Financial strain, received support, anticipated support, and depressive symptoms in the People's Republic of China.

The purpose of this study is to examine the interface between financial strain, informal received economic support, informal anticipated financial support, and psychological distress in later life. Data provided by a large probability sample of older adults in the People's Republic of China reveal that the relationship between financial difficulty and psychological distress is stronger for older adults who receive more economic assistance. However, the results involving anticipated support are in the opposite direction. More specifically, the association between financial problems and psychological distress is lower for older adults who believe that others stand ready to help in the future should the need arise. A detailed theoretical rationale is developed to explain these results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Near Shannon limit performance of low density parity check codes

The authors report the empirical performance of Gallager's low density parity check codes on Gaussian channels. They show that performance substantially better than that of standard convolutional and concatenated codes can be achieved; indeed the performance is almost as close to the Shannon limit as that of turbo codes     

The lexical nature of syntactic ambiguity resolution.

Ambiguity resolution is a central problem in language comprehension. Lexical and syntactic ambiguities are standardly assumed to involve different types of knowledge representations and be resolved by different mechanisms. An alternative account is provided in which both types of ambiguity derive from aspects of lexical representation and are resolved by the same processing mechanisms. Reinterpreting syntactic ambiguity resolution as a form of lexical ambiguity resolution obviates the need for special parsing principles to account for syntactic interpretation preferences, reconciles a number of apparently conflicting results concerning the roles of lexical and contextual information in sentence processing, explains differences among ambiguities in terms of ease of resolution, and provides a more unified account of language comprehension than was previously available. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of Serum Volume Losses During Long-Term Storage

Aliquots of serum collected in a large case-control study of cervical cancer were stored at −70°C for up to 4 years during implementation of the study. When 500 μL serum aliquots were thawed in preparation for carotenoid and vitamin A assays, volumes were noticeably variable and fell below 500 μL in the majority of the samples. We were concerned about evaporation/sublimation during storage of the samples because loss of water would concentrate the analytes of interest. We evaluated the use of density and sodium ion concentration measurements to confirm its occurrence. We found that serum density was an unreliable indicator of extent of volume loss since the anticipated increases in density due to evaporation were of the same magnitude as inter-individual variation in serum density. In contrast, Na⁺ concentration is tightly regulated and would rise if water had been lost from the samples. In a representative sample of serum aliquots from the case-control study, 24 of 25 vials contained less than 500 μL of serum. The mean sodium ion concentration (138.1 ± 3.6 mmol/L) was within the normal range for human serum of 136–145 mmol/L, and no correlation was observed between serum volume and Na⁺ concentration. These results strongly suggest that the observed low volumes were not due to evaporative losses. Instead, the variably low volumes of serum aliquots were probably due to pipetting errors in the initial aliquotting resulting from the use of air-displacement pipettes.     

Peptide growth factors in the prostate as mediators of stromal epithelial interaction

Peptide growth factors play a role in the maintenance of normal prostatic growth and differentiation (Fig. 2). It seems likely that the androgen sensitivity of human prostate is mediated by the production of peptide growth factors from stromal cells which act as the direct intermediate of androgen action on epithelial cells. TGF-beta 1 inhibition of epithelial cells is opposed by the stimulatory action of EGF, IGF and FGFs to maintain an equilibrium of epithelial cell numbers. The indirect mitogenic action of androgens appear to act by down-regulation of TGF-beta 1 and possibly EGF receptors. There is also interaction with the effects of IGF-II, produced by prostatic stromal cells and acting on epithelial cells to increase proliferation. The growth of normal prostatic fibroblasts is under the control of bFGF and TGF-beta 1. However, although our understanding of the actions of these growth factors in the normal prostate has improved over the last decade, their role in the development and maintenance of prostate cancer is less clearly defined. TGF-beta 1, classically considered to be inhibitory for epithelial cells, may be up-regulated in prostatic tumours, stimulating growth. Alternatively, autocrine production of such growth factors by tumour cells may lead to loss of inhibitory effects from exogenous TGF-beta 1, a mechanism also witnessed with TGF-alpha and bFGF. The role of EGF in the development of prostate cancer is confusing because results from the use of different cell types and experimental conditions is contradictory. It may be that a switch in the production of the predominant EGFr ligand from EGF to TGF-alpha is an important feature in the development and maintenance of the malignant phenotype. The presence of TGF-alpha autocrine loops has been shown clearly in some tumour cell lines. This switch in the production of a particular ligand may also be a feature of IGFs in prostate cancer. IGF-II may be replaced by IGF-I during malignant progression, both of which are able to act via the type 1 receptor. This change in IGF expression appears to be accompanied by altered expression of the IGF-BP2, with less detectable within prostatic tissues but elevated serum levels [58]. Basic FGF is normally produced by prostatic fibroblasts but is also produced by some prostatic cancer cell lines [64]. However, as with all growth factors, the expression of the bFGF protein and its receptor is dependent on the cell line examined. The autocrine and paracrine control of normal and abnormal prostatic growth by growth factors is important in determining their role in the development and maintenance of prostate cancer. Better understanding of such mechanisms is essential for the development of novel therapeutic strategies in the control and treatment of prostate cancer.     

