Nocturnal Emissions: A Comparative Study of Male Experiences and Reactions

This exploratory study examined the differences between males who have and males who have not experienced nocturnal emissions. There were 104 males between the ages of 18 to 41 who participated by completing a sexuality pretest and a nocturnal emissions questionnaire. The respondents\u27 information and education about sexuality, reactions to nocturnal emission ejaculation or the lack of ejaculation, dream frequency levels of nocturnal emissions, and the effect of other sexual outlets upon the frequency of nocturnal emissions were assessed. Results revealed that in this sample the males who did not experience nocturnal emissions had received less sexual information than ma l es who experienced nocturnal emissions

The supervisory process in promoting individual growth.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Seasonality of the airborne ambient soot predominant emission sources determined by Raman microspectroscopy and thermo-optical method

Raman microspectroscopy and thermo-optical-transmittance (TOT) method were used to study airborne ambient soot collected at the suburban air monitoring station in southern Poland during the residential heating (January-February) and non-heating (June–July) seasons of 2017. Carbonaceous material constituted on average 47.2 wt.% of PM2.5 during the heating season and 26.9 wt.% in the non-heating season. Average concentrations of OC (37.5 11.0 g/m3) and EC (5.3 1.1 g/m3) during the heating season were significantly higher than those in the non-heating season (OC = 2.65 0.78 g/m3, and EC = 0.39 0.18 g/m3). OC was a chief contributor to the TC mass concentration regardless of the season. All Raman parameters indicated coal combustion and biomass burning were the predominant sources of soot in the heating season. Diesel soot, which is structurally less ordered than soot from other sources, was dominant during the non-heating season. The D1 and G bands area ratio (D1A/GA) was the most sensitive Raman parameter that discriminated between various soot sources, with D1A/GA > 1 for diesel soot, and less than 1 for soot from coal and wood burning. Due to high daily variability of both TOT and Raman spectroscopy data, single-day measurements can be inconclusive regarding the soot source apportionment. Long-time measurement campaigns are recommended

How U.S. Ocean Policy and Market Power Can Reform the Coral Reef Wildlife Trade

As the world’s largest importer of marine ornamental species for the aquaria, curio, home décor, and jewelry industries, the United States has an opportunity to leverage its considerable market power to promote more sustainable trade and reduce the effects of ornamental trade stress on coral reefs worldwide. Evidence indicates that collection of some coral reef animals for these trades has caused virtual elimination of local populations, major changes in age structure, and promotion of collection practices that destroy reef habitats. Management and enforcement of collection activities in major source countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines remain weak. Strengthening US trade laws and enforcement capabilities combined with increasing consumer and industry demand for responsible conservation can create strong incentives for improving management in source countries. This is particularly important in light of the March 2010 failure of the parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to take action on key groups of corals

Enzymatic and Electron Transfer Activities in Crystalline Protein Complexes

Enzymatic and electron transfer activities have been studied by polarized absorption spectroscopy in single crystals of both binary and ternary complexes of methylamine dehydrogenase (MADH) with its redox partners. Within the crystals, MADH oxidizes methylamine, and the electrons are passed from the reduced tryptophan tryptophylquinone (TTQ) cofactor to the copper of amicyanin and to the heme of cytochrome c551i via amicyanin. The equilibrium distribution of electrons among the cofactors, and the rate of heme reduction after reaction with substrate, are both dependent on pH. The presence of copper in the ternary complex is not absolutely required for electron transfer from TTQ to heme, but its presence greatly enhances the rate of electron flow to the heme

Hydatellaceae identified as a new branch near the base of the angiosperm phylogenetic tree

