Metering gun for dispensing precisely measured charges of fluid

A cyclically operable fluid dispenser for use in dispensing precisely measured charges of potable water aboard spacecraft is described. The dispenser is characterized by (1) a sealed housing adapted to be held within a crewman's palm and coupled with a pressurized source of potable water; (2) a dispensing jet projected from the housing and configured to be received within a crewman's lips; (3) an expansible measuring chamber for measuring charges of drinking water received from the source; (4) and a dispenser actuator including a lever extended from the housing to be digitated for initiating operational cycles, whereby precisely measured charges of potable water selectively are delivered for drinking purposes in a weightless environment

Fiscal consolidations and their effects on income inequality

This paper investigates the effects of fiscal consolidations on income inequality. Although fiscal consolidations have become a popular policy instrument and research topic, their effects on income inequality are relatively unexplored. We thus econometrically analyse the evolution of Gini coefficients during and after austerity measures. The paper relies on panel data techniques using a sample of 17 high-income countries during the period of 1978 – 2009. We find that a consolidation (measured by a deliberate improvement of the primary budget balance) significantly increases income inequality. More specifically, an improvement of the primary budget balance by about one percent of GDP is associated with an increase in market income inequality of 0.6% and a smaller increase in net income inequality the following year. In addition, this paper explores the discretionary effect of different consolidation compositions. To do so, we differentiate between consolidations that are either exclusively undertaken through spending cuts, tax increases or a combination of both. Thereby, we show that tax-only consolidations tend to be equality-friendly but also rather small in size while the opposite is true for spending-only and mixed consolidations. These findings point to a more pronounced trade-off between different consolidation policy goals than is currently believed

Age-related differences in valence and arousal ratings of pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS): Do ratings become more extreme with age?

The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) has been widely used in aging-oriented research on emotion. However, no ratings for older adults are available. The aim of the present study was to close this gap by providing ratings of valence and arousal for 504 IAPS pictures by 53 young and 53 older adults. Both age groups rated positive pictures as less arousing, resulting in a stronger linear association between valence and arousal, than has been found in previous studies. This association was even stronger in older than in young adults. Older adults perceived negative pictures as more negative and more arousing and positive pictures as more positive and less arousing than young adults did. This might indicate a dedifferentiation of emotional processing in old age. On the basis of a picture recognition task, we also report memorability scores for individual pictures and how they relate to valence and arousal ratings. Data for all the pictures are archived at www.psychonomic.org/archiv

Prosumer Behaviors in Brand Image Creation

A brand remains a considerable source of the competitive advantage. One of the elements contributing to its power is image. The information revolution and globalization make it necessary to search for new means of differentiating brands. One of them is engaging consumers in the brand creation process. In light of the development of the Web 2.0, prosumers – active consumers functioning both as consumers and partly as producers – can have a meaningful influence on the image of brands. Their activities can entail both positive as well as negative effects

White matter differences between healthy young ApoE4 carriers and non-carriers identified with tractography and support vector machines.

The apolipoprotein E4 (ApoE4) is an established risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Previous work has shown that this allele is associated with functional (fMRI) changes as well structural grey matter (GM) changes in healthy young, middle-aged and older subjects. Here, we assess the diffusion characteristics and the white matter (WM) tracts of healthy young (20-38 years) ApoE4 carriers and non-carriers. No significant differences in diffusion indices were found between young carriers (ApoE4+) and non-carriers (ApoE4-). There were also no significant differences between the groups in terms of normalised GM or WM volume. A feature selection algorithm (ReliefF) was used to select the most salient voxels from the diffusion data for subsequent classification with support vector machines (SVMs). SVMs were capable of classifying ApoE4 carrier and non-carrier groups with an extremely high level of accuracy. The top 500 voxels selected by ReliefF were then used as seeds for tractography which identified a WM network that included regions of the parietal lobe, the cingulum bundle and the dorsolateral frontal lobe. There was a non-significant decrease in volume of this WM network in the ApoE4 carrier group. Our results indicate that there are subtle WM differences between healthy young ApoE4 carriers and non-carriers and that the WM network identified may be particularly vulnerable to further degeneration in ApoE4 carriers as they enter middle and old age

