The Conference on High Temperature Electronics

The status of and directions for high temperature electronics research and development were evaluated. Major objectives were to (1) identify common user needs; (2) put into perspective the directions for future work; and (3) address the problem of bringing to practical fruition the results of these efforts. More than half of the presentations dealt with materials and devices, rather than circuits and systems. Conference session titles and an example of a paper presented in each session are (1) User requirements: High temperature electronics applications in space explorations; (2) Devices: Passive components for high temperature operation; (3) Circuits and systems: Process characteristics and design methods for a 300 degree QUAD or AMP; and (4) Packaging: Presently available energy supply for high temperature environment

Parties, Voters and Policy Priorities in the Netherlands, 1971-2002

To what extent are the priorities of voters reflected by the policy pledges of parties? And how decisive are party pledges for the policy-making of governments? The chain of delegation assumes direct linkages between voters, parties and governments, of which the voters are the principal actor. When this assumption is tested for The Netherlands, it turns out that parties are not very responsive to voter priorities and that the policy distances between parliamentary parties and governments are relatively small. This pattern makes sense in a consensus democracy in which parties have to compromise and cannot afford simply to reflect what voters perceive as important. It also suggests that the mandate theory is more directly applicable to majoritarian democracies, where the winner takes all and therefore has more scope to translate voter priorities into policy-making

How to measure quality of life for cost effectiveness analyses in personality disorders? A systematic review.

Objective: To assess the construct validity and responsiveness of four generic health related quality of life (HRQL) measures in personality disorders (PDs). Methods: A systematic review was undertaken. Ten databases were searched and reference lists scrutinised to identify relevant studies. Relevant data were extracted accordingly. A narrative synthesis was performed of the evidence on construct validity including known groups validity (detecting differences in HRQL scores between two different groups), convergent validity (strength of association between generic HRQL and other measures (e.g. symptom) and responsiveness (differences in generic HRQL measure scores in responders/non-responders or correlation with changes in other measures). Results: Ten studies were identified, with 6 for the EQ-5D, two involving SF-36 and another 2 the SF-12, but none on the SF-6D. Evidence indicated that the EQ-5D, SF-36 and SF-12 were probably valid measures within PDs. Four studies demonstrated that the EQ-5D Index was able to detect changes in patients. Conclusion: Generic HRQL measures appear appropriate for use in people with PDs in terms of psychometric performance. However, qualitative concerns remain as to whether they fully reflect the impact of the condition