The emperor's new clothes: Sociopolitical diversity in psychology.

Comments on the article by R. E. Redding (see record 2001-00465-001) which argues that psychology lacks sociopolitical diversity and that conservatives are vastly underrepresented in the profession. The current authors agree with Redding's argument but were surprised to note that he did not draw stronger connections between his examples of biases, the graduate school training process, and the subsequent therapeutic services psychologists provide to their clients. It is maintained that in this arena, biases of any nature could potentially damage students, clients, scientific inquiry, and certainly the profession. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploratory research on the role of national and professionalcultures in a distributed learning project

The impact of differing national and professional cultural backgrounds is a salient issue that interacts with technological support of distributed teams. As we prepare for the world of the future it becomes imperative that we give students the experience of working in multicultural distributed teams. In order to gain experience in this area, a project between ten teams of students from the City University of Hong Kong and the Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands was initiated. A variety of group support technologies, primarily Group Systems, were used to service the teams as they learned to work together. This paper documents experiences from the Hong Kong-Netherlands project. Eight out of ten student teams successfully concluded a seven-week exercise resulting in an integrated report related to software engineering. Data collected on the process are reported and discussed. Those student teams who succeeded were found to be particularly attuned and accommodating to aspects of national and professional culture     

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h. c. Franz Kollmann Zum 65. Geburtstag

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Post-mortem metabolism in fresh porcine, ovine and frozen bovine muscle

After slaughter, beef carcasses (n = 20) in groups of two were subjected to five treatments (one side only) including intermittent spray-chilling using water, 1% acetic acid or 1% lactic acid, or a single spray treatment with 1% acetic acid or 1% lactic acid. Intermittent spray-chilling consisted of two sprays of 30 s duration per hour for 12h. Single spray treatment consisted of one 30 s spray after entering the chill cooler. The other side of each carcass (control) was air chilled (at 2 to 3°C; air velocity 1 to 3 m/s) only. Five subprimal cuts were taken from each side at 48 h post mortem, vacuum packaged and stored for 28 days at 2°C. Intermittent sprays of sides with acetic or lactic acid resulted in significant (1.8-4.3 log/cm(2)) reductions in aerobic plate count of the strip loin, boneless rib and clod over their controls after these subprimal cuts had been vacuum packaged and stored for 28 days at 2°C in high-oxygen barrier (HOB) film. Lactobacillus spp. were dominant in the microflora of the subprimals from the control and treated sides. When sides were treated with a single sprays of acid, significant reductions in APC were noted only for some cuts of sides treated with lactic acid. After 28 days of storage, there were few significant differences in percentage purge, lean color, and off-odor scores between subprimals from control and treated sides.     

The Conversion of UDP-Glc to UDP-Man: In Silico and Biochemical Exploration To Improve the Catalytic Efficiency of CDP-Tyvelose C2-Epimerases

A promiscuous CDP-tyvelose 2-epimerase (TyvE) from Thermodesulfatator atlanticus (TaTyvE) belonging to the nucleotide sugar active short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase superfamily (NS-SDRs) was recently discovered. TaTyvE performs the slow conversion of NDP-glucose (NDP-Glc) to NDP-mannose (NDP-Man). Here, we present the sequence fingerprints that are indicative of the conversion of UDP-Glc to UDP-Man in TyvE-like enzymes based on the heptagonal box motifs. Our data-mining approach led to the identification of 11 additional TyvE-like enzymes for the conversion of UDP-Glc to UDP-Man. We characterized the top two wild-type candidates, which show a 15- and 20-fold improved catalytic efficiency, respectively, on UDP-Glc compared to TaTyvE. In addition, we present a quadruple variant of one of the identified enzymes with a 70-fold improved catalytic efficiency on UDP-Glc compared to TaTyvE. These findings could help the design of new nucleotide production pathways starting from a cheap sugar substrate like glucose or sucrose.     

Chiral Surface Lattice Resonances

Collective excitation of periodic arrays of metallic nanoparticles by coupling localized surface plasmon resonances to grazing diffraction orders leads to surface lattice resonances with narrow line width. These resonances may find numerous applications in optical sensing and information processing. Here, a new degree of freedom of surface lattice resonances is experimentally investigated by demonstrating handedness-dependent excitation of surface lattice resonances in arrays of chiral plasmonic crescents. The self-assembly of particles used as mask and modified colloidal lithography is applied to produce arrays of planar and 3D gold crescents over large areas. The excitation of surface lattice resonances as a function of the interparticle distance and the degree of order within the arrays is investigated. The chirality of the individual 3D crescents leads to the formation of chiral lattice modes, that is, surface lattice resonances that exhibit optical activity.     

Vector channels for smart antennas. Measurements, statisticalmodeling, and directional properties in outdoor environments

In wireless communications, smart antenna systems that employ antenna arrays coupled with adaptive signal-processing techniques at the basestation improve capacity, coverage, and trunking efficiency. However, design and performance analysis of smart antenna systems strongly depend on channel propagation characteristics of signals present at the antenna array, the so-called vector channels. Here, variation of narrow-band vector channels (spatial signatures) due to a moving terminal is studied in typical suburban settings. Vector channel measurements are taken using a real-time smart antenna system with a uniform circular array at the basestation and a mobile transmitter at several locations. Two different wireless scenarios, namely, pedestrian and car mobile, are implemented to emulate the random movement of the mobile user. In each scenario, the mobile transmitter locations are chosen so that there exists line-of-sight (LOS), nonline-of-sight (NOLOS), or both LOS and NOLOS (mixed) propagation to the basestation. We find that in all cases, the Beta distribution can be used to empirically represent the spatial signature correlations and that large spatial diversity exists in NOLOS cases compared to LOS cases. Also, direction-of-arrivals mostly do not change much with movement in a suburban environment