Understanding Marine Mussel Adhesion

In addition to identifying the proteins that have a role in underwater adhesion by marine mussels, research efforts have focused on identifying the genes responsible for the adhesive proteins, environmental factors that may influence protein production, and strategies for producing natural adhesives similar to the native mussel adhesive proteins. The production-scale availability of recombinant mussel adhesive proteins will enable researchers to formulate adhesives that are water-impervious and ecologically safe and can bind materials ranging from glass, plastics, metals, and wood to materials, such as bone or teeth, biological organisms, and other chemicals or molecules. Unfortunately, as of yet scientists have been unable to duplicate the processes that marine mussels use to create adhesive structures. This study provides a background on adhesive proteins identified in the blue mussel, Mytilus edulis, and introduces our research interests and discusses the future for continued research related to mussel adhesion

Sport, fiction and sociology: Novels as data sources

This is the accepted version of a paper subsequently published in the journal, International Review for the Sociology of Sport. The definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1012690215617758This paper is primarily concerned with the types of data that are of value to sociologists - in this instance, particularly to sociologists of sport. It is argued here that we can and should add works of fiction to the more commonly accepted data sources. Whilst most academic writers may be cautious about the excessive use of invention even in personal narratives, others are less diffident. The paper examines representations of sport in fiction with specific reference to three novels, their central characters, and the insights provided by their fictional beings into the relationship between sport, individuals and society. The novels selected as evidence are Robert Coover’s The Universal Baseball Association, inc. J. Henry Waugh PROP (UBA), Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter (TS) and Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding (TAF). Based on the identification of emerging themes in the novels, and the application of relevant sociological concepts – anomie, alienation and figurations - it is argued that, although the novels’ authors are not sociologists, they could be and although the stories which they tell are not true, they too could be. It is these ‘facts’ that makes them valuable sources of data

Grammatical planning, execution, and control in written sentence production

Nottbusch G. Grammatical planning, execution, and control in written sentence production. READING AND WRITING. 2010;23(7):777-801.In this study participants were asked to describe pictured events in one type-written sentence, containing one of two different syntactic structures (subordinated vs. coordinated subject noun phrases). According to the hypothesis, the larger subordinated structure (one noun phrase including a second, subordinated, one) should be cognitively more costly and will be planned before the start of the production, whereas the coordinated structure, consisting of two syntactically equal noun phrases, can be planned locally in an incremental fashion. The hypothesis was confirmed by the analysis of the word-initial keystroke latencies as well as the eye movements towards the stimulus, indicating a stronger tendency to incremental planning in case of the coordinated structure