A sketch of Theodore R. Sarbin's life

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ni.25.2.10schTed Sarbin was born on May 8, 1911 in Cleveland, Ohio. He died on August 31, 2005, in Carmel, California. He was born into a poor Jewish family from eastern Europe, and died at his home — beloved by his friends and family, and acclaimed by his professional colleagues as a psychologist of distinction. This article traces the course of his life — with special attention to the formative influences in his education as a psychologist. As a psychologist, he became a significant critical voice — arguing for a psychology that would embrace narrative as a principle of understanding human life, and contextualism, as opposed to mechanism, as a world view

The hydrogen peroxide-sensitive proteome of the chloroplast in vitro and in vivo

Muthuramalingam M, Matros A, Scheibe R, Mock H-P, Dietz K-J. The hydrogen peroxide-sensitive proteome of the chloroplast in vitro and in vivo. Frontiers in Plant Science. 2013;4:54-1-54-14.Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) evolves during cellular metabolism and accumulates under various stresses causing serious redox imbalances. Many proteomics studies aiming to identify proteins sensitive to H2O2 used concentrations that were above the physiological range. Here the chloroplast proteins were subjected to partial oxidation by exogenous addition of H2O2 equivalent to 10% of available protein thiols which allowed for the identification of the primary targets of oxidation. The chosen redox proteomic approach employed differential labeling of non-oxidized and oxidized thiols using sequential alkylation with N-ethylmaleimide and biotin maleimide. The in vitro identified proteins are involved in carbohydrate metabolism, photosynthesis, redox homeostasis, and nitrogen assimilation. By using methyl viologen that induces oxidative stress in vivo, mostly the same primary targets of oxidation were identified and several oxidation sites were annotated. Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate (RubisCO) was a primary oxidation target. Due to its high abundance, RubisCO is suggested to act as a chloroplast redox buffer to maintain a suitable redox state, even in the presence of increased reactive oxygen species release. 2-cysteine peroxiredoxins (2-Cys Prx) undergo redox-dependent modifications and play important roles in antioxidant defense and signaling. The identification of 2-Cys Prx was expected based on its high affinity to H2O2 and is considered as a proof of concept for the approach. Targets of Trx, such as phosphoribulokinase, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, transketolase, and sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase have at least one regulatory disulfide bridge which supports the conclusion that the identified proteins undergo reversible thiol oxidation. In conclusion, the presented approach enabled the identification of early targets of H2O2 oxidation within the cellular proteome under physiological experimental conditions

Reduced hippocampal volume in healthy young ApoE4 carriers: an MRI study.

The E4 allele of the ApoE gene has consistently been shown to be related to an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The E4 allele is also associated with functional and structural grey matter (GM) changes in healthy young, middle-aged and older subjects. Here, we assess volumes of deep grey matter structures of 22 healthy younger ApoE4 carriers and 22 non-carriers (20-38 years). Volumes of the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate nucleus, hippocampus, pallidum, putamen, thalamus and brain stem were calculated by FMRIB's Integrated Registration and Segmentation Tool (FIRST) algorithm. A significant drop in volume was found in the right hippocampus of ApoE4 carriers (ApoE4+) relative to non-carriers (ApoE4-), while there was a borderline significant decrease in the volume of the left hippocampus of ApoE4 carriers. The volumes of no other structures were found to be significantly affected by genotype. Atrophy has been found to be a sensitive marker of neurodegenerative changes, and our results show that within a healthy young population, the presence of the ApoE4+ carrier gene leads to volume reduction in a structure that is vitally important for memory formation. Our results suggest that the hippocampus may be particularly vulnerable to further degeneration in ApoE4 carriers as they enter middle and old age. Although volume reductions were noted bilaterally in the hippocampus, atrophy was more pronounced in the right hippocampus. This finding relates to previous work which has noted a compensatory increase in right hemisphere activity in ApoE4 carriers in response to preclinical declines in memory function. Possession of the ApoE4 allele may lead to greater predilection for right hemisphere atrophy even in healthy young subjects in their twenties

Engineering molecular aggregate spectra

We show that optical properties of linear molecular aggregates undergo drastic changes when aggregates are deposited on a metal surface. The dipole-dipole interactions of monomers with their images can result in strong {re-structuring of both the exciton band and the absorption spectrum, depending on the arrangement of the monomer transition dipoles with respect to the surface.Comment: 4 two-column pages, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Excitonic Processes in Condensed Matter, June 22-27, Kyoto, Japa