Applying water soft path analysis in small urban areas: four Canadian case studies

Water soft paths begin from the vision that future water management has more to gain from reducing demand than from increasing supply. This article reviews three case studies of water soft path analysis in small urban areas in Canada, and one study of an urban planning process incorporating soft path concepts. The analytical studies indicate how communities can avoid the need for expansion of water infrastructure with negligible impacts on lifestyles or livelihoods. The planning study demonstrates that it is possible to introduce water soft paths early in a review, and that this will stimulate more ecologically sensitive thinking among citizens, officials and political leaders. Similar conclusions can be expected from soft path studies in urban areas elsewhere in the developed world.     

A double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of Salmonella using biotinylated monoclonal antibodies

A double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed using monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) as a rapid, economical alternative to culture isolation procedures for detection of Salmonella. Four MAbs previously shown to react with Salmonella strains representing 18 different serogroups were evaluated as capture antibodies and, after biotinylation, as detection antibodies. One MAb (M183) was selected for use in the ELISA to capture and detect Salmonella antigens. The detection limit of the ELISA was evaluated using Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Typhimurium and various selective and nonselective Salmonella enrichment media. The highest detection limit (ca. 10(4) CFU/ml) was achieved using an enrichment broth containing brain heart infusion, yeast extract, sodium hydrogen selenite, and sodium cholate (BYSC) after preenrichment in buffered peptone water. The ELISA detected all Salmonella serovars tested, which included representative serovars of serogroups B, C, D, and E and gave negative results for all non-Salmonella species tested. Samples (106) from various sources, including fecal samples from humans and pigeons, chicken carcass rinses, chicken parts, feed, and the environment, were used to evaluate the performance of the ELISA. The ELISA had a specificity and sensitivity of 100 and 91%, respectively, and a kappa value of 0.93 relative to the culture methods. Such an ELISA has the potential to be used in the implementation of the pathogen reduction and hazard analysis critical control point systems as well as in clinical laboratories.     

Hot-Fat Trimming and Electrical Stimulation Effects on Beef Quality

We evaluated the effects of hot-fat trimming, low-voltage electrical stimulation (ES) and storage time (3, 7 or 14 days) on quality of beef longissimus dorsi, psoas major, biceps femoris and supraspinatus muscles. Prior to chilling, beef carcasses (n = 32) were either subjected to ES or not stimulated before alternating sides were hot-fat trimmed. Temperature decline, pH, sarcomere length and USDA yield and quality grades were obtained on each carcass side. Muscles were removed from each side and evaluated for quality factors related to storage life and sensory analysis. Generally, no adverse effects of hot-fat trimming, with or without ES, or increased storage time, were observed. Results indicate that hot-fat trimming may be practiced at the industry level without affecting overall quality.     

Improved performance of bayesian solutions for inverse electrocardiography using multiple information sources

The usual goal in inverse electrocardiography (ECG) is to reconstruct cardiac electrical sources from body surface potentials and a mathematical model that relates the sources to the measurements. Due to attenuation and smoothing that occurs in the thorax, the inverse ECG problem is ill-posed and imposition of a priori constraints is needed to combat this ill-posedness. When the problem is posed in terms of reconstructing heart surface potentials, solutions have not yet achieved clinical utility; limitations include the limited availability of good a priori information about the solution and the lack of a "good" error metric. We describe an approach that combines body surface measurements and standard forward models with two additional information sources: statistical prior information about epicardial potential distributions and sparse simultaneous measurements of epicardial potentials made with multielectrode coronary venous catheters. We employ a Bayesian methodology which offers a general way to incorporate these information sources and additionally provides statistical performance analysis tools. In a simulation study, we first compare solutions using one or more of these information sources. Then, we study the effects of varying the number of sparse epicardial potential measurements on reconstruction accuracy. To evaluate accuracy, we used the Bayesian error covariance as well as traditional error metrics such as relative error. Our results show that including even sparsely sampled information from coronary venous catheters can substantially improve the reconstruction of epicardial potential distributions and that a Bayesian framework provides a feasible approach to using this information. Moreover, computing the Bayesian error standard deviations offers a means to indicate confidence in the results even in the absence of validation data.     

