Primary aragonite and high-Mg calcite in the late Cambrian (Furongian) : Potential evidence from marine carbonates in Oman

Acknowledgements Fieldwork and sampling was funded by Petroleum Development Oman during S. Al Marjibis's Ph.D. Their help is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank colleagues at the University of Aberdeen, Julie Dougans (SUERC) for assisting with stable isotope analysis and Dr. Richard Hinton (EIMF) for assistance with ion microprobe analysis. Profs. Kiessling, Tucker, Bosence, Coleman, Dr. Dickson and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for their helpful and encouraging comments.Peer reviewedPostprin

Surgical reconstruction of the acromioclavicular joint:Can we identify the optimal approach?

Abstract Injuries to the acromioclavicular (AC) joint are common, tending to occur secondary to traumatic injuries. Rockwood grade IV, V and VI injuries involve complete dislocation of the joint and require surgical reconstruction, with inconclusive literature on whether grade III injuries should be surgically or conservatively managed. There are over one hundred reported surgical techniques which reconstruct the AC joint, with little indication of which methods achieve the best results. Techniques can generally be considered as: anatomical reduction; CC ligament reconstruction; and anatomical reconstruction. Techniques which implant hardware to reduce the AC joint, such as the hook plate, are commonly implemented, but have been shown to alter the mechanics of the joint significantly, resulting in poor short-term and long-term outcomes. Methods which reconstruct both the acromioclavicular and coracoclavicular ligaments are comparatively new, and early reports suggest that they achieve biomechanical properties similar to the native joint. More focus should be placed on such techniques in the future to determine whether they offer a more suitable approach to improve patient outcomes following AC joint reconstruction

Determining the Presence of the Eastern Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis) and Differentiators of Occupied vs. Unoccupied Habitats in Bent Creek, Buncombe County, North Carolina

The Eastern Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis) is a large aquatic salamander found in cool, clean, highly oxygenated rivers and streams within the eastern United States. Hellbender populations have been steeply declining over the past century and are a protected species in most states where they are found, including North Carolina where they are listed as a species of special concern. North Carolina contains approximately 3000 waterways that could potentially support hellbender populations. It is vital to survey these waterways to better understand the distribution of the Eastern Hellbender and what environmental factors enable these systems to support threatened hellbender populations. Although smaller tributaries could potentially act as important refugia for both larval and adult hellbenders, most surveys had thus far been focused upon scattered sections of larger waterways, generally using substrate quality and the presence of large cover rocks as primary determinants for site selection. Until this project was completed, no survey in western North Carolina had ever covered an entire stream system. During May, June and July of 2013, the entirety of Bent Creek was surveyed, beginning at the mouth (the French Broad River) and concluding at the Lake Powhatan dam. Four adult Eastern Hellbenders were found, with two captures and two tactile encounters/escapes. In October 2013, three occupied sites and three unoccupied sites were examined, determining the number of cover rocks, the temperature, dissolved oxygen and dominant substrates at each site. While temperature and dissolved oxygen did not vary significantly, occupied stream sections had significantly coarser substrates and a much higher occurrence of cover rocks than unoccupied sections. This data indicated that commonly used surveying techniques relying on cover rocks and substrate composition are likely the most effective means of selecting survey sites in large aquatic systems. Future research might examine whether the Eastern Hellbender population at Bent Creek is or has the potential to become a viable breeding population, if the stream conditions are amenable to larval recruitment, and whether breeding could be encouraged with the use of habitat improvement and artificial nesting rocks

Automated Prediction of Preferences Using Facial Expressions

We introduce a computer vision problem from social cognition, namely, the automated detection of attitudes from a person's spontaneous facial expressions. To illustrate the challenges, we introduce two simple algorithms designed to predict observers’ preferences between images (e.g., of celebrities) based on covert videos of the observers’ faces. The two algorithms are almost as accurate as human judges performing the same task but nonetheless far from perfect. Our approach is to locate facial landmarks, then predict preference on the basis of their temporal dynamics. The database contains 768 videos involving four different kinds of preferences. We make it publically available

tert-Butyl 6-methyl-2-oxo-4-[4-(trifluoro­meth­oxy)anilino]cyclo­hex-3-ene-1-carboxyl­ate

In the title compound, C19H22F3NO4, the dihedral angle between the benzene ring and the conjugated part of the enaminone ring is 42.5 (1)°. The ester substituent makes a dihedral angle of 81.3 (2)° with this latter moiety. The crystal structure is held together by strong N—H⋯O and weak C—H⋯O inter­molecular inter­actions. The enaminone ring is disordered over two orientations with relative occupancies of 0.794 (4) and 0.206 (4)

Sobering up : the interactive effects of alcohol and caffeine on perceived intoxication

