The validity of the Gammarus:Asellus ratio as an index of organic pollution: abiotic and biotic influences.

In freshwaters. Gammarus spp. are more sensitive to organic pollution than Asellus spp. and the relative abundance of the two taxa has been proposed as a pollution index. We tested the validity of this by examining the relationship between the Gammarus: Asellus (G : A) ratio and (1) a suite of physico-chemical variables. (2) established biotic (average score per taxon, ASPT) and richness (species richness (S) and Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera families richness (EPT family richness)) indices generated from the macroinvertebrate community. In addition, we investigated a suspected biotic interaction, predation, between Gammarus and Asellus. Both univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the G: A ratio was sometimes responsive to changes in parameters linked to organic pollution, such as BOD5 and nitrate levels. However, the G : A ratio also appeared responsive to variables not directly linked to organic pollution, such as conductivity and distance from source. There were significant positive correlations among the G : A ratio and the ASPT, S and EPT, indicating that changes in the relative abundances of Gammarus and Asellus were reflected in changes in the pollution sensitivity and richness of the wider macroinvertebrate community. A laboratory experiment revealed significant predation of Asellus aquaticus juveniles by Gammarus duebeni celticus adults, but no reciprocal predation. We propose that the G: A ratio may be useful as a crude measure of organic pollution that could supplement more complex indices in a multimetric approach to pollution monitoring or be used for monitoring individual sites, where a simple technique is required for monitoring purposes over a period of time. Also, we urge recognition of the possible role of biotic interactions among taxa used in the generation of pollution indices.     

Process issues in treatment: Application to sexual offender programs.

How critical is the therapeutic alliance in the treatment of sexual offenders? To date such process issues have been neglected in the field of sex offender treatment. This article reviews the literature on the influence on behavior change of therapist features, clients' perceptions, and the therapeutic alliance. Among the many therapist features identified as helpful are empathy, warmth, and being directive and rewarding. Therapists who are aggressively confrontational appear not to foster beneficial changes in their clients. These issues are directly related to treatment issues faced by therapists who work with sexual offenders, such as dealing with cognitive distortions, lack of empathy, and lack of motivation to change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Patients' preferences for pain treatment modalities in a multidisciplinary pain clinic.

44 male and 74 female patients (aged 22–78 yrs) in a multidisciplinary pain clinic rated their preferences for 9 pain treatment modalities: ice, transcutaneous electronic nerve stimulation (TENS), relaxation, group therapy, social work, physical therapy, massage, heat, and lectures. Relaxation, physical therapy, and ice were most liked; TENS, heat, and social work were least liked. Multiple regression analyses indicated that preference for relaxation was the best predictor of decreased pain ratings, while preference for heat was correlated with increased pain ratings. Liking for physical therapy predicted self-ratings at discharge of positive well-being and minor life disruption. Liking for heat predicted self-ratings of major life disruption and nurses' ratings of pain behavior at discharge. Results suggest that treatment regimens should take into account patients' moods and personality styles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determination of molecular weight distributions of tert-octylphenol ethoxylate surfactant polymers by laser desorption Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and high-performance liquid chromatography

Triton polymers are commercial surfactants whose molecular weight distributions are conventionally determined by means of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). However, in the case of the important octylphenol ethoxylates [p-C8H17-C6H4-O-(CH2CH2O)n-H], HPLC cannot resolve individual oligomers of high molecular weight Triton surfactants (e.g., greater than 2000 u or so; u = unified atomic mass unit). In this paper, we show that laser desorption Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (LD/FT/ICR/MS) provides a simple and accurate measure of such Triton surfactant molecular weight distributions up to at least 3500 u, based on a single-shot laser pulse measurement of a few seconds duration. Comparison of LD/FT/ICR/MS and HPLC molecular weight distributions of low molecular weight surfactants shows that laser desorption/ionization produces minimal fragmentation and thus offers an accurate measure of the relative abundances of the neutral oligomers, without the need for prior chromatographic separation of the components. Moreover, for all Triton polymer molecular weight distributions (700-3000 u), LD/FT/ICR/MS provides much more highly resolved profiles of oligomer relative abundances. Finally, LD/FT/ICR/MS reveals the presence of poly(ethylene oxide) side products of the polymerization process, which are not observed by HPLC with conventional ultraviolet absorption detection.     

