Exceptions that prove the rule--Using a theory of motivated social cognition to account for ideological incongruities and political anomalies: Reply to Greenberg and Jonas (2003).

A meta-analysis by J. T. Jost, J. Glaser, A. W. Kruglanski, and F. J. Sulloway (2003) concluded that political conservatism is partially motivated by the management of uncertainty and threat. In this reply to J. Greenberg and E. Jonas (2003), conceptual issues are clarified, numerous political anomalies are explained, and alleged counterexamples are incorporated with a dynamic model that takes into account differences between "young" and "old" movements. Studies directly pitting the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis against the ideological extremity hypothesis demonstrate strong support for the former. Medium to large effect sizes describe relations between political conservatism and dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; lack of openness to experience; uncertainty avoidance; personal needs for order, structure, and closure; fear of death; and system threat. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Holistic nursing--definition and realization

Single-channel properties of a delayed rectifier voltage-gated K+ channel (I-type) were investigated in peripheral myelinated axons from Xenopus laevis. Channels activated between -60 and -40 mV with a potential of half-maximal activation, E50, at -47.5 mV. Averaged single-channel currents activated with a time delay at all membrane potentials tested. Time to half-maximal activation decreased from 80 to 1.6 msec between -60 and +40 mV. The channel inactivated monoexponentially with a time constant of 10.9 sec at -40 mV. The time constant of deactivation was 126 msec at -80 mV and 16.9 msec at -110 mV. In symmetrical 105 mM K+, the single-channel conductance (gamma) was 22 and 13 pS at negative and positive membrane potentials, respectively, at 13-15 degrees C. In Na+ -rich solution with 2.5 mM extracellular K+ gamma was 7 pS and the reversal potential was negative to -80 mV, indicating a high selectivity for K+ over Na+. gamma depended on extracellular K+ concentration (KD = 19.6 mM) and temperature (Q10 = 1.45). External tetraethylammonium (TEA) reduced the apparent single-channel amplitude at all potentials tested with a half-maximal inhibiting concentration (IC50) of 0.6 mM. Open probability of the channel, but not single-channel current amplitude was decreased by extracellular dendrotoxin (DTX, IC50 = 6.8 nM). mast cell degranulating peptide (MCDP, IC50 = 41.9 microM). In Ringer solution the membrane potential of macroscopic I-channel patches was about -65 mV and depolarized under TEA and DTX. It is concluded that besides their activation during action potentials, I-channels may also stabilize the resting membrane potential.     

News

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy -     

A method for exploring the effects of attrition in randomized experiments with dichotomous outcomes.

Attrition from conditions in randomized experiments is common. Yet it is difficult to assess the possible effects of attrition because the outcome status of the dropouts is usually unknown. This article develops methods to assess those effects in studies with dichotomous outcomes, illustrating the methods with randomized experiments in drug abuse treatment, smoking cessation treatment, and alcoholism treatment. The methods include computing the lowest and highest possible effect sizes that could have been observed, enumerating the percent of possible study outcomes below a given threshold, estimating the probability that an outcome beyond any given threshold would be observed if all participants were measured, and constructing attrition analysis plots showing the effects of attrition under varied assumptions. For the kind of study to which they apply, these methods should replace the treatment of missing participants as failures in an "intent-to-treat" analysis. A user-friendly personal computer program is available to implement all of these analyses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Continuous solvent extraction of sunflower,seed, groundnuts,palmkernels, rapeseed,and copra

In principle, the oil milling process is straightforward. The wide variety of equipment in use reflects, however, a multiparametric process. The main limiting parameters are kind of seed, oil content, particle strength, particle structure, temperature, moisture, particle size, residence time, mechanical forces, etc. Additionally, the seed specific parameters vary not only between kinds of seed but also for the same seed, due to different conditions in climate, soil, and harvesting. Therefore, equipment design must be widely based on statistical averages of the limiting parameters. In other words, exact precalculation of the single technological steps is impossible. As a consequence, for more than 5,000 years, the oil milling process has been in the stage of being optimized. The acutal technical standard is very satisfying, but there is still a strong need for further research and development. Currently, as in the past, the oil milling process seems to be not so much a science as an art.     

Die Rolle der Informatik im gesellschaftlichen Diskurs: Eine Neupositionierung der Informatik

Zusammenfassung  Entwicklungen im Bereich der Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologie führen derzeit zu fundamentalen Umw?lzungen der Gesellschaft. Eine Beschleunigung des Lebens und das Verschwimmen von Beruf und Privatleben sind nur zwei Beispiele hierfür. Ein Abweichen von dem gesellschaftlichen Ideal des mobilen, jungen und dynamischen Mitarbeiters erweist sich h?ufig als Weg in das Einsiedlerdasein eines Exoten. Ein Widerstreben gegen die wachsenden Begehrlichkeiten von Wirtschaft und Staat l?sst das Individuum verd?chtig erscheinen und kann zu einer weiteren Entkopplung aus der Gesellschaft führen. Eine entscheidende Aufgabe bei gesellschaftlichen Umw?lzungen ist die der Reflexion und Kritik. Diese Rolle scheint mehr und mehr den Juristen zuzukommen. Insbesondere beim Thema Datenschutz erfolgt h?ufig eine Reduktion auf die Verfassungskonformit?t einzelner staatlicher Ma?nahmen. Kritik sollte jedoch bereits weit früher geübt werden. Medien sollten diese zentrale Funktion unterstützen und der politische Diskurs sollte zu einer optimalen L?sung führen. Eine Gruppe, die in der Debatte viel beitragen k?nnte und müsste, wird h?ufig, wenn überhaupt, aufgrund ihres technischen Sachverstandes herangezogen – die Informatiker. Dies ist insbesondere verwunderlich, da Informatiker ma?geblich an der Ver?nderung der Gesellschaft beteiligt sind. Sie schaffen die technischen Grundlagen für neue Formen der Interaktion. Doch das daraus resultierende Bild der Informatik als Computerwissenschaft beraubt Informatiker ihrer gesellschaftskritischen Funktion, da sie auf die Rolle von Technikern reduziert werden. Eine Positionierung und Darstellung der Informatik als Struktur- und Koordinationswissenschaft sowie der Informatiker als interdisziplin?re Systementwickler und -analytiker würde es Informatikern erm?glichen die bedeutende Rolle der Gesellschaftskritiker einzunehmen und geh?rt zu werden.