The corn bill-bugs in Illinois

Caption title.Includes bibliographical references (p. 457-461)

Design of photonic crystal optical waveguides with single-mode propagation in the photonic bandgap

The authors present a systematic method for designing dielectric-core photonic crystal optical waveguides that support only one mode in the photonic bandgap (PBG). It is shown that by changing the sizes of thc air columns (without perturbing the positions of the centres of the air column) in the two rows that are adjacent to the middle slab, the higher order mode(s) can be pushed out of the photonic bandgap, resulting in single-mode wave propagation in the bandgap

Purposive Pattern Recognition: The Nature of Visual Choice in Graphic Design

Every pamphlet, brochure, booklet, advert, package, poster, etc that has ever been produced involved a visual choice made by a human being - even if the choice were restricted to ‘doing it like the last time’ or ‘copy this one’. Whether graphic designer, information designer, advertising executive, programmer, printer or the Managing Director’s wife, someone decided this picture, this type face, this layout etc rather than some available alternative. How are visual choices made? And, in particular, how do professional graphic designers make choices between visual alternatives. It was decided to probe this question by interviewing professional designers and looking at their work. The initial plan involved some sophisticated analysis of variables but it soon became apparent that such an approach was not possible. Specific interview questions such as, “You decided to use a picture of an elephant. Why an elephant and why this particular one?” met with responses along the lines of, “It just felt right” or “It’s intuitive”. It became clear that although some designers can tell a story about their choices, most designers make use of their experience and the experience of others to arrive at a decision that is not the result of some carefully thought out decision tree or a calculus of competing requirements. It was felt by both of us that there ought to be a better way to describe this process of ‘just knowing its right’ than intuition. Eventually we came up with Purposive Pattern Recognition, abbreviated to PPR. One of us (M A-R) gathered the evidence from interviews, case studies and existing studies of Masters in Design (a title awarded by a US magazine, following a poll of its readership) The other one (J Z L) placed the notion of PPR in a conceptual framework using current thinking in neuroscience and in evolutionary memetics. Keywords: Graphic Design, Intuition, Neuroscience, Memetics.</p

75%-efficiency blue generation from an intracavity PPKTP frequency doubler

We report on a high-efficiency 461 nm blue light conversion from an external cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generation of a 922 nm diode laser with a quasi-phase-matched KTP crystal (PPKTP). By choosing a long crystal (LC=20 mm) and twice looser focusing (w0=43 $\mu$m) than the "optimal" one, thermal lensing effects due to the blue power absorption are minimized while still maintaining near-optimal conversion efficiency. A stable blue power of 234 mW with a net conversion efficiency of eta=75% at an input mode-matched power of 310 mW is obtained. The intra-cavity measurements of the conversion efficiency and temperature tuning bandwidth yield an accurate value d33(461 nm)=15 pm/V for KTP and provide a stringent validation of some recently published linear and thermo-optic dispersion data of KTP

SB 461 Helps Low-income Workers Gain Job Skills, Strengthens Oregon's Workforce

SB 461 would help low-wage workers upgrade their skills so they can get a higher-paying or more stable job. It lifts restrictions on very low-wage workers who are trying to enter or complete a job training program while they collect unemployment benefits

Māori Migration: The Social Consequences

A team led by Bernard Guerin is looking at the family and community impacts from contemporary forms of migration in a 6-year project Strangers in Town: Enhancing Family and Community in a More Diverse New Zealand Society, funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. One large part of this research looks at Māori migration, headed by Linda Waimarie Nikora. Since the research on the 'urban drift' of the 1950s and 1960s, little has been done to research the effects of Māori migration. Our aim is to draw together the researchers and research results and to conduct our own research to fill in the gaps. We also work with others on the 6-year project who are looking at the population statistics of Māori migration, especially Trans-Tasman migrations

The Work, Family, and Equity Index: How Does the United States Measure Up

As part of the Project on Global Working Families, with the support of the Ford Foundation, the Work, Family, and Equity Index has been developed to measure governmental performance around the world in meeting the needs of working families. The elements in the Index have been selected to comprise an evidence-based set of policies that are important to meeting the needs of working families in general and low- and middle-income working families in particular. Those policies that have achieved widespread recognition based on the weight of the research evidence or consensus in global policy and international agreements are included. To complete the index, data were gathered from 177 countries that represent a wide range of political, social and economic systems

Dragline comparisons

The presenting company provided data on the performance of a dragline over a four-week period during which four different buckets were used. The Study Group examined this data and suggested a method of analysing data from such comparative studies