Personality trait development from age 12 to age 18: Longitudinal, cross-sectional and cross-cultural analyses.

Three studies were conducted to assess mean level changes in personality traits during adolescence. Versions of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (P. T. Costa, Jr., & R. R. McCrae, 1992a) were used to assess the 5 major personality factors. A 4-year longitudinal study of intellectually gifted students (N = 230) was supplemented by cross-sectional studies of nonselected American (N = 1,959) and Flemish (N = 789) adolescents. Personality factors were reasonably invariant across ages, although rank-order stability of individual differences was low. Neuroticism appeared to increase in girls, and Openness to Experience increased in both boys and girls; mean levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were stable. Results extend knowledge of the developmental curve of penalty traits backward from adulthood and help bridge the gap with child temperament studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental investigation of contact behaviour in grinding

The nature of the wheel and workpiece contact in grinding has a strong effect on the temperature, force and surface integrity as well as wheel wear in grinding. An applied power source method was used to measure the real contact length. The interpretation of contact length measurements is discussed. Experimental measurements of contact length in grinding show that the contact length is much larger than the geometrical contact length. This difference is most significant in fine grinding and in the sparkout stage of plunge grinding. The difference also increases when the table speed is increased. The contact length in wet grinding is longer than the contact length in dry grinding. The contact length when grinding cast iron is shorter than the contact length when grinding mild steel. It is found that grinding geometry, grinding force and the roughness of the grinding wheel have independent effects on the contact length. The newly developed contact length model by the authors describes these effects quantitatively. These results also show the importance of the roughness factor, R_r, for analysis of the contact behaviour in grinding processes.     

US GOSIP: The challenges ahead

This paper looks beyond the existing United States Government Open Systems Interconnection Profile (GOSIP) toward several important challenges to be met in the years ahead. The first challenge is creating effective, economical, and technically credible test policies and procedures for GOSIP. The second challenge is stimulating the strategic and tactical planning within Federal Agencies necessary to implement the provisions of GOSIP. The third challenge is adding functions to later versions of GOSIP to provide directory services, dynamic routing, security, transaction processing, and electronic data interchange. The fourth challenge is fostering and successfully pursuing international collaboration in functional standards, procurement profiles, and testing. Beyond these four challenges lies the next horizon - integrated, interoperable network management.     

Heavily loaded bonded composite structure: design, manufacture and test of ‘I'' beam specimens

The use of adhesive bonding in advanced composite structures offers the potential for considerable weight and cost saving compared to the use of mechanical fasteners. However, confidence must be developed in the ability to design and analyse such structures and in their manufacture to suitable quality standards. The programme of work described here was carried out as a step towards building such confidence. Secondarily bonded ‘I' beams were designed to carry an ultimate shear flow of 1712 Nm m⁻¹. They were manufactured under factory conditions and predictions were made of their failure loads and modes. The beams were then tested in three- and four-point bending and the outcomes of these tests were compared to predictions. The beams failed at loads comfortably in excess of the target, a shear flow of 2828 Nm m⁻¹ being carried in four-point bending. Failure was a very energetic process leading to a great deal of damage within the test structures. Despite this an attempt was made to inspect the failed beams in an attempt to determine the quality of the bondlines and identify the site of failure.     

Re-Engineering the Undergraduate Building Construction Program for the 21st Century

This paper presents an integrative model developed this past year by the Building Construction (BC) Department at Virginia Tech (VT), designed to help each student master the competencies necessary to succeed in the 21st Century as a building constructor in a changing global market-place. The curriculum described in this paper presents a dynamic, practical, applied academic model; balances the construction education concepts of practical experience based knowledge with academic inquiry; integrates people and communication skills with the pragmatic building construction skills; and provides a construction program that maintains a strong identity positioned between architecture and engineering. Strategically this task was accomplished by weaving vertical and horizontal integration into the BC curriculum at Virginia Tech. Results of this first year are presented, including lessons learned, external evaluations, and recommendations for adaptation.     

Lack of association between antiphospholipid antibodies and first-trimester spontaneous abortion: prospective study of pregnancies detected within 21 days of conception

OBJECTIVE: To determine the role of antiphospholipid antibodies and anticardiolipin antibodies in first-trimester losses, addressing experimental pitfalls that preclude excluding the possibility that these antibodies reflect merely the selection bias of studying couples only after they have already experienced losses. DESIGN: Given that retrospective studies cannot exclude the possibility that such antibodies arise as a result of the fetal death, blood samples were obtained either before pregnancy or very early in pregnancy. Sera were obtained within 21 days of conception. SETTING: Multicenter university-based hospitals (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development collaborative study). PATIENT(S): Subjects for the current study were 93 women who later experienced pregnancy loss (48 diabetic; 45 nondiabetic), matched 2:1 with 190 controls (93 diabetic and 97 nondiabetic) who subsequently had normal live-born offspring. INTERVENTION(S): Sera from these 283 women were analyzed for antiphospholipid antibodies by enzyme immunoassay. In 260 of the 283 women (87 with pregnancy losses; 173 with live-born infants), sera were also available to perform assays for anticardiolipin antibodies by enzyme immunoassay. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Pregnancy losses. RESULT(S): No association was observed between pregnancy loss and the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies or anticardiolipin antibodies. Levels of antiphospholipid antibodies were 6-19 PL/mL in 62.4% of the pregnancies that ended in losses and > or = 20 PL/mL in 5.4%; among pregnancies resulting in live-born infants, the percentages were 56.8% and 6.8%, respectively. Of the pregnancies that ended in a loss, 5.7% had anticardiolipin antibodies > or = 16 GPL/mL, compared with 5.2% of those ending in a live birth. CONCLUSION(S): This prospective study suggests that anticardiolipin antibodies and antiphospholipid antibodies are not associated with an increased risk for first-trimester pregnancy loss.     

Getting the best from nanotechnology: approaching social and ethical implications openly and proactively

If we're going to get the best from nanotechnology, we need to pay close attention to its societal and ethical implications from the technology's inception, rather than waiting until it is a mature technology with problems already embedded in society. In this article, we discuss such a paradigm, beginning with a discussion of the similarities between nanotechnology and other disruptive technologies. We then discuss some of the issues that will have to be dealt with as nanotechnology matures. Finally, we discuss some specific actions that can be taken now to implement a new paradigm for the introduction of disruptive new technologies.