High School Media Too: A School Day in the Lives of Fifteen Teenagers

An observational study of media consumption and exposure throughout the school day of fifteen middle- and high-school students. The study measures exposure in ten second increments in all locations from home and car through school and others and details incidence and duration os media use. Results also details incidence of Concurrent Media Exposure (multi-tasking)

Characterisation of the nociceptive phenotype of suppressible galanin overexpressing transgenic mice

The neuropeptide galanin is widely expressed in both the central and peripheral nervous systems and is involved in many diverse biological functions. There is a substantial data set that demonstrates galanin is upregulated after injury in the DRG, spinal cord and in many brain regions where it plays a predominantly antinociceptive role in addition to being neuroprotective and pro-regenerative. To further characterise the role of galanin following nerve injury, a novel transgenic line was created using the binary transgenic tet-off system, to overexpress galanin in galaninergic tissue in a suppressible manner. The double transgenic mice express significantly more galanin in the DRG one week after sciatic nerve section (axotomy) compared to WT mice and this overexpression is suppressible upon administration of doxycycline. Phenotypic analysis revealed markedly attenuated allodynia when galanin is overexpressed and an increase in allodynia following galanin suppression. This novel transgenic line demonstrates that whether galanin expression is increased at the time of nerve injury or only after allodynia is established, the neuropeptide is able to reduce neuropathic pain behaviour. These new findings imply that administration of a galanin agonist to patients with established allodynia would be an effective treatment for neuropathic pain

Does gender matter? A cross-national investigation of primary class-room discipline.

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupFewer than 15% of primary school teachers in both Germany and the UK are male. With the on-going international debate about educational performance highlighting the widening gender achievement gap between girl and boy pupils, the demand for more male teachers has become prevalent in educational discourse. Concerns have frequently been raised about the underachievement of boys, with claims that the lack of male ‘role models’ in schools has an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Although previous research has examined ‘teaching’ as institutional talk, men’s linguistic behaviour in the classroom remains largely ignored, especially in regard to enacting discipline. Using empirical spoken data collected from four primary school classrooms in both the UK and in Germany, this paper examines the linguistic discipline strategies of eight male and eight female teachers using Interactional Sociolinguistics to address the question, does teacher gender matter?Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Impact of tank background on the welfare of the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis (Daudin)

The captive environment of a laboratory animal can profoundly influence its welfare and the scientific validity of research produced. The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) is a common model organism, however current husbandry guidelines lack supporting quantitative evidence. The visual environment is a fundamental aspect of a captive animal’s housing and may affect a number of physiological and behavioural responses. This is particularly important for species such as X. laevis where cryptic camouflage is a fundamental defence mechanism. Here male (n = 16) and female (n = 20) X. laevis were housed in tanks with ecologically relevant (black) and non-relevant (white) background colours and physiological and behavioural responses observed. Higher levels of water-borne corticosterone were observed in tanks with a white background compared to a black background in females (p = 0.047). Increased atypical active behaviours (Swimming: p = 0.042; Walling: p = 0.042) and a greater degree of body mass loss (p < 0.001) were also observed in the white background condition. Together these responses are indicative of increased stress of X. laevis when housed in tanks with a non-ecologically relevant background compared to an ecologically relevant background and suggest refined tank background colour may improve welfare in this species

Trajectory shifts in the Arctic and Subarctic freshwater cycle

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2006. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Association for the Advancement of Science for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science 313 (2006): 1061-1066, doi:10.1126/science.1122593.Manifold changes in the freshwater cycle of high-latitude lands and oceans have been reported in the past few years. A synthesis of these changes in sources of freshwater and in ocean freshwater storage illustrates the complementary and synoptic temporal pattern and magnitude of these changes over the past 50 years. Increasing river discharge anomalies and excess net precipitation on the ocean contributed ~20,000 km3 of fresh water to the Arctic and high latitude North Atlantic oceans from lows in the 1960s to highs in the 1990s. Sea ice attrition provided another ~15,000 km3, and glacial melt added ~2000 km3. The sum of anomalous inputs from these freshwater sources matched the amount and rate at which fresh water accumulated in the North Atlantic during much of the period from 1965 through 1995. The changes in freshwater inputs and ocean storage occurred in conjunction with the amplifying North Atlantic Oscillation and rising air temperatures. Fresh water may now be accumulating in the Arctic Ocean and will likely be exported southward if and when the North Atlantic Oscillation enters into a new high phase.Funding was provided by NSF (grants OPP-0229302, OPP- 0436118, OPP-0327664, OPP-0352754, OPP-0519840, OCE- 0326778), ONR (grant N00014-02-1-0305) and NASA (grant IDS-03-0000-0145)

Dust Morphology and Composition in FU Orionis Systems

FU Orionis stars are a small group of pre–main-sequence stars known for large-amplitude optical variability. These objects also exhibit multiwavelength phenomena suggestive of active accretion from a circumstellar disk. We present high spatial resolution mid-IR imaging and spectroscopy, submillimeter photometry, and 3–4 μm photometry of four FU Ori–class objects, RNO 1B and C, Z CMa, and Par 21, and one object classified as a pre–FU Ori star, V380 Ori. We resolve multiple IR sources and extended emission in the RNO 1B/C system, and we discuss in detail their association with disk activity and the source of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite far-IR and radio maser emission in this field. We derive dust temperatures and masses for all sources and discuss how dust composition and morphology is related to the evolutionary stage of these objects