the use of component technologies. The authors discuss the organizational and technical requirements for an effective and economically viable component-based approach.     

Evaluation of criteria for selecting temperature control trays in distillation columns

The use of tray temperatures to infer compositions is widespread in distillation control. A number of criteria have been proposed for selecting which trays to hold at constant temperature. The most commonly used are (1) choosing a tray where there are large changes in temperature from tray to tray (“slope” of the temperature profile), (2) finding the tray where there is the largest change in temperature for a change in the manipulated variable (“sensitivity”), (3) using singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis, (4) selecting the tray where the temperature does not change as feed composition changes while producing the desired distillate and bottoms purities and (5) choosing the tray that produces the smallest changes in product purities when it is held constant in the face of feed composition disturbances.This paper provides a quantitative comparison of the effectiveness of these five alternative criteria. Several systems are considered, ranging from ideal binary to azeotropic multi-component. Results show that SVD analysis provides a simple and effective method for selecting temperature control tray location.     

Promise is Debt, Threat Another Matter: The Effect of Credibility on the Interpretation of Conditional Promises and Threats.

Evidence from reasoning tasks shows that promises and threats both tend to receive biconditional interpretations. They also both display high speaker control. On the face of it, the only difference seems to be the positive or negative signing of the consequent. In a promise, the speaker tries to persuade the hearer to do something by holding out the prospect of a particular reward; in a threat, the speaker tries to refrain the hearer from doing something by holding out the prospect of a particular punishment. This paper investigates the respects in which conditional promises and threats differ further by means of an inference task. The credibility of the consequent was manipulated in order to examine whether the acceptability ratings of inferences based on promises and on threats would be equally affected. The results of the inference task and an analysis of the reasons people give for their answers suggest that the credibility of promises is less affected by the use of excessive consequents than the credibility of threats. In other words, promise remains debt, whereas threat is another matter. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fluid Oscillation in the drop tower

An interfluid meniscus oscillates within a cylindrical container when suddenly released from earth's gravity and taken into a microgravity environment. Oscillations damp out from energy dissipative mechanisms such as viscosity and interfacial friction. Damping out of the oscillations by the latter mechanism is affected by the nature of the interfacial junction between the fluid-fluid interface and the container wall. Perfluoromethylcyclohexane and isopropanol in glass were the materials used for the experiment. The wetting condition of the fluids against the wall changes at the critical wetting transition temperature. This change in wetting causes a change in the damping characteristics. This paper is based on a presentation made in the symposium “Experimental Methods for Microgravity Materials Science Research” presented at the 1988 TMS-AIME Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, January 25–29, 1988, under the auspices of the ASM/MSD Thermodynamic Data Committee and the Material Processing Committee.     

Energy dissipation via radiative recombination and vibronic relaxation in σ-delocalized silicon backbone network polymers

The nature of ultrafast energy dissipation in poly(n-hexylsilyne), a prototypical σ-delocalized alkysilicon network polymer, is explored. This disordered silicon backbone material exhibits strong near-UV to visible band-edge absorption and a high quantum yield of visible emission. The time evolution of the emission band is studied over four decades of time using time-resolved luminescence as a probe. The data indicate that while there is an ‘intrinsic’ Stokes shift after photoexcitation due to kinetic energy relaxation (<10ps), thermalization within a dense band of vibronic states via intramolecular phonon-assisted hopping on a nanosecond timescale is the dominant mechanism for excited-state decay. The data can be understood in terms of theoretical predictions for energy relaxation in disordered materials.     

Regression analyses of counts and rates: Poisson, overdispersed Poisson, and negative binomial models.

The regression models appropriate for counted data have seen little use in psychology. This article describes problems that occur when ordinary linear regression is used to analyze count data and presents 3 alternative regression models. The simplest, the Poisson regression model, is likely to be misleading unless restrictive assumptions are met because individual counts are usually more variable ("overdispersed") than is implied by the model. This model can be modified in 2 ways to accommodate this problem. In the overdispersed model, a factor can be estimated that corrects the regression model's inferential statistics. In the second alternative, the negative binomial regression model, a random term reflecting unexplained between-subject differences is included in the regression model. The authors compare the advantages of these approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The therapeutic relationship as the foundation for treatment with adult survivors of sexual abuse.

Survivors of sexual abuse enter psychotherapy with special needs that challenge some of the traditional therapeutic assumptions. The therapeutic relationship, which is the foundation for treatment with abuse survivors, often must shift in nature and quality to address these needs. The main goal of treatment is the integration of self and affective experience. To facilitate this process the authors discuss the establishment and maintenance of an "affective edge" that allows for direct attention to and intervention with the trauma memories and the accompanying affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Investigation of functional working memory in the reading span test.

Two issues were investigated in 2 experiments: (1) the validity of a reading span test that combined a knowledge verification task with a secondary task of word memorization and (2) the hypothesis that word recall reflects the amount of working memory that is functional in reading. In Exp 1, the validity and reliability of the reading span measure were determined. In Exp 2, it was reasoned that if word recall reflected functional working memory in reading, then 2 results should be observed. The 1st predicted result was that prior exposure to sentences used in the reading span test would release working memory resources and improve word recall. The 2nd was that word recall, though correlated with general working memory and verbal knowledge measures, would add to these scores in predicting comprehension. Both sets of results were obtained, supporting the hypothesis that the reading span test measures functional working memory in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)