Defecting From the Gutenberg Legacy: Employing Images to Test Knowledge Gaps

Education‐based knowledge gaps are well‐documented across countries, media platforms, and content. Without exception, knowledge is measured through words not images. Given the centrality of sight in the natural history of Homo sapiens, the extraordinary visual acuity of humans, and the proliferation of screen‐based visual media environments in contemporary life, an experiment was conducted to test the knowledge gap visually. Participants watched 8 audiovisual news stories. Simple recognition of story details and comprehension of that information were tested in verbal and visual modalities. Results offered the first confirmation of the knowledge gap in visual terms. Yet, gaps were significantly smaller employing visual than verbal measures, pointing to the need for continued efforts to develop visual measures for future memory studies.     

Tocopherol and tocotrienol compositions of raw table olive fruit

The tocopherol (Tp) and tocotrienol (Tt) compositions of raw Greek olive fruit pericarp were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. The following four types of fruit collected from three main varieties of olive trees were analysed: ‘Conservolea’ (green), ‘Halkidiki’ (green), ‘Conservolea’ (black) and ‘Calamon’ (black). α-Tp was found to be the predominant Tp in all types. The variety and stage of maturity influenced the Tp and Tt composition. β-Tp and α-Tt were found only in trace quantities in green olives. The same was true for α-Tp in all types and γ-Tp in ‘Conservolea’ (green). The calculated α-Tp equivalents (Tp and Tt compositions expressed as α-Tp according to their relative biological activities) were 21·6, 29·7, 36·8 and 39·4 μg g^?1 pericarp or 138, 132, 189 and 196 μg g^?1 lipid for ‘Conservolea’ (green), ‘Halkidiki’ (green), ‘Conservolea’ (black) and ‘Calamon’ (black), respectively.     

Adaptive Neural Network for Nuclear Medicine Image Restoration

A novel adaptive neural network is proposed for image restoration using a nuclear medicine gamma camera based on the point spread function of measured system. The objective is to restore image degradation due to photon scattering and collimator photon penetration with the gamma camera and allow improved quantitative external measurements of radionuclides in-vivo. The specific clinical model proposed is the imaging of bremsstrahlung radiation using ³²P and ⁹⁰Y because of the enhanced image degradation effects of photon scattering, photon penetration and poor signal/noise ratio in measurements of this type with the gamma camera. This algorithm model avoids the common inverse problem associated with other image restoration filters such as the Wiener filter. The relative performance of the adaptive NN for image restoration is compared to a previously reported order statistic neural network hybrid (OSNNH) filter by these investigators, a traditional Weiner filter and a modified Hopfield neural network using simulated degraded images with different noise levels. Quantitative metrics such as the change of signal to noise ratio (SNR) are used to compare filter performance. The adaptive NN yields comparable results for image restoration with a slightly better performance for the images with higher noise level as often encountered in bremsstrahlung detection with the gamma camera. Experimental attenuation measurements were also performed in a water tank using two radionuclides, ³²P and ⁹⁰Y, typically used for antibody therapy. Similar values for an effective attenuation coefficient was observed for the restored images using the OSNNH filters and adaptive NN which demonstrate that the restoration filters preserves the total counts in the image as required for quantitative in-vivo measurements. The adaptive NN was computationally more efficient by a factor 4–6 compared to the OSNNH filter. The filter architecture, in turn, is also optimum for parallel processing or VLSI implementation as required for planar and particularly for tomographic mode of detection using the gamma camera. The proposed adaptive NN method should also prove to be useful for quantitative imaging of single photon emitters for other nuclear medicine tomographic imaging applications using positron emitters and direct X-ray photon detection.     

Identification of the new 18-hexacosenoic acid in the spongeThalysias juniperina

The phospholipid fatty acids from the spongeSpheciospongia cuspidifera were studied revealing the presence of the rare 10-octadecenoic acid (10−18∶1) and a new 2-methoxyhexadecenoic acid. The phospholipid fatty acids fromThalysias juniperina were also studied revealing the presence of the hitherto unreported 18-hexacosenoic acid (18−26∶1). These results tend to indicate that the biosynthetic pathway from 10−18∶1 to 18−26∶1 may be operative in nature. The phospholipid mixture from the sponges was also analyzed by³¹P-NMR and shown to mainly consist of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylinositol, and phosphatidylglycerol. Phosphatidylcholine was not found in the sponges analyzed in this work.     

A search for optimal acrylic carriers for immobilization of penicillin acylase

Acrylic carriers were obtained by aminolysis of nitrile or ester groups in copolymers or terpolymers synthesized from acrylonitrile, acrylic esters and divinylbenzene or ethylene dimethacrylate in the presence of a mixture of inert diluents. The influence of the supermolecular structure of these carriers, generated during the suspension polymerization by adding a mixture of inert diluents, on the carrier properties was observed. Acrylic carriers for immobilization of penicillin acylase should be obtained from either porous or ‘sol’-type copolymers which aquire after aminolysis the structure of expanded gel.     

Light and Strong SiC Networks

The directional freezing of microfiber suspensions is used to assemble highly porous (porosities ranging between 92% and 98%) SiC networks. These networks exhibit a unique hierarchical architecture in which thin layers with honeycomb‐like structure and internal strut length in the order of 1–10 μm in size are aligned with an interlayer spacing ranging between 15 and 50 μm. The resulting structures exhibit strengths (up to 3 MPa) and stiffness (up to 0.3 GPa) that are higher than aerogels of similar density and comparable to other ceramic microlattices fabricated by vapor deposition. Furthermore, this wet processing technique allows the fabrication of large‐size samples that are stable at high temperature, with acoustic impedance that can be manipulated over one order of magnitude (0.03–0.3 MRayl), electrically conductive and with very low thermal conductivity. The approach can be extended to other ceramic materials and opens new opportunities for the fabrication of ultralight structures with unique mechanical and functional properties in practical dimensions.     

News: United Kingdom to set air quality emission standards

Government.     

Trapping of soursop (Annona muricata) juice volatiles on porapak Q by suction

The trapping technique of Singleton and Pattee, in which the volatiles are swept to a Porapak Q trap by suction rather than by a sweeping gas, was modified and used to isolate soursop juice volatiles. Using fixed, low vacuum and operating conditions determined specifically for soursop volatiles, very high reproducibility was obtained. The majority of the peaks had a coefficient of variation less than 0.10. The relative amounts of the volatile components obtained by direct headspace sampling was fairly well maintained in the Porapak Q concentrate. The chromatograms showed distinct differences between two commercial brands or between lots of the same brand of soursop juice. The trapping technique appear to have wide applicability provided that the operating conditions are adapted to each product studied.     

Microstructure and domain configurations in ferroelectric PbTiO3 and Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin fims

Ferroelectric domain configurations in PbTiO₃ and Pb(Zr_xT_1−x)O₃ (PZT, x = 0.3 or 0.5) thin films have been studied by transmission electron microscopy. The PbTiOg and PZT thin films have been deposited by the ionized cluster beam technique and radio frequency sputtering, respectively. The grain size in these thin films is typically less than 0.5 μm. Lamellar 90°-domain features have been observed in both PbTiO₃ and PZT (30/70) samples. The domain walls correspond to the {011} twin boundaries. La-doping and Ca-modification are shown to affect the microstructure of the PZT films. No clear domain feature occurs in the PZT thin film that has composition near the morphotropic phase boundary. The effects of grain sizes are briefly discussed.