Imagination in Action: Parents and Children Exploring Creativity Together Through a Children’s Book

ABSTRACT Imagination in action: Parents and children exploring creativity together through a children’s book. The purpose of this project, imagination in action, is to provide a playful way for parents and children to experience and learn a skill together using a story. The story follows a seemingly ordinary toothpaste cap from Russia to Niagara Falls. To learn about the cap’s adventure the two main characters put the cap under their pillow, and then they dream of where the cap has gone. To enhance the learning and explain the value and importance of creativity not only for children but also for adults a message for parents, is included in the beginning of the book that is grounded in recent literature and studies of creativity done by experts in the field. The book also provides parents and children with practical ways to enhance their imagination by providing activities at the end of the book. KEYWORDS: imagination, play, children’s boo

International study tours and public relations pedagogy: Insights from a practice-centred approach

fals

Ferromagnetism and interlayer exchange coupling in short period (Ga,Mn)As/GaAs superlattices

Magnetic properties of (Ga,Mn)As/GaAs superlattices are investigated. The structures contain magnetic (Ga,Mn)As layers, separated by thin layers of non-magnetic GaAs spacer. The short period Ga$_{0.93}$Mn$_{0.07}$As/GaAs superlattices exhibit a paramagnetic-to-ferromagnetic phase transition close to 60K, for thicknesses of (Ga,Mn)As down to 23 \AA. For Ga$_{0.96}$Mn$_{0.04}$As/GaAs superlattices of similar dimensions, the Curie temperature associated with the ferromagnetic transition is found to oscillate with the thickness of non magnetic spacer. The observed oscillations are related to an interlayer exchange interaction mediated by the polarized holes of the (Ga,Mn)As layers.Comment: REVTeX 4 style; 4 pages, 2 figure

Intraoperative Platelet and Plasma Improves Survival in Patients Operated for a rAAA: A Follow-up Evaluation

AbstractObjectivesContinued haemorrhage remains a significant contributor to mortality in massively transfused patients. We found that early administration of platelets and plasma reduced mortality from 54% to 36% in rAAA patients. The aim of the present evaluation was to evaluate whether reduced mortality in rAAA patients related to a pro-active transfusion therapy is maintained.DesignSingle-centre observational study.MethodsMortality of patients operated for rAAA 2006–07 was compared to that of patients operated 2004–05 (intervention group; n=50) and 2002–04 (control group, n=82).Results64 consecutive patients with rAAA received, similar to the intervention group, more platelets (5 and 4 vs. 0 units, P<0.05) and plasma (12 and 11 vs. 7 units, P<0.05) intraoperatively and had a higher platelet count (158 and 155 vs. 69×109/L, P<0.0001) upon arrival at the intensive care unit and the 30-day mortality remained reduced (24% and 36% vs. 56%, P<0.01 and P=0.02, respectively) as compared to the control patients.ConclusionsEarly administration of platelets and plasma, together with red blood cells maintained reduced mortality in patients operated for rAAAin a 18 month period

Structural and magnetic properties of GaMnAs layers with high Mn content grown by Migration Enhanced Epitaxy on GaAs(100) substrates

We have grown the ferromagnetic semiconductor GaMnAs containing up to 10% Mn by migration enhanced epitaxy at a substrate temperature of 150^oC. The alternate supply of As2 molecules and Ga and Mn atoms made it possible to grow single crystalline GaMnAs layers at very low substrate temperature, at which conventional molecular beam epitaxial growth under excess As supply is not possible due to As condensation. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements confirmed a higher Mn content in the films grown by this method in comparison to the GaMnAs layers grown by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy. The lattice constant of hypothetical zinc-blende structure MnAs is determined to be 5.9 \AA, which deviates somewhat from previously reported values. This deviation is ascribed to growth-condition dependent density of point defects. It is stressed that this effect must be taken into account for any assessment of Mn content from X-ray diffraction data. Magnetization measurements showed an onset of ferromagnetic ordering around 75 K for the GaMnAs layer with 10% Mn. This means that the trend of falling Curie temperatures with increasing Mn concentrations above 5.5% is broken. We tentatively assign this to the variation of the carrier concentration, including contributions from donor and acceptor centers formed by antisite defects and Mn doping, and increased density of magnetically active Mn ions.Comment: No LaTeX source; gzipped postscript text + 3 gzipped postscript figure

Optimizing HVAC Control to Improve Building Comfort and Energy Performance

This paper demonstrates the benefits of optimal control in well-designed and operated buildings using a case study. The case study building was built in 2001. The HVAC and control systems have been installed with state-of-the-art equipment which include a terminal box temperature integrated minimum airflow reset. The building has been used and operated based on the design intents. This paper presents both the existing and the optimal control schedules, which include the VAV box operation schedule, AHUs optimal control, chiller and chilled water pump control, and boiler and hot water pump control. The measured hourly HVAC electricity consumption shows that annual savings of up to 40% can be achieved with an optimal control schedule

