Conifers and commemoration — the politics and protocol of planting

This study examines the symbolic role of trees, shrubs and flowers on 20th century battle grounds and military cemeteries. By focusing on the imagery of commemoration and on the power of horticultural symbols the paper explores the emergence of an iconography during wartime and its perpetuation in ritualized peacetime landscapes. The paper makes specific reference to the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to the consecrated ground of the Dardanelles peninsula — a commemorative terrain that is being altered by Turkish planting and memorial schemes that are bringing into sharp focus the problems of maintaining Christian burial grounds in perpetuity across the globe. The paper concludes by asking whether tree planting may have replaced memorial building in the rhetoric and culture of commemoration.     

Reading and skimming from computer screens and books: the paperless office revisited?

Past research has demonstrated that reading efficiency is lower from the standard computer displays of the 1980s than from paper. In the present experiments, subjects read or skimmed stories, sometimes from a high-quality CRT (cathode ray tube) and sometimes from a book. Skimming was 41% slower from the CRTs than from the book. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed. Reading speed and comprehension were equivalent for the high-quality CRTs and the book. The paperless office may be imminent after all.     

Influence of cage design on precision of tube-trap bioassay for attractants of the onion fly,Delia antiqua

Responses of onion flies,Delia antiqua, to known attractants were measured in the laboratory with a novel tube-trap bioassay. The relative numbers of flies caught in tube traps baited with enzymatic yeast hydrolysate, brewer's yeast, andn-dipropyl disulfide were similar to those obtained previously with cone traps in the field. Changing the shape of the bioassay cage from a cuboid to a cylinder decreased the experimental error obtained from analysis of variance, as did rotating the floor of the circular cage. This bioassay should be useful in evaluating attractants for other insects that orient along the substrate.Diptera: Anthomyiidae.Paper No. 11327 of the Michigan State University Agricultural Experiment Station. Received for publication June 8, 1984.     

Functional polymers

Summary Polymeric antioxidants prepared from 2,6-di-tertiary-butyl-4-vinyl (4-lsopropenyl)phenol and butadiene or isoprene, and their hydrogenated products (6-8 mol % of phenolic AO in the polymer) were tested by oxygen uptake studies for their effectiveness as antioxidants for polyolefins and polydienes. The polymeric antioxidants seem to be slightly less effective in short-term protection against oxidation at 150° C as compared to low molecular weight antioxidants, but more effective in long-term protection of the polymer samples at a level of 0.1 weight percent.Part 43: P. Grosso, O. Vogl: J. Macromol. Sci. Chem., in pressNow Chemical Company, Midland, MI 48674, USATo whom all correspondence should be addressed: Herman F. Mark Professor of Polymer Science, Polytechnic Institute of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA     

Visual-kinesthetic dissociation in treatment of victims of rape.

A visual–kinesthetic (V–K) dissociation procedure of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) was used in treating rape-induced anxiety and phobic reactions in 2 18- and 19-yr-old rape victims. NLP theory suggests that anxiety reactions experienced by rape victims is a function of the interrelated processes of synesthesia and anchoring. In these 2 case reports, the use of the V–K dissociation technique is explored. From this preliminary basis, further research entailing the use of this treatment procedure is suggested. Implications for clinical practice are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tree-based partitioning of date for association rule mining

