THE ASSAY OF BITTERNESS IN BEERS FLAVOURED WITH ISOHUMULONE CONCENTRATES

The Rigby-Bethune rapid methods for determining bitterness in beer are compared with Moltke-Meilgaard measurements. A new assay is presented which is suitable for the determination of bitterness in beers flavoured with isohumulone concentrates.     

Affecting the salience of the social responsibility norm: effects of past help on the response to dependency relationships.

A series of experiments by the authors assumes that many people in our society are motivated to aid others who are dependent upon them because such help is prescribed by a "social responsibility norm." The present study also assumes that prior help can increase the salience of this norm. In a 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design using 80 Ss (college women), ? of the Ss were individually helped by a peer (E's confederate) on a preliminary task, while the others were not aided. After this, the Ss worked on another task under the supposed supervision of yet another peer, with ? of the Ss being told the supervisor was highly dependent upon their work and the others told she was less dependent upon them. The 1st peer would supposedly learn of their work in ? of the cases but not in the other ?. The previously helped Ss tended to exert the greatest effort in behalf of their dependent peer. A self-report scale assessing social responsibility tendencies was significantly correlated with the effort measure in the Prior Help-High Dependency condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vanishing points and three-dimensional lines from omni-directional video

This paper describes a system for structure from motion using vanishing points and three-dimensional lines extracted from omni-directional video sequences. To track lines, we use a novel dynamic programming approach to improve ambiguity resolution, and we use delayed states to aid in the initialization of landmarks. By reobserving vanishing points we get direct measurements of the robots three-dimensional attitude that are independent of its position. Using vanishing points simplifies the representation since parallel lines share the same direction states. We show the performance of the system in various indoor and outdoor environments and include comparisons with independent two-dimensional reference maps for each experiment .     

A dynamical model for generating synthetic electrocardiogram signals

A dynamical model based on three coupled ordinary differential equations is introduced which is capable of generating realistic synthetic electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The operator can specify the mean and standard deviation of the heart rate, the morphology of the PQRST cycle, and the power spectrum of the RR tachogram. In particular, both respiratory sinus arrhythmia at the high frequencies (HFs) and Mayer waves at the low frequencies (LFs) together with the LF/HF ratio are incorporated in the model. Much of the beat-to-beat variation in morphology and timing of the human ECG, including QT dispersion and R-peak amplitude modulation are shown to result. This model may be employed to assess biomedical signal processing techniques which are used to compute clinical statistics from the ECG.     

FTMS structure elucidation of natural products: application to muraymycin antibiotics using ESI multi-CHEF SORI-CID FTMS(n), the top-down/bottom-up approach,and HPLC ESI capillary-skimmer CID FTMS

The molecular formulas for the structures and substructures of muraymycin antibiotics A1 (C52H90N14O19, MW 1214) and B1 (C49H83N11O18, MW 1113) were determined using electrospray ionization (ESI) Fourier transform mass spectrometry (FTMS). The muraymycin A1 and B1 structures were elucidated by utilizing capillary-skimmer fragmentation with up to five stages of mass spectrometry (MS5). Multi-CHEF, a multiple ion isolation method, was used at each stage of MS(n) to isolate a parent ion and up to four reference ions, for exact-mass calibration. The parent ions were fragmented by SORI-CID and the product ions internally calibrated with average absolute mass errors less than 1 ppm at each stage in the fragmentation processes. Using the top-down/bottom-up approach, the molecular formulas for the antibiotics were determined by summing the elemental formulas of the neutral losses, obtained by measuring the mass differences (<500 Da) between the genetically related sequential parent ion masses in the MS(n) spectra, with the unique elemental formula of the lowest parent ion mass (<500 Da). The structures of 12 additional compounds in the muraymycin complex were elucidated using HPLC ESI capillary-skimmer CID FTMS by correlating their fragmentation patterns with those of muraymycins A1 and B1. Sequential neutral losses of an aminosugar, a valine, a uridine, and an ester fatty acid from the muraymycin parent ions provided diagnostic fragments for characterization.     

