The Intentions of Engaged to be Married and Recently Married Individuals to Seek Professional Help

Many individuals in early marriage do not experience a traditional honeymoon period. These distressed couples may resort to ineffective coping mechanisms that can cause greater marital dissatisfaction and instability. One effective coping method engaged or recently married individuals can use is professional help. This study assessed the intentions of engaged to be married and recently married individuals to seek professional help when faced with different types of marital problem areas. The study used a quasi-experimental design with volunteer participants from a suburban Catholic community who answered anonymous self-administered questionnaires. The results found that engaged and recently married individuals were not significantly different with intentions to seek professional help. Women were significantly more likely to seek professional help than men. The findings assist social workers in designing effective interventions for engaged and recently married individuals so that marital quality can be enhanced and marital dissolutions reduced

Zaštitni učinak rezorcinola pri kemijskoj modifikaciji lizozima izloženog visokoj temperaturi

Thermochemical modification of lysozyme enables it to retain its oligomers, showing a wide spectrum of increased antibacterial activities. It also results in significant loss of hydrolytic activity of the enzyme. The objective of this study is to analyse the protective effect of resorcinol on the hydrolytic activity of modified lysozyme using a high temperature method and the oligomerization degree in the obtained preparations. Resorcinol significantly affects the enzyme’s hydrolytic activity. Samples containing resorcinol, without oxidizing agent, modified at 90 °C retained 75 % enzymatic activity of unmodified monomer, obtaining the final value of about 16 000 U/mg. The amount of lysozyme oligomers increased slightly in the samples produced under such conditions.Kemijskom modifikacijom lizozima pri povišenoj temperaturi nastaje nova forma enzima s istim udjelom oligomera, no izraženije antibakterijske aktivnosti. Pritom dolazi do značajnog gubitka hidrolitičke aktivnosti enzima. Svrha je ovoga rada bila ispitati hidrolitičku aktivnost modificiranog lizozima pri povišenoj temperaturi uz dodatatak rezorcinola kao zaštitnog agensa, te odrediti stupanj oligomerizacije dobivenih modifikacija. Rezorcinol je bitno utjecao na hidrolitičku aktivnost enzima. Uzorci koji su sadržavali rezorcinol, ali ne i oksidirajuće sredstvo, modificirani pri 90 °C zadržali su 75 % enzimske aktivnosti nemodificiranog monomera, odnosno 16 000 jedinica/mg. Količina je oligomera u lizozomu neznatno porasla u uzorcima proizvedenim pri tim uvjetima

Does wage rank affect employees' well-being?

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of 16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well-being levels are shown to depend on more than simple relative pay. They depend upon the ordinal rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group. “Rank” itself thus seems to matter to human beings. Moreover, consistent with psychological theory, quits in a workplace are correlated with pay distribution skewness

Microtubules control cellular shape and coherence in amoeboid migrating cells

Cells navigating through complex tissues face a fundamental challenge: while multiple protrusions explore different paths, the cell needs to avoid entanglement. How a cell surveys and then corrects its own shape is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that spatially distinct microtubule dynamics regulate amoeboid cell migration by locally promoting the retraction of protrusions. In migrating dendritic cells, local microtubule depolymerization within protrusions remote from the microtubule organizing center triggers actomyosin contractility controlled by RhoA and its exchange factor Lfc. Depletion of Lfc leads to aberrant myosin localization, thereby causing two effects that rate-limit locomotion: (1) impaired cell edge coordination during path finding and (2) defective adhesion resolution. Compromised shape control is particularly hindering in geometrically complex microenvironments, where it leads to entanglement and ultimately fragmentation of the cell body. We thus demonstrate that microtubules can act as a proprioceptive device: they sense cell shape and control actomyosin retraction to sustain cellular coherence

ARTEFACTS: How do we want to deal with the future of our one and only planet?

The European Commission’s Science and Knowledge Service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), decided to try working hand-in-hand with leading European science centres and museums. Behind this decision was the idea that the JRC could better support EU Institutions in engaging with the European public. The fact that European Union policies are firmly based on scientific evidence is a strong message which the JRC is uniquely able to illustrate. Such a collaboration would not only provide a platform to explain the benefits of EU policies to our daily lives but also provide an opportunity for European citizens to engage by taking a more active part in the EU policy making process for the future. A PILOT PROGRAMME To test the idea, the JRC launched an experimental programme to work with science museums: a perfect partner for three compelling reasons. Firstly, they attract a large and growing number of visitors. Leading science museums in Europe have typically 500 000 visitors per year. Furthermore, they are based in large European cities and attract local visitors as well as tourists from across Europe and beyond. The second reason for working with museums is that they have mastered the art of how to communicate key elements of sophisticated arguments across to the public and making complex topics of public interest readily accessible. That is a high-value added skill and a crucial part of the valorisation of public-funded research, never to be underestimated. Finally museums are, at present, undergoing something of a renaissance. Museums today are vibrant environments offering new techniques and technologies to both inform and entertain, and attract visitors of all demographics.JRC.H.2-Knowledge Management Methodologies, Communities and Disseminatio

A comparative analysis of selected wastewater pretreatment processes in food industry

