The varieties of depressive experience: diagnosing mood disorders.

PubMed

Ghaemi, S Nassir; Vöhringer, Paul A; Vergne, Derick E

2012-03-01

Biopsychosocial eclecticism has led, the authors believe, to a simplistic acceptance of a unitary view of MDD with little scientific solidity. The authors propose a return to careful psychopathology as the basis of all nosology, which has led to identifying four main types of depressive illness, and a method-based, existential approach to understanding depression.

Hip Hop Is Now: An Evolving Youth Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Carl; Taylor, Virgil

2007-01-01

Emerging from Rap music, Hip Hop has become a lifestyle to many modern youth around the world. Embodying both creativity and controversy, Hip Hop mirrors the values, violence, and hypocrisy of modern culture. The authors dispel some of the simplistic views that surround this evolving youth movement embraced by millions of young people who are…

A Tutorial on Interfacing the Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service (DDS) with LabView

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Kevin

2011-01-01

This tutorial will explain the concepts and steps for interfacing a National Instruments LabView virtual instrument (VI) running on a Windows platform with another computer via the Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service (DDS) as implemented by the Twin Oaks Computing CoreDX. This paper is for educational purposes only and therefore, the referenced source code will be simplistic and void of all error checking. Implementation will be accomplished using the C programming language.

So Perfect It's Positively Harmful?: Reflections on the Adaptiveness and Maladaptiveness of Positive and Negative Perfectionism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Owens, R. Glynn; Slade, Peter D.

2008-01-01

The article by Flatt and Hewitt (2006) highlights a number of important issues in the study of perfectionism and rightly urges caution against simplistic conceptualizations. Their view that the term "perfectionism" should be reserved for pathological forms of behavior is questionable, though understandable given the perspective from which they…

Unexpected ecological advances made possible by long-term data: A Coweeta example

Treesearch

C. Rhett Jackson; Jackson R. Webster; Jennifer D. Knoepp; Katherine J. Elliott; Ryan E. Emanuel; Peter V. Caldwell; Chelcy F. Miniat

2018-01-01

In the 1970s, Forest Service and academic researchers clearcut the forest in Watershed 7 in the Coweeta Basin to observe how far the perturbation would move the ecosystem and how quickly the ecosystem would return to its predisturbance state. Ourlong-term observations demonstrated that this view of resistance and resilience was too simplistic. Forest...

Intergroup Stereotypes of Working Class Blacks and Whites: Implications for Stereotype Threat.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niemann, Yolanda Flores; O'Connor, Elizabeth; McClorie, Randall

1998-01-01

Examined stereotypes of urban blacks and whites at a flea market with 68 black respondents, and at another flea market with 20 white respondents. Cluster-analysis results show that blacks have a relatively complex, multidimensional representation of themselves and of whites, while whites seem to have a more simplistic and negative view of blacks.…

Eosinophils: changing perspectives in health and disease

PubMed Central

Rosenberg, Helene F.; Dyer, Kimberly D.; Foster, Paul S.

2015-01-01

Eosinophils have been traditionally perceived as largely end-stage, cytotoxic effector cells. Recent studies have profoundly altered this simplistic view of eosinophils and their function. New insights into the molecular basis of development, trafficking and degranulation of eosinophils have provided a better understanding of the role of these cells in promoting homeostasis through their immunomodulatory functions. Likewise, recent developments have generated a more sophisticated view of how eosinophils contribute to the pathogenesis of disease, including asthma and primary hypereosinophilic syndromes, and also a more complete appreciation of their activities in parasitic infection. PMID:23154224

If at First You Don't Succeed, Bye, Bye Again: A Response to General Educators' Views on the REI.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Semmel, Melvyn I.; Gerber, Michael M.

1990-01-01

Programs implementing the Regular Education Initiative (REI) are criticized for their relatively simplistic approaches to the instructional problems created by learner diversity. Such programs as "Success for All" and teacher consultation programs do not adequately consider what happens to those students and teachers who do not succeed under the…

Implications of the Marketization of Higher Education for Social Emotional Development in Schools: A Personal View

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, Paul

2014-01-01

This essay discusses the institutional dysfunction that has resulted from the misguided belief that a market forces approach leads to the improvement of teaching quality and learning outcomes. Because the market forces approach is based on a simplistic input-output model that pays scant attention to teaching and learning processes, it is an…

Sense of Community, a Theory Not a Value: A Response to Nowell and Boyd

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McMillan, David W.

2011-01-01

This is a response to the Nowell and Boyd (2010) article printed in this journal titled: Viewing Community as Responsibility as Well as Resource: Deconstructing the Theoretical Roots of Psychological Sense of Community. In that article, they argued that the McMillan theory of Sense of Community is a simplistic, needs-based theory that excludes…

Why the Simple View of Reading Is Not Simplistic: Unpacking Component Skills of Reading Using a Direct and Indirect Effect Model of Reading (DIER)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Young-Suk Grace

2017-01-01

Pathways of relations of language, cognitive, and literacy skills (i.e., working memory, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, inference, comprehension monitoring, word reading, and listening comprehension) to reading comprehension were examined by comparing four variations of direct and indirect effects model of reading. Results from 350…

Bidirectional Longitudinal Associations of Perpetration and Victimization of Peer Bullying with Psychosocial Problems in Adolescents: A Cross-Lagged Panel Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Busch, Vincent; Laninga-Wijnen, Lydia; van Yperen, Tom Albert; Schrijvers, Augustinus Jacobus Petrus; De Leeuw, Johannes Rob Josephus

2015-01-01

Research on school bullying often focuses on the directional path of bullying and/or victimization leading to psychosocial problems, while such one-dimensional views have been shown to be too simplistic. Furthermore, recent research has shown that patterns of bullying at school differ for boys and girls, which makes gender a particularly relevant…

Movies and the Military

DTIC Science & Technology

1972-01-01

by the hundreds. The most popular subjects were his tor ical dramas, comedies , simplistic versions of the classics, and sentimental domestic and...Germans and the making of a world "safe for democracy." All the war films, even the slapstick comedies , presented a simple view of the conflict-the...an exciting and romantic background for a love story or a musical. The value of military preparedness was implied strongly in these films which

Leadership and leadership development in healthcare settings – a simplistic solution to complex problems?

PubMed Central

McDonald, Ruth

2014-01-01

There is a trend in health systems around the world to place great emphasis on and faith in improving ‘leadership’. Leadership has been defined in many ways and the elitist implications of traditional notions of leadership sit uncomfortably with modern healthcare organisations. The concept of distributed leadership incorporates inclusivity, collectiveness and collaboration, with the result that, to some extent, all staff, not just those in senior management roles, are viewed as leaders. Leadership development programmes are intended to equip individuals to improve leadership skills, but we know little about their effectiveness. Furthermore, the content of these programmes varies widely and the fact that many lack a sense of how they fit with individual or organisational goals raises questions about how they are intended to achieve their aims. It is important to avoid simplistic assumptions about the ability of improved leadership to solve complex problems. It is also important to evaluate leadership development programmes in ways that go beyond descriptive accounts. PMID:25337595

Leadership and leadership development in healthcare settings - a simplistic solution to complex problems?

PubMed

McDonald, Ruth

2014-10-01

There is a trend in health systems around the world to place great emphasis on and faith in improving 'leadership'. Leadership has been defined in many ways and the elitist implications of traditional notions of leadership sit uncomfortably with modern healthcare organisations. The concept of distributed leadership incorporates inclusivity, collectiveness and collaboration, with the result that, to some extent, all staff, not just those in senior management roles, are viewed as leaders. Leadership development programmes are intended to equip individuals to improve leadership skills, but we know little about their effectiveness. Furthermore, the content of these programmes varies widely and the fact that many lack a sense of how they fit with individual or organisational goals raises questions about how they are intended to achieve their aims. It is important to avoid simplistic assumptions about the ability of improved leadership to solve complex problems. It is also important to evaluate leadership development programmes in ways that go beyond descriptive accounts.

Could nursery rhymes cause violent behaviour? A comparison with television viewing.

PubMed

Davies, P; Lee, L; Fox, A; Fox, E

2004-12-01

To assess the rates of violence in nursery rhymes compared to pre-watershed television viewing. Data regarding television viewing habits, and the amount of violence on British television, were obtained from Ofcom. A compilation of nursery rhymes was examined for episodes of violence by three of the researchers. Each nursery rhyme was analysed by number and type of episode. They were then recited to the fourth researcher whose reactions were scrutinised. There were 1045 violent scenes on pre-watershed television over two weeks, of which 61% showed the act and the result; 51% of programmes contained violence. The 25 nursery rhymes had 20 episodes of violence, with 41% of rhymes being violent in some way; 30% mentioned the act and the result, with 50% only the act. Episodes of law breaking and animal abuse were also identified. Television has 4.8 violent scenes per hour and nursery rhymes have 52.2 violent scenes per hour. Analysis of the reactions of the fourth researcher were inconclusive. Although we do not advocate exposure for anyone to violent scenes or stimuli, childhood violence is not a new phenomenon. Whether visual violence and imagined violence have the same effect is likely to depend on the age of the child and the effectiveness of the storyteller. Re-interpretation of the ancient problem of childhood and youth violence through modern eyes is difficult, and laying the blame solely on television viewing is simplistic and may divert attention from vastly more complex societal problems.

Remote Sensing: A Film Review.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carter, David J.

1986-01-01

Reviews the content of 19 films on remote sensing published between 1973 and 1980. Concludes that they are overly simplistic, notably outdated, and generally too optimistic about the potential of remote sensing from space for resource exploration and environmental problem-solving. Provides names and addresses of more current remote sensing…

Reframing Accountability Policy Research with Postpositivism, Pluralism, Democracy and Subsidiarity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macpherson, R. J. S.

A 1994 review of international policy research on accountability in education indicates that there is widespread concern over policy content, processes, and consequences. Current purposes tend to be polarized by a simplistic dualism--hyperindividualism versus communitarianism. Policies and practices often exhibit neocentralist assumptions. This…

Fatalism or Destiny? A Qualitative Study and Interpretative Framework on Dominican Women’s Breast Cancer Beliefs

PubMed Central

Flórez, Karen R.; Aguirre, Alejandra N.; Viladrich, Anahí; Céspedes, Amarilis; De La Cruz, Ana Alicia

2008-01-01

Background A growing literature on Latino’s beliefs about cancer focuses on the concept of fatalismo (fatalism), despite numerous conceptual ambiguities concerning its meaning, definition, and measurement. This study explored Latina women’s views on breast cancer and screening within a cultural framework of destino (“destiny”), or the notion that both personal agency and external forces can influence health and life events Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Latinas from the Dominican Republic aged 40 or over. Results Respondents reported complex notions of health locus of control that encompassed both internal (e.g., individual action) and external (e.g., the will of God) forces shaping breast cancer prevention efforts. Furthermore, women actively participated in screening because they believed that cancer could become a death sentence if diagnosed late or left untreated. Discussion In contrast to simplistic notions of “fatalism”, our analysis suggests complex strategies and beliefs regarding breast cancer and cancer screening that speak of resiliency rather than hopelessness. PMID:18253833

The Roles of Water in the Protein Matrix: A Largely Untapped Resource for Drug Discovery.

PubMed

Spyrakis, Francesca; Ahmed, Mostafa H; Bayden, Alexander S; Cozzini, Pietro; Mozzarelli, Andrea; Kellogg, Glen E

2017-08-24

The value of thoroughly understanding the thermodynamics specific to a drug discovery/design study is well known. Over the past decade, the crucial roles of water molecules in protein structure, function, and dynamics have also become increasingly appreciated. This Perspective explores water in the biological environment by adopting its point of view in such phenomena. The prevailing thermodynamic models of the past, where water was seen largely in terms of an entropic gain after its displacement by a ligand, are now known to be much too simplistic. We adopt a set of terminology that describes water molecules as being "hot" and "cold", which we have defined as being easy and difficult to displace, respectively. The basis of these designations, which involve both enthalpic and entropic water contributions, are explored in several classes of biomolecules and structural motifs. The hallmarks for characterizing water molecules are examined, and computational tools for evaluating water-centric thermodynamics are reviewed. This Perspective's summary features guidelines for exploiting water molecules in drug discovery.

Multiple transcription factor codes activate epidermal wound–response genes in Drosophila

PubMed Central

Pearson, Joseph C.; Juarez, Michelle T.; Kim, Myungjin; Drivenes, Øyvind; McGinnis, William

2009-01-01

Wounds in Drosophila and mouse embryos induce similar genetic pathways to repair epidermal barriers. However, the transcription factors that transduce wound signals to repair epidermal barriers are largely unknown. We characterize the transcriptional regulatory enhancers of 4 genes—Ddc, ple, msn, and kkv—that are rapidly activated in epidermal cells surrounding wounds in late Drosophila embryos and early larvae. These epidermal wound enhancers all contain evolutionarily conserved sequences matching binding sites for JUN/FOS and GRH transcription factors, but vary widely in trans- and cis-requirements for these inputs and their binding sites. We propose that the combination of GRH and FOS is part of an ancient wound–response pathway still used in vertebrates and invertebrates, but that other mechanisms have evolved that result in similar transcriptional output. A common, but largely untested assumption of bioinformatic analyses of gene regulatory networks is that transcription units activated in the same spatial and temporal patterns will require the same cis-regulatory codes. Our results indicate that this is an overly simplistic view. PMID:19168633

Immunity to intestinal pathogens: lessons learned from Salmonella

PubMed Central

McSorley, Stephen J.

2014-01-01

Summary Salmonella are a common source of food or water-borne infection and cause a wide range of clinical disease in human and animal hosts. Salmonella are relatively easy to culture and manipulate in a laboratory setting, and the infection of laboratory animals induces robust innate and adaptive immune responses. Thus, immunologists have frequently turned to Salmonella infection models to expand understanding of immunity to intestinal pathogens. In this review, I summarize current knowledge of innate and adaptive immunity to Salmonella and highlight features of this response that have emerged from recent studies. These include the heterogeneity of the antigen-specific T-cell response to intestinal infection, the prominence of microbial mechanisms to impede T and B-cell responses, and the contribution of non-cognate pathways for elicitation of T-cell effector functions. Together, these different issues challenge an overly simplistic view of host-pathogen interaction during mucosal infection but also allow deeper insight into the real-world dynamic of protective immunity to intestinal pathogens. PMID:24942689

Fitting Process Research to the Working Clinician.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Elliott, Robert

In the past, psychotherapy process research has operated in a vacuum, cut off from clinical practice. It has been dominated by short-sighted, simplistic methodological short-cuts which have hampered its usefulness. Over the next decade new research approaches may substantially close the gap between psychotherapy process research and the practice…

Could nursery rhymes cause violent behaviour? A comparison with television viewing

PubMed Central

Davies, P; Lee, L; Fox, A; Fox, E

2004-01-01

Aims: To assess the rates of violence in nursery rhymes compared to pre-watershed television viewing. Methods: Data regarding television viewing habits, and the amount of violence on British television, were obtained from Ofcom. A compilation of nursery rhymes was examined for episodes of violence by three of the researchers. Each nursery rhyme was analysed by number and type of episode. They were then recited to the fourth researcher whose reactions were scrutinised. Results: There were 1045 violent scenes on pre-watershed television over two weeks, of which 61% showed the act and the result; 51% of programmes contained violence. The 25 nursery rhymes had 20 episodes of violence, with 41% of rhymes being violent in some way; 30% mentioned the act and the result, with 50% only the act. Episodes of law breaking and animal abuse were also identified. Television has 4.8 violent scenes per hour and nursery rhymes have 52.2 violent scenes per hour. Analysis of the reactions of the fourth researcher were inconclusive. Conclusions: Although we do not advocate exposure for anyone to violent scenes or stimuli, childhood violence is not a new phenomenon. Whether visual violence and imagined violence have the same effect is likely to depend on the age of the child and the effectiveness of the storyteller. Re-interpretation of the ancient problem of childhood and youth violence through modern eyes is difficult, and laying the blame solely on television viewing is simplistic and may divert attention from vastly more complex societal problems. PMID:15557041

Dynamic interplay between merger process justice and cognitive trust in top management: A longitudinal study.

PubMed

Kaltiainen, Janne; Lipponen, Jukka; Holtz, Brian C

2017-04-01

This study examines two fundamental concerns in the context of organizational change: employees' perceptions of merger process justice and cognitive trust in the top management team. Our main purpose is to better understand the nature of reciprocal relations between these important constructs through a significant change event. Previous research, building mainly on social exchange theory, has framed trust as a consequence of justice perceptions. More recently, scholars have suggested that this view may be overly simplistic and that trust-related cognitions may also represent an important antecedent of justice perceptions. Using 3-wave longitudinal survey data (N = 622) gathered during a merger process, we tested reciprocal relations over time between cognitive trust in the top management team and perceptions of the merger process justice. In contrast to the conventional unidirectional notion of trust or trust-related cognitions as outcomes of perceived justice, our results show positive reciprocal relations over time between cognitive trust and justice. Our findings also revealed that the positive influence of cognitive trust on subsequent justice perceptions was slightly more robust than the opposite direction. By examining cross-lagged longitudinal relations between these critical psychological reactions, this study contributes across multiple domains of the management literature including trust, justice, and organizational mergers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

A basis for understanding compatibility among wood production and other forest values.

Treesearch

Richard W. Haynes; Robert A. Monserud

2002-01-01

In the public debate over forest management, many issues are portrayed as tradeoffs between biophysical and socioeconomic components of ecosystems. This simplistic portrayal ignores potential opportunities for compatible changes in outputs (either goods or services) among alternative management strategies. In response, a research effort called the Wood Compatibility...

Contrasting Portraits of War: Youths' Varied Experiences with Political Violence in Bosnia and Palestine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barber, Brian K.

2008-01-01

This article illustrates some of the complexity of youths' experience with political violence as a means of cautioning researchers, applied professionals and policy makers against overly-simplistic conclusions and interventions when attempting to understand and serve the large populations of the world's youth who endure conflict. A variety of…

Repackaging the Past: Commodification, Consumerism and the Study of History

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Armstrong, Paul; Coles, Janet

2008-01-01

In this paper, we argue against the over-simplistic accusation that the media "dumb down" the study of history. Instead, we critically examine the contemporary presentation of history on British television within a framework of analysis of commodification and consumption. We argue that central to the debate is the idea that whilst…

An Investigation of the Relationship between University Rankings and Graduate Starting Wages

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carroll, David

2014-01-01

The rise of global university rankings has garnered much attention in recent years. Various ranking systems exist, but all are conceptually similar in that universities are evaluated and ranked on the basis of comparable indicators, with a focus on research performance. Although these rankings are widely criticised as over-simplistic and…

Better safe than sorry: simplistic fear-relevant stimuli capture attention.

PubMed

Forbes, Sarah J; Purkis, Helena M; Lipp, Ottmar V

2011-08-01

It has been consistently demonstrated that fear-relevant images capture attention preferentially over fear-irrelevant images. Current theory suggests that this faster processing could be mediated by an evolved module that allows certain stimulus features to attract attention automatically, prior to the detailed processing of the image. The present research investigated whether simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli would produce interference with target detection in a visual search task. In Experiment 1, silhouettes and degraded silhouettes of fear-relevant animals produced more interference than did the fear-irrelevant images. Experiment 2, compared the effects of fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant distracters and confirmed that the interference produced by fear-relevant distracters was not an effect of novelty. Experiment 3 suggested that fear-relevant stimuli produced interference regardless of whether participants were instructed as to the content of the images. The three experiments indicate that even very simplistic images of fear-relevant animals can divert attention.

Creativity: Performativity's Poison or Its Antidote?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Munday, Ian

2014-01-01

A common move in the study of creativity and performativity is to present the former as an antidote to the latter. Might we, therefore, see work on creativity in education as heralding an era of post-performativity? In this paper I argue that the portrayal of performativity in the literature on creativity presents an overly simplistic (vulgar?)…

The Many Methods to Measure Testability: A Horror Story.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-04-01

it seems overly simplistic to assign only one "magic number" as a viable design goal. Different design technologies such as digital, analog, machanical ...FAILURE RATE 1 1 BASIC TEST PROGRAM 1 1 ATLAS TEST PROGRAM 1 1 EDIF FILE 1 1 TEST STRATEGY FLOWCHART 1 1 RTOK FREQUENCY 1 1 DIAGNOSIS AVERAGE COST 1 1

Simulating stand-level harvest prescriptions across landscapes: LANDIS PRO harvest module design

Treesearch

Jacob S. Fraser; Hong S. He; Stephen R. Shifley; Wen J. Wang; Frank R. Thompson

2013-01-01

Forest landscape models (FLMs) are an important tool for assessing the long-term cumulative effects of harvest over large spatial extents. However, they have not been commonly used to guide forest management planning and on-the-ground operations. This is largely because FLMs track relatively simplistic vegetation information such as age cohort presence/absence, forest...

From "Or" to "And": "L'écriture Féminine" as a Methodological Approach for Fine Art Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Jacqueline

2014-01-01

This article asserts that the terms "practice-led" and "practice-based" in the context of Art and Design doctoral research are overly simplistic and maintain oppositional thinking by privileging "practice" in generating knowledge. It argues instead for theory and practice as interrelated discourses and art practice…

Beyond Horse Race Comparisons of National Performance Averages: Math Performance Variation within and between Classrooms in 38 Countries

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huang, Min-Hsiung

2009-01-01

Reports of international studies of student achievement often receive public attention worldwide. However, this attention overly focuses on the national rankings of average student performance. To move beyond the simplistic comparison of national mean scores, this study investigates (a) country differences in the measures of variability as well as…

CHD chromatin remodelers and the transcription cycle

PubMed Central

Murawska, Magdalena

2011-01-01

It is well established that ATP-dependent chromatin remodelers modulate DNA access of transcription factors and RNA polymerases by “opening” or “closing” chromatin structure. However, this view is far too simplistic. Recent findings have demonstrated that these enzymes not only set the stage for the transcription machinery to act but also are actively involved at every step of the transcription process. As a consequence, they affect initiation, elongation, termination and RNA processing. In this review we will use the CHD family as a paradigm to illustrate the progress that has been made in revealing these new concepts. PMID:22223048

Aerobic mitochondria of parasitic protists: Diverse genomes and complex functions.

PubMed

Zíková, Alena; Hampl, Vladimír; Paris, Zdeněk; Týč, Jiří; Lukeš, Julius

In this review the main features of the mitochondria of aerobic parasitic protists are discussed. While the best characterized organelles are by far those of kinetoplastid flagellates and Plasmodium, we also consider amoebae Naegleria and Acanthamoeba, a ciliate Ichthyophthirius and related lineages. The simplistic view of the mitochondrion as just a power house of the cell has already been abandoned in multicellular organisms and available data indicate that this also does not apply for protists. We discuss in more details the following mitochondrial features: genomes, post-transcriptional processing, translation, biogenesis of iron-sulfur complexes, heme metabolism and the electron transport chain. Substantial differences in all these core mitochondrial features between lineages are compatible with the view that aerobic protists harbor organelles that are more complex and flexible than previously appreciated. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

State of the World 1984

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singer, S. Fred

Long before Ronald Reagan asked voters whether they were better off today than they were 4 years ago, many thoughtful people were asking whether the world as a whole was becoming a better place to live. The Malthusian point of view, restated by the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth, made an enormous impact on the world when it appeared in 1972. Its simplistic message, disguised in computer models, was that exponential growth cannot be maintained forever. Specifically, it predicted imminent exhaustion of food and natural resources and death from evergrowing pollution. Its successor volume, Global 2000, published with the encouragement of the Carter White House in 1980, was more restrained but also predicted general doom. It was responded to by The Resourceful Earth (sponsored by the Heritage Foundation), which views the future as rosy and contradicts Global 2000 on almost every point.

'That thing of human rights': discourse, emergency assistance, and sexual violence in South Sudan's current civil war.

PubMed

Luedke, Alicia Elaine; Logan, Hannah Faye

2018-01-01

One of the most widely covered aspects of the current conflict in South Sudan has been the use sexual violence by rival factions of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and other armed groups. While this has had the positive effect of ensuring that sexual violence is an integral component of intervention strategies in the country, it has also had a number of unintended consequences. This paper demonstrates how the narrow focus on sexual violence as a 'weapon of war', and the broader emergency lens through which the plight of civilians, especially women, has been viewed, are overly simplistic, often neglecting the root causes of such violence. More specifically, it highlights how dominant discourses on sexual violence in South Sudan's conflict have disregarded the historically violent civil-military relations that have typified the SPLM/A's leadership, and the structural violence connected with the local political economy of bride wealth and the associated commodification of feminine identities and bodies. © 2018 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2018.

Arnold Gesell and the maturation controversy.

PubMed

Dalton, Thomas C

2005-01-01

This article examines the work of Arnold Lucius Gesell and argues that he not only paved the way for contemporary research in motor development, but that he and colleagues anticipated fundamental issues about growth that must be addressed by psychologists and neuroscientists who are committed to the advancement of developmental science. Arnold Lucius Gesell was a pioneer in developmental psychology when the field was in its infancy. He worked diligently for the rights of physically and mentally handicapped children to receive special education that would enable them to find gainful employment. Gesell's writings in books and popular magazines increased public awareness of and support for preschool education and better foster care for orphans. Despite these achievements, many of his successors have questioned his views about infant development. Developmental psychologists have criticized Gesell for proposing a stage theory of infant growth that has fallen into disfavor among contemporary researchers. His conception of development as a maturational process has been challenged for allegedly reducing complex behavioral, perceptual, and learning processes to genetic factors. The author rejects this overly simplistic interpretation and contends that Gesell's work continues to stand the test of time.

Conflict and HIV: A framework for risk assessment to prevent HIV in conflict-affected settings in Africa

PubMed Central

Mock, Nancy B; Duale, Sambe; Brown, Lisanne F; Mathys, Ellen; O'Maonaigh, Heather C; Abul-Husn, Nina KL; Elliott, Sterling

2004-01-01

In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS and violent conflict interact to shape population health and development in dramatic ways. HIV/AIDS can create conditions conducive to conflict. Conflict can affect the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS. Conflict is generally understood to accelerate HIV transmission, but this view is simplistic and disregards complex interrelationships between factors that can inhibit and accelerate the spread of HIV in conflict and post conflict settings, respectively. This paper provides a framework for understanding these factors and discusses their implications for policy formulation and program planning in conflict-affected settings. PMID:15679919

Dental ethics in a larger context: one point of view.

PubMed

Baumrind, Sheldon

2007-01-01

Since the end of World War II, the practice of dentistry has been largely transformed from a "calling" into a cog in the ever-expanding "Healthcare Industry". In the process, the distinction between professional ethics and the ethics of commerce has been attenuated and, to a large extent, lost. Today's dentist is faced with an inherent conflict between the pledge of the health professional to hold the patient's interests primary (and above all, to do no harm), and the self-protective commercial principle of caveat emptor. Pressures towards commercialism come from the government and the insurance industry, the increasingly unfavorable ratio between professional fees and the cost of production, and the high cost of dental education. Viewed simplistically, much of dentistry today has an outward form resembling commodity production. Recognizing the substantial forces tending to attenuate ethical standards in our profession may aid us in resisting their encroachments.

A view from Riggs: treatment resistance and patient authority--VIII. Standards of care and patient autonomy.

PubMed

Charles, Marilyn

2008-01-01

The therapeutic community at the Austen Riggs Center relies on patient authority to preserve the open setting. Patients' willingness to take on the challenges and responsibilities of citizenship makes it possible to work without bars or locks. Most patients arrive having been labeled "treatment resistant," a label that can connote noncompliance but can also mark the complexity of the trouble and a resistance to being objectified in ways that are dehumanizing. Respect for this complexity can at times counter standards of care that define and prescribe ways of viewing patients and attending to their distress that may be simplistic and undermine development. This paper will explore how current ideas about standards of care may insufficiently take into account the importance of the patient's authority--and the therapist's standards--in helping an individual to make sense of life and experience, and how facing this dilemma head on can reduce resistance.

Are you afraid of the dark? Notes on the psychology of belief in histories of science and the occult.

PubMed

Sommer, Andreas

2016-04-02

The popular view of the inherent conflict between science and the occult has been rendered obsolete by recent advances in the history of science. Yet, these historiographical revisions have gone unnoticed in the public understanding of science and public education at large. Particularly, reconstructions of the formation of modern psychology and its links to psychical research can show that the standard view of the latter as motivated by metaphysical bias fails to stand up to scrutiny. After highlighting certain basic methodological maxims shared by psychotherapists and historians, I will try to counterbalance simplistic claims of a 'need to believe' as a precondition of scientific open-mindedness regarding the occurrence of parapsychological phenomena by discussing instances revealing a presumably widespread 'will to disbelieve' in the occult. I shall argue that generalized psychological explanations are only helpful in our understanding of history if we apply them in a symmetrical manner.

Didactic Considerations on Magnetic Circuits Excited by Permanent Magnets

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barmada, S.; Rizzo, R.; Sani, L.

2009-01-01

In this paper, the authors focus their attention on the way magnetic circuits and permanent magnets are usually treated in most textbooks and electrical engineering courses. This paper demonstrates how this important topic is too often presented simplistically. This simplistic treatment does not allow the students to develop a complete…

Sub-micrometric surface texturing of AZ31 Mg-alloy through two-beam direct laser interference patterning with a ns-pulsed green fiber laser

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Furlan, Valentina; Biondi, Marco; Demir, Ali Gökhan; Pariani, Giorgio; Previtali, Barbara; Bianco, Andrea

2017-11-01

Two-beam direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) is the method that employs two beams and provides control over the pattern geometry by regulating the angle between the beams and the wavelength of the beam. Despite the simplistic optical arrangement required for the method, the feasibility of sub-micrometric patterning of a surface depends on the correct manipulation of the process parameters, especially in the case of metallic materials. Magnesium alloys, from this point of view, exhibit further difficulty in processability due to low melting point and high reactivity. With biocompatibility and biodegradability features, Mg-alloy implants can take further advantage of surface structuring for tailoring the biological behaviour. In this work, a two-beam DLIP setup has been developed employing an industrial grade nanosecond-pulsed fiber laser emitting at 532 nm. The high repetition rate and ramped pulse profile provided by the laser were exploited for a more flexible control over the energy content deposited over the heat-sensitive Mg-alloy. The paper describes the strategies developed for controlling ramped laser emission at 20 kHz repetition rate. The process feasibility window was assessed within a large range of parameters. Within the feasibility window, a complete experimental plan was applied to investigate the effect of main laser process parameters on the pattern dimensions. Periodic surface structures with good definition down to 580 nm ± 20 nm spacing were successfully produced.

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TUMORIGENESIS AND TUMOR IMMUNITY IN INVERTEBRATES AND NONMAMMALIAN VERTEBRATES

PubMed Central

Robert, Jacques

2010-01-01

Despite intense study in mammals, the different roles played by the immune system in detecting (immunosurveillance), controlling and remodeling (immunoediting) neoplasia, and perhaps in metastasis are not fully understood. In this review, I will present evidence of neoplasia and invasive malignancy, as well as tumor immunity in invertebrates and nonmammalian vertebrates. I will also present a comparative and evolutionary view of the complex interactions between neoplasia and the host immune system. Overall, I wish to go beyond the too simplistic dichotomy between invertebrates with innate immunity that are only affected with benign neoplasia and vertebrates with adaptive immunity that are affected by metastatic malignancies or cancer. PMID:20553753

From Easter Island to coated coronary stents: a remarkable saga.

PubMed

Cantwell, John D

2008-01-01

Easter Island, even though it's in the middle of nowhere, is indeed a piece of the continent, as John Donne alluded to. In addition to contributing rapamycin to the medical field, the island is an example to the whole world of the consequences of affluent lifestyles, tribal wars, and ignorance of ecology. Jared Diamond expressed these thoughts best in his book, "Collapse:" The parallels between Easter Island and the whole modern world are chillingly obvious... All countries on earth today share resources and affect each other just as did Easter's dozen clans. Polynesian Easter Island was as isolated in the Pacific Ocean as the Earth is today in space. People see the collapse of Easter Island 's society as a metaphor; a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead for us in our own future. Some veteran Easter Island archaeologists like Claudio Cristina feel that Diamond's views are overly simplistic, commenting that he only spent a week on the island (versus 30 years for Cristina). Predatory Polynesian rats, earthquakes, tsunamis, variations in rainfall, diseases introduced by European sailing ships, could all have contributed to the near-demise of Easter Island. Tribal wars certainly didn't help, nor did slave-raiding parties from Peru. Only the eyes of the moai (Fig. 5) have seen it all, but the statues remain silent, as they have for over 1,000 years.

OBSERVATIONAL STUDIES VS. RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS: AVENUES TO CAUSAL INFERENCE IN NEPHROLOGY

PubMed Central

Kovesdy, Csaba P; Kalantar-Zadeh, Kamyar

2011-01-01

A common frustration for practicing Nephrologists is the adage that the lack of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) does not allow us to establish causality, but merely associations. The field of Nephrology, like many other disciplines, has been suffering from a lack of RCTs. The view that short of RCTs there is no reliable evidence has hampered our ability to ascertain the best course of action for our patients. However, many clinically important questions in medicine and public health such as the association of smoking and lung cancer are not amenable to RCTs due to ethical or other considerations. Whereas RCTs unquestionably hold many advantages over observational studies, it should be recognized that they also have many flaws that render them fallible under certain circumstances. We provide a description of the various pros and cons of RCTs and of observational studies using examples from the Nephrology literature, and argue that it is simplistic to rank them solely based on pre-conceived notions about the superiority of one over the other. We also discuss methods whereby observational studies can become acceptable tools for causal inferences. Such approaches are especially important in a field like Nephrology where there are myriads of potential interventions based on complex pathophysiologic states, but where properly designed and conducted RCTs for all of these will probably never materialize. PMID:22364796

Hierarchical statistical modeling of xylem vulnerability to cavitation.

PubMed

Ogle, Kiona; Barber, Jarrett J; Willson, Cynthia; Thompson, Brenda

2009-01-01

Cavitation of xylem elements diminishes the water transport capacity of plants, and quantifying xylem vulnerability to cavitation is important to understanding plant function. Current approaches to analyzing hydraulic conductivity (K) data to infer vulnerability to cavitation suffer from problems such as the use of potentially unrealistic vulnerability curves, difficulty interpreting parameters in these curves, a statistical framework that ignores sampling design, and an overly simplistic view of uncertainty. This study illustrates how two common curves (exponential-sigmoid and Weibull) can be reparameterized in terms of meaningful parameters: maximum conductivity (k(sat)), water potential (-P) at which percentage loss of conductivity (PLC) =X% (P(X)), and the slope of the PLC curve at P(X) (S(X)), a 'sensitivity' index. We provide a hierarchical Bayesian method for fitting the reparameterized curves to K(H) data. We illustrate the method using data for roots and stems of two populations of Juniperus scopulorum and test for differences in k(sat), P(X), and S(X) between different groups. Two important results emerge from this study. First, the Weibull model is preferred because it produces biologically realistic estimates of PLC near P = 0 MPa. Second, stochastic embolisms contribute an important source of uncertainty that should be included in such analyses.

Parametric Study of Variable Emissivity Radiator Surfaces

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grob, Lisa M.; Swanson, Theodore D.

2000-01-01

The goal of spacecraft thermal design is to accommodate a high function satellite in a low weight and real estate package. The extreme environments that the satellite is exposed during its orbit are handled using passive and active control techniques. Heritage passive heat rejection designs are sized for the hot conditions and augmented for the cold end with heaters. The active heat rejection designs to date are heavy, expensive and/or complex. Incorporating an active radiator into the design that is lighter, cheaper and more simplistic will allow designers to meet the previously stated goal of thermal spacecraft design Varying the radiator's surface properties without changing the radiating area (as with VCHP), or changing the radiators' views (traditional louvers) is the objective of the variable emissivity (vary-e) radiator technologies. A parametric evaluation of the thermal performance of three such technologies is documented in this paper. Comparisons of the Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS), Electrochromics, and Electrophoretics radiators to conventional radiators, both passive and active are quantified herein. With some noted limitations, the vary-e radiator surfaces provide significant advantages over traditional radiators and a promising alternative design technique for future spacecraft thermal systems.

Are you afraid of the dark? Notes on the psychology of belief in histories of science and the occult

PubMed Central

Sommer, Andreas

2016-01-01

Abstract The popular view of the inherent conflict between science and the occult has been rendered obsolete by recent advances in the history of science. Yet, these historiographical revisions have gone unnoticed in the public understanding of science and public education at large. Particularly, reconstructions of the formation of modern psychology and its links to psychical research can show that the standard view of the latter as motivated by metaphysical bias fails to stand up to scrutiny. After highlighting certain basic methodological maxims shared by psychotherapists and historians, I will try to counterbalance simplistic claims of a ‘need to believe’ as a precondition of scientific open-mindedness regarding the occurrence of parapsychological phenomena by discussing instances revealing a presumably widespread ‘will to disbelieve’ in the occult. I shall argue that generalized psychological explanations are only helpful in our understanding of history if we apply them in a symmetrical manner. PMID:27226762

Essentializing the binary self: individualism and collectivism in cultural neuroscience.

PubMed

Martínez Mateo, M; Cabanis, M; Stenmanns, J; Krach, S

2013-01-01

Within the emerging field of cultural neuroscience (CN) one branch of research focuses on the neural underpinnings of "individualistic/Western" vs. "collectivistic/Eastern" self-views. These studies uncritically adopt essentialist assumptions from classic cross-cultural research, mainly following the tradition of Markus and Kitayama (1991), into the domain of functional neuroimaging. In this perspective article we analyze recent publications and conference proceedings of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (2012) and problematize the essentialist and simplistic understanding of "culture" in these studies. Further, we argue against the binary structure of the drawn "cultural" comparisons and their underlying Eurocentrism. Finally we scrutinize whether valuations within the constructed binarities bear the risk of constructing and reproducing a postcolonial, orientalist argumentation pattern.

Intimacy and the life cycle in the marital relationships of the Scottish elite during the long eighteenth century.

PubMed

Barclay, Katie

2011-01-01

Traditionally marriage has been treated as one step in the life cycle, between youth and old age, singleness and widowhood. Yet an approach to the life cycle that treats marriage as a single step in a person's life is overly simplistic. During the eighteenth century many marriages were of considerable longevity during which time couples aged together and power dynamics within the home were frequently renegotiated to reflect changing circumstances. This study explores how intimacy developed and changed over the life cycle of marriage and what this meant for power, through a study of the correspondence of two elite Scottish couples.

When to be discrete: the importance of time formulation in understanding animal movement.

PubMed

McClintock, Brett T; Johnson, Devin S; Hooten, Mevin B; Ver Hoef, Jay M; Morales, Juan M

2014-01-01

Animal movement is essential to our understanding of population dynamics, animal behavior, and the impacts of global change. Coupled with high-resolution biotelemetry data, exciting new inferences about animal movement have been facilitated by various specifications of contemporary models. These approaches differ, but most share common themes. One key distinction is whether the underlying movement process is conceptualized in discrete or continuous time. This is perhaps the greatest source of confusion among practitioners, both in terms of implementation and biological interpretation. In general, animal movement occurs in continuous time but we observe it at fixed discrete-time intervals. Thus, continuous time is conceptually and theoretically appealing, but in practice it is perhaps more intuitive to interpret movement in discrete intervals. With an emphasis on state-space models, we explore the differences and similarities between continuous and discrete versions of mechanistic movement models, establish some common terminology, and indicate under which circumstances one form might be preferred over another. Counter to the overly simplistic view that discrete- and continuous-time conceptualizations are merely different means to the same end, we present novel mathematical results revealing hitherto unappreciated consequences of model formulation on inferences about animal movement. Notably, the speed and direction of movement are intrinsically linked in current continuous-time random walk formulations, and this can have important implications when interpreting animal behavior. We illustrate these concepts in the context of state-space models with multiple movement behavior states using northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) biotelemetry data.

When to be discrete: The importance of time formulation in understanding animal movement

USGS Publications Warehouse

McClintock, Brett T.; Johnson, Devin S.; Hooten, Mevin B.; Ver Hoef, Jay M.; Morales, Juan M.

2014-01-01

Animal movement is essential to our understanding of population dynamics, animal behavior, and the impacts of global change. Coupled with high-resolution biotelemetry data, exciting new inferences about animal movement have been facilitated by various specifications of contemporary models. These approaches differ, but most share common themes. One key distinction is whether the underlying movement process is conceptualized in discrete or continuous time. This is perhaps the greatest source of confusion among practitioners, both in terms of implementation and biological interpretation. In general, animal movement occurs in continuous time but we observe it at fixed discrete-time intervals. Thus, continuous time is conceptually and theoretically appealing, but in practice it is perhaps more intuitive to interpret movement in discrete intervals. With an emphasis on state-space models, we explore the differences and similarities between continuous and discrete versions of mechanistic movement models, establish some common terminology, and indicate under which circumstances one form might be preferred over another. Counter to the overly simplistic view that discrete- and continuous-time conceptualizations are merely different means to the same end, we present novel mathematical results revealing hitherto unappreciated consequences of model formulation on inferences about animal movement. Notably, the speed and direction of movement are intrinsically linked in current continuous-time random walk formulations, and this can have important implications when interpreting animal behavior. We illustrate these concepts in the context of state-space models with multiple movement behavior states using northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus) biotelemetry data.

The role of serotonergic system at the interface of aggression and suicide

PubMed Central

Bortolato, Marco; Pivac, Nela; Seler, Dorotea Muck; Perkovic, Matea Nikolac; Pessia, Mauro; Di Giovanni, Giuseppe

2013-01-01

Alterations in serotonin (5-HT) neurochemistry have been implicated in the aetiology of all major neuropsychiatric disorders, ranging from schizophrenia to mood and anxiety-spectrum disorders. This review will focus on the mulifaceted implications of 5-HT-ergic dysfunctions in the pathophysiology of aggressive and suicidal behaviours. After a brief overview of the anatomical distribution of the 5-HT-ergic system in the key brain areas that govern aggression and suicidal behaviours, the implication of 5-HT markers (5-HT receptors, transporter as well as synthetic and metabolic enzymes) in these conditions is discussed. In this regard, particular emphasis is placed on the integration of pharmacological and genetic evidence from animal studies with the findings of human experimental and genetic association studies. Traditional views postulated an inverse relationship between 5-HT and aggression and suicidal behaviours; however, ample evidence has shown that this perspective may be overly simplistic, and that such pathological manifestations may reflect alterations in 5-HT homeostasis due to the interaction of genetic, environmental and gender-related factors, particularly during early critical developmental stages. The development of animal models that may capture the complexity of such interactions promises to afford a powerful tool to elucidate the pathophysiology of impulsive aggression and suicidability, and find new effective therapies for these conditions. PMID:23333677

Dynamic evolution of liquid–liquid phase separation during continuous cooling

DOE PAGES

Imhoff, Seth D.; Gibbs, Paul J.; Katz, Martha R.; ...

2015-01-06

Solidification from a multiphase fluid involves many unknown quantities due to the difficulty of predicting the impact of fluid flow on chemical partitioning. Real-time x-ray radiography was used to observe liquid-liquid phase separation in Al 90In 10 prior to solidification. Quantitative image analysis was used to measure the motion and population characteristics of the dispersed indium-rich liquid phase during cooling. Here we determine that the droplet growth characteristics resemble well known steady-state coarsening laws with likely enhancement by concurrent growth due to supersaturation. Simplistic views of droplet motion are found to be insufficient until late in the reaction due tomore » a hydrodynamic instability caused by the large density difference between the dispersed and matrix liquid phases.« less

Essentializing the binary self: individualism and collectivism in cultural neuroscience

PubMed Central

Martínez Mateo, M.; Cabanis, M.; Stenmanns, J.; Krach, S.

2013-01-01

Within the emerging field of cultural neuroscience (CN) one branch of research focuses on the neural underpinnings of “individualistic/Western” vs. “collectivistic/Eastern” self-views. These studies uncritically adopt essentialist assumptions from classic cross-cultural research, mainly following the tradition of Markus and Kitayama (1991), into the domain of functional neuroimaging. In this perspective article we analyze recent publications and conference proceedings of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (2012) and problematize the essentialist and simplistic understanding of “culture” in these studies. Further, we argue against the binary structure of the drawn “cultural” comparisons and their underlying Eurocentrism. Finally we scrutinize whether valuations within the constructed binarities bear the risk of constructing and reproducing a postcolonial, orientalist argumentation pattern. PMID:23801954

Welfare of apes in captive environments: comments on, and by, a specific group of apes.

PubMed

Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue; Wamba, Kanzi; Wamba, Panbanisha; Wamba, Nyota

2007-01-01

Accurately determining the proper captive environment for apes requires adequately assessing the psychological similarities between apes and humans. Scientists currently believe apes lack mental complexity (Millikan, 2006), raising questions concerning the evolution of human culture from ape-like societies (Tomasello, 1999). A long-term cultural study with bonobos suggests less intellectual divergence from humans than currently postulated (Savage-Rumbaugh, 2005). Because humans view apes as mentally limited, some current captive environments may appear idyllic while offering only an illusion of appropriate care, derived from a simplistic view of what apes are, rather than what they might be. This perception of apes determines their handling, which determines their mental development, which perpetuates the prevailing perception. Only breaking this cycle will allow the current perception of apes to change. Their usual captive environment limits any demonstration of culture. However, the bonobo study reveals what ape culture can become, which should affect future welfare considerations for at least those species genetically close to humans (bonobos and chimpanzees). Development of a languaged bonobo culture allows these nonhuman animals to provide their own responses regarding adequate ape welfare.

Study of Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvester with non-linear conditioning circuit using an integrated model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manzoor, Ali; Rafique, Sajid; Usman Iftikhar, Muhammad; Mahmood Ul Hassan, Khalid; Nasir, Ali

2017-08-01

Piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (PVEH) consists of a cantilever bimorph with piezoelectric layers pasted on its top and bottom, which can harvest power from vibrations and feed to low power wireless sensor nodes through some power conditioning circuit. In this paper, a non-linear conditioning circuit, consisting of a full-bridge rectifier followed by a buck-boost converter, is employed to investigate the issues of electrical side of the energy harvesting system. An integrated mathematical model of complete electromechanical system has been developed. Previously, researchers have studied PVEH with sophisticated piezo-beam models but employed simplistic linear circuits, such as resistor, as electrical load. In contrast, other researchers have worked on more complex non-linear circuits but with over-simplified piezo-beam models. Such models neglect different aspects of the system which result from complex interactions of its electrical and mechanical subsystems. In this work, authors have integrated the distributed parameter-based model of piezo-beam presented in literature with a real world non-linear electrical load. Then, the developed integrated model is employed to analyse the stability of complete energy harvesting system. This work provides a more realistic and useful electromechanical model having realistic non-linear electrical load unlike the simplistic linear circuit elements employed by many researchers.

Behind human milk and breastfeeding: not only food.

PubMed

Pecoraro, Luca; Agostoni, Carlo; Pepaj, Orsiol; Pietrobelli, Angelo

2017-12-26

After birth, breastfeeding should not be considered only a normal and physiological event; in fact, it encloses both physical and the psychological aspects. Human milk cannot be compared to any formula milk. Specifically, human milk has immunological and nutritional properties and it is considered the best available option which guarantees an adequate growth and an optimal development of a child. Differences in term of mediators and hormones have been shown between infants who were breastfed and ones who were not. A key point is represented by unmeasurable environmental and psycho-affective factors. So, it may be simplistic to consider human milk only as a nutrient; since it encompasses much more. The aim of our commentary is to review clinical studies about breastfeeding, analysing its consequences on the neuro-developmental achievement, growth and risk of obesity within a holistic view.

Multiple scales of patchiness and patch structure: a hierarchical framework for the study of heterogeneity

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kotliar, Natasha B.; Wiens, John A.

1990-01-01

We develop a hierarchical model of heterogeneity that provides a framework for classifying patch structure across a range of scales. Patches at lower levels in the hierarchy are more simplistic and correspond to the traditional view of patches. At levels approaching the upper bounds of the hierarchy the internal structure becomes more heterogeneous and boundaries more ambiguous. At each level in the hierarchy, patch structure will be influenced by both contrast among patches as well as the degree of aggregation of patches at lower levels in the hierarchy. We apply this model to foraging theory, but it has wider applications as in the study of habitat selection, population dynamics, and habitat fragmentation. It may also be useful in expanding the realm of landscape ecology beyond the current focus on anthropocentric scales.

Two-photon excitation cross section in light and intermediate atoms in frozen-core LS-coupling approximation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Omidvar, K.

1980-01-01

Using the method of explicit summation over the intermediate states two-photon absorption cross sections in light and intermediate atoms based on the simplistic frozen-core approximation and LS coupling have been formulated. Formulas for the cross section in terms of integrals over radial wave functions are given. Two selection rules, one exact and one approximate, valid within the stated approximations are derived. The formulas are applied to two-photon absorptions in nitrogen, oxygen, and chlorine. In evaluating the radial integrals, for low-lying levels, the Hartree-Fock wave functions, and for high-lying levels, hydrogenic wave functions obtained by the quantum-defect method have been used. A relationship between the cross section and the oscillator strengths is derived.

A simplistic model for identifying prominent web users in directed multiplex social networks: a case study using Twitter networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loucif, Hemza; Boubetra, Abdelhak; Akrouf, Samir

2016-10-01

This paper aims to describe a new simplistic model dedicated to gauge the online influence of Twitter users based on a mixture of structural and interactional features. The model is an additive mathematical formulation which involves two main parts. The first part serves to measure the influence of the Twitter user on just his neighbourhood covering his followers. However, the second part evaluates the potential influence of the Twitter user beyond the circle of his followers. Particularly, it measures the likelihood that the tweets of the Twitter user will spread further within the social graph through the retweeting process. The model is tested on a data set involving four kinds of real-world egocentric networks. The empirical results reveal that an active ordinary user is more prominent than a non-active celebrity one. A simple comparison is conducted between the proposed model and two existing simplistic approaches. The results show that our model generates the most realistic influence scores due to its dealing with both explicit (structural and interactional) and implicit features.

Analysis and remediation of aphasia in the U.S.S.R: the contribution of A. R. Luria.

PubMed

Hatfield, F M

1981-11-01

This paper surveys the contribution of A. R. Luria to aphasiology, emphasising the unique extent to which he integrated theory and therapeutic practice. The influence exerted by two prominent Russian figures, Pavlov and Vygotskii, is discussed. Luria's view of the primary defects underlying the main forms of aphasia is summarised; this is followed by a brief account of his application of certain notions of structural linguistics, including Jakobson's interpretations of the breakdown of language following brain damage. Examples are given of the wide range of simple tests included in Luria's neuropsychological investigations. The factual part of the article culminates in some examples of his methods of restoring higher cortical functions, in particular, verbal skills. The summary criticises certain aspects of Luria's analysis as being too mechanistic and simplistic, and cites criticisms of details from other workers, but considers many of his insights and the total coherence of his view of cortical functioning and cortical disturbance to be still of the utmost importance for clinicians undertaking aphasia therapy. The need for therapists everywhere to develop language rehabilitation with as systematic a basis as Luria's is stressed.

Indigenous Contributions to Sustainability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barnhardt, R.

2010-12-01

Throughout the course of the Fourth International Polar Year(s), indigenous peoples have assumed a prominent role as significant partners in the pursuit of a broader and deeper understanding of the multifaceted dimensions of the human role in the Arctic region. Most salient in this partnership has been the substantial underlying differences in perspective, some political, some ideological, but most fundamental and intractable are the differences in world views, between those of the relative newcomers to the area (i.e. the miners, loggers, oil field workers, commercial fishermen, tourists, and even the occasional scientist), and the Native people with roots in the land that go back millennia. But no longer can these differences be cast in simplistic either/or terms, implying some kind of inherent dichotomy between those who live off the land vs. those tied to the cash economy, or traditional vs. modern technologies, or anecdotal vs. scientific evidence. These lines have been blurred with the realities that indigenous cultures are not static, and western structures are no longer dominant. Instead, we now have a much more fluid and dynamic situation in which once competing views of the world are striving toward reconciliation through new structures and frameworks that foster co-existence rather than domination and exploitation.

