Linguistic patterns of academic Web use in Western Europe

A survey of linguistic dimensions of Web site hosting and interlinking of the universities of sixteen European countries is described. The results show that English is the dominant language both for linking pages and for all pages. In a typical country approximately half the pages were in English and half in one or more national languages. Normalised interlinking patterns showed three trends: 1) international interlinking throughout Europe in English, and additionally in Swedish in Scandinavia; 2) linking between countries sharing a common language, and 3) countries extensively hosting international links in their own major languages. This provides evidence for the multilingual character of academic use of the Web in Western Europe, at least outside the UK and Eire. Evidence was found that Greece was significantly linguistically isolated from the rest of the EU but that outsiders Norway and Switzerland were not. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A comparison of impact measures from hybrid and synthetic techniques: A case study of the Foothills Model Forest

This article presents an applied framework for selective precision in the insertion of superior data into hybrid regional models where regional purchasing coefficients are absent or unattainable. Due to the lack of regional-level data, crude top-down methods are the most frequently applied methods in Canadian regional studies. However, they may lead to inaccurate policy analysis where significant variation exists between the technical coefficients and trade flows of two economies. This article discusses an alternative, hybrid approach that involves the collection of region-specific information and therefore promises greater accuracy and validity of impact analysis. The robustness of the hybrid model is tested against the results derived from a synthetically regionalized model. The Foothills Model Forest (FMF) in west-central Alberta is used as a case study for the development of a sub-provincial economic database for the purpose of regional impact modeling. Received: September 1999/Accepted: September 2001     

Heterosexual risk behaviors in at-risk young men from early adolescence to young adulthood: Prevalence, prediction, and association with STD contraction.

Health-compromising lifestyles involve stable patterns of behavior and are associated with high-risk social environments and accelerated developmental trajectories. Developmentally, antisocial behavior is associated with such lifestyles. Mediational models predicting a measure of lifetime average sexual risk behavior assessed over a 10-year period (from ages 13-14 to 22-23 years) were examined for a sample of at-risk young men. The measure included years of abstinence from intercourse as well as levels of 3 key heterosexual indicators of risk: frequency of intercourse, number of intercourse partners, and condom use. Predictors included lifetime average measures of contextual, family, and peer process variables and individual behaviors. In addition, similar models for prediction of STD contraction were assessed. A younger age of onset of intercourse was associated with higher numbers of intercourse partners after onset. As hypothesized, findings indicated mediational associations of socioeconomic status, parental monitoring, deviant-peer association, antisocial behavior, and substance use in the prediction of sexual risk behavior. Lower condom use also predicted STD contraction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the relations between seen objects and components of potential actions.

Accounts of visually directed actions usually assume that their planning begins with an intention to act. This article describes three experiments that challenged this view through the use of a stimulus-response compatibility paradigm with photographs of common graspable objects as stimuli. Participants had to decide as fast as possible whether each object was upright or inverted. Experiments 1 and 2 examined the effect of the irrelevant dimension of left-right object orientation on bimanual and unimanual keypress responses. Experiment 3 examined wrist rotation responses to objects requiring either clockwise or anticlockwise wrist rotations when grasped. The results (a) are consistent with the view that seen objects automatically potentiate components of the actions they afford, (b) show that compatibility effects of an irrelevant stimulus dimension can be obtained across a wide variety of naturally occurring stimuli, and (c) support the view that intentions to act operate on already existing motor representations of the possible actions in a visual scene. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of the repeatability of the prompt flashlamp-induced wavefront aberration on beamlines at the National Ignition Facility

We have undertaken a measurement campaign to determine the repeatability of the prompt flashlamp-induced wavefront aberration on beamlines at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and determine the extent to which shot-to-shot variations in this aberration may degrade the performance of a proposed adaptive optics system for the short-pulse Advanced Radiographic Capability beamline on NIF. In this paper we will describe the unique NIF configuration that was required to make this measurement, present the results of the experiment, and discuss the implications of these results for the adaptive optics system design.     

Surface and buried interfacial structures of epoxy resins used as underfills studied by sum frequency generation vibrational spectroscopy

Flip chip technology has greatly improved the performance of semiconductor devices, but relies heavily on the performance of epoxy underfill adhesives. Because epoxy underfills are cured in situ in flip chip semiconductor devices, understanding their surface and interfacial structures is critical for understanding their adhesion to various substrates. Here, sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy was used to study surface and buried interfacial structures of two model epoxy resins used as underfills in flip chip devices, bisphenol A digylcidyl ether (BADGE) and 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether (BDDGE). The surface structures of these epoxies were compared before and after cure, and the orientations of their surface functional groups were deduced to understand how surface structural changes during cure may affect adhesion properties. Further, the effect of moisture exposure, a known cause of adhesion failure, on surface structures was studied. It was found that the BADGE surface significantly restructured upon moisture exposure while the BDDGE surface did not, showing that BADGE adhesives may be more prone to moisture-induced delamination. Lastly, although surface structure can give some insight into adhesion, buried interfacial structures more directly correspond to adhesion properties of polymers. SFG was used to study buried interfaces between deuterated polystyrene (d-PS) and the epoxies before and after moisture exposure. It was shown that moisture exposure acted to disorder the buried interfaces, most likely due to swelling. These results correlated with lap shear adhesion testing showing a decrease in adhesion strength after moisture exposure. The presented work showed that surface and interfacial structures can be correlated to adhesive strength and may be helpful in understanding and designing optimized epoxy underfill adhesives.     

Enhanced remedial amendment delivery to subsurface using shear thinning fluid and aqueous foam

A major issue with in situ subsurface remediation is the ability to achieve an even spatial distribution of remedial amendments to the contamination zones in an aquifer or vadose zone. Amendment delivery to the aquifer using shear thinning fluid and to the vadose zone using aqueous foam has the potential to enhance the distribution. 2-D saturated flow cell experiments were conducted to evaluate the enhanced fluid sweeping over heterogeneous system, improved contaminant removal, and extended amendment presence in low-permeability zones achieved by shear thinning fluid delivery. Unsaturated column and flow cell experiments were conducted to investigate the improvement on contaminant mobilization mitigation, amendment distribution, and lateral delivery implemented by foam delivery. It was demonstrated that the shear thinning fluid injection enhanced the fluid sweeping and increased the delivery of remedial amendment into low-perm zones. The presence of amendment distributed by the shear thinning fluid in the low-permeability zones was increased. Foam delivery was shown to mitigate the mobilization of highly mobile contaminant from sediments. It also achieved more uniform amendment distribution in a heterogeneous unsaturated system, and demonstrated remarkable increasing in lateral distribution of the injected liquid compared to direct liquid injection.