Inhibition by 5-(tetradecyloxy)-2-furoic acid of fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis in isolated rat hepatocytes

Fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis in isolated rat hepatocytes were strongly inhibited by 5-(tetradecyloxy)-2-furoic acid. With either³H₂O or [2-¹⁴C]acetate as the labeled precursor, the concentrations of inhibitor causing 50% decrease in fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis were, respectively, <0.005 mM and 0.020 mM. At 0.1 mM inhibitor, citrate concentration in cells from fed rats was increased by 75%; lactate and pyruvate concentrations were decreased by 30%; ethanol oxidation was decreased by 20%; with cells from starved rats, the mitochondrial [NAD⁺]/[NADH] was decreased. Other parameters were unaffected. Both its potency and its specificity indicate that 5-(tetradecyloxy)-2-furoic acid will be useful in studies on the regulation of lipid biosynthesis.     

The pheromone of the eastern tent caterpillar,Malacosoma americanum (F.) (lepidoptera,Lasiocampidae)

The pheromone system of the eastern tent caterpillar,M. americanum, has been identified as a mixture of (E,Z)-5,7-dodecadienal and the corresponding alcohol. Field data on the attractiveness of the aldehyde alone were not consistent, but mixtures of aldehyde and alcohol in varying proportions were attractive to males. Addition of small amounts ofE,Z acetate toE,Z aldehyde had no effect on male response, but larger amounts reduced trap catch. Traps baited withZ,E, E,E, orZ,Z aldehydes were not more attractive than blank traps. Pherocon IC traps fortified with extra adhesive and baited with lures consisting of 500 µg (E,Z)-5,7-dodecadienal with either 250 or 100 µg of the corresponding alcohol trapped as many as 100 males/trap/night with means of 15–20. Lures prepared from purified (94%E,Z) aldehyde and alcohol were more attractive than those prepared from unpurified (58%E,Z) materials.DeceasedMention of a company name or proprietary product does not constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.     

Aromatic bisphenol A-based elastomers via hydrosilylation chemistry

The preparation of highly aromatic elastomers from a bisphenol A-based divinyl-terminated resin and polymerization with various aromatic silane containing compounds utilizing a room temperature hydrosilylation reaction is demonstrated. The polymers exhibit high thermal and oxidative stability with 5% weight losses around 430 and 350°C and char yields ranging from 35% to 40%. The thermosets maintained their elastomeric properties with good hardness and mechanical properties as measured by elongation measurements. The toughness of the thermosets was not improved with the inclusion of aromatic moieties but the hardness did appear to increase with the addition of more aromatic groups.     

Development and Deployment of an Intelligent Kite Aerial Photography Platform (iKAPP) for Site Surveying and Image Acquisition

Aerial photographs and images are used by a variety of industries, including farming, landscaping, surveying, and agriculture, as well as academic researchers including archaeologists and geologists. Aerial imagery can provide a valuable resource for analyzing sites of interest and gaining information about the structure, layout, and composition of large areas of land that would be unavailable otherwise. Current methods of acquiring aerial images rely on techniques such as satellite imagery, manned aircraft, or more recently unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and micro‐UAV technologies. These solutions, while accurate and reliable, have several drawbacks. Using satellite imagery or UAVs can prove to be very expensive, costing tens of thousands for images. They can also prove to be time‐consuming and in some cases have constraints on use, such as no‐fly zones. In this paper, we present an alternative low‐cost, versatile solution to these methods, an intelligent kite aerial photography platform (iKAPP), for the purpose of acquiring aerial images and monitoring sites of interest. We show how this system provides flexibility in application, and we detail the system's design, mechanical operation, and initial flight experiments for a low‐cost, lightweight, intelligent platform capable of acquiring high‐resolution images. Finally, we demonstrate the system by acquiring images of a local site, showing how the system functions and the quality of images it can capture. The application of the system and its capabilities in terms of capture rates, image quality, and limitations are also presented. The system offers several improvements over traditional KAP systems, including onboard “intelligent” processing and communications. The intelligent aspect of this system stems from the use of self‐image stabilization of the camera, the advantage being that one is able to configure the system to capture large areas of a site automatically, and one can see the site acquisition in real time, all of which are not possible with previous methods of AP. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Parallelisation of storage cell flood models using OpenMP

This paper describes the implementation and benchmarking of a parallel version of the LISFLOOD-FP hydraulic model based on the OpenMP Application Programming Interface. The motivation behind the study was that reducing model run time through parallelisation would increase the utility of such models by expanding the domains over which they can be practically implemented, allowing previously inaccessible scientific questions to be addressed. Parallel speedup was calculated for 13 models distributed over seven study sites and implemented on one, two, four and in selected cases eight processor cores. The models represent a range of previous applications from large area, coarse resolution models of the Amazon, to fine resolution models of urban areas, to orders of magnitude smaller models of rural floodplains. Parallel speedups were greater for larger model domains, especially for models with over 0.2–0.4 million cells where parallel efficiencies of up to 0.75 on four and eight cores were achieved. A key advantage of using OpenMP and an explicit rather than implicit model was the ease of implementation and minimal code changes required to run simulations in parallel.