Eileen J. Cox: her journey with diatoms

Eileen already had a keen interest in science during her school years. She studied Botany at Bristol University from 1967–1970, and it was her University teacher, Professor Frank Round, who inspired her interest in diatoms. During her PhD at Bristol under Frank Round’s supervision (1970–1975) she investigated the biology of tube-dwelling diatoms. At the same time, she worked as Departmental Demonstrator in the Botany Department. She left Bristol University in 1976 and became a Claridge Druce Research Fellow at the University of Oxford (1977–1980). Her investigations focused on the genus Navicula and the ultrastructure of diatom cells more generally. From 1979–1980 Eileen took up a post as lecturer at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. In 1980 Eileen moved to Germany and worked as a Royal Society European Exchange Research Fellow at the Litoralstation, Biologische Anstalt Helgoland. Here her studies focused on living diatoms, in particular the genus Donkinia, and she explored the value of live-cell features as diagnostic characters. From 1982–1985 she worked as a Max Planck research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute at Plön, and from 1985–1988 as a Fellow of the German Research Foundation at the Max-Planck-Institute of Limnology, River Station, in Schlitz. During these years Eileen’s research on Navicula continued, but she also worked on the genera Placoneis, Parlibellus and Pinnularia, and studied relationships between diatom distributions and the environment. In 1989 Eileen returned to the UK to join the University of Sheffield, first as Research Associate, then as NERC Advanced Research Fellow and Honorary Lecturer, and carried out ecotoxicological studies on zooplankton. In 1992 she joined the Natural History Museum as Research Botanist to continue her research on diatoms. Here Eileen made many important contributions to diatom taxonomy and systematics. She carried out important studies on the naviculoid diatoms, and on live diatoms including her novel research on valve morphogenesis. Eileen has been involved in the organisation of many scientific meetings. In 1987 she organized the first meeting of the German-speaking diatomists in Schlitz, Germany, a meeting that has subsequently developed to include a much larger group of scientists from across Europe and from 2020 onwards will be the European Diatom Meeting. Other meetings she has helped organize include those held by the British Phycological Society, British Diatom Meetings, a NorthWest and Midlands Freshwater Group meeting, the Van Heurck Symposium on Taxonomy, a SETAC Europe meeting, a Society for the History of Natural History Meeting, and several European and International Phycological Congresses. Eileen has taught extensively; hosted 7 post-doctoral fellows and many research visitors to the Natural History Museum; supervised 10 PhD students, 4 M.Sc./M.Phil. students, 1 M.Res. student, and 4 final year B.Sc. students; and examined 9 PhDs and 1 DSc. She is currently a member of six learned societies, has refereed manuscripts for 31 scientific journals, has been invited speaker at 32 scientific meetings, gave 28 invited lectures at universities and research institutes, and presented at 56 national and international conferences. Eileen has given great service to several scientific societies, as council member, secretary or president. These include the British Phycological Society (president 2001–2002), the International Society for Diatom Research (president 2000– 112 Pl. Ecol. Evol. 152 (2), 2019 2002), the Systematics Association, and the International Phycological Society. Since 2007 Eileen has been Head of Postgraduate Studies in the Science Directorate of the Natural History Museum. As part of her role she develops and implements the training programmes of students at NHM, is responsible for strategic planning, and coordinates with research and training partners at universities and research institutions across the UK. Eileen is currently Editor in Chief of Diatom Research, and was previously Associate Editor (2011–2014), she is a board member of Fottea (since 2010), was guest co-editor of the Journal of the North American Benthological Society (Special Issue on Ecology of Springs), guest co-editor of the Journal of Limnology (Special Issue on Spring Biodiversity and Conservation), and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Phycology (2004–2009). Private hobbies include gardening, crafts such as cross stitching and sewing, visiting art museums and travelling, especially river and ocean cruises that have taken Eileen and Elliot recently to Alaska, the Caribbean, Germany, the Czech Republic, France and Portugal. Readers may like to read Eileen’s own description of her journey in diatoms, written for the young diatomists’ blog (available at https://youngisdr.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_12. html or in this volume supplementary information).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Predicting Persuasion-Induced Behavior Change From the Brain

