Prologue or... The second cremation of Shelley

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay\u27s first paragraph. The members, five in number , (one stated beforehand that he would be late), remarked that the muse was their inspiration and that all apple-judging must begin with an invocation. A picture hanging on the wall portrayed the muse as a cross-legged dwarf, sitting on a cloud with four arms. I asked one of the judges what the four arms were for. Why , said he, One is to enable the muse to cover his eyes while judging, the other to hold the apple while his mouth was engaged in mastication, the next to pick the seeds from his teeth and the last to sit on . He had to sit on it, lest he pull the other from his eyes. Another judge remarked that there lay the greatest difficulty in judging: the portrait was too distracting

Deposición electroforética de cerámica en polímeros

El interés por la deposición electroforética (EPD) de la cerámica o compuestos de cerámica ha aumentado mucho debido a la posibilidad de crear bloques de cerámica en verde con varias características interesantes para aplicaciones biomédicas, por ejemplo, cerámicas porosas y/o laminadas con un gradiente de funcionalidad. A fin de obtener una buena deposición de cerámica es necesario el uso de electrodos de elevada conductividad. Los metales con alta conductividad se utilizan comúnmente para esta aplicación. En este trabajo se propone el uso de polímeros de bajo coste, no conductores, como electrodos. Para aumentar su conductividad, los electrodos de polímero se recubrieron mediante sputtering con oro o carbono. El aumento de la conductividad obtenido permite la deposición de diversas cerámicas ampliamente utilizadas en la productos dentales y ortopédicos, como son la zirconia estabilizada con ytria (Y-TZP), la alúmina o la hidroxiapatita (HA).The interest in electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of ceramics or ceramic composites has widely increased due to the possibility to create green bodies with several interesting characteristics for biomedical applications, for instance porous and/or laminated functionally graded ceramics. In order to get a good ceramic deposition the use of high conductive electrodes is required. Metals with high conductivity are commonly used for this purpose. In this work, the use of low cost non conductive polymers as electrodes is proposed. To increase their conductivity, these polymer electrodes were sputtered with gold or carbon. The conductivity increase obtained by the sputtering allowed the deposition of different ceramics widely used in the dental and orthopaedic industry, as yttria stabilised tetragonal zirconia particles (Y-TZP), alumina and hydroxyapatite (HA).Peer Reviewe

Louisa Bypass Experimental Project

In an effort to reduce rutting in the new Louisa Bypass in Lawrence County, Kentucky, a large-stone asphaltic base mix (Class K) was used in the base layer. A one-inch surface wearing course was used in this project, a polymer-modified asphalt was used in the surface course on half of the project. In order to facilitate subsurface drainage, a free draining subbase (No. 57\u27s) was placed between the large-stone base and a dense-graded aggregate (DGA) layer. The drainage design was further enhanced by edge and median drains. Construction processes were monitored and photographed. Laboratory and field studies were conducted to determine the performance characteristics of individual pavement components. Performance of the Louisa Bypass project has been and will be monitored

Comparative genomics and transcriptomics of Escherichia coli isolates carrying virulence factors of both enteropathogenic and enterotoxigenic E. coli

AbstractEscherichia coli that are capable of causing human disease are often classified into pathogenic variants (pathovars) based on their virulence gene content. However, disease-associated hybrid E. coli, containing unique combinations of multiple canonical virulence factors have also been described. Such was the case of the E. coli O104:H4 outbreak in 2011, which caused significant morbidity and mortality. Among the pathovars of diarrheagenic E. coli that cause significant human disease are the enteropathogenic E. coli (EPEC) and enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC). In the current study we use comparative genomics, transcriptomics, and functional studies to characterize isolates that contain virulence factors of both EPEC and ETEC. Based on phylogenomic analysis, these hybrid isolates are more genomically-related to EPEC, but appear to have acquired ETEC virulence genes. Global transcriptional analysis using RNA sequencing, demonstrated that the EPEC and ETEC virulence genes of these hybrid isolates were differentially-expressed under virulence-inducing laboratory conditions, similar to reference isolates. Immunoblot assays further verified that the virulence gene products were produced and that the T3SS effector EspB of EPEC, and heat-labile toxin of ETEC were secreted. These findings document the existence and virulence potential of an E. coli pathovar hybrid that blurs the distinction between E. coli pathovars.</jats:p

Effect of Uphill Running on VO2, Heart Rate and Lactate Accumulation on Lower Body Positive Pressure Treadmills

Lower body positive pressure treadmills (LBPPTs) as a strategy to reduce musculoskeletal load are becoming more common as part of sports conditioning, although the requisite physiological parameters are unclear. To elucidate their role, ten well-trained runners (30.2 ± 3.4 years; VO2max: 60.3 ± 4.2 mL kg−1 min−1) ran at 70% of their individual velocity at VO2max (vVO2max) on a LBPPT at 80% body weight support (80% BWSet) and 90% body weight support (90% BWSet), at 0%, 2% and 7% incline. Oxygen consumption (VO2), heart rate (HR) and blood lactate accumulation (LA) were monitored. It was found that an increase in incline led to increased VO2 values of 6.8 ± 0.8 mL kg−1 min−1 (0% vs. 7%, p < 0.001) and 5.4 ± 0.8 mL kg−1 min−1 (2% vs. 7%, p < 0.001). Between 80% BWSet and 90% BWSet, there were VO2 differences of 3.3 ± 0.2 mL kg−1 min−1 (p < 0.001). HR increased with incline by 12 ± 2 bpm (0% vs. 7%, p < 0.05) and 10 ± 2 bpm (2% vs. 7%, p < 0.05). From 80% BWSet to 90% BWSet, HR increases of 6 ± 1 bpm (p < 0.001) were observed. Additionally, LA values showed differences of 0.10 ± 0.02 mmol l−1 between 80% BWSet and 90% BWSet. Those results suggest that on a LBPPT, a 2% incline (at 70% vVO2max) is not yet sufficient to produce significant physiological changes in VO2, HR and LA—as opposed to running on conventional treadmills, where significant changes are measured. However, a 7% incline increases VO2 and HR significantly. Bringing together physiological and biomechanical factors from previous studies into this practical context, it appears that a 7% incline (at 80% BWSet) may be used to keep VO2 and HR load unchanged as compared to unsupported running, while biomechanical stress is substantially reducedPeer Reviewe

Autistic Traits and Social Anxiety Predict Differential Performance on Social Cognitive Tasks in Typically Developing Young Adults

The current work examined the unique contribution that autistic traits and social anxiety have on tasks examining attention and emotion processing. In Study 1, 119 typically-developing college students completed a flanker task assessing the control of attention to target faces and away from distracting faces during emotion identification. In Study 2, 208 typically-developing college students performed a visual search task which required identification of whether a series of 8 or 16 emotional faces depicted the same or different emotions. Participants with more self-reported autistic traits performed more slowly on the flanker task in Study 1 than those with fewer autistic traits when stimuli depicted complex emotions. In Study 2, participants higher in social anxiety performed less accurately on trials showing all complex faces; participants with autistic traits showed no differences. These studies suggest that traits related to autism and to social anxiety differentially impact social cognitive processing