Synthesis and Detection of Oxygen-18 Labeled Phosphate

Phosphorus (P) has only one stable isotope and therefore tracking P dynamics in ecosystems and inferring sources of P loading to water bodies have been difficult. Researchers have recently employed the natural abundance of the ratio of 18O/16O of phosphate to elucidate P dynamics. In addition, phosphate highly enriched in oxygen-18 also has potential to be an effective tool for tracking specific sources of P in the environment, but has so far been used sparingly, possibly due to unavailability of oxygen-18 labeled phosphate (OLP) and uncertainty in synthesis and detection. One objective of this research was to develop a simple procedure to synthesize highly enriched OLP. Synthesized OLP is made up of a collection of species that contain between zero and four oxygen-18 atoms and, as a result, the second objective of this research was to develop a method to detect and quantify each OLP species. OLP was synthesized by reacting either PCl5 or POCl3 with water enriched with 97 atom % oxygen-18 in ambient atmosphere under a fume hood. Unlike previous reports, we observed no loss of oxygen-18 enrichment during synthesis. Electrospray ionization mass spectrometertry (ESI-MS) was used to detect and quantify each species present in OLP. OLP synthesized from POCl3 contained 1.2% P18O16O3, 18.2% P18O216O2, 67.7% P18O316O, and 12.9% P18O4, and OLP synthesized from PCl5 contained 0.7% P16O4, 9.3% P18O316O, and 90.0% P18O4. We found that OLP can be synthesized using a simple procedure in ambient atmosphere without the loss of oxygen-18 enrichment and ESI-MS is an effective tool to detect and quantify OLP that sheds light on the dynamics of synthesis in ways that standard detection methods cannot

An Outcome Evaluation of the Implementation of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program in Hong Kong

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) with a sample of Chinese parents of children with early onset conduct related problems in Hong Kong. The participants consisted of 91 parents whose children attended maternal and child health centers and child assessment centers for service, and were between three to seven years old. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (TP) and a waitlist control group (WL. There was no significant difference in pre-intervention measures between the two groups. However, at post intervention, participants in the TP group reported significantly lower levels of child behavior problems, lower dysfunctional parenting styles, and higher parent sense of competence, compared to the WL group. Implications of these findings for the use of Triple P with families of Chinese descent are discussed

Embryonic Death Is Linked to Maternal Identity in the Leatherback Turtle (Dermochelys coriacea)

Leatherback turtles have an average global hatching success rate of ∼50%, lower than other marine turtle species. Embryonic death has been linked to environmental factors such as precipitation and temperature, although, there is still a lot of variability that remains to be explained. We examined how nesting season, the time of nesting each season, the relative position of each clutch laid by each female each season, maternal identity and associated factors such as reproductive experience of the female (new nester versus remigrant) and period of egg retention between clutches (interclutch interval) affected hatching success and stage of embryonic death in failed eggs of leatherback turtles nesting at Playa Grande, Costa Rica. Data were collected during five nesting seasons from 2004/05 to 2008/09. Mean hatching success was 50.4%. Nesting season significantly influenced hatching success in addition to early and late stage embryonic death. Neither clutch position nor nesting time during the season had a significant affect on hatching success or the stage of embryonic death. Some leatherback females consistently produced nests with higher hatching success rates than others. Remigrant females arrived earlier to nest, produced more clutches and had higher rates of hatching success than new nesters. Reproductive experience did not affect stage of death or the duration of the interclutch interval. The length of interclutch interval had a significant affect on the proportion of eggs that failed in each clutch and the developmental stage they died at. Intrinsic factors such as maternal identity are playing a role in affecting embryonic death in the leatherback turtle

Low HDL Cholesterol, Smoking and IL-13 R130Q Polymorphism are Associated with Myocardial Infarction in Greek Cypriot Males. A Pilot Study

This study was carried out in Greek Cypriot males to identify risk factors that predispose to myocardial infarction (MI). Genetic and lipid risk factors were investigated for the first time in a Greek Cypriot male case-control study.Contrary to other studies, mean low density lipoprotein cholesterol did not differ between cases and controls. High density lipoprotein cholesterol on the other hand, although within normal range in cases and controls, was significantly higher in the control population. In agreement with many other studies, smoking was significantly more prevalent in cases compared with controls. In pooled cases and controls, smokers had a significantly lower HDL-C level compared with non-smokers. The frequency of the IL-13 R130Q homozygotes for the mutation (QQ), as well as the mutant allele were significantly higher in cases compared with controls. The IL-13 R130Q variant, or another locus, linked to it, may increase the risk of MI

How 'dynasty' became a modern global concept : intellectual histories of sovereignty and property

The modern concept of ‘dynasty’ is a politically-motivated modern intellectual invention. For many advocates of a strong sovereign nation-state across the nineteenth and early twentieth century, in France, Germany, and Japan, the concept helped in visualizing the nation-state as a primordial entity sealed by the continuity of birth and blood, indeed by the perpetuity of sovereignty. Hegel’s references to ‘dynasty’, read with Marx’s critique, further show how ‘dynasty’ encoded the intersection of sovereignty and big property, indeed the coming into self-consciousness of their mutual identification-in-difference in the age of capitalism. Imaginaries about ‘dynasty’ also connected national sovereignty with patriarchal authority. European colonialism helped globalize the concept in the non-European world; British India offers an exemplar of ensuing debates. The globalization of the abstraction of ‘dynasty’ was ultimately bound to the globalization of capitalist-colonial infrastructures of production, circulation, violence, and exploitation. Simultaneously, colonized actors, like Indian peasant/‘tribal’ populations, brought to play alternate precolonial Indian-origin concepts of collective regality, expressed through terms like ‘rajavamshi’ and ‘Kshatriya’. These concepts nourished new forms of democracy in modern India. Global intellectual histories can thus expand political thought today by provincializing and deconstructing Eurocentric political vocabularies and by recuperating subaltern models of collective and polyarchic power.PostprintPeer reviewe