Phosphine-induced sterility in Ephestia cautella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae)

The present study was conducted to explore the sterilizing effect of phosphine on Ephestia cautella. Three to four-day old pupae were exposed to 0, 0.007, 0.014, 0.021, 0.028, 0.035, 0.042 and 0.049 mg/l of phosphine for 24 h at room temperature. The normally developed adults of each treatment were pair mated and several physiological and genetical parameters were investigated. The results showed gradual increases with dose in pupal mortality and adult malformation. The crossing results showed no changes in adult longevity and mating frequency. However, consistent reduction was noted in the fecundity and fertility of normally emerged adults. Preliminary data indicated similar levels of inherited sterility in the F₁ adults raised from the above mentioned crosses.     

Neural components of social evaluation.

Evaluative responses appear to involve 2 seemingly distinct sets of processes: those that are automatically activated and others that are more consciously controlled. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the authors investigated the brain systems associated with automatic and controlled evaluative processing. Participants made either evaluative (good-bad) or nonevaluative (past-present) judgments about famous names. Greater amygdala activity was observed for names rated as "bad" relative to those rated as "good," regardless of whether the task directly involved an evaluative judgment (good-bad) or not (past-present). Good-bad judgments resulted in greater medial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity than past-present judgments. Furthermore, there was greater ventrolateral PFC activity in good-bad judgments marked by greater ambivalence. Together, these findings indicate a neural distinction between processes engaged for automatic and controlled evaluation. Whereas automatic processes are sensitive to simple valence, controlled processes are sensitive to attitudinal complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes.

Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion--that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation--extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures--which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges' attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robust pose invariant face recognition using coupled latent space discriminant analysis

We propose a novel pose-invariant face recognition approach which we call Discriminant Multiple Coupled Latent Subspace framework. It finds the sets of projection directions for different poses such that the projected images of the same subject in different poses are maximally correlated in the latent space. Discriminant analysis with artificially simulated pose errors in the latent space makes it robust to small pose errors caused due to a subject’s incorrect pose estimation. We do a comparative analysis of three popular latent space learning approaches: Partial Least Squares (PLSs), Bilinear Model (BLM) and Canonical Correlational Analysis (CCA) in the proposed coupled latent subspace framework. We experimentally demonstrate that using more than two poses simultaneously with CCA results in better performance. We report state-of-the-art results for pose-invariant face recognition on CMU PIE and FERET and comparable results on MultiPIE when using only four fiducial points for alignment and intensity features.     

Color object segmentation and tracking using flexible statistical model and level-set

Multimedia Tools and Applications - This study presents an unsupervised novel algorithm for color image segmentation, object detection and tracking based on unsupervised learning step followed with...     

Molecular dynamics simulations of enantiomeric separations as an interfacial process in HPLC

Since chromatographic separation is a dynamic process, with the interactions between the drug and the chiral stationary phase mediated by the solvent, no single interacting structure, such as could be found by minimizing the energy, could possibly describe and account for the ratio of residence times in the chromatographic column for the enantiomeric pair. We describe the use of explicit-solvent fully atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, permitting all the interactions between the atoms constituting the chiral stationary phase, solvent molecules and the drug molecule. This allows us to better understand the molecular dynamic chiral recognition that provides the discrimination, which results in the separation of enantiomers by high performance liquid chromatography. It also provides a means of predicting, for a given set of conditions, which enantiomer elutes first and an estimate of the expected separation factor. In this review, we consider the use of molecular dynamics toward this understanding and prediction.     

Influence of forming method of blending versus casting layer-by-layer on structural properties and packing performances of casein-gelatin composite edible film under different appending proportion

In order to obtain casein edible films with great packing performance, gelatin as the reinforcing additive with different ratios were loaded via two methods including layer- by- layer and blending. A comparative study on structure properties between double layers and blending films made from casein and gelatin was obtained by scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The difference between the films' packing characters were conducted by water vapor permeability (WVP), optical property, and mechanical properties (including tensile strength (TS) and elongation (EAB)). The results showed that the degree of films roughness increased and the structural stability decreased as the increase of gelatin additive ratio in both double layers and blending films. Thickness and WVP both displayed a trend of increasing first then decreasing at the dividing of gelatin instead of casein in 50%. Importantly, WVP values in double layers film with a largest value of 6.95 gm⁻¹Pa⁻¹s⁻¹ was higher than blending films, observably (P < 0.05). Additionally, TS in blending film was increased by 23.44% than double layers film under the gelatin additive proportion of 70%, and EAB value in double layers film was larger by 207.65% than blending film under the gelatin additive proportion of 10%.     

Fuzzy based multi-criteria vertical handover decision modeling in heterogeneous wireless networks

Vertical handover gain significant importance due to the enhancements in mobility models by the Fourth Generation (4G) technologies. However, these enhancements are limited to specific scenarios and hence do not provide support for generic mobility. Similarly, various schemes are proposed based on these mobility models but most of them are suffered from the high packet loss, frequent handovers, too early and late handovers, inappropriate network selection, etc. To address these challenges, a generic vertical handover management scheme for heterogeneous wireless networks is proposed in this article. The proposed scheme works in three phases. In the first phase, a handover triggering approach is designed to identify the appropriate place for initiating handover based on the estimated coverage area of a WLAN access point or cellular base station. In the second phase, fuzzy rule based system is designed to eliminate the inappropriate networks before deciding an optimal network for handover. In the third phase, a network selection scheme is developed based on the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) decision mechanism. Various parameters such as delay, jitter, Bit Error Rate (BER), packet loss, communication cost, response time, and network load are considered for selecting an optimal network. The proposed scheme is tested in a mobility scenario with different speeds of a mobile node ranging from very low to very high. The simulation results are compared with the existing decision models used for network selection and handover triggering approaches. The proposed scheme outperforms these schemes in terms of energy consumption, handover delay and time, packet loss, good put, etc.     

Psychological Research Online: Report of Board of Scientific Affairs' Advisory Group on the Conduct of Research on the Internet.

As the Internet has changed communication, commerce, and the distribution of information, so too it is changing psychological research. Psychologists can observe new or rare phenomena online and can do research on traditional psychological topics more efficiently, enabling them to expand the scale and scope of their research. Yet these opportunities entail risk both to research quality and to human subjects. Internet research is inherently no more risky than traditional observational, survey, or experimental methods. Yet the risks and safeguards against them will differ from those characterizing traditional research and will themselves change over time. This article describes some benefits and challenges of conducting psychological research via the Internet and offers recommendations to both researchers and institutional review boards for dealing with them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)