It has been more than two decades since the copper-oxide high temperature superconductors were discovered. However, building a satisfactory theoretical framework to study these compounds still remains one of the major challenges in condensed matter physics. In addition to the mechanism of superconductivity, understanding the properties of the…

Cooper pair splitting is predicted to occur in hybrid devices where a superconductor is coupled to two ferromagnetic wires placed at a distance less than the superconducting coherence length. This thesis searches for signatures of this process, called crossed Andreev reflection (CAR), in three device geometries. The first devices studied are…

This paper describes an interesting sound phenomenon from a modern copy of the Chinese ancient variable bell which can emit distinctly different sounds at different temperatures. By means of audition--spectrum analyser software--and PC, the sound signals of the variable bell are collected and the fundamental spectra are shown on the PC. The…

Five pigeons responded on steady-state concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules of food presentation in which half of the foods were removed and replaced with nonfood stimuli. Across conditions, the stimuli were either paired or unpaired with food, and the correlation between the ratio of food deliveries on the two alternatives and…

Categories underlie a variety of functions beyond just classification, including inference and explanation. To classify, people need to distinguish between categories, but other functions rely on within-category information (things true of a particular category, independent of others). Despite the need for both types of knowledge, recent work…

How do we estimate the number of objects in a set? Two types of visual representations might underlie this ability--an unsegmented visual image or a segmented collection of discrete objects. We manipulated whether individual objects were isolated from each other or grouped into pairs by irrelevant lines. If number estimation operates over an…

Six studies investigated the relationship between production and comprehension by examining how relative clause production mechanisms influence the probabilistic information used by comprehenders to understand these structures. Two production experiments show that accessibility-based mechanisms that are influenced by noun animacy and verb type…

These studies investigate children's use of scientific reasoning to infer the reality status of novel entities. Four- to 8-year-olds heard about novel entities and were asked to infer their reality status from 3 types of evidence: supporting evidence, irrelevant evidence, and no evidence. Experiment 1 revealed that children used supporting versus…

The human ability to focus memory retrieval operations on a particular list, episode or memory structure has not been fully appreciated or documented. In Experiment 1-3, we make it increasingly difficult for participants to switch between a less recent list (multiple study opportunities), and a more recent list (single study opportunity). Task…

Four masked priming experiments are reported investigating the effect of inserting an unrelated word between the masked prime and the target. When the intervening word is visible, identity priming is reduced to the level of one-letter-different form priming, but form priming is largely unaffected. However, when the intervening word is itself…

Business educators recognize the importance of developing teamwork as an employability skill. However, current methods used to teach teamwork have been met with mixed results from both students and educators. This article integrates research on the importance of teamwork, team development processes, and coteaching through examining a case study…

Decision-makers effortlessly balance the need for urgency against the need for caution. Theoretical and neurophysiological accounts have explained this tradeoff solely in terms of the "quantity" of evidence required to trigger a decision (the "threshold"). This explanation has also been used as a benchmark test for evaluating…

This study, undertaken at the Walter Sisulu University of Technology (WSU) in South Africa, describes how problem-based learning (PBL) affects the first year 'analog electronics course', when PBL and the lecturing mode is compared. Problems were designed to match real-life situations. Data between the experimental group and the control group that…

This dissertation examines the influence of lexical-semantic representations, conceptual similarity, and contextual fit on the processing of coordinated verb phrases. The study integrates information gleaned from current linguistic theory with current psycholinguistic approaches to examining the processing of coordinated verb phrases. It has…

Taking a test often leads to enhanced later memory for the tested information, a phenomenon known as the "testing effect". This memory advantage has been reliably demonstrated with recall tests but not multiple choice tests. One potential explanation for this finding is that multiple choice tests do not rely on retrieval processes to the same…