2 cm long monolithic multisection laser for active modelocking at 2.2 GHz

A 2 cm long three-contact multisection laser has been fabricated for modelocking at very low repetition rates. Active modelocking yields 8.0-12.3 ps pulses at 2.2, 4.3 and 6.5 GHz corresponding to the fundamental, first, and second harmonics of the cavity resonance frequency. This device demonstrates the feasibility of fabricating monolithic pulse sources operating at rates as low as the OC-48 Sonet transmission rate (2.488 Gbit/s).<>     

Professional integrity in clinical research

In response to public concern over abuses in human medical experimentation, the dominant approach to the ethics of clinical research during the past 30 years has been regulation, particularly via institutional review board review and approval of scientific protocols and written consent forms. However, the effectiveness of regulatory mechanisms in ensuring the ethical conduct of clinical research is limited. Little attention has been devoted to the nature and role of professional integrity of physician investigators, a conscientious framework for guiding investigators in the socially important but morally complex activity of clinical research. Professional integrity is vital in forging an ethically sound relationship between investigators and patient volunteers, a relationship that differs in important ways from the patient-physician relationship in standard clinical practice. We examine critically 2 models of the moral identity of physician investigators, the investigator as clinician and the investigator as scientist; in neither of these 2 models can the physician investigator eliminate completely the moral conflicts posed by clinical research. The professional integrity of physician investigators depends on a coherent moral identity that is proper to the enterprise of clinical research. The roles of clinician and scientist must be integrated to manage conscientiously the ethical complexity, ambiguity, and tensions between the potentially competing loyalties of science and care of volunteer patients.     

Renewable energy in competitive electricity markets

A restructured electricity system may undervalue renewable energy. We remain wary of unregulated markets, but urge the renewable energy community to begin considering how they could adapt to increasing customer choice.     

Temperature and modulation characteristics of resonant-cavitylight-emitting diodes

Resonant-cavity light-emitting diodes (RCLED) are novel, high-efficiency light-emitting diodes which employ optical microcavities. These diodes have higher intensities and higher spectral purity as compared to conventional LEDs. Analytical formulas are derived for the enhancement of the spontaneous emission along the optical axis of the cavity. The design rules for high-efficiency operation of RCLEDs are established. The temperature dependence of the emission intensity is analyzed in the range 20-80° and it is described by an exponential dependence with a characteristic temperature of 112 K. The modulation characteristics of RCLEDs exhibit 3 dB frequencies of 580 MHz. Eye diagrams at transmission rates of 622 Mb/s are wide open indicating the suitability of RCLEDs for high-speed data transmission     

A 16-Kbit Θ-search associative memory

The design of a high-capacity Θ-search associative memory (Θ∈{<,>,⩽,⩾,=≠}) is presented. PSPICE simulation and layouts show that the proposed Θ-search associative memory chip consisting of 256 words, each 64-b long, can fit on a 13.5-mm×9.5-mm chip. It can perform maskable Θ-search operations over its contents in 110 ns     

Psychopharmacotherapy for addictive and comorbid disorders: current studies

Proper diagnosis of comorbid disorders is crucial in treatment planning for the dually diagnosed. Since psychoactive substance use can obfuscate the diagnosis, special care must be taken to exclude organically based syndromes. Adequate periods of abstinence should first be achieved and subsequently the patient re-examined for residual symptoms compatible with a nonaddictive, nonsubstance-induced psychiatric disorder. The integration of concurrent treatment of both the mental and the addictive disorders appears to be the best approach for treatment of comorbid psychiatric and addictive disorders. An abstinence-based model that typically utilizes a 12-step group therapy is often employed for the addictive illnesses. Other forms of psychosocial therapies such as case managers are being used as well. Presently, physicians' prescribing practices for comorbid addicted patients are based on traditional approaches to use of medications in psychiatric patients, and their attitudes towards addictive disorders may play a significant role in determining the overall success of treatment.     

A Maximum Entropy Approach for Collaborative Filtering

Collaborative filtering (CF) involves predicting the preferences of a user for a set of items given partial knowledge of the user's preferences for other items, while leveraging a database of profiles for other users. CF has applications e.g. in predicting Web sites a person will visit and in recommending products. Fundamentally, CF is a pattern recognition task, but a formidable one, often involving a huge feature space, a large data set, and many missing features. Even more daunting is the fact that a CF inference engine must be capable of predicting any (user-selected) items, given any available set of partial knowledge on the user's other preferences. In other words, the model must be designed to solve any of a huge (combinatoric) set of possible inference tasks. CF techniques include memory-based, classification-based, and statistical modelling approaches. Among these, modelling approaches scale best with large data sets and are the most adept at handling missing features. The disadvantage of these methods lies in the statistical assumptions (e.g. feature independence), which may be unjustified. To address this shortcoming we propose a new model-based CF method, based on the maximum entropy principle. For the MS Web application, the new method is demonstrated to outperform a number of CF approaches, including naive Bayes and latent variable (cluster) models, support vector machines (SVMs), and the (Pearson) correlation method.     

The distribution of palladium in a Pd-modified 4130 steel

The addition of palladium to a 4130 steel reduces its sensitivity to stress corrosion cracking and to hydrogen-induced cracking. The atom probe field-ion microscope has been used to study the microstructure and microchemistry of these palladium-modified 4130 steels with particular emphasis on the distribution of palladium between the various phases and internal interfaces. The palladium was found to segregate to the ferrite-ferrite lath boundaries to form a mono-atomically thick adsorbate layer. Palladium-manganese precipitates both at the lath boundaries and in the ferrite matrix were also detected. Most of the palladium was found to remain in solution in the ferrite.     

Growth and characterization of GaAs films deposited on Ge/Si composite substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition

We report the results of studies which have been made on heteroepitaxial layers of GaAs and AlGaAs grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition on composite substrates that consist of four different types of heteroepitaxial layered structures of Ge and Ge-Si grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (100)-oriented Si substrates. It is found that of the four structures studied, the preferred composite substrate is a single layer of Ge ∼1 μm thick grown directly on a Si buffer layer. The double-crystal X-ray rocking curves of 2 μm thick GaAs films grown on such substrates have FWHM values as small as 168 arc sec. Transmission electron micrographs of these Ge/Si composite substrates has shown that the number of dislocations in the Ge heteroepitaxial layer can be greatly reduced by an anneal at about 750° C for 30 min which is simultaneously carried out during the growth of the GaAs layer. The quality of the GaAs layers grown on these composite substrates can be greatly improved by the use of a five-period GaAs-GaAsP strained-layer superlattice (SLS). Using the results of these studies, low-threshold optically pumped AlGaAs-GaAs DH laser structures have been grown by MOCVD on MBE Ge/Si composite substrates.     

Confidentiality in psychotherapy: History, issues, and research.

Discusses ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association regarding confidentiality in psychotherapy. Possible inconsistencies between these guidelines and privileged communication are explored. It is asserted that additional research is needed to determine the implications for psychotherapy of the ethical limitations to confidentiality and the legal restrictions on privileged communication. The relevance of moral philosophy to issues of confidentiality is considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)