Although the relationship of angiosperms to other seed plants remains controversial, great progress has been made in identifying the earliest extant splits in flowering-plant phylogeny, with the discovery that the New Caledonian shrub Amborella trichopoda, the water lilies (Nymphaeales), and the woody Austrobaileyales constitute a basal grade of lines that diverged before the main radiation in the clade. By focusing attention on these ancient lines, this finding has re-written our understanding of angiosperm structural and reproductive biology, physiology, ecology and taxonomy. The discovery of a new basal lineage would lead to further re-evaluation of the initial angiosperm radiation, but would also be unexpected, as nearly all of the ∼460 flowering-plant families have been surveyed in molecular studies. Here we show that Hydatellaceae, a small family of dwarf aquatics that were formerly interpreted as monocots, are instead a highly modified and previously unrecognized ancient lineage of angiosperms. Molecular phylogenetic analyses of multiple plastid genes and associated noncoding regions from the two genera of Hydatellaceae identify this overlooked family as the sister group of Nymphaeales. This surprising result is further corroborated by evidence from the nuclear gene phytochrome C (PHYC), and by numerous morphological characters. This indicates that water lilies are part of a larger lineage that evolved more extreme and diverse modifications for life in an aquatic habitat than previously recognized. ©2007 Nature Publishing Group

Development of the iCook 4-H Curriculum for Youth and Adults: Cooking, Eating, and Playing Together for Childhood Obesity Prevention

The objective was to describe the development process of a curriculum (iCook 4-H) targeted to low-income, rural, and/or diverse youths and their adult primary meal preparer to promote cooking, eating, and playing together. Lessons learned highlighted the importance of grounding the curriculum in Social Cognitive Theory and applying the experiential 4-H learning model using a multiphased, community-based participatory approach with cyclical development and evaluation, and key modifications made for dissemination and distribution. Findings across 4 testing phases over 6 years and 5 states demonstrated the time-intensive, cyclical process that required flexibility with fidelity to form a hands-on, interactive curriculum

Investigation of attentional bias in obsessive compulsive disorder with and without depression in visual search

Copyright: © 2013 Morein-Zamir et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedWhether Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is associated with an increased attentional bias to emotive stimuli remains controversial. Additionally, it is unclear whether comorbid depression modulates abnormal emotional processing in OCD. This study examined attentional bias to OC-relevant scenes using a visual search task. Controls, non-depressed and depressed OCD patients searched for their personally selected positive images amongst their negative distractors, and vice versa. Whilst the OCD groups were slower than healthy individuals in rating the images, there were no group differences in the magnitude of negative bias to concern-related scenes. A second experiment employing a common set of images replicated the results on an additional sample of OCD patients. Although there was a larger bias to negative OC-related images without pre-exposure overall, no group differences in attentional bias were observed. However, OCD patients subsequently rated the images more slowly and more negatively, again suggesting post-attentional processing abnormalities. The results argue against a robust attentional bias in OCD patients, regardless of their depression status and speak to generalized difficulties disengaging from negative valence stimuli. Rather, post-attentional processing abnormalities may account for differences in emotional processing in OCD.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Investigating Shared Genetic Basis Across Tourette Syndrome and Comorbid Neurodevelopmental Disorders Along the Impulsivity-Compulsivity Spectrum

Background Tourette syndrome (TS) is often found comorbid with other neurodevelopmental disorders across the impulsivity-compulsivity spectrum, with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as most prevalent. This points to the possibility of a common etiological thread along an impulsivity-compulsivity continuum. Methods Investigating the shared genetic basis across TS, ADHD, ASD, and OCD, we undertook an evaluation of cross-disorder genetic architecture and systematic meta-analysis, integrating summary statistics from the latest genome-wide association studies (93,294 individuals, 6,788,510 markers). Results As previously identified, a common unifying factor connects TS, ADHD, and ASD, while TS and OCD show the highest genetic correlation in pairwise testing among these disorders. Thanks to a more homogeneous set of disorders and a targeted approach that is guided by genetic correlations, we were able to identify multiple novel hits and regions that seem to play a pleiotropic role for the specific disorders analyzed here and could not be identified through previous studies. In the TS-ADHD-ASD genome-wide association study single nucleotide polymorphism–based and gene-based meta-analysis, we uncovered 13 genome-wide significant regions that host single nucleotide polymorphisms with a high posterior probability for association with all three studied disorders (m-value > 0.9), 11 of which were not identified in previous cross-disorder analysis. In contrast, we also identified two additional pleiotropic regions in the TS-OCD meta-analysis. Through conditional analysis, we highlighted genes and genetic regions that play a specific role in a TS-ADHD-ASD genetic factor versus TS-OCD. Cross-disorder tissue specificity analysis implicated the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal gland axis in TS-ADHD-ASD. Conclusions Our work underlines the value of redefining the framework for research across traditional diagnostic categories.publishedVersio