Meaning in Sexual Behavior: Associating Personal Constructs with Condom Use

Thirty-seven female and 30 male heterosexual undergraduates responded first to vignettes of sexual behavior in which they were asked to describe the partners\u27 behaviors using their own personal constructs and using the researcher-provided constructs safe sex, unsafe sex, intimate, and impersonal; participants then responded to questions about condom use. Sixty-one percent of participants reported using condoms at least 75% of the time, and 64% reported use on last intercourse. Women reported a higher percentage of intercourse without condoms than did men. Within-subject principal components analysis was used to identify the extent to which an individual\u27s personal constructs loaded on factors defined by safe sex and unsafe sex. These loadings were not related to reported condom use, failing to support the hypothesis that the presence of a safe-sex factor in an individual\u27s personal construct system is related to condom use. Similarly, stronger within-subject positive correlations between unsafe sex and intimate and between safe sex and intimate also were not related to reports of more frequent condom use. In a multiple regression equation, gender and the correlations between unsafe sex and intimate, safe sex and intimate, unsafe sex and impersonal , and safe sex and impersonal predicted 14% of the variance in reported condom use

Factors Affecting Within-plant Variation of Cotton Fiber Quality and Yield

Cotton is sold by weight, but a bale’s lint price per pound is determined by its fiber quality profile. Cotton quality is defined by a set of standardized properties (length, strength, elongation, uniformity, color, trash, and micronaire) collected on every United States bale. Each cotton fiber is the remnant of a single cell which upon harvest exists as a dry, hollow tube of crystalline cellulose. The length, perimeter, and thickness are a fiber’s physical dimensions. These dimensions influence both the mechanics involved in yarn spinning and the quality of the yarn produced. Genetic and environmental factors affect the development and consequently, the final properties of cotton crops. However, information is lacking about the degree of influence they impart, especially on fiber perimeter (fineness) and cell wall thickness (maturity), both components of micronaire. The goals of this dissertation were to: 1) Summarize and review the techniques available to industry to measure fiber perimeter and maturity in order to discuss their advantages and limitations, 2) Validate the use Cottonscope to measure fiber quality variation, 3) Determine the significance of within-plant yield variation, and 4) Determine the significance of within-plant quality variation. Small differences in micronaire are often indistinguishable, making breeding efforts difficult. With new instruments, selecting for the components of micronaire may increase selection efficiency and genetic gain compared to breeding for micronaire directly. In addition, these results show that yield and quality within genotypes are highly variable, and a significant amount of the variation is attributable to a boll’s fruiting site. Substantial bias can be introduced if boll sampling does not consider fruiting position. The results show that plot sampling techniques can greatly influence fiber quality testing results and as a result the effectiveness of genetic selection. The Cottonscope is a very accurate and precise tool for measuring fiber fineness and maturity ratio and improving the interpretation of micronaire. Micronaire had strong correlation with fiber fineness data. Breeding for lower micronaire would be a useful strategy to improve fiber fineness in environments where low fiber maturity is not a problem

Taking PR to school: a case study of the three private high school public relations and development departments

Few studies specifically explore public relations in private high schools. Statistics reveal that in Louisiana the number of nonpublic high school students continues to increase, therefore the competition among private schools for students increases as well as the demand to improve the private schools. These private schools need public relations to establish mutually beneficial relationships with strategic publics to attract students and to raise money to educate the students. This thesis is a case study of private school public relations programs at three Louisiana high schools. The theoretical basis for this thesis centered on the research of James Grunig. To determine the most effective way for schools to communicate with key publics, the researcher explored two questions. The first research question studied the organizational hierarchy of private schools, especially as it relates to the public relations department. Grunig argued that the age, size, complexity and centralization of an organization affected the public relations department. In other words, as organizations aged and grew in size and complexity, public relations would become an integral part of the organizational hierarchy. The second research question examined the public relations models that private schools use, based on Grunig’s public relations models—press agentry, public information, two-way asymmetrical and two-way symmetrical and later Kelly’s adaptation of those models to fund raising. The data supported Grunig’s theory that the age, size, complexity and centralization of an organization affect the public relations department. Two of the schools with over 100 years of history, placed a much greater emphasis on public relations than the school with less than 25 years as an institution. For the second question, the research revealed that all three schools use a combination of public relations and fund raising models. However, the most successful school in terms of attracting the best students and raising the most money used Grunig’s mixed-motive model, a combination of the two-way symmetrical and asymmetrical models