Marooned on Mars: Mind-Spinning Books for Software Engineers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clancey, William J.; Swanson, Keith (Technical Monitor)

1999-01-01

Dragonfly - NASA and the Crisis Aboard MIR (New York: HarperCollins Publishers), the story of the Russian-American misadventures on MIR. An expose with almost embarrassing detail about the inner-workings of Johnson Space Center in Houston, this book is best read with the JSC organization chart in hand. Here's the real world of engineering and life in extreme environments. It makes most other accounts of "requirements analysis" appear glib and simplistic. The book vividly portrays the sometimes harrowing experiences of the American astronauts in the web of Russian interpersonal relations and literally in the web of MIR's wiring. Burrough's exposition reveals how handling bureaucratic procedures and bulky facilities is as much a matter of moxie and goodwill as technical capability. Lessons from MIR showed NASA that getting to Mars required a different view of knowledge and improvisation-long-duration missions are not at all like the scripted and pre-engineered flights of Apollo or the Space Shuttle.

The polymorphisms of the chromatin fiber

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boulé, Jean-Baptiste; Mozziconacci, Julien; Lavelle, Christophe

2015-01-01

In eukaryotes, the genome is packed into chromosomes, each consisting of large polymeric fibers made of DNA bound with proteins (mainly histones) and RNA molecules. The nature and precise 3D organization of this fiber has been a matter of intense speculations and debates. In the emerging picture, the local chromatin state plays a critical role in all fundamental DNA transactions, such as transcriptional control, DNA replication or repair. However, the molecular and structural mechanisms involved remain elusive. The purpose of this review is to give an overview of the tremendous efforts that have been made for almost 40 years to build physiologically relevant models of chromatin structure. The motivation behind building such models was to shift our representation and understanding of DNA transactions from a too simplistic ‘naked DNA’ view to a more realistic ‘coated DNA’ view, as a step towards a better framework in which to interpret mechanistically the control of genetic expression and other DNA metabolic processes. The field has evolved from a speculative point of view towards in vitro biochemistry and in silico modeling, but is still longing for experimental in vivo validations of the proposed structures or even proof of concept experiments demonstrating a clear role of a given structure in a metabolic transaction. The mere existence of a chromatin fiber as a relevant biological entity in vivo has been put into serious questioning. Current research is suggesting a possible reconciliation between theoretical studies and experiments, pointing towards a view where the polymorphic and dynamic nature of the chromatin fiber is essential to support its function in genome metabolism.

Taking a closer look: disentangling effects of functional diversity on ecosystem functions with a trait-based model across hierarchy and time

PubMed Central

Holzwarth, Frédéric; Rüger, Nadja; Wirth, Christian

2015-01-01

Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) research has progressed from the detection of relationships to elucidating their drivers and underlying mechanisms. In this context, replacing taxonomic predictors by trait-based measures of functional composition (FC)—bridging functions of species and of ecosystems—is a widely used approach. The inherent challenge of trait-based approaches is the multi-faceted, dynamic and hierarchical nature of trait influence: (i) traits may act via different facets of their distribution in a community, (ii) their influence may change over time and (iii) traits may influence processes at different levels of the natural hierarchy of organization. Here, we made use of the forest ecosystem model ‘LPJ-GUESS’ parametrized with empirical trait data, which creates output of individual performance, community assembly, stand-level states and processes. To address the three challenges, we resolved the dynamics of the top-level ecosystem function ‘annual biomass change’ hierarchically into its various component processes (growth, leaf and root turnover, recruitment and mortality) and states (stand structures, water stress) and traced the influence of different facets of FC along this hierarchy in a path analysis. We found an independent influence of functional richness, dissimilarity and identity on ecosystem states and processes and hence biomass change. Biodiversity effects were only positive during early succession and later turned negative. Unexpectedly, resource acquisition (growth, recruitment) and conservation (mortality, turnover) played an equally important role throughout the succession. These results add to a mechanistic understanding of biodiversity effects and place a caveat on simplistic approaches omitting hierarchical levels when analysing BEF relationships. They support the view that BEF relationships experience dramatic shifts over successional time that should be acknowledged in mechanistic theories. PMID:26064620

Taking a closer look: disentangling effects of functional diversity on ecosystem functions with a trait-based model across hierarchy and time.

PubMed

Holzwarth, Frédéric; Rüger, Nadja; Wirth, Christian

2015-03-01

Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) research has progressed from the detection of relationships to elucidating their drivers and underlying mechanisms. In this context, replacing taxonomic predictors by trait-based measures of functional composition (FC)-bridging functions of species and of ecosystems-is a widely used approach. The inherent challenge of trait-based approaches is the multi-faceted, dynamic and hierarchical nature of trait influence: (i) traits may act via different facets of their distribution in a community, (ii) their influence may change over time and (iii) traits may influence processes at different levels of the natural hierarchy of organization. Here, we made use of the forest ecosystem model 'LPJ-GUESS' parametrized with empirical trait data, which creates output of individual performance, community assembly, stand-level states and processes. To address the three challenges, we resolved the dynamics of the top-level ecosystem function 'annual biomass change' hierarchically into its various component processes (growth, leaf and root turnover, recruitment and mortality) and states (stand structures, water stress) and traced the influence of different facets of FC along this hierarchy in a path analysis. We found an independent influence of functional richness, dissimilarity and identity on ecosystem states and processes and hence biomass change. Biodiversity effects were only positive during early succession and later turned negative. Unexpectedly, resource acquisition (growth, recruitment) and conservation (mortality, turnover) played an equally important role throughout the succession. These results add to a mechanistic understanding of biodiversity effects and place a caveat on simplistic approaches omitting hierarchical levels when analysing BEF relationships. They support the view that BEF relationships experience dramatic shifts over successional time that should be acknowledged in mechanistic theories.

Explaining the progenitors of peculiar type Ia supernovae

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Das, Upasana; Mukhopadhyay, Banibrata

2015-01-01

Type Ia supernovae (SneIa) are believed to be triggered in white dwarfs having mass close to the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.44 M⊙. However, observations of several peculiar, highly under- and over-luminous SNeIa argue for exploding masses widely different from this limit. The over-luminous SNeIa, e.g. SN 2003fg, SN 2006gz, SN 2007if, SN 2009dc, seem to invoke super-Chandrasekhar white dwarf progenitors, having mass 2.1-2.8 M⊙. While, the under-luminous SNeIa, e.g. SN 1991bg, SN 1997cn, SN 1998de, SN 1999by, seem to favor sub-Chandrasekhar explosion scenarios. In order to explain the existence of super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs, we have exploited the enormous potential of magnetic fields, which can affect the structure and properties of the underlying white dwarf in a variety of ways. We have progressed from a simplistic to more rigorous and self-consistent models in the following sequence - spherically symmetric Newtonian model with a constant central magnetic field; spherically symmetric general relativistic model with varying magnetic field and finally, a model including self-consistent departure from spherical symmetry obtained from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations. Here we particularly present the results of the GRMHD simulations, whereby we have constructed equilibrium models of strongly magnetized, static, white dwarfs. Interestingly, we find that significantly super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs are obtained for many possible field configurations, namely, poloidal, toroidal and mixed. Further, due to the inclusion of deformation in the white dwarf structure caused by a strong magnetic field, super-Chandrasekhar white dwarfs are obtained for relatively lower magnetic field strengths compared to that in the simplistic model. Finally, driven by the aim to establish a unification theory of under- and over-luminous SNeIa, we have shown that a modification of Einstein's theory of gravity leads to both significantly sub- and super-Chandrasekhar limiting masses, determined by a single model parameter. Explosions of these sub- and super-Chandrasekhar limiting mass white dwarfs can explain both the peculiar, under- and over-luminous SNeIa respectively.

Better Modeling of Electrostatic Discharge in an Insulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pekov, Mihail

2010-01-01

An improved mathematical model has been developed of the time dependence of buildup or decay of electric charge in a high-resistivity (nominally insulating) material. The model is intended primarily for use in extracting the DC electrical resistivity of such a material from voltage -vs.- current measurements performed repeatedly on a sample of the material over a time comparable to the longest characteristic times (typically of the order of months) that govern the evolution of relevant properties of the material. This model is an alternative to a prior simplistic macroscopic model that yields results differing from the results of the time-dependent measurements by two to three orders of magnitude.

Words matter: implications of semantics and imagery in framing animal-welfare issues.

PubMed

Croney, Candace C

2010-01-01

As criticisms of contemporary farm-animal production escalate, scholars have begun to scrutinize the imagery and linguistic techniques used to frame animal issues and their implications. Pro-animal rights groups typically present animal use as unnecessary, oppressive, and exploitive and adopt themes of compassion and protection to engage the public. In contrast, anti-animal rights groups represent animal use as necessary for human benefit and often situate animal and human interests as being incompatible. Overly simplistic, polarized representations of animal issues therefore emerge. Several analyses, however, have indicated that the discourse on farm-animal production fails to either make a compelling ethical argument for animal agriculture or address the ethical concerns raised by animal-rights activists. Proponents of animal agriculture are argued to consistently misrepresent animal production practices and portray animals as inanimate objects, reflecting lack of genuine concern for animal suffering or welfare. Thus far, the veterinary community has escaped this level of scrutiny. However, veterinarians are often viewed as being connected to animal agriculture. As veterinarians strive to assume leadership in animal welfare, it is useful for the profession to recognize that, as is the case for members of the animal sciences and industries, some aspects of its discourse may contradict its professed values and beliefs about animal care and welfare. Analysis of this discourse affords the opportunity to more effectively engage with the public on animal-welfare issues and to develop a compelling narrative of the role of animals in an increasingly urban society.

The 5As team patient study: patient perspectives on the role of primary care in obesity management.

PubMed

Torti, Jacqueline; Luig, Thea; Borowitz, Michelle; Johnson, Jeffrey A; Sharma, Arya M; Campbell-Scherer, Denise L

2017-02-08

Over 60% of people have overweight or obesity, but only a third report receiving counselling from primary care providers. We explored patients' perspectives on the role of primary care in obesity management and their experience with existing resources, with a view to develop an improved understanding of this perspective, and more effective management strategies. Qualitative study employing semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis, with a sample of 28 patients from a cohort of 255 patients living with obesity and receiving care to support their weight management in a large Primary Care Network of family practices in Alberta. Four illustrative themes emerged: (1) the patient-physician relationship plays an important role in the adequacy of obesity management; (2) patients have clear expectations of substantive conversations with their primary care team; (3) complex conditions affect weight and patients require assistance tailored to individual obesity drivers; (4) current services provide support in important ways (accessibility, availability, accountability, affordability, consistency of messaging), but are not yet meeting patient needs for individual plans, advanced education, and follow-up opportunities. Patients have clear expectations that their primary care physician asks them about weight within a supportive therapeutic relationship. They see obesity as a complex phenomenon with multiple drivers. They want their healthcare providers to assess and address their root causes - not simplistic advice to "eat less, move more". Patients felt that the current services were positive resources, but expressed needs for tailored weight management plans, and longer-term follow-up.

The mechanics of malaria parasite invasion of the human erythrocyte – towards a reassessment of the host cell contribution

PubMed Central

Koch, Marion

2016-01-01

Summary Despite decades of research, we still know little about the mechanics of Plasmodium host cell invasion. Fundamentally, while the essential or non‐essential nature of different parasite proteins is becoming clearer, their actual function and how each comes together to govern invasion are poorly understood. Furthermore, in recent years an emerging world view is shifting focus away from the parasite actin–myosin motor being the sole force responsible for entry to an appreciation of host cell dynamics and forces and their contribution to the process. In this review, we discuss merozoite invasion of the erythrocyte, focusing on the complex set of pre‐invasion events and how these might prime the red cell to facilitate invasion. While traditionally parasite interactions at this stage have been viewed simplistically as mediating adhesion only, recent work makes it apparent that by interacting with a number of host receptors and signalling pathways, combined with secretion of parasite‐derived lipid material, that the merozoite may initiate cytoskeletal re‐arrangements and biophysical changes in the erythrocyte that greatly reduce energy barriers for entry. Seen in this light Plasmodium invasion may well turn out to be a balance between host and parasite forces, much like that of other pathogen infection mechanisms. PMID:26663815

The effects of aging on the rambling and trembling components of postural sway: effects of motor and sensory challenges.

PubMed

Sarabon, Nejc; Panjan, Andrej; Latash, Mark

2013-09-01

The effects of healthy aging on postural sway and its rambling and trembling components were studied. Young and elderly subjects stood quietly for 1 min in different postures, and with eyes open and closed. We found that age-related changes in postural sway and its components were similar to those observed in young participants in challenging conditions. These changes may therefore be viewed as secondary to the increased subjective perception of the complexity of postural tasks. Contrary to our expectations, stronger effects of age were seen in characteristics of rambling, not trembling. The commonly accepted hypothesis that older persons rely on vision more was not supported by this study: we found no significant interaction effects of age and vision on any of the sway characteristics. It was concluded that the reported higher reliance on vision in older persons may be task-specific. The results are compatible with the ideas that much of the age-related changes in postural sway emerge at the level of exploring the limits of stability and using the drift-and-act strategy. Our results suggest that the dominant view on rambling and trembling as reflecting supraspinal and peripheral mechanisms, respectively, may be too simplistic. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Medical students' views of power in doctor-patient interactions: the value of teacher-learner relationships.

PubMed

Donetto, Sara

2010-02-01

This paper aims to contribute to the important, and relatively underexplored, area of medical education research that seeks to illuminate the value and meaning of relationships in the undergraduate education of doctors. Here I present new empirical material in which I ground my reflections on some ways in which teacher-learner relationships can help address medical students' often uncritical views of professional practice. The views I illustrate are of particular significance as they contrast sharply with the participative models of practice promoted by current policy, professional and educational discourses. My reflections stem from the analysis of data I generated for a larger, broadly ethnographic study exploring students' approaches to their future role as practitioners in one UK medical school. I draw upon this larger body of data and focus here on two examples in particular of the more general uncritical readings of medical professionalism I encountered at Sundown Medical School (an invented name), namely: students' often reductive views of medical power, and their simplistic formulations of patient education. I argue for the need to foster richer and more critical understandings of professional power and knowledge among students and educators, and suggest here that teacher-learner interactions could have an important role in fostering such richer understandings. I argue that teacher-learner relationships can model some of the dynamics of the practitioner-patient interaction and thus provide useful opportunities for closer and more critical analysis of power, education and knowledge in the medical school classroom as well as in the consultation room. I suggest that effective integration of participative and critical pedagogical strategies in medical curricula and more structured involvement of patients in the role of teachers may represent valuable strategies for the development of learning relationships that better promote reflexive and collaborative forms of professionalism.

Discussion of "Fluvial system response to late Pleistocene-Holocene sea-level change on Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park, California" (Schumann et al., 2016. Geomorphology, 268: 322-340)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pinter, Nicholas; Hardiman, Mark; Scott, Andrew C.; Anderson, R. Scott

2018-01-01

Schumann et al. (2016) presented a field assessment of late Pleistocene to Holocene fluvial sediments preserved in the valleys of Santa Rosa Island, California. This is a rigorous study, based on stratigraphic descriptions of 54 sections and numerous radiocarbon ages. The paper makes important contributions that we would like to highlight, but other parts of the paper rely upon overly simplistic interpretations that lead to misleading conclusions. In one case, a conclusion of the Schumann et al. paper has important management implications for Santa Rosa Island and similar locations, compelling us to discuss and qualify this conclusion.

Defensive Projection, Superimposed on Simplistic Object Relations, Erodes Patient-Provider Relationships in High-Risk Pregnancy: An Empirical Investigation

PubMed Central

Shahar, Golan; Porcerelli, John H.; Kamoo, Ray; Epperson, C. Neill; Czarkowski, Kathryn A.; Magriples, Urania; Mayes, Linda C.

2014-01-01

In an attempt to illustrate the relevance of psychoanalytic theory and research to behavior medicine, an empirical investigation was conducted of females treated at a high-risk pregnancy specialty clinic (N = 58). Drawing from psychoanalytic object relations theory, it was hypothesized and confirmed that use of projection as a defense mechanism during pregnancy, superimposed on simplistic object relations, predicted an erosion of patient-provider relationships during the pregnancy/postdelivery period. Findings are interpreted through the perspective of mentalization, pertaining to individuals' ability to understand the mental states of self and others, specifically under significant stress. Implications for psychoanalytically oriented assessment and treatment, and for the rift between psychoanalysis and research, are discussed. PMID:21156840

Ten-Year Follow-Up Study of PTSD Diagnosis, Symptom Severity, and Psychosocial Indices in Aging Holocaust Survivors

PubMed Central

Schmeidler, James; Labinsky, Ellen; Bell, Amanda; Morris, Adam; Zemelman, Shelly; Grossman, Robert A.

2009-01-01

Objective We performed a longitudinal study of Holocaust survivors with and without PTSD by assessing symptoms and other measures at two intervals, approximately 10 years apart. Method The original cohort consisted of 63 community-dwelling subjects, of whom 40 were available for follow-up. Results There was a general diminution in PTSD symptom severity over time. However, in 10% of the subjects (n=4), new instances of Delayed Onset PTSD developed between the Time 1 and Time 2. Self-report ratings at both assessments revealed a worsening of trauma related symptoms over time in persons without PTSD at Time 1, but an improvement in those with PTSD at Time 1. Conclusion The findings suggest that a nuanced characterization of PTSD trajectory over time is more reflective of PTSD symptomatology than simple diagnostic status at one time. The possibility of Delayed Onset trajectory complicates any simplistic overall trajectory summarizing the longitudinal course of PTSD. PMID:18785948

A New View of Radiation-Induced Cancer: Integrating Short-and Long-Term Processes. Part I: Approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shuryak, Igor; Hahnfeldt, Philip; Hlatky, Lynn; Sachs, Rainer K.; Brenner, David J.

2009-01-01

Mathematical models of radiation carcinogenesis are important for understanding mechanisms and for interpreting or extrapolating risk. There are two classes of such models: (1) long-term formalisms that track premalignant cell numbers throughout an entire lifetime but treat initial radiation dose-response simplistically and (2) short-term formalisms that provide a detailed initial dose-response even for complicated radiation protocols, but address its modulation during the subsequent cancer latency period only indirectly. We argue that integrating short- and long-term models is needed. As an example of this novel approach, we integrate a stochastic short-term initiation/ inactivation/repopulation model with a deterministic two-stage long-term model. Within this new formalism, the following assumptions are implemented: radiation initiates, promotes, or kills pre-malignant cells; a pre-malignant cell generates a clone, which, if it survives, quickly reaches a size limitation; the clone subsequently grows more slowly and can eventually generate a malignant cell; the carcinogenic potential of pre-malignant cells decreases with age.

Species Radiation of Carabid Beetles (Broscini: Mecodema) in New Zealand

PubMed Central

Goldberg, Julia; Knapp, Michael; Emberson, Rowan M.; Townsend, J. Ian; Trewick, Steven A.

2014-01-01

New Zealand biodiversity has often been viewed as Gondwanan in origin and age, but it is increasingly apparent from molecular studies that diversification, and in many cases origination of lineages, postdate the break-up of Gondwanaland. Relatively few studies of New Zealand animal species radiations have as yet been reported, and here we consider the species-rich genus of carabid beetles, Mecodema. Constrained stratigraphic information (emergence of the Chatham Islands) and a substitution rate for Coleoptera were separately used to calibrate Bayesian relaxed molecular clock date estimates for diversification of Mecodema. The inferred timings indicate radiation of these beetles no earlier than the mid-Miocene with most divergences being younger, dating to the Plio-Pleistocene. A shallow age for the radiation along with a complex spatial distribution of these taxa involving many instances of sympatry implicates recent ecological speciation rather than a simplistic allopatric model. This emphasises the youthful and dynamic nature of New Zealand evolution that will be further elucidated with detailed ecological and population genetic analyses. PMID:24465949

Intercultural competence in medical education - essential to acquire, difficult to assess.

PubMed

Hamilton, John

2009-09-01

Determining student acquisition of intercultural competence (awareness, skills, knowledge and attitudes) is necessary in medical courses. However, addressing students' learning needs and developing effective tools to measure development of intercultural competence is challenging. Where this is done inadequately, skills may be overlooked or simplistic, one dimensional notions of culture be reinforced. This article examines aspects of the OSCE station development process, raising questions about how and when to assess acquisition of IC in undergraduate medical courses. It cautions against development of assessment tools which may lack authenticity and require students to engage in interactions which are unnatural. It argues for skills consistent with IC to be viewed as part of, and not separate from, the broad spectrum of skills which are a feature of any sensitive and appropriate doctor-patient interaction. Finally it advocates careful consideration of the optimum time to assess students' capacity to demonstrate IC in their interactions with patients, peers and staff, suggesting that this should come in later rather than earlier years, following theoretical, experiential and reflective learning.

Polygraphs: erosion of the privacy right.

PubMed

Nemeth, C P

1983-01-01

The polygraph is a machine which invades previously private regions in the human being. Its operation is often viewed simplistically and lacking in danger. Such naivete is the subject of this comment. The paper considers the mechanics of polygraph operation, and its theoretical basis; the legal admissibility of the polygraph in a variety of settings, and lastly the impact the polygraph has upon our private lives. Clearly, the polygraph intrudes on the private regions of each individual, and this frightening fact is cause enough to consider the human, social and constitutional implications of its use. The project considers the reliability factor of the polygraph and its questionable use in personnel and business settings; its use in disciplinary procedures and labor arbitration, as well as reviews its place in judicial process and criminal review. Most critically the paper attempts to arrive at a constitutional basis for restrictions on its use in the private sector. Ingenious arguments have been made by opponents of the polygraph, and this paper reviews the substance and content of these constitutional arguments.

Pathogenesis of thyroid autoimmune disease: the role of cellular mechanisms.

PubMed

Ramos-Leví, Ana Maria; Marazuela, Mónica

2016-10-01

Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) and Graves' disease (GD) are two very common organ-specific autoimmune diseases which are characterized by circulating antibodies and lymphocyte infiltration. Although humoral and cellular mechanisms have been classically considered separately in the pathogenesis of autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD), recent research suggests a close reciprocal relationship between these two immune pathways. Several B- and T-cell activation pathways through antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and cytokine production lead to specific differentiation of T helper (Th) and T regulatory (Treg) cells. This review will focus on the cellular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of AITD. Specifically, it will provide reasons for discarding the traditional simplistic dichotomous view of the T helper type 1 and 2 pathways (Th1/Th2) and will focus on the role of the recently characterized T cells, Treg and Th17 lymphocytes, as well as B lymphocytes and APCs, especially dendritic cells (DCs). Copyright © 2016 SEEN. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Informing, involving or engaging? Science communication, in the ages of atom-, bio- and nanotechnology.

PubMed

Kurath, Monika; Gisler, Priska

2009-09-01

Science communication has shifted considerably in Europe over the last decades. Three technology controversies on atoms, genes, and nanoscale sciences and nanotechnologies (NST) turned the style of communication from one-way information, participation and dialogues to the idea of an early and more democratic engagement of the public. Analyzing science communication developing over the three controversies, this article shows that what happened in one technology field fed forward to and contributed to shaping the subsequent field and that communication was initiated at a progressively earlier stage of technology development. The article concludes with an empirical analysis of six public engagement projects in NST, saying that the shift towards more democratic engagement of the public hasn't been as profound and complete as has been thought. This is particularly due to the continuing adoption of a simplistic contrast structure that opposes science and the public as two self-contained, antagonistic social entities.

Necroptosis, necrostatins and tissue injury

PubMed Central

Smith, Christopher CT; Yellon, Derek M

2011-01-01

Abstract Cell death is an integral part of the life of an organism being necessary for the maintenance of organs and tissues. If, however, cell death is allowed to proceed unrestricted, tissue damage and degenerative disease may ensue. Until recently, three morphologically distinct types of cell death were recognized, apoptosis (type I), autophagy (type II) and necrosis (type III). Apoptosis is a highly regulated, genetically determined mechanism designed to dismantle cells systematically (e.g. cells that are no longer functionally viable), via protease (caspase) action, and maintain homeostasis. Autophagy is responsible for the degradation of cytoplasmic material, e.g. proteins and organelles, through autophagosome formation and subsequent proteolytic degradation by lysosomes, and is normally considered in the context of survival although it is sometimes associated with cell death. Necrosis was formerly considered to be an accidental, unregulated form of cell death resulting from excessive stress, although it has been suggested that this is an over-simplistic view as necrosis may under certain circumstances involve the mobilization of specific transduction mechanisms. Indeed, recently, an alternative death pathway, termed necroptosis, was delineated and proposed as a form of ‘programmed necrosis’. Identified with the aid of specific inhibitors called necrostatins, necroptosis shares characteristics with both necrosis and apoptosis. Necroptosis involves Fas/tumour necrosis factor-α death domain receptor activation and inhibition of receptor-interacting protein I kinase, and it has been suggested that it may contribute to the development of neurological and myocardial diseases. Significantly, necrostatin-like drugs have been mooted as possible future therapeutic agents for the treatment of degenerative conditions. PMID:21564515

Folding domain B of protein A on a dynamically partitioned free energy landscape.

PubMed

Nelson, Erik D; Grishin, Nick V

2008-02-05

The B domain of staphylococcal protein A (BdpA) is a small helical protein that has been studied intensively in kinetics experiments and detailed computer simulations that include explicit water. The simulations indicate that BdpA needs to reorganize in crossing the transition barrier to facilitate folding its C-terminal helix (H3) onto the nucleus formed from helices H1 and H2. This process suggests frustration between two partially ordered forms of the protein, but recent varphi value measurements indicate that the transition structure is relatively constant over a broad range of temperatures. Here we develop a simplistic model to investigate the folding transition in which properties of the free energy landscape can be quantitatively compared with experimental data. The model is a continuation of the Muñoz-Eaton model to include the intermittency of contacts between structured parts of the protein, and the results compare variations in the landscape with denaturant and temperature to varphi value measurements and chevron plots of the kinetic rates. The topography of the model landscape (in particular, the feature of frustration) is consistent with detailed simulations even though variations in the varphi values are close to measured values. The transition barrier is smaller than indicated by the chevron data, but it agrees in order of magnitude with a similar alpha-carbon type of model. Discrepancies with the chevron plots are investigated from the point of view of solvent effects, and an approach is suggested to account for solvent participation in the model.

Mapping for Advocacy - Using Marine Geophysical Data to Establish the Limits of Extend Continent Shelves under the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coakley, B.; Baker, B.

2008-12-01

Politics and science do not comfortably mesh. Article 76 of the Law of the Sea Convention is an example of a negotiated compromise included in the treaty to serve conflicting state interests between the "haves" (broad continental shelves) and "have-nots" (narrow or no shelf). The language lays out procedures for coastal states to establish extended exploitation rights over seabed resources beyond their EEZ. The rules written into article 76 are about simple, measurable quantities from geodesy (position), hydrography (depth) and marine geology (sediment thickness). With a data set in hand, it is possible to come up with a document that could, with assigned numerical uncertainty (position, depth and sediment thickness +/- so many meters), apply the rules and establish a plausible claim based entirely on morphology. The art in this process arises primarily because of a single expression; natural prolongation. Prolongation is simple enough, but what is natural? By one reading, a natural prolongation shares the continental character of the material underlying the shelves. This fits with the basic distinction between continents and oceans from plate tectonics. The recognition that one did not transmute into another was one of the basic insights on the road to our present understanding of the mobile earth surface. It also fits with the basic distinction that underlies the LOS treaty, the shelves and slopes within 200 miles of land are to be administered by coastal states, while the deep ocean seabed and subsoil and their resources belong to mankind as a whole. Drafted and discussed more than 30 years ago, Article 76 is innocent about what has been learned over the past few decades since the treaty was signed in 1982. The distinction between continental and ocean crust has been blurred by a complex array of hybrids that complicate this determination (eg. oceanic plateaus, hyper-extended continental crust, etc.). Article 76 was written at a time when narrow-beam bottom sounder data was the primary bathymetric mapping tool. As a result it was built on a remarkably simplistic view of the seafloor that has been completely overturned by the swath bathymetric data collected over the last two decades. This process must then somehow reconcile the great diversity of seafloor structure and composition that has been recognized with the simplistic language of the treaty itself. While this process relies on scientific data, it is not hypothesis testing, where, by successive elimination of the unlikely we claim to find some "truth" as a residue. In this context the data are material for advocacy, to establish a positive case for each particular claim. If the science is something like art, making a beautiful object is like seeking the unique, optimal hypothesis, then this instrumental advocacy is something more like engineering. The data are a means to achieve a particular objective, in the typical situation, the goal is to maximize the claimed area. Chris Carleton has referred to "the technical expert and his political masters"; a relationship that this presentation will address and discuss some of the potential uses of Article 76 data in the arctic and the application of Article 76 by the circum-arctic states to the Arctic Ocean.

Interpretation of snow-climate feedback as produced by 17 general circulation models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cess, R. D.; Zhang, M.-H.; Potter, G. L.; Blanchet, J.-P.; Chalita, S.; Colman, R.; Dazlich, D. A.; Del Genio, A. D.; Lacis, A. A.; Dymnikov, V.

1991-01-01

Snow feedback is expected to amplify global warming caused by increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. The conventional explanation is that a warmer earth will have less snow cover, resulting in a darker planet that absorbs more solar radiation. An intercomparison of 17 general circulation models, for which perturbations of sea surface temperature were used as a surrogate climate change, suggests that this explanation is overly simplistic. The results instead indicate that additional amplification or moderation may be caused both by cloud interactions and longwave radiation. One measure of this net effect of snow feedback was found to differ markedly among the 17 climate models, ranging from weak negative feedback in some models to strong positive feedback in others.

Towards evidence-based practice in medical training: making evaluations more meaningful.

PubMed

Drescher, Uta; Warren, Fiona; Norton, Kingsley

2004-12-01

The evaluation of training is problematic and the evidence base inconclusive. This situation may arise for 2 main reasons: training is not understood as a complex intervention and, related to this, the evaluation methods applied are often overly simplistic. This paper makes the case for construing training, especially in the field of specialist medical education, as a complex intervention. It also selectively reviews the available literature in order to match evaluative techniques with the demonstrated complexity. Construing training as a complex intervention can provide a framework for selecting the most appropriate methodology to evaluate a given training intervention and to appraise the evidence base for training fairly, choosing from among both quantitative and qualitative approaches and applying measurement at multiple levels of training impact.

Pornography and teenagers: the importance of individual differences.

PubMed

Malamuth, Neil; Huppin, Mark

2005-06-01

This article focuses on the effects of exposure to pornography on teenagers, particularly males, and concentrates on sexually aggressive outcomes and on the characteristics of the individual as crucial in determining whether pornography consumption may or may not lead to sexually aggressive outcomes. In future work, it is important not to use an overly simplistic lens of focus in which pornography exposure is seen as generally harmful or not. Depending on particular constellations of personality characteristics, the effects of pornography may differ considerably among different teenagers as well as within different cultures. The research suggests that particular concerns may be needed for those who are highly frequent consumers of pornography, those who seek out sexually violent content, and those who also have other risk factors.

Collaborative and Defensive Fibroblasts in Tumor Progression and Therapy Resistance.

PubMed

Chiavarina, Barbara; Turtoi, Andrei

2017-01-01

Tumor microenvironment is a complex network of epithelial cancer cells and non-transformed stromal cells. Of the many stromal cell types, fibroblasts are the most numerous ones and are traditionally viewed as supportive elements of cancer progression. Many studies show that cancer cells engage in active crosstalk with associated fibroblasts in order to obtain key resources, such as growth factors and nutrients. The facets of fibroblast "complicity to murder" in cancer are multiple. However, recent therapeutic attempts aiming at depleting fibroblasts from tumors, perturbed rather simplistic picture. Contrary to the expectations, tumors devoid of fibroblasts accelerated their progression while patients faced poorer outcomes. These studies remind us of the physiologic roles fibroblasts have in maintaining tissue homeostasis even in the presence of cancer. It is becoming increasingly clear that our research focus on advanced tumors has biased our understanding of fibroblast role in tumor biology. The numerous events where the fibroblasts protect the tissue from malignant transformation remain largely unacknowledged, as the tumors are invisible. The present review has the ambition to offer a more balanced view of fibroblasts functions in cancer progression and therapy resistance. We will address the question whether it is possible to synergize the efforts with fibroblasts as the therapeutic concept against tumor progression and therapy resistance. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

The mechanics of malaria parasite invasion of the human erythrocyte - towards a reassessment of the host cell contribution.

PubMed

Koch, Marion; Baum, Jake

2016-03-01

Despite decades of research, we still know little about the mechanics of Plasmodium host cell invasion. Fundamentally, while the essential or non-essential nature of different parasite proteins is becoming clearer, their actual function and how each comes together to govern invasion are poorly understood. Furthermore, in recent years an emerging world view is shifting focus away from the parasite actin-myosin motor being the sole force responsible for entry to an appreciation of host cell dynamics and forces and their contribution to the process. In this review, we discuss merozoite invasion of the erythrocyte, focusing on the complex set of pre-invasion events and how these might prime the red cell to facilitate invasion. While traditionally parasite interactions at this stage have been viewed simplistically as mediating adhesion only, recent work makes it apparent that by interacting with a number of host receptors and signalling pathways, combined with secretion of parasite-derived lipid material, that the merozoite may initiate cytoskeletal re-arrangements and biophysical changes in the erythrocyte that greatly reduce energy barriers for entry. Seen in this light Plasmodium invasion may well turn out to be a balance between host and parasite forces, much like that of other pathogen infection mechanisms. © 2016 The Authors Cellular Microbiology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hans Loewald, psychoanalysis, and the project of autonomy.

PubMed

Whitebook, Joel

2008-12-01

For some time psychoanalysts have tended to view Freud's cultural writings--concerning modernity, secularism, science, and religion--disparagingly, seeing them as the unscientific speculations of a misguided genius. But the questions Freud explored in those works are pressing topics that deserve serious attention. Just as fascism provided the historical context in which the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School developed a psychoanalytic social theory in the 1930s and 1940s, so the rise of fundamentalism demands a similar effort today. The "project of autonomy" conceptualized by the psychoanalyst-philosopher Castoriadis can be used to situate psychoanalysis in its broader historical context, as part of the emancipatory movement of modernity, and to elucidate fundamentalism as an attempt to turn back that project and reinstate the values of premodern traditional societies. Because the widespread aversion to secularism today is in no small degree the responsibility of secularists themselves--Freud's relatively crude and simplistic disregard of some of the deepest yearnings of humankind is a case in point--it is time to formulate, using the work of Hans Loewald, a more sensitive and sophisticated psychoanalytic view of religion. Yet psychoanalytic secularists must avoid overcompensating for past mistakes by giving too much ground to antisecularists. The legitimate desire to do justice to religion must not trump the need to advance the project of autonomy as a first priority.

System for critical infrastructure security based on multispectral observation-detection module

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Trzaskawka, Piotr; Kastek, Mariusz; Życzkowski, Marek; Dulski, Rafał; Szustakowski, Mieczysław; Ciurapiński, Wiesław; Bareła, Jarosław

2013-10-01

Recent terrorist attacks and possibilities of such actions in future have forced to develop security systems for critical infrastructures that embrace sensors technologies and technical organization of systems. The used till now perimeter protection of stationary objects, based on construction of a ring with two-zone fencing, visual cameras with illumination are efficiently displaced by the systems of the multisensor technology that consists of: visible technology - day/night cameras registering optical contrast of a scene, thermal technology - cheap bolometric cameras recording thermal contrast of a scene and active ground radars - microwave and millimetre wavelengths that record and detect reflected radiation. Merging of these three different technologies into one system requires methodology for selection of technical conditions of installation and parameters of sensors. This procedure enables us to construct a system with correlated range, resolution, field of view and object identification. Important technical problem connected with the multispectral system is its software, which helps couple the radar with the cameras. This software can be used for automatic focusing of cameras, automatic guiding cameras to an object detected by the radar, tracking of the object and localization of the object on the digital map as well as target identification and alerting. Based on "plug and play" architecture, this system provides unmatched flexibility and simplistic integration of sensors and devices in TCP/IP networks. Using a graphical user interface it is possible to control sensors and monitor streaming video and other data over the network, visualize the results of data fusion process and obtain detailed information about detected intruders over a digital map. System provide high-level applications and operator workload reduction with features such as sensor to sensor cueing from detection devices, automatic e-mail notification and alarm triggering. The paper presents a structure and some elements of critical infrastructure protection solution which is based on a modular multisensor security system. System description is focused mainly on methodology of selection of sensors parameters. The results of the tests in real conditions are also presented.

Persistent Myths about Arts Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Serafine, Mary Louise

1979-01-01

The author suggests that justifying arts education, or aesthetic education, through unsound, simplistic principles is detrimental to the arts education movement. She evaluates five myths which should be given up, or at least tempered and investigated. (KC)

Temporary bridge deck panels.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2009-03-01

The research described here has resulted in the development of a simplistic and innovative interlocking : glulam bridge deck panel for use in temporary bridge deck applications. The key feature of this panel : system is the interlocking tongue and gr...

EVALUATION OF CURRENT SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF BIOBASED TECHNOLOGY

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainable technology is driven by economic competitiveness, government policies and public pressure. The claim of inherent cleanliness for biotechnology is too simplistic. Each application of biotechnology must be evaluated for suitable characteristics of sustainability. The ...

Books for the Job Hunt.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saltzman, Amy

1992-01-01

Reviews new and classic titles on career choice, job search methods, executive/professional job search, resume writing, and interviewing. Advises avoiding books with simplistic formulas and exercises or overt sales pitches for software, videos, and other products. (SK)

Overlooked Threats to Respondent Driven Sampling Estimators: Peer Recruitment Reality, Degree Measures, and Random Selection Assumption.

PubMed

Li, Jianghong; Valente, Thomas W; Shin, Hee-Sung; Weeks, Margaret; Zelenev, Alexei; Moothi, Gayatri; Mosher, Heather; Heimer, Robert; Robles, Eduardo; Palmer, Greg; Obidoa, Chinekwu

2017-06-28

Intensive sociometric network data were collected from a typical respondent driven sample (RDS) of 528 people who inject drugs residing in Hartford, Connecticut in 2012-2013. This rich dataset enabled us to analyze a large number of unobserved network nodes and ties for the purpose of assessing common assumptions underlying RDS estimators. Results show that several assumptions central to RDS estimators, such as random selection, enrollment probability proportional to degree, and recruitment occurring over recruiter's network ties, were violated. These problems stem from an overly simplistic conceptualization of peer recruitment processes and dynamics. We found nearly half of participants were recruited via coupon redistribution on the street. Non-uniform patterns occurred in multiple recruitment stages related to both recruiter behavior (choosing and reaching alters, passing coupons, etc.) and recruit behavior (accepting/rejecting coupons, failing to enter study, passing coupons to others). Some factors associated with these patterns were also associated with HIV risk.

On the Shallow Processing (Dis)Advantage: Grammar and Economy.

PubMed

Koornneef, Arnout; Reuland, Eric

2016-01-01

In the psycholinguistic literature it has been proposed that readers and listeners often adopt a "good-enough" processing strategy in which a "shallow" representation of an utterance driven by (top-down) extra-grammatical processes has a processing advantage over a "deep" (bottom-up) grammatically-driven representation of that same utterance. In the current contribution we claim, both on theoretical and experimental grounds, that this proposal is overly simplistic. Most importantly, in the domain of anaphora there is now an accumulating body of evidence showing that the anaphoric dependencies between (reflexive) pronominals and their antecedents are subject to an economy hierarchy. In this economy hierarchy, deriving anaphoric dependencies by deep-grammatical-operations requires less processing costs than doing so by shallow-extra-grammatical-operations. In addition, in case of ambiguity when both a shallow and a deep derivation are available to the parser, the latter is actually preferred. This, we argue, contradicts the basic assumptions of the shallow-deep dichotomy and, hence, a rethinking of the good-enough processing framework is warranted.

Connecting drug delivery reality to smart materials design.

PubMed

Grainger, David W

2013-09-15

Inflated claims to both design and mechanistic novelty in drug delivery and imaging systems, including most nanotechnologies, are not supported by the generally poor translation of these systems to clinical efficacy. The "form begets function" design paradigm is seductive but perhaps over-simplistic in translation to pharmaceutical efficacy. Most innovations show few clinically important distinctions in their therapeutic benefits in relevant preclinical disease and delivery models, despite frequent claims to the contrary. Long-standing challenges in drug delivery issues must enlist more realistic, back-to-basics approaches to address fundamental materials properties in complex biological systems, preclinical test beds, and analytical methods to more reliably determine fundamental pharmaceutical figures of merit, including drug carrier purity and batch-batch variability, agent biodistribution, therapeutic index (safety), and efficacy. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Responsibilising managers and clinicians, neglecting system health? What kind of healthcare leadership development do we want?: Comment on "Leadership and leadership development in healthcare settings - a simplistic solution to complex problems?".

PubMed

Martin, Graham P

2015-01-01

Responding to Ruth McDonald's editorial on the rise of leadership and leadership development programmes in healthcare, this paper offers three arguments. Firstly, care is needed in evaluating impact of leadership development, since achievement of organisational goals is not necessarily an appropriate measure of good leadership. Secondly, the proliferation of styles of leadership might be understood in part as a means of retaining control over public services while distributing responsibility for their success and failure. Thirdly, it makes a plea for the continued utility of good administrative skills for clinicians and managers, which are likely to become all-the-more important given recent developments in healthcare policy and governance.

Proton pump inhibitor failure in gastro-oesophageal reflux disease: a perspective aided by the Gartner hype cycle.

PubMed

Heading, Robert C

2017-04-01

Some patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) experience symptoms despite proton pump inhibitor (PPI) treatment. In the early years of their availability, these drugs were thought to be a highly effective treatment for GORD and realisation that symptom relief was often incomplete came as a disappointment. This review considers the evolution of thinking with the aid of the Gartner hype cycle - a graphical depiction of the process of innovation, evolution and adoption of new technologies. Acknowledging that over-simplistic concepts of GORD have been largely responsible for inflated expectations of PPI therapy is an important step forward in establishing how patients with persistent symptoms, despite PPIs, should be assessed and treated. © Royal College of Physicians 2017. All rights reserved.

Improving assessment and modelling of climate change impacts on global terrestrial biodiversity.

PubMed

McMahon, Sean M; Harrison, Sandy P; Armbruster, W Scott; Bartlein, Patrick J; Beale, Colin M; Edwards, Mary E; Kattge, Jens; Midgley, Guy; Morin, Xavier; Prentice, I Colin

2011-05-01

Understanding how species and ecosystems respond to climate change has become a major focus of ecology and conservation biology. Modelling approaches provide important tools for making future projections, but current models of the climate-biosphere interface remain overly simplistic, undermining the credibility of projections. We identify five ways in which substantial advances could be made in the next few years: (i) improving the accessibility and efficiency of biodiversity monitoring data, (ii) quantifying the main determinants of the sensitivity of species to climate change, (iii) incorporating community dynamics into projections of biodiversity responses, (iv) accounting for the influence of evolutionary processes on the response of species to climate change, and (v) improving the biophysical rule sets that define functional groupings of species in global models. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Scandinavia: A Racial Utopia?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Weisbord, Robert G.

1972-01-01

Isolated personal observations have shaped the racial image of the Nordic countries--that Scandinavia is a racial paradise; this image is, however, simplistic, superficial, and one-dimensional. There is no gainsaying that prejudice against certain ethnic groups exists in Scandinavia. (Author)

Social Properties of Mobile Video

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mitchell, April Slayden; O'Hara, Kenton; Vorbau, Alex

Mobile video is now an everyday possibility with a wide array of commercially available devices, services, and content. These new technologies have created dramatic shifts in the way video-based media can be produced, consumed, and delivered by people beyond the familiar behaviors associated with fixed TV and video technologies. Such technology revolutions change the way users behave and change their expectations in regards to their mobile video experiences. Building upon earlier studies of mobile video, this paper reports on a study using diary techniques and ethnographic interviews to better understand how people are using commercially available mobile video technologies in their everyday lives. Drawing on reported episodes of mobile video behavior, the study identifies the social motivations and values underpinning these behaviors that help characterize mobile video consumption beyond the simplistic notion of viewing video only to kill time. This paper also discusses the significance of user-generated content and the usage of video in social communities through the description of two mobile video technology services that allow users to create and share content. Implications for adoption and design of mobile video technologies and services are discussed as well.

Rationality, emotions and ethics: Towards better environmental decision making

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Andrews, W.J.

1995-12-31

A common view among rationally-oriented individuals is that environmental decision-making would be better if it were based more on science and less on emotion. This is too simplistic. Science alone is not wisdom. The best decisions come from the integration of rationality, emotion and ethics. Each of us makes each decision on the basis of a unique, personal combination of these factors. Yet, typically man is unbalanced, valuing only one of these factors and even denigrating one or both of the others. This is at the root of the personal and social inability to live in harmony with oneself andmore » with nature. The highest forms of each of these factors truth (rationality), love (emotions) and goodness (ethics) are different ways of expressing the same thing. Only by allowing oneself to integrate and honor each of these factors in both individual and social decision-making will one improve environmental decisions. An example in the area of social decision-making is the need for much more innovative mechanisms for public participation.« less

Senescence and the pro-tumorigenic stroma.

PubMed

Alspach, Elise; Fu, Yujie; Stewart, Sheila A

2013-01-01

Hayflick and Moorhead first described senescence in the late 1960's as a permanent growth arrest that primary cells underwent after a defined number of cellular divisions in culture. This observation gave rise to the hypothesis that cells contained an internal counting mechanism that limited cellular division and that this limit was an important barrier to cellular transformation. What began as an in vitro observation has led to an immense body of work that reaches into all fields of biology and is of particular interest in the areas of aging, tissue regeneration, and tumorigenesis. The initially simplistic view that senescence limits cellular division and contributes to aging while stymying tumorigenesis has now evolved into an important and complex biological process that has numerous caveats and often opposing effects on tumorigenesis. In this review, we limit our discussion to the complex role senescence plays in tumorigenesis. Throughout the review we attempt to draw many parallels to other systems including the role senescent cells play in the tumor microenvironment and their significant molecular and phenotypic similarities to cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs).

Urban density and the metabolic reach of metropolitan areas: A panel analysis of per capita transportation emissions at the county-level.

PubMed

Ergas, Christina; Clement, Matthew; McGee, Julius

2016-07-01

We engage a tension in the urban environment literature that positions cities as both drivers of environmental destruction and loci of environmental protection. We argue that the traditional binary view of cities as either harmful or beneficial is too simplistic; we advance a more nuanced understanding of cities to study their internal and external metabolic effects in terms of carbon emissions from on-road transportation at the county-level across the continental United States between 2002 and 2007. First, utilizing satellite imagery from the National Land Cover Database, we create a novel measure of population density by quantifying the number of people per square mile of impervious surface area. Second, we develop a measure of metropolitan adjacency from the rural classifications datasets published by the USDA. In spatial regression models, we find that while higher density reduces emissions, counties that are geographically isolated from metropolitan areas actually have lower per capita emissions, all else equal. We elaborate on the conceptual, methodological, and practical implications of our study in the conclusion. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Facial width-to-height ratio differs by social rank across organizations, countries, and value systems.

PubMed

Hahn, Tim; Winter, Nils R; Anderl, Christine; Notebaert, Karolien; Wuttke, Alina Marie; Clément, Celina Chantal; Windmann, Sabine

2017-01-01

Facial Width-to-Height Ratio (fWHR) has been linked with dominant and aggressive behavior in human males. We show here that on portrait photographs published online, chief executive officers (CEOs) of companies listed in the Dow Jones stock market index and the Deutscher Aktienindex have a higher-than-normal fWHR, which also correlates positively with their company's donations to charitable causes and environmental awareness. Furthermore, we show that leaders of the world's most influential non-governmental organizations and even the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, the popes, have higher fWHR compared to controls on public portraits, suggesting that the relationship between displayed fWHR and leadership is not limited to profit-seeking organizations. The data speak against the simplistic view that wider-faced men achieve higher social status through antisocial tendencies and overt aggression, or the mere signaling of such dispositions. Instead they suggest that high fWHR is linked with high social rank in a more subtle fashion in both competitive as well as prosocially oriented settings.

Facial width-to-height ratio differs by social rank across organizations, countries, and value systems

PubMed Central

Winter, Nils R.; Anderl, Christine; Notebaert, Karolien; Wuttke, Alina Marie; Clément, Celina Chantal; Windmann, Sabine

2017-01-01

Facial Width-to-Height Ratio (fWHR) has been linked with dominant and aggressive behavior in human males. We show here that on portrait photographs published online, chief executive officers (CEOs) of companies listed in the Dow Jones stock market index and the Deutscher Aktienindex have a higher-than-normal fWHR, which also correlates positively with their company’s donations to charitable causes and environmental awareness. Furthermore, we show that leaders of the world’s most influential non-governmental organizations and even the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, the popes, have higher fWHR compared to controls on public portraits, suggesting that the relationship between displayed fWHR and leadership is not limited to profit-seeking organizations. The data speak against the simplistic view that wider-faced men achieve higher social status through antisocial tendencies and overt aggression, or the mere signaling of such dispositions. Instead they suggest that high fWHR is linked with high social rank in a more subtle fashion in both competitive as well as prosocially oriented settings. PMID:29121113

Occurrence and exposures to disinfectants and disinfection by-products

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cumming, R.B.; Jolley, R.L.

1992-12-31

Disinfection by-products are associated with all chemical disinfectants. The concentration and toxic nature of the disinfection byproducts (DBPs) is a direct function of the chemical nature of the disinfectant itself and/or of the chemical reactions of the disinfectant with reaction substrates in the water, especially organic constituents. A principal advantage of biological and physical water treatment processes, such as filtration, is the lack of chemical reactions producing disinfectant-related DBPs. The use of the highest quality source water available is important for minimization of DBP formation. In lieu of such high quality water, improvement of water quality by removal of DBPmore » precursors through filtration or other means before application of chemical disinfectants is important. Most, if not all, water treatment experts are aware of these simplistic axioms. In view of the increasing knowledge being developed concerning DBPs including the identification of ``new`` DBPs, prudence dictates minimization of DBP formation. Wholesome drinking water is perhaps the biggest economic bargain available to consumers. The cost-effectiveness of water quality improvement should be evaluated with that in mind.« less

Occurrence and exposures to disinfectants and disinfection by-products

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cumming, R.B.; Jolley, R.L.

1992-01-01

Disinfection by-products are associated with all chemical disinfectants. The concentration and toxic nature of the disinfection byproducts (DBPs) is a direct function of the chemical nature of the disinfectant itself and/or of the chemical reactions of the disinfectant with reaction substrates in the water, especially organic constituents. A principal advantage of biological and physical water treatment processes, such as filtration, is the lack of chemical reactions producing disinfectant-related DBPs. The use of the highest quality source water available is important for minimization of DBP formation. In lieu of such high quality water, improvement of water quality by removal of DBPmore » precursors through filtration or other means before application of chemical disinfectants is important. Most, if not all, water treatment experts are aware of these simplistic axioms. In view of the increasing knowledge being developed concerning DBPs including the identification of new'' DBPs, prudence dictates minimization of DBP formation. Wholesome drinking water is perhaps the biggest economic bargain available to consumers. The cost-effectiveness of water quality improvement should be evaluated with that in mind.« less

Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix to Its Social and Economic Determinants

PubMed Central

Beletsky, Leo; Ciccarone, Daniel

2018-01-01

The accepted wisdom about the US overdose crisis singles out prescribing as the causative vector. Although drug supply is a key factor, we posit that the crisis is fundamentally fueled by economic and social upheaval, its etiology closely linked to the role of opioids as a refuge from physical and psychological trauma, concentrated disadvantage, isolation, and hopelessness. Overreliance on opioid medications is emblematic of a health care system that incentivizes quick, simplistic answers to complex physical and mental health needs. In an analogous way, simplistic measures to cut access to opioids offer illusory solutions to this multidimensional societal challenge. We trace the crisis’ trajectory through the intertwined use of opioid analgesics, heroin, and fentanyl analogs, and we urge engaging the structural determinants lens to address this formidable public health emergency. A broad focus on suffering should guide both patient- and community-level interventions. PMID:29267060

Proximity Networks and Epidemics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guclu, Hasan; Toroczkai, Zoltán

2007-03-01

We presented the basis of a framework to account for the dynamics of contacts in epidemic processes, through the notion of dynamic proximity graphs. By varying the integration time-parameter T, which is the period of infectivity one can give a simple account for some of the differences in the observed contact networks for different diseases, such as smallpox, or AIDS. Our simplistic model also seems to shed some light on the shape of the degree distribution of the measured people-people contact network from the EPISIM data. We certainly do not claim that the simplistic graph integration model above is a good model for dynamic contact graphs. It only contains the essential ingredients for such processes to produce a qualitative agreement with some observations. We expect that further refinements and extensions to this picture, in particular deriving the link-probabilities in the dynamic proximity graph from more realistic contact dynamics should improve the agreement between models and data.

Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix to Its Social and Economic Determinants.

PubMed

Dasgupta, Nabarun; Beletsky, Leo; Ciccarone, Daniel

2018-02-01

The accepted wisdom about the US overdose crisis singles out prescribing as the causative vector. Although drug supply is a key factor, we posit that the crisis is fundamentally fueled by economic and social upheaval, its etiology closely linked to the role of opioids as a refuge from physical and psychological trauma, concentrated disadvantage, isolation, and hopelessness. Overreliance on opioid medications is emblematic of a health care system that incentivizes quick, simplistic answers to complex physical and mental health needs. In an analogous way, simplistic measures to cut access to opioids offer illusory solutions to this multidimensional societal challenge. We trace the crisis' trajectory through the intertwined use of opioid analgesics, heroin, and fentanyl analogs, and we urge engaging the structural determinants lens to address this formidable public health emergency. A broad focus on suffering should guide both patient- and community-level interventions.

Electroactive and High Dielectric Folic Acid/PVDF Composite Film Rooted Simplistic Organic Photovoltaic Self-Charging Energy Storage Cell with Superior Energy Density and Storage Capability.

PubMed

Roy, Swagata; Thakur, Pradip; Hoque, Nur Amin; Bagchi, Biswajoy; Sepay, Nayim; Khatun, Farha; Kool, Arpan; Das, Sukhen

2017-07-19

Herein we report a simplistic prototype approach to develop an organic photovoltaic self-charging energy storage cell (OPSESC) rooted with biopolymer folic acid (FA) modified high dielectric and electroactive β crystal enriched poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) composite (PFA) thin film. Comprehensive and exhaustive characterizations of the synthesized PFA composite films validate the proper formation of β-polymorphs in PVDF. Significant improvements of both β-phase crystallization (F(β) ≈ 71.4%) and dielectric constant (ε ≈ 218 at 20 Hz for PFA of 7.5 mass %) are the twosome realizations of our current study. Enhancement of β-phase nucleation in the composites can be thought as a contribution of the strong interaction of the FA particles with the PVDF chains. Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars (MWS) interfacial polarization approves the establishment of thermally stable high dielectric values measured over a wide temperature spectrum. The optimized high dielectric and electroactive films are further employed as an active energy storage material in designing our device named as OPSESC. Self-charging under visible light irradiation without an external biasing electrical field and simultaneous remarkable self-storage of photogenerated electrical energy are the two foremost aptitudes and the spotlight of our present investigation. Our as fabricated device delivers an impressively high energy density of 7.84 mWh/g and an excellent specific capacitance of 61 F/g which is superior relative to the other photon induced two electrode organic self-charging energy storage devices reported so far. Our device also proves the realistic utility with good recycling capability by facilitating commercially available light emitting diode.

Lenses for Seeing Astronomy in Hawaii

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Veincent, Lehua M.

2012-01-01

It is well know that there has been a history of societal and cultural conflict surrounding the development of Western astronomy science in Hawai'i. To the outside observer, it may seem that the conflict is a residual effect from the manner in which the observatories were built, or that Native Hawaiians simply do not want outsiders encroaching on sacred mountains. While there may be some in the Islands who strongly argue against the observatories for these reasons, there are also individuals that support the idea of such needed research in this progressive time of technology. More importantly, these explanations are overly simplistic. What cultural experts, practitioners and liaisons now recognize is that much of the unexpected difficulties encountered in developing the Hawaiian workforce, science, technologies and sympathies to support the observatories, lie in a failure to understand the Native Hawaiian ontology related to themselves and their place in the world. One very simple way to characterize a Native Hawaiian worldview is that astronomy is not an isolated subject of study; rather, astronomy serves as a deeply interconnected human interface between the ocean, the land, language, genealogy, and a sense of place. In this paper Ke Kumu Lehua Veincent will describe the Hawaiian worldview, and shed light on the problem areas where this worldview, and the strictly academic view of astronomy come into conflict. Cultural intelligence and ancestral knowledge is also brought forth that suggests a much needed pathway in which these two viewpoints can engage and coexist with pono,or with balance without compromising what was, what is, and what is yet to come striving for continuous improvement, in science and for the people of Hawai'i.

The timing of umbilical cord clamping at birth: physiological considerations.

PubMed

Hooper, Stuart B; Binder-Heschl, Corinna; Polglase, Graeme R; Gill, Andrew W; Kluckow, Martin; Wallace, Euan M; Blank, Douglas; Te Pas, Arjan B

2016-01-01

While it is now recognized that umbilical cord clamping (UCC) at birth is not necessarily an innocuous act, there is still much confusion concerning the potential benefits and harms of this common procedure. It is most commonly assumed that delaying UCC will automatically result in a time-dependent net placental-to-infant blood transfusion, irrespective of the infant's physiological state. Whether or not this occurs, will likely depend on the infant's physiological state and not on the amount of time that has elapsed between birth and umbilical cord clamping (UCC). However, we believe that this is an overly simplistic view of what can occur during delayed UCC and ignores the benefits associated with maintaining the infant's venous return and cardiac output during transition. Recent experimental evidence and observations in humans have provided compelling evidence to demonstrate that time is not a major factor influencing placental-to-infant blood transfusion after birth. Indeed, there are many factors that influence blood flow in the umbilical vessels after birth, which depending on the dominating factors could potentially result in infant-to-placental blood transfusion. The most dominant factors that influence umbilical artery and venous blood flows after birth are lung aeration, spontaneous inspirations, crying and uterine contractions. It is still not entirely clear whether gravity differentially alters umbilical artery and venous flows, although the available data suggests that its influence, if present, is minimal. While there is much support for delaying UCC at birth, much of the debate has focused on a time-based approach, which we believe is misguided. While a time-based approach is much easier and convenient for the caregiver, ignoring the infant's physiology during delayed UCC can potentially be counter-productive for the infant.

Involvement of ICU families in decisions: fine-tuning the partnership

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Families of patients are not simple visitors to the ICU. They have just been separated from a loved one, often someone they live with, either abruptly or, in nearly half the cases, because a chronic condition has suddenly worsened. They must cope with a serious illness of a loved one, while having to adapt to the unfamiliar and intimidating ICU environment. In many cases, the outcome of the critical illness is uncertain, a situation that causes considerable distress to the relatives. As shown by our research group and others, families exhibit symptoms of anxiety (70%) and depression (35%) in the first few days after admission, as well as symptoms of stress (33%) and difficulty understanding the information delivered by the healthcare staff (50%). Furthermore, relatives of patients who die in the ICU are at risk for psychiatric syndromes such as generalized anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and posttraumatic stress syndrome. In this setting of psychological distress, families are asked to consider sharing in healthcare decisions about their loved one in the ICU. This article aims to foster the debate about the shared decision-making process. We have three objectives: to transcend the overly simplistic position that opposes paternalism and autonomy, to build a view founded only on an evaluation of actual practice and experience in the field, and to keep the focus squarely on the patient. Families want information and communication time from the staff. Nurses and physicians need to understand that families can share in decisions only if the entire ICU staff actively promotes family involvement and, of course, if the family wants to participate in all or part of the decision-making process. PMID:25593753

A three-dimensional geometric morphometrics view of the cranial shape variation and population history in the New World.

PubMed

Galland, Manon; Friess, Martin

2016-09-10

Craniofacial variation in past and present Amerindians has been attributed to the effect of multiple founder events, or to one major migration followed by in situ differentiation and possibly recurrent contacts among Circum-Arctic groups. Our study aims to: (i) detect morphological differences that may indicate several migrations; (ii) test for the presence of genetic isolation; and (iii) test the correlation between shape data and competing settlement hypotheses by taking into account geography, chronology, climate effects, the presence of genetic isolation and recurrent gene flow. We analyzed a large sample of three-dimensional (3D) cranial surface scans (803 specimens) including past and modern groups from America and Australasia. Shape variation was investigated using geometric morphometrics. Differential external gene flow was evaluated by applying genetic concepts to morphometric data (Relethford-Blangero approach). Settlement hypotheses were tested using a matrix correlation approach (Mantel tests). Our results highlight the strong dichotomy between Circum-Arctic and continental Amerindians as well as the impact of climate adaptation, and possibly recurrent gene flow in the Circum-Arctic area. There is also evidence for the impact of genetic isolation on phenetic variation in Baja California. Several settlement hypotheses are correlated with our data. The three approaches used in this study highlight the importance of local processes especially in Baja California, and caution against the use of overly simplistic models when searching for the number of migration events. The results stress the complexity of the settlement of the Americas as well as the mosaic nature of the processes involved in this process. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 28:646-661, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Culturally Embedded Risk Factors for Cambodian Husband-Wife HIV Transmission: From Women's Point of View.

PubMed

Yang, Youngran; Lewis, Frances Marcus; Wojnar, Danuta

2016-03-01

The purpose of this study was to use interview data to examine the validity of a recently published theoretical model of HIV transmission between husband and virginal wives in rural Cambodia. This study used a qualitative description method with a sample of women diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted with 15 women who self-identified as having contracted HIV from their HIV-positive husbands. Interviews were conducted in Khmer, translated and back-translated for accuracy, and then coded using deductive content analysis. Trustworthiness of study results was protected through peer debriefing, coding to consensus, and maintaining an audit trail. Each conceptual domain of the prior published theoretical model of HIV transmission was validated and further elaborated by current study data: wives' acceptance of their husbands' involvement with commercial sex workers, the common practice of unprotected sex between HIV-infected spouses and uninfected wives, and wives' beliefs about the value of the ideal Khmer woman. In addition, the current study findings identified a new domain that substantially distinguished between the beliefs and attitudes held about marriage and sex by wives and spouses. Women were not passive recipients of HIV transmission; they reciprocated with behaviors that were consistent with being a good Khmer woman in rural Cambodia, all of which increased their vulnerability to HIV transmission from their HIV-infected spouses. Future interventions or programs should consider all these factors and not overly rely on simplistic educational messages about wearing barriers for HIV transmission during sex. The refined theoretical model of HIV transmission from this qualitative research can be used to formulate culturally sensitive and embedded programs for curbing intramarital HIV transmission in Cambodia among the rural poor. © 2016 Sigma Theta Tau International.

The Harvard case of Xu Xiping: exploitation of the people, scientific advance, or genetic theft?

PubMed

Sleeboom, Margaret

2005-04-01

A unique history and make-up of a population may make it an attractive research target for population geneticists and pharmaco-genomic investors. The promise of pharmaceutical profits and advances in medical knowledge attracted Harvard researchers and the company Millennium Pharmaceuticals to remote areas in Anhui Province, Central China, leading to international diplomatic disagreements about issues such as the ownership of genetic material and informed consent (IC). This article discusses the role of genomics and genetic sampling in China, the way it is related to population policies (the new eugenics), the national importance of genetic materials and the conflicts it led to between the Chinese government and Harvard University. Here many consider the Xu Xiping case as textbook example of ruthless Western exploitation of development countries, illustrating the cold rationality of science in the process of globalisation. Ten perspectives on this case show that this view is simplistic and contributes little to an understanding of bioethical issues important to the population actually donating the samples. Viewing the Xu Xiping case as the nexus of the intertwinement of international, transnational, national, and local interest groups shows how different interest groups make use of different units of analysis. It also clarifies why the same practice of genetic sampling continues under a different regime, and why the discussion about genetic sampling has shifted from a concern with health care of the poor to an issue of international exploitation, terrorism and development.

Sublethal exposure, insecticide resistance, and community stress

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Although a prevalent pest management tool and anthropogenic stressors of widespread occurrence, insecticides are subject to biased perceptions and research demands largely guided by their use, market value, and regulatory requirements. As a result, short-term and simplistic efforts focusing on letha...

Eyeless in Gaza: Some Reflections on Teaching Early English Literature in Israel

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ebel, Julia

1973-01-01

The author makes, in her words, a simplistic parallel between the rejection of white culture by American Negroes and the rejection of western literature, particularly the predominantly Christian literature of the Medieval and Renaissance periods in England. (MM)

Considering Intersectionality in Multiculturalism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clark, Madeline

2015-01-01

The intersection of feminist theory and multiculturalism is discussed. Although Frisby makes several strong points, there are several aspects of his definition of multiculturalism that are simplistic. Expansion of ideas borrowed from feminism has potential to increase the nuance and accuracy of the conceptualization of multiculturalism.

Nervous System Complexity Baffles Scientists.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fox, Jeffrey L.

1982-01-01

New research findings about how nerve cells transmit signals are forcing researchers to overhaul their simplistic ideas about the nervous system. Topics highlighted include the multiple role of peptides in the nervous system, receptor molecules, and molecules that form ion channels within membranes. (Author/JN)

Complexity versus certainty in understanding species’ declines

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sundstrom, Shana M.; Allen, Craig R.

2014-01-01

Traditional approaches to predict species declines (e.g. government processes or IUCN Red Lists), may be too simplistic and may therefore misguide management and conservation. Using complex systems approaches that account for scale-specific patterns and processes have the potential to overcome these limitations.

Gendered Construction: A Portfolio Extravaganza

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goins, Terilyn J.

2007-01-01

Even through simplistic nursery rhymes, communication provides a powerful medium through which people formulate and create impressions, images, and ideologies. Communication, verbal and nonverbal, clearly plays a significant role in individual gender construction. Through words and action, people create meaning for others and themselves. One's…

Thermodynamics of Oligonucleotide Duplex Melting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schreiber-Gosche, Sherrie; Edwards, Robert A.

2009-01-01

Melting temperatures of oligonucleotides are useful for a number of molecular biology applications, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Although melting temperatures are often calculated with simplistic empirical equations, application of thermodynamics provides more accurate melting temperatures and an opportunity for students to apply…

Dinosaur physiology. Evidence for mesothermy in dinosaurs.

PubMed

Grady, John M; Enquist, Brian J; Dettweiler-Robinson, Eva; Wright, Natalie A; Smith, Felisa A

2014-06-13

Were dinosaurs ectotherms or fast-metabolizing endotherms whose activities were unconstrained by temperature? To date, some of the strongest evidence for endothermy comes from the rapid growth rates derived from the analysis of fossil bones. However, these studies are constrained by a lack of comparative data and an appropriate energetic framework. Here we compile data on ontogenetic growth for extant and fossil vertebrates, including all major dinosaur clades. Using a metabolic scaling approach, we find that growth and metabolic rates follow theoretical predictions across clades, although some groups deviate. Moreover, when the effects of size and temperature are considered, dinosaur metabolic rates were intermediate to those of endotherms and ectotherms and closest to those of extant mesotherms. Our results suggest that the modern dichotomy of endothermic versus ectothermic is overly simplistic. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Colocalization analysis in fluorescence micrographs: verification of a more accurate calculation of pearson's correlation coefficient.

PubMed

Barlow, Andrew L; Macleod, Alasdair; Noppen, Samuel; Sanderson, Jeremy; Guérin, Christopher J

2010-12-01

One of the most routine uses of fluorescence microscopy is colocalization, i.e., the demonstration of a relationship between pairs of biological molecules. Frequently this is presented simplistically by the use of overlays of red and green images, with areas of yellow indicating colocalization of the molecules. Colocalization data are rarely quantified and can be misleading. Our results from both synthetic and biological datasets demonstrate that the generation of Pearson's correlation coefficient between pairs of images can overestimate positive correlation and fail to demonstrate negative correlation. We have demonstrated that the calculation of a thresholded Pearson's correlation coefficient using only intensity values over a determined threshold in both channels produces numerical values that more accurately describe both synthetic datasets and biological examples. Its use will bring clarity and accuracy to colocalization studies using fluorescent microscopy.

EPSRC Principles of Robotics: defending an obsolete human(ism)?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szollosy, Michael

2017-04-01

The EPSRC Principles of Robotics (2010), whatever noble intentions, failed to create an enduring set of principles for research into and development of robotics and artificial intelligence because those participating in the workshop did not begin with an adequate understanding of what it means to be "human". Labouring under the false, outdated assumptions of humanism, the human beings that the Principles are meant to serve have never existed in such an overly-simplistic form, or are soon to be made extinct by the transformative power of new technologies, and new ways of imagining human social relations in response to technological innovation. At the heart of any principles for robotics must be a new, more flexible conception of what it means to be human, and a recognition that human beings are, and always will be, plural and contingent.

Using analytic element models to delineate drinking water source protection areas.

PubMed

Raymond, Heather A; Bondoc, Michael; McGinnis, John; Metropulos, Kathy; Heider, Pat; Reed, Allison; Saines, Steve

2006-01-01

Since 1999, Ohio EPA hydrogeologists have used two analytic element models (AEMs), the proprietary software GFLOW and U.S. EPA's WhAEM, to delineate protection areas for 535 public water systems. Both models now use the GFLOW2001 solution engine, integrate well with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, have a user-friendly graphical interface, are capable of simulating a variety of complex hydrogeologic settings, and do not rely upon a model grid. These features simplify the modeling process and enable AEMs to bridge the gap between existing simplistic delineation methods and more complex numerical models. Ohio EPA hydrogeologists demonstrated that WhAEM2000 and GFLOW2000 were capable of producing capture zones similar to more widely accepted models by applying the AEMs to eight sites that had been previously delineated using other methods. After the Ohio EPA delineated protection areas using AEMs, more simplistic delineation methods used by other states (volumetric equation and arbitrary fixed radii) were applied to the same water systems to compare the differences between various methods. GIS software and two-tailed paired t-tests were used to quantify the differences in protection areas and analyze the data. The results of this analysis demonstrate that AEMs typically produce significantly different protection areas than the most simplistic delineation methods, in terms of total area and shape. If the volumetric equation had been used instead of AEMs, Ohio would not have protected 265 km2 of critical upgradient area and would have overprotected 269 km2 of primarily downgradient land. Since an increasing number of land-use restrictions are being tied to drinking water protection areas, this analysis has broad policy implications.

Dynamics of mercury in blood and feathers of great skuas

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bearhop, S.; Ruxton, G.D.; Furness, R.W.

2000-06-01

Mercury dynamics in the blood and feathers of captive great skuas, Catharacta skua, were monitored over 56 weeks. Prior to the onset of molt, mercury intake was solely from their maintenance ration of sprats, Sprattus sprattus. For the first half of molt, in addition to mercury intake from sprats, birds were fed different doses of methylmercuric chloride weekly for 20 weeks. During the second half of molt, dosing was stopped and mercury intake was solely from sprats. Blood was sampled throughout the study and feather growth was monitored. Prior to the onset of molt, mercury concentrations increased over the firstmore » 51 to 71 d and appeared to level off after this period. Repeated dosing models based on mammalian pharmacokinetics were, in general, too simplistic to be applicable to the birds in the study. During molt, the elimination of mercury from the blood is probably best described by a three-compartment model. Mercury concentrations in feathers were significantly correlated with those in blood at the time of their growth, suggesting that blood and feathers reflect mercury intake over the same time period. Individuals varied in their ability to excrete ingested mercury into the feathers.« less

Public School Teachers Who Lead

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dieckmann, Jack; Montemayor, Aurelio

2004-01-01

This article describes some core characteristics that reflect the underlying commitment of public school teachers to create and maintain vibrant learning environments for every student, every day, in every way, often under the bureaucratic pressures of high-stakes testing, rigid curricular fads, and simplistic administrative responses to…

Formative Assessment as Mediation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Vos, Mark; Belluigi, Dina Zoe

2011-01-01

Whilst principles of validity, reliability and fairness should be central concerns for the assessment of student learning in higher education, simplistic notions of "transparency" and "explicitness" in terms of assessment criteria should be critiqued more rigorously. This article examines the inherent tensions resulting from CRA's links to both…

Measuring Intergroup Attitudes in Community Settings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fisher, Ronald J.

Contemporary social psychology takes a simplistic approach to the conceptualization and measurement of intergroup attitudes. Most definitions involve only the affective component of attitudes, and most measurement devices are restricted self-report, paper and pencil questionnaires. A broader and more flexible approach is required to adequately…

A flexible framework for process-based hydraulic and water quality modeling of stormwater green infrastructure performance

EPA Science Inventory

Background Models that allow for design considerations of green infrastructure (GI) practices to control stormwater runoff and associated contaminants have received considerable attention in recent years. While popular, generally, the GI models are relatively simplistic. However,...

Drug Education: Reasons and Failures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Cameron V.

1971-01-01

This paper contains 50 reasons" used to explain increasing drug abuse by youth, grouped into 10 categories: criminal elements, minorities, youth, adults, homes, schools, churches, corporate system, political system, and society. The interplay of reasons is extremely complicated; hence educational or remedial programs built upon simplistic cause…

Empirical Linkages between Firm Competencies and Organisational Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murray, Peter; Donegan, Kevin

2003-01-01

Management, operational, technology, and learning competencies in 26 large and 15 small Australian construction contractors were identified at five levels: simplistic, structure, efficiency, value, and dynamic. Organizational learning appeared useful when combined with competency development embedded in the routines of a learning culture.…

Predicting thermal history a-priori for magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia of internal carcinoma

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dhar, Purbarun; Sirisha Maganti, Lakshmi

2017-08-01

This article proposes a simplistic and realistic method where a direct analytical expression can be derived for the temperature field within a tumour during magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia. The approximated analytical expression for thermal history within the tumour is derived based on the lumped capacitance approach and considers all therapy protocols and parameters. The present method is simplistic and provides an easy framework for estimating hyperthermia protocol parameters promptly. The model has been validated with respect to several experimental reports on animal models such as mice/rabbit/hamster and human clinical trials. It has been observed that the model is able to accurately estimate the thermal history within the carcinoma during the hyperthermia therapy. The present approach may find implications in a-priori estimation of the thermal history in internal tumours for optimizing magnetic hyperthermia treatment protocols with respect to the ablation time, tumour size, magnetic drug concentration, field strength, field frequency, nanoparticle material and size, tumour location, and so on.

Testosterone and Social Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Booth, Alan; Granger, Douglas A.; Mazur, Allan; Kivlighan, Katie T.

2006-01-01

Popular perceptions of the effect of testosterone on "manly" behavior are inaccurate. We need to move away from such simplistic notions by treating testosterone as one component along with other physiological, psychological and sociological variables in interactive and reciprocal models of behavior. Several hormones can now be measured in saliva,…

Learning Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sittiprapaporn, Wichian, Ed.

2012-01-01

Learning disability is a classification that includes several disorders in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner. Depending on the type and severity of the disability, interventions may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success. Some interventions can be quite simplistic, while others are…

What Is a Working Woman?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stipp, Horst H.

1988-01-01

Any audience of women contains a much higher percentage of those who consider themselves to be working women than the statistics indicate. Marketers who adhere to simplistic definitions of working women risk making mistakes in the placement of their ads and in the images of women in their messages. (JOW)

An Interpersonal Approach to Writing Negative Messages.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salerno, Douglas

1988-01-01

Asserts that textbook advice regarding buffers and negative messages is simplistic and frequently wrong, and analyses 22 job-refusal letters and their effectiveness. Claims that recent research on cognitive complexity and social perspective-taking suggests the need for more sophisticated audience analysis protocols for dealing with the negative…

Machine Learning Based Multi-Physical-Model Blending for Enhancing Renewable Energy Forecast -- Improvement via Situation Dependent Error Correction

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lu, Siyuan; Hwang, Youngdeok; Khabibrakhmanov, Ildar

With increasing penetration of solar and wind energy to the total energy supply mix, the pressing need for accurate energy forecasting has become well-recognized. Here we report the development of a machine-learning based model blending approach for statistically combining multiple meteorological models for improving the accuracy of solar/wind power forecast. Importantly, we demonstrate that in addition to parameters to be predicted (such as solar irradiance and power), including additional atmospheric state parameters which collectively define weather situations as machine learning input provides further enhanced accuracy for the blended result. Functional analysis of variance shows that the error of individual modelmore » has substantial dependence on the weather situation. The machine-learning approach effectively reduces such situation dependent error thus produces more accurate results compared to conventional multi-model ensemble approaches based on simplistic equally or unequally weighted model averaging. Validation over an extended period of time results show over 30% improvement in solar irradiance/power forecast accuracy compared to forecasts based on the best individual model.« less

Engineering Aerothermal Analysis for X-34 Thermal Protection System Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wurster, Kathryn E.; Riley, Christopher J.; Zoby, E. Vincent

1998-01-01

Design of the thermal protection system for any hypersonic flight vehicle requires determination of both the peak temperatures over the surface and the heating-rate history along the flight profile. In this paper, the process used to generate the aerothermal environments required for the X-34 Testbed Technology Demonstrator thermal protection system design is described as it has evolved from a relatively simplistic approach based on engineering methods applied to critical areas to one of detailed analyses over the entire vehicle. A brief description of the trajectory development leading to the selection of the thermal protection system design trajectory is included. Comparisons of engineering heating predictions with wind-tunnel test data and with results obtained using a Navier-Stokes flowfield code and an inviscid/boundary layer method are shown. Good agreement is demonstrated among all these methods for both the ground-test condition and the peak heating flight condition. Finally, the detailed analysis using engineering methods to interpolate the surface-heating-rate results from the inviscid/boundary layer method to predict the required thermal environments is described and results presented.

Engineering Aerothermal Analysis for X-34 Thermal Protection System Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wurster, Kathryn E.; Riley, Christopher J.; Zoby, E. Vincent

1998-01-01

Design of the thermal protection system for any hypersonic flight vehicle requires determination of both the peak temperatures over the surface and the heating-rate history along the flight profile. In this paper, the process used to generate the aerothermal environments required for the X-34 Testbed Technology Demonstrator thermal protection system design is described as it has evolved from a relatively simplistic approach based on engineering methods applied to critical areas to one of detailed analyses over the entire vehicle. A brief description of the trajectory development leading to the selection of the thermal protection system design trajectory is included. Comparisons of engineering heating predictions with wind-tunnel test data and with results obtained using a Navier- Stokes flowfield code and an inviscid/boundary layer method are shown. Good agreement is demonstrated among all these methods for both the ground-test condition and the peak heating flight condition. Finally, the detailed analysis using engineering methods to interpolate the surface-heating-rate results from the inviscid/boundary layer method to predict the required thermal environments is described and results presented.

On the Shallow Processing (Dis)Advantage: Grammar and Economy

PubMed Central

Koornneef, Arnout; Reuland, Eric

2016-01-01

In the psycholinguistic literature it has been proposed that readers and listeners often adopt a “good-enough” processing strategy in which a “shallow” representation of an utterance driven by (top-down) extra-grammatical processes has a processing advantage over a “deep” (bottom-up) grammatically-driven representation of that same utterance. In the current contribution we claim, both on theoretical and experimental grounds, that this proposal is overly simplistic. Most importantly, in the domain of anaphora there is now an accumulating body of evidence showing that the anaphoric dependencies between (reflexive) pronominals and their antecedents are subject to an economy hierarchy. In this economy hierarchy, deriving anaphoric dependencies by deep—grammatical—operations requires less processing costs than doing so by shallow—extra-grammatical—operations. In addition, in case of ambiguity when both a shallow and a deep derivation are available to the parser, the latter is actually preferred. This, we argue, contradicts the basic assumptions of the shallow–deep dichotomy and, hence, a rethinking of the good-enough processing framework is warranted. PMID:26903897

ROCView: prototype software for data collection in jackknife alternative free-response receiver operating characteristic analysis

PubMed Central

Thompson, J; Hogg, P; Thompson, S; Manning, D; Szczepura, K

2012-01-01

ROCView has been developed as an image display and response capture (IDRC) solution to image display and consistent recording of reader responses in relation to the free-response receiver operating characteristic paradigm. A web-based solution to IDRC for observer response studies allows observations to be completed from any location, assuming that display performance and viewing conditions are consistent with the study being completed. The simplistic functionality of the software allows observations to be completed without supervision. ROCView can display images from multiple modalities, in a randomised order if required. Following registration, observers are prompted to begin their image evaluation. All data are recorded via mouse clicks, one to localise (mark) and one to score confidence (rate) using either an ordinal or continuous rating scale. Up to nine “mark-rating” pairs can be made per image. Unmarked images are given a default score of zero. Upon completion of the study, both true-positive and false-positive reports can be downloaded and adapted for analysis. ROCView has the potential to be a useful tool in the assessment of modality performance difference for a range of imaging methods. PMID:22573294

[Nutrition education in schools: potential resources for a teacher/nurse partnership].

PubMed

Arboix-Calas, France; Lemonnier, Geneviève

2016-01-01

Nutrition education in schools must be based on a collaborative approach between teachers and school nurses. The objective of this study was to compare the nutrition education representations and practices of primary school teachers and school nurses in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the South of France. We used the theoretical framework of complexity, which is particularly suited to multifactorial phenomena such as nutrition education. We interviewed 112 primary school teachers and 33 school nurses about three aspects of their nutrition education representations and practices: actors, content and place of nutrition education at school. Nurses had a more comprehensive and complex approach to nutrition education, including a collaborative approach. However, teachers had a fairly simplistic view of nutrition education and their practice took little account of the psychosocial dimensions of nutrition and a collaborative approach. Nurses could be resources for teachers to help them change their approach to health by transforming a purely biomedical approach to health and nutrition into a more comprehensive approach, particularly taking into account in its psychological and social dimensions, which would be more appropriate to address the growing prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases in France today.

Social Relations in Lebanon: Convoys Across the Life Course

PubMed Central

Antonucci, Toni C.; Ajrouch, Kristine J.; Abdulrahim, Sawsan

2015-01-01

Objectives: This study systematically analyzed convoys of social relations to investigate the ways in which gender and income shape patterns of social relations across the life course in Lebanon. Methods: Data were drawn from a representative sample of adults aged 18 and older in Greater Beirut, Lebanon (N = 500). Multiple linear regression and multilevel models were conducted to examine main and interactive effects of age, gender, and income on social relations. Results: Findings indicate main effects of age, income, and gender on network structure and relationship quality. Older age was associated with larger network size, greater proportion of kin in network, higher positive and lower negative relationship quality. Higher income was associated with larger network size and decreased contact frequency. Female gender was also associated with decreased contact frequency. Gender interacted with income to influence network size and network composition. Higher income was associated with a larger network size and higher proportion of kin for women. Discussion: Findings suggest diversity in the experience of social relations. Such nuance is particularly relevant to the Lebanese context where family is the main source of support in old age. Policy makers and program planners may need to refrain from viewing social relations simplistically. PMID:24501252

The 'warrior gene' and the Mãori people: the responsibility of the geneticists.

PubMed

Perbal, Laurence

2013-09-01

The 'gene of' is a teleosemantic expression that conveys a simplistic and linear relationship between a gene and a phenotype. Throughout the 20th century, geneticists studied these genes of traits. The studies were often polemical when they concerned human traits: the 'crime gene', 'poverty gene', 'IQ gene', 'gay gene' or 'gene of alcoholism'. Quite recently, a controversy occurred in 2006 in New Zealand that started with the claim that a 'warrior gene' exists in the Mãori community. This claim came from a geneticist working on the MAOA gene. This article is interested in the responsibility of that researcher regarding the origin of the controversy. Several errors were made: overestimation of results, abusive use of the 'gene of' kind of expression, poor communication with the media and a lack of scientific culture. The issues of the debate were not taken into account sufficiently, either from the political, social, ethical or even the genetic points of view. After more than 100 years of debates around 'genes of' all kinds (here, the 'warrior gene'), geneticists may not hide themselves behind the media when a controversy occurs. Responsibilities have to be assumed. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Heterodyne range imaging as an alternative to photogrammetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dorrington, Adrian; Cree, Michael; Carnegie, Dale; Payne, Andrew; Conroy, Richard

2007-01-01

Solid-state full-field range imaging technology, capable of determining the distance to objects in a scene simultaneously for every pixel in an image, has recently achieved sub-millimeter distance measurement precision. With this level of precision, it is becoming practical to use this technology for high precision three-dimensional metrology applications. Compared to photogrammetry, range imaging has the advantages of requiring only one viewing angle, a relatively short measurement time, and simplistic fast data processing. In this paper we fist review the range imaging technology, then describe an experiment comparing both photogrammetric and range imaging measurements of a calibration block with attached retro-reflective targets. The results show that the range imaging approach exhibits errors of approximately 0.5 mm in-plane and almost 5 mm out-of-plane; however, these errors appear to be mostly systematic. We then proceed to examine the physical nature and characteristics of the image ranging technology and discuss the possible causes of these systematic errors. Also discussed is the potential for further system characterization and calibration to compensate for the range determination and other errors, which could possibly lead to three-dimensional measurement precision approaching that of photogrammetry.

Social control and coercion in addiction treatment: towards evidence-based policy and practice.

PubMed

Wild, T Cameron

2006-01-01

Social pressures are often an integral part of the process of seeking addiction treatment. However, scientists have not developed conclusive evidence on the processes, benefits and limitations of using legal, formal and informal social control tactics to inform policy makers, service providers and the public. This paper characterizes barriers to a robust interdisciplinary analysis of social control and coercion in addiction treatment and provides directions for future research. Conceptual analysis and review of key studies and trends in the area are used to describe eight implicit assumptions underlying policy, practice and scholarship on this topic. Many policies, programmes and researchers are guided by a simplistic behaviourist and health-service perspective on social controls that (a) overemphasizes the use of criminal justice systems to compel individuals into treatment and (b) fails to take into account provider, patient and public views. Policies and programmes that expand addiction treatment options deserve support. However, drawing a firm distinction between social controls (objective use of social pressure) and coercion (client perceptions and decision-making processes) supports a parallel position that rejects treatment policies, programmes, and associated practices that create client perceptions of coercion.

Brain Research and Childhood Education: Implications for Educators.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bergen, Doris; Coscia, Juliet

Although much of the advice and training for educators derived from various interpretations of brain research findings has been useful, much is simplistic and misleading. This book draws on recent research to offer information about brain growth and neurological development and about the relationship between environment and brain development; the…

Thinking outside the Box

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fanshawe, Simon; Sriskandarajah, Dhananjayan

2010-01-01

Britain is not only more diverse than ever before, but that diversity itself is growing more diverse. Britain's simplistic "tick-box" approach to identity is in danger of inhibiting the very equality it seeks to promote. To question the tick-box is not to accuse local authorities of "political correctness gone mad". The notion…

Metacognition: Transforming the Learning Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chekwa, Emmanuel; McFadden, Misty; Divine, Angelia; Dorius, Tina

2015-01-01

A simplistic definition of metacognition is "thinking about thinking." It involves taking time to analyze and delve into the various ways the mind receives and retains information. It is not a new concept but metacognition is evolving as a new word for successful learners. It is stimulating much conversation and excitement in academia as…

Metacognition: Transforming Learning Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chekwa, Emmanuel; McFadden, Misty; Divine, Angelia; Dorius, Tina

2014-01-01

A simplistic definition of metacognition is "thinking about thinking." It involves taking time to analyze and delve into the various ways the mind receives and retains information. It is not a new concept but metacognition is evolving as a new word for successful learners. It is stimulating much conversation and excitement in academia as…

The Elusiveness of Workplace Culture: Response to "Technical Communication: The Cultural Context."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parsons, Gerald M.

1987-01-01

Responds to C. Lipson's article on the cultural context of technical communication by criticizing her lack of definition of the term "corporate culture," and suggesting that analyzing corporations as cultures is naive, simplistic, and would probably have little value for students of business communication. (SKC)

Art's False "Ease": Form, Meaning and a Problematic Pedagogy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Baldacchino, John

2014-01-01

This paper argues that in foregoing the questions that emerge from the dialectical relationship between "form" and "meaning", an intrinsic fallacy mistakes the relationship between the arts and education for a simplistic mechanism of signification--a false "ease"--where empty forms are supposedly given meaning by…

A Tale of Two Crocoducks: Creationist Misuses of Molecular Evolution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hofmann, James R.

2014-01-01

Although some creationist objections to evolutionary biology are simplistic and thus are easily refuted, when more technical arguments become widespread it is important for science educators to explain the relevant science in a straightforward manner. An interesting case study is provided by misguided allegations about how cytochrome c data…

Diversity and Difference in Early Childhood Education: Issues for Theory and Practice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, Kerry; Diaz, Criss Jones

2005-01-01

Early childhood professionals are often required to work with children and families from a range of diverse backgrounds. This book goes beyond simplistic definitions of diversity, encouraging a much broader understanding and helping early childhood educators develop a critical disposition towards assumptions about children and childhood in…

Theoretical, Methodological, and Ethical Challenges to the Study of Immigrants: Perils and Possibilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mahalingam, Ramaswami; Rabelo, Verónica Caridad

2013-01-01

Research on immigrant communities has often been reductionist, stereotypical, and simplistic, and even the most well-intentioned researchers are susceptible to using cultural deficit models. This chapter critically evaluates some of the dominant tensions and problem areas with respect to researching immigrant communities. Specifically, we analyze…

Material Cultural Correlates of the Athapaskan Expansion: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Joseph Andrew Park

2011-01-01

Contrary to stereotypes of proto-Athapaskan culture as simplistic and archaic, evidence points to a sophisticated web of late prehistoric Asian-Athapaskan interactions. A holistic assessment of Athapaskan migrations in the context of the transpacific Dene-Yeneseian phylum (the largest, fastest pedestrian language spread on earth) sees…

Failing Boys? Issues in Gender and Achievement.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Epstein, Debbie, Ed.; Elwood, Jannette, Ed.; Hey, Valerie, Ed.; Maw, Janet, Ed.

Issues surrounding boys'"underachievement" have been at the center of public debate about education and the raising of standards in recent years. Media and political responses to the "problem of boys" have tended to be simplistic, partial, and owe more to quick fixes than investigation and research. This book provides a…

Teaching World History with "Things Fall Apart."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feldmann, Martha J.

1995-01-01

Recommends using Chinua Achebe's novel of the 19th-century conflict between African tribal culture and English colonists in a world history class. Achebe's rich narrative, written in a graceful prose, is easily accessible to high school students. The novel replaces simplistic and abstract concepts with those more complex and concrete. (MJP)

The Interdependency of Vocational and Liberal Aims in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Abowitz, Kathleen Knight

2006-01-01

Many college and university students are zeroed in on their vocational pursuits. Often very narrowly focused, many college students simplistically equate a college education with a vocational education. In situations of advising, teaching, or life coaching, teachers often encounter students who believe that college is largely preparation for a…

Metacognition: Strategies for 'Fourthought.'

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hanson, J. Robert

The brain's architecture serves as the basic model for theorizing about how the brain works. Current brain research confirms earlier suspicions that thoughtfulness has a great deal more complexity than the simplistic left/right distinctions of earlier research. This paper draws on the work of Carl Jung to propose the brain-psyche model as an…

Understanding Atmospheric Carbon Budgets: Teaching Students Conservation of Mass

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reichert, Collin; Cervato, Cinzia; Niederhauser, Dale; Larsen, Michael D.

2015-01-01

In this paper we describe student use of a series of connected online problem-solving activities to remediate atmospheric carbon budget misconceptions held by undergraduate university students. In particular, activities were designed to address a common misconception about conservation of mass when students assume a simplistic, direct relationship…

Celebrating Mediocrity? How Schools Shortchange Gifted Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stanley, Gregory Kent; Baines, Lawrence

2002-01-01

Some forces that undermine programs for gifted, such as misguided fiscal policies, simplistic teaching methodologies, and a resurgence of the philosophy of egalitarianism, are reviewed in this article. Analogous to the demise (and possible resurgence) of programs for the gifted is the evolution of women's sports since the 1920s. (Contains…

Basil Bernstein: Agency, Structure and Linguistic Conception of Class

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Best, Shaun

2007-01-01

The paper outlines an interpretation of Bernstein's contribution to the sociology of education that stands in contrast to the common interpretations of Bernstein's work. It is commonly assumed that Bernstein constructed a simplistic "deficit model" of educational failure, or alternatively, that Bernstein was a structuralist who did not give any…

Focusing on Mathematical Arguments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Singletary, Laura M.; Conner, AnnaMarie

2015-01-01

"Collective argumentation" occurs when a group works together to arrive at a conclusion (supporting it with evidence). Simplistically, this occurs when students give answers to questions and tell how they arrived at the answer, perhaps prompted by a teacher. But collective argumentation can be much richer, with a focus on the process of…

Is the Hawaiian Archipelago dominantly Loa-trend?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weis, D.; Harrison, L.; Garcia, M. O.; Rhodes, M. M.

2015-12-01

Hawaiian volcanoes are distributed en echelon on the islands along two chains, the Loa and Kea trends, that are geographically and geochemically distinct1,2. These geochemical differences may be attributed to source zoning (concentric or bilateral) of the Hawaiian mantle plume (HMP) or to variations in pressure and temperature of melting. Most of these models assume a degree of independence of the two trends that is perhaps not realistic. To explore the isotopic characteristics of two "Kea"-trend volcanoes with transitional signatures, we analyzed 11 samples of Kohala shield-stage tholeiitic lavas and three from Haleakala for high-precision Pb-Nd-Sr-Hf isotopes. These samples are transitional in all isotopic systems between Loa and Kea compositions and cross-over the Pb-Pb boundary3. Minor cross-overs had been documented in Mauna Kea4, Kilauea5, and W Molokai6 basalts. A bilateral or concentric view of the HMP is thus too simplistic. Statistical analysis of the MC-ICP-MS or triple-spike shield tholeiite data (n>600) and the existence of three Pb-Pb trends originating from average Loa indicate that Loa is the dominant mantle source composition on the archipelago. Isotopically, four geochemical groups are identified: Kea (Mauna Kea, Kilauea), average Loa (Mauna Loa, Hualalai, Kauai, Waianae, W. Molokai, Loihi), enriched Loa (Koolau Makapuu, Lanai, Kahoolawe) and transitional Kea (E. Molokai, W. Maui, Haleakala, Kohala). The implications are: 1) HMP source components refresh and grade into and out of existence on a smaller timescale than previously thought; 2) the Kea trend is also heterogeneous; and 3) vertical heterogeneity of the plume is important on a regional scale as well as at the scale of individual volcanoes6. 1Jackson et al., 1972, GSA Bull. 83, 1-17. 2Weis et al., 2011, Nat. Geosci., 4, 831-838. 3Abouchami et al., 2005, Nature, 434, 851-856. 4Eisele et al., 2003, G-cubed, 4, 5, 32 pages. 5Marske et al., 2007, EPSL, 259, 34-50. 6Xu et al., 2014, GCA, 132, 241-237.

In immune defense: redefining the role of the immune system in chronic disease.

PubMed

Rubinow, Katya B; Rubinow, David R

2017-03-01

The recognition of altered immune system function in many chronic disease states has proven to be a pivotal advance in biomedical research over the past decade. For many metabolic and mood disorders, this altered immune activity has been characterized as inflammation, with the attendant assumption that the immune response is aberrant. However, accumulating evidence challenges this assumption and suggests that the immune system may be mounting adaptive responses to chronic stressors. Further, the inordinate complexity of immune function renders a simplistic, binary model incapable of capturing critical mechanistic insights. In this perspective article, we propose alternative paradigms for understanding the role of the immune system in chronic disease. By invoking allostasis or systems biology rather than inflammation, we can ascribe greater functional significance to immune mediators, gain newfound appreciation of the adaptive facets of altered immune activity, and better avoid the potentially disastrous effects of translating erroneous assumptions into novel therapeutic strategies.

Restoring wisdom to the practice of psychiatry.

PubMed

Boyce, Philip

2006-03-01

While psychiatry is an exciting and rewarding discipline of medicine, the practice of psychiatry has become increasingly simplistic. This address seeks to identify some of the influences that underlie this phenomenon. The influences include an increased demand for services and pressure on beds, the sway of the pharmaceutical industry with a biological approach being promulgated, excessive managerial constraints with an emphasis on efficiency versus effectiveness, and the acceptance of DSM diagnostic categories of uncertain validity. I argue that we need to rediscover a more wise approach to psychiatric practice. We have to insist upon changes to our training such that trainees are encouraged to get to know their patients and understand them from a biopsychosocial perspective. As a profession, we have to insist on proper care for our patients and work with managers and bureaucrats to ensure that the management of our patients is centred on quality of care and effectiveness over and above efficiency.

Nonlinear Thermoelastic Model for SMAs and SMA Hybrid Composites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Turner, Travis L.

2004-01-01

A constitutive mathematical model has been developed that predicts the nonlinear thermomechanical behaviors of shape-memory-alloys (SMAs) and of shape-memory-alloy hybrid composite (SMAHC) structures, which are composite-material structures that contain embedded SMA actuators. SMAHC structures have been investigated for their potential utility in a variety of applications in which there are requirements for static or dynamic control of the shapes of structures, control of the thermoelastic responses of structures, or control of noise and vibrations. The present model overcomes deficiencies of prior, overly simplistic or qualitative models that have proven ineffective or intractable for engineering of SMAHC structures. The model is sophisticated enough to capture the essential features of the mechanics of SMAHC structures yet simple enough to accommodate input from fundamental engineering measurements and is in a form that is amenable to implementation in general-purpose structural analysis environments.

Reactive Oxygen Species in Cardiovascular Disease

PubMed Central

Sugamura, Koichi; Keaney, John F.

2011-01-01

Based on the ‘free-radical theory’ of disease, researchers have been trying to elucidate the role of oxidative stress from free radicals in cardiovascular disease. Considerable data indicate that ROS and oxidative stress are important features of cardiovascular diseases including atherosclerosis, hypertension, and congestive heart failure. However, blanket strategies with antioxidants to ameliorate cardiovascular disease have not generally yielded favorable results. However, our understanding or reactive oxygen species has evolved to the point that we now realize these species have important roles in physiology as well as pathophysiology. Thus, it is overly simplistic to assume a general antioxidant strategy will yield specific effects on cardiovascular disease. Indeed, there are several sources of reactive oxygen species that are known to be active in the cardiovascular system. This review will address our understanding of reactive oxygen species sources in cardiovascular disease and both animal and human data defining how reactive oxygen species contribute to physiology and pathology. PMID:21627987

Engineering and Biology: Counsel for a Continued Relationship

PubMed Central

Levy, Arnon; Siegal, Mark L.; Soyer, Orkun S.; Wagner, Andreas

2015-01-01

Biologists frequently draw on ideas and terminology from engineering. Evolutionary systems biology—with its circuits, switches, and signal processing—is no exception. In parallel with the frequent links drawn between biology and engineering, there is ongoing criticism against this cross-fertilization, using the argument that over-simplistic metaphors from engineering are likely to mislead us as engineering is fundamentally different from biology. In this article, we clarify and reconfigure the link between biology and engineering, presenting it in a more favorable light. We do so by, first, arguing that critics operate with a narrow and incorrect notion of how engineering actually works, and of what the reliance on ideas from engineering entails. Second, we diagnose and diffuse one significant source of concern about appeals to engineering, namely that they are inherently and problematically metaphorical. We suggest that there is plenty of fertile ground left for a continued, healthy relationship between engineering and biology. PMID:26085824

Beating-heart registration for organ-mounted robots.

PubMed

Wood, Nathan A; Schwartzman, David; Passineau, Michael J; Moraca, Robert J; Zenati, Marco A; Riviere, Cameron N

2018-03-06

Organ-mounted robots address the problem of beating-heart surgery by adhering to the heart, passively providing a platform that approaches zero relative motion. Because of the quasi-periodic deformation of the heart due to heartbeat and respiration, registration must address not only spatial registration but also temporal registration. Motion data were collected in the porcine model in vivo (N = 6). Fourier series models of heart motion were developed. By comparing registrations generated using an iterative closest-point approach at different phases of respiration, the phase corresponding to minimum registration distance is identified. The spatiotemporal registration technique presented here reduces registration error by an average of 4.2 mm over the 6 trials, in comparison with a more simplistic static registration that merely averages out the physiological motion. An empirical metric for spatiotemporal registration of organ-mounted robots is defined and demonstrated using data from animal models in vivo. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Thinking style changes among deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students.

PubMed

Cheng, Sanyin; Zhang, Li-fang

2015-01-01

This study explores how university students' thinking styles changed over a single academic year by twice administering the Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II to 256 deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) students and 286 hearing students from art and design academic disciplines in China. Results showed that after having studied at the university for one academic year, hearing students showed increased use of Type I thinking styles (more creativity generated, less structured, and more complex) and less use of Type II thinking styles (more norm favoring, more structured, and more simplistic), whereas DHH students demonstrated increased use of both Type I and Type II thinking styles. Moreover, students' changes in thinking styles differed across university class levels. The contributions, limitations, and implications of the present research are discussed. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Effects of distributed database modeling on evaluation of transaction rollbacks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mukkamala, Ravi

1991-01-01

Data distribution, degree of data replication, and transaction access patterns are key factors in determining the performance of distributed database systems. In order to simplify the evaluation of performance measures, database designers and researchers tend to make simplistic assumptions about the system. The effect is studied of modeling assumptions on the evaluation of one such measure, the number of transaction rollbacks, in a partitioned distributed database system. Six probabilistic models and expressions are developed for the numbers of rollbacks under each of these models. Essentially, the models differ in terms of the available system information. The analytical results so obtained are compared to results from simulation. From here, it is concluded that most of the probabilistic models yield overly conservative estimates of the number of rollbacks. The effect of transaction commutativity on system throughout is also grossly undermined when such models are employed.

Effects of distributed database modeling on evaluation of transaction rollbacks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mukkamala, Ravi

1991-01-01

Data distribution, degree of data replication, and transaction access patterns are key factors in determining the performance of distributed database systems. In order to simplify the evaluation of performance measures, database designers and researchers tend to make simplistic assumptions about the system. Here, researchers investigate the effect of modeling assumptions on the evaluation of one such measure, the number of transaction rollbacks in a partitioned distributed database system. The researchers developed six probabilistic models and expressions for the number of rollbacks under each of these models. Essentially, the models differ in terms of the available system information. The analytical results obtained are compared to results from simulation. It was concluded that most of the probabilistic models yield overly conservative estimates of the number of rollbacks. The effect of transaction commutativity on system throughput is also grossly undermined when such models are employed.

Individual differences and the characterization of animal models of psychopathology: a strong challenge and a good opportunity.

PubMed

Armario, Antonio; Nadal, Roser

2013-01-01

Despite the development of valuable new techniques (i.e., genetics, neuroimage) for the study of the neurobiological substrate of psychiatric diseases, there are strong limitations in the information that can be gathered from human studies. It is thus critical to develop appropriate animal models of psychiatric diseases to characterize their putative biological bases and the development of new therapeutic strategies. The present review tries to offer a general perspective and several examples of how individual differences in animals can contribute to explain differential susceptibility to develop behavioral alterations, but also emphasizes methodological problems that can lead to inappropriate or over-simplistic interpretations. A critical analysis of the approaches currently used could contribute to obtain more reliable data and allow taking full advantage of new and sophisticated technologies. The discussion is mainly focused on anxiety-like and to a lower extent on depression-like behavior in rodents.

Individual differences and the characterization of animal models of psychopathology: a strong challenge and a good opportunity

PubMed Central

Armario, Antonio; Nadal, Roser

2013-01-01

Despite the development of valuable new techniques (i.e., genetics, neuroimage) for the study of the neurobiological substrate of psychiatric diseases, there are strong limitations in the information that can be gathered from human studies. It is thus critical to develop appropriate animal models of psychiatric diseases to characterize their putative biological bases and the development of new therapeutic strategies. The present review tries to offer a general perspective and several examples of how individual differences in animals can contribute to explain differential susceptibility to develop behavioral alterations, but also emphasizes methodological problems that can lead to inappropriate or over-simplistic interpretations. A critical analysis of the approaches currently used could contribute to obtain more reliable data and allow taking full advantage of new and sophisticated technologies. The discussion is mainly focused on anxiety-like and to a lower extent on depression-like behavior in rodents. PMID:24265618

Is type 2 diabetes really a coronary heart disease risk equivalent?

