Diurnal cortisol secretion and 2-year changes in older adults' physical symptoms: The moderating roles of negative affect and sleep.

Objective: This study examined whether the association between cortisol secretion and changes in physical health symptoms would depend on other factors in a person's life. The authors expected that physical health effects would emerge particularly when cortisol disturbances co-occur in the context of high levels of trait negative affect or poor sleep. Design: Physical symptoms, diurnal cortisol secretion, affective tendencies, and sleep efficiency were assessed in a 2-yr longitudinal study of 184 older adults. Main Outcome Measure: Two-year changes in physical symptoms. Results: High cortisol levels were associated with increases in physical symptoms, but only among participants who experienced high negative affect and poor sleep. Conclusion: Elevated levels of cortisol secretion contribute to older adults' physical symptoms if they co-occur in the context of other emotional and behavioral problems. By contrast, cortisol disturbances may not influence physical symptoms among people who are emotionally well or engage in efficient sleep behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An impedance-based predictive control strategy for the state-of-health of PEM fuel cell stacks

This work presents a control strategy for PEM fuel cell systems based on simultaneous impedance measurements on single cells. This control strategy distinguishes between flooding and drying of the cells in a stack and helps to run the stack at an optimal operating point. In the presented experiments, it has been found that impedance measurements can detect flooding phenomena in single cells minutes before they can be seen in related polarisation curves. It is shown that impedance measurements at two specific frequencies, one high and one low frequency impedance, are sufficient to predict voltage drops caused by flooding and drying. In flooding mode, the imaginary part of the low frequency impedance changes while the high frequency impedance remains stable and vice versa in drying mode. This technique reduces measuring time compared to the measurement of whole impedance spectra, without losing important information for the control of the system.     

Influence of nonionic emulsifiers on the properties of vinyl acetate/VeoVa10 and vinyl acetate/ethylene emulsions and paints

This paper presents results on the influence of the nonionic surfactant on the properties of vinyl acetate/VeoVa10^® and vinyl acetate/ethylene emulsions and paints made thereof. Emulsions were prepared in which the concentration of the nonionic surfactant and its degree of ethoxylation were varied. An increase of the nonionic emulsifier concentration and of the length of the ethylene oxide chain leads to dispersions with smaller particles and higher viscosities. Using these emulsions as binders in high pigmented paints, it was observed that the pigment binding capacity of the interior paints goes through a maximum which is located at a emulsifier concentration of about 2–3% and at a degree of ethoxylation of 17–28 mol ethylene oxide (EO). In (semi-) gloss paints, the gloss of the paint films improves with an increase of the emulsifier concentration and reaches a constant value at around 4% or a degree of ethoxylation of ca. 17 EO-moieties per molecule. The blocking of the films shows a drastic increase at a concentration above 4% and at a chain length of greater than 17 EO-moieties.     

Process Deviations and Spot Defects: Two Aspects of Test and Test Development for Mixed-Signal Circuits

By their nature, mixed-signal circuits have to be tested for both structural integrity and parametric performance. For the example of data converters we review test pattern selection strategies geared towards structural and performance testing. We introduce a novel test pattern selection strategy that merges both objectives, and by that we achieve a significant reduction in the size of the set of test patterns applied on the production line.     

Architecture Concepts for Multimedia Signal Processing

Architectural concepts are presented aimed at future multimedia processing schemes. Starting from an analysis of current and future multimedia applications, specific computational requirements are derived. It will be shown that multimedia applications benefit from an exhaustive and flexible exploitation of parallelism. Three architectural concepts—reconfigurable computing, simultaneous multithreading, and associative controlling—are presented, and their potential to increase further the performance on future multimedia applications is investigated.     

Age cohort effects on unemployment in the USA: Evidence from the regional level

Since the early 1970s, it was argued that shifts from relatively smaller to larger youth cohorts in the labor force raise the unemployment rate. In contrast, using US state-level data, two studies come to a contrary conclusion. I provide a theoretical framework for local labor markets that considers age cohort differences in labor market characteristics. Using a spatial panel data model and US county-level data (2000–2014), the estimates provide strong evidence that aging of the working-age population reduces overall unemployment by almost 1 percentage point. Long-run effects that consider local feedbacks are even larger.     

New,Non‐quinone Fluorogeldanamycin Derivatives Strongly Inhibit Hsp90

Streptomyces hygroscopicus is a natural producer of geldanamycin. Mutasynthetic supplementation of an AHBA‐blocked mutant with all possible monofluoro 3‐aminobenzoic acids provided new fluorogeldanamycins. These showed strong antiproliferative activity and inhibitory effects on human heat shock protein Hsp90. Binding to Hsp90 in the low nanomolar range was determined from molecular modelling, AFM analysis and by calorimetric studies.     

The Reactivity of Difluorocarbene with Hydroxylamines: Synthesis of Carbamoyl Fluorides

Carbamoyl fluorides are formed in reactions of hydroxylamines with difluorocarbene generated from sodium bromodifluoroacetate as readily available and non‐toxic carbene precursor. The process shows a high functional group tolerance, and the reaction path has been rationalized by computational calculations.

     

Methoden zur Analyse des Bruchverhaltens hochfester Stahlfaserbetone

Methods for analyzing the fracture behavior of high‐strength steel fiber‐reinforced concretes High‐strength and ultra‐high strength fiber‐reinforced concretes are most suitable for applications with extreme mechanical loads. These extreme conditions require a ductile behavior under tensile loading, which is obtained solely by the addition of steel fibers and their working mechanism. Profound know ledge on the working mechanism of the steel fibers is necessary for optimizing this material. Usually, this knowledge is obtained by means of classical measuring techniques of destructive tests. Adopting measuring techniques from non‐destructive material testing helps to analyze and to identify the different stages of the fracture mechanism of high‐strength and ultra‐high strength fiber‐reinforced concretes in detail. The application of different non‐destructive measuring techniques is shown exemplary on tensile tests conducted on an ultra‐high strength fiber‐reinforced concrete and its applicability for analyzing the fracture behavior is discussed. The main focus is on the characterization of the relevant failure modes under tensile loading by the different measuring techniques and the comparison with classical measuring techniques (e. g. extensometer). The tensile tests have been analyzed by optical deformation measurements using digital image correlation (DIC), acoustic emission analysis (AE), and 3D computed tomography (CT).