'Mindless markers of the nation': The routine flagging of nationhood across the visual environment

The visual environment has increasingly been used as a lens with which to understand wider processes of social and economic change with studies employing in-depth qualitative approaches to focus on, for example, gentrification or trans-national networks. This exploratory paper offers an alternative perspective by using a novel method, quantitative photo mapping, to examine the extent to which a particular socio-cultural marker, the nation, is ‘flagged’ across three contrasting sites in Britain. As a multi-national state with an increasingly diverse population, Britain offers a particularly fruitful case study, drawing in debates around devolution, European integration and Commonwealth migration. In contributing to wider debates around banal nationalism, the paper notes the extent to which nations are increasingly articulated through commerce, consumption and market exchange and the overall significance of everyday markers (signs, objects, infrastructure) in naturalising a national view of the world

Quantity, composition, and source of sediment collected in sediment traps along the fringing coral reef off Molokai, Hawaii

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Marine Pollution Bulletin 52 (2006): 1034-1047, doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2006.01.008.Sediment traps were used to evaluate the frequency, cause, and relative intensity of sediment mobility/resuspension along the fringing coral reef off southern Molokai (February 2000–May 2002). Two storms with high rainfall, floods, and exceptionally high waves resulted in sediment collection rates > 1000 times higher than during non-storm periods, primarily because of sediment resuspension by waves. Based on quantity and composition of trapped sediment, floods recharged the reef flat with land-derived sediment, but had a low potential for burying coral on the fore reef when accompanied by high waves. The trapped sediments have low concentrations of anthropogenic metals. The magnetic properties of trapped sediment may provide information about the sources of land-derived sediment reaching the fore reef. The high trapping rate and low sediment cover indicate that coral surfaces on the fore reef are exposed to transient resuspended sediment, and that the traps do not measure net sediment accumulation on the reef surface

An integrated cell-free metabolic platform for protein production and synthetic biology

Cell-free systems offer a unique platform for expanding the capabilities of natural biological systems for useful purposes, i.e. synthetic biology. They reduce complexity, remove structural barriers, and do not require the maintenance of cell viability. Cell-free systems, however, have been limited by their inability to co-activate multiple biochemical networks in a single integrated platform. Here, we report the assessment of biochemical reactions in an Escherichia coli cell-free platform designed to activate natural metabolism, the Cytomim system. We reveal that central catabolism, oxidative phosphorylation, and protein synthesis can be co-activated in a single reaction system. Never before have these complex systems been shown to be simultaneously activated without living cells. The Cytomim system therefore promises to provide the metabolic foundation for diverse ab initio cell-free synthetic biology projects. In addition, we describe an improved Cytomim system with enhanced protein synthesis yields (up to 1200 mg/l in 2 h) and lower costs to facilitate production of protein therapeutics and biochemicals that are difficult to make in vivo because of their toxicity, complexity, or unusual cofactor requirements

Acoustic Correlates of Information Structure.

This paper reports three studies aimed at addressing three questions about the acoustic correlates of information structure in English: (1) do speakers mark information structure prosodically, and, to the extent they do; (2) what are the acoustic features associated with different aspects of information structure; and (3) how well can listeners retrieve this information from the signal? The information structure of subject-verb-object sentences was manipulated via the questions preceding those sentences: elements in the target sentences were either focused (i.e., the answer to a wh-question) or given (i.e., mentioned in prior discourse); furthermore, focused elements had either an implicit or an explicit contrast set in the discourse; finally, either only the object was focused (narrow object focus) or the entire event was focused (wide focus). The results across all three experiments demonstrated that people reliably mark (1) focus location (subject, verb, or object) using greater intensity, longer duration, and higher mean and maximum F0, and (2) focus breadth, such that narrow object focus is marked with greater intensity, longer duration, and higher mean and maximum F0 on the object than wide focus. Furthermore, when participants are made aware of prosodic ambiguity present across different information structures, they reliably mark focus type, so that contrastively focused elements are produced with greater intensity, longer duration, and lower mean and maximum F0 than noncontrastively focused elements. In addition to having important theoretical consequences for accounts of semantics and prosody, these experiments demonstrate that linear residualisation successfully removes individual differences in people's productions thereby revealing cross-speaker generalisations. Furthermore, discriminant modelling allows us to objectively determine the acoustic features that underlie meaning differences

Investigating human audio-visual object perception with a combination of hypothesis-generating and hypothesis-testing fMRI analysis tools