PubMed

Saely, Christoph H; Drexel, Heinz

2013-01-01

The concept of diabetes as a coronary heart risk (CHD) equivalent postulates that patients with diabetes who do not yet have CHD are at an equally high cardiovascular risk as non-diabetic patients with CHD. This implies important therapeutic, psychological, and economical consequences. However, whereas several reports support the concept of diabetes as a CHD risk equivalent, others refute it, and several investigations find that the cardiovascular risk conferred by diabetes is strongly modulated by sex (with diabetes conferring a greater risk increase in women), diabetes duration, concomitant risk factors, or the presence of subclinical atherosclerosis. A detailed review of the literature shows that the concept of diabetes as a CHD risk equivalent is overly simplistic, because not all patients with diabetes are at the same cardiovascular risk. An individualized approach to cardiovascular risk estimation and management appears mandatory in patients with diabetes. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Climate-agriculture interactions and needs for policy making

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Phillips, J. G.

2010-12-01

Research exploring climate change interactions with agriculture has evolved from simplistic “delta T” simulation experiments with crop models to work highlighting the importance of climate variability and extreme events, which characterized the negative impacts possible if no adaptation occurred. There soon followed consideration of socioeconomic factors allowing for adaptive strategies that are likely to mitigate the worst case outcomes originally projected. At the same time, improved understanding of biophysical feedbacks has led to a greater recognition of the role that agriculture plays in modifying climate, with a great deal of attention recently paid to strategies to enhance carbon sequestration in agricultural systems. Advances in models of biogeochemical cycling applied to agronomic systems have allowed for new insights into greenhouse gas emissions and sinks associated with current, conventional farming systems. Yet this work is still relatively simplistic in that it seldom addresses interactions between climate dynamics, adoption of mitigation strategies, and feedbacks to the climate system and the surrounding environment. In order for agricultural policy to be developed that provides incentives for appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies over the next 50 years, a systems approach needs to be utilized that addresses feedbacks and interactions at field, farm and regional scales in a broader environmental context. Interactions between carbon and climate constraints on the one hand, and environmental impacts related to water, nutrient runoff, and pest control all imply a transformation of farming practices that is as of yet not well defined. Little attention has been paid to studying the implications of “alternative” farming strategies such as organic systems, intensive rotational grazing of livestock, or increases in the perennial component of farmscapes, all of which may be necessary responses to energy and other environmental constraints over the coming century, interacting with a changing climate. Examples of interactions that need further exploration include the degree to which increases in soil organic matter to enhance carbon sequestration will improve system resilience and help mitigate the effects of an increase in climate variability, and how we can optimize the role of below-ground microbial communities in methane and nitrous-oxide emissions and sinks as well as in nutrient cycling and plant-water relations. These and other key areas where agroecosystem research is needed to advance policy will be discussed.

Barking up the Right Tree

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Houston, Paul D.

2006-01-01

The last few years have revealed a growing concern about U.S. global competitiveness, and American schools have been called to account for failing to produce enough engineers and math and science workers to compete in the new global economy. The author argues that the education solutions offered to tackle this problem are too simplistic. Instead…

How All Globalization is Local: Countervailing Forces and Their Influence on Higher Education Markets

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Douglass, John Aubrey

2005-01-01

Globalization trends and innovations in the instructional technologies are widely believed to be creating new markets and forcing a revolution in higher education. Much of the rhetoric of "globalists" provides a simplistic analysis of a paradigm shift in higher education (HE) markets and deliverables "(educational services)." This essay provides…

The Relevance of Learning Styles for International Pedagogy in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eaves, Mina

2011-01-01

As the number of international students and transnational education agreements continue to rise at an unprecedented rate in many countries, an area of research that continues to lag behind is how far students' learning styles can adapt to different educational contexts. Learning styles research has recently developed from simplistic yet popular…

A Relational Approach to Moral Decision-Making: The Majority Opinion in "Planned Parenthood v. Casey."

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sullivan, Patricia A.; Goldzwig, Steven R.

1995-01-01

Defines a relational approach to moral reasoning. Notes that the Supreme Court, in "Planned Parenthood v. Casey," rejected simplistic approaches to moral reasoning and acknowledged the complex web of relationships involved in abortion decision making. Suggests that rhetoricians "revision" the art of persuasion to place more…

Leaning "Out" in Higher Education: A Structural, Postcolonial Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jackson, Liz

2017-01-01

A new kind of gender equality ideology is rising in popularity in Western societies. While emphasising gender equality for the next generation, this new ideology sees feminism in a pragmatic and simplistic way, as nonthreatening to the status quo, in politics, popular culture, and economy. In the economic sphere, Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean…

What Do Biochemistry Students Pay Attention to in External Representations of Protein Translation? Tthe Case of the Shine-Dalgarno Sequence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bussey, Thomas J.; Orgill, MaryKay

2015-01-01

Biochemistry instructors often use external representations--ranging from static diagrams to dynamic animations and from simplistic, stylized illustrations to more complex, realistic presentations--to help their students visualize abstract cellular and molecular processes, mechanisms, and components. However, relatively little is known about how…

The Pedagogy of Controversy in the Field of China Studies: Teaching the Cultural Revolution

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carrico, Kevin

2014-01-01

How can we as educators address complex and controversial topics in the social sciences without encouraging simplistic responses and self-reproducing binary oppositions? Drawing upon an ethnographic analysis of a first-year writing seminar on the history of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, this article proposes novel approaches to overcome…

DESIGN OF AN ENGINE GENERATOR FOR THE RURAL POOR: A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS APPROACH

EPA Science Inventory

The system consists of a fuel source (a biodiesel system), a combustion/boiler system, and a steam engine/generator. The biodiesel system proved to be simplistic in its design and low cost; it successfully made high-quality biodiesel in an efficient manner. The main issues to ...

Electron Pairing, Repulsion, and Correlation: A Simplistic Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olsson, Lars-Fride; Kloo, Lars

2004-01-01

The interplay between a nucleus and an electron pair is explained through a basic application of an electrostatic and balanced model to determine the correlated and repulsive movements of the electron pair. The stable correlation depends on the positive charge produced by the combined force, which in turn establishes a negative potential energy.

Stuff the Dodos

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stringer, John

2009-01-01

The author picked up a lovely greetings card the other day. The front carried a picture of an overloaded ark. The caption read "And Noah saith "Stuff the dodos"--and behold, it was so". This is an attractive but rather simplistic explanation of extinction. The author is writing in the wake of some extraordinary events, as Professor Michael Reiss,…

Life Chances, Lifestyle and Everyday Aspirational Strategies and Tactics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kenway, Jane; Hickey-Moody, Anna

2011-01-01

The notion of raising the aspirations of socially disadvantaged students is a key policy strategy in for enhancing such students' participation in higher education. However, this strategy runs the risk of being simplistic and ineffective unless it is informed by research on the links between aspirations and such students' changing life experiences…

The Electronic "Scarlet Letter": Criminal Backgrounding and a Perpetual Spoiled Identity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murphy, Daniel S.; Fuleihan, Brian; Richards, Stephen C.; Jones, Richard S.

2011-01-01

Crimes are multifaceted events that are not adequately explained with basic descriptors, yet a considerable amount of significance is afforded to relatively few simplistic labels that make up the contemporary "scarlet letter." Today's criminal records create a lifetime of stigmatization for a person. These public records employ a limited range of…

Radial Flow Fludized Filter Finds Niche as a Pretreatment System for Surface Water in Small Communities

EPA Science Inventory

An emerging technology called radial flow fluidized filter (R3f) has been developed as a low cost simplistic filtration technology for small communities of less than 10,000 people. Fouling is a major impediment to the sustainability of membrane technology particularly for small ...

Schooling Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: One Story about Tension and Transformation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mason, Ann Mogush

2013-01-01

The need for multifaceted analyses of the relationship between how the United States acknowledges racism and how schooling can be structured to mitigate its negative impacts has never been greater, especially given the rising and often simplistic attention to the racial "achievement gap." In suburban, elite Pioneer City, a series of…

An Activity Model for Scientific Inquiry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harwood, William

2004-01-01

Most people are frustrated with the current scientific method presented in textbooks. The scientific method--a simplistic model of the scientific inquiry process--fails in most cases to provide a successful guide to how science is done. This is not shocking, really. Many simple models used in science are quite useful within their limitations. When…

The Talent Search Model of Gifted Identification

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Assouline, Susan G.; Lupkowski-Shoplik, Ann

2012-01-01

The Talent Search model, founded at Johns Hopkins University by Dr. Julian C. Stanley, is fundamentally an above-level testing program. This simplistic description belies the enduring impact that the Talent Search model has had on the lives of hundreds of thousands of gifted students as well as their parents and teachers. In this article, we…

Ten Effective Ways to Infuse Child Welfare Topics into Educational Leadership Preparation Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giesler, Mark A.; Palladino, John M.

2009-01-01

Administering and supervising special education programs and personnel may be daunting tasks for school leaders. Students and families who warrant the access to special education services present unique and complex needs that make administrative decisions anything but universal and simplistic, especially in regards to foster care populations. The…

The Multiple Possibilities of Decency: Family and Society in American History.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schlossman, Steven L.

This paper focuses on three family-related issues: (1) the extraordinary complexity with which families perform educational and socializing functions and the corresponding danger of using simplistic cause and effect models to explain family behavior; (2) the ability of historical and contemporary American families to adapt to massive changes in…

Debating Globalization and Education after September 11

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rizvi, Fazal

2004-01-01

This article examines some of the ways in which debates about globalization and education have changed since the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. From a postcolonial perspective, I argue that while some of the claims about the world "changing for ever" are clearly simplistic and grossly exaggerated, there are at least three…

Rural Youth Out-Migration and Education: Challenges to Aspirations Discourse in Mobile Modernity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Corbett, Michael; Forsey, Martin

2017-01-01

We argue here that critical educational scholarship is crucial to developing educational analysis attuned to the nuances of place, mobility, and change in rural locations. Critical sociological analysis, we argue, can also nuance and complicate simplistic portrayals of rural communities and their social, economic, and cultural character. Two…

Place-People-Practice-Process: Using Sociomateriality in University Physical Spaces Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Acton, Renae

2017-01-01

Pedagogy is an inherently spatial practice. Implicit in much of the rhetoric of physical space designed for teaching and learning is an ontological position that assumes material space as distinct from human practice, often conceptualising space as causally (and simplistically) impacting upon people's behaviours. An alternative, and growing,…

Thinking beyond Student Resistance: A Difficult Assemblage in Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lanas, Maija; Huuki, Tuija

2017-01-01

This paper draws on feminist new materialist, poststructuralist and post-human theories to rethink discomforting moments when engaging with sensitive topics in teacher education. It is argued that the common approach to such events--as instances of student resistance or pedagogical failures--is both simplistic and problematic, and that a more…

The Role of Social Context in Gifted and Talented Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fetterman, David

1999-01-01

The dichotomy between individualism and conformity, the myth that gifted children will make it on their own, and the fallacy of equating equal opportunity with equal potential, ability, and results has fostered a climate in which simplistic thinking, ambivalence, and neglect is prevalent. Awareness of this larger social context can allow for new…

Optimal Designs for Performance Assessments: The Subject Factor.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parkes, Jay

Much speculation abounds concerning how expensive performance assessments are or are going to be. Recent projections indicate that, in order to achieve an acceptably high generalizability coefficient, many additional tasks may need to be added, which will enlarge costs. Such projections are, to some degree, correct, and to some degree simplistic.…

"Observation Has Set In": Comparing Students and Peers as Reviewers of Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Huxham, Mark; Scoles, Jenny; Green, Ursula; Purves, Samantha; Welsh, Zoe; Gray, Andrew

2017-01-01

Peer review is a powerful method to enhance teaching in higher education. Peers, however, may not be the most relevant people in evaluating teaching success; as the most important stakeholders in learning, students' evaluations need to be heard. Whilst some efforts to capture "the student voice" are simplistic and may foster consumerist…

Teachers' Self-Perceptions in England and Germany: Methodological Nationalism and Negative Points of Reference in Comparative Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

von Bargen, Imke

2017-01-01

The field of comparative education traditionally compares nations and cultures to gain a deeper understanding of educational phenomena. The nation-state often functions as the only unit of comparison, which increases methodological nationalism. It is dangerous to draw simplistic conclusions because they focus on national particularities alone and…

The Relationship between University Autonomy and Funding in England and Taiwan

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chiang, Li-Chuan

2004-01-01

This paper aims to re-examine the effects of funding on university autonomy since the relationship between university autonomy and funding is likely to be interpreted as a linear effect; namely, the more funding the greater autonomy. Such a simplistic vision is less than complete since it ignores the complicated nature of university autonomy. The…

Don't Dumb Me down

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldacre, Ben

2007-01-01

In this article, the author talks about pseudoscientific quack, or a big science story in a national newspaper and explains why science in the media is so often pointless, simplistic, boring, or just plain wrong. It is the author's hypothesis that in their choice of stories, and the way they cover them, the media create a parody of science, for…

So, What Is the Answer? Questions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hall, Don

2005-01-01

Leaders are barraged daily by teachers, administrators, and students seeking answers to questions ranging from the simplistic to the metaphysical in their complexity. The author is sure leaders wonder at times, "How in the world can I free up enough time to answer them all?" Well, the author states that he hates to break the news, but it is…

An Assessment of Education Quality beyond Dinner Table Discussions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Jianjun

2013-01-01

News media often publish comparative studies that report U.S. student performance in a global context. The school quality concern seems so simplistic that anyone who had compulsory education can chime into the discussion. In this article, the condition of U.S. education is further disentangled across the boundary of K-12 and higher education. Core…

Nonlinear Corrections to Temperature in Computer Simulations of Complex Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-06-23

fluctuations [18]. In 1827, Brown first reported sporadic motion of pollen grains in water. In 1905, as the second breakthrough in his Annus...site, ε = kBT2 ∂ln(ξ)/∂T is the average energy from the adsorption model, and the ratio /ε ε may be a simplistic way to count the extra units of

The Substance Beneath the Labels of Experiential Learning: The Importance of John Dewey for Outdoor Educators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ord, Jon; Leather, Mark

2011-01-01

This paper recommends a reconceptualisation of "experience learning". It is premised on a belief that the simplistic learning cycle is problematic and moreover is an oversimplified interpretation of Kolb's original model of experiential learning. We argue that to understand experiential learning fully a return to the original theoretical…

Hurrah for Mrs White

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Osborne, Jonathan

2012-01-01

Your obituary of Rudolf Mössbauer (November 2011 p9) reminded me of a story he once told me when I had the pleasure of sitting next to him at a conference dinner. My somewhat simplistic question was on the lines of "How did you manage to get a Nobel prize?", and Mössbauer's response was that it was all down to luck.

Uniforms in Public Schools: A Decade of Research and Debate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brunsma, David L.

2005-01-01

Contrary to what one reads in the headlines and texts of the nation's most prominent newspapers, what one hears from the mouths of politicians and educational administrators, and what one sees on the evening news, there is absolutely nothing simplistic and straightforward about the current movement to uniform public school students in the United…

Complaints and Troubles Talk about the English Language Skills of International Students in Australian Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haugh, Michael

2016-01-01

International students have continued to be the focus of simplistic stereotyping in media discourse where they are frequently identified as one of the forces behind declining academic standards in Australian universities. Their English language skills, in particular, have continued to be the focus of debate both in the mainstream media and in…

Making Practice Visible: A Collaborative Self-Study of Tiered Teaching in Teacher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garbett, Dawn; Heap, Rena

2011-01-01

In this article we document the impact of tiered teaching on making the complexity of pedagogy transparent when teaching science education to pre-service primary teachers. Teaching science methods classes together and researching our teaching has enabled us to reframe our assumptions and move beyond the simplistic and misleading idea that teacher…

Writing for the Public: Teacher Editorializing as a Pathway to Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perrillo, Jonna

2010-01-01

Teacher-written editorial columns in local newspapers can challenge the broad, simplistic conceptions of the profession that have been encouraged by contemporary politics and that obscure the real work of teachers. The publication of such columns written by a diverse group of teachers in the West Texas Writing Project has proved an important tool…

Evidence-Based Programming in the Context of Practice and Policy. Social Policy Report. Volume XXIII, Number III

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCall, Robert B.

2009-01-01

Scholars, practice professionals, and policymakers should welcome the new era of evidence-based programming and policies, but these constituencies need to be realistic about the complexities, uncertainties, and limitations that lie beneath what could easily become a simplistic process. This paper discusses some of the requirements for the…

Black History, Inc! Investigating the Production of Black History through Walmart's Corporate Web Site

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

King, LaGarrett J.; Brown, Anthony L.

2012-01-01

Social and public sites are becoming a popular medium for intellectual consumption of Black history. Given the educational climate in which many students' exposure to Black history may come from outside of schools, the authors examine how Walmart's Black History Month Web site produced simplistic and safe narratives about African American history.

How Learning Techniques Initiate Simulation of Human Mind

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Girija, C.

2014-01-01

The simulation of human mind often helps in the understanding of abstract concept by representing it in a realistic model and simplistic way so that a learner develops an understanding of the key concepts. Bian (1873) and James (1890) in their work suggested that thoughts and body activity result from interactions among neurons within the brain.…

The EU and U.S. Strategies against Terrorism and Proliferation of WMD: A Comparative Study

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-01-01

attitude, which they see as simplistic. As French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine said in 2002, “For George W. Bush all the world’s problems come...EU’s Emerging Role in Nuclear Non-proliferation. Ed. by Marco Overhaus, Hanns W. Maull and Sebastian Harnisch, Volume 6, Newsletter No. 17, October

Lessons from the Past and Directions for the Future

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Yonghong Jade

2012-01-01

There is a steady line of research to understand faculty diversity and its impact on the work life quality of faculty and learning outcomes of students in the U.S. higher education systems. What makes this volume unique is that, rather than treating diversity as a static and simplistic concept, the chapter authors presented information to show…

Re-Seeing "The Mighty": Critically Examining One Film's Representations of Disability in the English Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Maples, Joellen; Arndt, Katrina; White, Julia M.

2010-01-01

Films portraying characters with disabilities are often shown in the English classroom. Films such as "Of Mice and Men," "Simon Birch," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "The Glass Menagerie," "Moby Dick," "Gattaca," and "A Beautiful Mind" often show simplistic and stereotypical representations of characters and their…

Lighting the Flame: Teaching High School Students To Love, Not Loathe, Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Milburn, Michael

2001-01-01

Discusses how Francine Prose accuses English teachers of assigning simplistic, badly written books that breed incompetent writers and readers who loathe literature. Notes that Prose focuses her contempt upon "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." Suggests that students show teachers how to help them love…

Grades of Evidence: Variability in Quality of Findings in Effectiveness Studies of Complex Field Interventions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chatterji, Madhabi

2007-01-01

This article argues with a literature review that a simplistic distinction between strong and weak evidence hinged on the use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the federal "gold standard" for generating rigorous evidence on social programs and policies, is not tenable with evaluative studies of complex, field interventions such as…

Teaching in Culturally Diverse Contexts: What Knowledge about "Self" and "Others" Do Teachers Need?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Santoro, Ninetta

2009-01-01

This article draws on data from a small-scale qualitative study conducted in Australia that explored how pre-service teachers engaged with students from culturally diverse backgrounds during practicum and how they understood their own ethnic identities. The findings of the study suggest that pre-service teachers have simplistic understandings of…

Climate Variability and Inter-Provincial Migration in South America, 1970-2011

PubMed Central

Thiede, Brian; Gray, Clark; Mueller, Valerie

2016-01-01

We examine the effect of climate variability on human migration in South America. Our analyses draw on over 21 million observations of adults aged 15-40 from 25 censuses conducted in eight South American countries. Addressing limitations associated with methodological diversity among prior studies, we apply a common analytic approach and uniform definitions of migration and climate across all countries. We estimate the effects of climate variability on migration overall and also investigate heterogeneity across sex, age, and socioeconomic groups, across countries, and across historical climate conditions. We also disaggregate migration by the rural/urban status of destination. We find that exposure to monthly temperature shocks has the most consistent effects on migration relative to monthly rainfall shocks and gradual changes in climate over multi-year periods. We also find evidence of heterogeneity across demographic groups and countries. Analyses that disaggregate migration by the rural/urban status of destination suggest that much of the climate-related inter-province migration is directed toward urban areas. Overall, our results underscore the complexity of environment-migration linkages and challenge simplistic narratives that envision a linear and monolithic migratory response to changing climates. PMID:28413264

How do we get from cell and animal data to risks for humans from space radiations?

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dicello, J. F.

2002-01-01

After four decades of human exploration in space, many scientists consider the medical consequences from radiation exposures to be the major biological risk associated with long-term missions. This conclusion is based upon results from a research program that has evolved over the past thirty years. Despite the diversity in both opinions and approaches that necessarily arise in research endeavors such as this, a commonality has emerged from our community. We need epidemiological data for humans, animal data in areas where no human data exist, and data on mechanisms to get from animal to humans. We need a programmatic infrastructure that addresses specific goals as well as basic research. These concepts might be deemed overly simplistic and even tautologous were it not for the fact that they are frequently underutilized and even ignored. This article examines the goals, premises, and infrastructures proposed by expert panels and agencies to address radiation risks in space. It is proposed that the required level of effort and the resources available demand a unified, focused international effort that is, at the same time, subjected to rigorous peer review if it is to be successful. There is a plan; let us implement it.

Climate Variability and Inter-Provincial Migration in South America, 1970-2011.

PubMed

Thiede, Brian; Gray, Clark; Mueller, Valerie

2016-11-01

We examine the effect of climate variability on human migration in South America. Our analyses draw on over 21 million observations of adults aged 15-40 from 25 censuses conducted in eight South American countries. Addressing limitations associated with methodological diversity among prior studies, we apply a common analytic approach and uniform definitions of migration and climate across all countries. We estimate the effects of climate variability on migration overall and also investigate heterogeneity across sex, age, and socioeconomic groups, across countries, and across historical climate conditions. We also disaggregate migration by the rural/urban status of destination. We find that exposure to monthly temperature shocks has the most consistent effects on migration relative to monthly rainfall shocks and gradual changes in climate over multi-year periods. We also find evidence of heterogeneity across demographic groups and countries. Analyses that disaggregate migration by the rural/urban status of destination suggest that much of the climate-related inter-province migration is directed toward urban areas. Overall, our results underscore the complexity of environment-migration linkages and challenge simplistic narratives that envision a linear and monolithic migratory response to changing climates.

Paradoxical Roles of Antioxidant Enzymes: Basic Mechanisms and Health Implications

PubMed Central

Lei, Xin Gen; Zhu, Jian-Hong; Cheng, Wen-Hsing; Bao, Yongping; Ho, Ye-Shih; Reddi, Amit R.; Holmgren, Arne; Arnér, Elias S. J.

2015-01-01

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are generated from aerobic metabolism, as a result of accidental electron leakage as well as regulated enzymatic processes. Because ROS/RNS can induce oxidative injury and act in redox signaling, enzymes metabolizing them will inherently promote either health or disease, depending on the physiological context. It is thus misleading to consider conventionally called antioxidant enzymes to be largely, if not exclusively, health protective. Because such a notion is nonetheless common, we herein attempt to rationalize why this simplistic view should be avoided. First we give an updated summary of physiological phenotypes triggered in mouse models of overexpression or knockout of major antioxidant enzymes. Subsequently, we focus on a series of striking cases that demonstrate “paradoxical” outcomes, i.e., increased fitness upon deletion of antioxidant enzymes or disease triggered by their overexpression. We elaborate mechanisms by which these phenotypes are mediated via chemical, biological, and metabolic interactions of the antioxidant enzymes with their substrates, downstream events, and cellular context. Furthermore, we propose that novel treatments of antioxidant enzyme-related human diseases may be enabled by deliberate targeting of dual roles of the pertaining enzymes. We also discuss the potential of “antioxidant” nutrients and phytochemicals, via regulating the expression or function of antioxidant enzymes, in preventing, treating, or aggravating chronic diseases. We conclude that “paradoxical” roles of antioxidant enzymes in physiology, health, and disease derive from sophisticated molecular mechanisms of redox biology and metabolic homeostasis. Simply viewing antioxidant enzymes as always being beneficial is not only conceptually misleading but also clinically hazardous if such notions underpin medical treatment protocols based on modulation of redox pathways. PMID:26681794

Paradoxical Roles of Antioxidant Enzymes: Basic Mechanisms and Health Implications.

PubMed

Lei, Xin Gen; Zhu, Jian-Hong; Cheng, Wen-Hsing; Bao, Yongping; Ho, Ye-Shih; Reddi, Amit R; Holmgren, Arne; Arnér, Elias S J

2016-01-01

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) are generated from aerobic metabolism, as a result of accidental electron leakage as well as regulated enzymatic processes. Because ROS/RNS can induce oxidative injury and act in redox signaling, enzymes metabolizing them will inherently promote either health or disease, depending on the physiological context. It is thus misleading to consider conventionally called antioxidant enzymes to be largely, if not exclusively, health protective. Because such a notion is nonetheless common, we herein attempt to rationalize why this simplistic view should be avoided. First we give an updated summary of physiological phenotypes triggered in mouse models of overexpression or knockout of major antioxidant enzymes. Subsequently, we focus on a series of striking cases that demonstrate "paradoxical" outcomes, i.e., increased fitness upon deletion of antioxidant enzymes or disease triggered by their overexpression. We elaborate mechanisms by which these phenotypes are mediated via chemical, biological, and metabolic interactions of the antioxidant enzymes with their substrates, downstream events, and cellular context. Furthermore, we propose that novel treatments of antioxidant enzyme-related human diseases may be enabled by deliberate targeting of dual roles of the pertaining enzymes. We also discuss the potential of "antioxidant" nutrients and phytochemicals, via regulating the expression or function of antioxidant enzymes, in preventing, treating, or aggravating chronic diseases. We conclude that "paradoxical" roles of antioxidant enzymes in physiology, health, and disease derive from sophisticated molecular mechanisms of redox biology and metabolic homeostasis. Simply viewing antioxidant enzymes as always being beneficial is not only conceptually misleading but also clinically hazardous if such notions underpin medical treatment protocols based on modulation of redox pathways. Copyright © 2016 the American Physiological Society.

What theory, for whom and in which context? Reflections on the application of theory in the development and evaluation of complex population health interventions.

PubMed

Moore, Graham F; Evans, Rhiannon E

2017-12-01

Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on the value of building and testing middle range theory throughout the development and evaluation of complex population health interventions. We agree that a coherent theoretical basis for intervention development, and use of evaluation to test key causal assumptions and build theory, are crucial. However, in this editorial, we argue that such recommendations have often been operationalised in somewhat simplistic terms with potentially perverse consequences, and that an uncritical assumption that an intervention explicitly based on theory is inherently superior carries significant risks. We first argue that the drive for theory-based approaches may have exacerbated a propensity to select 'off-the-shelf' theories, leading to the selection of inappropriate theories which distract attention from the mechanisms through which a problem is actually sustained. Second, we discuss a tendency toward over-reliance on individual-level theorising. Finally, we discuss the relatively slow progress of population health intervention research in attending to issues of context, and the ecological fit of interventions with the systems whose functioning they attempt to change. We argue that while researchers should consider a broad range of potential theoretical perspectives on a given population health problem, citing a popular off-the-shelf theory as having informed an intervention and its evaluation does not inherently make for better science. Before identifying or developing a theory of change, researchers should develop a clear understanding of how the problem under consideration is created and sustained in context. A broader conceptualisation of theory that reaches across disciplines is vital if theory is to enhance, rather than constrain, the contribution of intervention research. Finally, intervention researchers need to move away from viewing interventions as discrete packages of components which can be described in isolation from their contexts, and better understand the systems into which change is being introduced.

Beyond the "c" and the "x": Learning with algorithms in massive open online courses (MOOCs)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Knox, Jeremy

2018-02-01

This article examines how algorithms are shaping student learning in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Following the dramatic rise of MOOC platform organisations in 2012, over 4,500 MOOCs have been offered to date, in increasingly diverse languages, and with a growing requirement for fees. However, discussions of learning in MOOCs remain polarised around the "xMOOC" and "cMOOC" designations. In this narrative, the more recent extended or platform MOOC ("xMOOC") adopts a broadcast pedagogy, assuming a direct transmission of information to its largely passive audience (i.e. a teacher-centred approach), while the slightly older connectivist model ("cMOOC") offers only a simplistic reversal of the hierarchy, posing students as highly motivated, self-directed and collaborative learners (i.e. a learner-centred approach). The online nature of both models generates data (e.g. on how many times a particular resource was viewed, or the ways in which participants communicated with each other) which MOOC providers use for analysis, albeit only after these data have been selectively processed. Central to many learning analytics approaches is the desire to predict students' future behaviour. Educators need to be aware that MOOC learning is not just about teachers and students, but that it also involves algorithms: instructions which perform automated calculations on data. Education is becoming embroiled in an "algorithmic culture" that defines educational roles, forecasts attainment, and influences pedagogy. Established theories of learning appear wholly inadequate in addressing the agential role of algorithms in the educational domain of the MOOC. This article identifies and examines four key areas where algorithms influence the activities of the MOOC: (1) data capture and discrimination; (2) calculated learners; (3) feedback and entanglement; and (4) learning with algorithms. The article concludes with a call for further research in these areas to surface a critical discourse around the use of algorithms in MOOC education and beyond.

Radiation Dose-Response Relationships and Risk Assessment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Strom, Daniel J.

The notion of a dose-response relationship was probably invented shortly after the discovery of poisons, the invention of alcoholic beverages, and the bringing of fire into a confined space in the forgotten depths of ancient prehistory. The amount of poison or medicine ingested can easily be observed to affect the behavior, health, or sickness outcome. Threshold effects, such as death, could be easily understood for intoxicants, medicine, and poisons. As Paracelsus (1493-1541), the 'father' of modern toxicology said, 'It is the dose that makes the poison.' Perhaps less obvious is the fact that implicit in such dose-response relationships is alsomore » the notion of dose rate. Usually, the dose is administered fairly acutely, in a single injection, pill, or swallow; a few puffs on a pipe; or a meal of eating or drinking. The same amount of intoxicants, medicine, or poisons administered over a week or month might have little or no observable effect. Thus, before the discovery of ionizing radiation in the late 19th century, toxicology ('the science of poisons') and pharmacology had deeply ingrained notions of dose-response relationships. This chapter demonstrates that the notion of a dose-response relationship for ionizing radiation is hopelessly simplistic from a scientific standpoint. While useful from a policy or regulatory standpoint, dose-response relationships cannot possibly convey enough information to describe the problem from a quantitative view of radiation biology, nor can they address societal values. Three sections of this chapter address the concepts, observations, and theories that contribute to the scientific input to the practice of managing risks from exposure to ionizing radiation. The presentation begins with irradiation regimes, followed by responses to high and low doses of ionizing radiation, and a discussion of how all of this can inform radiation risk management. The knowledge that is really needed for prediction of individual risk is presented. The chapter ends with conclusions and recommendations.« less

Huckstering health.

PubMed

Aufderheide, P

1985-01-01

Social marketers around the world are increasingly using the hard sell techniques of commercial marketers to encourage people to adopt new health practices. Social marketers, like commercial marketers, utilized all forms of mass media. In addition, they use unique communication channels to reach isolated populations rarely exposed to mass media messages. For example, in the Philippines nutritional information was communicated to villagers via a video cassette equipped van which traveled from village to village. Social marketers also use commercial marketing research strategies, including focus groups, message pretesting, and audience segmentation analysis. For instance, in a Brazilian campaign to promote breastfeeding, market research revealed that mothers lacked confidence in their ability to breastfed. Marketers used this information to develop radio spots around the theme that all mothers can breastfeed if they keep trying. The value of pretesting was illustrated in a breastfeeding campaign in Honduras. A radio spot in which a famous soccer player encouraged fathers to be attentive to their breastfeeding wives, was withdrawn after market researchers found that listeners did not take the advice seriously. The soccer player had the reputation of a being a womanizer, and the listeners viewed the advertisements as a joke. Social marketers sell products as well as ideas. Contraceptive sales in Egypt increased markedly following a campaign launched by a private advertising firm. The high technology and research sophistication associated with marketing techniques frequently gives social marketing projects a competitive advantage over other projects in attracting foreign assistance grants. The social marketing approach is not supported by all health educators. Critics are skeptical about social marketers' abilities to bring about longterm behavioral changes, feel that social marketing is too manipulative, and believe that social marketing promotes simplistic thinking about solutions to health problems. They point out, for example, that instead of waging a social marketing campaign to convince people to boil water, it would far better to use scarce resources to improve the water supply. Despite these problems, social marketers have launched a variety of successful health campaigns.

An animated landscape representation of CD4+ T-cell differentiation, variability, and plasticity: Insights into the behavior of populations versus cells

PubMed Central

Rebhahn, Jonathan A; Deng, Nan; Sharma, Gaurav; Livingstone, Alexandra M; Huang, Sui; Mosmann, Tim R

2014-01-01

Recent advances in understanding CD4+ T-cell differentiation suggest that previous models of a few distinct, stable effector phenotypes were too simplistic. Although several well-characterized phenotypes are still recognized, some states display plasticity, and intermediate phenotypes exist. As a framework for reexamining these concepts, we use Waddington's landscape paradigm, augmented with explicit consideration of stochastic variations. Our animation program “LAVA” visualizes T-cell differentiation as cells moving across a landscape of hills and valleys, leading to attractor basins representing stable or semistable differentiation states. The model illustrates several principles, including: (i) cell populations may behave more predictably than individual cells; (ii) analogous to reticulate evolution, differentiation may proceed through a network of interconnected states, rather than a single well-defined pathway; (iii) relatively minor changes in the barriers between attractor basins can change the stability or plasticity of a population; (iv) intrapopulation variability of gene expression may be an important regulator of differentiation, rather than inconsequential noise; (v) the behavior of some populations may be defined mainly by the behavior of outlier cells. While not a quantitative representation of actual differentiation, our model is intended to provoke discussion of T-cell differentiation pathways, particularly highlighting a probabilistic view of transitions between states. PMID:24945794

Nonlinear multivariate and time series analysis by neural network methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsieh, William W.

2004-03-01

Methods in multivariate statistical analysis are essential for working with large amounts of geophysical data, data from observational arrays, from satellites, or from numerical model output. In classical multivariate statistical analysis, there is a hierarchy of methods, starting with linear regression at the base, followed by principal component analysis (PCA) and finally canonical correlation analysis (CCA). A multivariate time series method, the singular spectrum analysis (SSA), has been a fruitful extension of the PCA technique. The common drawback of these classical methods is that only linear structures can be correctly extracted from the data. Since the late 1980s, neural network methods have become popular for performing nonlinear regression and classification. More recently, neural network methods have been extended to perform nonlinear PCA (NLPCA), nonlinear CCA (NLCCA), and nonlinear SSA (NLSSA). This paper presents a unified view of the NLPCA, NLCCA, and NLSSA techniques and their applications to various data sets of the atmosphere and the ocean (especially for the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation). These data sets reveal that the linear methods are often too simplistic to describe real-world systems, with a tendency to scatter a single oscillatory phenomenon into numerous unphysical modes or higher harmonics, which can be largely alleviated in the new nonlinear paradigm.

Investigating the cognitive structure of stereotypes: Generic beliefs about groups predict social judgments better than statistical beliefs.

PubMed

Hammond, Matthew D; Cimpian, Andrei

2017-05-01

Stereotypes are typically defined as beliefs about groups, but this definition is underspecified. Beliefs about groups can be generic or statistical. Generic beliefs attribute features to entire groups (e.g., men are strong), whereas statistical beliefs encode the perceived prevalence of features (e.g., how common it is for men to be strong). In the present research, we sought to determine which beliefs-generic or statistical-are more central to the cognitive structure of stereotypes. Specifically, we tested whether generic or statistical beliefs are more influential in people's social judgments, on the assumption that greater functional importance indicates greater centrality in stereotype structure. Relative to statistical beliefs, generic beliefs about social groups were significantly stronger predictors of expectations (Studies 1-3) and explanations (Study 4) for unfamiliar individuals' traits. In addition, consistent with prior evidence that generic beliefs are cognitively simpler than statistical beliefs, generic beliefs were particularly predictive of social judgments for participants with more intuitive (vs. analytic) cognitive styles and for participants higher (vs. lower) in authoritarianism, who tend to view outgroups in simplistic, all-or-none terms. The present studies suggest that generic beliefs about groups are more central than statistical beliefs to the cognitive structure of stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

What do we do about women athletes with testes?

PubMed

Newbould, Melanie Joy

2016-04-01

Elite sport and the measures imposed to prevent 'men' from 'cheating' by posing as women in women's events cast interesting light on notions of sex and gender. Some women have testes, organs that produce testosterone, because they are trans women or they have an intersex state. Testosterone is recognised as a performance-enhancing substance in at least some circumstances, and therefore, women with testes may possess an advantage when competing in some sport against women without testes, though this has never been subjected to rigorous scientific testing. The International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federation have decreed that such individuals can compete only if they undergo medical and surgical treatment, which is likely to mean gonadectomy. This might be considered to impose an unethical demand on the individual concerned and constitute an infringement of bodily autonomy for that individual. It also suggests a binary view of sex/gender that is simplistic and not scientifically accurate. I discuss this approach and consider alternative methods of approaching the problem of women with testes in athletics. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

Long-term stream discharge and chemistry observations reveal unexpected ecosystem dynamics: Coweeta Watershed 7 clearcut manipulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jackson, C. R.; Webster, J. R.; Knoepp, J. D.; Elliott, K.; Emanuel, R. E.; Miniat, C.

2017-12-01

In the 1970s, the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory Watershed 7 was clearcut from ridge to ridge to observe how far the perturbation would move the ecosystem and how quickly the ecosystem would return to its pre-disturbance state. Nearly 40 years of observations of streamflow and DIN export demonstrate that this view of ecosystem resistance and resilience was too simplistic. Forest disturbance triggered a chain of ecological dynamics that are still evolving. For the first 12 years following watershed road building, forest harvest, and forest regeneration, streamflows and DIN concentrations temporarily increased and then appeared to return to pre-harvest behavior. Thereupon the ecosystem trajectory diverged from expectations. Unexpected successional changes in forest composition interacted with drought cycles, climate change effects, and forest changes due to pests and diseases to push the biogeochemical system into an alternate state featuring persistently high DIN concentrations and hydrological rather than biological control of DIN exports. Thirty years after harvest, these forest changes also increased evapotranspiration and reduced water yields. These ecosystem dynamics were only revealed because of long-term monitoring, and they inspired new research to elucidate mechanisms behind these dynamics. We conclude that long-term approaches are critical for understanding ecosystem dynamics and responses to disturbances.

Accommodating Change: The Process of Growth and Development amongst a Mature Student Population

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mercer, Jenny; Saunders, Danny

2004-01-01

Many commentators have noted that mature students speak of education changing them. One of the most positive outcomes is a heightened sense of self-belief and confidence, which pervades other areas of their lives, not just the academic environment. It is argued within this paper that such research tends to offer a somewhat simplistic account of…

On Your Mark, Get Set, Wait! Are Your Teacher Candidates Prepared to Embed Assistive Technology in Teaching and Learning?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Betty

2006-01-01

Linda Darling-Hammond's simplistic, yet profound observation addresses the basis of reform in teacher education today. Our challenge is to develop the knowledge, disposition, and teaching performance or skills of initial and advanced teacher candidates to enable them to deliver the foundations of education necessary to meet the critical…

Clarifying the role of fire in the deciduous forests of eastern North America: reply to Matlack

Treesearch

Michael C. Stambaugh; J. Morgan Varner; Reed F. Noss; Daniel C. Dey; Norman L. Christensen; Robert F. Baldwin; Richard P. Guyette; Brice B. Hanberry; Craig A. Harper; Sam G. Lindblom; Thomas A. Waldrop

2015-01-01

Fire is an important disturbance in ecosystems across the eastern deciduous forests of North America (Brose et al. 2014). Matlack (2013) provided an interpretation of historical and contemporary fire in this region. Although we applaud Matlack for correcting simplistic assumptions that fire was ubiquitous and all plant communities need to burn regularly to maintain...

Utopia: An Imaginative, Critical and Playful Dialogue on the Meaning and Practice of Contemporary Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hayes, Michael T.; Marino, Matthew

2015-01-01

In this article the authors re-examine Sir Thomas More's classic book "Utopia" as a potential source of ideas and concepts for examining, understanding and imagining contemporary education. Too often the concept utopia is used to criticize an idea, perspective or image as offering a simplistic solution to a complex problem, or, at its…

Get the Federal Government out of Education? That Wasn't the Founding Fathers' Vision

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jennings, Jack

2011-01-01

With the triumph of Tea Party candidates and other conservatives in 2010, many in the new Congress are pressing to get the federal government out of education. Eliminating or curtailing federal involvement in education would be a wrong-headed, simplistic move for several reasons: (1) It ignores the nation's history; (2) It would erode the state…

"I Wouldn't Choose It, but I Don't Regret Reading It": Scaffolding Students' Engagement with Complex Texts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Simon, Lisa

2008-01-01

This article addresses the challenges of supporting students' engagement with complex, challenging texts. How do teachers sustain students' interactions with texts that many see as irrelevant to their lives? How do they provide space to name and challenge the simplistic or problematic portrayals of cultures and communities often found in the texts…

Digital controls for gas turbine engines

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Robinson, K.

1987-01-01

This paper begins by first describing the simplistic requirements of a gas turbine engine; how these requirements are best satisfied, frequently with the aid of electronic control systems; what the trade-off between integrity and reliability means; and finally, but forming a major section, this paper describes in qualitative detail a few of the current programmes for Full Authority Digital Engine Controls (FADEC).

Propositions d'Outils pour une Grammaire du Francais Langue Etrangere (Suggestions for Tools for a Grammar of French as a Foreign Language)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lamy, Andre

1975-01-01

Recommends some deformalization of instruction, without rendering it simplistic, by cultivation of students' discrimination of the appropriateness of grammatical elements, at a level where the student has already accumulated examples of structures and situations in the language. Substantial examples are provided. (Text is in French.) (MSE)

A Technique to Introduce Keyboard Improvisation in General Music

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, Jim

2006-01-01

All the general music books the author has seen teach the pentatonic scale, and achieve success with it, by having students play only on the piano's black keys. The trick to preventing this exercise from sounding simplistic or uninteresting is to teach improvisation in the A-flat Dorian mode. Using A-flat as the tonal center puts that center right…

Prevention of infections in an ART laboratory: a reflection on simplistic methods.

PubMed

Huyser, C

2014-01-01

Preventative measures combined with reactive remedial actions are generic management tools to optimize and protect an entity's core businesses. Differences between assisted reproduction technology (ART) laboratories in developing versus developed countries include restricted access to, or availability of resources, and the prevalence of pathological conditions that are endemic or common in non-industrialized regions. The aim of this paper is to discuss the prevention of infections in an ART laboratory in a low to middle-income country, with reference to simplistic risk reduction applications to avoid the introduction and transmission of pathogens. Diagnostic and procedural phases will be examined, i.e. (i) screening for microbes during patient evaluation, and (ii-iii) prevention of environmental and procedural contamination. Preventative action is enabled by knowledge of threats and the degree of risk involved. Awareness and understanding of the vulnerabilities in an ART system, wherein laboratory personnel operate, are invaluable assets when unforeseen equipment failure occurs or instant decisions have to be made to safeguard procedures. An inter-connective team approach to patient treatment, biosafety training and utilization of practical procedures such as semen decontamination, are fundamental tools in a laboratory's risk-reduction armoury to prevent and eliminate infectious elements.

Some like it mellow: on gay men complicating pornography discourses.

PubMed

Corneau, Simon; van der Meulen, Emily

2014-01-01

Despite the proliferation of writing on pornography generally, much of the literature that focuses on gay pornography specifically conforms to either a pro- or anti-porn framework. This overly simplistic dichotomy positions pornography as a homogeneous construct, albeit one that is either "good" or "bad." Even theorists who situate pornography on a continuum, with erotica at one end and hardcore at the other, tend to reify these discourses. Further, it is not uncommon for researchers to draw conclusions about the effects of pornography consumption without defining exactly what pornography is. This ethnographic research draws on qualitative interviews with 20 consumers' of gay pornography in Toronto, Canada. By using a thematic analysis to document the ways in which gay men define, distinguish, and conceptualize gay pornography, five definitional categories were developed: Mellow; Commercial; Raunch; Amateur; and Bareback. These broad conceptualizations are discussed in reference to writing on gay pornography. Our research results emphasize the importance of clear definitions of pornography within pornography research.

mTOR Inhibition: From Aging to Autism and Beyond.

PubMed

Kaeberlein, Matt

2013-01-01

The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a highly conserved protein that regulates growth and proliferation in response to environmental and hormonal cues. Broadly speaking, organisms are constantly faced with the challenge of interpreting their environment and making a decision between "grow or do not grow." mTOR is a major component of the network that makes this decision at the cellular level and, to some extent, the tissue and organismal level as well. Although overly simplistic, this framework can be useful when considering the myriad functions ascribed to mTOR and the pleiotropic phenotypes associated with genetic or pharmacological modulation of mTOR signaling. In this review, I will consider mTOR function in this context and attempt to summarize and interpret the growing body of literature demonstrating interesting and varied effects of mTOR inhibitors. These include robust effects on a multitude of age-related parameters and pathologies, as well as several other processes not obviously linked to aging or age-related disease.

Evaluating reasons for nursing turnover: comparison of exit interview and panel data.

PubMed

Weisman, C S; Alexander, C S; Chase, G A

1981-06-01

Data from a study of nursing turnover are used to compare findings based on two techniques for evaluating the reasons for resignations within the same population of hospital nurses during one year. The techniques are: (1) exit interviews, in which resigning nurses were asked to report in an open-ended format their major reasons for leaving their jobs; and (2) a prospective panel study, in which nurses who resigned are compared with nurses who remained, and actual turnover is predicted. Results show that due to the absence of a comparison group of remaining nurses and of baseline data, causal inferences based on exit interview data alone are overly simplistic and misleading for management purposes. Results of the panel study are more informative, although implications for hospital management are more complex. Use of the prospective panel design is recommended for hospitals concerned with evaluating nursing job conditions during a period of high turnover and staff nurse shortages.

The Physics of Equestrian Show Jumping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stinner, Art

2014-04-01

This article discusses the kinematics and dynamics of equestrian show jumping. For some time I have attended a series of show jumping events at Spruce Meadows, an international equestrian center near Calgary, Alberta, often referred to as the "Wimbledon of equestrian jumping." I have always had a desire to write an article such as this one, but when I searched the Internet for information and looked at YouTube presentations, I could only find simplistic references to Newton's laws and the conservation of mechanical energy principle. Nowhere could I find detailed calculations. On the other hand, there were several biomechanical articles with empirical reports of the results of kinetic and dynamic investigations of show jumping using high-speed digital cameras and force plates. They summarize their results in tables that give information about the motion of a horse jumping over high fences (1.40 m) and the magnitudes of the forces encountered when landing. However, they do not describe the physics of these results.

Vigilance impossible: Diligence, distraction, and daydreaming all lead to failures in a practical monitoring task.

PubMed

Casner, Stephen M; Schooler, Jonathan W

2015-09-01

In laboratory studies of vigilance, participants watch for unusual events in a "sit and stare" fashion as their performance typically declines over time. But watch keepers in practical settings seldom approach monitoring in such simplistic ways and controlled environments. We observed airline pilots performing routine monitoring duties in the cockpit. Unlike laboratory studies, pilots' monitoring did not deteriorate amidst prolonged vigils. Monitoring was frequently interrupted by other pop-up tasks and misses followed. However, when free from these distractions, pilots reported copious mind wandering. Pilots often confined their mind wandering to times in which their monitoring performance would not conspicuously suffer. But when no convenient times were available, pilots mind wandered anyway and misses ensued. Real-world monitors may be caught between a continuous vigilance approach that is doomed to fail, a dynamic environment that cannot be fully controlled, and what may be an irresistible urge to let one's thoughts drift. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Infrared spectroscopy as a tool to characterise starch ordered structure--a joint FTIR-ATR, NMR, XRD and DSC study.

PubMed

Warren, Frederick J; Gidley, Michael J; Flanagan, Bernadine M

2016-03-30

Starch has a heterogeneous, semi-crystalline granular structure and the degree of ordered structure can affect its behaviour in foods and bioplastics. A range of methodologies are employed to study starch structure; differential scanning calorimetry, (13)C nuclear magnetic resonance, X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Despite the appeal of FTIR as a rapid, non-destructive methodology, there is currently no systematically defined quantitative relationship between FTIR spectral features and other starch structural measures. Here, we subject 61 starch samples to structural analysis, and systematically correlate FTIR spectra with other measures of starch structure. A hydration dependent peak position shift in the FTIR spectra of starch is observed, resulting from increased molecular order, but with complex, non-linear behaviour. We demonstrate that FTIR is a tool that can quantitatively probe short range interactions in starch structure. However, the assumptions of linear relationships between starch ordered structure and peak ratios are overly simplistic. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ways of Hoping: Navigating the Paradox of Hope and Despair in Chronic Pain.

PubMed

Eaves, Emery R; Nichter, Mark; Ritenbaugh, Cheryl

2016-03-01

In this paper, we explore hope in the context of living with chronic pain. Individuals with chronic pain from temporomandibular disorder(s) were interviewed four to five times over the course of their 18-month participation in a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine. We sought to understand shifts in participants' descriptions of expectations and hopefulness, particularly with regard to the work involved in counterbalancing positive thinking with buffers against disappointment. We found hope to be a dynamic and multifaceted mindset as distinct from being a single entity to be measured. Drawing upon Polanyi's concept of tacit knowing, we explore how different ways of hoping emerge and index one another in participant narratives. We offer a working typology of hope and raise as an issue the manner in which the paradox of hope--hoping enough to carry on while keeping hopes in check to avoid the ever-present possibility of despair--complicates simplistic notions of the relationship between positive thinking and the placebo response.

Application of a New Hybrid RANS/LES Modeling Paradigm to Compressible Flow

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliver, Todd; Pederson, Clark; Haering, Sigfried; Moser, Robert

2017-11-01

It is well-known that traditional hybrid RANS/LES modeling approaches suffer from a number of deficiencies. These deficiencies often stem from overly simplistic blending strategies based on scalar measures of turbulence length scale and grid resolution and from use of isotropic subgrid models in LES regions. A recently developed hybrid modeling approach has shown promise in overcoming these deficiencies in incompressible flows [Haering, 2015]. In the approach, RANS/LES blending is accomplished using a hybridization parameter that is governed by an additional model transport equation and is driven to achieve equilibrium between the resolved and unresolved turbulence for the given grid. Further, the model uses an tensor eddy viscosity that is formulated to represent the effects of anisotropic grid resolution on subgrid quantities. In this work, this modeling approach is extended to compressible flows and implemented in the compressible flow solver SU2 (http://su2.stanford.edu/). We discuss both modeling and implementation challenges and show preliminary results for compressible flow test cases with smooth wall separation.

Near-Infrared Imaging for Detecting Caries and Structural Deformities in Teeth

PubMed Central

Angelino, Keith; Edlund, David A.

2017-01-01

2-D radiographs, while commonly used for evaluating sub-surface hard structures of teeth, have low sensitivity for early caries lesions, particularly those on tooth occlusal surfaces. Radiographs are also frequently refused by patients over safety concerns. Translucency of teeth in the near-infrared (NIR) range offers a non-ionizing and safe approach to detect dental caries. We report the construction of an NIR (850 nm) LED imaging system, comprised of an NIR source and an intraoral camera for rapid dental evaluations. The NIR system was used to image teeth of ten consenting human subjects and successfully detected secondary, amalgam–occluded and early caries lesions without supplementary image processing. The camera-wand system was also capable of revealing demineralized areas, deep and superficial cracks, and other clinical features of teeth usually visualized by X-rays. The NIR system’s clinical utility, simplistic design, low cost, and user friendliness make it an effective dental caries screening technology in conjunction or in place of radiographs. PMID:28507826

Near-Infrared Imaging for Detecting Caries and Structural Deformities in Teeth.

