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Thick film superconductors have been produced by screen printing and annealing pastes made from oxide powders and pre‐annealed powders. These films have been analysed by X‐ray diffraction, microwave absorption, resistance vs. temperature measurements, and adhesion tests. Results show the correlation between structural and electrical properties.

Specially formulated frit materials have been applied in thick film superconductors similar to the standard thick film materials in order to achieve processing parameters closely compatible with conventional thick film technology and alumina substrates. The applied frits have improved the adhesion and superconductor properties at the same time due to a superconductor bridge formation between the grains. Both YBCO and BSCCO systems have been analyzed. The results are promising.

Social policy linked to child poverty, welfare programs and needs of children has been undergoing major change in the United States. In 1996, major welfare reform was passed that eliminated the old cash assistance program of AFDC (Aid to Families of Dependent Children Program) and replaced it with a new block grant program, TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families). Advantages of the new TANF program were that it provided more flexibility to States, made the time period for which funds could be received much shorter, and therefore strongly encouraged adult welfare recipients to enter the workforce (Sherman & Sandfort, 1998; Watts, 1997). As part of this change, along with changes enacted earlier from 1984 to 1990, Medicaid eligibility for low-income children was expanded by gradually delinking Medicaid eligibility from welfare eligibility (Kronebusch, 2001). As part of a continued policy goal of expanding access to health care services to children at lower ends of the income spectrum, Congress in 1997 passed the Balanced Budget Act of that year. That act created the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). This program provided an opportunity for States to participate in CHIP and thus acquire funding from the federal government to expand their health care coverage to uninsured, lower-income children. This program was particularly aimed at children of the working poor, whose parents were often in the labor force but worked for an employer who did not provide health care insurance. The numbers of these parents were expected to increase in future years, as the TANF welfare reforms decreased the number of parents on welfare who were receiving cash benefits and increased the number of parents who accepted jobs. Many of these jobs will not provide the full set of benefits that are common in many white-collar and middle income jobs (Seccombe & Amey, 1995). The legislation allowed States to expand their Medicaid programs, create a separate CHIP program, or combine the two options (Shi, Oliver & Huang, 2000).

There has been a lack of an information systems architecture which explicitly illustrates processes that make and maintain the anonymity of student responses in an online system for student opinion survey of faculty teaching. The purpose of this paper is to present an information systems architecture which explicitly shows the process of disassociation of student credentials and their responses. It also shows that the process guarantees a complete anonymity of student responses.

The system was developed to satisfy the needs of students, faculty and administrators of a higher education institution with several objectives, one of which is the complete anonymity of student responses.

The system developers were successful in designing and developing a student opinion survey system that keeps student responses completely anonymous.

The anonymity of student responses improves students’ trust in the survey system and may increase student response rate. Other factors that affect student response rate should be analyzed to determine their effect on student response rate and adjust those factors to improve student response rate.

This paper shares the success of developing an information system that makes student responses anonymous. The goal is to increase the discussion of this topic among researchers and practitioners to further improve the system to increase student response rate.

The proposed information system architecture is novel because it keeps student responses completely anonymous.

Bearings of either the rolling or sliding type form an integral part of most moving machinery and their lubrication has been the subject of much research. Until quite recently, lubricants have generally taken the form of oil or grease and it is only in the last ten to fifteen years that the use of air in this field has really been considered. In many applications, in the nuclear power and missile field, for example, it has been found that conventional lubricants do not meet the demands of high temperature, radio‐active environments, etc., and this has stimulated research into the subject of air, or more generally, gas bearings.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

As announced in the May issue of Hybrid Circuits, ISHM‐Benelux is organising a one‐day conference on applications of hybrid circuit technology.

This survey covers civil, electrical and electronics, energy, environment, general, materials, mechanical, and traffic and transportation engineering. Areas such as biomedical and chemical engineering will be dealt with in future issues. Readers may find that the classifications included in this survey are not mutually exclusive but do occasionally overlap with one another. For instance, the section on environmental engineering includes a review of a book on the environmental impact of nuclear power plants, which might as easily have been part of the section on energy technology. Before we go into a discussion of data bases and indexes, I would like to note in this introductory section some recent bibliographic aids published during the period surveyed. Most engineering libraries will find them very valuable in their reference and acquisition functions. Since normal review sources will cover these books, I am merely listing them below: Malinowski, Harold Robert, Richard A. Gray and Dorothy A. Gray. Science and Engineering Literature. 2d ed., Littleton, Colorado, Libraries Unlimited, 1976. 368p. LC 76–17794 ISBN 0–87287–098–7. $13.30; Mildren, K. W., ed. Use of Engineering Literature. Woburn, Mass., Butterworths, 1976. 621p. ISBN 0–408–70714–3. $37.95. Mount, Ellis. Guide to Basic Information Sources in Engineering. New York, Wiley, Halsted Press, 1976. 196p. LC 75–43261 ISBN 0–47070–15013–0. $11.95 and Guide to European Sources of Technical Information. 4th ed., edited by Ann Pernet. Guernsey, Eng., F. Hodgson, 1976. 415p. ISBN 0–85280–161–0. $52.00.

THE MAIN objective of this work is to reveal the performance characteristics of sliding externally pressurized rectangular bearings and to get an adequate understanding of the behaviour of such bearings.

In both decorative and industrial applications of gold plating, but even more critically in the latter, accurate measurement of coating thickness is of vital importance to both the manufacturer and the user. To the former, working to increasingly stringent specifications, it may, in extreme cases, mean the difference between profit and loss if an excessive thickness is inadvertently applied due to some change in electrolyte or processing conditions, or if an unduly high average thickness must be used on barrel or vat plated components to ensure a minimum requirement on functional areas. To the user, it can equally mean the difference between operational success and failure of a gold plated part if plating thickness is below specification and the means used for measurement are not sufficiently precise to detect this. Control of coating thickness in gold plating is therefore a matter of vital concern, and never more so than at the present time when, in the face of the spectacular price increases of recent years, and in the virtual absence of viable alternatives to meet the exacting demands of applications in printed circuitry, semiconductor technology and the electronics industry in general, the need for maximum economy in gold usage has become increasingly urgent, as evidenced by the vigorous efforts currently devoted to the development and improvement of selective plating techniques, and the recent interest manifest in the possible replacement of essentially pure gold coatings by alloy deposits of 18 carat and lower where these may be technically acceptable. The present article offers a wide‐ranging survey of methods available for thickness measurement, with particular reference to gold plating, but including also some techniques which, whilst not finding current use, may be of potential interest in this context. This is the second and final part of this article, the first having appeared in Volume 1, Number 1, October (1974).