Ring Dynamics in the Western Gulf of Mexico

The interaction of a recently-formed Loop Current ring and a fossil ring is studied using observations and a two-layered eddy-resolving general circulation model of the Gulf of Mexico. This interaction is investigated by following the evolution of volume, energy, potential vorticity, angular momentum and enstrophy within a model ring as it moves westward and encounters a fossil ring along the continental slope of the Gulf of Mexico. By comparing the model results with drifter and hydrographic data several new insights into ring/ring and ring/slope interactions are seen. A Loop Current ring may merge with a fossil ring along the slope. The signature of this merger is evident in many drifter tracks suggesting that this occurs in the Gulf quite frequently. This merger explains several observations. There is an offshore transport induced by the merging of the rings that is comparable to the transport out of the Florida Straits. The volume of the Loop Current ring decreases sharply during the merger indicating an exchange of mass is occurring. A cyclone is generated when the ring interacts with a fossil ring and there is a transfer of energy from the surface layer to the lower layer. Analysis also shows that during the merger, as expected, a decrease in energy, potential vorticity and angular momentum and an increase in enstrophy occur. Other cyclones are seen first in the lower layer, prior to the ring\u27s arrival in the slope area, and then appear in the upper layer as the ring interacts with another ring and/or the slope

Internship for the Metropolitan Opera Guild

The following report documents the internship performed by Michael Indest, Jr. at the Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York City. Since 1935, the Metropolitan Opera Guild has supported the Metropolitan Opera Association as a separate nonprofit organization in order to ensure the continuing survival of this esteemed opera company. The Guild operates from its office buildings in the Rose Building at 70 Lincoln Center Plaza, in New York City. During his time at the Rose Building, Mr. Indest worked closely with the Development and Education Departments, and was responsible for writing instructional study guides and grant appropriate materials for those departments. This report catalogues the duties performed by Mr. Indest and the scope of his contribution. It discusses issues encountered during that process, and also provides a SWOT analysis of the organization. The report examines the best practices performed by similar organizations and provides practical recommendations to foster increased effectiveness within the Guild. Finally, the report discusses Mr. Indest\u27s contributions as an intern and their short and long-term effects. It should also be noted that Mr. Indest\u27s experience was solely with the Guild, and the statements and analysis included in this report do not in any way reflect the practices of the Metropolitan Opera Association

Molecular Cloning, Sequencing, and Regulation of the Rhodobacter capsulatushemB Gene.

The common tetrapyrrole pathway in the photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodobacter capsulatus, is responsible for the synthesis of bacteriochlorophyll, heme, vitamin B-12, and siroheme. The common portion of this pathway is regulated up to 100-fold by changes in oxygen tension. This regulation is accomplished by controlling the intracellular level of porphobilinogen. One way in which porphobilinogen levels could be controlled is by regulating the synthesis of porphobilinogen. Porphobilinogen synthase, encoded by the hemB gene, is the second enzyme in the common tetrapyrrole pathway that catalyzes the dimerization of 5-aminolevulinic acid to form the monopyrrole porphobilinogen. In order to further investigate the mechanism by which oxygen regulates porphobilinogen levels, the R. capsulatus hemB gene was cloned and sequenced. The R. capsulatus hemB gene was cloned by complementation of an Escherichia coli hemB mutant. Sequence analysis of the R. capsulatus hemB gene revealed that the putative porphobilinogen synthase has a metal-binding domain that more closely resembles that found in plant porphobilinogen synthases. The locations of the hemB and hemA genes on the R. capsulatus chromosome indicate that these genes do not form an operon. Oxygen mediated transcriptional regulation of the R. capsulatus hemB gene was measured by dot blot analysis of mRNA from cells grown under 3% and 23% oxygen and by hemB-cat transcriptional fusion studies. Both of these methods reveal that the synthesis of porphobilinogen synthase does not change with shifts in oxygen tension. Oxygen tension also does not appear to regulate enzyme activity since the specific activity does not change significantly with changes in oxygen tension. Overexpression of the R. capsulatus hemB, in the presence of exogenous aminolevulinate, in R. capsulatus can overcome the normal oxygen mediated regulatory mechanisms. While the mechanism of how oxygen modulates carbon flow down the common tetrapyrrole pathway remains elusive, it is clear that the level of porphobilinogen plays a crucial part in oxygen regulation. The possibility still exists that oxygen regulates the degradation of porphobilinogen