Innovation in construction: a sociology of technology approach

An alternative approach to understanding innovation is made using two intersecting ideas. The first is that successful innovation requires consideration of the social and organizational contexts in which it is located. The complex context of construction work is characterized by inter-organizational collaboration, a project-based approach and power distributed amongst collaborating organizations. The second is that innovations can be divided into two modes: 'bounded', where the implications of innovation are restricted within a single, coherent sphere of influence, and 'unbounded', where the effects of implementation spill over beyond this. Bounded innovations are adequately explained within the construction literature. However, less discussed are unbounded innovations, where many firms' collaboration is required for successful implementation, even though many innovations can be considered unbounded within construction's inter-organizational context. It is argued that unbounded innovations require an approach to understand and facilitate the interactions both within a range of actors and between the actors and technological artefacts. The insights from a sociology of technology approach can be applied to the multiplicity of negotiations and alignments that constitute the implementation of unbounded innovation. The utility of concepts from the sociology of technology, including 'system building' and 'heterogeneous engineering', is demonstrated by applying them to an empirical study of an unbounded innovation on a major construction project (the new terminal at Heathrow Airport, London, UK). This study suggests that 'system building' contains outcomes that are not only transformations of practices, processes and systems, but also the potential transformation of technologies themselves.     

Progress in the development of polymer cholesteric liquid crystal flakes for display applications

Polymer cholesteric liquid crystal (PCLC) flake technology is being developed as an alternative display technology for flexible, reflective particle displays. The motion of PCLC flakes suspended in a host fluid can be controlled with an electric field, creating a way to electrically control the flakes' ability to brightly reflect light that is circularly polarized. The PCLC flake/host fluid dispersion has been successfully microencapsulated both in a polymer matrix and in gelatin micro-capsules. Microencapsulation will not only expand the applications scope of the technology, but also may aid in addressing some potential problem areas that are inherent to many forms of particle display technology. A second important development in PCLC flake technology involves the manufacture of shaped flakes based on soft lithography techniques. The size and shape of a flake impact its reorientation, and uniformly shaped flakes respond in a similar manner. The unique reflective properties of PCLC flakes also provide possible applications in areas such as optics and photonics, switchable ‘smart windows’ or conformal coatings, and information displays such as ‘electronic paper.’     

AssetCollector: a system for managing collections of cultural assets

In this paper, AssetCollector is presented, which is a system for managing collections of cultural assets. AssetCollector covers the needs of collection curators towards defining, populating and searching a collection in a flexible way, while supporting them in generating reports based on the collection’s assets and reusing them in order to build web sites and CD-ROMs. In order to support the above functionality, the system provides the content structuring subsystem, the content input subsystem, the search subsystem and the report subsystem. The use of the subsystems is straightforward and requires no technical skills from the curators. AssetCollector has been successfully applied for organizing various collections of cultural assets in Greece, such as archaeological sites, museums and published books. In the future, an evaluation procedure is planned in order to further refine the use of the system according to the targeted users’ needs. Furthermore, more import and export facilities will be provided, which will make the system compliant with widely accepted standards.     

Peirce algebras

We present a two-sorted algebra, called aPeirce algebra, of relations and sets interacting with each other. In a Peirce algebra, sets can combine with each other as in a Boolean algebra, relations can combine with each other as in a relation algebra, and in addition we have both a set-forming operator on relations (the Peirce product of Boolean modules) and a relation-forming operator on sets (a cylindrification operation). Two applications of Peirce algebras are given. The first points out that Peirce algebras provide a natural algebraic framework for modelling certain programming constructs. The second shows that the so-calledterminological logics arising in knowledge representation have evolved a semantics best described as a calculus of relations interacting with sets.     

Allergy and depression: A neurochemical threshold model of the relation between the illnesses.

Empirical studies suggest a very high prevalence of atopic disorder in people with depression. Research indicates that individuals with allergy have cholinergic hyperresponsiveness and beta-adrenergic hyporesponsiveness in the autonomic nervous system. Evidence is reviewed that similar imbalances in CNS cholinergic–adrenergic activity play a causal role in depression behaviors. It is hypothesized that the allergic state or allergic reactions can accentuate cholinergic–adrenergic activity imbalances in the CNS of a small subgroup of people at risk for endogenous depression thereby producing depression symptomatology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)