The INCF Digital Atlasing Program: Report on Digital Atlasing Standards in the Rodent Brain

The goal of the INCF Digital Atlasing Program is to provide the vision and direction necessary to make the rapidly growing collection of multidimensional data of the rodent brain (images, gene expression, etc.) widely accessible and usable to the international research community. This Digital Brain Atlasing Standards Task Force was formed in May 2008 to investigate the state of rodent brain digital atlasing, and formulate standards, guidelines, and policy recommendations.

Our first objective has been the preparation of a detailed document that includes the vision and specific description of an infrastructure, systems and methods capable of serving the scientific goals of the community, as well as practical issues for achieving
the goals. This report builds on the 1st INCF Workshop on Mouse and Rat Brain Digital Atlasing Systems (Boline et al., 2007, _Nature Preceedings_, doi:10.1038/npre.2007.1046.1) and includes a more detailed analysis of both the current state and desired state of digital atlasing along with specific recommendations for achieving these goals

Transition Metal Dopants Essential for Producing Ferromagnetism in Metal Oxide Nanoparticles

Recent claims that ferromagnetism can be produced in nanoparticles of metal oxides without the presence of transition metal dopants have been challenged in this work by investigating 62 high quality well-characterized nanoparticle samples of both undoped and Fe doped (0-10% Fe) ZnO. The undoped ZnO nanoparticles showed zero or negligible magnetization, without any dependence on the nanoparticle size. However, chemically synthesized Zn1-xFexO nanoparticles showed clear ferromagnetism, varying systematically with Fe concentration. Furthermore, the magnetic properties of Zn1-xFexO nanoparticles showed strong dependence on the reaction media used to prepare the samples. The zeta potentials of the Zn1-xFexO nanoparticles prepared using different reaction media were significantly different, indicating strong differences in the surface structure. Electron paramagnetic resonance studies indicate that the difference in the ferromagnetic properties of Zn1-xFexO nanoparticles with different surface structures originates from differences in the fraction of the doped Fe ions that participate in ferromagnetic resonance

Policy Feedback and the Politics of the Affordable Care Act

There is a large body of literature devoted to how “policies create politics” and how feedback effects from existing policy legacies shape potential reforms in a particular area. Although much of this literature focuses on self‐reinforcing feedback effects that increase support for existing policies over time, Kent Weaver and his colleagues have recently drawn our attention to self‐undermining effects that can gradually weaken support for such policies. The following contribution explores both self‐reinforcing and self‐undermining policy feedback in relationship to the Affordable Care Act, the most important health‐care reform enacted in the United States since the mid‐1960s. More specifically, the paper draws on the concept of policy feedback to reflect on the political fate of the ACA since its adoption in 2010. We argue that, due in part to its sheer complexity and fragmentation, the ACA generates both self‐reinforcing and self‐undermining feedback effects that, depending of the aspect of the legislation at hand, can either facilitate or impede conservative retrenchment and restructuring. Simultaneously, through a discussion of partisan effects that shape Republican behavior in Congress, we acknowledge the limits of policy feedback in the explanation of policy stability and change

Do workplace aesthetics matter? testing the moderating effects of need for aesthetics and general mindfulness

Minimal research has examined the impact of workplace aesthetics on employee outcomes such as negative work attitudes, job satisfaction, or resource recovery needs. The present study tested if aesthetic elements in workplace matter to employees and if this effect is moderated by the extent to which employees are generally mindful and have a need for an aesthetically pleasing workspace (NFAPW). Data were collected from adult fulltime employees (N = 175) and were analyzed using correlational and regression-based techniques. Results suggest that together, need for an aesthetically pleasing workplace and general mindfulness affect employees’ work attitudes. Specifically, for individuals with high NFAPW and mindfulness, negative work attitudes were lower in more aesthetically pleasing workplaces, but higher for those in non-aesthetically pleasing workplaces. When analyses were conducted without covariates, NFAPW moderated the relationship between workplace aesthetics and resource recovery needs. Main effects or moderation effects were not identified for job satisfaction

Microstructural Characterization of Graphite Spheroids in Ductile Iron

The present work brings new insights by transmission electron microscopy allowing disregarding or supporting some of the models proposed for spheroidal growth of graphite in cast irons. Nodules consist of sectors made of graphite plates elongated along a hai direction and stack on each other with their c axis aligned with the radial direction. These plates are the elementary units for spheroidal growth and a calculation supports the idea that new units continuously nucleate at the ledge between sectors

Magnetism of ZnO Nanoparticles: Dependence on Crystallite Size and Surfactant Coating

Many recent reports on magnetism in otherwise nonmagnetic oxides have demonstrated that nanoparticle size, surfactant coating, or doping with magnetic ions produces room-temperature ferromagnetism. Specifically, ZnO has been argued to be a room-temperature ferromagnet through all three of these methods in various experimental studies. For this reason, we have prepared a series of 1% Fe doped ZnO nanoparticle samples using a single forced hydrolysis co-precipitation synthesis method from the same precursors, while varying size (6 – 15 nm) and surface coating concentration to study the combined effects of these two parameters. Size was controlled by modifying the water concentration. Surfactant coating was adjusted by varying the concentration of poly acrylic acid (PAA) in solution. Samples were characterized by x-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, optical absorptance spectroscopy, and magnetometry. No clear systematic effect on magnetization was observed as a function of surfactant coating, while evidence for a direct dependence of magnetization on the crystallite size is apparent