Smart Growth, State Policy and Public Process in Maine: The Dunstan Crossing Experience

Sprawling development in Maine’s growth areas continues in spite of the state’s emphasis on comprehensive planning over the past 20 years. In this article, the authors present some lessons to be learned from Scarborough’s Dunstan Crossing project, a planned development which would have incorporated many of the goals of the national “smart growth” movement. The project was approved by the elected town council (one of whom is co-author Sylvia Most), and it was in compliance with Scarborough’s town comprehensive plan. Nonetheless, the project for now has effectively been blocked after a lengthy period, described here, that saw a citizen referendum, lawsuits, mediation, and many kinds of public participation. Based on the Dunstan Crossing experience, the authors make recommendations regarding the state’s Growth Management Act, about more effective regional planning, and more generally about how to structure public participation in potentially contentious projects

Standardized Bronchoscopy Testing for Immunocompromised Patients

Aims for Improvement Determine the consistency in which the order set was followed Determine the length of time from finding pulmonary infiltrate to consultation Determine the length of time from consultation to bronchoscopy Determine whether a follow up note was written by pulmonary Determine whether management is affected based on obtained result

Studies in the auxin relationship of geotropically stimulated roots

The effect of geotropic stimulation on auxin production in Vicia faba root tips was studied. Paper chromatography techniques were used to separate the growth substances. Three assay methods (oat first internode, oat coleoptile and pea root section tests) were used for the detection and estimation of growth substances on chromatograms. An assessment was made of a number of sources of error in the preparation of material and the extraction, purification and chromatography of extracts. Geotropic stimulation brought about an increased synthesis of an ether soluble acid auxin in root tips. The maximum amount was formed at 20 minutes stimulation and this fell to the minimum value, recorded after 40 minutes stimulation. The auxin content from longitudinally split root tips was less than the auxin content from whole root tips. This decrease was thought to be an artefact caused by longitudinal cutting of the roots. No difference was found in the auxin content between the upper and lower half of the tip. The water soluble auxins of whole and split roots were investigated. Geotropic stimulation produced a change in content of all the auxins. Colour tests and fluorimetric analyses were made on the water soluble fraction. 3,4 -dihydroxyphenylalanine and tryptophan were identified from the water soluble fraction. Substances giving a phenolic reaction coincided with areas of high growth activity. Alkaline hydrolysis revealed the presence of water soluble indole complexes.<p

Delayed disengagement of attention from distractors signalling reward

Attention refers to the set of cognitive mechanisms that facilitate the prioritization of incoming sensory information. Existing research suggests that motivationally salient stimuli, such as those associated with reward, are prioritized by the attention system and that this prioritization occurs independently of an observer's goals. Specifically, studies of visual search have shown that stimuli signalling the availability of monetary reward are more likely to capture eye movements, even when participants are motivated to ignore such stimuli. In the current study we ask whether reward magnitude influences only the likelihood that stimuli will capture spatial attention, or whether reward also influences the ease with which people can disengage attention from a location when they are motivated to move their attention elsewhere. Three experiments examined the time taken to disengage from a centrally presented distractor that signalled the availability of high or low reward. We found that participants took longer to move their eyes away from a high-reward distractor, even though this came at financial cost (Experiment 1), that participants were unable to suppress a high-reward distractor consistently presented at the central location (Experiment 2), that slower responding was not due to behavioural freezing in the presence of a signal of high reward (Experiment 3), and that slower responding persisted even when rewards were no longer available (Experiment 4). These results indicate that reward modulates attentional disengagement: signals of high reward hold attention for longer, even when this is counterproductive for performance of ongoing tasks. Our findings further highlight the role of reward in the conflict between automatic and goal-directed attentional processing

Three-dimensional dynamics of strongly twisted magnetar magnetospheres: Kinking flux tubes and global eruptions

The origin of the various outbursts of hard X-rays from magnetars, highly magnetized neutron stars, is still unknown. We identify instabilities in relativistic magnetospheres that can explain a range of X-ray flare luminosities. Crustal surface motions can twist the magnetar magnetosphere by shifting the frozen-in footpoints of magnetic field lines in current-carrying flux bundles. Axisymmetric (2D) magnetospheres exhibit strong eruptive dynamics, as to say, catastrophic lateral instabilities triggered by a critical footpoint displacement of $\psi_{\rm crit}\gtrsim\pi$. In contrast, our new three-dimensional (3D) twist models with finite surface extension capture important non-axisymmetric dynamics of twisted force-free flux bundles in dipolar magnetospheres. Besides the well-established global eruption resulting (as in 2D) from lateral instabilities, such 3D structures can develop helical, kink-like dynamics, and dissipate energy locally (confined eruptions). Up to $25\%$ of the induced twist energy is dissipated and available to power X-ray flares in powerful global eruptions, with most of our models showing an energy release in the range of the most common X-ray outbursts, $\lesssim 10^{43}$erg. Such events occur when significant energy builds up deeply buried in the dipole magnetosphere. Less energetic outbursts likely precede powerful flares due to intermittent instabilities and confined eruptions of a continuously twisting flux tube. Upon reaching a critical state, global eruptions produce the necessary Poynting-flux-dominated outflows required by models prescribing the fast radio burst production in the magnetar wind, for example, via relativistic magnetic reconnection or shocks.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, submitted to ApJ

Improving the Use of Asthma Action Plans

Objectives Identify the percentage of asthmatics in Friday fellows’ clinic with an AAP in place. Determine if clinician education can increase the number of AAP created for patients

The ‘credibility paradox’ in China’s science communication: Views from scientific practitioners

In contrast to increasing debates on China’s rising status as a global scientific power, issues of China’s science communication remain under-explored. Based on 21 in-depth interviews in three cities, this article examines Chinese scientists’ accounts of the entangled web of influence which conditions the process of how scientific knowledge achieves (or fails to achieve) its civic authority. A main finding of this study is a ‘credibility paradox’ as a result of the over-politicisation of science and science communication in China. Respondents report that an absence of visible institutional endorsements renders them more public credibility and better communication outcomes. Thus, instead of exploiting formal channels of science communication, scientists interviewed were more keen to act as ‘informal risk communicators’ in grassroots and private events. Chinese scientists’ perspectives on how to earn public support of their research sheds light on the nature and impact of a ‘civic epistemology’ in an authoritarian state

Failures of executive function when at a height:Negative height-related appraisals are associated with poor executive function during a virtual height stressor

It is difficult to maintain cognitive functioning in threatening contexts, even when it is imperative to do so. Research indicates that precarious situations can impair subsequent executive functioning, depending on whether they are appraised as threatening. Here, we used virtual reality to place participants at ground level or at a virtual height in order to examine the impact of a threat-related context on concurrent executive function and whether this relationship was modulated by negative appraisals of heights. Executive function was assessed via the Go/NoGo and N-Back tasks, indexing response inhibition and working memory updating respectively. Participants with negative appraisals of heights exhibited impaired executive function on both tasks when performing at a virtual height (i.e., a threat-related context) but not at ground-level, demonstrating the importance of considering the cognitive consequences of individual differences in negative interpretations of emotionally-evocative situations. We suggest that a virtual reality approach holds practical benefits for understanding how individuals are able to maintain cognitive ability when embedded within threatening situations