Evaluative conditioning may incur attentional costs.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to changes in the liking of an affectively neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, or CS) after pairing this stimulus with an affect-laden stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, or US). Several authors proposed that EC incurs little or no attentional cost. Using a rigorous design, we provide evidence that a reduction in attentional resources may have a negative impact on EC. Additional analyses also revealed that participants correctly encoded fewer CS–US pairings when their attentional resources were depleted. Replicating Pleyers, Corneille, Luminet, and Yzerbyt’s (2007) findings, EC was also obtained only for CSs that could be correctly linked to their associated US in the context of an identification task. This research clarifies the role of higher order processes in EC and has significant practical implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Diffusion-Reaction in the Au-Rich Ternary Au-Pt-Sn System as a Basis for Ternary Diffusion Soldering

Basic thermodynamic considerations indicate nonequilibrium between gold-tin intermetallic phases and platinum. Therefore, diffusion and reactions in the Au-Pt-Sn(-Ti) thin-film system have been investigated, and a mechanism of reaction is proposed based on experimental results and thermodynamic considerations. The present paper may also help researchers understand previous results that could be interpreted differently based on the new results of this work and basic thermodynamic considerations. A ternary diffusion soldering concept has been proposed, and its application on up to 4-inch wafer-scale bonding was successful. Generalizations of the present approach to other bonding systems appears promising.     

Benchmarking scientific output in the social sciences and humanities: The limits of existing databases

Summary The goal of this paper is to examine the impact of linguistic coverage of databases used by bibliometricians on the capacity to effectively benchmark the work of researchers in social sciences and humanities. We examine the strong link between bibliometrics and the Thomson Scientific's database and review the differences in the production and diffusion of knowledge in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) and the natural sciences and engineering (NSE). This leads to a re-examination of the debate on the coverage of these databases, more specifically in the SSH. The methods section explains how we have compared the coverage of Thomson Scientific databases in the NSE and SSH to the Ulrich extensive database of journals. Our results show that there is a 20 to 25% overrepresentation of English-language journals in Thomson Scientific's databases compared to the list of journals presented in Ulrich. This paper concludes that because of this bias, Thomson Scientific databases cannot be used in isolation to benchmark the output of countries in the SSH.     

Effects of task instructions and brief breaks on brainstorming.

Experiment 1 examined the effects of additional brainstorming rules for groups and looked at whether the presence of a facilitator who actively enforced the rules of brainstorming was beneficial. Experiments 2 and 3 examined whether the additional rules and brief breaks were beneficial to individual brainwriters and electronic brainstormers working alone. Clear benefits of the additional rules were found under a variety of conditions. The presence of a facilitator to enforce the rules enhanced the efficiency of idea generation (number of words used to express ideas) but not the number of ideas generated. There appears to be a small benefit to taking breaks in brainwriting sessions, but the benefit of breaks is reduced or eliminated in electronic brainstorming sessions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between the fracture toughness and grain boundary characteristics in hot-dip galvanized zinc coatings

This publication presents an experimental study on the relation between the grain boundary (GB) characteristics and the intergranular cracking resistance in a hot dip zinc coating. The cracking was studied using in situ tensile tests in a scanning electron microscope on small tensile samples of a hot dip galvanized steel sheet. In situ testing offered a series of advantages like monitoring the kinematical evolution of cracking without unloading, or making micrographs and OIM imaging on the same area of the tensile sample. The grain boundaries were classified into random and special boundaries (respectively Low angle boundaries and Coincidence site lattice—CSL boundaries). These special boundaries which account for 3.5% of the whole boundaries clearly show better cracking resistance than the random boundaries. The only special boundaries which present cracking failure are in an orientation with their normal direction close to the tensile direction, i.e. submitted to a maximum effective stress. The grain boundaries characteristics are obtained from EBSD individual orientation measurements.     

Implicit category learning performance predicts rate of cognitive decline in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease.

Nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are impaired in learning to categorize simple perceptual stimuli when category membership is defined by a nonlinear relationship between stimulus dimensions but not when the relationship is linear (J. V. Filoteo, W. T. Maddox, D. P. Salmon, & D. D. Song, 2005). In the present study, the authors examined whether performance in either of these 2 category learning conditions was predictive of global cognitive decline following a mean of 1.6 years since the time patients were 1st seen. Results indicated that final block accuracy in the nonlinear condition, but not the linear condition, predicted global cognitive decline. Performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) did not significantly predict global cognitive decline, although there was a trend for this to be the case. In addition, the association between nonlinear category learning and global cognitive decline was not impacted by patients' performance on the WCST. Results suggest that nonlinear category learning predicts cognitive decline in nondemented patients with PD and that nonlinear category learning and WCST performances may provide independent measures of integrity of the posterior and anterior caudate, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Progress on PWR lower head failure predictive models

