Oral History Interview: Arnold Starr

This interview is one of a series conducted concerning rural life in West Virginia. The main focus is farm life. A native of Martin County, Kentucky, Mr. Arnold Starr had moved to Mingo County, West Virginia, by the mid 1930\u27s. At the time of the interview he was residing in Williamson, West Virginia. Mr. Starr discusses his childhood experiences on a school farm, education, neighborhood gatherings, and coon and fox hunting.https://mds.marshall.edu/oral_history/1603/thumbnail.jp

Time-Resolved Data Acquisition for In Situ Subsurface Planetary Geochemistry

The current gamma-ray/neutron instrumentation development effort at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center aims to extend the use of active pulsed neutron interrogation techniques to probe the subsurface geochemistry of planetary bodies in situ. All previous NASA planetary science missions, that used neutron and/or gamma-ray spectroscopy instruments, have relied on a constant neutron source produced from galactic cosmic rays. One of the distinguishing features of this effort is the inclusion of a high intensity 14.1 MeV pulsed neutron generator synchronized with a custom data acquisition system to time each event relative to the pulse. With usually only one opportunity to collect data, it is difficult to set a priori time-gating windows to obtain the best possible results. Acquiring time-tagged, event-by-event data from nuclear induced reactions provides raw data sets containing channel/energy, and event time for each gamma ray or neutron detected. The resulting data set can be plotted as a function of time or energy using optimized analysis windows after the data are acquired. Time windows can now be chosen to produce energy spectra that yield the most statistically significant and accurate elemental composition results that can be derived from the complete data set. The advantages of post-processing gamma-ray time-tagged event-by-event data in experimental tests using our prototype instrument will be demonstrated

Chapter 28 Auditory neuropathy

Neural disorders of the auditory nerve are associated with particular disorders of auditory perceptions dependent on processing of acoustic temporal cues. These include: (1) speech perception; (2) localizing a sound's origin in space; and (3) identifying sounds in background noise. Auditory neuropathy (AN) is a consequence of: (1) presynaptic disorders affecting inner hair cell ribbon synapses; (2) postsynaptic disorders of auditory nerve dendrites; and (3) postsynaptic disorders of auditory nerve axons. The etiologies of these disorders are diverse, similar to other cranial or peripheral neuropathies. The pathologies cause attenuated and dyssynchronous auditory nerve discharges. Therapies and management of patients with AN are reviewed

Integrating Fatigue Management with Safety Management Systems for Commercial Flightcrew Operations

Fatigue remains a significant hazard in commercial aviation and has been a major concern among all stakeholders for decades. This review of the literature explores the current prescriptive structure of the regulatory environment (Part 117) and its effect on fatigue management. To illustrate the impact of fatigue on flight operations, this article includes a brief analysis of two National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports where fatigue was indicated as a factor. Current research in fatigue management and efforts by the Federal Aviation Administration point to the benefits of using a Safety Management Systems (SMS) methodology to manage fatigue. Using the framework of an organization’s functioning SMS, various solutions are discussed, including using existing reporting systems to gather data and the development of potential performance indicators, with an emphasis on the need for research into commuting habits of flight crews and establishing a safety culture based upon fitness for duty

Anarchy in the UK: Detailed genetic analysis of worker reproduction in a naturally occurring British anarchistic honeybee, Apis mellifera, colony using DNA microsatellites

Anarchistic behaviour is a very rare phenotype of honeybee colonies. In an anarchistic colony, many workers’ sons are reared in the presence of the queen. Anarchy has previously been described in only two Australian colonies. Here we report on a first detailed genetic analysis of a British anarchistic colony. Male pupae were present in great abundance above the queen excluder, which was clearly indicative of extensive worker reproduction and is the hallmark of anarchy. Seventeen microsatellite loci were used to analyse these male pupae, allowing us to address whether all the males were indeed workers’ sons, and how many worker patrilines and individual workers produced them. In the sample, 95 of 96 of the males were definitely workers’ sons. Given that ≈ 1% of workers’ sons were genetically indistinguishable from queen’s sons, this suggests that workers do not move any queen-laid eggs between the part of the colony where the queen is present to the area above the queen excluder which the queen cannot enter. The colony had 16 patrilines, with an effective number of patrilines of 9.85. The 75 males that could be assigned with certainty to a patriline came from 7 patrilines, with an effective number of 4.21. They were the offspring of at least 19 workers. This is in contrast to the two previously studied Australian naturally occurring anarchist colonies, in which most of the workers’ sons were offspring of one patriline. The high number of patrilines producing males leads to a low mean relatedness between laying workers and males of the colony. We discuss the importance of studying such colonies in the understanding of worker policing and its evolution

