Does whom you work with matter? Effects of referent group gender and age composition on managers' compensation.

Much research has examined gender and age effects on compensation, concluding that a wage gap exists favoring men and negative stereotypes against older workers persist. Although the effect of an employee's gender or age has been widely studied, little work has examined the impact of the demographic characteristics of a focal employee's immediate referent groups (e.g., subordinates, peers, or supervisors) on pay. The effect of the gender and age composition of a focal manager's subordinates, peers, and supervisor on the manager's compensation levels was investigated in a sample of 2,178 managers across a wide range of organizations and functional areas. After controlling for a number of human capital variables, results indicated that not only does a wage gap favoring men exist, but also managerial pay is lower when managers' referent groups are largely female, when subordinates are outside the prime age group, and when peers and supervisors are younger. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Category Norms as a Function of Culture and Age: Comparisons of Item Responses to 105 Categories by American and Chinese Adults.

Understanding how aging influences cognition across different cultures has been hindered by a lack of standardized, cross-referenced verbal stimuli. This study introduces a database of such item-level stimuli for both younger and older adults, in China and the United States, and makes 3 distinct contributions. First, the authors specify which item categories generalize across age and/or cultural groups, rigorously quantifying differences among them. Second, they introduce novel, powerful methods to measure between-group differences in freely generated ranked data, the rank-ordered logit model and Hellinger Affinity. Finally, a broad archive of tested, cross-linguistic stimuli is now freely available to researchers: data, similarity measures, and all stimulus materials for 105 categories and 4 culture-by-age groups, comprising over 10,000 fully translated unique item responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pyrolysis-field ionization mass spectrometry of modified bagasse fractions

The fractions obtained from bagasse after activation with 17.5% NaOH, alternative alkylation with quarternary ammonium groups and extraction with 80% ethanol, water and 5% NaOH, were analyzed using pyrolysis-field ionization mass spectrometry (Py-FIMS). The proposed degradation products from lignin were mostly symmetric fragments containing two aromatic rings while the compounds formed from polysaccharides were the result of dehydration reactions. From the temperature-resolved Py-FIMS it could be seen that ethanol-lignin starts to degrade at temperatures lower than 180°C before the degradation of the hemicellulose fraction. The lignin markers are eliminated from hemicellulose fractions before the polysaccharide gasification starts. The quarternary ammonium groups are cleaved from the fractions at temperatures lower than 200°C.     

Structure and Ordination of Epiphytic Invertebrate Communities of Four Coastal Wetlands in Green Bay,Lake Michigan

Epiphytic macroinvertebrate communities of four coastal wetlands of Green Bay, Lake Michigan were compared by taxonomic composition, feeding group composition, and environmental influences using Bray-Curtis ordination. Ordination scores from the most sheltered oligotrophic site, Portage Marsh, were distinct from the eutrophic, exposed sites located in middle and lower Green Bay— Seagull Bar, Little Tail Point, and Dead Horse Bay. Epiphyton chlorophyll a, phytoplankton chlorophyll a, and specific conductance strongly correlated to the ordination axes, indicating the trophic gradient within Green Bay was a primary environmental influence. The feeding group compositions at the sites were consistent with the type and abundance of food available. Portage Marsh is a scraper-shredder system, with macroinvertebrates feeding mainly on epiphyton and coarse particulate detritus. Dead Horse Bay and Little Tail Point are collector systems, sustained by phytoplankton and fine particulate organic matter. Seagull Bar is intermediate in trophic position along the ordination axes, but more closely resemble the latter two sites. The type and abundance of food resources available to these invertebrate communities are influenced by wave exposure, light attenuation, nutrient levels, and algae levels of the littoral and pelagial waters. Macroinvertebrate communities were sensitive to shifts in food resources, which generated shifts in trophic structure.     

The complexity of some reachability problems for a system on a finite group

We consider a system defined as the product of a finite set of periodic systems on cyclic groups. It is of interest to determine if certain subgroups and unions of subgroups of the state set are reachable from a specified initial state, and in particular to determine the computational complexity of verifying such reachability. These questions are motivated by certain problems that arise in the modelling and control of discrete event systems and certain forms of periodic scheduling. Our main result is that deciding whether or not the union of a certain set of subgroups is reachable or not is NP-complete.     

Rotational Restraint of Pile Caps during Lateral Loading

A pure fixed-head (zero-rotation) condition at the top of a group of laterally loaded piles is seldom achievable in the field, even when piles are installed in a group that is “rigidly” constrained by a stiff concrete pile cap. Assuming complete fixity during design (zero rotation at the pile head) can result in underestimated values of pile-head deflection, and incorrect estimates of the magnitude and the location of maximum bending moments. A simple and practical approach is presented for estimating the moment restraint that is provided by the pile cap at the top of a pile group. The moment restraint, represented by the rotational restraint coefficient (KMθ), serves as a boundary condition for analyzing groups of laterally loaded piles. Full-scale field tests performed on two pile groups with concrete pile caps show that the proposed method for estimating rotational restraint provides results that are in good agreement with measured field performance.     

Nitrogen plasma modification of viscose-based activated carbon fibers

Viscose-based activated carbon fibers (VACFs) were treated by a dielectric-barrier discharge plasma at different conditions. Nitrogen was used as the feed gas to create nitrogen radicals. The textural characteristics were analyzed by SEM, BET and XRD. The surface chemical functional groups were analyzed by XPS. The results show that after nitrogen plasma modification (NPM), the external surface of the VACFs was etched and became rougher, the surface area and pore volume decreased, the average micropore width barely changed, the PSD of the VACF became narrower and the graphitic crystallites of VACF had been destroyed slightly. XPS revealed that NPM could remarkably change the distribution of the oxygen functional groups on the VACFs surface and there were more nitrogen atoms incorporated into the aromatic ring. A tentative explanation for the modification process is proposed.     

Enzymatic modification of selected functional properties of myofibril preparation obtained from mechanically recovered poultry meat

The effect of addition of 3 g/L of commercially available transglutaminase preparation to protein extracts obtained from mechanically recovered poultry meat was studied. The content of free thiol groups (–SH), thermal drip and gel texture were determined. After pre-incubation at 7–8 °C for 1, 3, 5 and 24 h, the samples were subjected to one-step heating at 50, 60, 70 and 80 °C and two-step heating at 50/80, 55/80 and 60/80 °C. The addition of preparation and the extension of pre-incubation time led to decrease of free -SH groups content. After heating, the number of thiol groups decreased, the texture was improved, but thermal drip from gels increased. The amount of –SH groups in gel extracts subjected to one-step heating decreased with simultaneous increase of mechanical strength of gels. Protein gels subjected to two-step heating exhibited higher firmness than gels subjected to one-step heating. Thus, the 3 g/L addition of transglutaminase preparation in combination with one-step thermal processing at 70 °C and pre-incubation for 3 h contributed to improvement of texture properties of model gels and low thermal drip.     

S－148芳醇不饱和聚酯树脂耐腐蚀机理研究

合成了Ｓ－１４８芳醇不饱和聚酯树脂，研究了Ｓ－１４８树脂浇铸体和玻璃钢于不同温度下在不同介质中的耐酸、碱、盐腐蚀性能，并探讨了其耐腐蚀机理。结果表明，Ｓ－１４８树脂具有优异的耐腐蚀性能，可用作耐腐蚀制品的基体树脂。