Breaking the mold: The impact of working in a gender-congruent versus gender-incongruent role on self-reported sources of stress, organizational commitment, and health in U.K. universities.

We present an analysis of archive data collected using the ASSET (Cartwright & Cooper, 2002) from a stratified sample of employees (N = 2,005) working in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom in 2003. We hypothesized that employees working in gender-incongruent roles would report higher levels of work-related stress, poorer health, and lower organizational commitment compared with those working in gender-congruent roles. Interpreted in accordance with the role strain hypotheses, we found that women working in gender-incongruent roles reported significantly higher (p > .01) levels of stress, higher levels of minor ill-health problems, and lower levels of perceived commitment from their organizations compared with all other employees. Conversely, men who worked in gender-incongruent roles often reported the lowest levels of stress. The implications of these findings are discussed with reference to women’s progression in U.K. higher education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nanocrystallinity in RuO2 coatings—Influence of precursor and preparation temperature

The effects of precursor and calcination temperature on the nano morphology of ruthenium dioxide on titanium, prepared from thermal decomposition of aqueous salt solutions were investigated. Transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, gas porosimetry and cyclic voltammetry showed that lower calcination temperature yielded smaller crystallites. The crystallites were between 6 and 22 nm in diameter. When using ruthenium nitrosyl nitrate the firing temperature had a large impact on the grain size, but for chloride there was only a minor effect in the temperature range 350-550 °C.     

Copper Transfer from Cu–Aβ to Human Serum Albumin Inhibits Aggregation,Radical Production and Reduces Aβ Toxicity

Amyloid‐β peptides (Aβ) and the protein human serum albumin (HSA) interact in vivo. They are both localised in the blood plasma and in the cerebrospinal fluid. Among other functions, HSA is involved in the transport of the essential metal copper. Complexes between Aβ and copper ions have been proposed to be an aberrant interaction implicated in the development of Alzheimer's disease, where Cu is involved in Aβ aggregation and production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). In the present work, we studied copper‐exchange reaction between Aβ and HSA or the tetrapeptide DAHK (N‐terminal Cu‐binding domain of HSA) and the consequence of this exchange on Aβ‐induced ROS production and cell toxicity. The following results were obtained: 1) HSA and DAHK removed Cu^II from Aβ rapidly and stoichiometrically, 2) HSA and DAHK were able to decrease Cu‐induced aggregation of Aβ, 3) HSA and DAHK suppressed the catalytic HO^. production in vitro and ROS production in neuroblastoma cells generated by Cu–Aβ and ascorbate, 4) HSA and DAHK were able to rescue these cells from the toxicity of Cu–Aβ with ascorbate, 5) DAHK was more potent in ROS suppression and restoration of neuroblastoma cell viability than HSA, in correlation with an easier reduction of Cu^II–HSA than Cu–DAHK by ascorbate, in vitro. Our data suggest that HSA is able to decrease aberrant Cu^II–Aβ interaction. The repercussion of the competition between HSA and Aβ to bind Cu in the blood and brain and its relation to Alzheimer's disease are discussed.     

Gemeinsame österreichisch-ungarische Sedimentforschung im Rahmen des EFRE-Projektes SEDDON

The multiple uses of the Danube River for navigation, hydropower production and as a drinking water supply influence its ecological quality. Flow restrictions due to regulation as well as impacts on the sediment regime such as retention in the catchment area and interruption of the sediment continuum result in changes of the hydromorphological structures and can produce major problems in the context of sediment management. In light of these facts, cross-border investigations of sediment transport at the Danube River are called for. As there are no uniform research approaches shared by Austria and Hungary, the EU-funded project SEDDON (Sediment Research and Management at the Danube River) aims to compare different monitoring and modeling techniques used to determine sediment transport, and to develop mutual solutions. Further, the laboratory equipment currently used for hydraulic model experiments is evaluated and a research channel with a free flowing discharge of up to 10 m³/s without pumping will be constructed, allowing large-scale joint laboratory tests concerning sediment to be performed.     

