Student Attitudes Towards Drinking Behaviors

The literature is relatively inconclusive regarding predictors of alcohol use; while some studies have demonstrated an association between high levels of social interaction and increased alcohol use, others have shown that a lack of social support is linked to drinking heavily. The current study was conducted with students at the University of New Hampshire; participants’ attitudes towards alcohol were assessed along with many psychosocial factors. Low levels of conscientiousness, parent and high school influence, frequently attending parties, and friend influence were most highly predictive of positive attitudes towards alcohol; multiple regression of these factors accounted for 30.1% of the variance. Alternatively, negative attitudes towards alcohol were most highly predicted by high levels of conscientiousness and infrequently attending parties. Positive and negative attitudes were not highly correlated with one another; therefore, some students had both highly positive and highly negative attitudes toward alcohol. This group, with conflicting attitudes toward alcohol use, is of particular interest

You Want Coffee with That? Revisiting the Library as Place

The constantly changing roles of libraries and librarians, as well as the onslaught of electronic resources and mobile technology, have refocused attention on the library’s place and value in today’s society. This paper highlights a 2015 academic library conference presentation and includes supplemental information on the subject. It focuses on the library less as the traditional place to gather information and more as the meeting place – a third place – where like-minded individuals, their information-gathering devices in tow, enter and expect “super-sized” customer service

Multispectral Image Processing for Plants

The development of a machine vision system to monitor plant growth and health is one of three essential steps towards establishing an intelligent system capable of accurately assessing the state of a controlled ecological life support system for long-term space travel. Besides a network of sensors, simulators are needed to predict plant features, and artificial intelligence algorithms are needed to determine the state of a plant based life support system. Multispectral machine vision and image processing can be used to sense plant features, including health and nutritional status

Highly efficient RNA-synthesizing system that uses isolated human mitochondria: new initiation events and in vivo-like processing patterns

A highly efficient RNA-synthesizing system with isolated HeLa cell mitochondria has been developed and characterized regarding its requirements and its products. In this system, transcription is initiated and the transcripts are processed in a way which closely reproduces the in vivo patterns. Total RNA labeling in isolated mitochondria proceeds at a constant rate for about 30 min at 37 degrees C; the estimated rate of synthesis is at least 10 to 15% of the in vivo rate. Polyadenylation of the mRNAs is less extensive in this system than in vivo. Furthermore, compared with the in vivo situation, rRNA synthesis in vitro is less efficient than mRNA synthesis. This is apparently due to a decreased rate of transcription initiation at the rRNA promoter and probably a tendency also for premature termination of the nascent rRNA chains. The 5'-end processing of rRNA also appears to be slowed down, and it is very sensitive to the incubation conditions, in contrast to mRNA processing. It is suggested that the lower efficiency and the lability of rRNA synthesis and processing in isolated mitochondria may be due to cessation of import from the cytoplasm of ribosomal proteins that play a crucial role in these processes. The formation of the light-strand-coded RNA 18 (7S RNA) is affected by high pH or high ATP concentration differently from the overall light-strand transcription. The dissociation of the two processes may have important implications for the mechanism of formation and the functional role of this unusual RNA species. The high efficiency, initiation capacity, and processing fidelity of the in vitro RNA-synthesizing system described here make it a valuable tool for the analysis of the role of nucleocytoplasmic-mitochondrial interactions in organelle gene expression

Relationships beliefs and relationship quality across cultures: Country as a moderator of dysfunctional beliefs and relationship quality in three former Communist societies

Research on the correlation between relationship beliefs and quality has rarely considered the impact of culture. In this study, 206 manual workers, students and entrepreneurs from Georgia, Hungary and Russia completed a modified Relationships Belief Inventory (Eidelson & Epstein, 1982) and the Abbreviated Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Sharpley & Rogers, 1984). Results indicated a significant pan-cultural correlation between dysfunctional beliefs and relationship quality but a moderating effect for country, with dysfunctional beliefs in Hungary explaining more than four times of the variance in relationship quality than in the other countries. Findings are interpreted in the light of major value and ecological differences between the three countries