Linking workplace and homeplace: Relations between the nature of adults' work and their parenting behaviors.

A total of 188 employed mothers and fathers and their 5–7 yr-old child participated in a study of the relations between the nature of adults' work and their parenting attitudes and behaviors (a line of research influenced by both socialization and stress perspectives). In general, positive features of work (i.e., complexity of work with people, challenge, and stimulation) tended to be associated with both self-report and observational measures of developmentally sound parenting (e.g., less harsh discipline, more warmth and responsiveness). Interaction effects indicated that gender of parent and child further condition these relations. Analyses partially support the interpretation that conditions of work influence parenting through their effect on mood but also suggest that certain conditions of work may directly socialize behavior in the parental role (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A single chip multi-channel surface plasmon resonance imaging system

A single chip, multi-channel surface plasmon resonance (SPR) imaging system has been developed. The equipment has no moving parts and uses a single sensor chip on which multiple channels can be incorporated. A light emitting diode is used as a photon source while a CCD camera forms the detector. The optical configuration has been designed to achieve a uniform illumination of the sample over a fixed area with a range of incident angles. A calibration test using sucrose solutions shows that the sensitivity of the equipment is 4.3×10⁻⁴ refractive index units per pixel line-pair. The use of the system for simultaneous interrogation of different polyelectrolyte thin films, formed by the electrostatic layer-by-layer deposition method, is demonstrated. A reversible pH-dependent response for these organic layers is also reported.     

RTS-MAC: A Relative Time Synchronization MAC Protocol for Low Duty Cycle Body Sensor Networks

Emerging applications in the medical field require body sensor networks to communicate in real-time in a very energy-efficient way. An example is the Artificial Accommodation System??a set of two small active medical implants aiming at restoring accommodation of the human eye??in which sensor data have to be exchanged continuously between both eyes. To achieve energy efficiency, it is essential to operate the radios with a very low duty cycle. Therefore, idle listening and general protocol overhead must be reduced as much as possible. In this paper, we present a relative time synchronization medium access control protocol (RTS-MAC), which keeps relative time synchronization between two or more sensor nodes in a very energy-efficient manner: RTS-MAC makes use of the periodic broadcast of regular data messages and exploits the inter-arrival times to predict future arrivals within tight boundaries. Thereby, no overhead is generated for synchronization purposes, and still, idle listening is reduced to a minimum, which solely depends on the short-term accuracy of the underlying clock systems. We implemented the proposed protocol using off-the-shelf components and employed the internal low-accuracy oscillators of the microcontrollers as clock sources. Thereby, we achieved very low duty cycles close to an ideal minimum. Further, our results indicate that through omitting external crystals in favor of a minimally larger battery, the battery life of a sensor node can be prolonged.     

Sputtering mechanisms near the threshold energy

Threshold energies for sputtering cannot be calculated directly but have to be evaluated from the energy dependence of the sputtering yields. This paper investigates trajectories of projectile and recoils near the threshold energy for sputtering, where the collision cascade becomes increasingly simple. Statistics of the different collision events show which processes dominate the sputtering close to the threshold energy for selfbombardment of different light and heavy targets. The differential cross-sections for scattering and recoil production explain qualitatively the probability for the various processes.     

Observation of Exchange Interaction in Iron(II) Spin Crossover Molecules in Contact with Passivated Ferromagnetic Surface of Co/Au(111)

Spin crossover (SCO) complexes sensitively react on changes of the environment by a change in the spin of the central metallic ion making them ideal candidates for molecular spintronics. In particular, the composite of SCO complexes and ferromagnetic (FM) surfaces would allow spin-state switching of the molecules in combination with the magnetic exchange interaction to the magnetic substrate. Unfortunately, when depositing SCO complexes on ferromagnetic surfaces, spin-state switching is blocked by the relatively strong interaction between the adsorbed molecules and the surface. Here, the Fe(II) SCO complex [Fe^II(Pyrz)₂] (Pyrz = 3,5-dimethylpyrazolylborate) with sub-monolayer thickness in contact with a passivated FM film of Co on Au(111) is studied. In this case, the molecules preserve thermal spin crossover and at the same time the high-spin species show a sizable exchange interaction of > 0.9 T with the FM Co substrate. These observations provide a feasible design strategy in fabricating SCO-FM hybrid devices.     

