Aster's Hoity Toity Belt

This fictitious story centers on a celestial family of asteroids and their adventures in the "skyborhood." Students will learn about smaller bodies of our solar system and the Dawn mission by identifying some aspects of the story that are true, some that might be true, and some that are false. Educators can choose from three versions, including storyteller, learning notations, or illustrators. The storyteller version can be used to tell the story without comment. The learning version is annotated to provide further explanation to assist in identifying aspects of the story. The illustrator's version contains space for the children to make their own illustrations to accompany the text. Educational levels: Primary elementary, Intermediate elementary

Understanding death as the cessation of intentional action: A cross-cultural developmental study

Determining whether or not an entity is capable of acting intentionally is a fundamental cognitive skill that emerges in the first year of infancy, and the inability to act is a key aspect distinguishing dead from living things. Though young children’s understanding of death is generally thought to be poor, an understanding of death as the permanent cessation of agency might develop early in childhood. This study tested the cessation-of-agency hypothesis cross-culturally, by examining the differences between children’s judgments about sleeping and dead animals. The results showed that children understand that death entails the permanent cessation of the ability to act by age 4 in two different cultures. This is consistent with a view that those distinctions that are most crucial for adaptive decision-making are the ones that develop earliest

Reduction of critical temperatures in pure and thoriated UBe13 by columnar defects

We investigate the influence of columnar defects on the superconducting transition temperatures of pure and thoriated UBe13. The defects cause all the transitions to widen and to drop slightly in temperature. Quantitatively, the single UBe13 transition resembles the lower transition in a sample with 3% thorium more closely than the upper thoriated transition.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure. To be presented at M2S-HTSC-V

A Robust and Universal Metaproteomics Workflow for Research Studies and Routine Diagnostics Within 24 h Using Phenol Extraction, FASP Digest, and the MetaProteomeAnalyzer

The investigation of microbial proteins by mass spectrometry (metaproteomics) is a key technology for simultaneously assessing the taxonomic composition and the functionality of microbial communities in medical, environmental, and biotechnological applications. We present an improved metaproteomics workflow using an updated sample preparation and a new version of the MetaProteomeAnalyzer software for data analysis. High resolution by multidimensional separation (GeLC, MudPIT) was sacrificed to aim at fast analysis of a broad range of different samples in less than 24 h. The improved workflow generated at least two times as many protein identifications than our previous workflow, and a drastic increase of taxonomic and functional annotations. Improvements of all aspects of the workflow, particularly the speed, are first steps toward potential routine clinical diagnostics (i.e., fecal samples) and analysis of technical and environmental samples. The MetaProteomeAnalyzer is provided to the scientific community as a central remote server solution at www.mpa.ovgu.de.Peer Reviewe

Musikalisch-improvisatorischer Ausdruck und Erkennen von Gefühlsqualitäten

Improvisationen als eine Form spontanen musikalischen Ausdrucks intrapsychischer Prozesse eröffnen wegen ihrer hohen Authentizität Zugänge zu sonst schwer erreichbaren Tiefendimensionen menschlichen Erlebens. Untersucht wurde die Frage, ob das gefühlsmäßige Erleben von Laien in Improvisationen auf dem Xylophon seinen komprimierten musikalischen Ausdruck findet und Zuhörern auf diese Weise erfassbar gemacht werden kann. Zu diesem Zweck wurde eine zweiteilige empirische Untersuchung durchgeführt: 20 Gymnasiast(inn)en improvisierten zu drei Grundgefühlen (Wut, Trauer, Freude) auf dem Xylophon; 74 Versuchspersonen hatten später die Improvisationen diesen Gefühlen richtig zuzuordnen. Dies gelang überzufällig häufig. Wesentliches Fazit dieser Untersuchung ist der Nachweis des intersubjektiv erkennbaren Ausdrucks des augenblicklichen Gefühlserlebens oder gefühlsbezogener Vorstellungen in Improvisationen Erwachsener ohne musikalische Professionalität. Dies ist von ausdruckspsychologischer Bedeutung, hat aber auch Implikationen für die klinisch-psychologische Diagnostik und Psychotherapie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung musiktherapeutischer Vorgehensweisen.Improvisations as a form of the spontaneous musical expression of intrapsychological processes offer accesses to otherwise difficultly reachable depth dimensions of human experience because of their high authenticity. It was investigated whether the emotional experience of laymen will be concisely put in improvisations on the xylophone and so made recordable for listeners. 20 grammar school pupils expressed three basis feelings (anger, sadness, joy) in improvisations on the xylophone; later 74 subjects had to assign correctly the improvisations to these feelings. They managed it outstandingly often. This study has proved the intersubjectively recognizable experience of feelings or images related to feelings in improvisations of adults without musical professionality. This is relevant to the psychology of expression and has also implications for the diagnostic in clinical psychology and psychotherapy especially considering procedures in music therapy

Impact of Age and Body Site on Adult Female Skin Surface pH

Background: pH is known as an important parameter in epidermal barrier function and homeostasis. Aim: The impact of age and body site on skin surface pH (pH(SS)) of women was evaluated in vivo. Methods: Time domain dual lifetime referencing with luminescent sensor foils was used for pH(SS) measurements. pH(SS) was measured on the forehead, the temple, and the volar forearm of adult females (n = 97, 52.87 +/- 18.58 years, 20-97 years). Every single measurement contained 2,500 pH values due to the luminescence imaging technique used. Results: pH(SS) slightly increases with age on all three investigated body sites. There are no significant differences in pH(SS) between the three investigated body sites. Conclusion: Adult pH(SS) on the forehead, the temple and the volar forearm increases slightly with age. This knowledge is crucial for adapting medical skin care products. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base

Factors Contributing to the Decline of Bees

Pesticides and parasites are the main causes for the decline in honey bees. This presentation focuses on four of the main factors contributing to bee decline and the stakeholders involved as well as potential solutions