Magnetism, FeS colloids, and Origins of Life

A number of features of living systems: reversible interactions and weak bonds underlying motor-dynamics; gel-sol transitions; cellular connected fractal organization; asymmetry in interactions and organization; quantum coherent phenomena; to name some, can have a natural accounting via $physical$ interactions, which we therefore seek to incorporate by expanding the horizons of `chemistry-only' approaches to the origins of life. It is suggested that the magnetic 'face' of the minerals from the inorganic world, recognized to have played a pivotal role in initiating Life, may throw light on some of these issues. A magnetic environment in the form of rocks in the Hadean Ocean could have enabled the accretion and therefore an ordered confinement of super-paramagnetic colloids within a structured phase. A moderate H-field can help magnetic nano-particles to not only overcome thermal fluctuations but also harness them. Such controlled dynamics brings in the possibility of accessing quantum effects, which together with frustrations in magnetic ordering and hysteresis (a natural mechanism for a primitive memory) could throw light on the birth of biological information which, as Abel argues, requires a combination of order and complexity. This scenario gains strength from observations of scale-free framboidal forms of the greigite mineral, with a magnetic basis of assembly. And greigite's metabolic potential plays a key role in the mound scenario of Russell and coworkers-an expansion of which is suggested for including magnetism.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, to be published in A.R. Memorial volume, Ed Krishnaswami Alladi, Springer 201

Cultural theory and the dynamics of organizational change: the response of housing associations in London to the Housing Act 1988

The aim of this article is to consider the most effective way of conceptualizing a sector that has undergone radical change: the UK voluntary housing sector. The article considers existing accounts of housing associations and classifies these into five analytically distinct groups: practitioners, historical accounts, managerialist approaches, network theorists and institutionalist accounts. The main contention is that each of these is limited in explanatory potential, primarily due to their neglect of culture. This article proposes a more detailed framework for developing an understanding of the substantial changes affecting housing associations since the 1980s; that offered by "grid-group cultural theory". The article provides longitudinal qualitative data obtained from London housing associations to support the contention that organizational change can most usefully be understood by reference to the cultural themes of hierarchy and individualism. The article contends that cultural theory offers the opportunity to develop a systematic analysis that accounts for institutional history and organizational differentiation

Participation in environmental enhancement and conservation activities for health and well-being in adults: a review of quantitative and qualitative evidence

PUBHLT

Crossing the divide: a longitudinal study of effective treatments for people with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder across the lifespan.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently persist into adolescence and young adulthood. However, there are few clinical services that support those with these disorders through adulthood. Objective: Our aim was to determine if clinical services meet the needs of people with ASD and ADHD, who are ‘at transition’ from childhood to adulthood. Design: A longitudinal study of individuals with ASD and ADHD, the impact of services and treatments. Methods: Our research methods included (1) interviewing > 180 affected individuals (and their families) with a confirmed diagnosis of ASD and/or ADHD, (2) screening for ASD and ADHD in approximately 1600 patients and (3) surveying general practitioner prescribing to 5651 ASD individuals across the UK. In addition, we tested the effectiveness of (1) new ASD diagnostic interview measures in 169 twins, 145 families and 150 non-twins, (2) a magnetic resonance imaging-based diagnostic aid in 40 ASD individuals, (3) psychological treatments in 46 ASD individuals and (4) the feasibility of e-learning in 28 clinicians. Setting: NHS clinical services and prisons. Participants: Focus – young people with ASD and ADHD as they ‘transition’ from childhood and adolescence into early adulthood. Interventions: Testing the utility of diagnostic measures and services, web-based learning interventions, pharmacological prescribing and cognitive–behavioural treatments

Helioseismology and Solar Abundances

Helioseismology has allowed us to study the structure of the Sun in unprecedented detail. One of the triumphs of the theory of stellar evolution was that helioseismic studies had shown that the structure of solar models is very similar to that of the Sun. However, this agreement has been spoiled by recent revisions of the solar heavy-element abundances. Heavy element abundances determine the opacity of the stellar material and hence, are an important input to stellar model calculations. The models with the new, low abundances do not satisfy helioseismic constraints. We review here how heavy-element abundances affect solar models, how these models are tested with helioseismology, and the impact of the new abundances on standard solar models. We also discuss the attempts made to improve the agreement of the low-abundance models with the Sun and discuss how helioseismology is being used to determine the solar heavy-element abundance. A review of current literature shows that attempts to improve agreement between solar models with low heavy-element abundances and seismic inference have been unsuccessful so far. The low-metallicity models that have the least disagreement with seismic data require changing all input physics to stellar models beyond their acceptable ranges. Seismic determinations of the solar heavy-element abundance yield results that are consistent with the older, higher values of the solar abundance, and hence, no major changes to the inputs to solar models are required to make higher-metallicity solar models consistent with helioseismic data.Comment: To appear in Physics Reports. Large file (1.6M PDF, 3.4M PS), 27 figure

Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition

This is the final version of the article. Available from National Academy of Sciences via the DOI in this recordThe idea that noncrop habitat enhances pest control and represents a win–win opportunity to conserve biodiversity and bolster yields has emerged as an agroecological paradigm. However, while noncrop habitat in landscapes surrounding farms sometimes benefits pest predators, natural enemy responses remain heterogeneous across studies and effects on pests are inconclusive. The observed heterogeneity in species responses to noncrop habitat may be biological in origin or could result from variation in how habitat and biocontrol are measured. Here, we use a pest-control database encompassing 132 studies and 6,759 sites worldwide to model natural enemy and pest abundances, predation rates, and crop damage as a function of landscape composition. Our results showed that although landscape composition explained significant variation within studies, pest and enemy abundances, predation rates, crop damage, and yields each exhibited different responses across studies, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing in landscapes with more noncrop habitat but overall showing no consistent trend. Thus, models that used landscape-composition variables to predict pest-control dynamics demonstrated little potential to explain variation across studies, though prediction did improve when comparing studies with similar crop and landscape features. Overall, our work shows that surrounding noncrop habitat does not consistently improve pest management, meaning habitat conservation may bolster production in some systems and depress yields in others. Future efforts to develop tools that inform farmers when habitat conservation truly represents a win–win would benefit from increased understanding of how landscape effects are modulated by local farm management and the biology of pests and their enemies.This work was supported through the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)—National Science Foundation Award DBI-1052875 for the project “Evidence and Decision-Support Tools for Controlling Agricultural Pests with Conservation Interventions” organized by D.S.K. and R.C.-K

The Eleventh and Twelfth Data Releases of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: Final Data from SDSS-III

The third generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) took data from 2008 to 2014 using the original SDSS wide-field imager, the original and an upgraded multi-object fiber-fed optical spectrograph, a new near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph, and a novel optical interferometer. All of the data from SDSS-III are now made public. In particular, this paper describes Data Release 11 (DR11) including all data acquired through 2013 July, and Data Release 12 (DR12) adding data acquired through 2014 July (including all data included in previous data releases), marking the end of SDSS-III observing. Relative to our previous public release (DR10), DR12 adds one million new spectra of galaxies and quasars from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) over an additional 3000 deg2 of sky, more than triples the number of H-band spectra of stars as part of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE), and includes repeated accurate radial velocity measurements of 5500 stars from the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey (MARVELS). The APOGEE outputs now include the measured abundances of 15 different elements for each star. In total, SDSS-III added 5200 deg2 of ugriz imaging; 155,520 spectra of 138,099 stars as part of the Sloan Exploration of Galactic Understanding and Evolution 2 (SEGUE-2) survey; 2,497,484 BOSS spectra of 1,372,737 galaxies, 294,512 quasars, and 247,216 stars over 9376 deg2; 618,080 APOGEE spectra of 156,593 stars; and 197,040 MARVELS spectra of 5513 stars. Since its first light in 1998, SDSS has imaged over 1/3 of the Celestial sphere in five bands and obtained over five million astronomical spectra. \ua9 2015. The American Astronomical Society

Hippies, Greenies, and Tree Huggers: How the "Warmth" Stereotype Hinders the Adoption of Responsible Brands

Past research has highlighted the difficulty faced by responsible consumers, individuals who wish to make environmentally and socially responsible consumption choices. Individual buyers, it is argued, act within a network of structural and social relationships that make responsible alternatives intrinsically hard to pursue. This paper maintains that one such barrier is the perception that users of responsible brands are not worthy of social emulation. Consumers are less likely to adopt brands positioned explicitly on their positive environmental or social credentials because of the stereotypes attached to the users of these products. Two empirical studies demonstrate that users of responsible brands are perceived as stereotypically warm. Warmth, however, is not an appealing feature in a consumption context. Warm groups are not envied and envy plays a central role in fueling a desire to emulate a consumption group. The study is the first to examine the possibility that a group-level stereotype limits the potential attractiveness of responsible brands. The significant implications of this insight for both scholarly research and marketing practice are examined in detail. The presence of a warmth stereotype, which has a negative influence on the social perception of responsible brands, suggests that the development of niches of responsible or ethical consumers is intrinsically problematic

What is housing affordability? The case for the residual income approach

This article seeks to increase the awareness of and support for the residual income approach to housing affordability indicators and standards, especially in the United States. It begins with an overview of various semantic, substantive, and definitional issues relating to the notion of affordability, leading to an argument supporting the conceptual soundness of the residual income approach. The concept is then briefly set into the historical context of U.S. and British debates on affordability measures. This description is followed by a discussion of two of the principal issues involved in crafting an operational residual income standard: the selection of a normative standard for non-housing items and the treatment of taxes. The article concludes by considering some of the potential implications of the residual income paradigm for the analysis of housing problems and needs, for housing subsidy policy, and for mortgage underwriting practice

The noise-lovers: cultures of speech and sound in second-century Rome

This chapter provides an examination of an ideal of the ‘deliberate speaker’, who aims to reflect time, thought, and study in his speech. In the Roman Empire, words became a vital tool for creating and defending in-groups, and orators and authors in both Latin and Greek alleged, by contrast, that their enemies produced babbling noise rather than articulate speech. In this chapter, the ideal of the deliberate speaker is explored through the works of two very different contemporaries: the African-born Roman orator Fronto and the Syrian Christian apologist Tatian. Despite moving in very different circles, Fronto and Tatian both express their identity and authority through an expertise in words, in strikingly similar ways. The chapter ends with a call for scholars of the Roman Empire to create categories of analysis that move across different cultural and linguistic groups. If we do not, we risk merely replicating the parochialism and insularity of our sources.Accepted manuscrip