Estimation and statistical bounds for three-dimensional polar shapes in diffuse optical tomography

Voxel-based reconstructions in diffuse optical tomography (DOT) using a quadratic regularization functional tend to produce very smooth images due to the attenuation of high spatial frequencies. This then causes difficulty in estimating the spatial extent and contrast of anomalous regions such as tumors. Given an assumption that the target image is piecewise constant, we can employ a parametric model to estimate the boundaries and contrast of an inhomogeneity directly. In this paper, we describe a method to directly reconstruct such a shape boundary from diffuse optical measurements. We parameterized the object boundary using a spherical harmonic basis, and derived a method to compute sensitivities of measurements with respect to shape parameters. We introduced a centroid constraint to ensure uniqueness of the combined shape/center parameter estimate, and a projected Newton method was utilized to optimize the object center position and shape parameters simultaneously. Using the shape Jacobian, we also computed the Cramér-Rao lower bound on the theoretical estimator accuracy given a particular measurement configuration, object shape, and level of measurement noise. Knowledge of the shape sensitivity matrix and of the measurement noise variance allows us to visualize the shape uncertainty region in three dimensions, giving a confidence region for our shape estimate. We have implemented our shape reconstruction method, using a finite-difference-based forward model to compute the forward and adjoint fields. Reconstruction results are shown for a number of simulated target shapes, and we investigate the problem of model order selection using realistic levels of measurement noise. Assuming a signal-to-noise ratio in the amplitude measurements of 40 dB and a standard deviation in the phase measurements of 0.1 degrees , we are able to estimate an object represented with an eighth-order spherical harmonic model having an absorption contrast of 0.15 cm(-1) and a volume of 4.82 cm(3) with errors of less than 10% in object volume and absorption contrast. We also investigate the robustness of our shape-based reconstruction approach to a violation of the assumption that the medium is purely piecewise constant.     

Biosynthesis of monoacyl-sn-glycerol 3-phosphate by rabbit heart mitochondria: Positional specificity differing from liver enzyme

Rabbit heart mitochondria synthesize comparably more monoacyl-than diacylglycerol 3-phosphate as compared to heart microsomes. Since the fatty acid specificity of the biosynthesis by cardiac enzymes differs from that by hepatic enzymes, the positional specificity of monoacylglycerol 3-phosphate formation by mitochondria was investigated by using a method utilizing lysosomal phosphatidate phosphohydrolase and borate-impregnated thin layer chromatography. Contrary to the results of studies with liver particulates, ca. one-third of palmitate was found at position 2 of the glycerol moiety and the remainder at position 1, whereas one-third of oleate was bound at position 1. Only a slight, asymmetric distribution was observed with linoleate as the acyl donor. Thus, our study indicates that preferential acylation of individual fatty acids during the formation of monoacylglycerol 3-phosphate is not as distinct in the heart mitochondria as in the liver mitochondria and microsomes. Presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies, Saskatoon, Canada, June 1973.     

Perceived attractiveness as a function of support for the feminist movement: Not necessarily a put-down of women.

Conducted 2 studies to replicate and extend the findings of P. A. Goldberg et al (see record 1975-27508-001) that Ss identified photos of unattractive women significantly more frequently than those of attractive women as being supporters of the women's liberation movement. In Study 1, photos were taken of 30 undergraduate women between the ages of 18 and 22 yrs and of 30 nonstudent women over the age of 25 yrs; these women were identified as supporters or nonsupporters of the feminist movement according to their scores on the Attitudes Toward Women Scale. Ratings of the physical attractiveness of the photographed women were made by 40 university students and by 40 nonstudents over age 25 yrs. Results show that such ratings were not related to the attitude scores of the photographed women. In Study 2, 40 additional college students and 40 additional nonstudents were given the same task with similar stimuli. Results show no significant difference between the mean attractiveness score of those women selected as supporters and those selected as nonsupporters, thus failing to replicate the findings of Goldberg et al. Male undergraduates, however, did choose photographs of less attractive women as members of the feminist movement, whereas female undergraduates chose photos of more attractive women. Neither male nor female nonstudents chose differently than chance. (French summary) (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)