Alizarin Red S as an electrochemical indicator for saccharide recognition

In addition to the well-established spectroscopic Alizarin Red S (ARS) assay for the determination of binding constants between arylboronic acids and different saccharides, we report the use of ARS as a reporter in an electrochemical set-up. The electrochemical properties of ARS, the binding to phenyl boronic acid (PBA) and the competition with fructose in phosphate buffer at pH 7.4 were investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV). By choosing a negative scan direction (starting at +0.2 V), a quasi-reversible process was detected at E⁰′ = −0.59V with ΔE_p = 0.1V. An irreversible oxidation peak at +0.42 V could also be detected. These peaks are characterised both as a 2-proton-2-electron transfer and corresponds to the oxidation and reduction of the anthraquinone or the ortho-quinone moiety. After addition of phenylboronic acid a new oxidation peaks occurred at −0.42 V which correlates with the ARS–PBA interaction. The peak current increased with increasing phenylboronic acid concentration according to the release of BA and formation of the ARS–PBA ester. After addition of fructose the peak current decreases again, in proportion to the fructose concentration, enabling the use of ARS as an electrochemical reporter for fructose detection up to 50 mM. Also the interaction with other cis-diol containing compounds such as sorbitol, mannitol, glucose and mannose was investigated and a dependence based on already published binding constants to phenylboronic acid could be shown.     

Influence of irregularities in the electrolyte on the cathodic protection of steel: A numerical and experimental study

This paper shows how the last algebraic matricial form can be obtained when the finite element method is used to approximate the potential distribution of a cathodic protection system that includes low conductivity irregularities in the electrolyte away from, close to and directly on the cathode. In order to study the influence of the resistivity of these irregularities on the possibilities of steel protection, five conductivities were analysed. The numerical results, validated with COMSOL® Multiphysics, show the importance of considering irregularities in the domain in order to prevent systems from becoming unprotected. The experimental data agrees with the theoretical data.     

Antibiotic resistance of coagulase-negative staphylococci associated with food and used in starter cultures

The resistance of 330 coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) associated with food or used in starter cultures and belonging to the species Staphylococcus carnosus, Staphylococcus condimenti, Staphylococcus piscifermentans, Staphylococcus equorum, Staphylococcus succinus and Staphylococcus xylosus, against 21 antibiotics was determined using the disk diffusion method. The incidence and number of resistances was found to be species and source of isolation dependent. Most strains of S. equorum (63%), S. succinus (90%) and S. xylosus (95%) exhibited resistances against up to seven antibiotics, whereas only few strains of S. carnosus (12%) and S. piscifermentans (27%) were antibiotic resistant. Resistances to lincomycin, penicillin, fusidic acid, oxacillin, ampicillin and tetracycline were predominant. Among strains of S. xylosus, the incidence of resistance ranged from 22% for tetracycline up to 69% for penicillin. Concerning the source of isolation, resistances were often determined in strains of S. equorum, S. succinus and S. xylosus isolated from cheese (87%) and sausage (83%), and strains of S. xylosus obtained from meat starter cultures (93%). Remarkably, all CNS were sensitive to the clinically important antibiotics chloramphenicol, clindamycin, cotrimoxazol, gentamicin, kanamycin, linezolid, neomycin, streptomycin, synercid and vancomycin. The phenotypic resistances to ss-lactam antibiotics, lincomycin and tetracycline were verified by PCR amplification and could be traced back to the genes blaZ, lnuA and tetK, respectively. This study permitted a comprehensive insight into the incidence of antibiotic resistances in food-associated CNS.     

A theoretical study of the electronic structure and bonding of the monoclinic phase of

The electronic properties of the Mg₂NiH₄ monoclinic phase are calculated using a density functional approach calculation. The crystalline parameters and interatomic distances calculated are close to the experimental values within a 3% error. We also evaluate the density of states (DOS) and character of the chemical bonding for the hydrogen's located in their equilibrium positions. While the Ni–Mg interaction is dominant in the pure alloy, in the hydride the hydrogen atoms present a bonding much more developed with Ni than with Mg. The principal bonding interaction is Ni sp–H s. Moreover, a small bonding between Ni d_eg and H 1s is observed. Up the Fermi level, the Ni–H interaction is slightly antibonding. The Mg–Ni bonding interactions are weaker in the hydride phase when compared with the pure Mg₂Ni alloy. The present study is potentially useful because the alloys Mg–Ni are good materials for hydrogen storage.