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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/01445159710163481. When citing the article, please cite: David C. Whalley, Samjid H. Mannan, David J. Williams, (1997), “Anisotropic conducting adhesives for electronic assembly”, Assembly Automation, Vol. 17 Iss 1 pp. 66 - 74.

Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccinations, questions surrounding race have been prominent in the literature on vaccine uptake. Early in the vaccine rollout, public health officials were concerned with the relatively lower rates of uptake among certain racial/ethnic minority groups. We suggest that this may also be patterned by racial/ethnic residential segregation, which previous work has demonstrated to be an important factor for both health and access to health care.

In this study, we examine county-level vaccination rates, racial/ethnic composition, and residential segregation across the U.S. We compile data from several sources, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) measured at the county level.

We find that just looking at the associations between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, both percent Black and percent White are significant and negative, meaning that higher percentages of these groups in a county are associated with lower vaccination rates, whereas the opposite is the case for percent Latino. When we factor in segregation, as measured by the index of dissimilarity, the patterns change somewhat. Dissimilarity itself was not significant in the models across all groups, but when interacted with race/ethnic composition, it moderates the association. For both percent Black and percent White, the interaction with the Black-White dissimilarity index is significant and negative, meaning that it deepens the negative association between composition and the vaccination rate.

The analysis is only limited to county-level measures of racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, so we are unable to see at the individual-level who is getting vaccinated.

We find that segregation moderates the association between racial/ethnic composition and vaccination rates, suggesting that local race relations in a county helps contextualize the compositional effects of race/ethnicity.

Presents some experimental and theoretical results from research exploring the design rules and relevant process parameters in the assembly of electronic components using anisotropic conductive adhesive materials. The experimental configurations studies have geometries representative of flip‐chip and micro ball grid array chip scale packaging. Evaluates a range of materials combinations, including (random filled) adhesive materials based on both thermoplastic and thermo‐setting resin systems, combined with both glass reinforced polymer printed circuit board and silver palladium thick film on ceramic substrate materials. Also presents a summary of assembly experiments which have been conducted using a specially developed instrumented assembly system. This test rig allows the measurement of the process temperatures and pressures and their relationship with the consequent bondline thickness reduction and conductivity development. Finally summarizes the capabilities of models which have been developed of the assembly process and of the final joint properties.

Role is an under-studied topic in research on virtual game worlds, despite its centrality in the ubiquitous term “massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).” In this article, we report on a study of the role concept and its relevance to virtual worlds, with emphasis on the MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW). In particular, we focus on the concept of structural role, a term introduced to delineate a certain kind of social actor that carries greater-than-average responsibility for facilitating the diffusion of culture across interlocking groups. Beginning with a brief discussion of structural roles, this paper draws on ethnographic research in a raiding guild and interviews with hardcore WoW players to investigate the roles of guild and raid leaders in building and maintaining collaborative group play. Our study explores not only the expectations and obligations for players in key structural positions, but also specific processes through which they are embodied in everyday life online. Data show that an interest or willingness to learn the intricacies of gameplay, to take responsibility for players’ emotional well-being, and to manage a shared definition of the situation are all basic components of the guild and raid leaders’ roles, and guild or raid success is often reducible to the extent to which leaders master these components.

Nonfamily farms are responsible for a disproportionate amount of US agriculture production. The importance of these operations to the volume of agriculture production in the United States has led researchers and policymakers to understand nonfamily farms as large commercial operations. This paper examines whether the distinction between family and nonfamily helps explain the financial outcomes of farm operations and households.

We test for differences in financial outcomes of the household and operations of family and nonfamily farms using an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition. We compare these results to a decomposition of other possible typologies.

We present evidence that nonfamily farms are a heterogeneous group with a majority of small operations that are dominated by a small number of large operations. We discover that differences associated with the family-nonfamily distinction are largely explained by observable farm and operator characteristics that arise mechanically from the definition. However, we find suggestive evidence that family-nonfamily classification captures differences in economic behavior that lead to higher profitability measures to nonfamily farms. We find little evidence of any inherent structural differences between family and nonfamily farms that helps explain financial outcomes related to leverage or household finances.

We conclude that including nonfamily farms in official statistics of farm households may provide a more comprehensive overview of the farm sector, as our results suggest that family and nonfamily farms do not have innate differences that help explain many of their financial outcomes.

We incorporate previously unused data on nonfamily farm households and test the difference in mean financial outcomes between family and nonfamily farms.

‘Soldering and Cleaning in Electronics’ international conference, including an exposition, took place in Brno on 12–13 October 1993. The conference was organised by SMT‐Info, together with the ISHM‐Czech and Slovak Chapter. The purpose of this common action was to bring together the professionals in surface mount technology and thick film technology. In the framework of the conference, in which 130 home and foreign delegates participated, the annual meeting of the ISHM‐Czech and Slovak Chapter took place.

This paper examines the make‐up of the subcontract printed circuit board industry in the UK and identifies the geographical location of manufacturing sites together with the number of employees at these sites. It describes both the subcontract board‐producing and assembly sectors. The maps show the position and size of the sites, and these together with a histogram showing the frequency of ranges of employee numbers, provide an understanding of the structure of the industry. Higher density areas which have a greater incidence of PCB manufacturing activity are identified and compared. It is also shown that there is little consistent relationship between the positions of the major system providers and the PCB subcontract industry sites. Concern is expressed about the ability of the many smaller companies to compete in the supply of emerging assembly and substrate technologies.

To describe how an EDRMS was implemented at the National Weights and Measures Laboratory and indicate whether the benefits expected have been delivered.

The paper sets out the business case, describes the implementation, shows the outcomes (planned and unexpected), and ends with a conclusion about the degree of success.

Generally the project was successful, with excellent take‐up by users. It has involved records staff in change management issues as the system highlights areas of inconsistency in document management. Careful preparation of the Business Classification Scheme pays dividends on implementation. Use of the OGC Gateway project control helped make sure that the project was completed to time and budget.

The National Weights and Measures Laboratory is the smallest UK government agency and is an agency of the Department of Trade and Industry. As such it was able to learn from the latter in relation to EDRMS implementation.

This paper is a useful case study investigation of the introduction of EDRM.

The paper gives insight into EDRMS implementation in a small user group. It sets out the lessons learned that could be used in other implementations.

‘The Choice between Chip and Wire and High Density Surface Mount Packages (MCM‐X, COB, etc.)’ was the title of the above event. One of a regular series held by ISHM‐France, this technical seminar was attended by over 100 members and non‐members of ISHM who were eager to hear of the latest developments in the field of multichip modules. The eight papers presented are summarised below:

The purpose of this paper is to examine the best practices in web site redesign the authors established for its two interconnected parts, the web development process and web design. The paper demonstrates how best practices were applied to coordinate a library web site redesign project and to engineer the web site for optimum usability, resulting in the creation of a new improved web site.

A problem‐solution approach was used to analyze how the Queens College Libraries (QCL) fell behind in web technology and how it revitalized its web operations. The paper presents a detailed exposition of a three stage project, and provides reasons for adopting best practices in redesigning each web site area.

In a resource‐challenged mid‐sized academic library, like QCL, it is still possible to create a fully functional easy‐to‐use web site.

The QCL experience has lessons for other libraries in similar circumstances. A mid‐sized academic library adopting a best practices approach to web redesign can successfully coordinate an open and inclusive development process and use public web standards to engineer a functional web site responsive to user needs.

Unlike other case studies of web redesign projects at academic libraries, this paper focus on both the web development process and web design, explicating the establishment and application of best practices for both areas.