Using bald eagles to indicate the health of the Great Lakes' environment

The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is one of the most studied birds of North America, and a great amount of natural life‐history information, including the response of various stressors on the eagles' ability to reproduce, are well known. In Michigan, the eagle has been chosen to track the trends of bioaccumulative compounds of concern across watersheds in the state. The state has been divided into major watersheds, and 20% of these are surveyed each year. A control area in northern Minnesota, Voyageurs National Park, is also sampled annually. We report here on the methods used, the preliminary results of the 1999 field season, and how differences in mercury concentrations varied over a 10‐year period. Mercury in feathers of nestling eagles declined over time only in Lakes Michigan and Huron, but have not decreased among other subpopulations in Michigan. Concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and 4,4′‐DDE in blood plasma from nestling eagles have declined over time for most subpopulations; however, they remain greater for breeding areas associated with the Great Lakes' food web. Sea eagles of the genus Haliaeetus are a good sentinel species to track trends in bioaccumulative compounds in aquatic systems.     

The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses.

This article argues that an iconic event in the history of helping research--the story of the 38 witnesses who remained inactive during the murder of Kitty Genovese--is not supported by the available evidence. Using archive material, the authors show that there is no evidence for the presence of 38 witnesses, or that witnesses observed the murder, or that witnesses remained inactive. Drawing a distinction between the robust bystander research tradition and the story of the 38 witnesses, the authors explore the consequences of the story for the discipline of psychology. They argue that the story itself plays a key role in psychology textbooks. They also suggest that the story marks a new way of conceptualizing the dangers of immersion in social groups. Finally, they suggest that the story itself has become a modern parable, the telling of which has served to limit the scope of inquiry into emergency helping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Occupational lead exposure and hearing loss

Studies of adults, children, and laboratory animals suggest an association between lead exposure and hearing loss. A causal relationship might direct mandated medical surveillance of lead-exposed workers to include audiometric testing. A cross-sectional, computerized dataset was obtained from a private occupational health screening company to examine the relationship between blood lead level and hearing loss. Audiometry and blood lead results were available for 183 workers. A statistically significant correlation was found between blood lead level and an elevated hearing threshold at 400 Hz (P = 0.03); no other frequencies showed such a correlation. This finding suggests either an interaction between nose exposure and lead, interaction of other exposure factors (such as cigarette smoking), or that factors other than biomechanical ones render the organ of Corti more susceptible at 4000 Hz. Further evaluation of these questions should be undertaken. Computerized databases created for worker surveillance may be a source for data useful for examining other causal connections in occupational settings.     

Planning prompts and indexed terms in textbook search tasks.

Text search is a type of strategic reading that involves locating specific goal-relevant information. Previous research has indicated that college and high school students often exhibit inefficient or unsuccessful text-search performance. Consequently, the effects of 2 manipulations on text-search performance were investigated: (1) the presence of indexed terms in a text-search task and (2) the use of a planning prompt before beginning a task. 34 college students engaged in 6 text-search tasks. Half of these tasks contained terms that could be used in an index; half required that a search term be generated. Half of the subjects were randomly assigned to a prompt condition in which they were prompted to plan their search before beginning each task. The results indicated that a planning prompt raised the success level of search performance, as did the presence of terms that were searchable in the textbook's index. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Air is Always Cleaner on the Other Side: Race,Space, and Ambient Air Toxics Exposures in California

Abstract: Environmental justice advocates have recently focused attention on cumulative exposure in minority neighborhoods due to multiple sources of pollution. This article uses U.S. EPA's National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) for 1996 to examine environmental inequality in California, a state that has been a recent innovator in environmental justice policy. We first estimate potential lifetime cancer risks from mobile and stationary sources. We then consider the distribution of these risks using both simple comparisons and a multivariate model in which we control for income, land use, and other explanatory factors, as well as spatial correlation. We find large racial disparities in California's “riskscape” as well as inequalities by other factors and suggest several implications for environmental and land use policy.     

Integrated Personal Mobility Architecture: A Complete Personal Mobility Solution

The high expectations and demand for users to access the Internet from anywhere at anytime has made user mobility an important part of the design and development of the next generation mobile communications and computing. Traditionally user mobility has been divided into two areas: Terminal Mobility and Personal Mobility. In recent years terminal mobility has focused on the movement of the terminal and developed extensions to IP protocols such as Mobile IP. In contrast, personal mobility has only received limited attention, and is somewhat lagging behind. This research has either focussed on personal mobility in communications or personalisation of operating environments. As a result, to date no framework for providing true personal mobility has emerged. In this paper, we introduce a new personal mobility framework called IPMoA (Integrated Personal Mobility Architecture), which integrates both aspects of personal mobility to provide a complete personal mobility solution, and illustrate the viability of this approach through a proof-of-concept implementation.     

DRM

Two proposals on digital rights management (DRM) may be broughtinto law in the next couple of years:     

Infants' predictive reaching for moving objects in the dark.

Infants were presented with a moving object under 2 lighting conditions to investigate the role of vision in early reaching. The motion of the target object also allowed for an analysis of the infants' ability to use a predictive style of reaching. Infants were tested twice, at 5 and 7.5 months of age, with a moving object in the light and the same object painted with luminescent paint in the dark. Infants successfully contacted the glowing object on about half of their attempts at both ages, although 7.5 month-olds reached more often. Infants also took into account the motion of the target object by aiming their reaches ahead of the object and by reaching with their contralateral hand. These results suggest that proprioceptive feedback and sight of the target allow for successful reaching with limited visual information, even in relatively complex reaching tasks. The infants' success also demonstrates their ability to adapt their movements and reaching strategy to the speed and trajectory of the target object in order to reach predictively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)