Nanosized metal clusters: Challenges and opportunities

This article presents challenges and opportunities to control the microstructure in nanostructured coatings using ananocluster source. The cluster size distribution is monodisperse and the kinetic energy of the clusters during deposition can be varied. Interestingly, the clusters are grown in extreme non-equilibrium conditions leading to metastable structures of metals and alloys. Because one avoids the effects of nucleation and growth on a specific substrate, one may tailor the properties of the films by choosing the appropriate preparation conditions. For more information, contact Jeff Th.M. De Hosson, University of Groningen, Department of Applied Physics, Materials Science Center and Netherlands Institute for Metals Research, Nijenborgh 4,9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands; +31-503-63-4898; fax +31-503-63-4881; e-mail hossonj@phys.rug.nl.     

Psychological consultation and services in a general medical hospital.

When psychologists need to see patients who have been admitted to a general medical hospital or are asked to see a patient in a general medical hospital, they must be aware of, and in compliance with, the rules governing consultation, privileging, and privacy. Psychological treatment for patients is an important part of the treatment of patients with medical conditions that may be exacerbated by psychosocial stressors, preexisting anxiety, or depressive symptoms. The role of the psychologist is to have an integrated role with the medical team and work with the patient in effectively managing these symptoms. Models for promoting psychological services to all patients, especially those who are medically ill, have emerged as one of the few growth areas in psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Asymmetric Bipolar Pulsed DC

Summary The use of reactive DC sputtering of insulators from conductive targets has been limited due to the intrinsic problem of target poisoning and the consequent process instabilities. As technology pushes forward, the need to rapidly deposit high quality dielectric films is becoming increasingly important. Asymmetric bi-polar pulsed DC enables existing PVD tools to produce the high quality, low defect dielectric films needed for next generation processes. Typical films produced with asymmetric bipolar pulsed DC reactive sputtering from metallic targets include: Al₂O₃, AIN, SiO₂, SiN, Ta₂O₅, DLC, BST, TaN, TiN and ITO.     

News: Endocrine disruptor research planned by White House, agencies, industry

Science.     

Residential Kitchen Range Hoods – Buoyancy-Capture Principle and Capture Efficiency Revisited

Abstract A buoyancy-capture principle is firstly revisited as the most important fluid dynamics mechanism in kitchen range hoods. A recent new derivation of the capture efficiency of a kitchen range hood, which eliminates the inconsistencies and inadequacies of existing derivations, shows that the capture efficiency equals the ratio of capture flow rate to total plume flow rate in a confined space. The result is applied here, together with the buoyancy-capture principle, to derive a simple formula for determining capture efficiency. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program is adapted to study the capture efficiency of range hoods in a residential kitchen and the predicted results are used to evaluate the accuracy of the simple formula. It is shown that the simple capture efficiency model performs reasonably well for the range hoods considered in this paper.     

用于机顶盒的高性能模拟开关

引言 随着机顶盒的设计加入更多新兴功能,如作为录象程序的硬盘、紧凑型闪存接口和视频点播(VOD),模拟开关在这类应用中继续得以广泛采用.选用正确的开关,设计人员不仅能缩短产品面市时间来改善设计,还可以解决重要的设计难题如维持信号完整性.在某些设计中,适当的开关还有助于减少材料清单(BOM)的成本.本文将探讨模拟开关在不同类型机顶盒应用中的作用,并阐述如何利用正确的开关来降低设计复杂性及元件成本.     

On the robustness, bias, and stability of statistics from meta-analysis of correlation coefficients: Some initial Monte Carlo findings.

Each of several Monte Carlo simulations generated 100 sets of observed study correlations based on normal, heteroscedastic, or slightly nonlinear bivariate distributions, with one population correlation coefficient and true variance of 0. A version of J. E. Hunter and F. L. Schmidt's (1990b) meta-analysis was applied to each study set. Within simulations, ρ? was accurate on average. σ?2ρ was biased; one would correctly conclude more than half the time that no moderator effects existed. However, cases of variation in ρ? and especially in σ?2ρ indicated that results from individual meta-analyses could deviate substantially from what was found on average. Findings for these no-moderator cases offer applied psychologists some guidelines and cautions when drawing conclusions about true population correlations and true moderator effects (e.g., situational specificity, validity generalization) from meta-analytic results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Societal-psychological constructionism: Societies, selves, traditions, and fusions.

Frequently cited problems of dualism, as it pertains to the relation of psychological mind to sociocultural world, arise from assumptions of fixed societal and psychological ontologies. If, instead, societal and psychological ontologies are understood to be both emergent and mutable, as a consequence of their dynamic relation, many of the metaphysical and epistemological difficulties encountered by classic psychological-sociocultural dualism are avoided. To this end, an ontological and epistemological position, called societal-psychological constructionism, is presented. The merits of this position relative to postmodern textualist and social constructionist alternatives to classic psychological-sociocultural dualism are discussed. The major advantages of societal-psychological constructionism stem from its metaphysical claim that the psychological derives largely from the sociocultural, but is not reducible to the sociocultural, and in the epistemological implications of this claim. These advantages are particularly significant when contrasted with postmodern textualist and social constructionist accounts that mistakenly conflate the origins of psychological phenomena with psychological experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Output feedback control for systems with constraints and saturations: scalar control case

We consider the problem of regulating the state of a linear system within a prescribed region of the state-space in the presence of disturbances and control saturations. While prior work has focused on full state-feedback, we consider the case of noisy output feedback. For the scalar control case, we combine existing work on full state-feedback and set-valued observers to derive a computational procedure which determines a priori whether the desired constrained regulation is possible. Furthermore, we show that constrained regulation can always be achieved by a set-valued observer followed by static feedback.     

News: Industry group study hits environmental incentive programs

Society.