Characterisation,storage viabilit,and application of microspheres with Lactobacillus paracasei obtained by the extrusion technique

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of pH, bile salts and different storage conditions at two different temperatures (30 and 4 °C) on the viability of free and microencapsulated Lactobacillus paracasei. Microspheres encapsulating L. paracasei were obtained using an extrusion method. The efficiency was 87.6%, the diameter 70 µm and the zeta potential 7.22 ± 0.05 mV. Encapsulated L. paracasei showed higher resistance to stomach pH and bile salts compared to free cells. Microspheres were evaluated under four different storage conditions: fresh, suspended in a solution with a pH of 4, suspended in saline solution and lyophilised. The lyophilised microspheres presented the highest stability with 89.2% survival rate after six weeks of storage; however, free bacteria in saline solution (0.145 N) presented a 65.3% survival rate. Finally, a new product (a strawberry ice popsicle) with possible functional characteristics was obtained using microencapsulated L. paracasei.     

Design of aperiodic planar arrays for isoflux radiation in GEO satellites by applying evolutionary optimization

The design of an aperiodic planar array is presented in this research. This design of aperiodic arrays considers the reduction of the side lobe level and the isoflux radiation requirements for GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit) satellite applications. In this way, it is considered four different optimization cases. The first two cases are optimizations of amplitude and phase excitations for the antenna elements in a uniform antenna array and the last two cases are optimizations of positions of the antenna elements and certain number of levels of amplitude excitation in an aperiodic array. In this case, it is proposed a simple new approach combining the main idea of both thinned theory and random arrays approaches. For this optimization problem, the well-known method of Genetic Algorithms (GA) is utilized. The obtained results show the proper performance of the array factor to provide the isoflux radiation and low side lobe level. Depending on the performance requirements, the design of the aperiodic array could lead the satellite hardware to be reduced significantly even more that results presented previously in the literature.     

Justice and utility in the classroom: An attributional analysis of the goals of teachers' punishment and intervention strategies.

There are a multitude of possible reactions that teachers can have toward students who fall below academic standards. Some of these reactions have utilitarian goals, whereas others are punitive. In this study, the authors investigated these reactions, as well as the situations that determine when these different strategies are likely to be used. Both undergraduates playing the role of teachers (Study 1) and actual high school teachers (Study 2) used attributional information in much the same way to guide their choice of responses to academic failure. Controllable causes of failure give rise to punitive and retributive strategies, whereas lack of controllability elicits utilitarian responses. The stability of the cause moderates teachers' responses to failing students. These attributionally guided interventions are mediated in part by inferences of responsibility, emotional reactions of anger and sympathy, and beliefs in the efficacy of the intervention. The implications of this model are discussed in terms of student motivation and classroom performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Memory independence and memory interference in cognitive development": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by C. J. Brainerd and V. F. Reyna (Psychological Review, 1993[Jan], Vol 100[1], 42–67). On page 56, there were some incorrect data values in the 3rd and 4th columns of Table 4. The amended table is presented. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1993-17013-001.) Recent experiments have established the surprising fact that age improvements in reasoning are often dissociated from improvements in memory for determinative informational inputs. Fuzzy-trace theory explains this memory-independence effect on the grounds that reasoning operations do not directly access verbatim traces of critical background information but, rather, process gist that was retrieved and edited in parallel with the encoding of such information. This explanation also envisions 2 ways in which children's memory and reasoning might be mutually interfering: (1) memory-to-reasoning interference, a tendency to process verbatim traces of background inputs on both memory probes and reasoning problems that simultaneously improves memory performance and impairs reasoning and (2) reasoning-to-memory interference… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Design of different planar geometries of antenna arrays for isoflux radiation in GEO satellites

The synthesis of different planar geometries of antenna arrays for isoflux radiation is presented in this paper. This synthesis considers the reduction of the side lobe level and the isoflux radiation requirements for Geostationary Earth Orbit satellites. The behavior of the radiation is studied in three geometries of two-dimensional antenna arrays such as uniform planar arrays, aperiodic planar arrays (APA) and concentric ring arrays (CRA). The well-known methods of genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization are utilized for the optimization problem. In this way, the designs of APA and CRA presented in this paper could provide an acceptable solution for reducing the antenna hardware and simplifying the power feeding even more than results presented previously in the literature.     

Memory loci of suggestibility development: Comment on Ceci, Ross, and Toglia (1987).

We explore three explanations of the age trends in susceptibility to leading questions that were reported by Ceci, Ross, and Toglia (1987). The first explanation, that proposed by Ceci et al., is that suggestibility effects are memorially real (i.e., leading questions actually distort target memory) and the magnitudes of such effects vary ontogenetically. The second explanation is that suggestibility effects are memorially real, but they are developmentally invariant. Apparent age changes in suggestibility are said to arise from correlated (and uncontrolled) changes in learning or forgetting rates. The third explanation is that suggestibility effects are not memorially real but, rather, are epiphenomena of certain performance advantages that are intrinsic to control conditions, such as the distractor novelty effect and the retention enhancement effect. Here, apparent age changes in suggestibility are viewed as artifacts of chronological shifts in subjects' ability to benefit from these performance advantages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Estimation of X-band scattering properties of treecomponents

An X-band FM-CW very-fine-range resolution scatterometer was used to acquire backscattering data for individual branches for a number of tree species. Using a model to describe the scattering source function and an experimental procedure for selected removal of plant parts, an estimation was made of η, the volume backscatter coefficient, and κ, the volume extinction coefficient. It is found that: (1) leaves are strong attenuators as well as scatterers; (2) the albedo (the ratio η/κ), at a given angle of incidence, is nearly independent of the tree type; (3) the tree limbs are good attenuators but rather poor scatterers; and (4) te albedo changes as a function of the angle of incidence and for deciduous trees is also a function of the season