The Energetic Costs of Cellular Computation

Cells often perform computations in response to environmental cues. A simple example is the classic problem, first considered by Berg and Purcell, of determining the concentration of a chemical ligand in the surrounding media. On general theoretical grounds (Landuer's Principle), it is expected that such computations require cells to consume energy. Here, we explicitly calculate the energetic costs of computing ligand concentration for a simple two-component cellular network that implements a noisy version of the Berg-Purcell strategy. We show that learning about external concentrations necessitates the breaking of detailed balance and consumption of energy, with greater learning requiring more energy. Our calculations suggest that the energetic costs of cellular computation may be an important constraint on networks designed to function in resource poor environments such as the spore germination networks of bacteria.Comment: 9 Pages (including Appendix); 4 Figures; v3 corrects even more typo

Rhizosphere Microbial Communities of \u3ci\u3eSpartina alternifloa\u3c/i\u3e and \u3ci\u3eJuncus roemerianus\u3c/i\u3e From Restored and Natural Tidal Marshes on Deer Island, Mississippi

The U. S. Gulf of Mexico is experiencing a dramatic increase in tidal marsh restoration actions, which involves planting coastal areas with smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and black needlerush (Juncus roemerianus) for erosion control and to provide habitat for fish and wildlife. It can take decades for sedimentary cycles in restored marshes to approach reference conditions, and the contribution of the sediment microbial communities to these processes is poorly elucidated. In this study, we addressed this gap by comparing rhizosphere microbiomes of S. alterniflora and J. roemerianus from two restored marshes and a natural reference marsh located at Deer Island, MS. Our results revealed that plants from the restored and reference areas supported similar microbial diversity indicating the rapid colonization of planted grasses with indigenous soil microbiota. Although close in composition, the microbial communities from the three studied sites differed significantly in the relative abundance of specific taxa. The observed differences are likely driven by the host plant identity and properties of sediment material used for the creation of restored marshes. Some of the differentially distributed groups of bacteria include taxa involved in the cycling of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, and may influence the succession of vegetation at the restored sites to climax condition. We also demonstrated that plants from the restored and reference sites vary in the frequency of culturable rhizobacteria that exhibit traits commonly associated with the promotion of plant growth and suppression of phytopathogenic fungi. Our findings will contribute to the establishment of benchmarks for the assessment of the outcome of coastal restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico and better define factors that affect the long-term resiliency of tidal marshes and their vulnerability to climate change

SeaWiFS technical report series. Volume 11: Analysis of selected orbit propagation models for the SeaWiFS mission

An analysis of orbit propagation models was performed by the Mission Operations element of the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project, which has overall responsibility for the instrument scheduling. The orbit propagators selected for this analysis are widely available general perturbations models. The analysis includes both absolute accuracy determination and comparisons of different versions of the models. The results show that all of the models tested meet accuracy requirements for scheduling and data acquisition purposes. For internal Project use the SGP4 propagator, developed by the North American Air Defense (NORAD) Command, has been selected. This model includes atmospheric drag effects and, therefore, provides better accuracy. For High Resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) ground stations, which have less stringent accuracy requirements, the publicly available Brouwer-Lyddane models are recommended. The SeaWiFS Project will make available portable source code for a version of this model developed by the Data Capture Facility (DCF)