Food products for space applications

Specially-prepared foodstuffs supply an astronaut with a diet containing his basic nutritional requirements in a form that is useful in his enironment. Several edible coatings preserve foods and give loose foods form and firmness. These coatings aid in packaging and give the food slip for easy removal from the package

The Pipeline Project: A Holistic Approach to Teaching Multimedia

The multimedia industry has embraced the integration of computer software packages. The industry recognizes that better integration and compatibility of software and hardware will produce better end results and improve workflow. In fact, many of the major software developers are now introducing suites of products. Surely, educational establishments should follow suit and develop courses in which differing but complementary subject areas (modules) are integrated. The main area of development at Leeds Metropolitan University has been to allow students to clearly see the aims and objectives of each module but within a more global project. Not only has this holistic approach benefited the students, it has also allowed staff to develop material that extends across modules, allows for team teaching, and integrates the lecture program. This logical approach to project work echoes the skills required in the multimedia industry

Developments in Disclosure: Special Problems in Public Offerings - Forward-Looking Information, Including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

This Article examines recent developments in disclosure with regard to public offerings and disclosures to trading markets. It analyzes current practices involving analysts, T + 3, the bespeaks caution doctrine, and the use of forward-looking information, including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA). The author concludes that securities litigation is likely to be reduced by the PSLRA

Brief Note Bat Species Diversity Patterns in East Central Indiana

Author Institution: Aullwood Audubon Center; Department of Zoology, Miami University; Department of Biology, Earlham Colleg

Attitudes of venture capital investors towards entrepreneurs with previous business failure, Belfast (June)

Business failure represents a significant outcome of entrepreneurial activity and yet remains an underdeveloped area of research. This article focuses on the attitudes of VC investors towards entrepreneurs with a previous failure experience. It illustrates that VCs recognise the complex, contextual nature of failure and do not necessarily perceive the entrepreneur to be the primary cause of the venture's demise. Consequently, the article differentiates between 'business', 'entrepreneurial' and 'venture capitalist' failure. The article demonstrates that VCs often adopt a tolerant, flexible and open-minded attitude to failure and are keen to understand the circumstances in which it occurred. The majority of the VCs in the study emphasise that their decision to invest in an entrepreneur is not negatively affected to any significant degree by a previous experience of failure. A number of influential factors are presented, such as a high quality concept, which can offset this aspect of the entrepreneur's track record. The article concludes that business failure is not automatically considered a 'black mark' by VCs. It is important for entrepreneurs involved in business failure to be aware of these positive and sympathetic attitudes when considering putting forward new proposals to the VC community

An analytical and experimental assessment of flexible road ironwork support structures

This paper describes work undertaken to investigate the mechanical performance of road ironwork installations in highways, concentrating on the chamber construction. The principal aim was to provide the background research which would allow improved designs to be developed to reduce the incidence of failures through improvements to the structural continuity between the installation and the surrounding pavement. In doing this, recycled polymeric construction materials (Jig Brix) were studied with a view to including them in future designs and specifications. This paper concentrates on the Finite Element (FE) analysis of traditional (masonry) and flexible road ironwork structures incorporating Jig Brix. The global and local buckling capacity of the Jig Brix elements was investigated and results compared well with laboratory measurements. FE models have also been developed for full-scale traditional (masonry) and flexible installations in a surrounding flexible (asphalt) pavement structure. Predictions of response to wheel loading were compared with full-scale laboratory measurements. Good agreement was achieved with the traditional (masonry) construction but poorer agreement for the flexible construction. Predictions from the FE model indicated that the use of flexible elements significantly reduces the tensile horizontal strain on the surface of the surrounding asphaltic material which is likely to reduce the incidence of surface cracking

Using productivity and susceptibility indices to assess the vulnerability of United States fish stocks to overfishing

Assessing the vulnerability of stocks to fishing practices in U.S. federal waters was recently highlighted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as an important factor to consider when 1) identifying stocks that should be managed and protected under a fishery management plan; 2) grouping data-poor stocks into relevant management complexes; and 3) developing precautionary harvest control rules. To assist the regional fishery management councils in determining vulnerability, NMFS elected to use a modified version of a productivity and susceptibility analysis (PSA) because it can be based on qualitative data, has a history of use in other fisheries, and is recommended by several organizations as a reasonable approach for evaluating risk. A number of productivity and susceptibility attributes for a stock are used in a PSA and from these attributes, index scores and measures of uncertainty are computed and graphically displayed. To demonstrate the utility of the resulting vulnerability evaluation, we evaluated six U.S. fisheries targeting 162 stocks that exhibited varying degrees of productivity and susceptibility, and for which data quality varied. Overall, the PSA was capable of differentiating the vulnerability of stocks along the gradient of susceptibility and productivity indices, although fixed thresholds separating low-, moderate-, and highly vulnerable species were not observed. The PSA can be used as a flexible tool that can incorporate regional-specific information on fishery and management activity

MergeMaid: R Tools for Merging and Cross-Study Validation of Gene Expression Data

Cross-study validation of gene expression investigations is critical in genomic analysis. We developed an R package and associated object definitions to merge and visualize multiple gene expression datasets. Our merging functions use arbitrary character IDs and generate objects that can efficiently support a variety of joint analyses. Visualization tools support exploration and cross-study validation of the data, without requiring normalization across platforms. Tools include “integrative correlation” plots that is, scatterplots of all pairwise correlations in one study against the corresponding pairwise correlations of another, both for individual genes and all genes combined. Gene-specific plots can be used to identify genes whose changes are reliably measured across studies. Visualizations also include scatterplots of gene-specific statistics quantifying relationships between expression and phenotypes of interest, using linear, logistic and Cox regression. Availability: Free open source from url http://www.bioconductor.org. Contact: Xiaogang Zhong [email protected] Supplementary information: Documentation available with the package