Negative regulation of the androgen receptor gene through a primate specific androgen response element present in the 5' UTR

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. Acknowledgements This work was supported by funding from the Chief Scientist Office, Government of Scotland (Grant Nos CZB/4/477 and ETM/258). DNL was supported by the Association for International Cancer Research (Grant No. 03–127)Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Does increasing biodiversity in an urban woodland setting promote positive emotional responses in humans? A stress recovery experiment using 360-degree videos of an urban woodland

Green spaces can support human stress reduction and foster positive emotional well-being. Previous research has suggested that biodiversity (i.e. the variety of species of plants and animals in a given location) can enhance recovery from stress even further. However, there is limited experimental evidence testing this hypothesis and results, to date, have been mixed. This study aimed to provide further understanding of the role of biodiversity (actual or perceived) on human well-being by experimentally manipulating species richness and stress. Participants (372 in total) took part in an online experiment, where they received an episode of mild stress before watching a 360-degree video to recover. The video showed the same location, an urban woodland, but at one of four artificially manipulated levels of biodiversity. The participants reported their Positive and Negative Affect before and after the stress induction and after watching the video, providing a measure of their stress and well-being throughout the experiment. Participants also reported their perceptions of biodiversity (i.e. how diverse they thought the location was) and elaborated on their responses with brief comments. Repeated Measure Analysis of Variance revealed that exposure to all levels of biodiversity reduced the participants’ Negative Affect, but with no significant difference between the conditions. However, the analysis showed higher Positive Affect in those participants who perceived the environment as more biodiverse. Comments from participants indicated that those who reported noticing flowers and trees in the environment also showed higher Positive Affect. This suggests that perceiving biodiversity promotes more positive emotions, but critically one needs to actually notice (engage with) the components of biodiversity to elicit these extra benefits

Combination of carbon nanotubes and two-photon absorbers for broadband optical limiting

New systems are required for optical limiting against broadband laser pulses. We demonstrate that the association of non-linear scattering from single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) and multiphoton absorption (MPA) from organic chromophores is a promising approach to extend performances of optical limiters over broad spectral and temporal ranges. Such composites display high linear transmission and good neutral colorimetry and are particularly efficient in the nanosecond regime due to cumulative effects.Comment: 5 avril 200

The Elephant in the Room’–does actual or perceived biodiversity elicit restorative responses in a virtual park?

Previous studies suggested that urban green spaces with rich fauna and flora (i.e. rich biodiversity) improved well-being, in the form of reduced stress and better mood. However, few studies manipulated the biodiversity experimentally and controlled for potential confounders. In the current study, an online experiment tested the hypothesis that more biodiverse green spaces will elicit greater well-being. Over 1600 participants from the UK and China reported their mood before and after virtually exploring the same urban park but with lower or higher macro-biodiversity (plants, birds and mammals). All participants also rated their perceived biodiversity (i.e. how many kinds of plants and animals they guessed to be present). The results showed that all park variations produced improved mood, especially in stressed participants. This counters the initial expectations that maximum biodiversity correlates with higher well-being. Instead, participants who perceived higher biodiversity reported greater mood improvements than those who perceived low biodiversity. However, the perceived biodiversity overestimated the actual biodiversity. Interestingly, these findings were consistent in both UK and China samples. This indicates that well-being benefits and stress recovery can occur in parks with low and high biodiversity. However, greater well-being effects can be gained if park visitors perceive and notice more biodiversity

Stories of Critical Moments Contributing to the Development of Applied Sport Psychology Practitioners

This study explored the stories of critical moments experienced by applied sport psychology practitioners. The 13 recruited practitioners (eight male and five female) were in different stages of their development (trainee, neophyte, and experienced) and were asked to tell one story about a critical moment that significantly contributed to their development as applied practitioners. Narrative analysis was used to explore the stories of critical moments. Four distinct narrative structures were evident; Re-birth, Rags to Riches, Tragedy, and The Quest. There was one consistent narrative feature that supported these plots: critical moments contribute towards an alignment between a practitioner’s beliefs and behaviour, which supports the development of a congruent philosophy of practice and the environment they choose to work within. We recommend future research, such as the use of narrative analysis to explore alternative narrative structures and the investigation of successful and unsuccessful consultancy experiences

Blessing of dimensionality at the edge

In this paper we present theory and algorithms enabling classes of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems to continuously and incrementally improve with a-priori quantifiable guarantees - or more specifically remove classification errors - over time. This is distinct from state-of-the-art machine learning, AI, and software approaches. Another feature of this approach is that, in the supervised setting, the computational complexity of training is linear in the number of training samples. At the time of classification, the computational complexity is bounded by few inner product calculations. Moreover, the implementation is shown to be very scalable. This makes it viable for deployment in applications where computational power and memory are limited, such as embedded environments. It enables the possibility for fast on-line optimisation using improved training samples. The approach is based on the concentration of measure effects and stochastic separation theorems and is illustrated with an example on the identification faulty processes in Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling and with a case study on adaptive removal of false positives in an industrial video surveillance and analytics system

Calibration Model for Detection of Potential Demodulating Behaviour in Biological Media Exposed to RF Energy

YesPotential demodulating ability in biological tissue exposed to Radio Frequency (RF) signals intrinsically requires an unsymmetrical diode-like nonlinear response in tissue samples. This may be investigated by observing possible generation of the second harmonic in a cavity resonator designed to have fundamental and second harmonic resonant frequencies with collocated antinodes. Such a response would be of interest as being a mechanism that could enable demodulation of information-carrying waveforms having modulating frequencies in ranges that could interfere with cellular processes. Previous work has developed an experimental system to test for such responses: the present work reports an electric circuit model devised to facilitate calibration of any putative nonlinear RF energy conversion occurring within a nonlinear test-piece inside the cavity. The method is validated computationally and experimentally using a well-characterised nonlinear device. The variations of the reflection coefficients of the fundamental and second harmonic responses of the cavity due to adding nonlinear and lossy material are also discussed. The proposed model demonstrates that the sensitivity of the measurement equipment plays a vital role in deciding the required input power to detect any second harmonic signal, which is expected to be very weak. The model developed here enables the establishment of a lookup table giving the level of the second harmonic signal in the detector as a function of the specific input power applied in a measurement. Experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated results.Engineering and Physical Science Research Council through Grant EP/E022936

Freezing Strip Loin and Top Round Steaks Improves Warner-Bratzler Shear Force

Postmortem aging of steaks is a common practice used to improve tenderness of beef steaks. The impact of proteolysis and improvement in tenderness due to aging varies among muscles. When designing research protocols, samples for Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) are often frozen for later analysis because of convenience and time limitations. Freezing stops postmortem aging and allows for storage until meat can be cooked for WBSF and/or sensory analysis. However freezing meat may cause damage to cell membranes resulting in lower Warner-Bratzler shear force (improved mechanical tenderness), lower water holding capacity, and greater moisture loss during cooking. Several researchers have indicated that freezing strip loin (Longissimus muscle) steaks may lower Warner-Bratzler shear force (improve tenderness) compared with those not previously frozen and sheared fresh. However, these results have been inconclusive for steaks from other muscles. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of postmortem aging time and freezing on Warner-Bratzler shear force of six muscles from the beef hindquarter