PubMed

Angelino, Keith; Edlund, David A; Shah, Pratik

2017-01-01

2-D radiographs, while commonly used for evaluating sub-surface hard structures of teeth, have low sensitivity for early caries lesions, particularly those on tooth occlusal surfaces. Radiographs are also frequently refused by patients over safety concerns. Translucency of teeth in the near-infrared (NIR) range offers a non-ionizing and safe approach to detect dental caries. We report the construction of an NIR (850 nm) LED imaging system, comprised of an NIR source and an intraoral camera for rapid dental evaluations. The NIR system was used to image teeth of ten consenting human subjects and successfully detected secondary, amalgam-occluded and early caries lesions without supplementary image processing. The camera-wand system was also capable of revealing demineralized areas, deep and superficial cracks, and other clinical features of teeth usually visualized by X-rays. The NIR system's clinical utility, simplistic design, low cost, and user friendliness make it an effective dental caries screening technology in conjunction or in place of radiographs.

A new aircraft hurricane wind climatology and applications in assessing the predictive skill of tropical cyclone intensity using high-resolution ensemble forecasts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Judt, Falko; Chen, Shuyi S.

2015-07-01

Hurricane surface wind is a key measure of storm intensity. However, a climatology of hurricane winds is lacking to date, largely because hurricanes are relatively rare events and difficult to observe over the open ocean. Here we present a new hurricane wind climatology based on objective surface wind analyses, which are derived from Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer measurements acquired by NOAA WP-3D and U.S. Air Force WC-130J hurricane hunter aircraft. The wind data were collected during 72 aircraft reconnaissance missions into 21 western Atlantic hurricanes from 1998 to 2012. This climatology provides an opportunity to validate hurricane intensity forecasts beyond the simplistic maximum wind speed metric and allows evaluating the predictive skill of probabilistic hurricane intensity forecasts using high-resolution model ensembles. An example of application is presented here using a 1.3 km grid spacing Weather Research and Forecasting model ensemble forecast of Hurricane Earl (2010).

Understanding Arctic surface temperature differences in reanalyses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cullather, R. I.; Zhao, B.; Shuman, C. A.; Nowicki, S.

2017-12-01

Reanalyses in the Arctic are widely used for model evaluation and for understanding contemporary climate change. Nevertheless, differences among reanalyses in fundamental meteorological variables including surface air temperature are large. For example, the 1980-2009 mean surface air temperature for the north polar cap (70°N-90°N) among global reanalyses span a range of 2.4 K, which approximates the average warming trend from these reanalyses over the 30-year period of 2.1 K. Understanding these differences requires evaluation over the three principal surface domains of the Arctic: glaciated land, the unglaciated terrestrial surface, and sea ice/ocean. An examination is conducted of contemporary global reanalyses of the ECMWF Interim project, NASA MERRA, MERRA-2, JRA-55, and NOAA CFSR using available in situ data and assessments of the surface energy budget. Overly-simplistic representations of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface are found to be associated with local warm air temperature biases in winter. A review of progress made in the development of the MERRA-2 land-ice representation is presented. Large uncertainty is also found in temperatures over the Arctic tundra and boreal forest zone. But a key focus of temperature differences for northern high latitudes is the Arctic Ocean. Near-surface air temperature differences over the Arctic Ocean are found to be related to discrepancies in sea ice and sea surface temperature boundary data, which are severely compromised in current reanalyses. Issues with the modeled representation of sea ice cover are an additional factor in reanalysis temperature trends. Differences in the representation of the surface energy budget among the various reanalyses are also reviewed.

Understanding Arctic Surface Temperature Differences in Reanalyses

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cullather, Richard; Zhao, Bin; Shuman, Christopher; Nowicki, Sophie

2017-01-01

Reanalyses in the Arctic are widely used for model evaluation and for understanding contemporary climate change. Nevertheless, differences among reanalyses in fundamental meteorological variables including surface air temperature are large. For example, the 1980-2009 mean surface air temperature for the north polar cap (70ÂdegN-90ÂdegN) among global reanalyses span a range of 2.4 K, which approximates the average warming trend from these reanalyses over the 30-year period of 2.1 K. Understanding these differences requires evaluation over the three principal surface domains of the Arctic: glaciated land, the unglaciated terrestrial surface, and sea ice/ocean. An examination is conducted of contemporary global reanalyses of the ECMWF Interim project, NASA MERRA, MERRA-2, JRA-55, and NOAA CFSR using available in situ data and assessments of the surface energy budget. Overly-simplistic representations of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface are found to be associated with local warm air temperature biases in winter. A review of progress made in the development of the MERRA-2 land-ice representation is presented. Large uncertainty is also found in temperatures over the Arctic tundra and boreal forest zone. But a key focus of temperature differences for northern high latitudes is the Arctic Ocean. Near-surface air temperature differences over the Arctic Ocean are found to be related to discrepancies in sea ice and sea surface temperature boundary data, which are severely compromised in current reanalyses. Issues with the modeled representation of sea ice cover are an additional factor in reanalysis temperature trends. Differences in the representation of the surface energy budget among the various reanalyses are also reviewed.

Cost Effectiveness Study of Wastewater Management Systems for Selected U.S. Coast Guard Vessels. Volume I. Results of Cost and Effectiveness Analyses and Selection of Optimum Candidate Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

1977-04-01

extreme is the viewpoint that such analyses are modern types of witchcraft , or numerology, practiced by a priestly cast. Results and con- clusions...simplistic approach is often respon- sible for imparting a bad reputation to an entire field of analysis - and deserves the label of witchcraft or

All Globalization Is Local: Countervailing Forces and the Influence on Higher Education Markets. Research & Occasional Paper Series: CSHE.1.05

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Douglass, John Aubrey

2005-01-01

Globalization trends and innovations in the instructional technologies are widely believed to be creating new markets and forcing a revolution in higher education. Much of the rhetoric of globalists has presented a simplistic analysis of a paradigm shift in higher education markets and the way nations and institutions deliver educational services.…

Paying for performance in healthcare organisations

PubMed Central

McDonald, Ruth

2014-01-01

Aligning Financial Incentives (FIs) to health policy goals is becoming increasingly popular. In many cases, such initiatives have failed to deliver anticipated benefits. Attributing this to the actions of self-interested and resistant professionals is not an entirely helpful approach. It is important to avoid simplistic assumptions to build knowledge of how and why schemes are implemented in practice to inform future policy in this area. PMID:24639977

Paying for performance in healthcare organisations.

PubMed

McDonald, Ruth

2014-02-01

Aligning Financial Incentives (FIs) to health policy goals is becoming increasingly popular. In many cases, such initiatives have failed to deliver anticipated benefits. Attributing this to the actions of self-interested and resistant professionals is not an entirely helpful approach. It is important to avoid simplistic assumptions to build knowledge of how and why schemes are implemented in practice to inform future policy in this area.

An Autonomous Orbit Determination System for Earth Satellites

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-12-01

Master’s thesis centered around satellite clusters (43). Using a simplistic model, Ward’s research was a proof-of-concept study into a satellite’s...almost three years now, I have worked on this research and finally, at long last, the finished product is ready for publication. To produce this, I had to...8 III. Research Overview ............ ..................... .. 3-1 Estimator ................. ........................ .. 3-1 Sensor Configuration

Systems and Methods for Composable Analytics

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-04-29

simplistic module that performs a mathematical operation on two numbers. The most important method is the Execute() method. This will get called when it is...addition, an input control is also specified in the example below. In this example, the mathematical operator can only be chosen from a preconfigured...approaches. Some of the industries that could benefit from Composable Analytics include pharmaceuticals, health care, insurance, actuaries , and

Testimony; Statements made at the National Congress of Parents and Teachers National Hearing on Television Violence, Chicago, January 25, 1977.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heintz, Ann Christine; Conley, Elizabeth

The first statement in this testimony points out the need for groups to define "violence" before taking any action against violent television programs, since violence means different things to different people. Many of the studies on violence use a narrow and simplistic definition of violence which does not take into account the effects of…

Autonomous Motion Planning Using a Predictive Temporal Method

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-01-01

interception test. ......150 5-20 Target and solution path heading angles for target interception test. ..............................151 10 LIST...environment as a series of distances and angles . Regardless of the technique, this knowledge of the surrounding area is crucial for the issue of...to, the rather simplistic vector driver algorithms which compute the angle between the current vehicle heading and the heading to the goal and

Dementia Pugilistica Revisited

PubMed Central

Castellani, Rudy J.; Perry, George

2017-01-01

 Extensive exposure of boxers to neurotrauma in the early 20th century led to the so-called punch drunk syndrome, which was formally recognized in the medical literature in 1928. “Punch drunk” terminology was replaced by the less derisive ‘dementia pugilistica’ in 1937. In the early case material, the diagnosis of dementia pugilistica required neurological deficits, including slurring dysarthria, ataxia, pyramidal signs, extrapyramidal signs, memory impairment, and personality changes, although the specific clinical substrate has assumed lesser importance in recent years with a shift in focus on molecular pathogenesis. The postmortem neuropathology of dementia pugilistica has also evolved substantially over the past 90 years, from suspected concussion-related hemorrhages to diverse structural and neurofibrillary changes to geographic tauopathy. Progressive neurodegenerative tauopathy is among the prevailing theories for disease pathogenesis currently, although this may be overly simplistic. Careful examination of historical cases reveals both misdiagnoses and a likelihood that dementia pugilistica at that time was caused by cumulative structural brain injury. More recent neuropathological studies indicate subclinical and possibly static tauopathy in some athletes and non-athletes. Indeed, it is unclear from the literature whether retired boxers reach the inflection point that tends toward progressive neurodegeneration in the manner of Alzheimer’s disease due to boxing. Even among historical cases with extreme levels of exposure, progressive disease was exceptional. PMID:29036831

Data fusion concept in multispectral system for perimeter protection of stationary and moving objects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ciurapiński, Wieslaw; Dulski, Rafal; Kastek, Mariusz; Szustakowski, Mieczyslaw; Bieszczad, Grzegorz; Życzkowski, Marek; Trzaskawka, Piotr; Piszczek, Marek

2009-09-01

The paper presents the concept of multispectral protection system for perimeter protection for stationary and moving objects. The system consists of active ground radar, thermal and visible cameras. The radar allows the system to locate potential intruders and to control an observation area for system cameras. The multisensor construction of the system ensures significant improvement of detection probability of intruder and reduction of false alarms. A final decision from system is worked out using image data. The method of data fusion used in the system has been presented. The system is working under control of FLIR Nexus system. The Nexus offers complete technology and components to create network-based, high-end integrated systems for security and surveillance applications. Based on unique "plug and play" architecture, system provides unmatched flexibility and simplistic integration of sensors and devices in TCP/IP networks. Using a graphical user interface it is possible to control sensors and monitor streaming video and other data over the network, visualize the results of data fusion process and obtain detailed information about detected intruders over a digital map. System provides high-level applications and operator workload reduction with features such as sensor to sensor cueing from detection devices, automatic e-mail notification and alarm triggering.

Tabizi Pythons and Clendro Hawks: Using Imaginary Animals to Achieve Real Knowledge about Ecosystems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rockow, Michael

2007-01-01

The author describes how he used to teach a unit on food webs and ecosystems using actual food webs as models. However, the models used by the author tend to be either too simplistic or too complicated for his students. A few years ago, he solved these problems by making up his own food web, complete with invented plants and animals. The model has…

"The Goddamndest, Toughest Voting Rights Bill": Critical Race Theory and the Voting Rights Act of 1965

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crowley, Ryan M.

2013-01-01

The author utilized Critical Race Theory (CRT) to examine the passage of the US Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 in an effort to disrupt the simplistic, uncritical understandings of the US Civil Rights Movement common to school texts while also arguing for the ongoing importance of the VRA in a time when voting rights for people of color are under…

International Intervention in Intra-State Conflicts: The Case in Sri Lanka

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-03-01

it comes to practice, this model is very simplistic. Most interveners do not follow this concrete sequence, and there is no definite criterion to...there was a significant and unavoidable concern. The second section addresses the first concrete foundation of India’s domestic setting for...was fueled primarily by domestic interests. The third section addresses the second concrete foundation laid by Sri Lankans for Indian intervention

Systemic Operational Design: Epistemological Bumpf or the Way Ahead for Operational Design?

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-05-25

facilitating the design of such architectural frames (meta-concepts), they are doomed to be trapped in a simplistic structuralist approach.”1...systems theory and complexity theory . SOD emerged and evolved in response to inherent challenges in the contemporary Israeli security environment...discussed in subsequent chapters. Theory . Theory is critical to this examination of the CEOD approach and SOD because theory underpins and informs

Hydrology or biology? Modeling simplistic physical constraints on lake carbon biogeochemistry to identify when and where biology is likely to matter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jones, S.; Zwart, J. A.; Solomon, C.; Kelly, P. T.

2017-12-01

Current efforts to scale lake carbon biogeochemistry rely heavily on empirical observations and rarely consider physical or biological inter-lake heterogeneity that is likely to regulate terrestrial dissolved organic carbon (tDOC) decomposition in lakes. This may in part result from a traditional focus of lake ecologists on in-lake biological processes OR physical-chemical pattern across lake regions, rather than on process AND pattern across scales. To explore the relative importance of local biological processes and physical processes driven by lake hydrologic setting, we created a simple, analytical model of tDOC decomposition in lakes that focuses on the regulating roles of lake size and catchment hydrologic export. Our simplistic model can generally recreate patterns consistent with both local- and regional-scale patterns in tDOC concentration and decomposition. We also see that variation in lake hydrologic setting, including the importance of evaporation as a hydrologic export, generates significant, emergent variation in tDOC decomposition at a given hydrologic residence time, and creates patterns that have been historically attributed to variation in tDOC quality. Comparing predictions of this `biologically null model' to field observations and more biologically complex models could indicate when and where biology is likely to matter most.

The foundation of self-esteem.

PubMed Central

Bailey, Joseph A.

2003-01-01

Self-esteem is a simplistic term for varied and complex mental states pertaining to how one views oneself. It takes but little research in the voluminous literature to see the vagueness and inconsistencies in its various definitions. Even more problematic is the uncertainty concerning its foundational components. The importance of having a solid definition and specific ideas about the foundational components of self-esteem is that both pave the way to recognizing its causes; to predicting effects from those causes; and to organizing the trouble-shooting process for locating those philosophical flaws or psychological scars which lead to low self-esteem. The purpose of this paper is to offer a common ground for thinking about self-esteem at its most basic level. In order to distinguish the "basic level" from the rest of the components of self-esteem, let us liken it to a skyscraper building. Here, the focus is on the building's "underground foundation" and the base upon which that foundation rests. The base is a definition that allows for the assessment of the foundation. The underground foundation itself consists of the mental building blocks called self-meaning, self-identity, self-image, and self-concepts. To help illustrate their interactions, a few of the "masks" and "faces" of self-esteem will be mentioned. What is not being addressed is the "above ground structure"--those theories and manifestations dealt with by most mental health specialists. PMID:12793795

Beliefs about the etiology of homosexuality and about the ramifications of discovering its possible genetic origin.

PubMed

Sheldon, Jane P; Pfeffer, Carla A; Jayaratne, Toby Epstein; Feldbaum, Merle; Petty, Elizabeth M

2007-01-01

Homosexuality is viewed by many as a social problem. As such, there is a keen interest in elucidating the origins of homosexuality among many scholars, from anthropologists to zoologists, from psychologists to theologians. Research has shown that those who believe sexual orientation is inborn are more likely to have tolerant attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, whereas those who believe it is a choice have less tolerant attitudes. The current qualitative study used in-depth, open-ended telephone interviews with 42 White and 44 Black Americans to gain insight into the public's beliefs about the possible genetic origins of homosexuality. Along with etiological beliefs (and the sources of information used to develop these beliefs), we asked respondents to describe the benefits and dangers of scientists discovering the possible genetic basis for homosexuality. We found that although limited understanding and biased perspectives likely led to simplistic reasoning concerning the origins and genetic basis of homosexuality, many individuals appreciated the complex and interactive etiological perspectives. These interactive perspectives often included recognition of some type of inherent aspect, such as a genetic factor(s), that served as an underlying predisposition that would be manifested after being influenced by other factors such as choice or environmental exposures. We also found that beliefs in a genetic basis for homosexuality could be used to support very diverse opinions including those in accordance with negative eugenic agendas.

Modeling X-ray Absorbers in AGNs with MHD-Driven Accretion-Disk Winds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fukumura, Keigo; Kazanas, D.; Shrader, C. R.; Tombesi, F.; Contopoulos, J.; Behar, E.

2013-04-01

We have proposed a systematic view of the observed X-ray absorbers, namely warm absorbers (WAs) in soft X-ray and highly-ionized ultra-fast outflows (UFOs), in the context of magnetically-driven accretion-disk wind models. While potentially complicated by variability and thermal instability in these energetic outflows, in this simplistic model we have calculated 2D kinematic field as well as density and ionization structure of the wind with density profile of 1/r corresponding to a constant column distribution per decade of ionization parameter. In particular we show semi-analytically that the inner layer of the disk-wind manifests itself as the strongly-ionized fast outflows while the outer layer is identified as the moderately-ionized absorbers. The computed characteristics of these two apparently distinct absorbers are consistent with X-ray data (i.e. a factor of ~100 difference in column and ionization parameters as well as low wind velocity vs. near-relativistic flow). With the predicted contour curves for these wind parameters one can constrain allowed regions for the presence of WAs and UFOs.The model further implies that the UFO's gas pressure is comparable to that of the observed radio jet in 3C111 suggesting that the magnetized disk-wind with density profile of 1/r is a viable agent to help sustain such a self-collimated jet at small radii.

The end of a monolith: Deconstructing the Cnn-Polo interaction.

PubMed

Eisman, Robert C; Phelps, Melissa A S; Kaufman, Thomas C

2016-04-02

In Drosophila melanogaster a functional pericentriolar matrix (PCM) at mitotic centrosomes requires Centrosomin-Long Form (Cnn-LF) proteins. Moreover, tissue culture cells have shown that the centrosomal localization of both Cnn-LF and Polo kinase are co-dependent, suggesting a direct interaction. Our recent study found Cnn potentially binds to and is phosphorylated by Polo kinase at 2 residues encoded by Exon1A, the initiating exon of a subset of Cnn isoforms. These interactions are required for the centrosomal localization of Cnn-LF in syncytial embryos and a mutation of either phosphorylation site is sufficient to block localization of both mutant and wild-type Cnn when they are co-expressed. Immunoprecipitation experiments show that Cnn-LF interacts directly with mitotically activated Polo kinase and requires the 2 phosphorylation sites in Exon1A. These IP experiments also show that Cnn-LF proteins form multimers. Depending on the stoichiometry between functional and mutant peptides, heteromultimers exhibit dominant negative or positive trans-complementation (rescue) effects on mitosis. Additionally, following the completion of meiosis, Cnn-Short Form (Cnn-SF) proteins are required for polar body formation in embryos, a process previously shown to require Polo kinase. These findings, when combined with previous work, clearly demonstrate the complexity of cnn and show that a view of cnn as encoding a single peptide is too simplistic.

Social Relations in Lebanon: Convoys Across the Life Course.

PubMed

Antonucci, Toni C; Ajrouch, Kristine J; Abdulrahim, Sawsan

2015-10-01

This study systematically analyzed convoys of social relations to investigate the ways in which gender and income shape patterns of social relations across the life course in Lebanon. Data were drawn from a representative sample of adults aged 18 and older in Greater Beirut, Lebanon (N = 500). Multiple linear regression and multilevel models were conducted to examine main and interactive effects of age, gender, and income on social relations. Findings indicate main effects of age, income, and gender on network structure and relationship quality. Older age was associated with larger network size, greater proportion of kin in network, higher positive and lower negative relationship quality. Higher income was associated with larger network size and decreased contact frequency. Female gender was also associated with decreased contact frequency. Gender interacted with income to influence network size and network composition. Higher income was associated with a larger network size and higher proportion of kin for women. Findings suggest diversity in the experience of social relations. Such nuance is particularly relevant to the Lebanese context where family is the main source of support in old age. Policy makers and program planners may need to refrain from viewing social relations simplistically. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The end of a monolith: Deconstructing the Cnn-Polo interaction

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT In Drosophila melanogaster a functional pericentriolar matrix (PCM) at mitotic centrosomes requires Centrosomin-Long Form (Cnn-LF) proteins. Moreover, tissue culture cells have shown that the centrosomal localization of both Cnn-LF and Polo kinase are co-dependent, suggesting a direct interaction. Our recent study found Cnn potentially binds to and is phosphorylated by Polo kinase at 2 residues encoded by Exon1A, the initiating exon of a subset of Cnn isoforms. These interactions are required for the centrosomal localization of Cnn-LF in syncytial embryos and a mutation of either phosphorylation site is sufficient to block localization of both mutant and wild-type Cnn when they are co-expressed. Immunoprecipitation experiments show that Cnn-LF interacts directly with mitotically activated Polo kinase and requires the 2 phosphorylation sites in Exon1A. These IP experiments also show that Cnn-LF proteins form multimers. Depending on the stoichiometry between functional and mutant peptides, heteromultimers exhibit dominant negative or positive trans-complementation (rescue) effects on mitosis. Additionally, following the completion of meiosis, Cnn-Short Form (Cnn-SF) proteins are required for polar body formation in embryos, a process previously shown to require Polo kinase. These findings, when combined with previous work, clearly demonstrate the complexity of cnn and show that a view of cnn as encoding a single peptide is too simplistic. PMID:27096551

Aelius Aristides as Informed Patient and Physician.

PubMed

Petridou, Georgia

2016-01-01

Aelius Aristides, one of the most renowned orators of the so-called second sophistic, has often been thought of as the paradigmatic patient who surrendered his physical and psychological health to Asclepius, and spent a large part of his life in the temple of the god at Pergamum blindly following divine orders on diet and regimen. This study looks at the Hieroi Logoi as an illness narrative and argues against such a simplistic view and in favour of a more complex picture: Aristides is a far cry far from the submissive patient, who idly resided in the Pergamene Asclepieion relying exclusively on the therapeutic powers of the god and his human helpers. In fact, through a close reading of a selection of passages from the Hieroi Logoi a whole new image of Aristides emerges: the informed patient who is not only in possession of the basics of the medical discourse but who also functions as a physician of sorts, taking both his own life and the lives of others into his hands. This new type of patient, the knowledgeable patient, who is well-versed in medical matters and envisages himself as an active agent of the healing process and an equally important partner in the medical encounter, ties well with other testimonies we have about knowledgeable patients mostly to be found amongst the members of the socio-political elite of the time.

The foundation of self-esteem.

PubMed

Bailey, Joseph A

2003-05-01

Self-esteem is a simplistic term for varied and complex mental states pertaining to how one views oneself. It takes but little research in the voluminous literature to see the vagueness and inconsistencies in its various definitions. Even more problematic is the uncertainty concerning its foundational components. The importance of having a solid definition and specific ideas about the foundational components of self-esteem is that both pave the way to recognizing its causes; to predicting effects from those causes; and to organizing the trouble-shooting process for locating those philosophical flaws or psychological scars which lead to low self-esteem. The purpose of this paper is to offer a common ground for thinking about self-esteem at its most basic level. In order to distinguish the "basic level" from the rest of the components of self-esteem, let us liken it to a skyscraper building. Here, the focus is on the building's "underground foundation" and the base upon which that foundation rests. The base is a definition that allows for the assessment of the foundation. The underground foundation itself consists of the mental building blocks called self-meaning, self-identity, self-image, and self-concepts. To help illustrate their interactions, a few of the "masks" and "faces" of self-esteem will be mentioned. What is not being addressed is the "above ground structure"--those theories and manifestations dealt with by most mental health specialists.

The Intervening Galaxies Hypothesis of the Absorption Spectra of Quasi-Stellar Objects: Some Statistical Studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duari, Debiprosad; Narlikar, Jayant V.

This paper examines, in the light of the available data, the hypothesis that the heavy element absorption line systems in the spectra of QSOs originate through en-route absorption by intervening galaxies, halos etc. Several statistical tests are applied in two different ways to compare the predictions of the intervening galaxies hypothesis (IGH) with actual observations. The database is taken from a recent 1991 compilation of absorption line systems by Junkkarinen, Hewitt and Burbidge. Although, prima facie, a considerable gap is found between the predictions of the intervening galaxies hypothesis and the actual observations despite inclusion of any effects of clustering and some likely selection effects, the gap narrows after invoking evolution in the number density of absorbers and allowing for the incompleteness and inhomogeneity of samples examined. On the latter count the gap might be bridgeable by stretching the parameters of the theory. It is concluded that although the intervening galaxies hypothesis is a possible natural explanation to account for the absorption line systems and may in fact do so in several cases, it seems too simplistic to be able to account for all the available data. It is further stressed that the statistical techniques described here will be useful for future studies of complete and homogenous samples with a view to deciding the extent of applicability of the IGH.

Beliefs about the Etiology of Homosexuality and about the Ramifications of Discovering Its Possible Genetic Origin

PubMed Central

Sheldon, Jane P.; Pfeffer, Carla A.; Jayaratne, Toby Epstein; Feldbaum, Merle; Petty, Elizabeth M.

2013-01-01

Homosexuality is viewed by many as a social problem. As such, there has been keen interest in elucidating the origins of homosexuality among many scholars, from anthropologists to zoologists, psychologists to theologians. Research has shown that those who believe sexual orientation is inborn are more likely to have tolerant attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, whereas those who believe it is a choice have less tolerant attitudes. The current qualitative study used in-depth, open-ended telephone interviews with 42 White and 44 Black Americans to gain insight into the public's beliefs about the possible genetic origins of homosexuality. Along with etiological beliefs (and the sources of information used to develop those beliefs), we asked respondents to describe the benefits and dangers of scientists discovering the possible genetic basis for homosexuality. We found that although limited understanding and biased perspectives likely led to simplistic reasoning concerning the origins and genetic basis of homosexuality, many individuals appreciated complex and interactive etiological perspectives. These interactive perspectives often included recognition of some type of inherent aspect, such as a genetic factor(s), that served as an underlying predisposition that would be manifested after being influenced by other factors such as choice or environmental exposures. We also found that beliefs in a genetic basis for homosexuality could be used to support very diverse opinions, including those in accordance with negative eugenic agendas. PMID:17594974

Detail view of the reinforced concrete viaduct over the Union ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Detail view of the reinforced concrete viaduct over the Union Pacific Railroad corridor, view looking east - Grande Ronde River Bridge, Sprnning Grande Ronde River on Old Oregon Trail Highway (Oregon Route 6), La Grande, Union County, OR

28. VIEW TO NORTHEAST. VIEW OVER TOP OF TRUSS FROM ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

28. VIEW TO NORTHEAST. VIEW OVER TOP OF TRUSS FROM CONTROL CABIN DECK. Photographer unknown, August 1947 (Note that frame for electrical power cables is still in place, though the bridge was converted to hand operation almost ten years earlier.) - Gianella Bridge, Spanning Sacramento River at State Highway 32, Hamilton City, Glenn County, CA

Social cognition in anorexia nervosa: Specific difficulties in decoding emotional but not nonemotional mental states.

PubMed

Brockmeyer, Timo; Pellegrino, Judith; Münch, Hannah; Herzog, Wolfgang; Dziobek, Isabell; Friederich, Hans-Christoph

2016-09-01

Building on recent models of anorexia nervosa (AN) that emphasize the importance of impaired social cognition in the development and maintenance of the disorder, the present study aimed at examining whether women with AN have more difficulties with inferring other people's emotional and nonemotional mental states than healthy women. Social cognition was assessed in 25 adult women with AN and 25 age-matched healthy women. To overcome limitations of previous research on social cognition in AN, the processing of social information was examined in a more complex and ecologically valid manner. The Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) reflects complex real-life social interaction and allows for disentangling emotional and non-emotional mental state inference as well as different types of errors in mentalizing. Women with AN showed poorer emotional mental state inference, whereas non-emotional mental state inference was largely intact. Groups did not differ in undermentalizing (overly simplistic theory of mind) and overmentalizing (overly complex or over-interpretative mental state reasoning). Performance in the MASC was independent of levels of eating disorder psychopathology and symptoms of depression and anxiety. The findings suggest that AN is associated with specific difficulties in emotional mental state inference despite largely intact nonemotional mental state inference. Upon replication in larger samples, these findings advocate a stronger emphasis on socio-emotional processing in AN treatment. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.(Int J Eat Disord 2016; 49:883-890). © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Automated Visibility Measurements with a Horizon Scanning Imager. Volume 1. Technical Discussion

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-12-01

environment, if one difficult. In the case of many relatively simplistic "rule assumes that the measured values of Cr are consistently following...report unless contractual obligations or notices on a specific document requires that it be returned. REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Approved OMB No. 0704-0188...control computer from the original Zenith Z-248 incentive being that the sooner one identifies the class desktop to the Texas Micro Systems (TMI) design

JPRS Report, Soviet Union, World Economy and International Relations, Number 2, February 1990.

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-06-21

of the simplistic line of reasoning was too strong, and the new concept was too unusual. The main reason, however, was the exceptional complexity ...many other problems which were previously considered strictly internal. This also applies to participation in the joint resolution of global problems...would give rise to the need to resolve the complex issues of the verification of the elimination itself and, possibly, of the production of fissionable

View angle effect in LANDSAT imagery

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kaneko, T.; Engvall, J. L.

1977-01-01

The view angle effect in LANDSAT 2 imagery was investigated. The LANDSAT multispectral scanner scans over a range of view angles of -5.78 to 5.78 degrees. The view angle effect, which is caused by differing view angles, could be studied by comparing data collected at different view angles over a fixed location at a fixed time. Since such LANDSAT data is not available, consecutive day acquisition data were used as a substitute: they were collected over the same geographical location, acquired 24 hours apart, with a view angle change of 7 to 8 degrees at a latitude of 35 to 45 degrees. It is shown that there is approximately a 5% reduction in the average sensor response on the second-day acquisitions as compared with the first-day acquisitions, and that the view angle effect differs field to field and crop to crop. On false infrared color pictures the view angle effect causes changes primarily in brightness and to a lesser degree in color (hue and saturation). An implication is that caution must be taken when images with different view angles are combined for classification and a signature extension technique needs to take the view angle effect into account.

Causal criteria and counterfactuals; nothing more (or less) than scientific common sense.

PubMed

Phillips, Carl V; Goodman, Karen J

2006-05-26

Two persistent myths in epidemiology are that we can use a list of "causal criteria" to provide an algorithmic approach to inferring causation and that a modern "counterfactual model" can assist in the same endeavor. We argue that these are neither criteria nor a model, but that lists of causal considerations and formalizations of the counterfactual definition of causation are nevertheless useful tools for promoting scientific thinking. They set us on the path to the common sense of scientific inquiry, including testing hypotheses (really putting them to a test, not just calculating simplistic statistics), responding to the Duhem-Quine problem, and avoiding many common errors. Austin Bradford Hill's famous considerations are thus both over-interpreted by those who would use them as criteria and under-appreciated by those who dismiss them as flawed. Similarly, formalizations of counterfactuals are under-appreciated as lessons in basic scientific thinking. The need for lessons in scientific common sense is great in epidemiology, which is taught largely as an engineering discipline and practiced largely as technical tasks, making attention to core principles of scientific inquiry woefully rare.

A simple cost-effective design for construction of a laparoscopic trainer.

PubMed

Ricchiuti, Daniel; Ralat, Dane Arends; Evancho-Chapman, Michelle; Wyneski, Holly; Cerone, Jeffrey; Wegryn, John D

2005-10-01

Laparoscopic trainers have been shown to be effective tools for transitioning residents in surgical fields into live laparoscopic techniques. There have been few reports of homemade trainers, but each of these reports provides only scant detail about their construction, making production a novel task to those interested in employing this equipment. Virtual-reality trainers are gaining popularity and are exceptional modalities in the re-creation of laparoscopic surgery. In their present state, however, such trainers are very costly, making them unattainable by most urology residency programs. Numerous commercial non-virtual trainers are also available; however, these trainers are often cost-prohibitive or overly simplistic. We describe a detailed design template for creation of a laparoscopic trainer based on modifications of previous designs. This trainer can be made easily at a cost of approximately US$275.00 and may be used in conjunction with existing laparoscopic equipment. The methods described herein can be followed by any local machinist to create this trainer. The relatively low total cost, ready material availability, and ease of construction make this trainer an appropriate option for the training of residents in laparoscopic procedures.

Merging Digital Medicine and Economics: Two Moving Averages Unlock Biosignals for Better Health.

PubMed

Elgendi, Mohamed

2018-01-06

Algorithm development in digital medicine necessitates ongoing knowledge and skills updating to match the current demands and constant progression in the field. In today's chaotic world there is an increasing trend to seek out simple solutions for complex problems that can increase efficiency, reduce resource consumption, and improve scalability. This desire has spilled over into the world of science and research where many disciplines have taken to investigating and applying more simplistic approaches. Interestingly, through a review of current literature and research efforts, it seems that the learning and teaching principles in digital medicine continue to push towards the development of sophisticated algorithms with a limited scope and has not fully embraced or encouraged a shift towards more simple solutions that yield equal or better results. This short note aims to demonstrate that within the world of digital medicine and engineering, simpler algorithms can offer effective and efficient solutions, where traditionally more complex algorithms have been used. Moreover, the note demonstrates that bridging different research disciplines is very beneficial and yields valuable insights and results.

Ways of Hoping: Navigating the paradox of hope and despair in chronic pain

PubMed Central

Eaves, Emery R.; Nichter, Mark; Ritenbaugh, Cheryl

2015-01-01

In this paper, we explore hope in the context of living with chronic pain. Individuals with chronic pain from temporomandibular disorder(s) (TMD) were interviewed four to five times over the course of their 18-month participation in a clinical trial investigating the effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine. We sought to understand shifts in participants’ descriptions of expectations and hopefulness, particularly with regard to the work involved in counterbalancing positive thinking with buffers against disappointment. We found hope to be a dynamic and multifaceted mindset as distinct from being a single entity to be measured. Drawing upon Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing, we explore how different ways of hoping emerge and index one another in participant narratives. We offer a working typology of hope and raise as an issue the manner in which the paradox of hope—hoping enough to carry on while keeping hopes in check to avoid the ever-present possibility of despair—complicates simplistic notions of the relationship between positive thinking and the placebo response. PMID:26194780

Development of Microplatforms to Mimic the In Vivo Architecture of CNS and PNS Physiology and Their Diseases.

PubMed

Saliba, John; Daou, Arij; Damiati, Samar; Saliba, Jessica; El-Sabban, Marwan; Mhanna, Rami

2018-06-06

Understanding the mechanisms that govern nervous tissues function remains a challenge. In vitro two-dimensional (2D) cell culture systems provide a simplistic platform to evaluate systematic investigations but often result in unreliable responses that cannot be translated to pathophysiological settings. Recently, microplatforms have emerged to provide a better approximation of the in vivo scenario with better control over the microenvironment, stimuli and structure. Advances in biomaterials enable the construction of three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds, which combined with microfabrication, allow enhanced biomimicry through precise control of the architecture, cell positioning, fluid flows and electrochemical stimuli. This manuscript reviews, compares and contrasts advances in nervous tissues-on-a-chip models and their applications in neural physiology and disease. Microplatforms used for neuro-glia interactions, neuromuscular junctions (NMJs), blood-brain barrier (BBB) and studies on brain cancer, metastasis and neurodegenerative diseases are addressed. Finally, we highlight challenges that can be addressed with interdisciplinary efforts to achieve a higher degree of biomimicry. Nervous tissue microplatforms provide a powerful tool that is destined to provide a better understanding of neural health and disease.

Regression analysis using dependent Polya trees.

PubMed

Schörgendorfer, Angela; Branscum, Adam J

2013-11-30

Many commonly used models for linear regression analysis force overly simplistic shape and scale constraints on the residual structure of data. We propose a semiparametric Bayesian model for regression analysis that produces data-driven inference by using a new type of dependent Polya tree prior to model arbitrary residual distributions that are allowed to evolve across increasing levels of an ordinal covariate (e.g., time, in repeated measurement studies). By modeling residual distributions at consecutive covariate levels or time points using separate, but dependent Polya tree priors, distributional information is pooled while allowing for broad pliability to accommodate many types of changing residual distributions. We can use the proposed dependent residual structure in a wide range of regression settings, including fixed-effects and mixed-effects linear and nonlinear models for cross-sectional, prospective, and repeated measurement data. A simulation study illustrates the flexibility of our novel semiparametric regression model to accurately capture evolving residual distributions. In an application to immune development data on immunoglobulin G antibodies in children, our new model outperforms several contemporary semiparametric regression models based on a predictive model selection criterion. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Redefining meaningful age groups in the context of disease.

PubMed

Geifman, Nophar; Cohen, Raphael; Rubin, Eitan

2013-12-01

Age is an important factor when considering phenotypic changes in health and disease. Currently, the use of age information in medicine is somewhat simplistic, with ages commonly being grouped into a small number of crude ranges reflecting the major stages of development and aging, such as childhood or adolescence. Here, we investigate the possibility of redefining age groups using the recently developed Age-Phenome Knowledge-base (APK) that holds over 35,000 literature-derived entries describing relationships between age and phenotype. Clustering of APK data suggests 13 new, partially overlapping, age groups. The diseases that define these groups suggest that the proposed divisions are biologically meaningful. We further show that the number of different age ranges that should be considered depends on the type of disease being evaluated. This finding was further strengthened by similar results obtained from clinical blood measurement data. The grouping of diseases that share a similar pattern of disease-related reports directly mirrors, in some cases, medical knowledge of disease-age relationships. In other cases, our results may be used to generate new and reasonable hypotheses regarding links between diseases.

Spatially-resolved magnetic resonance study of the dissolution interface between soaps and water

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ciampi, E.; Goerke, U.; McDonald, P. J.; Chambers, J. G.; Newling, B.

2002-06-01

The developing interfacial region between a soap bar and water has been studied using a suite of spatially resolved NMR techniques. Stray field imaging (STRAFI) allowed the dynamics of water ingress into a shop-bought, commercial soap to be followed. A simplistic analysis of the data shows the ingress to be a Fickian process (∝t1/2) in the first 4 h. The T2 contrast employed in the STRAFI method is not sufficient to resolve detail of the mesophase formation at the interface. However, double quantum filtered 2H spectroscopy at different positions in the interfacial region allowed water concentration (and mesophase distribution) to be mapped over the first 120 h of dissolution. A simple model shows good agreement with the water concentration data. In the isotropic soap solution above the interfacial region, J-cyclic cross polarization was used to selectively interrogate the CH2 1H of the soap alkyl chains and, in combination with a pulsed field gradient measurement of self-diffusion, suggests a micellar solution in which the hydrodynamic radius of the micelles is ~5nm.

Evidence of covalent synergy in silicon–sulfur–graphene yielding highly efficient and long-life lithium-ion batteries

DOE PAGES

Hassan, Fathy M.; Batmaz, Rasim; Li, Jingde; ...

2015-10-26

Silicon has the potential to revolutionize the energy storage capacities of lithium-ion batteries to meet the ever increasing power demands of next generation technologies. To avoid the operational stability problems of silicon-based anodes, we propose synergistic physicochemical alteration of electrode structures during their design. This capitalizes on covalent interaction of Si nanoparticles with sulfur-doped graphene and with cyclized polyacrylonitrile to provide a robust nanoarchitecture. This hierarchical structure stabilized the solid electrolyte interphase leading to superior reversible capacity of over 1,000 mAh g -1 for 2,275 cycles at 2 A g -1. Furthermore, the nanoarchitectured design lowered the contact of themore » electrolyte to the electrode leading to not only high coulombic efficiency of 99.9% but also maintaining high stability even with high electrode loading associated with 3.4 mAh cm -2. As a result, the excellent performance combined with the simplistic, scalable and non-hazardous approach render the process as a very promising candidate for Li-ion battery technology.« less

Does gender matter? An analysis of men's and women's accounts of responding to symptoms of lung cancer.

PubMed

MacLean, Alice; Hunt, Kate; Smith, Sarah; Wyke, Sally

2017-10-01

Men are often portrayed - in research studies, 'common-sense' accounts and popular media - as reluctant users of health services. They are said to avoid going to the GP whenever possible, while women are portrayed, in presumed opposition, as consulting more readily, more frequently and with less serious complaints. Such stereotypes may inadvertently encourage doctors to pay greater heed to men's symptoms in 'routine' consultations. Although previous research has challenged this view with evidence, and suggested that links between gender identities and help-seeking are complex and fluid, gender comparative studies remain uncommon, and particularly few studies (either qualitative or quantitative) compare men and women with similar morbidity. We contribute here to gender comparative research on help-seeking by investigating men's and women's accounts of responding to symptoms later diagnosed as lung cancer. A secondary analysis of qualitative interviews with 27 men and 18 women attending Scottish cancer centres revealed striking similarities between men's and women's accounts. Participants were seen as negotiating a complex and delicate balance in constructing their moral integrity as, on the one hand, responsible service users who were conscious of the demands on health care professionals' time, and as patients who did not take undue risks with their health, in the context of an illness for which people are often held culpable, on the other. In accounting for their responses to symptoms, men and women drew equally on culturally-embedded moral frameworks of stoicism and responsible service use. Regardless of gender, the accounts portrayed participants as stoic in response to illness and responsible service users; and as people seeking explanations for bodily changes and taking appropriate and timely action. Our analysis challenges simplistic, 'common-sense' views of gendered help-seeking and highlights that both men and women need support to consult their doctor for investigation of significant or concerning bodily changes. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Do people's world views matter? The why and how.

PubMed

Chen, Sylvia Xiaohua; Lam, Ben C P; Wu, Wesley C H; Ng, Jacky C K; Buchtel, Emma E; Guan, Yanjun; Deng, Hong

2016-05-01

Over the past decades, personality and social psychologists have extensively investigated the role of self-views in individual functioning. Research on world views, however, has been less well studied due to overly specific conceptualizations, and little research about how and why they impact life outcomes. To answer why and how world views matter, we conducted 7 studies to examine the functions, antecedents, and consequences of generalized beliefs about the world, operationalized as social axioms (Leung et al., 2002). This research focused on 2 axiom factors, namely, social cynicism and reward for application. These axioms were found to explain individual differences in self-views over and above personality traits in Hong Kong and U.S. samples (Study 1) and to explain cultural differences in self-views in addition to self-construals among Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, East Asian Canadians, and European Canadians (Study 2). Endorsement of social axioms by participants, their parents, and close friends was collected from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Canada to infer parental and peer influences on world views (Study 3). World views affected psychological well-being through the mediation of positive self-views across 3 age groups, including children, adolescents, and young adults (Study 4) and over time (Study 5). The mediation of negative self-views was through comparative self-criticism rather than internalized self-criticism (Study 6). Holistic thinking moderated the effect of social cynicism on self-views and psychological well-being (Study 7). These results converge to show that world views as a distal force and self-views as a proximal force matter in people's subjective evaluation of their lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Response to science education reforms: The case of three science education doctoral programs in the United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwekwerere, Yovita Netsai

Doctoral programs play a significant role in preparing future leaders. Science Education doctoral programs play an even more significant role preparing leaders in a field that is critical to maintaining national viability in the face of global competition. The current science education reforms have the goal of achieving science literacy for all students and for this national goal to be achieved; we need strong leadership in the field of science education. This qualitative study investigated how doctoral programs are preparing their graduates for leadership in supporting teachers to achieve the national goal of science literacy for all. A case study design was used to investigate how science education faculty interpreted the national reform goal of science literacy for all and how they reformed their doctoral courses and research programs to address this goal. Faculty, graduate students and recent graduates of three science education doctoral programs participated in the study. Data collection took place through surveys, interviews and analysis of course documents. Two faculty members, three doctoral candidates and three recent graduates were interviewed from each of the programs. Data analysis involved an interpretive approach. The National Research Council Framework for Investigating Influence of the National Standards on student learning (2002) was used to analyze interview data. Findings show that the current reforms occupy a significant part of the doctoral coursework and research in these three science education doctoral programs. The extent to which the reforms are incorporated in the courses and the way they are addressed depends on how the faculty members interpret the reforms and what they consider to be important in achieving the goal of science literacy for all. Whereas some faculty members take a simplistic critical view of the reform goals as a call to achieve excellence in science teaching; others take a more complex critical view where they question who 'all students' refers to and what science literacy means for learners with diverse cultural, linguistic or economic backgrounds. Faculty members' views significantly influence the nature and content of the courses as well as the program focus. It was also shown that a relationship exists between faculty views and the views of their doctoral students and recent graduates. In general, faculty exhibited narrower and more in-depth views about issues they consider being important in the field of science education, than doctoral students and recent graduates. External funding is critical in doctoral studies as it enables faculty to enact their visions of achieving science literacy for all. The study provides some implications for practice, policy and research. In order to achieve both equity and excellence in science teaching, there is need for dialogue among science educators to enable them to address issues of equity more effectively than at present. If doctoral programs are to continue preparing graduates who can address important issues in the field, there is need for external funding for specific research programs.

Coexistence of several currencies in presence of increasing returns to adoption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lamarche-Perrin, Alex; Orléan, André; Jensen, Pablo

2018-04-01

We present a simplistic model of the competition between different currencies. Each individual is free to choose the currency that minimizes his transaction costs, which arise whenever his exchanging relations have chosen a different currency. We show that competition between currencies does not necessarily converge to the emergence of a single currency. For large systems, we prove that two distinct communities using different currencies in the initial state will remain forever in this fractionalized state.

Evidence for Solar Influences on Nuclear Decay Rates

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-07-01

collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory ( BNL ) measuring 32Si and 36Cl,2,3,5–7 and 226Ra data collected at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt...conditions. In what follows we present several arguments against a simplistic, systematic explanation of the BNL and PTB data fluctuations in terms of...any known seasonal environmental effect.4 (2) In both the BNL experiment, which studied 32Si and 36Cl in the same detector,7 and the CNRC (Children’s

Co-evolution of electric and telecommunications networks

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rivkin, S.R.

1998-05-01

There are potentially significant societal benefits in co-evolution between electricity and telecommunications in the areas of common infrastructure, accelerated deployment of distributed energy, tighter integration of information flow for energy management and distribution, and improved customer care. With due regard for natural processes that are more potent than any regulation and more real than any ideology, the gains from co-evolution would far outweigh the attenuated and speculative savings from restructuring of electricity that is too simplistic.

Preferential binding of positive nanoparticles on cell membranes is due to electrostatic interactions: A too simplistic explanation that does not take into account the nanoparticle protein corona.

PubMed

Forest, Valérie; Pourchez, Jérémie

2017-01-01

The internalization of nanoparticles by cells (and more broadly the nanoparticle/cell interaction) is a crucial issue both for biomedical applications (for the design of nanocarriers with enhanced cellular uptake to reach their intracellular therapeutic targets) and in a nanosafety context (as the internalized dose is one of the key factors in cytotoxicity). Many parameters can influence the nanoparticle/cell interaction, among them, the nanoparticle physico-chemical features, and especially the surface charge. It is generally admitted that positive nanoparticles are more uptaken by cells than neutral or negative nanoparticles. It is supposedly due to favorable electrostatic interactions with negatively charged cell membrane. However, this theory seems too simplistic as it does not consider a fundamental element: the nanoparticle protein corona. Indeed, once introduced in a biological medium nanoparticles adsorb proteins at their surface, forming a new interface defining the nanoparticle "biological identity". This adds a new level of complexity in the interactions with biological systems that cannot be any more limited to electrostatic binding. These interactions will then influence cell behavior. Based on a literature review and on an example of our own experience the parameters involved in the nanoparticle protein corona formation as well as in the nanoparticle/cell interactions are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Folding behavior of ribosomal protein S6 studied by modified Go¯ -like model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, L.; Zhang, J.; Wang, J.; Li, W. F.; Wang, W.

2007-03-01

Recent experimental and theoretical studies suggest that, although topology is the determinant factor in protein folding, especially for small single-domain proteins, energetic factors also play an important role in the folding process. The ribosomal protein S6 has been subjected to intensive studies. A radical change of the transition state in its circular permutants has been observed, which is believed to be caused by a biased distribution of contact energies. Since the simplistic topology-only Gō -like model is not able to reproduce such an observation, we modify the model by introducing variable contact energies between residues based on their physicochemical properties. The modified Gō -like model can successfully reproduce the Φ -value distributions, folding nucleus, and folding pathways of both the wild-type and circular permutants of S6. Furthermore, by comparing the results of the modified and the simplistic models, we find that the hydrophobic effect constructs the major force that balances the loop entropies. This may indicate that nature maintains the folding cooperativity of this protein by carefully arranging the location of hydrophobic residues in the sequence. Our study reveals a strategy or mechanism used by nature to get out of the dilemma when the native structure, possibly required by biological function, conflicts with folding cooperativity. Finally, the possible relationship between such a design of nature and amyloidosis is also discussed.

Toward a multifactorial model of expertise: beyond born versus made.

PubMed

Hambrick, David Z; Burgoyne, Alexander P; Macnamara, Brooke N; Ullén, Fredrik

2018-02-15

The debate over the origins of individual differences in expertise has raged for over a century in psychology. The "nature" view holds that expertise reflects "innate talent"-that is, genetically determined abilities. The "nurture" view counters that, if talent even exists, its effects on ultimate performance are negligible. While no scientist takes seriously a strict nature-only view of expertise, the nurture view has gained tremendous popularity over the past several decades. This environmentalist view holds that individual differences in expertise reflect training history, with no important contribution to ultimate performance by innate ability ("talent"). Here, we argue that, despite its popularity, this view is inadequate to account for the evidence concerning the origins of expertise that has accumulated since the view was first proposed. More generally, we argue that the nature versus nurture debate in research on expertise is over-or certainly should be, as it has been in other areas of psychological research for decades. We describe a multifactorial model for research on the nature and nurture of expertise, which we believe will provide a progressive direction for future research on expertise. © 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.

Climate change: Conflict of observational science, theory, and politics

USGS Publications Warehouse

Gerhard, L.C.

2004-01-01

Debate over whether human activity causes Earth climate change obscures the immensity of the dynamic systems that create and maintain climate on the planet. Anthropocentric debate leads people to believe that they can alter these planetary dynamic systems to prevent that they perceive as negative climate impacts on human civilization. Although politicians offer simplistic remedies, such as the Kyoto Protocol, global climate continues to change naturally. Better planning for the inevitable dislocations that have followed natural global climate changes throughout human history requires us to accept the fact that climate will change, and that human society must adapt to the changes. Over the last decade, the scientific literature reported a shift in emphasis from attempting to build theoretical models of putative human impacts on climate to understanding the planetwide dynamic processes that are the natural climate drivers. The current scientific literature is beginning to report the history of past climate change, the extent of natural climate variability, natural system drivers, and the episodicity of many climate changes. The scientific arguments have broadened from focus upon human effects on climate to include the array of natural phenomena that have driven global climate change for eons. However, significant political issues with long-term social consequences continue their advance. This paper summarizes recent scientific progress in climate science and arguments about human influence on climate. ?? 2004. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.

The complex spine: the multidimensional system of causal pathways for low-back disorders.

PubMed

Marras, William S

2012-12-01

The aim of this study was to examine the logic behind the knowledge of low-back problem causal pathways. Low-back pain and low-back disorders (LBDs) continue to represent the major musculoskeletal risk problem in the workplace,with the prevalence and costs of such disorders increasing over time. In recent years, there has been much criticism of the ability of ergonomics methods to control the risk of LBDs. Logical assessment of the systems logic associated with our understanding and prevention of LBDs. Current spine loading as well as spine tolerance research efforts are bringing the field to the point where there is a better systems understanding of the inextricable link between the musculoskeletal system and the cognitive system. Loading is influenced by both the physical environment factors as well as mental demands, whereas tolerances are defined by both physical tissue tolerance and biochemically based tissue sensitivities to pain. However, the logic used in many low-back risk assessment tools may be overly simplistic, given what is understood about causal pathways. Current tools typically assess only load or position in a very cursory manner. Efforts must work toward satisfying both the physical environment and the cognitive environment for the worker if one is to reliably lower the risk of low-back problems. This systems representation of LBD development may serve as a guide to identify gaps in our understanding of LBDs.

