Systems, interactions and macrotheory

A significant proportion of early HCI research was guided by one very clear vision: that the existing theory base in psychology and cognitive science could be developed to yield engineering tools for use in the interdisciplinary context of HCI design. While interface technologies and heuristic methods for behavioral evaluation have rapidly advanced in both capability and breadth of application, progress toward deeper theory has been modest, and some now believe it to be unnecessary. A case is presented for developing new forms of theory, based around generic “systems of interactors.” An overlapping, layered structure of macro- and microtheories could then serve an explanatory role, and could also bind together contributions from the different disciplines. Novel routes to formalizing and applying such theories provide a host of interesting and tractable problems for future basic research in HCI

Oxidation Behavior of a Pd_(43)Cu_(27)Ni_(10)P_(20) Bulk Metallic Glass and Foam in Dry Air

The oxidation behavior of both Pd_(43)Cu_(27)Ni_(10)P_(20) bulk metallic glass (Pd4-BMG) and its amorphous foam containing 45 pct porosity (Pd4-AF) was investigated over the temperature range of 343 K (70 °C) to 623 K (350 °C) in dry air. The results showed that virtually no oxidation occurred in the Pd4-BMG at T < 523 K (250 °C), revealing the alloy’s favorable oxidation resistance in this temperature range. In addition, the oxidation kinetics at T ≥ 523 K (250 °C) followed a parabolic-rate law, and the parabolic-rate constants (k_p values) generally increased with temperature. It was found that the oxidation k_p values of the Pd4-AF are slightly lower than those of the Pd4-BMG, indicating that the porous structure contributes to improving the overall oxidation resistance. The scale formed on the alloys was composed exclusively of CuO at T ≥ 548 K (275 °C), whose thickness gradually increased with increasing temperature. In addition, the amorphous structure remained unchanged at T ≤ 548 K (275 °C), while a triplex-phase structure developed after the oxidation at higher temperatures, consisting of Pd_2Ni_2P, Cu_3P, and Pd_3P

Submerged in the mainstream? A case study of an immigrant learner in a New Zealand primary classroom

Immigrant children from diverse language backgrounds face not only linguistic challenges when enrolled in mainstream English-medium classrooms, but also difficulties adjusting to an unfamiliar learning community. The culture of primary school classrooms in New Zealand typically reflects conventions across three dimensions: interactional, instructional task performance and cognitive-academic development. All three dimensions are underpinned by the culturally specific discourse conventions involved in language socialisation. New learners may be helped by classmates or their teacher to understand and successfully use these conventions, but left on their own they may sink rather than swim. This is a case study of one Taiwanese 11-year old boy, 'John', who entered a New Zealand primary classroom midway through the school year. John's basic conversational ability was sound, but he did not possess the interactive classroom skills needed to operate in the new culture of learning. Selected from a wider study of the classroom, transcript data from audio-recorded excerpts of John's interactions over several months with his teacher and classmates are interpreted from perspectives derived from sociocultural and language socialisation theories. The article concludes with a brief consideration of the extent to which John constructed, or was constrained from constructing meaningful learning experiences, and suggestions for further research and reflection

You are what you eat, or are you? The challenges of translating high-fat-fed rodents to human obesity and diabetes

Obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are rapidly growing worldwide epidemics with major health consequences. Various human-based studies have confirmed that both genetic and environmental factors (particularly high-caloric diets and sedentary lifestyle) greatly contribute to human T2DM. Interactions between obesity, insulin resistance and β-cell dysfunction result in human T2DM, but the mechanisms regulating the interplay among these impairments remain unclear. Rodent models of high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity have been used widely to study human obesity and T2DM. With \u3e9000 publications on PubMed over the past decade alone, many aspects of rodent T2DM have been elucidated; however, correlation to human obesity/diabetes remains poor. This review investigates the reasons for this translational discrepancy by critically evaluating rodent HFD models. Dietary modification in rodents appears to have limited translatable benefit for understanding and treating human obesity and diabetes due—at least in part—to divergent dietary compositions, species/strain and gender variability, inconsistent disease penetrance, severity and duration and lack of resemblance to human obesogenic pathophysiology. Therefore future research efforts dedicated to acquiring translationally relevant data—specifically human data, rather than findings based on rodent studies—would accelerate our understanding of disease mechanisms and development of therapeutics for human obesity/T2DM

Identification of diverse database subsets using property-based and fragment-based molecular descriptions