Comparison of phase noise simulation techniques on a BJT LC oscillator

The phase noise resulting from white and flicker noise in a bipolar junction transistor (BJT) LC oscillator is investigated. Large signal transient time domain SPICE simulations of phase noise resulting from the random-phase flicker and white noise in a 2 GHz BJT LC oscillator have been performed and demonstrated. The simulation results of this new technique are compared with Eldo RF and Spectre RF based on linear circuit concepts and experimental result reported in the literature.     

Situational influences on ethical decision-making in an IT context

Processes of ethical decision-making are thought to depend on the issue faced when making the decision. We examined the processes by examining student's reactions to five scenarios involving IT use. Data were collected using a questionnaire following a group discussion. The results showed that ethical decision-making processes did indeed vary by scenario, suggesting that a single-issue approach is inadequate for studying ethical decision-making. Perceived importance of the ethical issue was a factor in the scenarios, but it did not have an all-inclusive influence on the decision-making of the participants. The results were considered in the context of theories and Mason's ethical issues of the information age. We offer advice to managers on how to limit unethical behavior.     

Food reinforcement, the dopamine D? receptor genotype, and energy intake in obese and nonobese humans.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 122(1) of Behavioral Neuroscience (see record 2008-01943-025). In the original article, the n values (and corresponding percentages) for the number of people with the A1/A1 & A1/A2 and A2/A2 genotypes were reversed in Table 2. The corrected table appears in the erratum, with the revised numbers appearing in bold font.] The authors measured food reinforcement, polymorphisms of the dopamine D? receptor (DRD?) and dopamine transporter (DAT1) genes, and laboratory energy intake in 29 obese and 45 nonobese humans 18-40 years old. Food reinforcement was greater in obese than in nonobese individuals, especially in obese individuals with the TaqI A1 allele. Energy intake was greater for individuals high in food reinforcement and greatest in those high in food reinforcement with the TaqI A1 allele. No effect of the DAT1 genotype was observed. These data show that individual differences in food reinforcement may be important for obesity and that the DRD? genotype may interact with food reinforcement to influence energy intake. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Food reinforcement and eating: A multilevel analysis.

Eating represents a choice among many alternative behaviors. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of how food reinforcement and behavioral choice theory are related to eating and to show how this theoretical approach may help organize research on eating from molecular genetics through treatment and prevention of obesity. Special emphasis is placed on how food reinforcement and behavioral choice theory are relevant to understanding excess energy intake and obesity and how they provide a framework for examining factors that may influence eating and are outside of those that may regulate energy homeostasis. Methods to measure food reinforcement are reviewed, along with factors that influence the reinforcing value of eating. Contributions of neuroscience and genetics to the study of food reinforcement are illustrated by using the example of dopamine. Implications of food reinforcement for obesity and positive energy balance are explored, with suggestions for novel approaches to obesity treatment based on the synthesis of behavioral and pharmacological approaches to food reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On Lifetime-Based Node Failure and Stochastic Resilience of Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Networks

To model P2P networks that are commonly faced with high rates of churn and random departure decisions by end-users, this paper investigates the resilience of random graphs to lifetime-based node failure and derives the expected delay before a user is forcefully isolated from the graph and the probability that this occurs within his/her lifetime. Using these metrics, we show that systems with heavy-tailed lifetime distributions are more resilient than those with light-tailed (e.g., exponential) distributions and that for a given average degree, k-regular graphs exhibit the highest level of fault tolerance. As a practical illustration of our results, each user in a system with n = 100 billion peers, 30-minute average lifetime, and 1-minute node-replacement delay can stay connected to the graph with probability 1 - 1/n using only 9 neighbors. This is in contrast to 37 neighbors required under previous modeling efforts. We finish the paper by observing that many P2P networks are almost surely (i.e., with probability 1 - o(1)) connected if they have no isolated nodes and derive a simple model for the probability that a P2P system partitions under churn.