Online square and cube packing

In online square packing, squares of different sizes arrive online and need to be packed into unit squares which are called bins. The goal is to minimize the number of bins used. Online cube packing is defined analogously. We show an upper bound of 2.2697 and a lower bound of 1.6406 for online square packing, and an upper bound of 2.9421 and a lower bound of 1.6680 for online cube packing. The upper bound for squares can be further reduced to 2.24437 using a computer proof. These results improve on the previously known results for the two problems. We also show improved lower bounds for higher dimensions.Preliminary versions of different parts of this paper appeared in Proc. Symp. Discr. Alg. 2004 (SODA 2004) and Proc. Eur. Symp. Alg. 2004 (ESA 2004).     

Gossypol and gossypurpurin in cottonseed of different varieties ofG. barbadense andG. hirsutum,and variation of the pigments during storage of the seed

Summary Selected varieties of cottonseed comprising three Sea Island cottons, four Egyptian cottons, and 10 upland cottons providing two or more varieties having the following characteristics: short, intermediate, and long staple; low, intermediate, and high content of lipids; and low, intermediate, and high content of protein, were planted and grown under as nearly identical conditions as possible. The initial contents of moisture, lipids, nitrogen, gossypol, and gossypurpurin of the harvested seed were determined, after which samples of all of the seed were stored for a year under identical conditions and analyzed periodically for gossypol and gossypurpurin. A definite relation was found between the species of the seed and their content of gossypol and gossypurpurin. Sea Island and Egyptian seed of the speciesG. barbadense contained more gossypol and very much more gossypurpurin than seed of the speciesG. hirsutum. Within the speciesG. barbadense Sea Island seed contained more gossypol and less gossypurpurin than Egyptian seed. Gossypurpurin increased during storage of all of the seed whereas gossypol varied in a number of different ways, increasing in some, decreasing in others, and remaining relatively constant in a few samples of stored seed. A discussion is presented of the theoretical and practical implications of these observations. Presented at 39th Annual Meeting of the American Oil Chemists' Society in New Orleans, May 4–6, 1948. One of the laboratories of the Burean of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry, Agricultural Research Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, and Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Research Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture.     

Pigments of cottonseed. IV. Gossypurpurin,a purple pigment related to gossypol

Summary Gossypurpurin was prepared from gossypol via diaminogossypol, and its properties compared with gossypurpurin isolated from cottonseed pigment glands. A tentative molecular formula for synthetic gossypurpurin, C₃₀H₃₂O₇N, has been proposed on the basis of its elementary composition. The native pigment could not be obtained in the same degree of purity as the synthetic product and the analytical data could therefore not be brought into exact agreement for the two products. However solutions of both pigments in chloroform exhibit almost identical absorption spectra and identical antimony trichloride tests. Qualitative reactions seem to indicate that the functional groups of both native and synthetic gossypurpurin are identical, and the ready conversion of both products to gossypol upon contact with acid seems to indicate that their basic structures are similar. Presented before the 4th Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Shreveport, La., December 9–10, 1948. One of the laboratories of the Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry, Agricultural Research Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture.     

Radionuclide transfer to invertebrates and small mammals in a coastal sand dune ecosystem

International intercomparisons of models to assess the impact of ionising radiation on wildlife have identified radionuclide transfer assumptions as a significant source of uncertainty in the modelling process. There is a need to improve the underpinning data sets on radionuclide transfer to reduce this uncertainty, especially for poorly-studied ecosystems such as coastal sand dunes. This paper presents the results of the first published study of radionuclide transfer to invertebrates and small mammals in a coastal sand dune ecosystem. Activity concentrations of ¹³⁷Cs, ²³⁸Pu, ^239 + 240Pu and ²⁴¹Am are reported for detritivorous, herbivorous, carnivorous and omnivorous biota. Differences in activity concentrations measured in the sand dune biota are related to the trophic level of the organisms and the influence of sea-to-land transfer is apparent in the food chain transfer observed at the site. There are notable differences in the concentration ratios (CRs) calculated for the sand dune biota compared to other terrestrial ecosystems, especially for the small mammals which have CRs that are two orders of magnitude lower than the generic terrestrial ecosystem CRs published by the recent EC EURATOM ERICA project. The lower CRs at the sand dunes may be due to the influence of other cations from the marine environment (e.g. K and Na) on the net radionuclide transfer observed, but further research is required to test this hypothesis.     

