Unintentionally Biasing the Data: Reply to Knobe.

Knobe (2003) wants to help adjudicate the philosophical debate concerning whether and under what conditions we normally judge that some side effect was brought about intentionally. His proposal for doing so is perhaps an obvious one--simply elicit the intuitions of "The Folk" directly on the matter and record the results. Knobe concludes that people's judgment that a side effect was brought about intentionally apparently rests, at least in part, upon how blameworthy they find the agent responsible for it. Knobe's appreciably straightforward approach to this question does not settle the matter, however. Simply raising that question can itself affect our evaluation of the side effect in question as either something good or something bad. As a result, Knobe's experiments effectively bias subjects' responses toward judging the given side effects more negatively than they might have otherwise. Subjects failed to assign a high level of praise for good side effects because taking into account whether they were brought about intentionally or unintentionally makes them suspect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is She “Man Enough”? Women Candidates,Executive Political Offices,and News Coverage

This study analyzes news coverage of 4 female political candidates—Elizabeth Dole, Claire McCaskill, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin—and their male competitors, as each competed in 2 elections between 1999 and 2008. Analysis focused on novelty labeling, and “feminine” and “masculine” political issues and character traits to determine whether the coverage of women and men differed in general, and across the offices of Senator, Governor, Vice President, or President. Overall, women received more news coverage, and the gendered gap in coverage was especially large for novelty, issue, and trait coverage when women sought the “executive” offices of Governor and in the White House. These findings provide insight into the evolving gender dynamics of women running within the masculinized domain of politics.     

A Functionally Graded Carbide in the Ta–C System

Hard materials used in such abrasive wear applications as cutting tools and wear inserts in drilling tools require high hardness to resist wear, high fracture toughness to withstand mechanical and thermal shock, and high chemical and thermal stability. Such a combination of properties is difficult to achieve in single‐phase materials. Functional grading is an approach that overcomes this limitation by designing and processing a graded microstructure that provides high hardness and chemical resistance at the surface with a tough interior or bulk. While functional grading is a widely used practice in the cemented carbides industry, it has not been demonstrated with “pure” carbides. This article reports the feasibility of designing and processing a graded carbide in the Ta–C binary system. It is shown that a simple carburization treatment of the high‐toughness carbide, ζ‐Ta₄C_3?x, can lead to the formation of the hard carbide phase, γ‐TaC_y, on the surface. The thickness, microstructure (grain size), and composition (C/Ta atomic ratio, y) of the γ‐TaC_y layer can be optimized to obtain both high hardness and high strength for the graded material.     

Iron-Based Nanoparticles for Toxic Organic Degradation: Silica Platform and Green Synthesis

Iron and iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs) are finding wide applications for the remediation of various toxic chloro-organic compounds (such as trichloroethylene, TCE), via reductive and oxidative processes. In this study, Fe NPs (30-50 nm) are synthesized by reduction from ferric ions immobilized (by ion exchange) on a platform (two types of sulfonated silica particles), in order to prevent the NP agglomeration. Next, the Fe NPs are oxidized and their effectiveness for the oxidative dechlorination of TCE via the heterogeneous decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to OH? on the surface of the iron oxide NPs was demonstrated. For the reductive approach, the use of ascorbic acid as a "green" reducing agent in conjunction with a secondary metal (Pd) inhibits NP oxidation and agglomeration through surface adsorbed species. The Fe/Pd NPs have been successfully applied for the dechlorination of TCE (k(SA), surface-area normalized reaction rate, = 8.1 ×10(-4) L/m(2)h).     

Health-Related Stress, Affect, and Depressive Symptoms Experienced by Caregiving Mothers of Adults With a Developmental Disability.

The interrelationships among health-related stress, positive and negative affect, and depressive symptoms patterned in the dynamic model of affect (J. Reich, A. Zautra, & M. Davis, 2003) were examined using data from 932 women having an adult child with a developmental disability. Results indicate that women experience a moderate inverse correlation between positive and negative affect under conditions of low levels of health-related stress, whereas at high levels of stress, positive and negative affect become more strongly inversely correlated. Under high-stress conditions, both negative affect and positive affect have a stronger relationship to depressive symptoms than they do under low-stress conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Art, wellness, and innovation: Heads up Kentucky! Puts psychology's contribution to healthy living in the public eye.

The Kentucky Psychological Association (KPA) Foundation is an organization that 2 years ago had little name recognition in its community or the state. In the past year, the KPA Foundation has contributed a major public art project to the city in which it resides, enhanced its financial assets, introduced educational material on the mind-body connection to public forums across the community, been the subject of feature articles in some of the community's major publications, taken health promotion curriculum to public elementary schools, and achieved national recognition for its public education campaign. This article describes the successful "Heads Up Kentucky!" campaign and the mobilization of the membership in the state's psychological association to make the fruits of psychological science accessible to members of the public. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

热插拔控制器实现双极性处理

有些应用场合需要使用一个热插拔控制器、一个断路器或者两者都要使用,以适应双极性直流输入电源干线.在某些使用热插拔控制器的情况下,这种要求仅仅出于对起动电流的考虑.要消除连接器的应力和电源干线的干扰,就必须控制起动电流.另外一些应用场合在某一电源因某种原因发生故障时就会出现问题.     

Fracture testing and toughening of epoxy resins

The tapered cantilever cleavage and the single-edge-notch tension fracture toughness tests have been shown to give similar results for several cured epoxy resin systems. Methods for the calculation of fracture energy and critical stress intensity factors are described and discussed. These tests have been used to study the influence of rubber modifiers (“Hycar” CTBN and “Blendex” 311) on the toughness of a conventional epoxy resin (“Epikote” 828) reacted with anhydride curing agents. The modifiers used increase fracture energies and stress intensity factors by factors of approximately 5 and 2 respectively.