A prospective study of time to healing and hypertrophic scarring in paediatric burns: every day counts.

PubMed

Chipp, Elizabeth; Charles, Lisa; Thomas, Clare; Whiting, Kate; Moiemen, Naiem; Wilson, Yvonne

2017-01-01

It is commonly accepted that burns taking longer than 3 weeks to heal have a much higher rate of hypertrophic scarring than those which heal more quickly. However, some of our patients develop hypertrophic scars despite healing within this 3-week period. We performed a prospective study of 383 paediatric burns treated non-operatively at a regional burns centre over a 2-year period from May 2011 to April 2013. Scar assessment was performed by a senior burns therapist using the Vancouver Scar Scale. Overall rates of hypertrophic scarring were 17.2%. Time to healing was the strongest predictor of developing hypertrophic scarring, and the earliest hypertrophic scar developed in a patient who was healed after 8 days. The risk of hypertrophic scarring was multiplied by 1.138 for every additional day taken for the burn wound to heal. There was a trend towards higher rates of hypertrophic scarring in non-white skin types but this did not reach statistical significance. The risk of hypertrophic scarring increases with every day and, therefore, every effort should be made to get the wound healed as quickly as possible, even within the traditional 3-week period usually allowed for healing. We believe that the traditional dogma of aiming for healing within 3 weeks is overly simplistic and should be abandoned: in paediatric burns, every day counts. Not applicable.

On the effects of adaptive reservoir operating rules in hydrological physically-based models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giudici, Federico; Anghileri, Daniela; Castelletti, Andrea; Burlando, Paolo

2017-04-01

Recent years have seen a significant increase of the human influence on the natural systems both at the global and local scale. Accurately modeling the human component and its interaction with the natural environment is key to characterize the real system dynamics and anticipate future potential changes to the hydrological regimes. Modern distributed, physically-based hydrological models are able to describe hydrological processes with high level of detail and high spatiotemporal resolution. Yet, they lack in sophistication for the behavior component and human decisions are usually described by very simplistic rules, which might underperform in reproducing the catchment dynamics. In the case of water reservoir operators, these simplistic rules usually consist of target-level rule curves, which represent the average historical level trajectory. Whilst these rules can reasonably reproduce the average seasonal water volume shifts due to the reservoirs' operation, they cannot properly represent peculiar conditions, which influence the actual reservoirs' operation, e.g., variations in energy price or water demand, dry or wet meteorological conditions. Moreover, target-level rule curves are not suitable to explore the water system response to climate and socio economic changing contexts, because they assume a business-as-usual operation. In this work, we quantitatively assess how the inclusion of adaptive reservoirs' operating rules into physically-based hydrological models contribute to the proper representation of the hydrological regime at the catchment scale. In particular, we contrast target-level rule curves and detailed optimization-based behavioral models. We, first, perform the comparison on past observational records, showing that target-level rule curves underperform in representing the hydrological regime over multiple time scales (e.g., weekly, seasonal, inter-annual). Then, we compare how future hydrological changes are affected by the two modeling approaches by considering different future scenarios comprising climate change projections of precipitation and temperature and projections of electricity prices. We perform this comparative assessment on the real-world water system of Lake Como catchment in the Italian Alps, which is characterized by the massive presence of artificial hydropower reservoirs heavily altering the natural hydrological regime. The results show how different behavioral model approaches affect the system representation in terms of hydropower performance, reservoirs dynamics and hydrological regime under different future scenarios.

Perspective view of span over French Creek and east abutment, ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Perspective view of span over French Creek and east abutment, looking NW. - Pennsylvania Railroad, French Creek Trestle, Spanning French Creek, north of Paradise Street, Phoenixville, Chester County, PA

Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program. Risk Analysis of the Continued Storage of Chemical Munitions

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-08-01

Grass Army Depot LIC liquid incinerator LPF leakers processing facility LPG liquified propane gas MD)B munitions demilitarization building"I 1DIA mu...screening process , con- sidering both frequency and magnitude of agent release, are included in the deliverables of this project. S.1.3. Scove of Study...simplistic terms the PRA process focuses on answering the fol- •• loving three basic questions: 1. Wh.t can go wrong? 2. How frequently is it expected to

[Questions concerning humanitarian action].

PubMed

Simonnot, C

2002-01-01

Although development of humanitarian action is rooted historical events, the dynamics behind today's international relief organizations can only be understood within the context of the modern world. Relief organizations are currently confronted with major challenges and paradoxes. The challenges include the need to enhance professionalization and standardization of assistance operations and exposure to greater risks. The paradoxes involve the need to implement complex, highly publicized programs in a simplistic manner and problems involved in managing the complex relationship between relief workers and victims, tainted with the almighty powers of the actors.

The mathematics of dilution.

PubMed

Chatterjee, Barun Kumar

2014-04-01

The major objection to homeopathic medicine is that the doses of medicine prescribed in some cases are too dilute for any active ingredient to be present. The medicines would hence be rendered inactive, necessitating novel explanations for the action. A further examination of dilution in the light of the Langmuir equation shows that homeopathic medicines may not be as dilute as a simplistic application of Avogadro's Principle suggests, due to surface effects. Copyright © 2013 The Faculty of Homeopathy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Self-Defense by Any Other Name is Still Self-Defense

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-04-01

Unlimited D D15Th3WON STAT13ENT L YNANNOUNIPV 03 JUSMIICATION BY DISTIBUTON/T AVAILABILIT CODES DIST1ZDtmN AVAILABILI AQM SPECI~ALH DATE ACCMSIONED...homeport? When the invasion force enters another state’s sovereign waters ? Is it as simplistic as which side fired the first shot? 34 These rhetorical...States’ sovereignty in her territorial waters and even led to the occasional killing of Whereas armed vessels sailing under authority or pretence of

Synthetic battery cycling

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thaller, L. H.

1981-01-01

The use of interactive computer graphics is suggested as an aid in battery system development. Mathematical representations of simplistic but fully representative functions of many electrochemical concepts of current practical interest will permit battery level charge and discharge phenomena to be analyzed in a qualitative manner prior to the assembly and testing of actual hardware. This technique is a useful addition to the variety of tools available to the battery system designer as he bridges the gap between interesting single cell life test data and reliable energy storage subsystems.

Emergence of a Communication System: International Sign

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosenstock, Rachel

International Sign (henceforth IS) is a communication system that is used widely in the international Deaf Community. The present study is one of the first to research extensively the origin of both the IS lexicon and grammatical structures. Findings demonstrate that IS is both influenced by naturally evolved sign languages used in grown deaf communities (henceforth SLs) and relies heavily on iconic, universal structures. This paper shows that IS continues to develop from a simplistic iconic system into a conventionalized system with increasingly complex rules.

Distributed Assimilation of Satellite-based Snow Extent for Improving Simulated Streamflow in Mountainous, Dense Forests: An Example Over the DMIP2 Western Basins

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yatheendradas, Soni; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Koren, Victor; Cosgrove, Brian A.; DeGoncalves, Luis G. D.; Smith, Michael; Geiger, James; Cui, Zhengtao; Borak, Jordan; Kumar, Sujay V.;

Linking craton stability and deep earth processes using thermochronology; a case study in the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sturrock, C. P.; Flowers, R. M.; Zhong, S.; Metcalf, J. R.; Kohn, B. P.

2017-12-01

Ancient, cratonic continental interiors are often presumed to be stable in the long term, neither accumulating nor shedding significant amounts of overlying sediment. However, recent low-temperature thermochronologic work suggests that such long term stability is an overly simplistic view and that forces besides plate tectonics, such as dynamic topography, may play a significant role. New apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe) and apatite fission track (AFT) data from Archean-Proterozoic basement rocks along a 1400km NW-SE transect in the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield record a spatially variable thermal history for the craton in Paleozoic through the end of Mesozoic time. Dates range from 600­­­­­­±60 Ma (AHe) and 529­±48 Ma (AFT) in the west to 184±14 Ma (AHe) and 174±9 Ma (AFT) in the east. Tectonic activity within the Superior Province ceased by 1.8 Ga, with the latest activity at the margins ending at 1 Ga. Widespread resetting of both AHe and AFT systems post 1 Ga is most likely due to regional scale burial at one or more times since the Cambrian. The temperature sensitivity of the AHe and AFT systems (30-90°C and 60-120°C, respectively) require at least a few km of burial across the craton that has since been stripped away. Preliminary inverse thermal history models, utilizing geologic constraints and radiation damage effects on He diffusion in apatite, indicate significant reheating in the Paleozoic-early Mesozoic (37 to >120°C) and a possible lesser reheating event since the mid Mesozoic (<100°C). Making the simplified assumption of a 25°C/km geothermal gradient and 0°C surface temperature, burial in some areas must have been at least 2-5km in the Paleozoic and was <4km in the Mesozoic. These burial and denudation patterns do not correlate with global sea level changes, making dynamic topography a good candidate for a driving mechanism. New AHe data from kimberlites emplaced in the early to mid-Jurassic will provide an important new constraint on the post-Jurassic thermal history of the Superior Province and result in better temperature/burial estimates for the earlier history. Ongoing work will compare these histories with dynamic topography predictions from geodynamic models back into the Paleozoic.

Growth of plants on the Late Weichselian ice-sheet during Greenland interstadial-1?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zale, R.; Huang, Y.-T.; Bigler, C.; Wood, J. R.; Dalén, L.; Wang, X.-R.; Segerström, U.; Klaminder, J.

2018-04-01

Unglaciated forelands and summits protruding from ice-sheets are commonly portrayed as areas where plants first establish at the end of glacial cycles. But is this prevailing view of ice-free refugia too simplistic? Here, we present findings suggesting that surface debris supported plant communities far beyond the rim of the Late Weichselian Ice-sheet during Greenland interstadial 1 (GI-1 or Bølling-Allerød interstadial). We base our interpretations upon findings from terrigenous sediments largely resembling 'plant-trash' deposits in North America (known to form as vegetation established on stagnant ice became buried along with glacial debris during the deglaciation). In our studied deposit, we found macrofossils (N = 10) overlapping with the deglaciation period of the area (9.5-10 cal kyr BP) as well as samples (N = 2) with ages ranging between 12.9 and 13.3 cal kyr BP. The latter ages indicate growth of at least graminoids during the GI-1 interstadial when the site was near the geographic center of the degrading ice-sheet. We suggest that exposure of englacial material during GI-1 created patches of supraglacial debris capable of supporting vascular plants three millennia before deglaciation. The composition and resilience of this early plant community remain uncertain. Yet, the younger group of macrofossils, in combination with pollen and ancient DNA analyses of inclusions, imply that shrubs (Salix sp., Betula sp. and Ericaceae sp) and even tree species (Larix) were present in the debris during the final deglaciation stage.

Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences.

PubMed

Fanelli, Daniele; Glänzel, Wolfgang

2013-01-01

The hypothesis of a Hierarchy of the Sciences, first formulated in the 19(th) century, predicts that, moving from simple and general phenomena (e.g. particle dynamics) to complex and particular (e.g. human behaviour), researchers lose ability to reach theoretical and methodological consensus. This hypothesis places each field of research along a continuum of complexity and "softness", with profound implications for our understanding of scientific knowledge. Today, however, the idea is still unproven and philosophically overlooked, too often confused with simplistic dichotomies that contrast natural and social sciences, or science and the humanities. Empirical tests of the hypothesis have usually compared few fields and this, combined with other limitations, makes their results contradictory and inconclusive. We verified whether discipline characteristics reflect a hierarchy, a dichotomy or neither, by sampling nearly 29,000 papers published contemporaneously in 12 disciplines and measuring a set of parameters hypothesised to reflect theoretical and methodological consensus. The biological sciences had in most cases intermediate values between the physical and the social, with bio-molecular disciplines appearing harder than zoology, botany or ecology. In multivariable analyses, most of these parameters were independent predictors of the hierarchy, even when mathematics and the humanities were included. These results support a "gradualist" view of scientific knowledge, suggesting that the Hierarchy of the Sciences provides the best rational framework to understand disciplines' diversity. A deeper grasp of the relationship between subject matter's complexity and consensus could have profound implications for how we interpret, publish, popularize and administer scientific research.

Medically important differences in snake venom composition are dictated by distinct postgenomic mechanisms

PubMed Central

Casewell, Nicholas R.; Wagstaff, Simon C.; Wüster, Wolfgang; Cook, Darren A. N.; Bolton, Fiona M. S.; King, Sarah I.; Pla, Davinia; Sanz, Libia; Calvete, Juan J.; Harrison, Robert A.

2014-01-01

Variation in venom composition is a ubiquitous phenomenon in snakes and occurs both interspecifically and intraspecifically. Venom variation can have severe outcomes for snakebite victims by rendering the specific antibodies found in antivenoms ineffective against heterologous toxins found in different venoms. The rapid evolutionary expansion of different toxin-encoding gene families in different snake lineages is widely perceived as the main cause of venom variation. However, this view is simplistic and disregards the understudied influence that processes acting on gene transcription and translation may have on the production of the venom proteome. Here, we assess the venom composition of six related viperid snakes and compare interspecific changes in the number of toxin genes, their transcription in the venom gland, and their translation into proteins secreted in venom. Our results reveal that multiple levels of regulation are responsible for generating variation in venom composition between related snake species. We demonstrate that differential levels of toxin transcription, translation, and their posttranslational modification have a substantial impact upon the resulting venom protein mixture. Notably, these processes act to varying extents on different toxin paralogs found in different snakes and are therefore likely to be as important as ancestral gene duplication events for generating compositionally distinct venom proteomes. Our results suggest that these processes may also contribute to altering the toxicity of snake venoms, and we demonstrate how this variability can undermine the treatment of a neglected tropical disease, snakebite. PMID:24927555

Medically important differences in snake venom composition are dictated by distinct postgenomic mechanisms.

PubMed

Casewell, Nicholas R; Wagstaff, Simon C; Wüster, Wolfgang; Cook, Darren A N; Bolton, Fiona M S; King, Sarah I; Pla, Davinia; Sanz, Libia; Calvete, Juan J; Harrison, Robert A

2014-06-24

Variation in venom composition is a ubiquitous phenomenon in snakes and occurs both interspecifically and intraspecifically. Venom variation can have severe outcomes for snakebite victims by rendering the specific antibodies found in antivenoms ineffective against heterologous toxins found in different venoms. The rapid evolutionary expansion of different toxin-encoding gene families in different snake lineages is widely perceived as the main cause of venom variation. However, this view is simplistic and disregards the understudied influence that processes acting on gene transcription and translation may have on the production of the venom proteome. Here, we assess the venom composition of six related viperid snakes and compare interspecific changes in the number of toxin genes, their transcription in the venom gland, and their translation into proteins secreted in venom. Our results reveal that multiple levels of regulation are responsible for generating variation in venom composition between related snake species. We demonstrate that differential levels of toxin transcription, translation, and their posttranslational modification have a substantial impact upon the resulting venom protein mixture. Notably, these processes act to varying extents on different toxin paralogs found in different snakes and are therefore likely to be as important as ancestral gene duplication events for generating compositionally distinct venom proteomes. Our results suggest that these processes may also contribute to altering the toxicity of snake venoms, and we demonstrate how this variability can undermine the treatment of a neglected tropical disease, snakebite.

View of deck truss span over creek and adjacent trestle, ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View of deck truss span over creek and adjacent trestle, looking due south. - Pennsylvania Railroad, Brandywine Valley Viaduct, Spanning Brandywine Creek & U.S. Route 322, Downingtown, Chester County, PA

Filter Function for Wavefront Sensing Over a Field of View

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dean, Bruce H.

2007-01-01

A filter function has been derived as a means of optimally weighting the wavefront estimates obtained in image-based phase retrieval performed at multiple points distributed over the field of view of a telescope or other optical system. When the data obtained in wavefront sensing and, more specifically, image-based phase retrieval, are used for controlling the shape of a deformable mirror or other optic used to correct the wavefront, the control law obtained by use of the filter function gives a more balanced optical performance over the field of view than does a wavefront-control law obtained by use of a wavefront estimate obtained from a single point in the field of view.

10. GENERAL VIEW LOOKING EAST SHOWING OPEN HEADRACE PLANKED OVER ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

10. GENERAL VIEW LOOKING EAST SHOWING OPEN HEADRACE PLANKED OVER - American Falls Water, Power & Light Company, Island Power Plant, Snake River, below American Falls Dam, American Falls, Power County, ID

Three dimensional Visualization of Jupiter's Equatorial Region

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Frames from a three dimensional visualization of Jupiter's equatorial region. The images used cover an area of 34,000 kilometers by 11,000 kilometers (about 21,100 by 6,800 miles) near an equatorial 'hotspot' similar to the site where the probe from NASA's Galileo spacecraft entered Jupiter's atmosphere on December 7th, 1995. These features are holes in the bright, reflective, equatorial cloud layer where warmer thermal emission from Jupiter's deep atmosphere can pass through. The circulation patterns observed here along with the composition measurements from the Galileo Probe suggest that dry air may be converging and sinking over these regions, maintaining their cloud-free appearance. The bright clouds to the right of the hotspot as well as the other bright features may be examples of upwelling of moist air and condensation.

This frame is a view to the west, from between the cloud layers and over the patchy white clouds to the east of the hotspot. This is probably an area where moist convection is occurring over large horizontal distances, similar to the atmosphere over the equatorial ocean on Earth. The clouds are high and thick, and are observed to change rapidly over short time scales.

Galileo is the first spacecraft to image Jupiter in near-infrared light (which is invisible to the human eye) using three filters at 727, 756, and 889 nanometers (nm). Because light at these three wavelengths is absorbed at different altitudes by atmospheric methane, a comparison of the resulting images reveals information about the heights of clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. This information can be visualized by rendering cloud surfaces with the appropriate height variations.

The visualization reduces Jupiter's true cloud structure to two layers. The height of a high haze layer is assumed to be proportional to the reflectivity of Jupiter at 889 nm. The height of a lower tropospheric cloud is assumed to be proportional to the reflectivity at 727 nm divided by that at 756 nm. This model is overly simplistic, but is based on more sophisticated studies of Jupiter's cloud structure. The upper and lower clouds are separated in the rendering by an arbitrary amount, and the height variations are exaggerated by a factor of 25.

The lower cloud is colored using the same false color scheme used in previously released image products, assigning red, green, and blue to the 756, 727, and 889 nanometer mosaics, respectively. Light bluish clouds are high and thin, reddish clouds are low, and white clouds are high and thick. The dark blue hotspot in the center is a hole in the lower cloud with an overlying thin haze.

The images used cover latitudes 1 to 10 degrees and are centered at longitude 336 degrees west. The smallest resolved features are tens of kilometers in size. These images were taken on December 17, 1996, at a range of 1.5 million kilometers (about 930,000 miles) by the Solid State Imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov.

View of God as benevolent and forgiving or punishing and judgmental predicts HIV disease progression.

PubMed

Ironson, Gail; Stuetzle, Rick; Ironson, Dale; Balbin, Elizabeth; Kremer, Heidemarie; George, Annie; Schneiderman, Neil; Fletcher, Mary Ann

2011-12-01

This study assessed the predictive relationship between View of God beliefs and change in CD4-cell and Viral Load (VL) in HIV positive people over an extended period. A diverse sample of HIVseropositive participants (N = 101) undergoing comprehensive psychological assessment and blood draws over the course of 4 years completed the View of God Inventory with subscales measuring Positive View (benevolent/forgiving) and Negative View of God (harsh/judgmental/punishing). Adjusting for initial disease status, age, gender, ethnicity, education, and antiretroviral medication (at every 6-month visit), a Positive View of God predicted significantly slower disease-progression (better preservation of CD4-cells, better control of VL), whereas a Negative View of God predicted faster disease-progression over 4 years. Effect sizes were greater than those previously demonstrated for psychosocial variables known to predict HIV-disease-progression, such as depression and coping. Results remained significant even after adjusting for church attendance and psychosocial variables (health behaviors, mood, and coping). These results provide good initial evidence that spiritual beliefs may predict health outcomes.

The Blue Marble 43 Years Later

Atmospheric Science Data Center

2017-05-16

article title:  The Blue Marble 43 Years Later View larger image ... points over more than four decades apart. The iconic "Blue Marble" view on the left was taken 43 years ago on December 7, 1972 from ... points over more than four decades apart. The iconic "Blue Marble" view on the left was taken 43 years ago on December 7, 1972 from ...

The influence of friends and siblings on the physical activity and screen viewing behaviours of children aged 5–6 years: a qualitative analysis of parent interviews

PubMed Central

Edwards, M J; Jago, R; Sebire, S J; Kesten, J M; Pool, L; Thompson, J L

2015-01-01

Objectives The present study uses qualitative data to explore parental perceptions of how their young child's screen viewing and physical activity behaviours are influenced by their child's friends and siblings. Design Telephone interviews were conducted with parents of year 1 children (age 5–6 years). Interviews considered parental views on a variety of issues related to their child's screen viewing and physical activity behaviours, including the influence that their child's friends and siblings have over such behaviours. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using deductive content analysis. Data were organised using a categorisation matrix developed by the research team. Coding and theme generation was iterative and refined throughout. Data were entered into and coded within N-Vivo. Setting Parents were recruited through 57 primary schools located in Bristol and the surrounding area that took part in the B-ProAct1v study. Participants Fifty-three parents of children aged 5–6 years. Results Parents believe that their child's screen viewing and physical activity behaviours are influenced by their child's siblings and friends. Friends are considered to have a greater influence over the structured physical activities a child asks to participate in, whereas the influence of siblings is more strongly perceived over informal and spontaneous physical activities. In terms of screen viewing, parents suggest that their child's friends can heavily influence the content their child wishes to consume, however, siblings have a more direct and tangible influence over what a child watches. Conclusions Friends and siblings influence young children's physical activity and screen viewing behaviours. Child-focused physical activity and screen viewing interventions should consider the important influence that siblings and friends have over these behaviours. PMID:25976759

12. VIEW OF CANOPY OVER NORTHWEST LOADING PLATFORM, RUNNING NEARLY ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

12. VIEW OF CANOPY OVER NORTHWEST LOADING PLATFORM, RUNNING NEARLY THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE BUILDING - Oakland Army Base, Transit Shed, East of Dunkirk Street & South of Burma Road, Oakland, Alameda County, CA

14. VIEW OF CEDAR MILL CREEK TRESTLE FROM TRESTLE OVER ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

14. VIEW OF CEDAR MILL CREEK TRESTLE FROM TRESTLE OVER CEDAR MILL CREEK ON SPUR LINE, FACING SOUTHWEST - Oregon Electric Railway Westside Corridor, Between Watson & 185th Avenues, Beaverton, Washington County, OR

View of front of garage, detail of building number over ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View of front of garage, detail of building number over bay 4. - Presidio of San Francisco, Officers' Vehicles Garage, 1055 General Kennedy Avenue, Letterman Hospital Complex, San Francisco, San Francisco County, CA

11. VIEW OF CIRCULAR CAR SHOP OVER TOPS OF BOX ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

11. VIEW OF CIRCULAR CAR SHOP OVER TOPS OF BOX CARS LOOKING NORTHEAST. - Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Mount Clare Shops, South side of Pratt Street between Carey & Poppleton Streets, Baltimore, Independent City, MD

View of Steel Flume Bridge #2 crossing over wash. Looking ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View of Steel Flume Bridge #2 crossing over wash. Looking downstream, southwest - Childs-Irving Hydroelectric Project, Childs System, Flume Bridge No. 2, Forest Service Road 708/502, Camp Verde, Yavapai County, AZ

View of Steel Flume Bridge #3 crossing over Sally May ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View of Steel Flume Bridge #3 crossing over Sally May Wash. Looking northwest - Childs-Irving Hydroelectric Project, Childs System, Flume Bridge No. 3, Forest Service Road 708/502, Camp Verde, Yavapai County, AZ

3. VIEW ACROSS FOOTBRIDGE OVER DEEP LOCK, SHOWING NORTHWEST AND ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

3. VIEW ACROSS FOOTBRIDGE OVER DEEP LOCK, SHOWING NORTHWEST AND SOUTHWEST SIDES - Delaware & Raritan Canal, Locktender's House, North of Hamilton, East of George & East of Pumping Station, New Brunswick, Middlesex County, NJ

Two Views of Science--As a Student and "Vingt ans Apres"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moravcsik, Michael J.

1977-01-01

A physics professor discusses how his personal view of science has changed over 20 years; includes views on the esthetic and practical aspects of science and the way science influences one's world view. (MLH)

China Dust and Sand

Atmospheric Science Data Center

2013-04-16

... article title:  Dust and Sand Sweep Over Northeast China     View Larger Image ... these views of the dust and sand that swept over northeast China on March 10, 2004. Information on the height of the dust and an ...

4. 3/4 VIEW OF ARCH OVER ROADWAY AT SOUTH END ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

4. 3/4 VIEW OF ARCH OVER ROADWAY AT SOUTH END OF SPAN, LOOKING SW, SHOWING RIBBED ARCH CONSTRUCTION. - Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, Peacock's Lock Viaduct, Spanning Schuykill River at Reading Railroad, Reading, Berks County, PA

View looking east over coal tipple toward Friendship Hill, home ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View looking east over coal tipple toward Friendship Hill, home of Albert Gallatin, in right background behine bridge. - Monongahela Railroad, New Geneva Bridge, Spanning Monongahela River, South of Lock & Dam No. 7, New Geneva, Fayette County, PA

Aerial view looking northeast. Photograph taken over historic district looking ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Aerial view looking northeast. Photograph taken over historic district looking toward buildings 1 and 2 at right center. City of San Diego in distance. - Naval Air Station North Island, North Island, San Diego, San Diego County, CA

View east showing building 2 at left looking over seaplane ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View east showing building 2 at left looking over seaplane ramp area toward City of San Diego. - Naval Air Station North Island, Seaplane Ramps Nos. 2, 3 & 4, North Island, San Diego, San Diego County, CA

Power Law Distributions of Patents as Indicators of Innovation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Neale, Dion; Hendy, Shaun

2013-03-01

The total number of patents produced by a country (or the number of patents produced per capita) is often used as an indicator for innovation. Such figures however give an overly simplistic measure of innovation within a country. Here we present evidence that the distribution of patents amongst applicants within many countries is well-fitted to a power law distribution with exponents that vary between 1.66 (Japan) and 2.37 (Poland). We suggest that this exponent is a useful new metric for studying innovation. Using simulations based on simple preferential attachment-type rules that generate power laws, we find we can explain some of the variation in exponents between countries, with countries that have larger numbers of patents per applicant generally exhibiting smaller exponents in both the simulated and actual data. Similarly we find that the exponents for most countries are inversely correlated with other indicators of innovation, such as research and development intensity or the ubiquity of export baskets. This suggests that in more advanced economies, which tend to have smaller values of the exponent, a greater proportion of the total number of patents are filed by large companies than in less advanced countries.

Self-Learning Power Control in Wireless Sensor Networks.

PubMed

Chincoli, Michele; Liotta, Antonio

2018-01-27

Current trends in interconnecting myriad smart objects to monetize on Internet of Things applications have led to high-density communications in wireless sensor networks. This aggravates the already over-congested unlicensed radio bands, calling for new mechanisms to improve spectrum management and energy efficiency, such as transmission power control. Existing protocols are based on simplistic heuristics that often approach interference problems (i.e., packet loss, delay and energy waste) by increasing power, leading to detrimental results. The scope of this work is to investigate how machine learning may be used to bring wireless nodes to the lowest possible transmission power level and, in turn, to respect the quality requirements of the overall network. Lowering transmission power has benefits in terms of both energy consumption and interference. We propose a protocol of transmission power control through a reinforcement learning process that we have set in a multi-agent system. The agents are independent learners using the same exploration strategy and reward structure, leading to an overall cooperative network. The simulation results show that the system converges to an equilibrium where each node transmits at the minimum power while respecting high packet reception ratio constraints. Consequently, the system benefits from low energy consumption and packet delay.

Is there a risk profile for the vulnerable junior doctor?

PubMed

Byrne, D; Buttrey, S; Carberry, C; Lydon, S; O'Connor, P

2016-08-01

Mental ill health is prevalent among doctors, especially those in the early stages of postgraduate training. However, a paucity of research has examined factors predictive of psychological distress in this population. To report the findings from a multi-centre survey of mental health among junior doctors in Ireland, and assess the extent to which moderator variables (e.g., age, academic performance, nationality, etc.) alter the levels of psychological distress caused by internship. An online, anonymous, questionnaire was distributed to all interns in the Republic of Ireland in January 2012. A total of 270 interns responded to the survey (45.0 % response rate), with 48.5 % of the respondents having a score indicative of psychological distress. A regression model found that nationality, academic performance, intern training network, rating of work stressors, home stressors, and work-life balance were associated with differing levels of mental health as measured by the General Health Questionnaire-12. There is a need to consider moderator variables when examining mental health in healthcare populations to avoid drawing overly simplistic conclusions. Interns in Ireland reported particularly high levels of psychological distress compared to other studies of mental health among healthcare populations.

Dignity in health-care: a critical exploration using feminism and theories of recognition.

PubMed

Aranda, Kay; Jones, Andrea

2010-09-01

Growing concerns over undignified health-care has meant the concept of dignity is currently much discussed in the British National Health Service. This has led to a number of policies attempting to reinstate dignity as a core ethical value governing nursing practice and health-care provision. Yet these initiatives continue to draw upon a concept of dignity which remains reliant upon a depoliticised, ahistorical and decontexualised subject. In this paper, we argue the need to revise the dignity debate through the lens of feminism and theories of recognition. Postmodern feminist theories provide major challenges to what remain dominant liberal approaches as they pay attention to the contingent, reflexive, and affective aspects of care work. Theories of recognition provide a further critical resource for understanding how moral obligations and responsibilities towards others and our public and private responses to difference arise. This re-situates dignity as a highly contested and politicised concept involving complex moral deliberations and diverse political claims of recognition. The dignity debate is thus moved beyond simplistic rational injunctions to care, or to care more, and towards critical discussions of complex politicised, moral practices infused with power that involve the recognition of difference in health-care.

Measuring what matters: does 'objectivity' mean good science?

PubMed

Kayes, Nicola M; McPherson, Kathryn M

2010-01-01

While the limitations of self-report measures are clearly acknowledged, less apparent is attention to the potential limitations of their 'objective' counterparts leading to the assumption that objectivity results in more robust and scientifically valid measurement tools. This article aims to: (1) test this assumption; (2) consider the implications of advocating for a measure on the basis of its objectivity; (3) propose an alternative approach to measure selection. A critical evaluation of one 'objective' measure highlights a number of potential limitations suggesting that the apparent willingness to adopt 'objective' measures with little questioning may be misguided. The possible implications of this are discussed and include a risk to the advancement of, and capacity for, knowledge in rehabilitation; or worse, of making clinical decisions based on erroneous conclusions. Characterising a measure on the basis of objectivity (or not) assumes an overly simplistic dichotomy that is unhelpful and perhaps misleading. We argue that assessing whether a measure is fit for purpose and makes mathematical sense is the key consideration. Indeed, in some cases, using both an 'objective' measure and a subjective rating scale may be appropriate and the only way of truly capturing the phenomenon of interest.

Baleen whale infrasonic sounds: Natural variability and function

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clark, Christopher W.

2004-05-01

Blue and fin whales (Balaenoptera musculus and B. physalus) produce very intense, long, patterned sequences of infrasonic sounds. The acoustic characteristics of these sounds suggest strong selection for signals optimized for very long-range propagation in the deep ocean as first hypothesized by Payne and Webb in 1971. This hypothesis has been partially validated by very long-range detections using hydrophone arrays in deep water. Humpback songs recorded in deep water contain units in the 20-l00 Hz range, and these relatively simple song components are detectable out to many hundreds of miles. The mid-winter peak in the occurrence of 20-Hz fin whale sounds led Watkins to hypothesize a reproductive function similar to humpback (Megaptera novaeangliae) song, and by default this function has been extended to blue whale songs. More recent evidence shows that blue and fin whales produce infrasonic calls in high latitudes during the feeding season, and that singing is associated with areas of high productivity where females congregate to feed. Acoustic sampling over broad spatial and temporal scales for baleen species is revealing higher geographic and seasonal variability in the low-frequency vocal behaviors than previously reported, suggesting that present explanations for baleen whale sounds are too simplistic.

How Does Hawai’i Really Feel about the Thirty Meter Telescope?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Currie, Thayne; Ha, Richard; Imai-Hong, Amber; Silva, Jasmin; Stark, Chris S.; Naea Stevens, Dashiel

2018-01-01

In 2015, protests temporarily halted the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai’i and a Hawai’i Supreme Court decision later revoked the permit for this observatory, requiring that the permitting process be restarted. Mainland United States media sources often alternately and simplistically described the opposition to TMT as similar to creationism or as a stand against colonialism, pitting astronomers on one side and Native Hawaiians on the other side. Both of these descriptions are wildly inaccurate, despite their continued invocation. Using a combination of scientific polling and on-the-ground discussions with Hawai’i community members, we present our impression of how Hawai’i residents and Hawaiians feel about the Thirty Meter Telescope. Polls show that support for TMT is very strong (70+% island wide) and increasing over time. The Hawaiian community is either split 50/50 on TMT or now is slightly in favor of the telescope. Finally, we describe *why* Hawai’i residents are for or against the telescope. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that support for TMT often has little to do with the scientific merit of astronomy; those against TMT often do not hold a blanket opposition based on sacredness or sovereignty.

Chemically-Deduced Star Formation Histories Of Dwarf Galaxies Using Barium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Duggan, Gina; Kirby, Evan

2017-06-01

Dwarf galaxies offer a unique opportunity to study the competing forces of galaxy evolution. Their simpler history (i.e., small size, fewer major mergers, and lack of active galactic nuclei) enables us to isolate different physical mechanisms more easily. The effects of these mechanisms are imprinted on the galaxy's star formation history. Traditionally, star formation histories are determined from color-magnitude diagrams. However, chemical abundances can increase the precision of this measurement. Here we present a simplistic galactic chemical evolution model to infer the star formation history. Chemical abundances are measured from spectra obtained with Keck/DEIMOS medium-resolution spectroscopy for over a hundred red giant stars from several satellite dwarf spheroidal galaxies and globular clusters. We focus our work on iron and barium abundances because they predominantly trace Type Ia supernovae and asymptotic giant branch stars, respectively. The different timescales of these two nucleosynthetic sources can be used to measure a finely resolved star formation history, especially when combined with existing [α/Fe] measurements. These models will inform the details of early star formation in dwarf galaxies and how it is affected by various physical processes, such as reionization and tidal stripping.

Self-Learning Power Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Liotta, Antonio

2018-01-01

Current trends in interconnecting myriad smart objects to monetize on Internet of Things applications have led to high-density communications in wireless sensor networks. This aggravates the already over-congested unlicensed radio bands, calling for new mechanisms to improve spectrum management and energy efficiency, such as transmission power control. Existing protocols are based on simplistic heuristics that often approach interference problems (i.e., packet loss, delay and energy waste) by increasing power, leading to detrimental results. The scope of this work is to investigate how machine learning may be used to bring wireless nodes to the lowest possible transmission power level and, in turn, to respect the quality requirements of the overall network. Lowering transmission power has benefits in terms of both energy consumption and interference. We propose a protocol of transmission power control through a reinforcement learning process that we have set in a multi-agent system. The agents are independent learners using the same exploration strategy and reward structure, leading to an overall cooperative network. The simulation results show that the system converges to an equilibrium where each node transmits at the minimum power while respecting high packet reception ratio constraints. Consequently, the system benefits from low energy consumption and packet delay. PMID:29382072

Novel drug delivery strategies for porphyrins and porphyrin precursors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Morrow, D. I. J.; Donnelly, R. F.

2009-06-01

superficial lesions, such as actinic keratosis. In addition, photodynamic antimicrobial chemotherapy (PACT) is attracting increasing interest for the treatment of infection. However, delivery strategies for topical PDT and PACT are still based on application of rather simplistic cream and solution formulations, with little consideration given to thermodynamics, targeting or the physicochemical properties of the active agent. Purpose-designed dosage forms for topical delivery of aminolevulinic acid or its esters include creams containing penetration enhancers and/or iron chelators, pressure sensitive patches and bioadhesive patches. Such systems aim to enhance drug delivery across the stratum corneum and keratinised debris overlying neoplastic lesions and improve subsequent protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) production. The alternative to using porphyrin precursors is the use of pre-formed photosensitisers. However, owing to their relatively high molecular weights, conventional topical application is not appropriate. Innovative strategies, such as the use of needle-free injections and microneedle arrays, bypass the stratum corneum, enabling rapid and targeted delivery not only porphyrin precursors but also pre-formed photosensitisers. This presentation will review drug delivery work published to date in the fields of PDT and PACT. In addition, the benefits of employing the latest advances in pharmaceutical technology will be highlighted.

The Secreted Protease PrtA Controls Cell Growth, Biofilm Formation and Pathogenicity in Xylella fastidiosa.

PubMed

Gouran, Hossein; Gillespie, Hyrum; Nascimento, Rafael; Chakraborty, Sandeep; Zaini, Paulo A; Jacobson, Aaron; Phinney, Brett S; Dolan, David; Durbin-Johnson, Blythe P; Antonova, Elena S; Lindow, Steven E; Mellema, Matthew S; Goulart, Luiz R; Dandekar, Abhaya M

2016-08-05

Pierce's disease (PD) is a deadly disease of grapevines caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. Though disease symptoms were formerly attributed to bacteria blocking the plant xylem, this hypothesis is at best overly simplistic. Recently, we used a proteomic approach to characterize the secretome of X. fastidiosa, both in vitro and in planta, and identified LesA as one of the pathogenicity factors of X. fastidiosa in grapevines that leads to leaf scorching and chlorosis. Herein, we characterize another such factor encoded by PD0956, designated as an antivirulence secreted protease "PrtA" that displays a central role in controlling in vitro cell proliferation, length, motility, biofilm formation, and in planta virulence. The mutant in X. fastidiosa exhibited reduced cell length, hypermotility (and subsequent lack of biofilm formation) and hypervirulence in grapevines. These findings are supported by transcriptomic and proteomic analyses with corresponding plant infection data. Of particular interest, is the hypervirulent response in grapevines observed when X. fastidiosa is disrupted for production of PrtA, and that PD-model tobacco plants transformed to express PrtA exhibited decreased symptoms after infection by X. fastidiosa.

The Secreted Protease PrtA Controls Cell Growth, Biofilm Formation and Pathogenicity in Xylella fastidiosa

PubMed Central

Gouran, Hossein; Gillespie, Hyrum; Nascimento, Rafael; Chakraborty, Sandeep; Zaini, Paulo A.; Jacobson, Aaron; Phinney, Brett S.; Dolan, David; Durbin-Johnson, Blythe P.; Antonova, Elena S.; Lindow, Steven E.; Mellema, Matthew S.; Goulart, Luiz R.; Dandekar, Abhaya M.

2016-01-01

Pierce’s disease (PD) is a deadly disease of grapevines caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Xylella fastidiosa. Though disease symptoms were formerly attributed to bacteria blocking the plant xylem, this hypothesis is at best overly simplistic. Recently, we used a proteomic approach to characterize the secretome of X. fastidiosa, both in vitro and in planta, and identified LesA as one of the pathogenicity factors of X. fastidiosa in grapevines that leads to leaf scorching and chlorosis. Herein, we characterize another such factor encoded by PD0956, designated as an antivirulence secreted protease “PrtA” that displays a central role in controlling in vitro cell proliferation, length, motility, biofilm formation, and in planta virulence. The mutant in X. fastidiosa exhibited reduced cell length, hypermotility (and subsequent lack of biofilm formation) and hypervirulence in grapevines. These findings are supported by transcriptomic and proteomic analyses with corresponding plant infection data. Of particular interest, is the hypervirulent response in grapevines observed when X. fastidiosa is disrupted for production of PrtA, and that PD-model tobacco plants transformed to express PrtA exhibited decreased symptoms after infection by X. fastidiosa. PMID:27492542

Linking assumptions in amblyopia

PubMed Central

LEVI, DENNIS M.

2017-01-01

Over the last 35 years or so, there has been substantial progress in revealing and characterizing the many interesting and sometimes mysterious sensory abnormalities that accompany amblyopia. A goal of many of the studies has been to try to make the link between the sensory losses and the underlying neural losses, resulting in several hypotheses about the site, nature, and cause of amblyopia. This article reviews some of these hypotheses, and the assumptions that link the sensory losses to specific physiological alterations in the brain. Despite intensive study, it turns out to be quite difficult to make a simple linking hypothesis, at least at the level of single neurons, and the locus of the sensory loss remains elusive. It is now clear that the simplest notion—that reduced contrast sensitivity of neurons in cortical area V1 explains the reduction in contrast sensitivity—is too simplistic. Considerations of noise, noise correlations, pooling, and the weighting of information also play a critically important role in making perceptual decisions, and our current models of amblyopia do not adequately take these into account. Indeed, although the reduction of contrast sensitivity is generally considered to reflect “early” neural changes, it seems plausible that it reflects changes at many stages of visual processing. PMID:23879956

CFD Analysis of the Oscillating Flow within a Stirling Engine with an Additively Manufactured Foil Type Regenerator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qiu, Songgang; Solomon, Laura

2017-11-01

The simplistic design, fuel independence, and robustness of Stirling convertors makes them the ideal choice for use in solar power and combined heat and power (CHP) applications. A lack of moving parts and the use of novel flexure bearings allows free-piston type Stirling engines to run in excess of ten years without degradation or maintenance. The key component to their overall efficiency is the regenerator. While a foil type regenerator outperforms a sintered random fiber regenerator, limitation in manufacturing and keeping uniform spacing between the foils has limited their overall use. However, with the advent of additive manufacturing, a robust foil type regenerator can be cheaply manufactured without traditional limitations. Currently, a CFD analysis of the oscillating internal flow within the novel design was conducted to evaluate the flow loses within the system. Particularly the pressure drop across the regenerator in comparison to a traditionally used random fiber regenerator. Additionally, the heat transfer and flow over the tubular heater hear was evaluated. The results of the investigation will be used to optimize the operation of the next generation of additively manufactured Stirling convertors. This research was supported by ARPA-E and West Virginia University.

Complex capacitance in the representation of modulus of the lithium niobate crystals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alim, Mohammad A.; Batra, A. K.; Bhattacharjee, Sudip; Aggarwal, M. D.

2011-03-01

The lithium niobate (LiNbO 3 or LN) single crystal is grown in-house. The ac small-signal electrical characterization is conducted over a temperature range 35 ≤T≤150 °C as a function of measurement frequency (10 ≤f≤10 6 Hz). Meaningful observation is noted only in a narrow temperature range 59 ≤T≤73 °C. These electrical data when analyzed via complex plane formalisms revealed single semicircular relaxation both in the complex capacitance ( C*) and in the modulus ( M*) planes. The physical meaning of this kind of observation is obtained on identifying the relaxation type, and then incorporating respective equivalent circuit model. The simplistic non-blocking nature of the equivalent circuit model obtained via M*-plane is established as the lumped relaxation is identified in the C*-plane. The feature of the eventual equivalent circuit model allows non-blocking aspect for the LN crystal attributing to the presence of the operative dc conduction process. Identification of this leakage dc conduction via C*-plane is portrayed in the M*-plane where the blocking nature is removed. The interacting interpretation between these two complex planes is successfully presented.

Bidirectional measurements of surface reflectance for view angle corrections of oblique imagery

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jackson, R. D.; Teillet, P. M.; Slater, P. N.; Fedosejevs, G.; Jasinski, Michael F.

1990-01-01

An apparatus for acquiring bidirectional reflectance-factor data was constructed and used over four surface types. Data sets were obtained over a headed wheat canopy, bare soil having several different roughness conditions, playa (dry lake bed), and gypsum sand. Results are presented in terms of relative bidirectional reflectance factors (BRFs) as a function of view angle at a number of solar zenith angles, nadir BRFs as a function of solar zenith angles, and, for wheat, vegetation indices as related to view and solar zenith angles. The wheat canopy exhibited the largest BRF changes with view angle. BRFs for the red and the NIR bands measured over wheat did not have the same relationship with view angle. NIR/Red ratios calculated from nadir BRFs changed by nearly a factor of 2 when the solar zenith angle changed from 20 to 50 degs. BRF versus view angle relationships were similar for soils having smooth and intermediate rough surfaces but were considerably different for the roughest surface. Nadir BRF versus solar-zenith angle relationships were distinctly different for the three soil roughness levels. Of the various surfaces, BRFs for gypsum sand changed the least with view angle (10 percent at 30 degs).

CONTEXT VIEW ALONG EXISTING PERIMETER TRACKS LOOKING OVER IRON ORE ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

CONTEXT VIEW ALONG EXISTING PERIMETER TRACKS LOOKING OVER IRON ORE CARS TOWARDS CLEVELAND BULK TERMINAL BUILDINGS. LOOKING SOUTH. - Pennsylvania Railway Ore Dock, Lake Erie at Whiskey Island, approximately 1.5 miles west of Public Square, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, OH

Age structure and capital dilution effects in neo-classical growth models.

PubMed

Blanchet, D

1988-01-01

Economists often over estimate capital dilution effects when applying neoclassical growth models which use age structured population and depreciation of capital stock. This occurs because capital stock is improperly characterized. A standard model which assumes a constant depreciation of capital intimates that a population growth rate equal to a negative constant savings ratio is preferable to any higher growth rate. Growth rates which are lower than a negative constant savings ratio suggest an ever growing capital/labor ratio and an ever growing standard of living, even if people do not save. This is suggested because the natural reduction of the capital stock through depreciation is slower than the population decrease which is simply unrealistic. This model overlooks the fact that low or negative growth rates result in an ageing of the capital stock, and this ageing subsequently results in an increase of the overall rate of capital depreciation. In that overly simplistic model, depreciation was assumed independent of the age of the captial stock. Incorporating depreciation as a variable into a model allows a more symmetric treatment of capital. Using models with heterogenous capital, this article explores what occurs when more than 1 kind of capital good is involved in production and when these various captial goods have different lengths of life. Applying economic models, it also examines what occurs when the length of life of capital may vary. These variations correct the negative impact that population growth can have on per capital production and consumption.

Why babies should never sleep alone: a review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breast feeding.

PubMed

McKenna, James J; McDade, Thomas

2005-06-01

There has been much controversy over whether infants should co-sleep or bedshare with an adult caregiver and over whether such practises increase the risk of SIDS or fatal accident. However, despite opposition from medical authorities or the police, many western parents are increasingly adopting night-time infant caregiving patterns that include some co-sleeping, especially by those mothers who choose to breast feed. This review will show that the relationships between infant sleep patterns, infant sleeping arrangements and development both in the short and long term, whether having positive or negative outcomes, is anything but simple and the traditional habit of labelling one sleeping arrangement as being superior to another without an awareness of family, social and ethnic context is not only wrong but possibly harmful. We will show that there are many good reasons to insist that the definitions of different types of co-sleeping and bedsharing be recognised and distinguished. We will examine the conceptual issues related to the biological functions of mother-infant co-sleeping, bedsharing and what relationship each has to SIDS. At very least, we hope that the studies and data described in this paper, which show that co-sleeping at least in the form of roomsharing especially with an actively breast feeding mother saves lives, is a powerful reason why the simplistic, scientifically inaccurate and misleading statement 'never sleep with your baby' needs to be rescinded, wherever and whenever it is published.

Ideological meanings and uses of the instinct concept.

PubMed

Richards, Graham

2005-01-01

During the latter half of the 20th century it tended to be taken for granted within Psychology that "nativist" or "hereditarian" theoretical positions were intrinsically right-wing in their ideological connotations, while those of "environmentalist" positions were left-wing. In this paper, written from the perspective of a critical historian of Psychology, it is suggested that this is too simplistic. As popularly understood, the term "instinct" has at least three meanings, which differ considerably in their ethical register. It is argued that in none of these senses can unambiguous ideological implications can be drawn.

Gangnam-Style Plastic Surgery: The Science of Westernized Beauty in South Korea.

PubMed

Leem, So Yeon

2017-10-01

New beauty ideals and particular types of plastic surgery beauty have emerged in South Korea from the early twenty-first century. By defining Gangnam-style plastic surgery as a hybrid of old Westernized beauty ideals and a new science of beauty with variations and contradictions, I intend to twist the simplistic understanding of non-Western plastic surgery as an effort to resemble the white westerner's body. I also draw political implications from a case of monstrous Gangnam-style beauty made by excessive plastic surgery.

Provoking misunderstanding: a comment on Black's defence of value-free sociology.

PubMed

Hammersley, Martyn

2014-09-01

This paper is a response to a recent article dealing with the concept of value-free sociology by Donald Black. It argues that while a defence of Weber's position on the role of values in sociological research is necessary and important, what is offered by Black is counter-productive in important respects. This is because it encourages some of the misunderstandings that it is aimed at remedying and, even more importantly, offers a simplistic discussion of what are complex issues. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2014.

Alternative detox.

PubMed

Ernst, E

2012-01-01

The concept that alternative therapies can eliminate toxins and toxicants from the body, i.e. 'alternative detox' (AD) is popular. Selected textbooks and articles on the subject of AD. The principles of AD make no sense from a scientific perspective and there is no clinical evidence to support them. The promotion of AD treatments provides income for some entrepreneurs but has the potential to cause harm to patients and consumers. In alternative medicine, simplistic but incorrect concepts such as AD abound. AREAS TIMELY FOR RESEARCH: All therapeutic claims should be scientifically tested before being advertised-and AD cannot be an exception.

Materials Substitution and Recycling. Proceedings of the Meeting of the Structures and Materials Panel (57th) Held at Vimeiro, Portugal on 14-19 October 1983.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-04-01

34Substitution et Recyclage die Mattrisux Hautes Tinpiraturic- Ar. r T~I __ T-71 01t -Jo PREFACE IM Rdeence SESSION I - INTRODUCTION THE NATURE OF THE...hafnium, manganese, niobium, titanium, tungsten and vanadium are all considered to a degree a! risk. 1. INTRODUCTION Much simplistic polemic has...action is improved scrap separation at all steps of the material cycle. The influence of no-scrap-technologies is discussed. 1. INTRODUCTION The

Optical EVPA rotations in blazars: testing a stochastic variability model with RoboPol data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kiehlmann, S.; Blinov, D.; Pearson, T. J.; Liodakis, I.

2017-12-01

We identify rotations of the polarization angle in a sample of blazars observed for three seasons with the RoboPol instrument. A simplistic stochastic variability model is tested against this sample of rotation events. The model is capable of producing samples of rotations with parameters similar to the observed ones, but fails to reproduce the polarization fraction at the same time. Even though we can neither accept nor conclusively reject the model, we point out various aspects of the observations that are fully consistent with a random walk process.

Exploring Biomedicalization Through Complementary and Alternative Medicine in a Postsocialist Context.

PubMed

Klepal, Jaroslav; Stöckelová, Tereza

2018-06-20

Drawing on fieldwork in the postsocialist Czech Republic, we explore the transformative processes of biomedicalization, both within and in relation to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). We argue that it would be simplistic to understand evidence of these processes in CAM as a sign that CAM has fallen prey to biomedicine. Instead, we show how particular CAM practices play a groundbreaking role in shaping developments in contemporary health care. In this respect, we question the utility of the concept of biomedicalization, arguing that it reduces the transformative processes to aspects of biomedicine.

The dynamics of fresh fruit and vegetable pricing in the supermarket channel.

PubMed

McLaughlin, Edward W

2004-09-01

This paper explains the major factors that contribute to the complicated price formation process, as several levels, of fresh fruit and vegetables in the US. Several factors are explored: marketing channels, market structure changes, pricing techniques and promotional impacts, retail responses to supply changes, and price versus value. The paper illustrates with recent examples and research findings that the fresh produce system is dynamic and that simplistic solutions to complex problems are not likely. The paper finishes by suggesting some areas for needed additional research.

Helminthiasis, bystander diseases and vaccines: analysis of interaction.

