Turning configural processing upside down: Part and whole body postures.

Like faces, body postures are susceptible to an inversion effect in untrained viewers. The inversion effect may be indicative of configural processing, but what kind of configural processing is used for the recognition of body postures must be specified. The information available in the body stimulus was manipulated. The presence and magnitude of inversion effects were compared for body parts, scrambled bodies, and body halves relative to whole bodies and to corresponding conditions for faces and houses. Results suggest that configural body posture recognition relies on the structural hierarchy of body parts, not the parts themselves or a complete template match. Configural recognition of body postures based on information about the structural hierarchy of parts defines an important point on the configural processing continuum, between recognition based on first-order spatial relations and recognition based on holistic undifferentiated template matching. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

News: Resignation of science advisers ignites concern over California air plan

Government.     

News: Herbicide-resistant soybean plant sprouts opposition to transgenic seeds

Technology.     

Children's face recognition memory: More evidence for the cross-race effect.

It is well established that own-race faces are recognized more accurately than cross-race faces. However, there are mixed results regarding the developmental consistency of the cross-race effect. White and Black kindergarten children, 3rd graders, and young adults viewed a Black and a White target individual. One day later, recognition memory for each target was tested with a 6-person lineup. The interaction of race of participant by race of target face on Ag scores was significant, demonstrating an overall cross-race effect. The 2nd-order interaction with age did not approach significance: for each age group, own-race identification was more accurate than cross-race identification. The age consistency of the cross-race effect in light of the significant main effect of age suggests quantitative but not qualitative differences in face memory processing at various ages. For children, as well as adults, own-race faces are recognized more accurately than cross-race faces. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee reactions to ergonomic job design: The moderating effects of health locus of control and self-efficacy.

A field survey of 180 municipal government office employees (82% women, 21–75 years old) investigated the potential moderating effects of internal health locus of control (HLOC) and self-efficacy on employees' reactions to ergonomic job design. Internal HLOC moderated the associations between ergonomic job design and somatic complaints and turnover intentions, and, to a lesser extent, job satisfaction. Self-efficacy moderated the associations between job design and job satisfaction, somatic complaints, and, to a lesser extent, persistent pain. Employees with low self-efficacy or low internal HLOC were influenced more by their physical job conditions than those with high self-efficacy or high internal HLOC. Implications for the ergonomic design of offices are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of Water Temperature on Resolving the Challenge of Assuring Disinfection While Limiting Bromate Formation

Intensive pilot studies were performed to study the impact of ozone dose (0.6 to 3.5 mg/L), pH (6.0 to 7.5), and contact time (12 to 38 min) on bromate (BrO₃) formation, for different sand-filtered water qualities from the Neuilly-sur-Marne Treatment Plant (COT = 1.3 to 2.2 mg/L, TAC = 190 to 230 mg CaCO₃, [Br^?] = 25 to 50 μg/L, and T = 5°C to 26°C). Whatever the water quality studied, the main factors influencing bromate formation were ozone dose, pH, and a cross factor between them. Bromate formation was shown to be proportional to bromide concentration, and to increase only slightly with temperature, depending on the ozone dose and the pH. As on the contrary temperature has an important impact on disinfection, especially when considering Cryptosporidium inactivation, resolving the challenge of ensuring disinfection while limiting bromate formation was shown to be quite easily achievable, at intermediate temperature, and with more stringent conditions at high temperature (because of bromate formation) or at low temperature (because of disinfection).     

Hybrid acrylic–polyimide latexes from miniemulsion polymerisation

A rigid polyimide (PI) was dissolved in acrylic monomers (methyl methacrylate, n‐butyl acrylate) as a hydrophobe to form miniemulsions stabilized by a mixture of sodium dodecyl sulfate and Triton^®, with droplets size in the range 100–300 nm, and PI concentration up to about 30% by weight, which corresponds to its limit of solubility. Upon polymerization initiated with ammonium persulfate, the particle size tends to decrease to the range 80–250 nm. From these hybrid latexes, clear yellowish films were obtained with two glass transitions: one close to that of polybutylacrylate (T_g = ?50 °C) and the second between 15 and 40 °C, depending on PI concentration. PI causes a reinforcement of the mechanical properties at room temperature. This reinforcement is enhanced through an appropriate thermal treatment. Copyright © 2004 Society of Chemical Industry     

Design guidelines for wireless sensor networks: communication, clustering and aggregation

When sensor nodes are organized in clusters, they could use either single hop or multi-hop mode of communication to send their data to their respective cluster heads. We present a systematic cost-based analysis of both the modes, and provide results that could serve as guidelines to decide which mode should be used for given settings. We determine closed form expressions for the required number of cluster heads and the required battery energy of nodes for both the modes. We also propose a hybrid communication mode which is a combination of single hop and multi-hop modes, and which is more cost-effective than either of the two modes. Our problem formulation also allows for the application to be taken into account in the overall design problem through a data aggregation model.     

Role of the central nucleus of the amygdala in olfactory heart rate conditioning.

The role of the central nucleus of the amygdala on olfactory heart rate conditioning in the infant rat was investigated. The conditioned stimulus (CS) consisted of a 10-s presentation of grape juice odor that was immediately followed by a 0.5-s, 0.35-mA subcutaneous shock. A sensitization control group was also run. Three days prior to testing, Ss received either bilateral electrolytic lesions of the central nucleus of the amygdala, sham lesions, or were left unperturbed. Results show that damage to the central nucleus of the amygdala severely impaired olfactory heart rate conditioning but that it had no deleterious effect on the heart rate orienting response to that stimulus or on the heart rate unconditioned response (UCR) to shock. Results are analogous to those in previous research on auditory heart rate conditioning and suggest that the central nucleus of the amygdala may constitute a necessary stage in the transduction of the CS into a cardiac conditioned response (CR) regardless of sensory modality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Corrosion behaviour of AISI 304 stainless steel in presence of a biosurfactant produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens

Under certain conditions, some microorganisms are able to synthesize surface active compounds called biosurfactants (BS), which reduce the surface tension of water. BS characteristics depend on which microorganism produce them and therefore, on the microorganism culture conditions (temperature, pH, C, N-source,…). Numerous applications are known for these biomolecules, such as cleaning, bioremediation, and their use as a detergent, or in cosmetic formulations.Recently, a large amount of literature has been edited on the influence of BS on the interactions between pathogenic bacteria and inert surfaces. It has been shown that the modifications of surface properties by the adsorption of BS can reduce microbial adhesion.Some other studies on chemical surfactants have shown that the adsorption of surface-active compounds plays a major role in corrosion; they are indeed used as an interesting corrosion inhibition tool. Therefore, it seems very interesting to study the impact of BS as environment-friendly (since biological and biodegradable) corrosion inhibitors.In the present work, an attempt was made to study the corrosion behaviour of AISI 304 stainless steel in presence of BS produced by a Gram-negative bacteria, Pseudomonas fluorescens (Pf495). Corrosion tests were achieved on several surface oxidation states. The surface morphology of the corroded specimens was investigated using SEM.