Protein crystal growth tray assembly

A protein crystal growth tray assembly includes a tray that has a plurality of individual crystal growth chambers. Each chamber has a movable pedestal which carries a protein crystal growth compartment at an upper end. The several pedestals for each tray assembly are ganged together for concurrent movement so that the solutions in the various pedestal growth compartments can be separated from the solutions in the tray's growth chambers until the experiment is to be activated

Fields in Nonaffine Bundles. I. The general bitensorially covariant differentiation procedure

The standard covariant differentiation procedure for fields in vector bundles is generalised so as to be applicable to fields in general nonaffine bundles in which the fibres may have an arbitrary nonlinear structure. In addition to the usual requirement that the base space should be flat or endowed with its own linear connection, and that there should be an ordinary gauge connection on the bundle, it is necessary to require also that there should be an intrinsic, bundle-group invariant connection on the fibre space. The procedure is based on the use of an appropriate primary-field (i.e. section) independent connector that is constructed in terms of the natural fibre-tangent-vector realisation of the gauge connection. The application to gauged harmonic mappings will be described in a following article.Comment: 17 page Latex file with some minor misprint corrections and added color for article originally published in black and whit

Cognitive control and discourse comprehension in schizophrenia.

Cognitive deficits across a wide range of domains have been consistently observed in schizophrenia and are linked to poor functional outcome (Green, 1996; Carter, 2006). Language abnormalities are among the most salient and include disorganized speech as well as deficits in comprehension. In this review, we aim to evaluate impairments of language processing in schizophrenia in relation to a domain-general control deficit. We first provide an overview of language comprehension in the healthy human brain, stressing the role of cognitive control processes, especially during discourse comprehension. We then discuss cognitive control deficits in schizophrenia, before turning to evidence suggesting that schizophrenia patients are particularly impaired at processing meaningful discourse as a result of deficits in control functions. We conclude that domain-general control mechanisms are impaired in schizophrenia and that during language comprehension this is most likely to result in difficulties during the processing of discourse-level context, which involves integrating and maintaining multiple levels of meaning. Finally, we predict that language comprehension in schizophrenia patients will be most impaired during discourse processing. We further suggest that discourse comprehension problems in schizophrenia might be mitigated when conflicting information is absent and strong relations amongst individual words are present in the discourse context."There is no "centre of Speech" in the brain any more than there is a faculty of Speech in the mind.The entire brain, more or less, is at work in a man who uses language"William JamesFrom The Principles of Psychology, 1890"The mind in dementia praecox is like an orchestra without a conductor"Kraepelin, 1919

Dynamics of cosmic strings and springs; a covariant formulation

A general family of charge-current carrying cosmic string models is investigated. In the special case of circular configurations in arbitrary axially symmetric gravitational and electromagnetic backgrounds the dynamics is determined by simple point particle Hamiltonians. A certain "duality" transformation relates our results to previous ones, obtained by Carter et. al., for an infinitely long open stationary string in an arbitrary stationary background.Comment: 11 pages, Latex, Nordita preprint 93/28

EXPLAINING INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD LABELING REGULATIONS

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/13/04.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Economic and Environmental Impacts of Adoption of Genetically Modified Rice in California

Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

External quality assessment in resource–limited countries

Introduction: Health laboratory services are a critical component of national health systems but face major operational challenges in resource-limited (RL) settings. New funding for health systems strengthening in RL countries has increased the demand for diagnostics and provided opportunities to address these constraints. An approach to sustainably strengthen national laboratory systems in sub-Saharan African countries is the Strengthening Laboratory Management Toward Accreditation (SLMTA) programme. External Quality Assessment (EQA) is a requirement for laboratory accreditation. EQA comprises proficiency testing (PT), rechecking of samples and on-site evaluation. Materials and methods: A systematic literature search was conducted to identify studies addressing laboratory EQA and quality monitoring in RL countries. Unpublished reports were also sought from national laboratory authorities and personnel. Results: PT schemes in RL countries are provided by commercial companies, institutions in developed countries and national programmes. Most government-supported PT schemes address single diseases using a vertical approach. Regional approaches to delivering PT have also been implemented across RL countries. Rechecking schemes address mainly tuberculosis (TB), malaria and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); integrated rechecking programmes have been piloted. Constraints include sample transportation, communication of results, unknown proficiency of referee staff and limited resources for corrective action. Global competency assessment standards for malaria microscopists have been established. Conclusions: EQA is vital for monitoring laboratory performance and maintaining quality of laboratory services, and is a valuable tool for identifying and assessing technology in use, identifying gaps in laboratory performance and targeting training needs. Accreditation of PT providers and competency of EQA personnel must be ensured

Walking Percy\u27s tightrope : from alienation to affirmation

Walker Percy\u27s Binx Bolling, of The Moviegoer, and Will Barrett, of The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming, are two Southern existential seekers who move from alienation and despair to create lives of meaningful commitment with the promise of fulfillment. Because of their similarities, we can trace a development in Percy\u27s fiction which parallels the questor\u27s development. These three books move from a preoccupation with death-in-life to a discovery of self and on to individual and cultural rebirth. Thus, The Moviegoer (1960) is about alienation and despair; The Last Gentleman (1966) is about the possibility of human relationships, friendships that develop out of an awareness of despair; and The Second Coming (1980) is about love and the promise of renewal. For Percy, the key to this development lies in the act of naming, or symbolization : in the mystery of language and symbol lies the answer to man\u27s being and purpose

Physics at the B Factories

We review recent progress at the two $e^+ e^-$ B factories. The first measurement of CP violation and the prospects for measuring all the angles of the unitarity triangle are discussed.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of From the Smallest to the Largest Distances, a conference in honor of Tranh Thanh Van in Moscow, Russi

Walking Percy\u27s tightrope : from alienation to affirmation

Walker Percy\u27s Binx Bolling, of The Moviegoer, and Will Barrett, of The Last Gentleman and The Second Coming, are two Southern existential seekers who move from alienation and despair to create lives of meaningful commitment with the promise of fulfillment. Because of their similarities, we can trace a development in Percy\u27s fiction which parallels the questor\u27s development. These three books move from a preoccupation with death-in-life to a discovery of self and on to individual and cultural rebirth. Thus, The Moviegoer (1960) is about alienation and despair; The Last Gentleman (1966) is about the possibility of human relationships, friendships that develop out of an awareness of despair; and The Second Coming (1980) is about love and the promise of renewal. For Percy, the key to this development lies in the act of naming, or symbolization : in the mystery of language and symbol lies the answer to man\u27s being and purpose