The article presents a comparative analysis of the classical coagulation with the iron sulphate and adsorption on bentonite for the pretreatment of wastewater in the food industry. As a result of the studies, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total nitrogen (TN) reduction were found to be comparable in both technologies, and a 29% higher total phosphorus removal efficiency by the coagulation was observed. After the coagulation and adsorption processes, a significant difference between mineral and organic fraction in the sludge was found (49% and 51% for bentonite and 28% and 72% for iron sulphate, respectively)

A comparative analysis of selected wastewater pretreatment processes in food industry

The article presents a comparative analysis of the classical coagulation with the iron sulphate and adsorption on bentonite for the pretreatment of wastewater in the food industry. As a result of the studies, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total nitrogen (TN) reduction were found to be comparable in both technologies, and a 29% higher total phosphorus removal efficiency by the coagulation was observed. After the coagulation and adsorption processes, a significant difference between mineral and organic fraction in the sludge was found (49% and 51% for bentonite and 28% and 72% for iron sulphate, respectively)

Resorcinol as Protective Agent in Thermochemical Modification of Lysozyme

Thermochemical modification of lysozyme enables it to retain its oligomers, showing a wide spectrum of increased antibacterial activities. It also results in significant loss of hydrolytic activity of the enzyme. The objective of this study is to analyse the protective effect of resorcinol on the hydrolytic activity of modified lysozyme using a high temperature method and the oligomerization degree in the obtained preparations. Resorcinol significantly affects the enzyme’s hydrolytic activity. Samples containing resorcinol, without oxidizing agent, modified at 90 °C retained 75 % enzymatic activity of unmodified monomer, obtaining the final value of about 16 000 U/mg. The amount of lysozyme oligomers increased slightly in the samples produced under such conditions

The place of common bond : can credit unions make place for solidarity economy?

About 6,000 financial cooperatives, called credit unions, with more than 103 million members manage over $1 trillion in collective assets in the United States but are largely invisible and seen as inferior to private banks. In contrast to banks that generate profit for outside investors and do not give voice to customers, these not-for-profit institutions have a democratic governance structure and a mission to provide good services to their members. We use diverse economies and critical/feminist geographic information system (GIS) approaches to theorize them as noncapitalist alternatives to banks and possible sites of social transformation toward a solidarity economy. Using the case of cooperative finance in New York City, we analyze spatial patterns, characteristics, and placemaking practices of credit unions with different kinds of the common bond, a principle that unites a financial community, and in relation to urban geographies of class and race. We find that credit unions provide a historically proven mechanism for collective resistance to marginalization by racial capitalism and, depending on the common bond type, make place by (1) providing financial inclusion in poor and minority neighborhoods; (2) scaling up solidarity finance through participation of middle classes; and (3) diverting assets from capitalist investment into social reproduction and livelihoods. Credit unions express the racialized wealth of their communities, however, and create spatial exclusions that pose a challenge to postcapitalist movements such as solidarity economy. These findings are applicable to other places marked by segregation and call for further inquiry into possibilities and barriers to solidarity finance

The effect of elevated CO2 on photochemistry and antioxidative defence capacity in wheat depends on environmental growing conditions: A FACE study

Tausz, M ORCiD: 0000-0001-8205-8561The present study examines photosynthesis, photochemistry and low weight molecular antioxidants (ascorbic acid and glutathione) of two Triticum aestivum L. cultivars (H45 and Yitpi) in response to growth under two CO2 concentrations (elevated CO2, e[CO2] vs. ambient CO2, a[CO2]), two sowing times (time of sowing 1, TOS1, less stressful growing conditions vs. time of sowing 2, TOS2, more stressful growing conditions) and two water treatments (rain-fed vs. irrigated). The objective was to evaluate (1) if growth under e[CO2] will alleviate climate stresses such as higher temperature and/or limited water supply thereby reducing the need for photoprotection and concentrations of low weight molecular antioxidants and (2) cultivar-specific responses to combined climate change factors which may be useful to identify intra-specific variation in stress tolerance for future breeding. We compared gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence and antioxidative defence compounds (ascorbic acid, glutathione) of flag leaves of Australian Grains Free Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment (AGFACE) grown wheat. When plants were grown under the less stressful growing conditions of TOS1, e[CO2] increased light saturated net assimilation rates (Asat) and quantum yield of PSII electron transport (ΦPSII) but decreased thermal energy dissipation (indicated by increased efficiency of open PSII centres, Fv'/Fm'), while antioxidant concentrations did not change. Under the more stressful growing conditions of TOS2, e[CO2] also increased Asat (like at TOS1), however, photochemical processes were not affected while antioxidant concentrations (especially ascorbic acid) were decreased. Cultivar specific responses also varied between sowing dates: Only at TOS2 and additional irrigation, antioxidant concentrations were lower in e[CO2] grown H45 as compared to Yitpi indicating decreased photo-oxidative pressure in H45. These results suggest a photo-protective role of e[CO2] as well as some intra-specific variability between investigated cultivars in their stress responsiveness, all strongly modified by environmental growing conditions. © 2011 Elsevier B.V