Although persuasive messages often alter people\u27s self-reported attitudes and intentions to perform behaviors, these self-reports do not necessarily predict behavior change. We demonstrate that neural responses to persuasive messages can predict variability in behavior change in the subsequent week. Specifically, an a priori region of interest (ROI) in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was reliably associated with behavior change (r = 0.49, p \u3c 0.05). Additionally, an iterative cross-validation approach using activity in this MPFC ROI predicted an average 23% of the variance in behavior change beyond the variance predicted by self-reported attitudes and intentions. Thus, neural signals can predict behavioral changes that are not predicted from self-reported attitudes and intentions alone. Additionally, this is the first functional magnetic resonance imaging study to demonstrate that a neural signal can predict complex real world behavior days in advance

Optical, mechanical and sensory properties of based-isomaltulose gummy confections

The replacement of traditional sugars by isomaltulose could be a revolution in the confectionery sector, since isomaltulose is a functional, digestible, non-cariogenic and low glycemic disaccharide. This study assesses the addition of isomaltulose (ranging between 30-70% in combination with fructose) with different percentages of gelatine (6-10%) in gummy confection by analyzing its effect on composition, water activity (aw), pH, mechanical and optical properties, and sensory perception. Results show that the combination of 30% isomaltulose and 70% fructose in the total amount of sugars would be suitable for developing functional gummy confections. Besides its stability (aw (0.79±0.02) and ºBrix (73.5±1.3)) and great similarity to commercial gummies in terms of optical and mechanical properties, it received high global acceptability and intention of buying scores. Additionally, the correlation between instrumental and sensory parameters leads to the conclusion that the instrumental texture could be suitable for evaluating consumer s global acceptability for this innovative product.The authors thank the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia for funding the Project PAID 2011-ref.: 2012 and the Ph.D. scholarship.Periche Santamaría, A.; Heredia Gutiérrez, AB.; Escriche Roberto, MI.; Andrés Grau, AM.; Castelló Gómez, ML. (2014). Optical, mechanical and sensory properties of based-isomaltulose gummy confections. Food Bioscience. 7:37-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbio.2014.05.006S3744

A discrete symmetry group for maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing

We propose a discrete non-abelian symmetry group which enforces maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing, while $\theta_{13} = 0$ and the solar mixing angle $\theta_{12}$ remains undetermined; without finetuning, $\theta_{12}$ will be large but non-maximal. Our extension of the Standard Model has three right-handed neutrino singlets $\nu_R$ and implements the seesaw mechanism. Furthermore, we have an enlarged scalar sector with three Higgs doublets and two scalar gauge singlets; the latter have masses and vacuum expectation values of the order of the seesaw scale. Lepton mixing stems exclusively from the $\nu_R$ Majorana mass matrix, where non-diagonal elements are generated by the vacuum expectation values of the scalar singlets. The model predicts a neutrino mass spectrum with $m_3 > m_2 > m_1$ and the effective Majorana mass of neutrinoless $\beta\beta$ decay is equal to $m_1 m_2 / m_3$.Comment: 9 pages, no figures, plain LaTeX; new section added and misprints corrected, version to be published in Phys. Lett.

Detection of primary melanoma in individuals at extreme high risk: a prospective 5-year follow-up study