Stimulus parameters and temporal evolution of the olfactory evoked potential in rats

Evoked potentials were recorded from olfactory bulb, piriform cortex and scalp in urethane anesthetized rats in response to brief odorant stimuli (amyl acetate, phenylethyl alcohol, eugenol) presented through a nasal cannula by means of a constant flow olfactometer. The effects of stimulus duration, nasal cannula position, flow rate, concentration and interstimulus interval were examined. The highest amplitude potentials were evoked by 10% amyl acetate at 20 ms duration, 1000 ml/min flow rate and a 60-s interstimulus interval with the stimulus delivered at the nares. Odorant evoked potentials from deep within the olfactory bulb consisted of a triphasic wave with major components at 60 ms (P60), 90 ms (N90) and 140 ms (P140) with the latter two reversing polarity close to the surface of the bulb. Potentials recorded from layer I of piriform cortex were of similar amplitude, but opposite in polarity to the deep olfactory bulb potentials. Recordings from the skin over the nose elicited waveforms of similar morphology to the deep olfactory bulb potentials, but one-quarter the amplitude and of opposite polarity The evoked potentials changed with repetitive stimulation The N90 component was not present initially and only appeared after several stimuli. The appearance of the N90 component depended on the integrity of the olfactory peduncle. Thus, olfactory evoked potentials to odorant stimuli reflect dynamic aspects of the encoding of olfactory information dependent on connections between olfactory bulb and piriform cortex. © 1992 Oxford University Press

Binaural interaction in auditory evoked potentials: Brainstem, middle- and long-latency components

Binaural interaction occurs in the auditory evoked potentials when the sum of the monaural auditory evoked potentials are not equivalent to the binaural evoked auditory potentials. Binaural interaction of the early- (0-10 ms), middle- (10-50 ms) and long-latency (50-200 ms) auditory evoked potentials was studied in 17 normal young adults. For the early components, binaural interaction was maximal at 7.35 ms accounting for a reduction of 21% of the amplitude of the binaural evoked potentials. For the middle latency auditory evoked potentials, binaural interaction was maximal at 39.6 ms accounting for a reduction of 48% of the binaural evoked potential. For the long-latency auditory evoked potentials, binaural interaction was maximal at 145 ms accounting for a reduction of 38% of the binaural evoked potential. In all of the auditory evoked potentials binaural interaction was long lasting around the maxima. The binaural interaction component extends for several milliseconds in the brainstem to tens of milliseconds in the middle- and long-latency components. Binaural interaction takes the form of a reduction of amplitude of the binaural evoked potential relative to the sum of the monaural responses, suggests that inhibitory processes are represented in binaural interaction using evoked potentials. Binaural processing in the auditory pathway is maximal in the time domain of the middle-latency components reflecting activity in the thalamo-cortical portions of the auditory pathways

P300 Latency Correlates with Digit Span

P300 latency from a simple auditory discrimination counting task was obtained along with a digit span memory task for a large group of neurologically normal subjects. Moderate significant negative correlations between the peak latency of the P3a and P3b subcomponents and total memory score were found, although no relationship was observed for other waveform component latencies and memory score. The data suggest that the P300 component of the event‐related brain potential may index individual variations in memory ability. Copyright © 1983, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserve

Endogenous Late Positive Component of the Evoked Potential in Cats Corresponding to P300 in Humans

A long-latency component of the averaged evoked potential recorded from cats was present only when the evoking stimulus was relevant to the task. The amplitude of this component varied inversely with stimulus probability and was independent of stimulus modality