Odor naming and interpretation performance in 881 schizophrenia subjects: association with clinical parameters

BACKGROUND: Olfactory function tests are sensitive tools for assessing sensory-cognitive processing in schizophrenia. However, associations of central olfactory measures with clinical outcome parameters have not been simultaneously studied in large samples of schizophrenia patients. METHODS: In the framework of the comprehensive phenotyping of the GRAS (Göttingen Research Association for Schizophrenia) cohort, we modified and extended existing odor naming (active memory retrieval) and interpretation (attribute assignment) tasks to evaluate them in 881 schizophrenia patients and 102 healthy controls matched for age, gender and smoking behavior. Associations with emotional processing, neuropsychological test performance and disease outcome were studied. RESULTS: Schizophrenia patients underperformed controls in both olfactory tasks. Odor naming deficits were primarily associated with compromised cognition, interpretation deficits with positive symptom severity and general alertness. Contrasting schizophrenia extreme performers of odor interpretation (best versus worst percentile; N=88 each) and healthy individuals (N=102) underscores the obvious relationship between impaired odor interpretation and psychopathology, cognitive dysfunctioning, and emotional processing (all p<0.004). CONCLUSIONS: The strong association of performance in higher olfactory measures, odor naming and interpretation, with lead symptoms of schizophrenia and determinants of disease severity highlights their clinical and scientific significance. Based on the results obtained here in an exploratory fashion in a large patient sample, the development of an easy-to-use clinical test with improved psychometric properties may be encouraged

Fort Collins Flood 1997: lessons from an extreme event

Includes bibliographical references.The July 28, 1997 flood disaster in Fort Collins, Colorado is generally called a "500-year event" and offers insight into the causes and impacts of extreme urban flooding. Although it hurt and traumatized many people, the flood provided valuable lessons for civil engineers, managers of government agencies, political leaders, counselors, and citizens. Representing several disciplines and entities, the authors present a cross-cutting view of the flood emergency and its lessons. The paper also includes a synthesis of a post-flood conference at Colorado State University which featured reports from all major entities involved in the flood. The remarkable storm that caused the flood produced the heaviest rains ever documented to have fallen over an urbanized area in this state in the recorded history of Colorado. The storm occurred in stages, and dropped 10 to 14 inches in 31 hours in a large area around Fort Collins. The heaviest hourly precipitation occurred at the storm's end, which is different from most storms, and may have exacerbated the flooding. Runoff was dramatic and some peak discharges greatly exceeded projected 100-year and 500-year flows. The City Manager's report showed five people dead, 54 people injured, loss of about 200 homes, and 1500 homes and businesses damaged throughout the City. Fort Collins was more prepared than most cities because it has a nationally-recognized Stormwater Utility and good emergency response capabilities, but it still learned much from the event. Damages at Colorado State University were unusually severe, totaling in the range of $100 million, including building damages, about 425,000 library volumes inundated, loss of a semester's textbooks in the bookstore, and many other losses-both personal and professional. Although the university was surprisingly vulnerable, it responded well with no delay in opening school a month later, but only as a result of tremendous efforts. Emergency response in the City by the Poudre Fire Authority was outstanding, and although the flood had tremendous impacts on the community, not one firefighter or police officer was injured. Within three months after the flood, the local paper, the Coloradoan, had published 282 stories about the flood, and the event received broad coverage in the United States and abroad. After the flood, Fort Collins has tried to focus beyond the physical issues to recognize the multi-faceted losses and the ensuing grief experienced by many people. Lessons are presented in the paper about complacency, protecting vulnerable areas, flood frequency analysis, stress and trauma, the importance of organizational mobilization, the vulnerability of universities, growth management in a hazardous environment, mitigation versus response, communicating risk to officials and the public, and handling large influxes of donations

TranAir: A full-potential, solution-adaptive, rectangular grid code for predicting subsonic, transonic, and supersonic flows about arbitrary configurations. User's manual

