6,453 research outputs found
Taking A Stand: The Effects Of Standing Desks On Task Performance And Engagement
Time spent sitting is associated with negative health outcomes, motivating some individuals to adopt standing desk workstations. This study represents the first investigation of the effects of standing desk use on reading comprehension and creativity. In a counterbalanced, within-subjects design, 96 participants completed reading comprehension and creativity tasks while both sitting and standing. Participants self-reported their mood during the tasks and also responded to measures of expended effort and task difficulty. In addition, participants indicated whether they expected that they would perform better on work-relevant tasks while sitting or standing. Despite participants’ beliefs that they would perform worse on most tasks while standing, body position did not affect reading comprehension or creativity performance, nor did it affect perceptions of effort or difficulty. Mood was also unaffected by position, with a few exceptions: Participants exhibited greater task engagement (i.e., interest, enthusiasm, and alertness) and less comfort while standing rather than sitting. In sum, performance and psychological experience as related to task completion were nearly entirely uninfluenced by acute (~30-min) standing desk use. View Full-Tex
Environment sensing in spring-dispersed seeds of a winter annual Arabidopsis influences the regulation of dormancy to align germination potential with seasonal changes
Seed dormancy cycling plays a crucial role in the lifecycle timing of many plants. Little is known of how the seeds respond to the soil seed bank environment following dispersal in spring into the short-term seed bank before seedling emergence in autumn. Seeds of the winter annual Arabidopsis ecotype Cvi were buried in field soils in spring and recovered monthly until autumn and their molecular eco-physiological responses were recorded.
DOG1 expression is initially low and then increases as dormancy increases. MFT expression is negatively correlated with germination potential. Abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellin (GA) signalling responds rapidly following burial and adjusts to the seasonal change in soil temperature. Collectively these changes align germination potential with the optimum climate space for seedling emergence. Seeds naturally dispersed to the soil in spring enter a shallow dormancy cycle dominated by spatial sensing that adjusts germination potential to the maximum when soil environment is most favourable for germination and seedling emergence upon soil disturbance. This behaviour differs subtly from that of seeds overwintered in the soil seed bank to spread the period of potential germination in the seed population (existing seed bank and newly dispersed). As soil temperature declines in autumn, deep dormancy is re-imposed as seeds become part of the persistent seed bank
Solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation: descendants of the six-vertex model from the Drinfeld doubles of dihedral group algebras
The representation theory of the Drinfeld doubles of dihedral groups is used
to solve the Yang-Baxter equation. Use of the 2-dimensional representations
recovers the six-vertex model solution. Solutions in arbitrary dimensions,
which are viewed as descendants of the six-vertex model case, are then obtained
using tensor product graph methods which were originally formulated for quantum
algebras. Connections with the Fateev-Zamolodchikov model are discussed.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figure
A series solution and a fast algorithm for the inversion of the spherical mean Radon transform
An explicit series solution is proposed for the inversion of the spherical
mean Radon transform. Such an inversion is required in problems of thermo- and
photo- acoustic tomography. Closed-form inversion formulae are currently known
only for the case when the centers of the integration spheres lie on a sphere
surrounding the support of the unknown function, or on certain unbounded
surfaces. Our approach results in an explicit series solution for any closed
measuring surface surrounding a region for which the eigenfunctions of the
Dirichlet Laplacian are explicitly known - such as, for example, cube, finite
cylinder, half-sphere etc. In addition, we present a fast reconstruction
algorithm applicable in the case when the detectors (the centers of the
integration spheres) lie on a surface of a cube. This algorithm reconsrtucts
3-D images thousands times faster than backprojection-type methods
Temperature, light and nitrate sensing coordinate Arabidopsis seed dormancy cycling resulting in winter and summer annual phenotypes
Seeds use environmental cues to sense the seasons and their surroundings to initiate the plants life cycle. Dormancy cycling underlying this process is extensively described, but the molecular mechanism is largely unknown. To address this we selected a range of representative genes from published array experiments in the laboratory and investigated their expression patterns in seeds of Arabidopsis ecotypes, having contrasting life cycles, over an annual dormancy cycle in the field. We show how mechanisms identified in the laboratory are coordinated in response to the soil environment to determine dormancy cycles that result in winter and summer annual phenotypes. Our results are consistent with a seed specific response to seasonal temperature patterns (temporal sensing) involving the gene DELAY OF GERMINATION1 (DOG1) that indicates the correct season; and concurrent temporally driven co-opted mechanisms that sense spatial signals i.e. nitrate via CBL-INTERACTING PROTEIN KINASE 23 (CIPK23) phosphorylation of the NITRATE TRANSPORTER 1 (NRT1.1) and light via PHYTOCHROME A (PHYA). In both ecotypes studied, when all three genes have low expression there is enhanced GIBBERELLIN 3 BETA-HYDROXYLASE 1 (GA3ox1) expression, exhumed seeds have the potential to germinate in the laboratory, and the initiation of seedling emergence occurs following soil disturbance (exposure to light) in the field. Unlike DOG1, expression of MOTHER of FLOWERING TIME (MFT) has an opposite thermal response in seeds of the two ecotypes indicating a role in determining their different dormancy cycling phenotypes
Investigating people: a qualitative analysis of the search behaviours of open-source intelligence analysts
The Internet and the World Wide Web have become integral parts of the lives of many modern individuals, enabling almost instantaneous communication, sharing and broadcasting of thoughts, feelings and opinions. Much of this information is publicly facing, and as such, it can be utilised in a multitude of online investigations, ranging from employee vetting and credit checking to counter-terrorism and fraud prevention/detection. However, the search needs and behaviours of these investigators are not well documented in the literature. In order to address this gap, an in-depth qualitative study was carried out in cooperation with a leading investigation company. The research contribution is an initial identification of Open-Source Intelligence investigator search behaviours, the procedures and practices that they undertake, along with an overview of the difficulties and challenges that they encounter as part of their domain. This lays the foundation for future research in to the varied domain of Open-Source Intelligence gathering
The spectrum of large powers of the Laplacian in bounded domains
We present exact results for the spectrum of the Nth power of the Laplacian
in a bounded domain. We begin with the one dimensional case and show that the
whole spectrum can be obtained in the limit of large N. We also show that it is
a useful numerical approach valid for any N. Finally, we discuss implications
of this work and present its possible extensions for non integer N and for 3D
Laplacian problems.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
Systematic review of antimicrobial drug prescribing in hospitals.
Prudent antibiotic prescribing to hospital inpatients has the potential to reduce the incidences of antimicrobial resistance and healthcare-associated infection. We reviewed the literature from January 1980 to November 2003 to identify rigorous evaluations of interventions to improve hospital antibiotic prescribing. We identified 66 studies with interpretable data of which 16 reported 20 microbiological outcomes: Gram negative resistant bacteria (GNRB), 10 studies; Clostridium difficile associated diarrhoea (CDAD), 5 studies; vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE), 3 studies and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), 2 studies. Four studies provide good evidence that the intervention changed microbial outcomes with low risk of alternative explanations, eight studies provide less convincing evidence and four studies were negative. The strongest and most consistent evidence was for CDAD but we were able to analyse only the immediate impact of interventions because of nonstandardised durations of follow up. The ability to compare results of studies could be substantially improved by standardising methodology and reporting
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