A large body of research suggests that individuals are accurate at subjectively judging their own alcohol intoxication when assessed relative to blood alcohol concentration. Although caffeine’s ability to antagonize alcohol-induced intoxication is generally regarded as a myth, it is often consumed with alcohol in preparation for tasks such as driving. Currently, however, few studies have directly examined the effect of caffeine consumption on subjective alcohol intoxication. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interaction of alcohol and caffeine on subjective intoxication. A screening survey was used to recruit light to moderate drinking males between the ages of 21 and 30 years of age. The subjective effects of alcohol (water, placebo, .04 and .08) with eight ounces of coffee (0, or 2.0 mg/kg caffeine) were measure in 133 subjects. Subjectively, a cup of caffeinated coffee increased perceptions of intoxication for .04- alcohol condition, but did not effect perceived intoxication in other conditions

The nature and consequences of prefrontal lobotomy

The life of every man is filled with problems of such complexity that he might well be awed when he realizes that he is able to cope with them at all. Despite the scope of the task, however, most people have achieved in some measure a working agreement with themselves and with their environment. They have reasonably well integrated personalities and are able to see things in a proper perspective, allowing them a comfortable surplus of energy to be used for valuable productive and creative work. This happy state of affairs is, however, not possible for all people. A human life gone berserk is an awesome thing. The very power which elevates man to a level which can be called human can also turn upon him and create utter chaos in his world. If he were not a sensitive human creature, perhaps he could not become psychotic when he finds himself no longer able to cope with the problems confronting him; the fact remains that it is man's inescapable fate to think and to feel so long as he has intact the basic capacity which enables him to do so. If somehow the methods by which he accomplishes this task become entangled, he may lose contact with the reality around him and even destroy himself

Environmental production

As a single parent making the most of my time and materials is paramount in balancing my daily responsibilities with my art practice. My work at UNCG became less dependent on personal documentation, aiming towards inclusive, experiential pieces and modes of production. My projects varied in scale, but were created through incremental, propulsive tasks that culminated in reconstructed paper forms. Sometimes compacted, often expansive, these forms exhausted the materials they were sourced from

Cosmopolitan pedagogy: reading postcolonial literature in an age of globalization

This project extends debates about cosmopolitanism to the classroom by defining a cosmopolitan pedagogy that fosters students' ethical engagement with difference. By reimagining cosmopolitanism in a pedagogical space, I build a counter-hegemonic cosmopolitanism which disrupts totalizing narratives of Enlightenment modernity and open a location for alternative epistemologies. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin, Wolfgang Iser, and Louise Rossenblatt, I reconfigure contemporary reading theory to face the challenges of engaging with postcolonial literature in an era of globalization. Readings of key postcolonial texts, including Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco, and Chris Abani's GraceLand, provide insight into the way cosmopolitanism works to construct community out of the shared sense of alienation that arises in the postcolony in an age of globalization. Through postcolonial theorists Dipesh Chakrabarty, Homi Bhabha, and Simon Gikandi, I argue that the unhomely cosmopolitan comes to represent the displaced figure of globalization but whose presence interrupts the narrative of development constructed through colonial modernity. Ultimately, a cosmopolitan pedagogy makes the classroom an unhomely space which disrupts knowledge production and consumption, challenging students to be responsible for their participation in those processes. In asking students to be accountable for and respond to the call of the other, this project helps students build the skills necessary to ethically engage with difference inside and outside the classroom

Disidentification with the human and/as doing creature hope

The purpose of this thesis is to imagine a posthumanist ethical comportment in the wake of injury and in the face of species disgust. I specify a posthumanist ethical comportment versus a posthumanist ethics to recognize the multiplicity of ethical bearings and beings with others rather than a single compact, deployable ethics. There is not a right, ethical answer to unethical situations and to speak to this impossibility to also to speak to the incoherency of beings and hopes. This thesis is a part of the always failing project of dismantling the human and the violences that accompany humanisms through the unknowability of creature-beings. I bring together the work of scholars in feminist theory, queer theory, posthumanist critical animal studies, ecofeminisms, performance studies, critical race studies, and feminist science studies, tracing the implications of their work for posthumanisms and each of their relationships to my concepts of disidentification with the human and/as doing creature hope. I particularly draw on the work of José Muñoz and his conceptions of disidentification and hope. Unique in its open analysis beyond racialized or gendered analogy, this thesis examines the function of suffering in posthumanisms, what interspecies hopes, fears, pleasures, and anxieties reveal about the human, and interspecies sexual intimacies that might be known as bestiality, in order to imagine what it means to treat others well. Critiquing notions of empathy and ethics that rely on likeness or proximity to the human or human affinity or knowledge practices, I explore what it means to have and practice creature hope