Experimental characterization of thermo-oxidation-induced shrinkage and damage in polymer-matrix composites

This paper focuses on the experimental characterization of thermo-oxidation in carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) exposed to “high” temperatures (up to 150 °C) and “high” oxygen pressures (up to 5 bars), at the microscopic scale. Unidirectional IM7/977-2 composite specimens were aged at 150 °C under atmospheric air and under oxygen pressure (1.7 bars and 5 bars): periodic tests were carried out to characterize degradation phenomena after different aging times. The thermo-oxidation-induced resin shrinkage and fiber/matrix debonding were measured on the CFRP sample surface by confocal interferometric microscopy (CIM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results show that thermo-oxidation-induced degradation strongly depends on aging time, distance between fibers and partial oxygen pressure.     

Integration of GPU Computing in a Software Radio Environment

This article studies the integration of Graphics Processing Units in a Software Defined Radio environment. Two main solutions are considered, based on two levels of granularity for the parallelization. First, a fine grain parallelism solution, which is an extension of the existing solutions but adapted to operations of large computational complexity, is proposed. Second, an original solution based on coarse grain approach allowing better usage of the computing resources and easier parallelism extraction is described. For both solutions, scheduling and communication design as well as implementation are given, along with integration in the environment. Both solutions have been implemented and compared on different operations types and on multi-operations sequences. It is clearly shown that using the second solution can provide performance improvement, while the first one is not adapted to SDR applications.     

Modulation of Lumen Formation by Microgeometrical Bioactive Cues and Migration Mode of Actin Machinery

How endothelial cells (ECs) express the particular filopodial or lamellipodial form of the actin machinery is critical to understanding EC functions such as angiogenesis and sprouting. It is not known how these mechanisms coordinately promote lumen formation of ECs. Here, adhesion molecules (RGD peptides) and inductor molecules (BMP‐2 mimetic peptides) are micropatterned onto polymer surfaces by a photolithographic technique to induce filopodial and lamellipodial migration modes. Firstly, the effects of peptide microgeometrical distribution on EC adhesion, orientation and morphogenesis are evaluated. Large micropatterns (100 μm) promote EC orientation without lumen formation, whereas small micropatterns (10–50 μm) elicit a collective cell organization and induce EC lumen formation, in the case of RGD peptides. Secondly, the correlation between EC actin machinery expression and EC self‐assembly into lumen formation is addressed. Only the filopodial migration mode (mimicked by RGD) but not lamellipodial migration mode (mimicked by BMP‐2) promotes EC lumen formation. This work gives a new concept for the design of biomaterials for tissue engineering and may provide new insight for angiogenesis inhibition on tumors.     

Experimental Validation of a Fundamental Model for PCR Efficiency

Recently a theoretical analysis of PCR efficiency has been published by Booth et al. (2010). The PCR yield is the product of three efficiencies: (i) the annealing efficiency is the fraction of templates that form binary complexes with primers during annealing, (ii) the polymerase binding efficiency is the fraction of binary complexes that bind to polymerase to form ternary complexes and (iii) the elongation efficiency is the fraction of ternary complexes that extend fully. Yield is controlled by the smallest of the three efficiencies and control could shift from one type of efficiency to another over the course of a PCR experiment. Experiments have been designed that are specifically controlled by each one of the efficiencies and the results are consistent with the mathematical model. The experimental data has also been used to quantify six key parameters of the theoretical model. An important application of the fully characterized model is to calculate initial template concentration from real-time PCR data. Given the PCR protocol, the midpoint cycle number (where the template concentration is half that of the final concentration) can be theoretically determined and graphed for a variety of initial DNA concentrations. Real-time results can be used to calculate the midpoint cycle number and consequently the initial DNA concentration, using this graph. The application becomes particularly simple if a conservative PCR protocol is followed where only the annealing efficiency is controlling.