Effectiveness of behavioral therapy for chronic low back pain: A component analysis.

The effects of outpatient group behavioral therapy including aerobic exercise (BE), behavioral therapy only (B), and aerobic exercise only (E) on pain and physical and psychosocial disability were evaluated and compared in a group of mildy disabled chronic low-back-pain patients. Ninety-six Ss were randomly assigned to the 3 treatments and a waiting-list control (WL) condition and assessed on a variety of patient self-report, spouse-rated, and direct observational measures at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 6- and 12-month follow-ups. Patients in the BE condition, but not the B or E conditions, improved significantly more pretreatment to posttreatment than did WL patients on the patient self-report and observer-rated measures. At both follow-ups, all 3 treatment groups remained significantly improved from pretreatment, with no significant differences among treatments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment—a note on expert systems packaging expertise on a disk

Many packaging decisions are routine, but require a high level of expertise. The research described in this paper explores the use of expert systems for automating routine package development tasks. It begins with a general discussion of expert systems and outlines some feasible packaging applications in design, prediction, problem diagnosis, and management control. A PC-based prototype system is described, which is composed of six modules related to the following tasks: performance requirements, packaging solutions, testing specifications, testing results analysis, vendor specifications and procurement.     

Comparison of calcium lactate with chlorine as a washing treatment for fresh‐cut lettuce and carrots: quality and nutritional parameters

The efficacies of calcium lactate and chlorine washing treatments of fresh‐cut lettuce and carrots were compared during storage at 4 °C over 10 days. The gas composition of packages, colour, enzyme activity, texture, sensory attributes, microflora and levels of ascorbic acid and carotenoids were evaluated at 1, 3, 7 and 10 days. Calcium lactate treatment was not significantly different to chlorine treatment (p < 0.05) in terms of maintaining colour, texture and acceptability of fresh‐cut lettuce and carrots during the entire storage period. The washing treatments did not affect levels of ascorbic acid of fresh‐cut lettuce or carrots. Carotenoid levels were higher in calcium lactate‐treated carrots than chlorine‐treated samples at the end of storage. Mesophilic, psychrotrophic and lactic acid bacteria counts were not significantly different between treatments for both vegetables. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Crosslinkable micelles from diblock amphiphilic copolymers based on vinylbenzyl thymine and vinylbenzyl triethylammonium chloride

Polymeric micelles (PMs) composed of self‐assembled amphiphilic block copolymers were synthesized from vinylbenzyl thymine (VBT) and vinylbenzyl triethylammonium chloride (VBA) exhibiting improved physical stability. Three diblock copolymers of different chemical compositions and similar molecular weights (polydispersities below 1.5) were obtained via nitroxide mediated radical polymerization. Critical micelle concentration (CMC) was determined by dye micellization method, the shift of the absorption peak of the anionic (EY) due to the interactions with non‐assembled chains and auto‐assembled copolymers was followed. Polymeric systems exhibited good stability revealing that a higher proportion of cationic monomers in the diblock reduce the CMC. Furthermore, after the core of PMs was photocrosslinked by UV irradiation, the CMC decreases notably. Kinetic release studies using EY dye as probe demonstrated that both, higher VBA ratios in the polymer and higher UV‐irradiation, slow down the dye release. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41947.     

Investigating the Role of Conformational Effects on Laccase Stability and Hyperactivation under Stress Conditions

Fungal laccase from Steccherinum ochraceum 1833 displays remarkable stability under different harsh conditions: organic/buffer mixtures, thermal treatment, and microwave radiation. The behavior is particularly significant in the light of the sharp inactivation observed for two different fungal laccases. Laccase from S. ochraceum 1833 also displays hyperactivation under mild thermal treatment (60 °C). Molecular dynamics simulations at 80 °C explained how this laccase retains the geometry of the electron transfer pathway, thereby assuring electron transfer through the copper ions and thus maintaining its catalytic activity at high temperature. Spectroscopic studies revealed that the thermal activation corresponds to specific conformational changes in the protein. The results indicate that this laccase is potentially applicable under denaturing conditions that might be beneficial for the biotransformation of recalcitrant substrates.     

A cluster-based trust-aware routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks

Routing protocols are the binding force in mobile ad hoc network (MANETs) since they facilitate communication beyond the wireless transmission range of the nodes. However, the infrastructure-less, pervasive, and distributed nature of MANETs renders them vulnerable to security threats. In this paper, we propose a novel cluster-based trust-aware routing protocol (CBTRP) for MANETs to protect forwarded packets from intermediary malicious nodes. The proposed protocol organizes the network into one-hop disjoint clusters then elects the most qualified and trustworthy nodes to play the role of cluster-heads that are responsible for handling all the routing activities. The proposed CBTRP continuously ensures the trustworthiness of cluster-heads by replacing them as soon as they become malicious and can dynamically update the packet path to avoid malicious routes. We have implemented and simulated the proposed protocol then evaluated its performance compared to the clustered based routing protocol (CBRP) as well as the 2ACK approach. Comparisons and analysis have shown the effectiveness of our proposed scheme.     

Transparent Polysilsesquioxane Films Obtained from Bridged Ureasil Precursors: Tunable Photoluminescence Emission in the Visible Region and Filtering of UV‐Radiation

Bridged ureasil precursors were synthesized by the reaction of either ethylenediamine (1 mol) or m‐xylylenediamine (1 mol) with isocyanatepropyltriethoxysilane (2 mol). Transparent polysilsesquioxane films were obtained by the hydrolytic condensation of the pure precursors or their co‐condensation in a 50:50 molar ratio. Films based on pure ureasil precursors showed a blue photoluminescent emission band assigned to the photoinduced proton‐transfer among H‐bonded urea groups and the subsequent radiative recombination of ionized groups. Films synthesized by the co‐condensation of both precursors exhibited a significant red‐shift of their absorption, excitation, and emission spectra, associated to de‐localization of H‐bonds, and a high absorption of UV‐radiation.

     

Use of fecal steroids to infer the sources of fecal indicator bacteria in the Lower Santa Ana River Watershed, California: sewage is unlikely a significant source

The Santa Ana River (SAR), CA and adjacent wetlands have been identified as potential sources of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) to the surf zone at Huntington Beach, CA. A suite of fecal steroids, including coprostanol (COP), epicoprostanol (eCOP), cholesterol (CHOE), cholestanol (CHOA), alpha-cholestanone (aONE), beta-cholestanone (bONE), beta-sitosterol (bSIT), stigmasterol (STIG), stigmastanol (STAN), and campesterol (CAM), were used as chemical markers to examine whether sewage was a significant source of FIB within the lower Santa Ana River watershed. A total of 54 water samples were collected from three locations in the intertidal zone near the mouth of the Santa Ana River at different tidal stages. Steroid ratios in SAR samples were different from those found in raw and treated sewage from a local wastewater treatment plant or in nearby effluent plume and did not appear to be influenced by the sampling location, daily tides, and spring/neap tidal cycle. The characteristics of steroid ratios suggested a diagenetic ratherthan a biogenic source forthe COP content of the samples. The log-based concentrations of COP and FIB in the SAR samples were not significantly correlated, inconsistent with sewage being the source of FIB in the study area. In addition, multivariate statistical analysis showed that the concentrations of FIB were better correlated with bird fecal steroids than with the typical sewage sterols. The results implied that sewage was not a significant source of fecal steroids, and therefore perhaps FIB to the study area. Instead, birds may be one possible source of the intermittently high levels of FIB observed in the lower Santa Ana River watershed and the nearby surf zone.