Extensive sampling sheds light on species-level diversity in Palearctic Placobdella (Annelida: Clitellata: Glossiphoniiformes)

The bloodfeeding leech genus Placobdella is dominated by North American diversity, with only a single nominal species known from Central America and one from the Palearctic region. This is likely due to considerable underestimation of Palearctic biodiversity, but investigations into potential hidden diversity are lacking. To shed light on this, the present study introduces new data for specimens initially identified as Placobdella costata from Ukraine (close to the type locality), Italy, Germany, Latvia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Tunisia, and Algeria, and uses both nuclear (Internal Transcribed Spacer [ITS] region) and mitochondrial (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I [COI]) sequence data in phylogenetic and DNA barcoding frameworks, in order to better understand species-level diversity. Seven independent lineages are present in the trees, five of which show adequate separation at the COI locus to suggest their unique species-level status (COI distances between these clades range from 4.86 to 8.10%). However, the ITS data suggest that speciation is recent or incipient in these clades, and that not enough time has passed for clear separation at this locus. We discuss the evolutionary and taxonomic implications of our findings and speculate on dispersal events that may have contributed to shaping this pattern of geographic distribution

Somatic Pairing of Chromosome 19 in Renal Oncocytoma Is Associated with Deregulated ELGN2-Mediated Oxygen-Sensing Response

Chromosomal abnormalities, such as structural and numerical abnormalities, are a common occurrence in cancer. The close association of homologous chromosomes during interphase, a phenomenon termed somatic chromosome pairing, has been observed in cancerous cells, but the functional consequences of somatic pairing have not been established. Gene expression profiling studies revealed that somatic pairing of chromosome 19 is a recurrent chromosomal abnormality in renal oncocytoma, a neoplasia of the adult kidney. Somatic pairing was associated with significant disruption of gene expression within the paired regions and resulted in the deregulation of the prolyl-hydroxylase ELGN2, a key protein that regulates the oxygen-dependent degradation of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). Overexpression of ELGN2 in renal oncocytoma increased ubiquitin-mediated destruction of HIF and concomitantly suppressed the expression of several HIF-target genes, including the pro-death BNIP3L gene. The transcriptional changes that are associated with somatic pairing of chromosome 19 mimic the transcriptional changes that occur following DNA amplification. Therefore, in addition to numerical and structural chromosomal abnormalities, alterations in chromosomal spatial dynamics should be considered as genomic events that are associated with tumorigenesis. The identification of EGLN2 as a significantly deregulated gene that maps within the paired chromosome region directly implicates defects in the oxygen-sensing network to the biology of renal oncocytoma

Evidence for a narrow dip structure at 1.9 GeV/c2^2 in 3π+3π−3\pi^+ 3\pi^- diffractive photoproduction

A narrow dip structure has been observed at 1.9 GeV/c$^2$ in a study of diffractive photoproduction of the $~3\pi^+3\pi^-$ final state performed by the Fermilab experiment E687.Comment: The data of Figure 6 can be obtained by downloading the raw data file e687_6pi.txt. v5 (2nov2018): added Fig. 7, the 6 pion energy distribution as requested by a reade

Methyl jasmonate-elicited herbivore resistance: does MeJA function as a signal without being hydrolyzed to JA?

Treatment with methyl jasmonate (MeJA) elicits herbivore resistance in many plant species and over-expression of JA carboxyl methyltransferase (JMT) constitutively increases JA-induced responses in Arabidopsis. When wild-type (WT) Nicotiana attenuata plants are treated with MeJA, a rapid transient endogenous JA burst is elicited, which in turn increases levels of nicotine and trypsin proteinase inhibitors (TPIs) and resistance to larvae of the specialist herbivore, Manduca sexta. All of these responses are impaired in plants silenced in lipoxygenase 3 expression (asLOX3) but are restored to WT levels by MeJA treatment. Whether these MeJA-induced responses are directly elicited by MeJA or by its cleavage product, JA, is unknown. Using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS), we silenced MeJA-esterase (NaMJE) expression and found this gene responsible for most of the MeJA-cleaving activity in N. attenuata protein extracts. Silencing NaMJE in asLOX3, but not in WT plants, significantly reduced MeJA-induced nicotine levels and resistance to M. sexta, but not TPI levels. MeJA-induced transcript levels of threonine deaminase (NaTD) and phenylalanine ammonia lyase (NaPAL1) were also decreased in VIGS MJE (asLOX3) plants. Finally the performance of M. sexta larvae that fed on plants treated with JA or MeJA demonstrated that silencing NaMJE inhibited MeJA-induced but not JA-induced resistance in asLOX3 plants. From these results, we conclude that the resistance elicited by MeJA treatment is directly elicited not by MeJA but by its de-methylated product, JA