Developmental coaching for high school teachers: Executive coaching goes to school.

Teachers are in a very real sense the embodiment of leadership, providing direction, guidance, and feedback to their students in addition to acting as role models. Teachers may well thus benefit from developmental coaching that draws on theories of leadership. This study was both an experimental (randomly assigned conditions) and a quasi-experimental (pre–post) study. A randomized controlled design was used to explore the impact of coaching on goal attainment, mental health, workplace well-being, and resilience, and a quasi-experimental (pre–post) design was used to explore the impact of coaching on leadership styles. Forty-four high school teachers were randomly assigned to either coaching or a waitlist control group. The coaching used a cognitive–behavioral, solution-focused approach and was informed by theories of self-leadership and transformational leadership. Participants in the coaching group received multirater feedback on their leadership style and undertook 10 coaching sessions conducted by professional coaches over a 20-week period. Compared with randomly allocated controls, participation in coaching was associated with increased goal attainment, reduced stress, and enhanced workplace well-being and resilience. Pre–post analyses for the coaching group indicated that coaching enhanced self-reported achievement and humanistic–encouraging components of constructive leadership styles and reduced self-reported aggressive/defensive and passive/defensive leadership styles. Findings suggest that coaching, as a professional development methodology, has great potential to contribute to the development and well-being of society beyond the corporate and organizational settings with which leadership coaching and executive coaching are normally associated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intelligence and substance use.

Why do some individuals choose to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and use illegal drugs while others do not? The origin of individual preferences and values is one of the remaining theoretical questions in social and behavioral sciences. The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis suggests that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values than less intelligent individuals. Consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs is evolutionarily novel, so the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to consume these substances. Analyses of two large, nationally representative, and prospectively longitudinal data from the United Kingdom and the United States partly support the prediction. More intelligent children, both in the United Kingdom and the United States, are more likely to grow up to consume more alcohol. More intelligent American children are more likely to grow up to consume more tobacco, while more intelligent British children are more likely to grow up to consume more illegal drugs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modification of Sodium Release Using Porous Corn Starch and Lipoproteic Matrix

Excessive sodium consumption can result in hypertension, diabetes, heart diseases, stroke, and kidney diseases. Various chips and extruded snacks, where salt is mainly applied on the product surface, accounted for almost 56% of snacks retail sales in 2010. Hence, it is important to target sodium reduction for those snack products. Past studies had shown that modifying the rate‐release mechanism of sodium is a promising strategy for sodium reduction in the food industry. Encapsulation of salt can be a possible technique to control sodium release rate. Porous corn starch (PCS), created by enzymatic treatment and spray drying and lipoproteic matrix, created by gelation and freeze drying, were evaluated as carriers for controlled sodium release targeting topically applied salts. Both carriers encapsulated salt and their in vitro sodium release profiles were measured using a conductivity meter. The sodium release profiles of PCS treated with different enzymatic reaction times were not significantly different. Protein content and fat content altered sodium release profile from the lipoproteic matrix. The SEM images of PCS showed that most of the salt crystals coated the starch instead of being encapsulated in the pores while the SEM images and computed tomography scan of lipoproteic matrix showed salt dispersed throughout the matrix. Hence, PCS was found to have limitations as a sodium carrier as it could not effectively encapsulate salt inside its pores. The lipoproteic matrix was found to have a potential as a sodium carrier as it could effectively encapsulate salt and modify the sodium release profile.     

Analysis of human fibroadenomas using three-dimensional impedance maps

Three-dimensional impedance maps (3DZMs) are virtual volumes of acoustic impedance values constructed from histology to represent tissue microstructure acoustically. From the 3DZM, the ultrasonic backscattered power spectrum can be predicted and model based scatterer properties, such as effective scatterer diameter (ESD), can be estimated. Additionally, the 3DZM can be exploited to visualize and identify possible scattering sites, which may aid in the development of more effective scattering models to better represent the ultrasonic interaction with underlying tissue microstructure. In this study, 3DZMs were created from a set of human fibroadenoma samples. ESD estimates were made assuming a fluid-filled sphere form factor model from 3DZMs of volume 300×300×300 μm. For a collection of 33 independent human fibroadenoma tissue samples, the ESD was estimated to be 111±40.7 μm. The 3DZMs were then investigated visually to identify possible scattering sources which conformed to the estimated model scatterer dimensions. This estimation technique allowed a better understanding of the spatial distribution and variability of the estimates throughout the volume.     

Real-time monitoring of morphological changes in living cells by electronic cell sensor arrays: an approach to study G protein-coupled receptors

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute important targets for drug discovery against a wide range of ailments including cancer, inflammatory, and cardiovascular diseases. Efforts are underway to screen selective modulators of GPCRs and also to deorphanize GPCRs with unidentified natural ligands. Most GPCR-based cellular screens depend on labeling or recombinant expression of receptor or reporter proteins, which may not capture the true physiology or pharmacology of the GPCRs. In this paper, we describe a noninvasive and label-free assay for GPCRs that can be used with both engineered and nonengineered cell lines. The assay is based on using cell-electrode impedance to measure minute changes in cellular morphology as a result of ligand-dependent GPCR activation. We have used this technology to assay the functional activation of GPCRs coupled to different signaling pathways and have compared it to standard assays. We have used pharmacological modulators of GPCR signaling pathways to demonstrate the specificity of impedance-based measurements. Our data indicate that cell-electrode impedance measurements offer a convenient, sensitive, and quantitative method for assessing GPCR function. Moreover, the noninvasive nature of the readout offers the added advantage of performing multiple treatments in the same well to study events such as desensitization and receptor cross-talk.     

Ein Botaniker in der Papiergeschichte: Offene und geschlossene Kooperationen in den Wissenschaften um 1900

NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin - Die Studie analysiert die Dynamik wissenschaftlicher Kooperation zwischen Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften an einem...     

Process Design for the Production of Prebiotic Oligosaccharides in an Enzyme Membrane Bioreactor: Interaction between Enzymatic Reaction and Membrane Filtration

Appropriately designed and operated enzyme membrane bioreactors (EMBRs) can fully utilize the activity of free, soluble enzymes while maximizing enzyme reusability and simultaneously removing the enzyme-free product in situ. A filtration model system was applied to determine critical EMBR design factors suitable for continuous enzymatic production of prebiotic fructo-oligosaccharides. The filtration flux and separation efficiency were investigated in terms of the membrane cutoff rating. In addition, the influence of operational conditions on enzyme activity was also determined.