PubMed

Markus, Miles B; Fincham, John E

2007-11-01

Helminthiasis has assumed a new medical and veterinary significance following the recognition of its immunomodulatory consequences for the severity of bystander conditions and the efficacy of immunization against non-helminthic diseases of humans and livestock. Recent papers by Jackson et al. and Turner et al. have an important bearing on research in these areas. One of the implications of their work is that the parasitological criterion of egg-positivity versus egg-negativity is too simplistic to use in co-infection and related studies unless accompanied by immunological analysis.

Quantum chemical study of the mechanism of action of vitamin K epoxide reductase (VKOR)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deerfield, David, II; Davis, Charles H.; Wymore, Troy; Stafford, Darrel W.; Pedersen, Lee G.

Possible model, but simplistic, mechanisms for the action of vitamin K epoxide reductase (VKOR) are investigated with quantum mechanical methods (B3LYP/6-311G**). The geometries of proposed model intermediates in the mechanisms are energy optimized. Finally, the energetics of the proposed (pseudo-enzymatic) pathways are compared. We find that the several pathways are all energetically feasible. These results will be useful for designing quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical method (QM/MM) studies of the enzymatic pathway once three-dimensional structural data are determined and available for VKOR.

The clouds of Venus. [physical and chemical properties

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Young, A. T.

1975-01-01

The physical and chemical properties of the clouds of Venus are reviewed, with special emphasis on data that are related to cloud dynamics. None of the currently-popular interpretations of cloud phenomena on Venus is consistent with all the data. Either a considerable fraction of the observational evidence is faulty or has been misinterpreted, or the clouds of Venus are much more complex than the current simplistic models. Several lines of attack are suggested to resolve some of the contradictions. A sound understanding of the clouds appears to be several years in the future.

Parental modelling, media equipment and screen-viewing among young children: cross-sectional study

PubMed Central

Jago, Russell; Sebire, Simon J; Lucas, Patricia J; Turner, Katrina M; Bentley, Georgina F; Goodred, Joanna K; Stewart-Brown, Sarah; Fox, Kenneth R

2013-01-01

Objective To examine whether parental screen-viewing, parental attitudes or access to media equipment were associated with the screen-viewing of 6-year-old to 8-year-old children. Design Cross-sectional survey. Setting Online survey. Main outcome Parental report of the number of hours per weekday that they and, separately, their 6-year-old to 8-year-old child spent watching TV, using a games console, a smart-phone and multiscreen viewing. Parental screen-viewing, parental attitudes and pieces of media equipment were exposures. Results Over 75% of the parents and 62% of the children spent more than 2 h/weekday watching TV. Over two-thirds of the parents and almost 40% of the children spent more than an hour per day multiscreen viewing. The mean number of pieces of media equipment in the home was 5.9 items, with 1.3 items in the child's bedroom. Children who had parents who spent more than 2 h/day watching TV were over 7.8 times more likely to exceed the 2 h threshold. Girls and boys who had a parent who spent an hour or more multiscreen viewing were 34 times more likely to also spend more than an hour per day multiscreen viewing. Media equipment in the child's bedroom was associated with higher TV viewing, computer time and multiscreen viewing. Each increment in the parental agreement that watching TV was relaxing for their child was associated with a 49% increase in the likelihood that the child spent more than 2 h/day watching TV. Conclusions Children who have parents who engage in high levels of screen-viewing are more likely to engage in high levels of screen-viewing. Access to media equipment, particularly in the child's bedroom, was associated with higher levels of screen-viewing. Family-based strategies to reduce screen-viewing and limit media equipment access may be important ways to reduce child screen-viewing. PMID:23619088

A view over Rock Creek Canyon off Bridge 232 looking ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

A view over Rock Creek Canyon off Bridge 23-2 looking north at Milepost 23.26 - Camas Prairie Railroad, Second Subdivision, From Spalding in Nez Perce County, through Lewis County, to Grangeville in Idaho County, Spalding, Nez Perce County, ID

Detail, view, underside of halfthrough girder span over entrance to ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Detail, view, underside of half-through girder span over entrance to scrap yard at western end of trestle. Note that abutment is slightly skewed. - Pennsylvania Railroad, French Creek Trestle, Spanning French Creek, north of Paradise Street, Phoenixville, Chester County, PA

The influence of friends and siblings on the physical activity and screen viewing behaviours of children aged 5-6 years: a qualitative analysis of parent interviews.

PubMed

Edwards, M J; Jago, R; Sebire, S J; Kesten, J M; Pool, L; Thompson, J L

2015-05-14

The present study uses qualitative data to explore parental perceptions of how their young child's screen viewing and physical activity behaviours are influenced by their child's friends and siblings. Telephone interviews were conducted with parents of year 1 children (age 5-6 years). Interviews considered parental views on a variety of issues related to their child's screen viewing and physical activity behaviours, including the influence that their child's friends and siblings have over such behaviours. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using deductive content analysis. Data were organised using a categorisation matrix developed by the research team. Coding and theme generation was iterative and refined throughout. Data were entered into and coded within N-Vivo. Parents were recruited through 57 primary schools located in Bristol and the surrounding area that took part in the B-ProAct1v study. Fifty-three parents of children aged 5-6 years. Parents believe that their child's screen viewing and physical activity behaviours are influenced by their child's siblings and friends. Friends are considered to have a greater influence over the structured physical activities a child asks to participate in, whereas the influence of siblings is more strongly perceived over informal and spontaneous physical activities. In terms of screen viewing, parents suggest that their child's friends can heavily influence the content their child wishes to consume, however, siblings have a more direct and tangible influence over what a child watches. Friends and siblings influence young children's physical activity and screen viewing behaviours. Child-focused physical activity and screen viewing interventions should consider the important influence that siblings and friends have over these behaviours. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

The role of python eggshell permeability dynamics in a respiration-hydration trade-off.

PubMed

Stahlschmidt, Zachary R; Heulin, Benoit; DeNardo, Dale F

2010-01-01

Parental care is taxonomically widespread because it improves developmental conditions and thus fitness of offspring. Although relatively simplistic compared with parental behaviors of other taxa, python egg-brooding behavior exemplifies parental care because it mediates a trade-off between embryonic respiration and hydration. However, because egg brooding increases gas-exchange resistance between embryonic and nest environments and because female pythons do not adjust their brooding behavior in response to the increasing metabolic requirements of developing offspring, python egg brooding imposes hypoxic costs on embryos during the late stages of incubation. We conducted a series of experiments to determine whether eggshells coadapted with brooding behavior to minimize the negative effects of developmental hypoxia. We tested the hypotheses that python eggshells (1) increase permeability over time to accommodate increasing embryonic respiration and (2) exhibit permeability plasticity in response to chronic hypoxia. Over incubation, we serially measured the atomic and structural components of Children's python (Antaresia childreni) eggshells as well as in vivo and in vitro gas exchange across eggshells. In support of our first hypothesis, A. childreni eggshells exhibited a reduced fibrous layer, became more permeable, and facilitated greater gas exchange as incubation progressed. Our second hypothesis was not supported, as incubation O(2) concentration did not affect the shells' permeabilities to O(2) and H(2)O vapor. Our results suggest that python eggshell permeability changes during incubation but that the alterations over time are fixed and independent of environmental conditions. These findings are of broad evolutionary interest because they demonstrate that, even in relatively simple parental-care models, successful parent-offspring relationships depend on adjustments made by both the parent (i.e., egg-brooding behavioral shifts) and the offspring (i.e., changes in eggshell permeability).

Quantifying salinity-induced changes on estuarine benthic fauna: The potential implications of climate change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Little, S.; Wood, P. J.; Elliott, M.

2017-11-01

Coastal and estuarine systems worldwide are under threat from global climate change, with potential consequences including an increase in salinities and incursion of saltwater into areas currently subject to tidal and non-tidal freshwater regimes. It is commonly assumed that climate-driven increases in estuarine salinities and saline incursion will be directly reflected in an upstream shift in species distributions and patterns of community composition based on salinity tolerance. This study examined the responses of benthos to medium-term salinity changes in two macrotidal river-estuary systems in SE England to test whether these responses may be representative of climate-induced salinity changes over the long-term. The study reinforced the effect of salinity, related to tidal incursion, as the primary environmental driver of benthic species distribution and community composition. Salinity, however, acted within a hierarchy of factors followed by substratum type, with biotic competition and predator-prey relationships superimposed on these. The assumption that increasing salinities will be directly reflected in a shift in species distributions and patterns of community composition upstream over the long-term was shown to be over simplistic and not representative of a complex and highly variable system. Relative Sea Level Rise (RSLR) projections were predicted to increase estuarine salinities and saline incursion in the study estuaries, which together with projected reductions in river flow will have important consequences for estuarine structure and function, particularly in tidal limnetic zones, despite estuarine communities being pre-adapted to cope with fluctuating salinities. The study identified, however, that limnic-derived fauna inhabiting these zones may demonstrate greater tolerance to salinity change than is currently recognised, and may persist where salinity increases are gradual and zones unbounded.

Advanced scoring method of eco-efficiency in European cities.

PubMed

Moutinho, Victor; Madaleno, Mara; Robaina, Margarita; Villar, José

2018-01-01

This paper analyzes a set of selected German and French cities' performance in terms of the relative behavior of their eco-efficiencies, computed as the ratio of their gross domestic product (GDP) over their CO 2 emissions. For this analysis, eco-efficiency scores of the selected cities are computed using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique, taking the eco-efficiencies as outputs, and the inputs being the energy consumption, the population density, the labor productivity, the resource productivity, and the patents per inhabitant. Once DEA results are analyzed, the Malmquist productivity indexes (MPI) are used to assess the time evolution of the technical efficiency, technological efficiency, and productivity of the cities over the window periods 2000 to 2005 and 2005 to 2008. Some of the main conclusions are that (1) most of the analyzed cities seem to have suboptimal scales, being one of the causes of their inefficiency; (2) there is evidence that high GDP over CO 2 emissions does not imply high eco-efficiency scores, meaning that DEA like approaches are useful to complement more simplistic ranking procedures, pointing out potential inefficiencies at the input levels; (3) efficiencies performed worse during the period 2000-2005 than during the period 2005-2008, suggesting the possibility of corrective actions taken during or at the end of the first period but impacting only on the second period, probably due to an increasing environmental awareness of policymakers and governors; and (4) MPI analysis shows a positive technological evolution of all cities, according to the general technological evolution of the reference cities, reflecting a generalized convergence of most cities to their technological frontier and therefore an evolution in the right direction.

Okavango Delta, Botswana as seen from STS-66 shuttle Atlantis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1994-01-01

This November 1994 view looking south-southeast shows clouds over the Okavango Delta area of northern Botswana. The Okavango is one of the wilder, less spoiled regions of Africa. The Okavango River (lower left of view) brings water from the high, wet plateaus of Angola into the Kalahari Dessert, and enormous inland basin. As a result of a series of small faults (upper center of the view) related to the African Rift System, the river is dammed up in the form of a swampy inland delta. The visual patterns of the area are strongly linear: straight sand dunes occur in many places and can be seen across the bottom portion of the photograph. Numerous brush-fire scars produce a complex, straight-edged pattern over much of the lower portion of this view. Lake Ngami (upper right of view) was once permanently full as late as the middle 1800s. Changes in the climate of the area over the last 100 years has changed the size and shape of the inland delta.

Viewing 3D TV over two months produces no discernible effects on balance, coordination or eyesight

PubMed Central

Read, Jenny C.A.; Godfrey, Alan; Bohr, Iwo; Simonotto, Jennifer; Galna, Brook; Smulders, Tom V.

2016-01-01

Abstract With the rise in stereoscopic 3D media, there has been concern that viewing stereoscopic 3D (S3D) content could have long-term adverse effects, but little data are available. In the first study to address this, 28 households who did not currently own a 3D TV were given a new TV set, either S3D or 2D. The 116 members of these households all underwent tests of balance, coordination and eyesight, both before they received their new TV set, and after they had owned it for 2 months. We did not detect any changes which appeared to be associated with viewing 3D TV. We conclude that viewing 3D TV does not produce detectable effects on balance, coordination or eyesight over the timescale studied. Practitioner Summary: Concern has been expressed over possible long-term effects of stereoscopic 3D (S3D). We looked for any changes in vision, balance and coordination associated with normal home S3D TV viewing in the 2 months after first acquiring a 3D TV. We find no evidence of any changes over this timescale. PMID:26758965

DETAIL OF GABLE VENT OVER CARPORT. VIEW FACING SOUTHEAST ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

DETAIL OF GABLE VENT OVER CARPORT. VIEW FACING SOUTHEAST - Camp H.M. Smith and Navy Public Works Center Manana Title VII (Capehart) Housing, Three-Bedroom Single-Family Type 9, Birch Circle, Elm Drive, Elm Circle, and Date Drive, Pearl City, Honolulu County, HI

Beyond Low-Rank Representations: Orthogonal clustering basis reconstruction with optimized graph structure for multi-view spectral clustering.

PubMed

Wang, Yang; Wu, Lin

2018-07-01

Low-Rank Representation (LRR) is arguably one of the most powerful paradigms for Multi-view spectral clustering, which elegantly encodes the multi-view local graph/manifold structures into an intrinsic low-rank self-expressive data similarity embedded in high-dimensional space, to yield a better graph partition than their single-view counterparts. In this paper we revisit it with a fundamentally different perspective by discovering LRR as essentially a latent clustered orthogonal projection based representation winged with an optimized local graph structure for spectral clustering; each column of the representation is fundamentally a cluster basis orthogonal to others to indicate its members, which intuitively projects the view-specific feature representation to be the one spanned by all orthogonal basis to characterize the cluster structures. Upon this finding, we propose our technique with the following: (1) We decompose LRR into latent clustered orthogonal representation via low-rank matrix factorization, to encode the more flexible cluster structures than LRR over primal data objects; (2) We convert the problem of LRR into that of simultaneously learning orthogonal clustered representation and optimized local graph structure for each view; (3) The learned orthogonal clustered representations and local graph structures enjoy the same magnitude for multi-view, so that the ideal multi-view consensus can be readily achieved. The experiments over multi-view datasets validate its superiority, especially over recent state-of-the-art LRR models. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

14. VIEW OF DISCHARGE OVER SPILLWAY CREST FROM WEST RETAINING ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

14. VIEW OF DISCHARGE OVER SPILLWAY CREST FROM WEST RETAINING WALL, FACING EAST. WATER ELEVATION MEASURED 4.8 FEET ABOVE CREST. December 1933 - Cushman No. 1 Hydroelectric Power Plant, Spillway, North Fork of Skokomish River, 5 miles West of Hood Canal, Hoodsport, Mason County, WA

INTERIOR VIEW, WEST CHAMBER OVER THE SALOON FROM THE EAST. ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

INTERIOR VIEW, WEST CHAMBER OVER THE SALOON FROM THE EAST. THE SIX-PANEL DOOR VISIBLE IN THE MAIN PASSAGE OPENS ONTO THE ATTIC STAIRS. THE SERVICE STAIR DOES NOT EXTEND CONTINUOUSLY FROM CELLAR TO ATTIC - The Woodlands, 4000 Woodlands Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Temporally diverse firing patterns in olfactory receptor neurons underlie spatiotemporal neural codes for odors

PubMed Central

Raman, Baranidharan; Joseph, Joby; Tang, Jeff; Stopfer, Mark

2010-01-01

Odorants are represented as spatiotemporal patterns of spikes in neurons of the antennal lobe (AL, insects) and olfactory bulb (OB, vertebrates). These response patterns have been thought to arise primarily from interactions within the AL/OB, an idea supported, in part, by the assumption that olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) respond to odorants with simple firing patterns. However, activating the AL directly with simple pulses of current evoked responses in AL neurons that were much less diverse, complex, and enduring than responses elicited by odorants. Similarly, models of the AL driven by simplistic inputs generated relatively simple output. How then are dynamic neural codes for odors generated? Consistent with recent results from several other species, our recordings from locust ORNs showed a great diversity of temporal structure. Further, we found that, viewed as a population, many response features of ORNs were remarkably similar to those observed within the AL. Using a set of computational models constrained by our electrophysiological recordings, we found that the temporal heterogeneity of responses of ORNs critically underlies the generation of spatiotemporal odor codes in the AL. A test then performed in vivo confirmed that, given temporally homogeneous input, the AL cannot create diverse spatiotemporal patterns on its own; however, given temporally heterogeneous input, the AL generated realistic firing patterns. Finally, given the temporally structured input provided by ORNs, we clarified several separate, additional contributions of the AL to olfactory information processing. Thus, our results demonstrate the origin and subsequent reformatting of spatiotemporal neural codes for odors. PMID:20147528

Metacognitions and emotional schemas: a new cognitive perspective for the distinction between unipolar and bipolar depression.

PubMed

Batmaz, Sedat; Ulusoy Kaymak, Semra; Kocbiyik, Sibel; Turkcapar, Mehmet Hakan

2014-10-01

Clinicians need to make the differential diagnosis of unipolar and bipolar depression to guide their treatment choices. Looking at the differences observed in the metacognitions, and the emotional schemas, might help with this differentiation, and might provide information about the distinct psychotherapeutical targets. Three groups of subjects (166 unipolar depressed, 140 bipolar depressed, and 151 healthy controls) were asked to fill out the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30), and the Leahy Emotional Schema Scale (LESS). The clinicians diagnosed the volunteers according to the criteria of DSM-IV-TR with a structured clinical interview (MINI), and rated the moods of the subjects with the Montgomery Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS). Statistical analyses were undertaken to identify the group differences on the MCQ-30, and the LESS. The bipolar and unipolar depressed patients' scores on the MCQ-30 were significantly different from the healthy controls, but not from each other. On the LESS dimensions of guilt, duration, blame, validation, and acceptance of feelings, all three groups significantly differed from each other. There were no statistically different results on the LESS dimensions of comprehensibility, consensus, and expression. The mood disordered groups scored significantly different than the healthy controls on the LESS dimensions of simplistic view of emotions, numbness, rationality, rumination, higher values, and control. These results suggest that the metacognitive model of unipolar depression might be extrapolated for patients with bipolar depression. These results are also compatible to a great extent with the emotional schema theory of depression. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Asymmetric competition for nectar between a large nectar thief and a small pollinator: an energetic point of view.

PubMed

Padyšáková, Eliška; Okrouhlík, Jan; Brown, Mark; Bartoš, Michael; Janeček, Štěpán

2017-04-01

There are two alternative hypotheses related to body size and competition for restricted food sources. The first one supposes that larger animals are superior competitors because of their increased feeding abilities, whereas the second one assumes superiority of smaller animals because of their lower food requirements. We examined the relationship between two unrelated species of different size, drinking technique, energy requirements and roles in plant pollination system, to reveal the features of their competitive interaction and mechanisms enabling their co-existence while utilising the same nectar source. We observed diurnal feeding behaviour of the main pollinator, the carpenter bee Xylocopa caffra and a nectar thief, the northern double-collared sunbird Cinnyris reichenowi on 19 clumps of Hypoestes aristata (Acanthaceae) in Bamenda Highlands, Cameroon. For comparative purpose, we established a simplistic model of daily energy expenditure and daily energy intake by both visitor species assuming that they spend all available daytime feeding on H. aristata. We revealed the energetic gain-expenditure balance of the studied visitor species in relation to diurnal changes in nectar quality and quantity. In general, smaller energy requirements and related ability to utilise smaller resources made the main pollinator X. caffra competitively superior to the larger nectar thief C. reichenowi. Nevertheless, sunbirds are endowed with several mechanisms to reduce asymmetry in exploitative competition, such as the use of nectar resources in times of the day when rivals are inactive, aggressive attacks on carpenter bees while defending the nectar plants, and higher speed of nectar consumption.

Ethical analysis of non-medical fetal ultrasound.

PubMed

Leung, John Lai Yin; Pang, Samantha Mei Che

2009-09-01

Obstetric ultrasound is the well-recognized prenatal test used to visualize and determine the condition of a pregnant woman and her fetus. Apart from the clinical application, some businesses have started promoting the use of fetal ultrasound machines for nonmedical reasons. Non-medical fetal ultrasound (also known as 'keepsake' ultrasound) is defined as using ultrasound to view, take a picture, or determine the sex of a fetus without a medical indication. Notwithstanding the guidelines and warnings regarding ultrasound safety issued by governments and professional bodies, the absence of scientifically proven physical harm to fetuses from this procedure seems to provide these businesses with grounds for rapid expansion. However, this argument is too simplistic because current epidemiological evidence is not synchronous with advancing ultrasound technology. As non-medical fetal ultrasound has aroused very significant public attention, a thorough ethical analysis of this topic is essential. Using a multifaceted approach, we analyse the ethical perspective of non-medical fetal ultrasound in terms of the expectant mother, the fetus and health professionals. After applying four major theories of ethics and principles (the precautionary principle; theories of consequentialism and impartiality; duty-based theory; and rights-based theories), we conclude that obstetric ultrasound practice is ethically justifiable only if the indication for its use is based on medical evidence. Non-medical fetal ultrasound can be considered ethically unjustifiable. Nevertheless, the ethical analysis of this issue is time dependent owing to rapid advancements in ultrasound technology and the safety issue. The role of health professionals in ensuring that obstetric ultrasound is an ethically justifiable practice is also discussed.

E2F transcription factors and digestive system malignancies: how much do we know?

PubMed

Evangelou, Konstantinos; Havaki, Sophia; Kotsinas, Athanassios

2014-08-07

The E2F proteins comprise a family of 8 members that function as transcription factors. They are key targets of the retinoblastoma protein (RB) and were initially divided into groups of activators and repressors. Accumulating data suggest that there is no specific role for each individual E2F member. Instead, each E2F can exert a variety of cellular effects, some of which represent opposing ones. For instance, specific E2Fs can activate transcription and repression, promote or hamper cell proliferation, augment or inhibit apoptosis, all being dependent on the cellular context. This complexity reflects the importance that these transcription factors have on a cell's fate. Thus, delineating the specific role for each E2F member in specific malignancies, although not easy, is a challenging and continuously pursued task, especially in view of potential E2F targeted therapies. Therefore, several reviews are continuously trying to evaluate available data on E2F status in various malignancies. Such reviews have attempted to reach a consensus, often in the simplistic form of oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes for the E2Fs. However they frequently miss spatial and temporal alterations of these factors during tumor development, which should also be considered in conjunction with the status of the regulatory networks that these factors participate in. In the current ''Letter to the Editor'', we comment on the flaws, misinterpretations and omissions in one such review article published recently in the World Journal of Gastroenterology regarding the role of E2Fs in digestive system malignancies.

'Ain't nothin' like the real thing'. Motivation and study processes on a work-based project course in information systems design.

PubMed

Helle, Laura; Tynjälä, Päivi; Olkinuora, Erkki; Lonka, Kirsti

2007-06-01

Advocates of the project method claim that project-based learning inspires student learning. However, it has been claimed that project-based learning environments demand quite a bit of self-regulation on the part of the learner. Consequently, it was tested whether students scoring low in self-regulation of learning experienced 'friction', an incompatibility between student self-regulation and the demands posed by the learning environment. This would be manifest in cognitive processing and motivation. The target group consisted of 58 mainly third-year Finnish university students taking a mandatory project course in information systems design. During the project course, student teams completed a commissioned assignment. The study also included a matched nonequivalent comparison group composed of computer science students attending study programmes without a project-based component. Data were gathered by means of a questionnaire administered at the beginning and end of the project course and it was analysed by between-groups repeated measures ANOVA. In addition, the students on the course were interviewed. Results suggest that the work-based project model in question may indeed have a substantial motivational impact, interestingly benefitting especially those students who scored low in self-regulation. It is argued that we tend to view learning environments too simplistically. In particular, a basic distinction should be made between individual and collaborative learning contexts, since peer scaffolding, group grading and choice of group roles may explain why students scoring low in self-regulation of learning did not encounter friction as expected.

Understanding How the Subcommissural Organ and Other Periventricular Secretory Structures Contribute via the Cerebrospinal Fluid to Neurogenesis

PubMed Central

Guerra, Maria M.; González, César; Caprile, Teresa; Jara, Maryoris; Vío, Karin; Muñoz, Rosa I.; Rodríguez, Sara; Rodríguez, Esteban M.

2015-01-01

The dynamic and molecular composition of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and, consequently, the CSF physiology is much more complex and fascinating than the simplistic view held for decades. Signal molecules either transported from blood to CSF or secreted into the CSF by circumventricular organs and CSF-contacting neurons, use the CSF to reach their targets in the brain, including the pre- and postnatal neurogenic niche. The subcommissural organ (SCO), a highly conserved brain gland present throughout the vertebrate phylum, is one of the sources for signals, as well as the choroid plexus, tanycytes and CSF-contacting neurons. The SCO secretes into the fetal and adult CSF SCO-spondin, transthyretin, and basic fibroblast growth factor. These proteins participate in certain aspects of neurogenesis, such as cell cycle of neural stem cells, neuronal differentiation, and axon pathfinding. Through the CSF, the SCO-secretory proteins may reach virtually any target in the embryonic and adult central nervous system. Since the SCO continues to secrete throughout life span, it seems likely that the neurogenetic property of the SCO compounds would be targeted to the niches where neurogenesis continues in adulthood. This review is aimed to bring into discussion early and new evidence concerning the role(s) of the SCO, and the probable mechanisms by which SCO compounds can readily reach the neurogenic niche of the subventricular zone flowing with the CSF to participate in the regulation of the neurogenic niche. As we unfold the multiples trans-fluid talks between discrete brain domains we will have more tools to influence such talks. PMID:26778959

Baleen Hydrodynamics and Morphology of Cross-Flow Filtration in Balaenid Whale Suspension Feeding

PubMed Central

Werth, Alexander J.; Potvin, Jean

2016-01-01

The traditional view of mysticete feeding involves static baleen directly sieving particles from seawater using a simple, dead-end flow-through filtration mechanism. Flow tank experiments on bowhead (Balaena mysticetus) baleen indicate the long-standing model of dead-end filtration, at least in balaenid (bowhead and right) whales, is not merely simplistic but wrong. To recreate continuous intraoral flow, sections of baleen were tested in a flume through which water and buoyant particles circulated with variable flow velocity. Kinematic sequences were analyzed to investigate movement and capture of particles by baleen plates and fringes. Results indicate that very few particles flow directly through the baleen rack; instead much water flows anteroposteriorly along the interior (lingual) side of the rack, allowing items to be carried posteriorly and accumulate at the posterior of the mouth where they might readily be swallowed. Since water flows mainly parallel to rather than directly through the filter, the cross-flow mechanism significantly reduces entrapment and tangling of minute items in baleen fringes, obviating the need to clean the filter. The absence of copepods or other prey found trapped in the baleen of necropsied right and bowhead whales supports this hypothesis. Reduced through-baleen flow was observed with and without boundaries modeling the tongue and lips, indicating that baleen itself is the main if not sole agent of crossflow. Preliminary investigation of baleen from balaenopterid whales that use intermittent filter feeding suggests that although the biomechanics and hydrodynamics of oral flow differ, cross-flow filtration may occur to some degree in all mysticetes. PMID:26918630

Brain and Creativity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliverio, A.

Creativity can be considered from different points of view. Afirst possibility is to trace its natural history in mammals, mostly in non human primates. A second one is to consider mental processes, such as analogies, that may result in creative associations as evident in many fields, from arts to sciences. These two approaches lead to a better understanding of cognitive systems at the roots of creative behaviour. A third strategy relies on an analysis of primary and secondary states of mind characterizing flow and creativity. Flow, the mental state of operation in which a person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, typical of intense problem solving activities, has been explained in terms of reduced prefrontal activity. While it is not difficult to carry out tests of problem solving activity, creativity is much more elusive and it is not easy to measure it. Thus, flow has often been simplistically assimilated to creativity and it has been assumed that also creati ve performance depends on low prefrontal activity. It is instead proposed that creativity involves two consecutive steps: 1. Generation of novelty, mostly in the ventral striatum. 2. Analysis of novelty by the prefrontal cortex that transforms it into creative behaviour. The emergence of creativity has been explained through a Darwinian process based upon the classic variation-selection procedure. Thus, basal ganglia, with their implicit strategies and memories, may be regarded as a mechanism that continuously generates novelty (variation) while the prefrontal cortex, possibly its dorsolateral areas, may be considered as the computational mechanism that transforms novelty (selection) into explicit creative behaviours.

10. VIEW OF PIPING. THE BUILDING HAD OVER 700 MILES ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

10. VIEW OF PIPING. THE BUILDING HAD OVER 700 MILES OF PIPING, OF WHICH 70 MILES WERE PLUTONIUM PROCESSING LINES. THESE PROCESS LINES RAN THROUGH WALLS AND TRAVERSED SEVERAL FLOORS. (6/29/78) - Rocky Flats Plant, Plutonium Recovery Facility, Northwest portion of Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, Jefferson County, CO

6. VIEW EAST OF CEMENT PIER AND TRAFFIC DECK SUPPORT ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

6. VIEW EAST OF CEMENT PIER AND TRAFFIC DECK SUPPORT SYSTEM; NOTE FLOOR BEAMS AND STRINGERS VIEWED FROM UNDERNEATH THE BRIDGE - Water Street Bridge, County Route 119/26, over Guyandotte River, Logan, Logan County, WV

Attitudes of High School Students Toward Traditional Views of Women Workers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frye, Virginia H.; Dietz, Siegfried C.

1973-01-01

An increase in the proportion of working women over earlier years and agitation for women's rights point toward change in traditional views. This study was undertaken to determine whether traditional views, i.e., views in agreement with common stereotypes, are still prevalent. Any change in attitudes toward working women has widespread…

Improved integral images compression based on multi-view extraction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dricot, Antoine; Jung, Joel; Cagnazzo, Marco; Pesquet, Béatrice; Dufaux, Frédéric

2016-09-01

Integral imaging is a technology based on plenoptic photography that captures and samples the light-field of a scene through a micro-lens array. It provides views of the scene from several angles and therefore is foreseen as a key technology for future immersive video applications. However, integral images have a large resolution and a structure based on micro-images which is challenging to encode. A compression scheme for integral images based on view extraction has previously been proposed, with average BD-rate gains of 15.7% (up to 31.3%) reported over HEVC when using one single extracted view. As the efficiency of the scheme depends on a tradeoff between the bitrate required to encode the view and the quality of the image reconstructed from the view, it is proposed to increase the number of extracted views. Several configurations are tested with different positions and different number of extracted views. Compression efficiency is increased with average BD-rate gains of 22.2% (up to 31.1%) reported over the HEVC anchor, with a realistic runtime increase.

Unsupervised Metric Fusion Over Multiview Data by Graph Random Walk-Based Cross-View Diffusion.

PubMed

Wang, Yang; Zhang, Wenjie; Wu, Lin; Lin, Xuemin; Zhao, Xiang

2017-01-01

Learning an ideal metric is crucial to many tasks in computer vision. Diverse feature representations may combat this problem from different aspects; as visual data objects described by multiple features can be decomposed into multiple views, thus often provide complementary information. In this paper, we propose a cross-view fusion algorithm that leads to a similarity metric for multiview data by systematically fusing multiple similarity measures. Unlike existing paradigms, we focus on learning distance measure by exploiting a graph structure of data samples, where an input similarity matrix can be improved through a propagation of graph random walk. In particular, we construct multiple graphs with each one corresponding to an individual view, and a cross-view fusion approach based on graph random walk is presented to derive an optimal distance measure by fusing multiple metrics. Our method is scalable to a large amount of data by enforcing sparsity through an anchor graph representation. To adaptively control the effects of different views, we dynamically learn view-specific coefficients, which are leveraged into graph random walk to balance multiviews. However, such a strategy may lead to an over-smooth similarity metric where affinities between dissimilar samples may be enlarged by excessively conducting cross-view fusion. Thus, we figure out a heuristic approach to controlling the iteration number in the fusion process in order to avoid over smoothness. Extensive experiments conducted on real-world data sets validate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.

Water-use responses of ‘living fossil’ conifers to CO2 enrichment in a simulated Cretaceous polar environment

PubMed Central

Llorens, Laura; Osborne, Colin P.; Beerling, David J.

2009-01-01

Background and Aims During the Mesozoic, the polar regions supported coniferous forests that experienced warm climates, a CO2-rich atmosphere and extreme seasonal variations in daylight. How the interaction between the last two factors might have influenced water use of these conifers was investigated. An experimental approach was used to test the following hypotheses: (1) the expected beneficial effects of elevated [CO2] on water-use efficiency (WUE) are reduced or lost during the 24-h light of the high-latitude summer; and (2) elevated [CO2] reduces plant water use over the growing season. Methods Measurements of leaf and whole-plant gas exchange, and leaf-stable carbon isotope composition were made on one evergreen (Sequoia sempervirens) and two deciduous (Metasequoia glyptostroboides and Taxodium distichum) ‘living fossil’ coniferous species after 3 years' growth in controlled-environment simulated Cretaceous Arctic (69°N) conditions at either ambient (400 µmol mol−1) or elevated (800 µmol mol−1) [CO2]. Key Results Stimulation of whole-plant WUE (WUEP) by CO2 enrichment was maintained over the growing season for the three studied species but this pattern was not reflected in patterns of WUE inferred from leaf-scale gas exchange measurements (iWUEL) and δ13C of foliage (tWUEL). This response was driven largely by increased rates of carbon uptake, because there was no overall CO2 effect on daily whole-plant transpiration or whole-plant water loss integrated over the study period. Seasonal patterns of tWUEL differed from those measured for iWUEL. The results suggest caution against over simplistic interpretations of WUEP based on leaf isotopic composition. Conclusions The data suggest that the efficiency of whole-tree water use may be improved by CO2 enrichment in a simulated high-latitude environment, but that transpiration is relatively insensitive to atmospheric CO2 in the living fossil species investigated. PMID:19447810

Water-use responses of 'living fossil' conifers to CO2 enrichment in a simulated Cretaceous polar environment.

PubMed

Llorens, Laura; Osborne, Colin P; Beerling, David J

2009-07-01

During the Mesozoic, the polar regions supported coniferous forests that experienced warm climates, a CO(2)-rich atmosphere and extreme seasonal variations in daylight. How the interaction between the last two factors might have influenced water use of these conifers was investigated. An experimental approach was used to test the following hypotheses: (1) the expected beneficial effects of elevated [CO(2)] on water-use efficiency (WUE) are reduced or lost during the 24-h light of the high-latitude summer; and (2) elevated [CO(2)] reduces plant water use over the growing season. Measurements of leaf and whole-plant gas exchange, and leaf-stable carbon isotope composition were made on one evergreen (Sequoia sempervirens) and two deciduous (Metasequoia glyptostroboides and Taxodium distichum) 'living fossil' coniferous species after 3 years' growth in controlled-environment simulated Cretaceous Arctic (69 degrees N) conditions at either ambient (400 micromol mol(-1)) or elevated (800 micromol mol(-1)) [CO(2)]. Stimulation of whole-plant WUE (WUE(P)) by CO(2) enrichment was maintained over the growing season for the three studied species but this pattern was not reflected in patterns of WUE inferred from leaf-scale gas exchange measurements (iWUE(L)) and delta(13)C of foliage (tWUE(L)). This response was driven largely by increased rates of carbon uptake, because there was no overall CO(2) effect on daily whole-plant transpiration or whole-plant water loss integrated over the study period. Seasonal patterns of tWUE(L) differed from those measured for iWUE(L). The results suggest caution against over simplistic interpretations of WUE(P) based on leaf isotopic composition. The data suggest that the efficiency of whole-tree water use may be improved by CO(2) enrichment in a simulated high-latitude environment, but that transpiration is relatively insensitive to atmospheric CO(2) in the living fossil species investigated.

Pre Capture view of Intelsat VI Over Kennedy Space Center, Florida

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1992-01-01

In this pre-capture view of the Intelsat VI communications satellite over Kennedy Space Center, Florida (28.0N, 80.0W), the disabled satellite can be seen in a decaying orbit over the KSC launch complex. On the ground, both the older Mercury and Gemini series launch complexes can be seen south of the cape and the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle series launch complexes are north of the cape.

26. VIEW OF METAL SHED OVER SHIELDING TANK WITH CAMERA ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

26. VIEW OF METAL SHED OVER SHIELDING TANK WITH CAMERA FACING SOUTHWEST. SHOWS OPEN SIDE OF SHED ROOF, HERCULON SHEET, AND HAND-OPERATED CRANE. TAKEN IN 1983. INEL PHOTO NUMBER 83-476-2-9, TAKEN IN 1983. PHOTOGRAPHER NOT NAMED. - Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Advanced Reentry Vehicle Fusing System, Scoville, Butte County, ID

CONTEXT VIEW ALONG EXISTING PERIMETER TRACKS LOOKING OVER IRON ORE ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

CONTEXT VIEW ALONG EXISTING PERIMETER TRACKS LOOKING OVER IRON ORE CARS TOWARDS WESTERN SIDE OF CLEVELAND BULK TERMINAL BUILDINGS AND A SELF-UNLOADING IRON ORE SHIP AT DOCK. LOOKING SOUTHWEST. - Pennsylvania Railway Ore Dock, Lake Erie at Whiskey Island, approximately 1.5 miles west of Public Square, Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, OH

Resetting the Clock: The Dynamics of Organizational Change and Failure.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Amburgey, Terry L.; And Others

1993-01-01

When viewed dynamically, organizational change can be both adaptive and disruptive. When viewed over time, same forces rendering organizations inert also make them more malleable. These ideas are supported by dynamic models of organizational failure and change estimated on population of 1,011 Finnish newspaper organizations over 193 years. Change…

Three dimensional Visualization of Jupiter's Equatorial Region

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Frames from a three dimensional visualization of Jupiter's equatorial region. The images used cover an area of 34,000 kilometers by 11,000 kilometers (about 21,100 by 6,800 miles) near an equatorial 'hotspot' similar to the site where the probe from NASA's Galileo spacecraft entered Jupiter's atmosphere on December 7th, 1995. These features are holes in the bright, reflective, equatorial cloud layer where warmer thermal emission from Jupiter's deep atmosphere can pass through. The circulation patterns observed here along with the composition measurements from the Galileo Probe suggest that dry air may be converging and sinking over these regions, maintaining their cloud-free appearance. The bright clouds to the right of the hotspot as well as the other bright features may be examples of upwelling of moist air and condensation.

This frame is a view to the southeast, from between the cloud layers and over the north center of the region. The tall white clouds in the lower cloud deck are probably much like large terrestrial thunderclouds. They may be regions where atmospheric water powers vertical convection over large horizontal distances.

Galileo is the first spacecraft to image Jupiter in near-infrared light (which is invisible to the human eye) using three filters at 727, 756, and 889 nanometers (nm). Because light at these three wavelengths is absorbed at different altitudes by atmospheric methane, a comparison of the resulting images reveals information about the heights of clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. This information can be visualized by rendering cloud surfaces with the appropriate height variations.

The visualization reduces Jupiter's true cloud structure to two layers. The height of a high haze layer is assumed to be proportional to the reflectivity of Jupiter at 889 nm. The height of a lower tropospheric cloud is assumed to be proportional to the reflectivity at 727 nm divided by that at 756 nm. This model is overly simplistic, but is based on more sophisticated studies of Jupiter's cloud structure. The upper and lower clouds are separated in the rendering by an arbitrary amount, and the height variations are exaggerated by a factor of 25.

The lower cloud is colored using the same false color scheme used in previously released image products, assigning red, green, and blue to the 756, 727, and 889 nanometer mosaics, respectively. Light bluish clouds are high and thin, reddish clouds are low, and white clouds are high and thick. The dark blue hotspot in the center is a hole in the lower cloud with an overlying thin haze.

The images used cover latitudes 1 to 10 degrees and are centered at longitude 336 degrees west. The smallest resolved features are tens of kilometers in size. These images were taken on December 17, 1996, at a range of 1.5 million kilometers (about 930,000 miles) by the Solid State Imaging (CCD) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA manages the Galileo mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is an operating division of California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

This image and other images and data received from Galileo are posted on the World Wide Web, on the Galileo mission home page at URL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ galileo.

INTERIOR VIEW OF BATHROOM 1. NOTE THE ORIGINAL MOSAIC PATTERN ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

INTERIOR VIEW OF BATHROOM 1. NOTE THE ORIGINAL MOSAIC PATTERN FLOOR TILE, ASBESTOS CEMENT WALL BOARD, AND OPEN TRANSOM OVER THE SHOWER DOORWAY. VIEW FACING WEST. - Hickam Field, Officers' Housing Type D, 111 Beard Avenue, Honolulu, Honolulu County, HI

Two-stage approach to keyword spotting in handwritten documents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haji, Mehdi; Ameri, Mohammad R.; Bui, Tien D.; Suen, Ching Y.; Ponson, Dominique

2013-12-01

Separation of keywords from non-keywords is the main problem in keyword spotting systems which has traditionally been approached by simplistic methods, such as thresholding of recognition scores. In this paper, we analyze this problem from a machine learning perspective, and we study several standard machine learning algorithms specifically in the context of non-keyword rejection. We propose a two-stage approach to keyword spotting and provide a theoretical analysis of the performance of the system which gives insights on how to design the classifier in order to maximize the overall performance in terms of F-measure.

Update on Advection-Diffusion Purge Flow Model

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brieda, Lubos

2015-01-01

Gaseous purge is commonly used in sensitive spacecraft optical or electronic instruments to prevent infiltration of contaminants and/or water vapor. Typically, purge is sized using simplistic zero-dimensional models that do not take into account instrument geometry, surface effects, and the dependence of diffusive flux on the concentration gradient. For this reason, an axisymmetric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation was recently developed to model contaminant infiltration and removal by purge. The solver uses a combined Navier-Stokes and Advection-Diffusion approach. In this talk, we report on updates in the model, namely inclusion of a particulate transport model.

Plume Mitigation for Mars Terminal Landing: Soil Stabilization Project

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hintze, Paul E.

2014-01-01

Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has led the efforts for lunar and Martian landing site preparation, including excavation, soil stabilization, and plume damage prediction. There has been much discussion of sintering but until our team recently demonstrated it for the lunar case there was little understanding of the serious challenges. Simplistic sintering creates a crumbly, brittle, weak surface unsuitable for a rocket exhaust plume. The goal of this project is to solve those problems and make it possible to land a human class lander on Mars, making terminal landing of humans on Mars possible for the first time.

Growth of Primordial Black Holes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harada, Tomohiro

Primordial black holes have important observational implications through Hawking evaporation and gravitational radiation as well as being a candidate for cold dark matter. Those black holes are assumed to have formed in the early universe typically with the mass scale contained within the Hubble horizon at the formation epoch and subsequently accreted mass surrounding them. Numerical relativity simulation shows that primordial black holes of different masses do not accrete much, which contrasts with a simplistic Newtonian argument. We see that primordial black holes larger than the 'super-horizon' primordial black holes have decreasing energy and worm-hole like struture, suggesting the formation through quamtum processes.

Esthetic smile preferences and the orientation of the maxillary occlusal plane.

PubMed

Kattadiyil, Mathew T; Goodacre, Charles J; Naylor, W Patrick; Maveli, Thomas C

2012-12-01

The anteroposterior orientation of the maxillary occlusal plane has an important role in the creation, assessment, and perception of an esthetic smile. However, the effect of the angle at which this plane is visualized (the viewing angle) in a broad smile has not been quantified. The purpose of this study was to assess the esthetic preferences of dental professionals and nondentists by using 3 viewing angles of the anteroposterior orientation of the maxillary occlusal plane. After Institutional Review Board approval, standardized digital photographic images of the smiles of 100 participants were recorded by simultaneously triggering 3 cameras set at different viewing angles. The top camera was positioned 10 degrees above the occlusal plane (camera #1, Top view); the center camera was positioned at the level of the occlusal plane (camera #2, Center view); and the bottom camera was located 10 degrees below the occlusal plane (camera #3, Bottom view). Forty-two dental professionals and 31 nondentists (persons from the general population) independently evaluated digital images of each participant's smile captured from the Top view, Center view, and Bottom view. The 73 evaluators were asked individually through a questionnaire to rank the 3 photographic images of each patient as 'most pleasing,' 'somewhat pleasing,' or 'least pleasing,' with most pleasing being the most esthetic view and the preferred orientation of the occlusal plane. The resulting esthetic preferences were statistically analyzed by using the Friedman test. In addition, the participants were asked to rank their own images from the 3 viewing angles as 'most pleasing,' 'somewhat pleasing,' and 'least pleasing.' The 73 evaluators found statistically significant differences in the esthetic preferences between the Top and Bottom views and between the Center and Bottom views (P<.001). No significant differences were found between the Top and Center views. The Top position was marginally preferred over the Center, and both were significantly preferred over the Bottom position. When the participants evaluated their own smiles, a significantly greater number (P< .001) preferred the Top view over the Center or the Bottom views. No significant differences were found in preferences based on the demographics of the evaluators when comparing age, education, gender, profession, and race. The esthetic preference for the maxillary occlusal plane was influenced by the viewing angle with the higher (Top) and center views preferred by both dental and nondental evaluators. The participants themselves preferred the higher view of their smile significantly more often than the center or lower angle views (P<.001). Copyright © 2012 The Editorial Council of the Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Film viewing conditions in mammography.

PubMed

Hill, S J; Faulkner, K; Law, J; Starritt, H C

1997-04-01

A requirement for a minimum viewing box brightness of 3000 cd m-2 for reading mammograms has been widely advocated. Some recent work has challenged that opinion by reporting no significant variation in visibility of low contrast and fine detail objects over a wide range of brightness levels. This paper provides further experimental evidence to support the latter conclusion, at least over the range 1340-4190 cd m-2, and suggests that the currently recommended minimum viewing box brightness levels need to be revised. The importance of reducing room lighting levels is fully confirmed.

Protective laser beam viewing device

DOEpatents

Neil, George R.; Jordan, Kevin Carl

2012-12-18

A protective laser beam viewing system or device including a camera selectively sensitive to laser light wavelengths and a viewing screen receiving images from the laser sensitive camera. According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the camera is worn on the head of the user or incorporated into a goggle-type viewing display so that it is always aimed at the area of viewing interest to the user and the viewing screen is incorporated into a video display worn as goggles over the eyes of the user.

View of the extended SSRMS or Canadarm2 with cloudy view in the background

NASA Image and Video Library

2003-01-09

ISS006-E-16947 (9 January 2003) --- The Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) or Canadarm2 is pictured over the Bahama Islands in this digital still camera's view taken from the International Space Station (ISS).

Molecular view modeling of atmospheric organic particulate matter: Incorporating molecular structure and co-condensation of water

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pankow, James F.; Marks, Marguerite C.; Barsanti, Kelley C.; Mahmud, Abdullah; Asher, William E.; Li, Jingyi; Ying, Qi; Jathar, Shantanu H.; Kleeman, Michael J.

2015-12-01

Most urban and regional models used to predict levels of organic particulate matter (OPM) are based on fundamental equations for gas/particle partitioning, but make the highly simplifying, anonymized-view (AV) assumptions that OPM levels are not affected by either: a) the molecular characteristics of the condensing organic compounds (other than simple volatility); or b) co-condensation of water as driven by non-zero relative humidity (RH) values. The simplifying assumptions have allowed parameterized chamber results for formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) (e.g., ;two-product; (2p) coefficients) to be incorporated in chemical transport models. However, a return towards a less simplistic (and more computationally demanding) molecular view (MV) is needed that acknowledges that atmospheric OPM is a mixture of organic compounds with differing polarities, water, and in some cases dissolved salts. The higher computational cost of MV modeling results from a need for iterative calculations of the composition-dependent gas/particle partition coefficient values. MV modeling of OPM that considered water uptake (but not dissolved salts) was carried out for the southeast United States for the period August 29 through September 7, 2006. Three model variants were used at three universities: CMAQ-RH-2p (at PSU), UCD/CIT-RH-2p (at UCD), and CMAQ-RH-MCM (at TAMU). With the first two, MV structural characteristics (carbon number and numbers of functional groups) were assigned to each of the 2p products used in CMAQv.4.7.1 such that resulting predicted Kp,i values matched those in CMAQv.4.7.1. When water uptake was allowed, most runs assumed that uptake occurred only into the SOA portion, and imposed immiscibility of SOA with primary organic aerosol (POA). (POA is often viewed as rather non-polar, while SOA is commonly viewed as moderately-to-rather polar. Some runs with UCD/CIT-RH-2p were used to investigate the effects of POA/SOA miscibility.) CMAQ-RH-MCM used MCM to generate oxidation products, and assumed miscibility of SOA and POA. In a ∼500 km wide band from Louisiana through to at least North Carolina, CMAQ-RH-2p and UCD/CIT-RH-2p predicted that water uptake can increase SOA levels by as much as 50-100% (from a range of ∼1-2 μg m-3 to a range of ∼1-4 μg m-3). CMAQ-RH-MCM predicted much lower effects of water uptake on SOA levels (<10% increase). The results from CMAQ-RH-2p and UCD/CIT-RH-2p are considered more reflective of reality. In the Alabama/Georgia hotspot, both CMAQ-RH-2p and UCD/CIT-RH-2p predicted aerosol water levels that are up to nearly half the predicted SOA levels, namely ∼0.5-2 μg m-3. Such water levels in SOA will affect particle optical properties, viscosity, gas/particle partitioning times, and rates of hydrolysis and water elimination reactions.

View of clouds over Indian Ocean taken by Astronaut John Glenn during MA-6

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1962-01-01

A view of clouds over the Indian Ocean as photographed by Astronaut John H. Glenn Jr. aboard the 'Friendship 7' spacecraft on February 20, 1962. The cloud panorama illustrates the visibility of different cloud types and weather patterns. Shadows produced by the rising Sun aid in the determination of relative cloud heights.

The Controversy over Controversies: A Plea for Flexibility and for "Soft-Directive" Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Warnick, Bryan R.; Spencer Smith, D.

2014-01-01

A controversy rages over the question of how should controversial topics be taught. Recent work has advanced the "epistemic criterion" as the resolution to this controversy. According to the epistemic criterion, a matter should be taught as controversial when contrary views can be entertained on the matter without the views being…

View forward from stern showing skylight with rippled glass over ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

View forward from stern showing skylight with rippled glass over compartment c-110, officer's quarters; note manually operated capstan at center, and simulated eight inch guns in sheet metal mock-up turret; also note five inch guns in sponsons port and starboard. (p37) - USS Olympia, Penn's Landing, 211 South Columbus Boulevard, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Hot-Chemistry Structural Phase Transformation in Single-Crystal Chalcogenides for Long-Life Lithium Ion Batteries.

PubMed

Hassan, Fathy M; Hu, Qianqian; Fu, Jing; Batmaz, Rasim; Li, Jingde; Yu, Aiping; Xiao, Xingcheng; Chen, Zhongwei

2017-06-21

Tuned chalcogenide single crystals rooted in sulfur-doped graphene were prepared by high-temperature solution chemistry. We present a facile route to synthesize a rod-on-sheet-like nanohybrid as an active anode material and demonstrate its superior performance in lithium ion batteries (LIBs). This nanohybrid contains a nanoassembly of one-dimensional (1D) single-crystalline, orthorhombic SnS onto two-dimensional (2D) sulfur-doped graphene. The 1D nanoscaled SnS with the rodlike single-crystalline structure possesses improved transport properties compared to its 2D hexagonal platelike SnS 2 . Furthermore, we blend this hybrid chalcogenide with biodegradable polymer composite using water as a solvent. Upon drying, the electrodes were subjected to heating in vacuum at 150 °C to induce polymer condensation via formation of carboxylate groups to produce a mechanically robust anode. The LIB using the as-developed anode material can deliver a high volumetric capacity of ∼2350 mA h cm -3 and exhibit superior cycle stability over 1500 cycles as well as a high capacity retention of 85% at a 1 C rate. The excellent battery performance combined with the simplistic, scalable, and green chemistry approach renders this anode material as a very promising candidate for LIB applications.

An ecological approach to assessing the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance in animal and human populations

PubMed Central

Mather, Alison E.; Matthews, Louise; Mellor, Dominic J.; Reeve, Richard; Denwood, Matthew J.; Boerlin, Patrick; Reid-Smith, Richard J.; Brown, Derek J.; Coia, John E.; Browning, Lynda M.; Haydon, Daniel T.; Reid, Stuart W. J.