Neurocognitive status in long-term survivors of childhood CNS malignancies: A report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study.

To assess neurocognitive functioning in adult survivors of childhood Central Nervous System (CNS) malignancy, a large group of CNS malignancy survivors were compared to survivors of non-CNS malignancy and siblings without cancer on a self-report instrument (CCSS-NCQ) assessing four factors, Task Efficiency, Emotional Regulation, Organization and Memory. Additional multiple linear regressions were used to assess the contribution of demographic, illness, and treatment variables to reported neurocognitive functioning in CNS malignancy survivors and the relationship of reported neurocognitive functioning to socioeconomic indicators. Survivors of CNS malignancy reported significantly greater neurocognitive impairment on all CCSS-NCQ factors than non-CNS cancer survivors or siblings (p     

Intimate partner violence moderates the association between mother–infant adrenocortical activity across an emotional challenge.

This study examined the relationship between mother and infant adrenocortical levels and reactivity to an emotion eliciting task. The impact of intimate partner violence (IPV) on these relationships was assessed as a moderator. The sample (n = 702 mother–infant dyads) was racially diverse and from predominantly low-income, rural communities. During a home visit, the dyad’s saliva was sampled before, 20 min, and 40 min after standardized tasks designed to elicit the infant’s emotional arousal and later assayed for cortisol. Mothers completed self-report measures of their partner’s violence, and parenting behaviors were assessed via structured interview and mother–child interactions. In response to the task, infants had positive, and mothers had negative, cortisol slopes. Contrary to expectations, there were no IPV-related differences in mean pretask cortisol levels or reactivity in the mothers or infants. Mother–infant dyads from households characterized by either (1) violence or (2) restrictive and punitive parenting behaviors exhibited correlated cortisol reactivity measured in response to the infant challenge task. The findings suggest that social contextual features of the early caregiving environment may influence individual differences in the coordination between maternal and infant adrenocortical reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rapid enumeration of respiratory viruses

Virus detection and enumeration has become increasingly important in fields ranging from medicine and biotechnology to environmental science. Although there are a wide variety of techniques that can be used to count viruses, there is demand for a rapid and more accurate means for virus enumeration. In this work, the performance of a flow cytometer that was designed and custom-built specifically for rapid detection of single viruses was evaluated. The instrument, designated a single nanometric particle enumerator (SNaPE), was characterized and calibrated using fluorescent polystyrene nanospheres. The reliability of the instrument with respect to virus enumeration was demonstrated for three medically relevant viruses, adenovirus-5, respiratory syncytial virus, and influenza A, treated with a fluorescent nucleotide stain. In each case, the SNaPE yielded a virus particle concentration consistent with, but slightly lower than, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results, as expected. In addition, on the basis of calibration of signal intensity, the average peak height for a given virus was correlated with genome size, as expected. In contrast to time-consuming analyses such as TEM and plaque titers, SNaPE analysis of pure virus samples (including sample handling, data collection, and data processing) can be completed within 1 h.     

Adult age differences in repetition priming: A meta-analysis.

This article reports a meta-analysis comparing the size of repetition priming effects in young and older adults. The main analysis included 39 effect sizes. Of these, 23 effect sizes could be classified as involving item priming and 16 as involving associative priming. The weighted mean effect size for the age difference was .304, with a confidence interval from .217 to .392. Because the confidence interval did not include 0, the hypothesis of no age difference in repetition priming was rejected. Subsidiary analyses, however, revealed that the weighted mean effect size for repetition priming was smaller than those for recognition or recall measures from the set of experiments included in the effect-size meta-analysis. Difficulties in drawing conclusions about process dissociations in old age in the face of only a partial dissociation in experimental measures are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)