A good understanding of the mechanical behaviour of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) lower head is necessary both for severe accident assessment and for the definition of appropriate accident mitigation strategies. Indeed, a well-characterized failure of the lower head leads to a better evaluation of the quantity and kinetics with which core material can escape into the containment. These are the initial conditions for several ex-vessel events such as direct heating of the containment or molten core-concrete interaction.In this context, the objectives of the joint on-going work of the WP10-2 group of SARNET are: (1) improvement of predictability of the time, mode and location of RPV failure; (2) development of adequate models with the ultimate aim of being included into integral codes; (3) interpretation/analysis of experiments with models/codes combined with sensitivity studies; and (4) better understanding of the breach opening process in order to better characterize the corium release into the containment.Different approaches are considered: a simplified but well predicting model recently implemented in the severe accident Astec and Icare-Cathare codes, and viscoplasticity models implemented in the Cast3m, Ansys and Code_Aster finite element codes. Several failure criteria are considered: stress criterion, strain criterion and damage evaluation (coupled way or post-evaluation).In this paper, the OLHF-1 experiment has been used to assess the models, to perform sensitivity studies and to evaluate failure criteria that could be applied in the case of reactors. All the partners performed 2D axisymmetric analyses, allowing the evaluation of time, mode and location of vessel failure. Nevertheless, CEA conducted further 3D calculations in order to study crack propagation and the corresponding results will be presented separately at the end of the paper. The numerical formulation of the different models used is given and a comparison of experimental and numerical results is presented. The paper also shows the progress made with the objective of defining failure criteria that can be used for reactor vessel applications.     

WComp middleware for ubiquitous computing: Aspects and composite event-based Web services

After a survey of the specific features of ubiquitous computing applications and corresponding middleware requirements, we list the various paradigms used in the main middlewares for ubiquitous computing in the literature. We underline the lack of works introducing the use of the concept of Aspects in middleware dedicated to ubiquitous computing, in spite of them being used for middleware improvement in other domains. Then, we introduce our WComp middleware model, which federates three main paradigms: event-based Web services, a lightweight component-based approach to design dynamic composite services, and an adaptation approach using the original concept called Aspect of Assembly. These paradigms lead to two ways to dynamically design ubiquitous computing applications. The first implements a classical component-based compositional approach to design higher-level composite Web Services and then allow to increment the graph of cooperating services for the applications. This approach is well suited to design the applications in a known, common, and usual context. The second way uses a compositional approach for adaptation using Aspect of Assembly, particularly well-suited to tune a set of composite services in reaction to a particular variation of the context or changing preferences of the users. Having detailed Aspect of Assembly concept, we finally comment on results indicating the expressiveness and the performance of such an approach, showing empirically that principles of aspects and program integration can be used to facilitate the design of adaptive applications.     

Optimization of dry etch process conditions for HgCdTe detector arrays

A key technology required for fabricating single and multi-band mesa photodiodes with pixel sizes less than or equal to 25 μm is the development of an anisotropic etch process for HgCdTe. The primary approach investigated for this purpose has been electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) dry etching. This paper reviews an experiment used to optimize the ECR etch process at Lockheed Martin IR Imaging Systems, Inc. and then the use of the process to produce state-of-the-art LW photodiodes. In this work, a Ar:H plasma was used in a Plasma Therm series 700 ECR plasma etcher. Reactor variables were optimized by a designed experiment against the following response parameters: anisotropy, etch uniformity and “damage,” as measured by the photodiode zero bias and reverses bias impedance characteristics. The critical process variables of Ar:H gas pressure, lower magnet current, and electrode height were all optimized. The optimized process parameters were then utilized to fabricate arrays with 80K cut-off wavelengths in excess of 11 μm, R₀As of 29 Ω-cm², Rd_20mV/Rd_0mV>13 and quantum efficiency>71%.     

Remote plasma nitridation, deuterium anneal and pocket implant effects on NMOS hot carrier reliability

There are several advanced processes which are being actively studied as candidates for sub-0.25 μm technology. This paper studies the effects on NMOS hot carrier reliability from remote plasma nitrided oxide (RPNO), deuterium anneal and pocket implant. It is found that RPNO will not affect the SiO₂/Si interface. The hot carrier reliability is better for the same device channel current. This is due to making the effective oxide thickness thinner and achieving the same drive current with longer channel length. The deuterium anneal can improve the hot carrier reliability, even with nitride sidewall, if proper annealing is done. While the pocket implant can reduce short channel effects, the hot carrier lifetime is degraded unless optimization is done.