The TranAir computer program calculates transonic flow about arbitrary configurations at subsonic, transonic, and supersonic freestream Mach numbers. TranAir solves the nonlinear full potential equations subject to a variety of boundary conditions modeling wakes, inlets, exhausts, porous walls, and impermeable surfaces. Regions with different total temperature and pressure can be represented. The user's manual describes how to run the TranAir program and its graphical support programs

Performing television history

An expanded conception of performance study can disturb current theoretical and historical assumptions about television’s medial identity. The article considers how to write histories of the dominant forms and assumptions about performance in British and American television drama, and analyses how acting is situated in relation to the multiple meaning-making components of television. A longitudinal, wide-ranging analysis is briefly sketched to show that the concept of performance, from acting to the display of television’s mediating capability, can extend to the analysis of how the television medium ‘performed’ its own identity to shape its distinctiveness in specific historical circumstances

‘New and important careers’: how women excelled at the BBC, 1923–1939

From its beginnings in 1923, the BBC employed a sizeable female workforce. The majority were in support roles as typists, secretaries and clerks but, during the 1920s and 1930s, a significant number held important posts. As a modern industry, the BBC took a largely progressive approach towards the ‘career women’ on its staff, many of whom were in jobs that were developed specifically for the new medium of broadcasting. Women worked as drama producers, advertising representatives and Children’s Hour Organisers. They were talent spotters, press officers and documentary makers. Three women attained Director status while others held significant administrative positions. This article considers in what ways it was the modernity and novelty of broadcasting, combined with changing employment possibilities and attitudes towards women evident after the First World War, that combined to create the conditions in which they could excel

Capital Gains Taxes and Asset Prices: The Impact of Tax Awareness and Procrastination

We argue that the impact of capital gains taxation on asset pricing depends on the tax awareness of market participants. While institutional investors should be generally well-informed about tax regulations, private investors have only limited tax knowledge and resources. As a result, market reactions on tax law changes may be delayed if a considerable fraction of market participants is not fully tax-aware. In line with our argument, we find evidence that the introduction of a previously announced German flat tax on private capital gains in 2009 resulted in a temporarily strong and significant increase of trading volumes, daily returns and asset prices. Our research implies that tax law changes provide an opportunity for well-informed investors to generate arbitrage benefits. Corresponding to our estimate, the capital gains tax resulted in an increase demand for shares of 160 % as well as in an price surplus of about 7.4 % within the last two trading days 2008

Speciation, Luminescence, and Alkaline Fluorescence Quenching of 4-(2-methylbutyl)aminodipicolinic acid (H2MEBADPA)

4-(2-Methylbutyl)aminodipicolinic acid (H2MEBADPA) has been synthesized and fully characterized in terms of aqueous phase protonation constants (pKa\u27s) and photophysical measurements. The pKa\u27s were determined by spectrophotometric titrations, utilizing a fully sealed titration system. Photophysical measurements consisted of room temperature fluorescence and frozen solution phosphorescence as well as quantum yield determinations at various pH, which showed that only fully deprotonated MEBADPA2– is appreciably emissive. The fluorescence of MEBADPA2– has been determined to be quenched by hydroxide and methoxide anions, most likely through base-catalyzed excited-state tautomerism or proton transfer. This quenching phenomenon has been quantitatively explored through steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence measurements. Utilizing the determined pKas and quenching constants, the fluorescent intensity of MEBADPA2– has been successfully modeled as a function of pH

James Bond’s forgotten beginnings: television adaptations

This chapter analyses the remediation of the James Bond character on television, leading to the first screen Bond in 1954 when CBS broadcast Casino Royale as a live TV drama. In 1956, Ian Fleming wrote a TV pilot, James Gunn – Secret Agent, for a planned episodic television series, then reworked it into the Bond novel Dr No, which would become the first cinema adaptation in 1962. The film led to the cycle of British and American television series in the 1960s that drew on Bondian iconography and narrative tropes, such as The Avengers, Secret Agent, and The Man from UNCLE. The chapter analyses how the early history of Bond adaptations illuminates questions of medium specificity and hybridity, the shifting boundaries of genre, and the significance of specific historical and technological contexts in the 1950s and 1960s