Construction and performance of a novel capture-mark-release moth trap

Mark-recapture studies can provide important information about moth movement as well as habitat preference across a landscape, but to date, such studies tend to be species-specific or require labor-intensive methodologies. To address this challenge, we designed a capture-mark-release-trap (CMRT) featuring a cooling unit attached to a black light trap. The CMRT captures and incapacitates moths throughout the night until the morning, when they can be marked on-site and released. Moths captured with the CMRT during summer of 2016 had a recapture rate of 1.6%, similar to those of previous studies. Importantly, because moths are immobilized by the CMRT, they can be handled and marked with ease, reducing the opportunities to damage specimens prior to release. The CMRT trap can capture a wide array of moth species and may facilitate an increase in the monitoring of moth movement across landscapes

Rapid field-cycling MRI using fast spin-echo

Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Peer reviewedPostprin

Efficient table-top dual-wavelength beamline for ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy in the soft X-ray region.

We present a table-top beamline providing a soft X-ray supercontinuum extending up to 370 eV from high-order harmonic generation with sub-13 fs 1300 nm driving pulses and simultaneous production of sub-5 fs pulses centered at 800 nm. Optimization of high harmonic generation in a long and dense gas medium yields a photon flux of  ~ 1.4 × 106 photons/s/1% bandwidth at 300 eV. The temporal resolution of X-ray transient absorption experiments with this beamline is measured to be 11 fs for 800 nm excitation. This dual-wavelength approach, combined with high flux and high spectral and temporal resolution soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy, is a new route to the study of ultrafast electronic dynamics in carbon-containing molecules and materials at the carbon K-edge

Identity dynamics as a barrier to organizational change

This article seeks to explore the construction of group and professional identities in situations of organizational change. It considers empirical material drawn from a health demonstration project funded by the Scottish Executive Health Department, and uses insights from this project to discuss issues that arise from identity construction(s) and organizational change. In the course of the project studied here, a new organizational form was developed which involved a network arrangement with a voluntary sector organization and the employment of “lay-workers” in what had traditionally been a professional setting. Our analysis of the way actors made sense of their identities reveals that characterizations of both self and other became barriers to the change process. These identity dynamics were significant in determining the way people interpreted and responded to change within this project and which may relate to other change-oriented situations

Glucocorticoid Effects on Contact Hypersensitivity and on the Cutaneous Response to Ultraviolet Light in the Mouse

A single exposure to 254nm ultraviolet irradiation (UV) can systemically suppress experimental sensitization to the simple allergen 2,4-dinitro, 1-chlorobenzene (DNCB) in the mouse. We show here that topical application at the site of irradiation of the 21-oic acid methyl ester derivative of the synthetic glucocorticoid triamcinolone acetonide (TAme) prevents UV suppression of sensitization. That is, mice painted with TAme at the site of UV exposure developed normal contact hypersensitivity (CH); mice exposed to UV only, like mice treated with the parent compound triamcinolone acetonide (TA), failed to be sensitized by DNCB applied to a distal site. TAme is inactivated rapidly by plasma esterases, so its effect is thought to be confined to the skin. Apparently, TAme blocked the cutaneous signal(s) for systemic suppression of CH. Histologically, irradiated skin exhibited mild inflammation and hyperproliferation, but these effects were greatly exaggerated and prolonged in the UV + TAme-treated skin, independent of sensitization at the distal site. The infiltrate consisted mostly of neutrophils and lacked the round cells characteristic of cell-mediated immunity. Apparently, normal immune suppression by UV prevented this vigorous reaction to irradiated skin. Applied together with DNCB, TAme blocked sensitization. It also prevented response to challenge by DNCB in previously sensitized animals. However, unlike the parent compound triamcinolone acetonide (TA), Budesonide or Beclomethasone diproprionate, each of which can penetrate the epidermis in active form, TAme had no effect on sensitization when applied at a distal site. Likewise, TAme did not affect plasma B (17-desoxycortisol) levels, whereas the other three compounds reduced plasma B tenfold, as expected of compounds causing adrenal-pituitary suppression. The results as a whole show that glucocorticoids can specifically inhibit cutaneous steps in induction of cell-mediated immunity or its suppression, and can, at the site of challenge, prevent its expression in CH

Salicylaldehyde hydrazones: buttressing of outer sphere hydrogen-bonding and copper-extraction properties

Salicylaldehyde hydrazones are weaker copper extractants than their oxime derivatives, which are used in hydrometallurgical processes to recover ~20 % of the world’s copper. Their strength, based on the extraction equilibrium constant Ke, can be increased by nearly three orders of magnitude by incorporating electron-withdrawing or hydrogen-bond acceptor groups (X) ortho to the phenolic OH group of the salicylaldehyde unit. Density functional theory calculations suggest that the effects of the 3-X substituents arise from a combination of their influence on the acidity of the phenol in the pH-dependent equilibrium, Cu2+ + 2Lorg ⇌ [Cu(L–H)2]org + 2H+, and on their ability to ‘buttress’ interligand hydrogen bonding by interacting with the hydrazone N–H donor group. X-ray crystal structure determination and computed structures indicate that in both the solid state and the gas phase, coordinated hydrazone groups are less planar than coordinated oximes and this has an adverse effect on intramolecular hydrogen-bond formation to the neighbouring phenolate oxygen atoms

Fecal sludge management: diagnostics for service delivery in urban areas - report of a FSM study in Hawassa, Ethiopia

This report summarizes the main findings of a case study on fecal sludge management in Hawassa,Ethiopia. The specific objectives of the study were: to provide quantitative and qualitative data on the sanitation situation in Hawassa from a socio-economic perspective, specifically as it relates to FSM; to do the above in such a way that the data is representative of the city as a whole but also providing a separate picture of the situation in low-income areas, primarily through qualitative means in the Hawassa case; to provide initial recommendations to guide discussions around future interventions in the sanitation sector in Hawassa, by contributing credible data and analysis; and to inform the development of analytical tools and guidelines, by road-testing draft tools using primary data collection

Double Threshold Digraphs

A semiorder is a model of preference relations where each element x is associated with a utility value alpha(x), and there is a threshold t such that y is preferred to x iff alpha(y) - alpha(x) > t. These are motivated by the notion that there is some uncertainty in the utility values we assign an object or that a subject may be unable to distinguish a preference between objects whose values are close. However, they fail to model the well-known phenomenon that preferences are not always transitive. Also, if we are uncertain of the utility values, it is not logical that preference is determined absolutely by a comparison of them with an exact threshold. We propose a new model in which there are two thresholds, t_1 and t_2; if the difference alpha(y) - alpha(x) is less than t_1, then y is not preferred to x; if the difference is greater than t_2 then y is preferred to x; if it is between t_1 and t_2, then y may or may not be preferred to x. We call such a relation a (t_1,t_2) double-threshold semiorder, and the corresponding directed graph G = (V,E) a (t_1,t_2) double-threshold digraph. Every directed acyclic graph is a double-threshold digraph; increasing bounds on t_2/t_1 give a nested hierarchy of subclasses of the directed acyclic graphs. In this paper we characterize the subclasses in terms of forbidden subgraphs, and give algorithms for finding an assignment of utility values that explains the relation in terms of a given (t_1,t_2) or else produces a forbidden subgraph, and finding the minimum value lambda of t_2/t_1 that is satisfiable for a given directed acyclic graph. We show that lambda gives a useful measure of the complexity of a directed acyclic graph with respect to several optimization problems that are NP-hard on arbitrary directed acyclic graphs