2012-01-01

We examined long-term surveillance data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 (DT104) isolates from concurrently sampled and sympatric human and animal populations in Scotland. Using novel ecological and epidemiological approaches to examine diversity, and phenotypic and temporal relatedness of the resistance profiles, we assessed the more probable source of resistance of these two populations. The ecological diversity of AMR phenotypes was significantly greater in human isolates than in animal isolates, at the resolution of both sample and population. Of 5200 isolates, there were 65 resistance phenotypes, 13 unique to animals, 30 unique to humans and 22 were common to both. Of these 22, 11 were identified first in the human isolates, whereas only five were identified first in the animal isolates. We conclude that, while ecologically connected, animals and humans have distinguishable DT104 communities, differing in prevalence, linkage and diversity. Furthermore, we infer that the sympatric animal population is unlikely to be the major source of resistance diversity for humans. This suggests that current policy emphasis on restricting antimicrobial use in domestic animals may be overly simplistic. While these conclusions pertain to DT104 in Scotland, this approach could be applied to AMR in other bacteria–host ecosystems. PMID:22090389

A systematic review of the traits and cognitions associated with use of and belief in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

PubMed

Galbraith, Niall; Moss, Tim; Galbraith, Victoria; Purewal, Satvinder

2018-08-01

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use is widespread despite the controversy over its effectiveness. Although previous reviews have examined the demographics and attitudes of CAM users, there is no existing review on the traits or cognitions which characterise either CAM users or those who believe in CAM effectiveness. The current systematic review set out to address these gaps in the literature by applying a narrative synthesis. A bibliographic search and manual searches were undertaken and key authors were contacted. Twenty-three papers were selected. The trait openness to experience was positively associated with CAM use but not CAM belief. Absorption and various types of coping were also positively associated with CAM use and belief. No other trait was reliably associated with CAM use or belief. Intuitive thinking and ontological confusions were positively associated with belief in CAM effectiveness; intuitive thinking was also positively associated with CAM use. Studies researching cognitions in CAM use/belief were mostly on non-clinical samples, whilst studies on traits and CAM use/belief were mostly on patients. The quality of studies varied but unrepresentative samples, untested outcome measures and simplistic statistical analyses were the most common flaws. Traits and cognition might be important correlates of CAM use and also of faith in CAM.

Comparison of Ejecta Distributions from Normal Incident Hypervelocity Impact on Lunar Regolith Simulant

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Edwards, David L.; Cooke, William; Scruggs, Rob; Moser, Danielle E.

2008-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is progressing toward long-term lunar habitation. Critical to the design of a lunar habitat is an understanding of the lunar surface environment; of specific importance is the primary meteoroid and subsequent ejecta environment. The document, NASA SP-8013, was developed for the Apollo program and is the latest definition of the ejecta environment. There is concern that NASA SP-8013 may over-estimate the lunar ejecta environment. NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) has initiated several tasks to improve the accuracy of our understanding of the lunar surface ejecta environment. This paper reports the results of experiments on projectile impact into powered pumice and unconsolidated JSC-1A Lunar Mare Regolith stimulant (JSC-1A) targets. The Ames Vertical Gun Range (AVGR) was used to accelerate projectiles to velocities in excess of 5 km/s and impact the targets at normal incidence. The ejected particles were detected by thin aluminum foil targets placed around the impact site and angular distributions were determined for ejecta. Comparison of ejecta angular distribution with previous works will be presented. A simplistic technique to characterize the ejected particles was formulated and improvements to this technique will be discussed for implementation in future tests.

The Water Suitcase of Migrants: Assessing Virtual Water Fluxes Associated to Human Migration

PubMed Central

Metulini, Rodolfo; Tamea, Stefania; Laio, Francesco; Riccaboni, Massimo

2016-01-01

Disentangling the relations between human migrations and water resources is relevant for food security and trade policy in water-scarce countries. It is commonly believed that human migrations are beneficial to the water endowments of origin countries for reducing the pressure on local resources. We show here that such belief is over-simplistic. We reframe the problem by considering the international food trade and the corresponding virtual water fluxes, which quantify the water used for the production of traded agricultural commodities. By means of robust analytical tools, we show that migrants strengthen the commercial links between countries, triggering trade fluxes caused by food consumption habits persisting after migration. Thus migrants significantly increase the virtual water fluxes and the use of water in the countries of origin. The flux ascribable to each migrant, i.e. the “water suitcase”, is found to have increased from 321 m3/y in 1990 to 1367 m3/y in 2010. A comparison with the water footprint of individuals shows that where the water suitcase exceeds the water footprint of inhabitants, migrations turn out to be detrimental to the water endowments of origin countries, challenging the common perception that migrations tend to relieve the pressure on the local (water) resources of origin countries. PMID:27124488

Reevaluating the conceptual framework for applied research on host-plant resistance.

PubMed

Stout, Michael J

2013-06-01

Applied research on host-plant resistance to arthropod pests has been guided over the past 60 years by a framework originally developed by Reginald Painter in his 1951 book, Insect Resistance in Crop Plants. Painter divided the "phenomena" of resistance into three "mechanisms," nonpreference (later renamed antixenosis), antibiosis, and tolerance. The weaknesses of this framework are discussed. In particular, this trichotomous framework does not encompass all known mechanisms of resistance, and the antixenosis and antibiosis categories are ambiguous and inseparable in practice. These features have perhaps led to a simplistic approach to understanding arthropod resistance in crop plants. A dichotomous scheme is proposed as a replacement, with a major division between resistance (plant traits that limit injury to the plant) and tolerance (plant traits that reduce amount of yield loss per unit injury), and the resistance category subdivided into constitutive/inducible and direct/indirect subcategories. The most important benefits of adopting this dichotomous scheme are to more closely align the basic and applied literatures on plant resistance and to encourage a more mechanistic approach to studying plant resistance in crop plants. A more mechanistic approach will be needed to develop novel approaches for integrating plant resistance into pest management programs. © 2012 Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Improving optimal control of grid-connected lithium-ion batteries through more accurate battery and degradation modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reniers, Jorn M.; Mulder, Grietus; Ober-Blöbaum, Sina; Howey, David A.

2018-03-01

The increased deployment of intermittent renewable energy generators opens up opportunities for grid-connected energy storage. Batteries offer significant flexibility but are relatively expensive at present. Battery lifetime is a key factor in the business case, and it depends on usage, but most techno-economic analyses do not account for this. For the first time, this paper quantifies the annual benefits of grid-connected batteries including realistic physical dynamics and nonlinear electrochemical degradation. Three lithium-ion battery models of increasing realism are formulated, and the predicted degradation of each is compared with a large-scale experimental degradation data set (Mat4Bat). A respective improvement in RMS capacity prediction error from 11% to 5% is found by increasing the model accuracy. The three models are then used within an optimal control algorithm to perform price arbitrage over one year, including degradation. Results show that the revenue can be increased substantially while degradation can be reduced by using more realistic models. The estimated best case profit using a sophisticated model is a 175% improvement compared with the simplest model. This illustrates that using a simplistic battery model in a techno-economic assessment of grid-connected batteries might substantially underestimate the business case and lead to erroneous conclusions.

How a life-like system emerges from a simplistic particle motion law.

PubMed

Schmickl, Thomas; Stefanec, Martin; Crailsheim, Karl

2016-11-30

Self-structuring patterns can be observed all over the universe, from galaxies to molecules to living matter, yet their emergence is waiting for full understanding. We discovered a simple motion law for moving and interacting self-propelled particles leading to a self-structuring, self-reproducing and self-sustaining life-like system. The patterns emerging within this system resemble patterns found in living organisms. The emergent cells we found show a distinct life cycle and even create their own ecosystem from scratch. These structures grow and reproduce on their own, show self-driven behavior and interact with each other. Here we analyze the macroscopic properties of the emerging ecology, as well as the microscopic properties of the mechanism that leads to it. Basic properties of the emerging structures (size distributions, longevity) are analyzed as well as their resilience against sensor or actuation noise. Finally, we explore parameter space for potential other candidates of life. The generality and simplicity of the motion law provokes the thought that one fundamental rule, described by one simple equation yields various structures in nature: it may work on different time- and size scales, ranging from the self-structuring universe, to emergence of living beings, down to the emergent subatomic formation of matter.

In-hive Pesticide Exposome: Assessing risks to migratory honey bees from in-hive pesticide contamination in the Eastern United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Traynor, Kirsten S.; Pettis, Jeffery S.; Tarpy, David R.; Mullin, Christopher A.; Frazier, James L.; Frazier, Maryann; Vanengelsdorp, Dennis

2016-09-01

This study measured part of the in-hive pesticide exposome by analyzing residues from live in-hive bees, stored pollen, and wax in migratory colonies over time and compared exposure to colony health. We summarized the pesticide burden using three different additive methods: (1) the hazard quotient (HQ), an estimate of pesticide exposure risk, (2) the total number of pesticide residues, and (3) the number of relevant residues. Despite being simplistic, these models attempt to summarize potential risk from multiple contaminations in real-world contexts. Colonies performing pollination services were subject to increased pesticide exposure compared to honey-production and holding yards. We found clear links between an increase in the total number of products in wax and colony mortality. In particular, we found that fungicides with particular modes of action increased disproportionally in wax within colonies that died. The occurrence of queen events, a significant risk factor for colony health and productivity, was positively associated with all three proxies of pesticide exposure. While our exposome summation models do not fully capture the complexities of pesticide exposure, they nonetheless help elucidate their risks to colony health. Implementing and improving such models can help identify potential pesticide risks, permitting preventative actions to improve pollinator health.

Addressing weight stigma in physiotherapy: Development of a theory-driven approach to (re)thinking weight-related interactions.

PubMed

Setchell, J; Gard, M; Jones, L; Watson, B M

2017-08-01

In this article, we propose a theory-driven approach to developing interventions for reducing weight stigma in physiotherapy and discuss the design and exploratory trial of such an intervention. Weight stigma has been identified in physiotherapists in empirical investigations. However, there has been little consideration of how this stigma might be addressed. We highlight Goffman's work on stigma that provides social and embodied understandings of stigma. Goffman's approach, however, is notably apolitical, ahistorical and lacks mechanisms for understanding power. We suggest that post-structuralist perspectives can provide insight into these areas. Drawing on these theories, we critically examine the literature on weight stigma reduction, finding that trials have largely been unsuccessful. We argue that this may be due to overly passive and simplistic intervention designs. As context-specific understandings are desirable, we examine the nature of physiotherapy to determine what might be relevant to (re)thinking weight in this profession. We then discuss the development of a multifactorial, active weight stigma intervention we trialed with eight physiotherapists. Supported by theory, the outcomes of the exploratory study suggest that physiotherapy-specific factors such as fostering professional reflexivity and improving understandings of stigma need to be incorporated into an active intervention that considers the complex determinants of weight stigma.

Molecular determinants of the V3 loop of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 glycoprotein gp120 responsible for controlling cell tropism.

PubMed

Chavda, S C; Griffin, P; Han-Liu, Z; Keys, B; Vekony, M A; Cann, A J

1994-11-01

We and others have identified the major determinant of cell tropism in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) as the V3 loop of glycoprotein gp120. We have conducted a detailed study of two molecularly cloned isolates of HIV-1, HIVJR-CSF and HIVNL4-3, that differ in their tropism for immortalized CD4+ cell lines, by constructing a series of site-directed mutations within the V3 loop of HIVJR-CSF based on the sequence of HIVNL4-3. The phenotypes of these mutants fall into two classes, those which are viable and those which are not. A spontaneous mutant with significantly altered growth properties was also recovered and found to have an additional single amino acid change in the V3 loop sequence. The carboxy-terminal beta-strand part of the V3 loop is the major determinant of cell tropism. However, the results presented here indicate that the functional role of the V3 loop sequences can only be interpreted properly in the context of the original gp120 backbone from which they were derived. These findings show that over-simplistic interpretation of sequence data derived from unknown mixtures of HIV variants in infected persons may be highly misleading.

An ecological approach to assessing the epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance in animal and human populations.

PubMed

Mather, Alison E; Matthews, Louise; Mellor, Dominic J; Reeve, Richard; Denwood, Matthew J; Boerlin, Patrick; Reid-Smith, Richard J; Brown, Derek J; Coia, John E; Browning, Lynda M; Haydon, Daniel T; Reid, Stuart W J

2012-04-22

We examined long-term surveillance data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhimurium DT104 (DT104) isolates from concurrently sampled and sympatric human and animal populations in Scotland. Using novel ecological and epidemiological approaches to examine diversity, and phenotypic and temporal relatedness of the resistance profiles, we assessed the more probable source of resistance of these two populations. The ecological diversity of AMR phenotypes was significantly greater in human isolates than in animal isolates, at the resolution of both sample and population. Of 5200 isolates, there were 65 resistance phenotypes, 13 unique to animals, 30 unique to humans and 22 were common to both. Of these 22, 11 were identified first in the human isolates, whereas only five were identified first in the animal isolates. We conclude that, while ecologically connected, animals and humans have distinguishable DT104 communities, differing in prevalence, linkage and diversity. Furthermore, we infer that the sympatric animal population is unlikely to be the major source of resistance diversity for humans. This suggests that current policy emphasis on restricting antimicrobial use in domestic animals may be overly simplistic. While these conclusions pertain to DT104 in Scotland, this approach could be applied to AMR in other bacteria-host ecosystems.

Biomimetic three-dimensional tissue models for advanced high-throughput drug screening

PubMed Central

Nam, Ki-Hwan; Smith, Alec S.T.; Lone, Saifullah; Kwon, Sunghoon; Kim, Deok-Ho

2015-01-01

Most current drug screening assays used to identify new drug candidates are 2D cell-based systems, even though such in vitro assays do not adequately recreate the in vivo complexity of 3D tissues. Inadequate representation of the human tissue environment during a preclinical test can result in inaccurate predictions of compound effects on overall tissue functionality. Screening for compound efficacy by focusing on a single pathway or protein target, coupled with difficulties in maintaining long-term 2D monolayers, can serve to exacerbate these issues when utilizing such simplistic model systems for physiological drug screening applications. Numerous studies have shown that cell responses to drugs in 3D culture are improved from those in 2D, with respect to modeling in vivo tissue functionality, which highlights the advantages of using 3D-based models for preclinical drug screens. In this review, we discuss the development of microengineered 3D tissue models which accurately mimic the physiological properties of native tissue samples, and highlight the advantages of using such 3D micro-tissue models over conventional cell-based assays for future drug screening applications. We also discuss biomimetic 3D environments, based-on engineered tissues as potential preclinical models for the development of more predictive drug screening assays for specific disease models. PMID:25385716

The Water Suitcase of Migrants: Assessing Virtual Water Fluxes Associated to Human Migration.

PubMed

Metulini, Rodolfo; Tamea, Stefania; Laio, Francesco; Riccaboni, Massimo

2016-01-01

Disentangling the relations between human migrations and water resources is relevant for food security and trade policy in water-scarce countries. It is commonly believed that human migrations are beneficial to the water endowments of origin countries for reducing the pressure on local resources. We show here that such belief is over-simplistic. We reframe the problem by considering the international food trade and the corresponding virtual water fluxes, which quantify the water used for the production of traded agricultural commodities. By means of robust analytical tools, we show that migrants strengthen the commercial links between countries, triggering trade fluxes caused by food consumption habits persisting after migration. Thus migrants significantly increase the virtual water fluxes and the use of water in the countries of origin. The flux ascribable to each migrant, i.e. the "water suitcase", is found to have increased from 321 m3/y in 1990 to 1367 m3/y in 2010. A comparison with the water footprint of individuals shows that where the water suitcase exceeds the water footprint of inhabitants, migrations turn out to be detrimental to the water endowments of origin countries, challenging the common perception that migrations tend to relieve the pressure on the local (water) resources of origin countries.

Toward a cumulative ecological risk model for the etiology of child maltreatment

PubMed Central

MacKenzie, Michael J.; Kotch, Jonathan B.; Lee, Li-Ching

2011-01-01

The purpose of the current study was to further the integration of cumulative risk models with empirical research on the etiology of child maltreatment. Despite the well-established literature supporting the importance of the accumulation of ecological risk, this perspective has had difficulty infiltrating empirical maltreatment research and its tendency to focus on more limited risk factors. Utilizing a sample of 842 mother-infant dyads, we compared the capacity of individual risk factors and a cumulative index to predict maltreatment reports in a prospective longitudinal investigation over the first sixteen years of life. The total load of risk in early infancy was found to be related to maternal cognitions surrounding her new role, measures of social support and well-being, and indicators of child cognitive functioning. After controlling for total level of cumulative risk, most single factors failed to predict later maltreatment reports and no single variable provided odd-ratios as powerful as the predictive power of a cumulative index. Continuing the shift away from simplistic causal models toward an appreciation for the cumulative nature of risk would be an important step forward in the way we conceptualize intervention and support programs, concentrating them squarely on alleviating the substantial risk facing so many of society’s families. PMID:24817777

3D-Printed ABS and PLA Scaffolds for Cartilage and Nucleus Pulposus Tissue Regeneration.

PubMed

Rosenzweig, Derek H; Carelli, Eric; Steffen, Thomas; Jarzem, Peter; Haglund, Lisbet

2015-07-03

Painful degeneration of soft tissues accounts for high socioeconomic costs. Tissue engineering aims to provide biomimetics recapitulating native tissues. Biocompatible thermoplastics for 3D printing can generate high-resolution structures resembling tissue extracellular matrix. Large-pore 3D-printed acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA) scaffolds were compared for cell ingrowth, viability, and tissue generation. Primary articular chondrocytes and nucleus pulposus (NP) cells were cultured on ABS and PLA scaffolds for three weeks. Both cell types proliferated well, showed high viability, and produced ample amounts of proteoglycan and collagen type II on both scaffolds. NP generated more matrix than chondrocytes; however, no difference was observed between scaffold types. Mechanical testing revealed sustained scaffold stability. This study demonstrates that chondrocytes and NP cells can proliferate on both ABS and PLA scaffolds printed with a simplistic, inexpensive desktop 3D printer. Moreover, NP cells produced more proteoglycan than chondrocytes, irrespective of thermoplastic type, indicating that cells maintain individual phenotype over the three-week culture period. Future scaffold designs covering larger pore sizes and better mimicking native tissue structure combined with more flexible or resorbable materials may provide implantable constructs with the proper structure, function, and cellularity necessary for potential cartilage and disc tissue repair in vivo.

In-hive Pesticide Exposome: Assessing risks to migratory honey bees from in-hive pesticide contamination in the Eastern United States

PubMed Central

Traynor, Kirsten S.; Pettis, Jeffery S.; Tarpy, David R.; Mullin, Christopher A.; Frazier, James L.; Frazier, Maryann; vanEngelsdorp, Dennis

2016-01-01

This study measured part of the in-hive pesticide exposome by analyzing residues from live in-hive bees, stored pollen, and wax in migratory colonies over time and compared exposure to colony health. We summarized the pesticide burden using three different additive methods: (1) the hazard quotient (HQ), an estimate of pesticide exposure risk, (2) the total number of pesticide residues, and (3) the number of relevant residues. Despite being simplistic, these models attempt to summarize potential risk from multiple contaminations in real-world contexts. Colonies performing pollination services were subject to increased pesticide exposure compared to honey-production and holding yards. We found clear links between an increase in the total number of products in wax and colony mortality. In particular, we found that fungicides with particular modes of action increased disproportionally in wax within colonies that died. The occurrence of queen events, a significant risk factor for colony health and productivity, was positively associated with all three proxies of pesticide exposure. While our exposome summation models do not fully capture the complexities of pesticide exposure, they nonetheless help elucidate their risks to colony health. Implementing and improving such models can help identify potential pesticide risks, permitting preventative actions to improve pollinator health. PMID:27628343

Role of meteorology in seasonality of air pollution in megacity Delhi, India.

PubMed

Guttikunda, Sarath K; Gurjar, Bhola R

2012-05-01

The winters in megacity Delhi are harsh, smoggy, foggy, and highly polluted. The pollution levels are approximately two to three times those monitored in the summer months, and the severity is felt not only in the health department but also in the transportation department, with regular delays at airport operations and series of minor and major accidents across the road corridors. The impacts felt across the city are both manmade (due to the fuel burning) and natural (due to the meteorological setting), and it is hard to distinguish their respective proportions. Over the last decade, the city has gained from timely interventions to control pollution, and yet, the pollution levels are as bad as the previous year, especially for the fine particulates, the most harmful of the criteria pollutants, with a daily 2009 average of 80 to 100 μg/m(3). In this paper, the role of meteorology is studied using a Lagrangian model called Atmospheric Transport Modeling System in tracer mode to better understand the seasonality of pollution in Delhi. A clear conclusion is that irrespective of constant emissions over each month, the estimated tracer concentrations are invariably 40% to 80% higher in the winter months (November, December, and January) and 10% to 60% lower in the summer months (May, June, and July), when compared to annual average for that year. Along with monitoring and source apportionment studies, this paper presents a way to communicate complex physical characteristics of atmospheric modeling in simplistic manner and to further elaborate linkages between local meteorology and pollution.

How to Appropriately Extrapolate Costs and Utilities in Cost-Effectiveness Analysis.

PubMed

Bojke, Laura; Manca, Andrea; Asaria, Miqdad; Mahon, Ronan; Ren, Shijie; Palmer, Stephen

2017-08-01

Costs and utilities are key inputs into any cost-effectiveness analysis. Their estimates are typically derived from individual patient-level data collected as part of clinical studies the follow-up duration of which is often too short to allow a robust quantification of the likely costs and benefits a technology will yield over the patient's entire lifetime. In the absence of long-term data, some form of temporal extrapolation-to project short-term evidence over a longer time horizon-is required. Temporal extrapolation inevitably involves assumptions regarding the behaviour of the quantities of interest beyond the time horizon supported by the clinical evidence. Unfortunately, the implications for decisions made on the basis of evidence derived following this practice and the degree of uncertainty surrounding the validity of any assumptions made are often not fully appreciated. The issue is compounded by the absence of methodological guidance concerning the extrapolation of non-time-to-event outcomes such as costs and utilities. This paper considers current approaches to predict long-term costs and utilities, highlights some of the challenges with the existing methods, and provides recommendations for future applications. It finds that, typically, economic evaluation models employ a simplistic approach to temporal extrapolation of costs and utilities. For instance, their parameters (e.g. mean) are typically assumed to be homogeneous with respect to both time and patients' characteristics. Furthermore, costs and utilities have often been modelled to follow the dynamics of the associated time-to-event outcomes. However, cost and utility estimates may be more nuanced, and it is important to ensure extrapolation is carried out appropriately for these parameters.

Acculturation Strategies Among South Asian Immigrants: The Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study.

PubMed

Needham, Belinda L; Mukherjee, Bhramar; Bagchi, Pramita; Kim, Catherine; Mukherjea, Arnab; Kandula, Namratha R; Kanaya, Alka M

2017-04-01

In the past, epidemiologic research on acculturation and health has been criticized for its conceptual ambiguity and simplistic measurement approaches. This study applied a widely-used theoretical framework from cross-cultural psychology to identify acculturation strategies among South Asian immigrants in the US and to examine sociodemographic correlates of acculturation strategies. Data were from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America study. We used latent class analysis to identify groups of individuals that were similar based on cultural attitudes and behaviors. We used latent class regression analysis to examine sociodemographic correlates of acculturation strategies. We found that South Asian immigrants employed three acculturation strategies, including separation (characterized by a relatively high degree of preference for South Asian culture over US culture), assimilation (characterized by a relatively high degree of preference for US culture over South Asian culture), and integration (characterized by a similar level of preference for South Asian and US cultures). Respondents with no religious affiliation, those with higher levels of income, those who lived a greater percentage of their lives in the US, and those who spoke English well or very well were less likely to use the separation strategy than the assimilation or integration strategies. Using epidemiologic cohort data, this study illustrated a conceptual and methodological approach that addresses limitations of previous research on acculturation and health. More work is needed to understand how the acculturation strategies identified in this study affect the health of South Asian immigrants in the US.

Acculturation Strategies among South Asian Immigrants: The Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study

PubMed Central

Needham, Belinda L.; Mukherjee, Bhramar; Bagchi, Pramita; Kim, Catherine; Mukherjea, Arnab; Kandula, Namratha R.; Kanaya, Alka M.

2016-01-01

Background In the past, epidemiologic research on acculturation and health has been criticized for its conceptual ambiguity and simplistic measurement approaches. This study applied a widely-used theoretical framework from cross-cultural psychology to identify acculturation strategies among South Asian immigrants in the US and to examine sociodemographic correlates of acculturation strategies. Methods Data were from the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) study. We used latent class analysis to identify groups of individuals that were similar based on cultural attitudes and behaviors. We used latent class regression analysis to examine sociodemographic correlates of acculturation strategies. Results We found that South Asian immigrants employed three acculturation strategies, including separation (characterized by a relatively high degree of preference for South Asian culture over US culture), assimilation (characterized by a relatively high degree of preference for US culture over South Asian culture), and integration (characterized by a similar level of preference for South Asian and US cultures). Respondents with no religious affiliation, those with higher levels of income, those who lived a greater percentage of their lives in the US, and those who spoke English well or very well were less likely to use the separation strategy than the assimilation or integration strategies. Conclusions Using epidemiologic cohort data, this study illustrated a conceptual and methodological approach that addresses limitations of previous research on acculturation and health. More work is needed to understand how the acculturation strategies identified in this study affect the health of South Asian immigrants in the US. PMID:26928020

Effects of illumination functions on the computation of gravity-dependent signal path variation models in primary focus and Cassegrainian VLBI telescopes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abbondanza, Claudio; Sarti, Pierguido

2010-08-01

This paper sets the rules for an optimal definition of precise signal path variation (SPV) models, revising and highlighting the deficiencies in the calculations adopted in previous studies and improving the computational approach. Hence, the linear coefficients that define the SPV model are rigorously determined. The equations that are presented depend on the dimensions and the focal lengths of the telescopes as well as on the feed illumination taper. They hold for any primary focus or Cassegrainian very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) telescope. Earlier investigations usually determined the SPV models assuming a uniform illumination of the telescope mirrors. We prove this hypothesis to be over-simplistic by comparing results derived adopting (a) uniform, (b) Gaussian and (c) binomial illumination functions. Numerical computations are developed for AZ-EL mount, 32 m Medicina and Noto (Italy) VLBI telescopes, these latter being the only telescopes which possess thorough information on gravity-dependent deformation patterns. Particularly, assuming a Gaussian illumination function, the SPV in primary focus over the elevation range [0°, 90°] is 10.1 and 7.2 mm, for Medicina and Noto, respectively. With uniform illumination function the maximal path variation for Medicina is 17.6 and 12.7 mm for Noto, thus highlighting the strong dependency on the choice of the illumination function. According to our findings, a revised SPV model is released for Medicina and a model for Noto is presented here for the first time. Currently, no other VLBI telescope possesses SPV models capable of correcting gravity-dependent observation biases.

Model selection on solid ground: Rigorous comparison of nine ways to evaluate Bayesian model evidence

PubMed Central

Schöniger, Anneli; Wöhling, Thomas; Samaniego, Luis; Nowak, Wolfgang

2014-01-01

Bayesian model selection or averaging objectively ranks a number of plausible, competing conceptual models based on Bayes' theorem. It implicitly performs an optimal trade-off between performance in fitting available data and minimum model complexity. The procedure requires determining Bayesian model evidence (BME), which is the likelihood of the observed data integrated over each model's parameter space. The computation of this integral is highly challenging because it is as high-dimensional as the number of model parameters. Three classes of techniques to compute BME are available, each with its own challenges and limitations: (1) Exact and fast analytical solutions are limited by strong assumptions. (2) Numerical evaluation quickly becomes unfeasible for expensive models. (3) Approximations known as information criteria (ICs) such as the AIC, BIC, or KIC (Akaike, Bayesian, or Kashyap information criterion, respectively) yield contradicting results with regard to model ranking. Our study features a theory-based intercomparison of these techniques. We further assess their accuracy in a simplistic synthetic example where for some scenarios an exact analytical solution exists. In more challenging scenarios, we use a brute-force Monte Carlo integration method as reference. We continue this analysis with a real-world application of hydrological model selection. This is a first-time benchmarking of the various methods for BME evaluation against true solutions. Results show that BME values from ICs are often heavily biased and that the choice of approximation method substantially influences the accuracy of model ranking. For reliable model selection, bias-free numerical methods should be preferred over ICs whenever computationally feasible. PMID:25745272

Does Viewing Pornography Diminish Religiosity Over Time? Evidence From Two-Wave Panel Data.

PubMed

Perry, Samuel L

2017-02-01

Research consistently shows a negative association between religiosity and viewing pornography. While scholars typically assume that greater religiosity leads to less frequent pornography use, none have empirically examined whether the reverse could be true: that greater pornography use may lead to lower levels of religiosity over time. I tested for this possibility using two waves of the nationally representative Portraits of American Life Study (PALS). Persons who viewed pornography at all at Wave 1 reported more religious doubt, lower religious salience, and lower prayer frequency at Wave 2 compared to those who never viewed porn. Considering the effect of porn-viewing frequency, viewing porn more often at Wave 1 corresponded to increases in religious doubt and declining religious salience at Wave 2. However, the effect of earlier pornography use on later religious service attendance and prayer was curvilinear: Religious service attendance and prayer decline to a point and then increase at higher levels of pornography viewing. Testing for interactions revealed that all effects appear to hold regardless of gender. Findings suggest that viewing pornography may lead to declines in some dimensions of religiosity but at more extreme levels may actually stimulate, or at least be conducive to, greater religiosity along other dimensions.

Tourism values for Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana) viewing

USGS Publications Warehouse

Bagstad, Kenneth J.; Widerholdt, Ruscena

2013-01-01

Migratory species provide diverse ecosystem services to people, but these values have seldom been estimated rangewide for a single species. In this article, we summarize visitation and consumer surplus for recreational visitors to viewing sites for the Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana) throughout the Southwestern United States. Public bat viewing opportunities are available at 17 of 25 major roosts across six states; on an annual basis, we estimate that over 242,000 visitors view bats, gaining over $6.5 million in consumer surplus. A better understanding of spatial mismatches between the areas where bats provide value to people and areas most critical for maintaining migratory populations can better inform conservation planning, including economic incentive systems for conservation.

Evaluating simplistic methods to understand current distributions and forecast distribution changes under climate change scenarios: An example with coypu (Myocastor coypus)

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jarnevich, Catherine S.; Young, Nicholas E; Sheffels, Trevor R.; Carter, Jacoby; Systma, Mark D.; Talbert, Colin

2017-01-01

Invasive species provide a unique opportunity to evaluate factors controlling biogeographic distributions; we can consider introduction success as an experiment testing suitability of environmental conditions. Predicting potential distributions of spreading species is not easy, and forecasting potential distributions with changing climate is even more difficult. Using the globally invasive coypu (Myocastor coypus [Molina, 1782]), we evaluate and compare the utility of a simplistic ecophysiological based model and a correlative model to predict current and future distribution. The ecophysiological model was based on winter temperature relationships with nutria survival. We developed correlative statistical models using the Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling and biologically relevant climate data with a global extent. We applied the ecophysiological based model to several global circulation model (GCM) predictions for mid-century. We used global coypu introduction data to evaluate these models and to explore a hypothesized physiological limitation, finding general agreement with known coypu distribution locally and globally and support for an upper thermal tolerance threshold. Global circulation model based model results showed variability in coypu predicted distribution among GCMs, but had general agreement of increasing suitable area in the USA. Our methods highlighted the dynamic nature of the edges of the coypu distribution due to climate non-equilibrium, and uncertainty associated with forecasting future distributions. Areas deemed suitable habitat, especially those on the edge of the current known range, could be used for early detection of the spread of coypu populations for management purposes. Combining approaches can be beneficial to predicting potential distributions of invasive species now and in the future and in exploring hypotheses of factors controlling distributions.

Impact of Diverse Hydrologic Pathways, 3D Failure Geometries, and Unsaturated Soil Suctions on Shallow Landsliding

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reid, M. E.; Iverson, R. M.; Brien, D. L.; Iverson, N. R.; Lahusen, R. G.; Logan, M.

2016-12-01

Shallow landslides and ensuing debris flows can be triggered by diverse hydrologic phenomena such as groundwater inflow, prolonged moderate-intensity precipitation, or bursts of high-intensity precipitation. However, hazard assessments typically rely on simplistic hydrologic models that disregard this diversity. We used the USGS debris-flow flume to conduct controlled, field-scale slope failure experiments designed to investigate the effects of diverse hydrologic pathways, as well as the effects of 3D landslide geometries and suction stresses in unsaturated soil. Using overhead sprinklers or groundwater injectors on the flume bed, we induced failures in 6 m3 (0.65-m thick and 2-m wide) prisms of loamy sand on a 31º slope. We used 50 sensors to monitor soil deformation, variably saturated pore pressures, and moisture changes. We also determined shear strength, hydraulic conductivity, and unsaturated moisture retention characteristics from ancillary tests. The three hydrologic scenarios noted above led to different behaviors. Groundwater injection and prolonged infiltration created differing soil moisture patterns. Intense sprinkling bursts caused rapid failure without development of widespread positive pore pressures. We simulated these observed differences numerically by coupling 2D variably saturated groundwater flow modeling and 3D limit-equilibrium analysis. We also simulated the time evolution of changes in factors of safety, and quantified the mechanical effects of 3D geometry and unsaturated soil suction on stability. When much of the soil became relatively wet, effects of 3D geometry and soil suction produced slight increases ( 10-20%) in factors of safety. Suction effects were more pronounced with drier soils. Our results indicate that simplistic models cannot consistently predict the timing of slope failure, and that high frequency monitoring (with sampling periods < 60 s) is needed to measure and interpret the effects of rapid hydrologic triggers.

Understanding Peripheral Bat Populations Using Maximum-Entropy Suitability Modeling

PubMed Central

Barnhart, Paul R.; Gillam, Erin H.

2016-01-01

Individuals along the periphery of a species distribution regularly encounter more challenging environmental and climatic conditions than conspecifics near the center of the distribution. Due to these potential constraints, individuals in peripheral margins are expected to change their habitat and behavioral characteristics. Managers typically rely on species distribution maps when developing adequate management practices. However, these range maps are often too simplistic and do not provide adequate information as to what fine-scale biotic and abiotic factors are driving a species occurrence. In the last decade, habitat suitability modelling has become widely used as a substitute for simplistic distribution mapping which allows regional managers the ability to fine-tune management resources. The objectives of this study were to use maximum-entropy modeling to produce habitat suitability models for seven species that have a peripheral margin intersecting the state of North Dakota, according to current IUCN distributions, and determine the vegetative and climatic characteristics driving these models. Mistnetting resulted in the documentation of five species outside the IUCN distribution in North Dakota, indicating that current range maps for North Dakota, and potentially the northern Great Plains, are in need of update. Maximum-entropy modeling showed that temperature and not precipitation were the variables most important for model production. This fine-scale result highlights the importance of habitat suitability modelling as this information cannot be extracted from distribution maps. Our results provide baseline information needed for future research about how and why individuals residing in the peripheral margins of a species’ distribution may show marked differences in habitat use as a result of urban expansion, habitat loss, and climate change compared to more centralized populations. PMID:27935936

Private health care expenditure and quality in Beveridge systems: cross-regional differences in the Italian NHS.

PubMed

Del Vecchio, Mario; Fenech, Lorenzo; Prenestini, Anna

2015-03-01

Private health care expenditure ranges from 15% to 30% of total healthcare spending in OECD countries. The literature suggests that there should be an inverse correlation between quality of public services and private expenditures. The main objective of this study is to explore the association between quality of public healthcare and private expenditures in the Italian Regional Healthcare Systems (RHSs). The institutional framework offered by the Italian NHS allows to investigate on the differences among the regions while controlling for institutional factors. The study uses micro-data from the ISTAT Household Consumption Survey (HCS) and a rich set of regional quality indicators. The results indicate that there is a positive and significant correlation between quality and private spending per capita across regions. The study also points out the strong association between the distribution of private consumption and income. In order to account for the influence of income, the study segmented data in three socio-economic classes and computed cross-regional correlations of RHSs quality and household healthcare expenditure per capita, within each class. No correlation was found between the two variables. These findings are quite surprising and call into question the theory that better quality of public services crowds out private spending, or, at the very least, it undermines the simplistic notions that higher levels of private spending are a direct consequence of poor quality in the public sector. This suggests that policies should avoid to simplistically link private spending with judgements or assessments about the functioning or efficacy of the public system and its organizations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cortical Spiking Network Interfaced with Virtual Musculoskeletal Arm and Robotic Arm.

PubMed

Dura-Bernal, Salvador; Zhou, Xianlian; Neymotin, Samuel A; Przekwas, Andrzej; Francis, Joseph T; Lytton, William W

2015-01-01

Embedding computational models in the physical world is a critical step towards constraining their behavior and building practical applications. Here we aim to drive a realistic musculoskeletal arm model using a biomimetic cortical spiking model, and make a robot arm reproduce the same trajectories in real time. Our cortical model consisted of a 3-layered cortex, composed of several hundred spiking model-neurons, which display physiologically realistic dynamics. We interconnected the cortical model to a two-joint musculoskeletal model of a human arm, with realistic anatomical and biomechanical properties. The virtual arm received muscle excitations from the neuronal model, and fed back proprioceptive information, forming a closed-loop system. The cortical model was trained using spike timing-dependent reinforcement learning to drive the virtual arm in a 2D reaching task. Limb position was used to simultaneously control a robot arm using an improved network interface. Virtual arm muscle activations responded to motoneuron firing rates, with virtual arm muscles lengths encoded via population coding in the proprioceptive population. After training, the virtual arm performed reaching movements which were smoother and more realistic than those obtained using a simplistic arm model. This system provided access to both spiking network properties and to arm biophysical properties, including muscle forces. The use of a musculoskeletal virtual arm and the improved control system allowed the robot arm to perform movements which were smoother than those reported in our previous paper using a simplistic arm. This work provides a novel approach consisting of bidirectionally connecting a cortical model to a realistic virtual arm, and using the system output to drive a robotic arm in real time. Our techniques are applicable to the future development of brain neuroprosthetic control systems, and may enable enhanced brain-machine interfaces with the possibility for finer control of limb prosthetics.

Multiple system modelling of waste management

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Eriksson, Ola, E-mail: ola.eriksson@hig.se; Department of Building, Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of Gaevle, SE 801 76 Gaevle; Bisaillon, Mattias, E-mail: mattias.bisaillon@profu.se

2011-12-15

Highlights: > Linking of models will provide a more complete, correct and credible picture of the systems. > The linking procedure is easy to perform and also leads to activation of project partners. > The simulation procedure is a bit more complicated and calls for the ability to run both models. - Abstract: Due to increased environmental awareness, planning and performance of waste management has become more and more complex. Therefore waste management has early been subject to different types of modelling. Another field with long experience of modelling and systems perspective is energy systems. The two modelling traditions havemore » developed side by side, but so far there are very few attempts to combine them. Waste management systems can be linked together with energy systems through incineration plants. The models for waste management can be modelled on a quite detailed level whereas surrounding systems are modelled in a more simplistic way. This is a problem, as previous studies have shown that assumptions on the surrounding system often tend to be important for the conclusions. In this paper it is shown how two models, one for the district heating system (MARTES) and another one for the waste management system (ORWARE), can be linked together. The strengths and weaknesses with model linking are discussed when compared to simplistic assumptions on effects in the energy and waste management systems. It is concluded that the linking of models will provide a more complete, correct and credible picture of the consequences of different simultaneous changes in the systems. The linking procedure is easy to perform and also leads to activation of project partners. However, the simulation procedure is a bit more complicated and calls for the ability to run both models.« less

1. GENERAL VIEW OF LAUNCH PAD A WITH MOBILE SERVICE ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

1. GENERAL VIEW OF LAUNCH PAD A WITH MOBILE SERVICE STRUCTURE IN LOCKED POSITION OVER LAUNCHER BUILDING AND RETENTION POND AT RIGHT; VIEW TO NORTHWEST. - Cape Canaveral Air Station, Launch Complex 17, Facility 28501, East end of Lighthouse Road, Cape Canaveral, Brevard County, FL

Perspective view over the Grand Canyon, Arizona

NASA Image and Video Library

2001-10-22

This simulated true color perspective view over the Grand Canyon was created from Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data acquired on May 12, 2000. The Grand Canyon Village is in the lower foreground; the Bright Angel Trail crosses the Tonto Platform, before dropping down to the Colorado Village and then to the Phantom Ranch (green area across the river). Bright Angel Canyon and the North Rim dominate the view. At the top center of the image the dark blue area with light blue haze is an active forest fire. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA01908

Partner verification: restoring shattered images of our intimates.

PubMed

De La Ronde, C; Swann, W B

1998-08-01

When spouses received feedback that disconfirmed their impressions of their partners, they attempted to undermine that feedback during subsequent interactions with these partners. Such partner verification activities occurred whether partners construed the feedback as overly favorable or overly unfavorable. Furthermore, because spouses tended to see their partners as their partners saw themselves, their efforts to restore their impressions of partners often worked hand-in-hand with partners' efforts to verify their own views. Finally, support for self-verification theory emerged in that participants were more intimate with spouses who verified their self-views, whether their self-views happened to be positive or negative.

12. General view of raceway from pedestrian bridge, showing north ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

12. General view of raceway from pedestrian bridge, showing north wall of Wilder Mill on left and stone arch bridge carrying Spicket Street and railroad righ-of-way over raceway; view to west. - Champion-International Paper Company, West bank of Spicket River at Canal Street, Lawrence, Essex County, MA

13. General view of raceway from pedestrian bridge, showing north ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

13. General view of raceway from pedestrian bridge, showing north wall of Wilder Mill on left and stone arch bridge carrying Spicket Street and railroad right-of-way over raceway; view to west. - Champion-International Paper Company, West bank of Spicket River at Canal Street, Lawrence, Essex County, MA

On subclasses of opioid analgesics.

PubMed

Raffa, Robert B

2014-12-01

The history of discovery of analgesic drugs has followed a trajectory from original serendipitous discovery of plant-derived substances to laboratory creation of customized molecules that are intentionally designed to interact with specific receptors of neurotransmitters involved in either the transmission of the pain signal or the attenuation of such a signal. The drugs most recently developed have been designed to provide incremental greater separation between pain relief and adverse effects. The result has been drugs that have individualized pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic characteristics that represent specific advances in basic science and translate into unique clinical profiles. Several of the drugs include non-opioid components. They retain some of the features of opioids, but have distinct clinical characteristics that differentiate them from traditional opioids. Thus they defy simple classification as opioids. A summary is provided of the development of the modern view of multi-mechanistic pain and its treatment using analgesics that have multi-mechanisms of action (consisting of both opioid and non-opioid components). Descriptions of examples of such current analgesics and of those that have pharmacokinetic characteristics that result in atypical opioid clinical profiles are given. By serendipity or design, several current strong analgesics have opioid components of action, but have an additional non-opioid mechanism of action or some pharmacokinetic feature that gives them an atypical opioid clinical profile and renders them not easily classified as classical opioids. An appreciation that there are now opioid analgesics that differentiate from classical opioids in ways that defy their simplistic classification as opioids suggests that recognition of subclasses of opioid analgesics would be more accurate scientifically and would be more informative for healthcare providers and regulators. This would likely lead to positive outcomes for the clinical use and regulatory control of the current drugs, and provide direction/strategy for the discovery of new drugs.

Implicit membrane treatment of buried charged groups: application to peptide translocation across lipid bilayers.

PubMed

Lazaridis, Themis; Leveritt, John M; PeBenito, Leo

2014-09-01

The energetic cost of burying charged groups in the hydrophobic core of lipid bilayers has been controversial, with simulations giving higher estimates than certain experiments. Implicit membrane approaches are usually deemed too simplistic for this problem. Here we challenge this view. The free energy of transfer of amino acid side chains from water to the membrane center predicted by IMM1 is reasonably close to all-atom free energy calculations. The shape of the free energy profile, however, for the charged side chains needs to be modified to reflect the all-atom simulation findings (IMM1-LF). Membrane thinning is treated by combining simulations at different membrane widths with an estimate of membrane deformation free energy from elasticity theory. This approach is first tested on the voltage sensor and the isolated S4 helix of potassium channels. The voltage sensor is stably inserted in a transmembrane orientation for both the original and the modified model. The transmembrane orientation of the isolated S4 helix is unstable in the original model, but a stable local minimum in IMM1-LF, slightly higher in energy than the interfacial orientation. Peptide translocation is addressed by mapping the effective energy of the peptide as a function of vertical position and tilt angle, which allows identification of minimum energy pathways and transition states. The barriers computed for the S4 helix and other experimentally studied peptides are low enough for an observable rate. Thus, computational results and experimental studies on the membrane burial of peptide charged groups appear to be consistent. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Interfacially Active Peptides and Proteins. Guest Editors: William C. Wimley and Kalina Hristova. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Examining the architecture of cellular computing through a comparative study with a computer

PubMed Central

Wang, Degeng; Gribskov, Michael

2005-01-01

The computer and the cell both use information embedded in simple coding, the binary software code and the quadruple genomic code, respectively, to support system operations. A comparative examination of their system architecture as well as their information storage and utilization schemes is performed. On top of the code, both systems display a modular, multi-layered architecture, which, in the case of a computer, arises from human engineering efforts through a combination of hardware implementation and software abstraction. Using the computer as a reference system, a simplistic mapping of the architectural components between the two is easily detected. This comparison also reveals that a cell abolishes the software–hardware barrier through genomic encoding for the constituents of the biochemical network, a cell's ‘hardware’ equivalent to the computer central processing unit (CPU). The information loading (gene expression) process acts as a major determinant of the encoded constituent's abundance, which, in turn, often determines the ‘bandwidth’ of a biochemical pathway. Cellular processes are implemented in biochemical pathways in parallel manners. In a computer, on the other hand, the software provides only instructions and data for the CPU. A process represents just sequentially ordered actions by the CPU and only virtual parallelism can be implemented through CPU time-sharing. Whereas process management in a computer may simply mean job scheduling, coordinating pathway bandwidth through the gene expression machinery represents a major process management scheme in a cell. In summary, a cell can be viewed as a super-parallel computer, which computes through controlled hardware composition. While we have, at best, a very fragmented understanding of cellular operation, we have a thorough understanding of the computer throughout the engineering process. The potential utilization of this knowledge to the benefit of systems biology is discussed. PMID:16849179

Portable telepathology: methods and tools.

PubMed

Alfaro, Luis; Roca, Ma José

2008-07-15

Telepathology is becoming easier to implement in most pathology departments. In fact e-mail image transmit can be done from almost any pathologist as a simplistic telepathology system. We tried to develop a way to improve capabilities of communication among pathologists with the idea that the system should be affordable for everybody. We took the premise that any pathology department would have microscopes and computers with Internet connection, and selected a few elements to convert them into a telepathology station. Needs were reduced to a camera to collect images, a universal microscope adapter for the camera, a device to connect the camera to the computer, and a software for the remote image transmit. We found out a microscope adapter (MaxView Plus) that allowed us connect almost any domestic digital camera to any microscope. The video out signal from the camera was sent to the computer through an Aver Media USB connector. At last, we selected a group of portable applications that were assembled into a USB memory device. Portable applications are computer programs that can be carried generally on USB flash drives, but also in any other portable device, and used on any (Windows) computer without installation. Besides, when unplugging the device, none of personal data is left behind. We selected open-source applications, and based the pathology image transmission to VLC Media Player due to its functionality as streaming server, portability and ease of use and configuration. Audio transmission was usually done through normal phone lines. We also employed alternative videoconferencing software, SightSpeed for bi-directional image transmission from microscopes, and conventional cameras allowing visual communication and also image transmit from gross pathology specimens. All these elements allowed us to install and use a telepathology system in a few minutes, fully prepared for real time image broadcast.

Portable telepathology: methods and tools

PubMed Central

Alfaro, Luis; Roca, Ma José

2008-01-01

Telepathology is becoming easier to implement in most pathology departments. In fact e-mail image transmit can be done from almost any pathologist as a simplistic telepathology system. We tried to develop a way to improve capabilities of communication among pathologists with the idea that the system should be affordable for everybody. We took the premise that any pathology department would have microscopes and computers with Internet connection, and selected a few elements to convert them into a telepathology station. Needs were reduced to a camera to collect images, a universal microscope adapter for the camera, a device to connect the camera to the computer, and a software for the remote image transmit. We found out a microscope adapter (MaxView Plus) that allowed us connect almost any domestic digital camera to any microscope. The video out signal from the camera was sent to the computer through an Aver Media USB connector. At last, we selected a group of portable applications that were assembled into a USB memory device. Portable applications are computer programs that can be carried generally on USB flash drives, but also in any other portable device, and used on any (Windows) computer without installation. Besides when unplugging the device, none of personal data is left behind. We selected open-source applications, and based the pathology image transmission to VLC Media Player due to its functionality as streaming server, portability and ease of use and configuration. Audio transmission was usually done through normal phone lines. We also employed alternative videoconferencing software, SightSpeed for bi-directional image transmission from microscopes, and conventional cameras allowing visual communication and also image transmit from gross pathology specimens. All these elements allowed us to install and use a telepathology system in a few minutes, fully prepared for real time image broadcast. PMID:18673507

Turn on macrocyclic chemosensor for Al3+ ion with facile synthesis and application in live cell imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ezhumalai, Dhineshkumar; Mathivanan, Iyappan; Chinnadurai, Anbuselvan

2018-06-01

An effort of a new Schiff base macrocyclic chemosensor, 14‑methyl‑2,6,8,12,14,18‑hexaaza‑1,7,13(1,2),4,10,16(1,4)‑hexabenzenacyclooctadecaphane‑2,5,8,11,14,17‑hexaene (me1) and 14,74‑dimethyl‑2,6,8,12,14,18‑hexaaza‑1,7,13(1,2),4,10,16(1,4)‑hexabenzenacyclooctadecadecaphane‑2,5,8,11,14,17‑hexaene (dm2), which enables selective sensing of Al3+ in aqueous DMF were synthesized by a simplistic one-step condensation reaction of macrocyclic compounds. The probe me1 and dm2 characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR, LC-MS spectral techniques. The compounds as mentioned above subjected to FE-SEM with EDS and elemental color mapping. On addition of Al3+, the fluorescent probe me1 and dm2 induces turn-on responses in both absorption and sensing spectra by a PET mechanism. The receptor me1 and dm2 serve highly selective, sensitive and turn-on detection of Al3+. Further, they did not interfere with other cations present in biological or environmental samples. The detection limit is found to be 3 μM and 5 μM. From the view of cytotoxic activity, the ability of these compounds me1 and dm2 to inhibit the growth of KB cell lines examined. The chelating functionality of compounds me1 and dm2 examined for their inhibitory properties of KB cell, live cell images. The compounds me1 and dm2 subjected to theoretical studies by DFT-B3LYP invoking the 6-31G level of theory. The energy of the HOMO and LUMO has been established.

Accuracy of finite-difference modeling of seismic waves : Simulation versus laboratory measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arntsen, B.

2017-12-01

The finite-difference technique for numerical modeling of seismic waves is still important and for some areas extensively used.For exploration purposes is finite-difference simulation at the core of both traditional imaging techniques such as reverse-time migration and more elaborate Full-Waveform Inversion techniques.The accuracy and fidelity of finite-difference simulation of seismic waves are hard to quantify and meaningfully error analysis is really onlyeasily available for simplistic media. A possible alternative to theoretical error analysis is provided by comparing finite-difference simulated data with laboratory data created using a scale model. The advantage of this approach is the accurate knowledge of the model, within measurement precision, and the location of sources and receivers.We use a model made of PVC immersed in water and containing horizontal and tilted interfaces together with several spherical objects to generateultrasonic pressure reflection measurements. The physical dimensions of the model is of the order of a meter, which after scaling represents a model with dimensions of the order of 10 kilometer and frequencies in the range of one to thirty hertz.We find that for plane horizontal interfaces the laboratory data can be reproduced by the finite-difference scheme with relatively small error, but for steeply tilted interfaces the error increases. For spherical interfaces the discrepancy between laboratory data and simulated data is sometimes much more severe, to the extent that it is not possible to simulate reflections from parts of highly curved bodies. The results are important in view of the fact that finite-difference modeling is often at the core of imaging and inversion algorithms tackling complicatedgeological areas with highly curved interfaces.