Simulator comparison of thumball, thumb switch, and touch screen input concepts for interaction with a large screen cockpit display format

A piloted simulation study was conducted comparing three different input methods for interfacing to a large screen, multiwindow, whole flight deck display for management of transport aircraft systems. The thumball concept utilized a miniature trackball embedded in a conventional side arm controller. The multifunction control throttle and stick (MCTAS) concept employed a thumb switch located in the throttle handle. The touch screen concept provided data entry through a capacitive touch screen installed on the display surface. The objective and subjective results obtained indicate that, with present implementations, the thumball concept was the most appropriate for interfacing with aircraft systems/subsystems presented on a large screen display. Not unexpectedly, the completion time differences between the three concepts varied with the task being performed, although the thumball implementation consistently outperformed the other two concepts. However, pilot suggestions for improved implementations of the MCTAS and touch screen concepts could reduce some of these differences

340 years of atmospheric circulation characteristics reconstructed from an eastern Antarctic Peninsula ice core

Copyright @ 2006 American Geophysical Union (AGU)Precipitation delivery mechanisms for Dolleman Island (DI), located off the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, are investigated using reanalysis and back trajectory data. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and ENSO are both shown to influence precipitation delivery and event size. Precipitation delivery variability is compared against the interannual variation of chemical data from two DI ice cores. Nitrate concentration in the cores is strongly linked with the ratio of easterly to westerly back trajectories arriving at DI, as described by a Cross-Peninsula Index (CPI) defined in this paper. This CPI is used subsequently to reconstruct the atmospheric circulation characteristics for the 340-year ice core record. The analysis highlights a period of increased easterlies during 1720–1780 and an increase in westerlies for 1950–1980, the latter concomitant with a positive SAM trend and western Peninsula warming. The reconstruction also reveals periods when polynyas may have been present in the Weddell Sea

Rapid, multiplexed microfluidic phage display

The development of a method for high-throughput, automated proteomic screening could impact areas ranging from fundamental molecular interactions to the discovery of novel disease markers and therapeutic targets. Surface display techniques allow for efficient handling of large molecular libraries in small volumes. In particular, phage display has emerged as a powerful technology for selecting peptides and proteins with enhanced, target-specific binding affinities. Yet, the process becomes cumbersome and time-consuming when multiple targets are involved.Here we demonstrate for the first time a microfluidic chip capable of identifying high affinity phage displayed peptides for multiple targets in just a single round and without the need for bacterial infection. The chip is shown to be able to yield well-established control consensus sequences while simultaneously identifying new sequences for clinically important targets. Indeed, the confined parameters of the device allow not only for highly controlled assay conditions but also introduce a significant time-reduction to the phage display process. We anticipate that this easily-fabricated, disposable device has the potential to impact areas ranging from fundamental studies of protein, peptide, and molecular interactions, to applications such as fully automated proteomic screening

Sustainability, corporate community engagement and enterprise development: lessons from a case study in Emu-Ebendo Niger-Delta, Nigeria.

Corporate community engagement remains an under researched area in sustainability debates. Presenting a case study, based on in-depth interviews and site visits, of how one indigenous company Energia Ltd has formed a strong partnership or bond with the Emu-Ebendo community in the oil rich Niger Delta, the dynamics of corporate community engagement are critically discussed. Evidence of how both the company and community has benefited from this relationship is presented. The case analysis concludes that the company has effectively utilised a clearer understanding of the culture of the host community, leading to a transformational relationship. The approach adopted by Energia Ltd in the Emu-Ebendo community is unique in context. The key conclusion reached is that community benefit funds and community enterprise development, as a derivative of corporate engagement, can play a transformational role in societal and economic development

Social Identity and the Use of Ideological Categorization in Political Evaluation

In this research, we address a longstanding question concerning how individuals evaluate social and political issues. We focus on the role that political self-identification plays when individuals evaluate policy statements. In a laboratory setting, participants completed a task facilitation procedure, in which they made paired sets of judgments about a series of policy statements. Relative to a control task, ideological categorization of policy statements as liberal or conservative influenced the ease of evaluation. On experimental trials that began with ideological categorization, policy evaluations that were consistent with the participant’s own ideology were made more quickly than responses that were ideologically inconsistent and more quickly than responses following a control judgment. In three experiments, we show that this effect is stronger for individuals with more accessible ideological identification (Experiment 1) and more extreme ideological identification (Experiment 2), and that it holds when examining partisan instead of ideological identification (Experiment 3). The findings suggest that the use of ideological category information can facilitate and interfere with evaluative judgments of political issues, and that the use of such categories varies as a function of individual differences in the strength of political identification