Thinking and Turing's test

The questions raised by A. M. Turing in his paper on thought and machines are discussed. Human thought is considered in turn as a concept of normal language usage, as a basic concept of psychology, and as the basis of intellectual activity. It is concluded that neither of these notions of thought identifies something specific that a human being can or cannot do. The imitation game proposed by Turing for deciding whether a machine can think is found to result from an arbitrary empoverishment of the channel of communication between the interrogator and the item under investigation. Turing's notions of thinking are shown to lead to logical difficulties. An alternative view of consciousness, that would place it beyond the reach of any finite test, is finally discussed.     

Chemical mechanical polishing of polymer films

Strategies to reduce capacitance effects associated with shrinking integrated circuit (IC) design rules include incorporating low resistivity metals and insulators with low dielectric values, or “low-κ” materials. Using such materials in current IC fabrication schemes necessitates the development of reliable chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) processes and process consumables tailored for them. Here we present results of CMP experiments performed on FLARE™ 2.0 using a specialized zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) polishing slurry. FLARE™ 2.0 is a poly(arylene) ether from AlliedSignal, Inc. with a nominal dielectric constant of 2.8. In addition, we provide insight into possible removal mechanisms during the CMP of organic polymers by examining the performance of numerous abrasive slurries. Although specific to a limited number of polymers, the authors suggest that the information presented in this paper is relevant to the CMP performance of many polymer dielectric materials.     

The impact of Ajax on network performance

Web 2.0 has been becoming the new tendency of the Internet development. In order to get better management of web 2.0 network resource and guarantee of service quality, the architecture and the advantages of web 2.0 over Ajax technology is analyzed, and the impact of Ajax on bandwidth performance of web application is discussed.     

Partitioning multi-edge graphs

We introduce a new kind of graph called multi-edge graph which arises in many applications such as finite state Markov chains and broadcasting communication networks. A cluster in such a graph is a set of nodes such that for any ordered pair of nodes, there is a path of multi-edges from one to the other such that these edges remain within the same set. We give two algorithms to partition a multi-edge graph into maximal clusters. Both these algorithms are based on the depth-first search algorithm to find strongly connected components of the directed graph. We also discuss some applications of clustering in multi-edge graphs.     

Synthesis and characterisation of bis(pentafluorophenyl)antimony(V) cations, [(C6F5)2SbL3]

Pentacoordinate complex cations of the general formula [(C₆F₅)₂SbL₃]³⁺ stabilized as solid salts in combination with tetraphenylborate (BPh₄), tetrafluorobroate (BF₄) anions, where L=DMSO, Ph₃AsO, PyO, DMF, α-, β- and γ-picoline have been isolated. The newly formed complexes were characterized by elemental analysis, molar conductance measurements, solid-state IR and and NMR. From these results, a five-fold coordination around antimony was required.     

The regioselectivity of the formation of 2-pyrazolylthiazoles and their precursors from the reaction of 2-hydrazinothiazoles with 4,4,4-trifluoro-1-hetaryl-1,3-butanediones

Reaction of 2-hydrazinothiazoles 1 with 1-thienyl- and 1-furyl-1,3-butanediones 2a,b in methanol in the presence of hydrochloric acid mainly leads to a mixture of pyrazoles 3 and pyrazolines 4 or pyrazoles 3 and 5 in strong acidic conditions. Isomeric hydrazones 6 and pyrazolines 4 were formed and isolated in these reactions in the absence of hydrochloric acid. It has been shown that the regioselectivity in the reaction of diketones 2 with hydrazine 1 is governed by both the concentration of acid and the nature of substituents in the 1,3-diketones 2. Cyclization of hydrazones 6 is shown to occur under milder conditions than dehydration for pyrazolines 4. The new heterocyclic compounds were prepared and fully characterized by NMR spectra and by X-ray analysis for 3c.     

Molecular structure and spectral properties of thionaphthalimides

The molecular structure and absorption spectra of monothio- and dithio-naphthalimides were compared to their naphthalimide analogues using AM1, PM3 and ZINDO/S semiempirical quantum chemical methods. The substitution of the 4R-naphthalimide oxygen atoms by sulphur atoms resulted in a red-shift of the absorption spectra by Δλ_max60-65 and 100-140 nm, respectively. The thionated naphthalimide derivatives do not show observable fluorescence due to intersystem crossing to the triplet -states localised at the CS groups. The -absorption bands of monothioimides are located at 525-580 nm (ε=60-80) and those for dithioimides at 535-560 nm (ε=140-390) and 628-686 nm (ε=34-68). None of these transitions are solvent sensitive. The -transitions of N-phenylthioimides have also a small contribution from -states due to a partial conjugation between CS group and π-electronic system of the N-phenyl ring. As a result, the bands of aromatic substituted N-phenylthioimides are red-shifted as compared to those of the aliphatic N-methyl-thioimides.     

TV2.0时代传统电视的变革及其发展趋势研究

TV2.0是一种全新的电视媒体信息传播理念,它强调收看形式或节目内容的互动性,使观众在看电视的过程中获得参与和分享,达到全新的个人体验,为此探讨了TV2.0时代传统电视的变革及其发展趋势。     

Social media usage and organizational performance: Reflections of Malaysian social media managers

Social media usage among organizations is growing tremendously. Organizations are now building and maintaining social media public pages to improve their social network salience, enhance interest in their organizations, and build relationships with the online public. The majority of the studies on social media usage are based on the individual perspective while some are from the organizational perspective. However, not many studies have investigated the actual impact of social media usage on organizational performance. Therefore, using the qualitative approach, this study investigates the various purposes of social media usage and its impact on organizational performance. This study however, focuses only on the social media managers’ views. The senior managers of six organizations that are using social media are interviewed from which we find that social media is used for various purposes in organizations, such as advertising and promotion, branding, information search, building customer relations and many more. The results also show that social media has a greater impact on the performance of organizations in terms of enhancement in customer relations and customer service activities, improvement in information accessibility and cost reduction in terms of marketing and customer service.