The most computationally demanding aspect of Association Rule Mining is the identification and counting of support of the frequent sets of items that occur together sufficiently often to be the basis of potentially interesting rules. The task increases in difficulty with the scale of the data and also with its density. The greatest challenge is posed by data that is too large to be contained in primary memory, especially when high data density and/or low support thresholds give rise to very large numbers of candidates that must be counted. In this paper, we consider strategies for partitioning the data to deal effectively with such cases. We describe a partitioning approach which organises the data into tree structures that can be processed independently. We present experimental results that show the method scales well for increasing dimensions of data and performs significantly better than alternatives, especially when dealing with dense data and low support thresholds. Shakil Ahmed received a first class BSc (Hons) degree from Dhaka University, Bangladesh, in 1990; and an MSc (first class), also Dhaka University, in 1992. He received his PhD from The University of Liverpool, UK, in 2005. From 2000 onwards he is a member of the Data Mining Group at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Liverpool, UK. His research interests include data mining, Association Rule Mining and pattern recognition. Frans Coenen has been working in the field of Data Mining for many years and has written widely on the subject. He received his PhD from Liverpool Polytechnic in 1989, after which he took up a post as a RA within the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool. In 1997, he took up a lecturing post within the same department. His current Data Mining research interests include Association rule Mining, Classification algorithms and text mining. He is on the programme committee for ICDM'05 and was the chair for the UK KDD symposium (UKKDD'05). Paul Leng is professor of e-Learning at the University of Liverpool and director of the e-Learning Unit, which is responsible for overseeing the University's online degree programmes, leading to degrees of MSc in IT and MBA. Along with e-Learning, his main research interests are in Data Mining, especially in methods of discovering Association Rules. In collaboration with Frans Coenen, he has developed efficient new algorithms for finding frequent sets and is exploring applications in text mining and classification.     

Numerical investigation of the error on flow measurements due to exhaust gas heating and cooling in the SBI‐configuration

The possible flow measurement error due to heating or cooling of exhaust gases in the Single‐Burning‐Item (SBI) test is estimated from numerical experiments. It is illustrated that there is no one‐to‐one correspondence between the velocity profile shape and the instantaneous Reynolds number, due to the time‐dependent temperature and density profile evolution in the exhaust gas pipe. A non‐ambiguous relation is found between the velocity profile shape and an ‘effective’ Reynolds number, based on the turbulent viscosity. Maximum variations of the velocity correction factors, relating the mean velocity to the velocity on the pipe axis, are found to be in the order of 2% for limiting circumstances for the SBI test. The primary effect is caused by instantaneous Reynolds number variations. The effect of heating or cooling of the flow by the hot or cold pipe is noticeable, too. The statements are proved to be valid independent of the computational grid, the turbulence model and the time steps taken to obtain the numerical solutions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distribution of prostaglandin IP and EP receptor subtypes and isoforms in platelets and human umbilical artery smooth muscle cells

Prostaglandins act through specific receptors to stimulate cyclic AMP formation which inhibits platelet activation and relaxes vascular smooth muscle. We have used RT-PCR combined with Southern blot analysis to determine the subtypes of prostaglandin receptor on platelets. Platelets expressed the EP4 rather than the EP2 prostaglandin EP receptor subtype, whereas vascular smooth muscle cells predominantly expressed the EP2 receptor. The IP receptor, which binds prostacyclin and couples to stimulation of adenylyl cyclase, and three isoforms of the inhibitory EP3 receptor were equally expressed in platelets, HEL cells and umbilical artery smooth muscle cells. The EP3-II isoform showed variation in level of expression among the three cell types. As a positive control for the presence of platelet RNA, PCR was performed using primers specific for the alpha chain of the platelet membrane glycoprotein Ib. As a negative control for the absence of T and B cell contamination in the platelet RNA, PCR was performed using primers specific for the cell specific cluster determinants CD2 (a T-cell marker) and CD20 (a B-cell marker). The finding that platelets express both stimulatory and inhibitory prostaglandin receptors provides confirmation of a homeostatic model of regulation of platelet adenylyl cyclase previously proposed.     

Outplacement: Client characteristics and outcomes.

Outplacement firms developed in response to corporate downsizings to assist former upper-level employees in seeking reemployment. An important question for practitioners who assist clients in outplacement is how the personal characteristics that clients bring to the situation influence their success in finding a new job. The present archival study examined demographic variables, previous job history, and personality characteristics as predictors of outplacement outcomes. Outplacement duration was predicted by previous income, and new earnings were predicted by previous earnings, sex, and years with previous employer. The need for prospective, longitudinal research that examines the coping process in outplacement is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)