Subsurface Fish Handling to Limit Decompression Effects on Deepwater Species

A method of handling hooked fish at intermediate depth was developed for species which occur deeper than conventional scuba depths. Juvenile pink snappers, Pristipomoides filamentosus, were hauled from 65-100 m to a depth of only 30 m, where the ambient pressure change was a fraction of that produced by hauling fish to the sea surface. This method afforded a unique opportunity to acoustically tag deepwater, physoclistous fish without the need to alter the fish's original swim bladder volume and without the high risk of further injury associated with surface handling. Tagged P. filamentosus survived and behaved well and were tracked successfully. This basic method could be applied to a variety of deepwater species in a number of research approaches, including tagging and dietary studies

Combined pyrolysis and radiochemical gas chromatography for studying the thermal degradation of polymers

Pyrolysis gas chromatography and radioactive tracer techniques have been used independently to study the thermal degradation of polymers. In these laboratories the two techniques have been combined to elucidate some of the mechanisms of the thermal degradation of epoxy resins and polyimides. This paper describes the apparatus developed for this work

Relative pleopod length as an indicator of size at sexual maturity in slipper (Scyllarides squammosus) and spiny Hawaiian (Panulirus marginatus) lobsters

Body size at gonadal maturity is described for females of the slipper lobster (Scyllarides squammosus) (Scyllaridae) and the endemic Hawaiian spiny lobster (Panulirus marginatus) (Palinuridae) based on microscopic examination of histological preparations of ovaries. These data are used to validate several morphological metrics (relative exopodite length, ovigerous condition) of functional sexual maturity. Relative exopodite length (“pleopod length”) produced consistent estimates of size at maturity when evaluated with a newly derived statistical application for estimating size at the morphometric maturation point (MMP) for the population, identified as the midpoint of a sigmoid function spanning the estimated boundaries of overlap between the largest immature and smallest adult animals. Estimates of the MMP were related to matched (same-year) characterizations of sexual maturity based on ovigerous condition — a more conventional measure of functional maturity previously used to characterize maturity for the two lobster species. Both measures of functional maturity were similar for the respective species and were within 5% and 2% of one another for slipper and spiny lobster, respectively. The precision observed for two shipboard collection series of pleopod-length data indicated that the method is reliable and not dependent on specialized expertise. Precision of maturity estimates for S. squammosus with the pleopod-length metric was similar to that for P. marginatus with any of the other measures (including conventional evidence of ovigerous condition) and greatly exceeded the precision of estimates for S. squammosus based on ovigerous condition alone. The two measures of functional maturity averaged within 8% of the estimated size at gonadal maturity for the respective species. Appendage-to-body size proportions, such as the pleopod length metric, hold great promise, particularly for species of slipper lobsters like S. squammosus for which there exist no other reliable conventional morphological measures of sexual maturity. Morphometric proportions also should be included among the factors evaluated when assessing size at sexual maturity in spiny lobster stocks; previously, these proportions have been obtained routinely only for brachyuran crabs within the Crustacea

What Does That Mean? Investigating Obfuscation and Readability Cues as Indicators of Deception in Fraudulent Financial Reports

Building on theories of obfuscation and deception from accounting and communication literature, we examined 202 fraudulent and non-fraudulent 10-Ks by focusing on 25 linguistic cues. Our findings suggest that authors of fraudulent 10-Ks chose more complex words, signaling words of achievement and cause, and qualifying conjunctions. We found that truthful 10-Ks displayed more present tense verbs and were easier to read as indicated by the FRE readability measure. Those who construct 10-Ks may choose to deceive strategically by hiding bad news in more complicated content while trumpeting good news and achievements

The single-cell chemostat: an agarose-based, microfluidic device for high-throughput, single-cell studies of bacteria and bacterial communities

Optical microscopy of single bacteria growing on solid agarose support is a powerful method for studying the natural heterogeneity in growth and gene expression. While the material properties of agarose make it an excellent substrate for such studies, the sheer number of exponentially growing cells eventually overwhelms the agarose pad, which fundamentally limits the duration and the throughput of measurements. Here we overcome the limitations of exponential growth by patterning agarose pads on the sub-micron-scale. Linear tracks constrain the growth of bacteria into a high density array of linear micro-colonies. Buffer flow through microfluidic lines washes away excess cells and delivers fresh nutrient buffer. Densely patterned tracks allow us to cultivate and image hundreds of thousands of cells on a single agarose pad over 30-40 generations, which drastically increases single-cell measurement throughput. In addition, we show that patterned agarose can facilitate single-cell measurements within bacterial communities. As a proof-of-principle, we study a community of E. coli auxotrophs that can complement the amino acid deficiencies of one another. We find that the growth rate of colonies of one strain decreases sharply with the distance to colonies of the complementary strain over distances of only a few cell lengths. Because patterned agarose pads maintain cells in a chemostatic environment in which every cell can be imaged, we term our device the single-cell chemostat. High-throughput measurements of single cells growing chemostatically should greatly facilitate the study of a variety of microbial behaviours.Molecular and Cellular Biolog

Dream Self-Reflectiveness as a Learned Cognitive Skill

Many prominent researchers subscribe to the notion that dreaming is cognitively deficient relative to normal waking consciousness (Foulkes,1983; Hartmann, 1973; Koukkou & Lehman, 1983). Dreams are perceived as massively non-reflective and single-minded as evidenced by their apparent lack of imagination, lack of lucidity (awareness of dreaming while dreaming), and tendency to be forgotten (Rechtschaffen, 1978). The notion of dream ‘isolation’ from other systems of consciousness has been posited by Rechtachaffen as an inescapable conclusion once these characteristics of dreaming have been understood

Selected Results from Local Evaluation of Reclaiming Futures, Anchorage, AK

This Powerpoint presentation briefly reports on results of an evaluation of Reclaiming Futures Anchorage, which is one of 10 founding Reclaiming Futures projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to create new approaches to help teens in trouble with drugs, alcohol and crime. It partners with courts, treatment facilities, detention facilities, and community to promote new opportunities and standards of care in juvenile justice to improve the improvement of drug and alcohol treatment, expand and coordinate services, and find jobs and volunteer work for young people in trouble with the law.Research sponsored by Anchorage Reclaiming Future

Vibrational interference of Raman and high-harmonic generation pathways

Experiments have shown that the internal vibrational state of a molecule can affect the intensity of high harmonic light generated from that molecule. This paper presents a model which explains this modulation in terms of interference between different vibrational states occurring during the high harmonic process. In addition, a semiclassical model of the continuum electron propagation is developed which connects with rigorous treatments of the electron-ion scattering

Successful use of nicotine replacement therapy to quit e-cigarettes: Lack of treatment protocol highlights need for guidelines

Key Clinical Message: Although use of electronic nicotine delivery system devices, such as e-cigarettes and vapor pens, is on the rise, no treatment protocols exist to help such users quit. We report the case of a 24-year-old patient in a tobacco treatment program who successfully quit e-cigarette use by using nicotine replacement therapy

Adolescent self-control predicts midlife hallucinatory experiences:40-year follow-up of a national birth cohort

Associations between self-control in adolescence and adult mental health are unclear in the general population; to our knowledge, no study has investigated self-control in relation to psychotic-like symptoms