Changed isoflavone Levels in Red Clover (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Trifolium pratense</Emphasis> L.) Leaves with Disturbed Root Nodulation in Response to Waterlogging

The effect of disturbed root nodulation on the quantitative and qualitative composition of the main isoflavonoid glucoside–malonates, glucosides, and aglycones in the leaves of Trifolium pratense L. grown under waterlogging conditions was investigated. Isoflavonoids are involved in the regulation of root nodule activity and the establishment of the mycorrhizal association. Isoflavonoid determination was performed using reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometric and UV absorbance detection. In response to waterlogging, the concentrations of biochanin A and biochanin A–7-O-glucoside–malonate, biochanin A–7-O-glucoside, and genistein–7-O-glucoside in the leaves increased two- to threefold after a lag period of 3 wk because of disturbed root nodulation. The other isoflavones detected—formononetin, formononetin–7-O-glucoside–malonate, and formononetin–7-O-glucoside—did not show any significant changes related to waterlogging. After restoring normal soil water conditions, the concentrations of biochanin A and its glucoside and glucoside–malonate rapidly returned to the initial values, whereas the concentration of genistein–7-O-glucoside remained high.     

Dynamically stable corporate joint ventures

As markets continue to become global and firms become more international, corporate joint ventures provide firms with opportunities to rapidly create economies of scale and learn new skills and technologies that would be very difficult for them to obtain on their own. However, it is often observed that after a certain time of cooperation, some firms may gain sufficient skills and technology that they would do better by breaking up from the joint venture. This is the well-known problem of time inconsistency. In this paper, we consider a dynamic joint venture which adopts the shapley value as its profit allocation scheme. A compensation mechanism distributing payments to participating firms at each instant of time is devised to ensure the realization of the shapley value imputation throughout the venture duration. Hence time-consistency is attained, and a dynamically stable joint venture results. Extension of the analysis to a stochastic environment is also made. It is the first time that stable joint venture is analyzed both deterministically and stochastically in a dynamic environment.     

Empirically and clinically useful decision making in psychotherapy: Differential predictions with treatment response models.

In the delivery of clinical services, outcomes monitoring (i.e., repeated assessments of a patient's response to treatment) can be used to support clinical decision making (i.e., recurrent revisions of outcome expectations on the basis of that response). Outcomes monitoring can be particularly useful in the context of established practice research networks. This article presents a strategy to disaggregate patients into homogeneous subgroups to generate optimal expected treatment response profiles, which can be used to predict and track the progress of patients in different treatment modalities. The study was based on data from 618 diagnostically diverse patients treated with either a cognitive-behavioral treatment protocol (n = 262) or an integrative cognitive-behavioral and interpersonal treatment protocol (n = 356). The validity of expected treatment response models to predict treatment in those 2 protocols for individual patients was evaluated. The ways such a procedure might be used in outpatient centers to learn more about patients, predict treatment response, and improve clinical practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moisture-related mechanical properties of softwood: 3D micromechanical modeling

Computational micromechanical analysis of the influence of moisture, density and microstructure of latewood on its hydroelastic and shrinkage properties is carried out. The elastic properties of cell sublayers have been determined using the unit cell models as for fiber reinforced composites (two covered cylinders representative volume element, for S1, S2 and S3 sublayers) and rectangular embedded unit cells (for isotropic M and P sublayers). 3D hierarchical finite element models of softwood cells as a hexagon-shape-tube with multilayered walls were generated using parametric techniques. The results for elastic properties of cell sublayers obtained from the unit cell models, from the self-consistent method and Halpin-Tsai equations are compared, and good agreement between these methods was observed. A computational technique, based on the representation of moisture effect as equivalent temperature-caused effects, has been developed and employed to the modeling of the moisture-related changes of the elastic properties of cell layers. A series of computational experiments have been carried out. In the simulations, it was observed that the shrinkage coefficients of longitudinal direction increase with increasing MFAs in layer S2, while the reverse is true in the transverse plane. The shrinkage coefficients of wood depend strongly on the shape of the hexagon-shaped cells. Wood density has a strong effect on both the Young’s modulus and the transverse Young’s modulus.     

Formation of leucite-free zone in laser densified dental porcelains

A commercial dental porcelain powder with a composition within 5% of a patented dental porcelain: SiO₂—63.40%, Al₂O₃—16.70%, K₂O—14.19%, Na₂O—3.41%, CaO—1.50%, and MgO—0.80% (wt.%) was densified using a moving laser beam, and the phase transformation was studied. A leucite-free zone formed at the center of the laser beam path when the laser densification temperature was too high. The dental porcelain was also densified using a furnace at different temperatures, and the microstructures obtained were compared with those of laser densified bodies. The materials were characterized using SEM, EDS and XRD. The formation mechanism of the leucite-free zone is identified as the dissolution of leucite particles into the molten glass followed by subsequent fast cooling. The prevention of the leucite-free zone formation is discussed in light of the established mechanism.     

Blind chip-level equalizer for the downlink of cyclic-prefix CDMA systems

The authors present a chip-level blind frequency domain equalizer (FEQ) for the forward-link channel of a cyclic-prefix code division multiple access system. The FEQ coefficients are obtained without the need of training symbols or knowledge of channel state information. The coefficients are instead acquired by solving a constraint energy minimization problem involving the subspace spanned by the active and passive spreading codewords. They also prove that the random scrambling code sequences is required for the operation of the proposed equalization algorithm. Results from computer simulations are provided to verify the performance of the proposed FEQ.     

Exaggeration and suppression of iridescence: the evolution of two-dimensional butterfly structural colours.

Many butterfly species possess 'structural' colour, where colour is due to optical microstructures found in the wing scales. A number of such structures have been identified in butterfly scales, including three variations on a simple multi-layer structure. In this study, we optically characterize examples of all three types of multi-layer structure, as found in 10 species. The optical mechanism of the suppression and exaggeration of the angle-dependent optical properties (iridescence) of these structures is described. In addition, we consider the phylogeny of the butterflies, and are thus able to relate the optical properties of the structures to their evolutionary development. By applying two different types of analysis, the mechanism of adaptation is addressed. A simple parsimony analysis, in which all evolutionary changes are given an equal weighting, suggests convergent evolution of one structure. A Dollo parsimony analysis, in which the evolutionary 'cost' of losing a structure is less than that of gaining it, implies that 'latent' structures can be reused.