Primate multisensory object perception involves distributed brain regions. To investigate the network character of these regions of the human brain, we applied data-driven group spatial independent component analysis (ICA) to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data set acquired during a passive audio-visual (AV) experiment with common object stimuli. We labeled three group-level independent component (IC) maps as auditory (A), visual (V), and AV, based on their spatial layouts and activation time courses. The overlap between these IC maps served as definition of a distributed network of multisensory candidate regions including superior temporal, ventral occipito-temporal, posterior parietal and prefrontal regions. During an independent second fMRI experiment, we explicitly tested their involvement in AV integration. Activations in nine out of these twelve regions met the max-criterion (A < AV > V) for multisensory integration. Comparison of this approach with a general linear model-based region-of-interest definition revealed its complementary value for multisensory neuroimaging. In conclusion, we estimated functional networks of uni- and multisensory functional connectivity from one dataset and validated their functional roles in an independent dataset. These findings demonstrate the particular value of ICA for multisensory neuroimaging research and using independent datasets to test hypotheses generated from a data-driven analysis

Personality Assessment Inventory internalizing and externalizing structure in veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder: Associations with aggression: PTSD and Aggression

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with aggressive behavior in veterans, and difficulty controlling aggressive urges has been identified as a primary postdeployment readjustment concern. Yet only a fraction of veterans with PTSD commit violent acts. The goals of this study were to (1) examine the higher-order factor structure of Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) scales in a sample of U.S. military veterans seeking treatment for PTSD; and (2) to evaluate the incremental validity of higher-order latent factors of the PAI over PTSD symptom severity in modeling aggression. The study sample included male U.S. Vietnam (n = 433) and Iraq/Afghanistan (n = 165) veterans who were seeking treatment for PTSD at an outpatient Veterans Affairs (VA) clinic. Measures included the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale, the PAI, and the Conflict Tactics Scale. The sample was randomly split into two equal subsamples (n’s = 299) to allow for cross-validation of statistically derived factors. Parallel analysis, variable clustering analysis, and confirmatory factor analyses were used to evaluate the factor structure, and regression was used to examine the association of factor scores with self-reports of aggression over the past year. Three factors were identified: internalizing, externalizing, and substance abuse. Externalizing explained unique variance in aggression beyond PTSD symptom severity and demographic factors, while internalizing and substance abuse did not. Service era was unrelated to reports of aggression. The constructs of internalizing versus externalizing dimensions of PTSD may have utility in identifying characteristics of combat veterans in the greatest need of treatment to help manage aggressive urges

A Baseline for the Multivariate Comparison of Resting-State Networks

As the size of functional and structural MRI datasets expands, it becomes increasingly important to establish a baseline from which diagnostic relevance may be determined, a processing strategy that efficiently prepares data for analysis, and a statistical approach that identifies important effects in a manner that is both robust and reproducible. In this paper, we introduce a multivariate analytic approach that optimizes sensitivity and reduces unnecessary testing. We demonstrate the utility of this mega-analytic approach by identifying the effects of age and gender on the resting-state networks (RSNs) of 603 healthy adolescents and adults (mean age: 23.4 years, range: 12–71 years). Data were collected on the same scanner, preprocessed using an automated analysis pipeline based in SPM, and studied using group independent component analysis. RSNs were identified and evaluated in terms of three primary outcome measures: time course spectral power, spatial map intensity, and functional network connectivity. Results revealed robust effects of age on all three outcome measures, largely indicating decreases in network coherence and connectivity with increasing age. Gender effects were of smaller magnitude but suggested stronger intra-network connectivity in females and more inter-network connectivity in males, particularly with regard to sensorimotor networks. These findings, along with the analysis approach and statistical framework described here, provide a useful baseline for future investigations of brain networks in health and disease

Planning for Sustainability in Small Municipalities: The Influence of Interest Groups, Growth Patterns, and Institutional Characteristics

How and why small municipalities promote sustainability through planning efforts is poorly understood. We analyzed ordinances in 451 Maine municipalities and tested theories of policy adoption using regression analysis.We found that smaller communities do adopt programs that contribute to sustainability relevant to their scale and context. In line with the political market theory, we found that municipalities with strong environmental interests, higher growth, and more formal governments were more likely to adopt these policies. Consideration of context and capacity in planning for sustainability will help planners better identify and benefit from collaboration, training, and outreach opportunities