IMPORTANCE: The clinical phenotype and certain predisposing genetic mutations that confer increased melanoma risk are established; however, no consensus exists regarding optimal screening for such individuals. Early identification remains the most important intervention in reducing melanoma mortality. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of full-body examinations every 6 months supported by dermoscopy and total-body photography (TBP) on all patients and sequential digital dermoscopy imaging (SDDI), when indicated, on detecting primary melanoma in an extreme-risk population. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Prospective observational study from February 2006 to February 2011, with patients recruited from Sydney Melanoma Diagnostic Centre and Melanoma Institute Australia who had a history of invasive melanoma and dysplastic nevus syndrome, history of invasive melanoma and at least 3 first-degree or second-degree relatives with prior melanoma, history of at least 2 primary invasive melanomas, or a CDKN2A or CDK4 gene mutation. EXPOSURES: Six-month full-body examination compared with TBP. For equivocal lesions, SDDI short term (approximately 3 months) or long term (≥6 months), following established criteria, was performed. Atypical lesions were excised. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: New primary melanoma numbers, characteristics, and cumulative incidence in each patient subgroup; effect of diagnostic aids on new melanoma identification. RESULTS: In 311 patients with a median (interquartile range [IQR]) follow-up of 3.5 (2.4-4.2) years, 75 primary melanomas were detected, 14 at baseline visit. Median (IQR) Breslow thickness of postbaseline incident melanomas was in situ (in situ to 0.60 mm). Thirty-eight percent were detected using TBP and 39% with SDDI. Five melanomas were greater than 1 mm Breslow thickness, 3 of which were histologically desmoplastic; the other 2 had nodular components. The benign to malignant excision ratio was 1.6:1 for all lesions excised and 4.4:1 for melanocytic lesions. Cumulative risk of developing a novel primary melanoma was 12.7% by year 2, with new primary melanoma incidence during the final 3 years of follow-up half of that observed during the first 2 years (incidence density ratio, 0.43 [95% CI, 0.25-0.74]; P = .002). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Monitoring patients at extreme risk with TBP and SDDI assisted with early diagnosis of primary melanoma. Hypervigilance for difficult-to-detect thick melanoma subtypes is crucial. Copyright 2014 American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Fitting motivational content and process:A systematic investigation of fit between value-framing and self-regulation

Objective: Values are often phrased as ideals that people seek to approach, but they can also be conceptualized as counter-ideals that people seek to avoid. We aimed to test whether individuals endorse more strongly values that are framed in line with their predominant self-regulatory motivation, using individual difference scales in promotion/prevention (Higgins, 1997) and in behavioral approach/inhibition (Carver & White, 1994). To address this systematically, we developed approach- and avoidance-framed versions of the Portrait Value Questionnaire-RR (PVQ-RR; Schwartz et al., 2012). Method: Participants completed approach- and avoidance-framed PVQ-RR versions in two studies measuring regulatory focus or motivational orientation (together 414 U.S. adults, 48% female, ages 18-69) and one study manipulating motivational orientation (39 UK high school students, 79% female, ages 16-19). Results: Value framing consistently interacted with both self-regulation variables. However, a fit between self-regulation and value framing resulted in greater value endorsement only for promotion-focused and approach-oriented (not prevention-focused and avoidance-oriented) participants. This may be because values are more naturally understood as ideal states that people seek to approach. Conclusions: Our findings provide first insights into the psychological process of person-value framing fit affecting value endorsement. We discuss implications for cross-cultural value research and research on value-congruent behavior

The Absolute Neutrino Mass Scale, Neutrino Mass Spectrum, Majorana CP-Violation and Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay

Assuming 3-$\nu$ mixing, massive Majorana neutrinos and neutrinoless double-beta (\betabeta-) decay generated only by the (V-A) charged current weak interaction via the exchange of the three Majorana neutrinos, we briefly review the predictions for the effective Majorana mass \meff in \betabeta-decay and reanalyse the physics potential of future \betabeta-decay experiments to provide information on the type of neutrino mass spectrum, the absolute scale of neutrino masses, and Majorana CP-violation in the lepton sector. Using as input the most recent experimental results on neutrino oscillation parameters and the prospective precision that can be achieved in future measurements of the latter, we perform a statistical analysis of a \betabeta-decay half-life measurement taking into account experimental and theoretical errors, as well as the uncertainty implied by the imprecise knowledge of the corresponding nuclear matrix element (NME). We show, in particular, how the possibility to discriminate between the different types of neutrino mass spectra and the constraints on the absolute neutrino mass scale depend on the mean value and the experimental error of \meff and on the NME uncertainty. The constraints on Majorana CP-violation phases in the neutrino mixing matrix, which can be obtained from a measurement of \meff and additional data on the sum of neutrino masses, are also investigated in detail. We estimate the required experimental accuracies on both types of measurements, and the required precision in the NME permitting to address the issue of Majorana CP-violation in the lepton sector.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, minor improvements on the text, fig. 4 improved graphically, version to appear in Nucl. Phys.