This paper reports a comparison of calculated molecular properties and of 2D fragment bit-strings when used for the selection of structurally diverse subsets of a file of 44295 compounds. MaxMin dissimilarity-based selection and k-means cluster-based selection are used to select subsets containing between 1% and 20% of the file. Investigation of the numbers of bioactive molecules in the selected subsets suggest: that the MaxMin subsets are noticeably superior to the k-means subsets; that the property-based descriptors are marginally superior to the fragment-based descriptors; and that both approaches are noticeably superior to random selection

When to stay, when to go: trade-offs for southern African arid-zone birds in times of drought

Arid environments remind one of the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution : they experience long periods of stasis and low productivity, interrupted with episodic rainfall which spurs reproduction and movement. Birds, as highly dispersive organisms, are among the most dramatic indicators of these fluctuations. Here we review birds' two main strategies, residency and nomadism, and the trade-offs faced by individuals in uncertain times. In general, wet years stimulate higher densities of nests (i.e. smaller territories), larger clutch sizes, unseasonal breeding, and at some times of year, higher breeding success. Rainfall above a certain threshold triggers breeding in resident species and an influx of nomadic species which breed and then move on. The environmental cues which trigger nomadism are sometimes poorly understood, but include distant thunderstorms for aquatic species, and perhaps for insectivores. Environmental cues that draw nomadic granivores to areas that have had recent rain are not known

Automated spectroscopic abundances of A and F-type stars using echelle spectrographs I. Reduction of ELODIE spectra and method of abundance determination

This paper presents an automated method to determine detailed abundances for A and F-type stars. This method is applied on spectra taken with the ELODIE spectrograph. Since the standard reduction procedure of ELODIE is optimized to obtain accurate radial velocities but not abundances, we present a more appropriate reduction procedure based on IRAF. We describe an improvement of the method of Hill & Landstreet (1993) for obtaining Vsini, microturbulence and abundances by fitting a synthetic spectrum to the observed one. In particular, the method of minimization is presented and tested with Vega and the Sun. We show that it is possible, in the case of the Sun, to recover the abundances of 27 elements well within 0.1 dex of the commonly accepted values.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Interplay of Peltier and Seebeck effects in nanoscale nonlocal spin valves

We have experimentally studied the role of thermoelectric effects in nanoscale nonlocal spin valve devices. A finite element thermoelectric model is developed to calculate the generated Seebeck voltages due to Peltier and Joule heating in the devices. By measuring the first, second and third harmonic voltage response non locally, the model is experimentally examined. The results indicate that the combination of Peltier and Seebeck effects contributes significantly to the nonlocal baseline resistance. Moreover, we found that the second and third harmonic response signals can be attributed to Joule heating and temperature dependencies of both Seebeck coefficient and resistivity.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Exploring barriers of m-commerce adoption in SMEs in the UK: Developing a framework using ISM

YesIn the modern business era, mobile commerce (m-commerce) is changing the way the business is conducted using the Internet. However, the prominence of m-commerce among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK is minimal. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the existing literature and to extend the research surrounding the barriers that prevent the adoption of m-commerce amongst SMEs. The study uses an Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM) and MICMAC approach for guiding and helping managers of SMEs. Data was collected from an expert participant group each of whom had extensive knowledge of m-commerce. The findings represent the unstable nature of variables in the context of their impact on each other, their relationships, and themselves. The listed factors in the proposed framework and the interrelationships between them highlight the multi-dimensional element of m-commerce adoption prevention. This observation proves criticality of analysing data as a collective entity rather than viewing the barriers in isolation. The findings also indicated ‘perceived risk’ being a key barrier that demonstrates how personal opinions of the concept of adoption can have a great significance on the outcome and whether other variables will come into effect

Stimulation of NSF ATPase activity during t-SNARE priming

AbstractN-Ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) plays a key role in vesicular traffic by disassembling and priming SNARE proteins for their function in docking and fusion. We demonstrate that the ATPase activity of NSF is activated by α-soluble NSF attachment protein (α-SNAP) in a complex with syntaxin 1A. In addition, we show that a construct consisting of the H3 domain of syntaxin 1A (GST-synt(195–263), which does not support NSF disassembly in the presence of MgATP gave a larger stimulation. NSF ATPase activation was specific and did not occur using mutant α-SNAPs unable to bind GST-synt or with mutated C-termini. We suggest that activation of NSF ATPase activity in the SNARE complex may be essential to allow SNARE priming