Chitosan Microspheres Prepared by Emulsification and Ionotropic Gelation

An attempt was made to prepare chitosan microspheres by an emulsion-phase separation technique but without the usual use of glutaraldehyde as a cross-linking agent. Instead, ionotropic gelation was employed in a w/o emulsion. The effect of formulation factors was examined. The results showed that microspheres so formed were spherical, free-flowing, and had smooth surfaces. The rate of addition of counterions was important. Gelation of chitosan droplets should take place before the destabilizing effect of the counterions occurred. This effect is associated with the increase in aqueous phase volume when the counterion solution is incorporated.     

Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Psychology: Some Samples From Recent Research.

As a demonstration of ways in which the burgeoning work in neuroscience and cognitive psychology have important relevance for psychoanalysis, samples are offered from the literature of the past 9 months. Reports address such topics as neural transmission at the cellular level; a revolutionary new instrument capable of recording neurons at work in the brain; the latest data on the effect of psychotropic drugs on children; the research validity of measuring emotional expression (e.g., do baby rats cry); longitudinal work on inhibited children; the importance of implicit cognitive processes; emotion, attention, and the amygdala; and recent findings about glutamate, "the workhorse of the brain," and how its deleterious effects in neurodegenerative disorders may be modulated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Black-boxing the Evidence: Planning Regulation and Major Renewable Energy Infrastructure Projects in England and Wales

How does a regulatory regime cope with the demands of being evidence based? Given the contestation and uncertainties associated with knowledge claims, what are the processes at work? This paper addresses these questions in the context of a relatively new planning regime concerned with consenting major infrastructure projects, focussing on renewable energy. The paper adopts a Science and Technology Studies perspective, showing how black-boxing plays a key role in establishing knowledge-claims that can support regulatory decision-making. However, it also shows how black boxes do not stay closed and, hence, there is a need for other means of closing down debate.     

Surface modification of titanium implants using bioactive glasses with air abrasion technologies

A growing number of surface treated titanium implants are routinely used in dental and orthopaedic surgery, with a view to enhancing integration capacity with osseous tissue. This study examines the use of bioactive glass 45S5 as an alternative abrasive and osteoproductive surface modification material. Abrasive blasting of commercially pure titanium with bioactive glass 45S5 produced an irregular finish with a surface roughness average (S_a) of 1.1 μm as determined by white light interferometry, backscattered and secondary electron microscopy. The roughness attained compares favourably with currently used implant designs. Further, Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDXA) and backscattered electron microscopy demonstrated that bioactive glass was distributed across the titanium surface and retained within fissures and roughened surface features. Being an osteoproductive material, this is advantageous as it is expected that the modified metallic surfaces will acquire osteopromotive properties, and thus be of benefit to the process of implantation in osseous tissue.     

Visual inspection and bridge management

This paper estimates visual inspection quantitatively prior to its implementation in a Bridge Management System using a Value of Information (VoI) approach employing a Bayesian pre-posterior analysis. Information from a significant number of real bridges from Ireland and Portugal are considered in this regard following existing commercial practices. The variation of different parameters on the estimated VoI is investigated including the assumed probabilistic models of the prior bridge state, the likelihood of inspector assigned condition ratings and the economic setting surrounding the cost matrix for maintenance decision alternatives. The values of no information, perfect information and imperfect information are presented and the change in the optimal strategy based on such information is assessed. The effect of human imperfections in assessment and difference in condition rating scale are also estimated. The studies and findings of this paper are expected to allow a better insight for practising engineers and researchers working in bridge management.     

The Impact of Public Participation on the Effectiveness of,and Users' Attachment to,Urban Neighbourhood Parks

As Taiwanese people's awareness of civic consciousness has risen over the past decade, the government has undergone administrative reform to allow citizens to participate in public affairs. The Neighbourhood Park Improvement Plan (NPIP), as executed by the Taipei City Government, is aimed at encouraging community involvement in the planning and design of neighbourhood parks. The purpose of this study was to examine the outcome of the NPIP by comparing facility suitability and functional benefit, as well as park users' emotional bonding and involvement intention, with regards to improved and unimproved neighbourhood parks. The results indicated that park users considered the facility suitability and functional benefits of improved parks to be better than those of unimproved parks. In addition, users' emotional bonding to, and involvement intention for, improved parks were stronger than those of unimproved parks. Based on the findings, suggestions were made for community involvement in park improvement projects.     

Research in progress

Environmental designers and researchers have taken advantage of visual surrogates for problem solving in a variety of physical settings and for theory building in the areas of environmental perception and behaviour. However, validity issues—external validity, ecological validity and incremental validity—have to be considered while selecting an environmental surrogate. In representing water features the dynamic qualities of water, sound and movement, have to be portrayed. A method is described for representing built waterscapes by videotape images, which takes into account these three validity concerns (although the validity of the surrogate is not tested). The surrogate attempts to recognize that human environmental perception is multi-modal and that humans are active participants throughout the environment. Such a surrogate seeks to more realistically reflect actual human environmental experience, but the effectiveness of the videos and their application to non-built settings requires further empirical support.     

A Quantitative Comparison of Wild‐Type and Gatekeeper Mutant Cdk2 for Chemical Genetic Studies with ATP Analogues

Mutant kinase kinetics : Protein kinases with enlarged ATP binding sites are increasingly being used as tools to probe the functioning signal transduction cascades. Using human cyclin‐dependent kinase 2 as a model system, we demonstrate that enlargement of the ATP binding site does not substantially alter either the catalysis kinetics nor substrate or phosphorylation site selection.

     

An investigation of road crossing in a virtual environment

The reported study employed a virtual reality (VR) system, using a head mounted display (HMD), to investigate road crossing behavior in children and young adults. Younger children (aged 5-9 years) made the greatest number of unsafe road crossings and the oldest participants (aged >19 years) the fewest. Overall performance was better (fewer unsafe road crossings) in uniform speed than uniform distance trials, consistent with previous research suggesting that pedestrians base road crossing decisions on inter-vehicle distance rather than vehicle speed. Results are discussed in terms of road crossing behavior and the use of VR simulations in the study of pedestrian behavior.