Sol-gel-hydrothermal growth of oxide thin films at low temperatures

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT) (Pb(Zr_0.52Ti_0.48)O₃) and barium titanate (BaTiO₃) thin films have been successfully prepared using a novel sol-gel- hydrothermal (SG-HT) technique at low temperatures, which involves a combination of the conventional sol-gel process and a hydrothermal method. Highly (111)-oriented PZT thin films with a single perovskite phase and polycrystalline BaTiO thin films with well developed crystallites were obtained at a processing temperature as low as 160⁰C. The microstructural characteristics demonstrate that the SG-HT-derived PZT and BaTiO₃ thin films with good crystallinity and surface morphology are converted from the amorphous phase to the desired perovskite phase on platinum-coated and bare silicon substrates at a low processing temperature of 100-200 C. These results suggest that the SGHT technique, which is of great significance because of its low processing temperature, will become a potential and promising process for fabricating PZT, BaTiO₃ and other oxide thin films.     

The ethics of creative growth

Explicitly ethical discussions among guidance and personnel professionals generally involve intraprofessional concerns and the specifying of minimal standards of professional behavior. The author of this article proposes that wider, more challenging, ethical issues should not be treated as special topics within these professions but should be considered crucial parts of the mainstream of ethical thought and practice. This shift would help to make critical moral problems the professional concern of all guidance and personnel workers, not the specialty of only a few.     

The failure of endogenous growth

Fifteen years have passed since Paul Romer published his seminal paper that launched the field of endogenous growth. Today seems like an appropriate time to reflect back on this field and assess its contribution. My own assessment is that this line of research has not proven useful for understanding the most important question faced by economists today, namely, why isn’t the whole world rich? Exogenous growth theory, in contrast, is. Endogenous growth may prove useful for understanding growth in world knowledge over time, but it is not useful for understanding why some countries are so poor relative to the United States today.     

Role of Zr on growth kinetics and microstructural evolution of the superconductor V3Ga by the bronze technique

The influence of Zr on the growth of V₃Ga is studied by a diffusion-couple technique mimicking the bronze method for superconductor production. Systematic quantitative evaluation on critical-current-density-dependent metallurgical parameters is addressed. A mixture of V₃Ga and Zr-containing phases develops at the interdiffusion zone. Smaller grains on Zr addition cause higher growth kinetics owing to grain-boundary diffusion of Ga. The grains are oriented randomly irrespective of Zr addition. Refined microstructure, second-phase, and higher growth kinetics suggest a beneficial role of Zr for the better functioning of the superconductor.     

The growth and transformation of American ego psychology

The roots of ego psychology trace back to Sigmund Freud's The Ego and the Id (1923) and "Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety" (1926), works followed by two additional fundaments, Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense (1936) and Heinz Hartmann's Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (1939). It was brought to full flowering in post-World War II America by Hartmann and his many collaborators, and for over two decades it maintained a monolithic hegemony over American psychoanalysis. Within this framework the conceptions of the psychoanalytic psychotherapies evolved as specific modifications of psychoanalytic technique directed to the clinical needs of the spectrum of patients not amenable to psychoanalysis proper. This American consensus on the ego psychology paradigm and its array of technical implementations fragmented several decades ago, with the rise in America of Kohut's self psychology, geared to the narcissistic disorders, and with the importation from Britain of neo-Kleinian and object-relational perspectives, all coinciding with the rapid growth of the varieties of relational psychoanalysis, with its shift in focus to the two-person, interactive, and co-constructed transference-countertransference matrix. Implications of this intermingled theoretical pluralism (as contrasted with the unity of the once dominant ego psychology paradigm) for the evolution of the American ego psychology are spelled out.     

The growth of the equidistance tendency over time

To determine the manner in which the equidistance tendency (ET) varies as a function of time, 10 Ss tracked the perceived position of a monocular test object viewed in a binocular field consisting of two rectangles which differed in perceived size and distance.Variables investigated were the temporal order of rectangle appearance and disappearance which determined whether or not opposingETs existed, luminance and repetition interval of the 20 msec test object. It was found thatET effects occur gradually over time, that opposingETs retard the rate at which the test object changes its perceived locus, and that elapsed time rather than total observation time was critical in determining how great a change in perceived locus of the test object occurred. Implications of these findings were discussed.     

The effect of the divorce experience on spiritual growth

This essay presents the findings from a study of the effect of divorce on spiritual growth among Protestants. Looking at movement in the areas of love of God, self, and others, it shows that the divorce experience can have varying levels of impact which relate at least partially to the traumatic intensity of the experience itself.Excerpted from The Effect of Divorce on Spiritual Growth: A Study in Protestant Spirituality (unpublished thesis), (c) 1984 Jean M. Blomquist. All rights reserved.     

The growth of school psychology in the last decade

With reference to the first question, it seems that school psychology as a profession is growing much more rapidly than membership in Division 16 of APA would indicate. While the Division is growing, it is not growing in proportion to the number of practitioners in the field.

Factors that seem to be positively related to the rapid expansion of school psychological services are: financial support from the state level; training programs in the colleges and universities; special certification requirements and the designation of school psychology as a specific profession; and increasing demand for services in rural as well as the urban areas. The school psychologist, by virtue of his training and professional competence, is apparently meeting an important need in the educational system. The general tenor of the response to this survey is that the growth of school psychological services will continue.     

The growth of lexical constraints on spoken word recognition

In this study, we examined the influence of various sources of constraint on spoken word recognition in a mispronunciation-detection task. Five- and 8-year-olds and adults were presented with words (intact or with word-initial or noninitial errors) from three different age-of-acquisition categories. "Intact" and "mispronounced" responses were collected for isolated words with or without a picture referent (Experiment 1) and for words in constraining or unconstraining sentences (Experiment 2). Some evidence for differential attention to word-initial as opposed to noninitial acoustic-phonetic information (and thus the influence of sequential lexical constraints on recognition) was apparent in young children's and adults' response criteria and in older children's and adults' reaction times. A more marked finding, however, was the variation in subjects' performance, according to several measures, with age and lexical familiarity (defined according to adults' subjective age-of-acquisition estimates). Children's strategies for responding to familiar and unfamiliar words in different contexts are discussed.