Friends Make a Difference

While many people think in terms of Friends groups for public libraries, such groups also play an important role in academic libraries. The first Friends organization for an academic library dates back to Harvard in 1925. The idea for a Friends group at Ball State University was proposed at a luncheon at the dedication of the Alexander M. Bracken Library, named for then president of the Ball State University Board of Trustees, on March 28, 1976

Middle and Late Pleistocene environmental history of the Marsworth area, south-central England

To elucidate the Middle and Late Pleistocene environmental history of south-central England, we report the stratigraphy, sedimentology, palaeoecology and geochronology of some deposits near the foot of the Chiltern Hills scarp at Marsworth, Buckinghamshire. The Marsworth site is important because its sedimentary sequences contain a rich record of warm stages and cold stages, and it lies close to the Anglian glacial limit. Critical to its history are the origin and age of a brown pebbly silty clay (diamicton) previously interpreted as weathered till. The deposits described infill a river channel incised into chalk bedrock. They comprise clayey, silty and gravelly sediments, many containing locally derived chalk and some with molluscan, ostracod and vertebrate remains. Most of the deposits are readily attributed to periglacial and fluvial processes, and some are dated by optically stimulated luminescence to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6. Although our sedimentological data do not discriminate between a glacial or periglacial interpretation of the diamicton, amino-acid dating of three molluscan taxa from beneath it indicates that it is younger than MIS 9 and older than MIS 5e. This makes a glacial interpretation unlikely, and we interpret the diamicton as a periglacial slope deposit. The Pleistocene history reconstructed for Marsworth identifies four key elements: (1) Anglian glaciation during MIS 12 closely approached Marsworth, introducing far-travelled pebbles such as Rhaxella chert and possibly some fine sand minerals into the area. (2) Interglacial environments inferred from fluvial sediments during MIS 7 varied from fully interglacial conditions during sub-stages 7e and 7c, cool temperate conditions during sub-stage 7b or 7a, temperate conditions similar to those today in central England towards the end of the interglacial, and cool temperate conditions during sub-stage 7a. (3) Periglacial activity during MIS 6 involved thermal contraction cracking, permafrost development, fracturing of chalk bedrock, fluvial activity, slopewash, mass movement and deposition of loess and coversand. (4) Fully interglacial conditions during sub-stage 5e led to renewed fluvial activity, soil formation and acidic weathering

Inter-relationship of plasma markers of oxidative stress and thyroid hormones in schizophrenics

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The relationship of oxidative stress to thyroid hormones has not been studied in the schizophrenics. The present study determined the status and interrelationship of plasma markers of oxidative stress, nitric oxide and thyroid hormones in thirty (17 males and 13 females) newly diagnosed patients with acute schizophrenia before initiation of chemotherapy. Twenty five (13 males and 12 females) mentally healthy individuals served as controls. Patients and controls with history of hard drugs (including alcohol and cigarette), pre-diagnosis medications (e.g. antiparkinsonian/antipsychotic drugs), chronic infections, liver disease and diabetes mellitus were excluded from the study. Plasma levels of total antioxidant potential (TAP), total plasma peroxides (TPP), nitric oxide (NO), malondialdehyde (MDA), thyroxine (T4), tri-iodothyronine (T3) and thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) were determined in all participants using spectrophotometric and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) methods respectively. Oxidative stress index (OSI) was calculated as the percent ratio of total plasma peroxides and total antioxidant potential.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Significantly higher plasma levels of MDA (p < 0.01), TPP (p < 0.01), OSI (p < 0.01), T3 (p < 0.01) and T4 (p < 0.05) were observed in schizophrenics when compared with the controls. The mean levels of TAP, NO and TSH were significantly lower in schizophrenics (p < 0.01) when compared with the controls. The result shows that T3 values correlate significantly with MDA (p < 0.05) and TPP (p < 0.01) in schizophrenics.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Higher level of TPP may enhance thyroid hormogenesis in schizophrenics. Adjuvant antioxidant therapy may be a novel approach in the treatment of schizophrenic patients.</p

Balancing with Vibration: A Prelude for “Drift and Act” Balance Control

Stick balancing at the fingertip is a powerful paradigm for the study of the control of human balance. Here we show that the mean stick balancing time is increased by about two-fold when a subject stands on a vibrating platform that produces vertical vibrations at the fingertip (0.001 m, 15–50 Hz). High speed motion capture measurements in three dimensions demonstrate that vibration does not shorten the neural latency for stick balancing or change the distribution of the changes in speed made by the fingertip during stick balancing, but does decrease the amplitude of the fluctuations in the relative positions of the fingertip and the tip of the stick in the horizontal plane, A(x,y). The findings are interpreted in terms of a time-delayed “drift and act” control mechanism in which controlling movements are made only when controlled variables exceed a threshold, i.e. the stick survival time measures the time to cross a threshold. The amplitude of the oscillations produced by this mechanism can be decreased by parametric excitation. It is shown that a plot of the logarithm of the vibration-induced increase in stick balancing skill, a measure of the mean first passage time, versus the standard deviation of the A(x,y) fluctuations, a measure of the distance to the threshold, is linear as expected for the times to cross a threshold in a stochastic dynamical system. These observations suggest that the balanced state represents a complex time–dependent state which is situated in a basin of attraction that is of the same order of size. The fact that vibration amplitude can benefit balance control raises the possibility of minimizing risk of falling through appropriate changes in the design of footwear and roughness of the walking surfaces

G92-1094 Controlling External Swine Parasites

Mixing, safety, restrictions, and precautions for insecticides used to control external swine parasites. Hog Lice and Mange Mites External parasites of swine include the hog louse and two species of mange mites (the common itch mite and the less common hog follicle mite). Excessive scratching and rubbing by pigs nearly always indicate an infestation of hog lice or mange mites. Hog lice and mange mites infest a high percentage of swine slaughtered at Midwest slaughter plants

Background complexity affects response of a looming-sensitive neuron to object motion

An increasing number of studies show how stimulus complexity affects the responses of looming-sensitive neurons across multiple animal taxa. Locusts contain a well-described, descending motion-sensitive pathway that is preferentially looming sensitive. However, the lobula giant movement detector/descending contralateral movement detector (LGMD/DCMD) pathway responds to more than simple objects approaching at constant, predictable trajectories. In this study, we presented Locusta migratoria with a series of complex three-dimensional visual stimuli presented while simultaneously recording DCMD activity extracellularly. In addition to a frontal looming stimulus, we used a combination of compound trajectories (nonlooming transitioning to looming) presented at different velocities and onto a simple, scattered, or progressive flow field background. Regardless of stimulus background, DCMD responses to looming were characteristic and related to previously described effects of azimuthal approach angle and velocity of object expansion. However, increasing background complexity caused reduced firing rates, delayed peaks, shorter rise phases, and longer fall phases. DCMD responded to transitions to looming with a characteristic drop in a firing rate that was relatively invariant across most stimulus combinations and occurred regardless of stimulus background. Spike numbers were higher in the presence of the scattered background and reduced in the flow field background. We show that DCMD response time to a transition depends on unique expansion parameters of the moving stimulus irrespective of background complexity. Our results show how background complexity shapes DCMD responses to looming stimuli, which is explained within a behavioral context.Funding was provided by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the University of Saskatchewan. This work was also supported by Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT) within the Project Scope PEst OE/EEI/UI0319/2014. A. C. Silva is supported by PhD Grant SFRH/BD/70396/2010.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio