Guns, germs, and stealing: exploring the link between infectious disease and crime.

Can variation in crime rates be traced to the threat of infectious disease? Pathogens pose an ongoing challenge to survival, leading humans to adapt defenses to manage this threat. In addition to the biological immune system, humans have psychological and behavioral responses designed to protect against disease. Under persistent disease threat, xenophobia increases and people constrict social interactions to known in-group members. Though these responses reduce disease transmission, they can generate favorable crime conditions in two ways. First, xenophobia reduces inhibitions against harming and exploiting out-group members. Second, segregation into in-group factions erodes people's concern for the welfare of their community and weakens the collective ability to prevent crime. The present study examined the effects of infection incidence on crime rates across the United States. Infection rates predicted violent and property crime more strongly than other crime covariates. Infections also predicted homicides against strangers but not family or acquaintances, supporting the hypothesis that in-group-out-group discrimination was responsible for the infections-crime link. Overall, the results add to evidence that disease threat shapes interpersonal behavior and structural characteristics of groups

NASA advanced aeronautics design solar powered remotely piloted vehicle

Environmental problems such as the depletion of the ozone layer and air pollution demand a change in traditional means of propulsion that is sensitive to the ecology. Solar powered propulsion is a favorable alternative that is both ecologically harmless as well as cost effective. Integration of solar energy into designs ranging from futuristic vehicles to heating is beneficial to society. The design and construction of a Multi-Purpose Remotely Piloted Vehicle (MPRPV) seeks to verify the feasibility of utilizing solar propulsion as a primary fuel source. This task has been a year long effort by a group of ten students, divided into five teams, each dealing with different aspects of the design. The aircraft was designed to take-off, climb to the design altitude, fly in a sustained figure-eight flight path, and cruise for approximately one hour. This mission requires flight at Reynolds numbers between 150,000 and 200,000 and demands special considerations in the aerodynamic design in order to achieve flight in this regime. Optimal performance requires a light weight configuration with both structural integrity and maximum power availability. The structure design and choice of solar cells for the propulsion was governed by the weight, efficiency, and cost considerations. The final design is a MPRPV weighting 35 N which cruises 7 m/s at the design altitude of 50 m. The configuration includes a wing composed of balsa and foam NACA 6409 airfoil sections and carbon fiber spars, a tail of similar construction, and a truss structure fuselage. The propulsion system consists of 98 10 percent efficient solar cells donated by Mobil Solar, a NiCad battery for energy storage, and a folding propeller regulated by a lightweight and efficient control system. The airfoils and propeller chosen for the design were research and tested during the design process

Factors affecting ammonium uptake in streams - an inter-biome perspective

The Lotic Intersite Nitrogen experiment (LINX) was a coordinated study of the relationships between North American biomes and factors governing ammonium uptake in streams. Our objective was to relate inter-biome variability of ammonium uptake to physical, chemical and biological processes. 2. Data were collected from 11 streams ranging from arctic to tropical and from desert to rainforest. Measurements at each site included physical, hydraulic and chemical characteristics, biological parameters, whole-stream metabolism and ammonium uptake. Ammonium uptake was measured by injection of \u275~-ammonium and downstream measurements of 15N-ammonium concentration. 3. We found no general, statistically significant relationships that explained the variability in ammonium uptake among sites. However, this approach does not account for the multiple mechanisms of ammonium uptake in streams. When we estimated biological demand for inorganic nitrogen based on our measurements of in-stream metabolism, we found good correspondence between calculated nitrogen demand and measured assimilative nitrogen uptake. 4. Nitrogen uptake varied little among sites, reflecting metabolic compensation in streams in a variety of distinctly different biomes (autotrophic production is high where allochthonous inputs are relatively low and vice versa). 5. Both autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism require nitrogen and these biotic processes dominate inorganic nitrogen retention in streams. Factors that affect the relative balance of autotrophic and heterotrophic metabolism indirectly control inorganic nitrogen uptake

The Bitter Truth about Morality: Virtue, Not Vice, Makes a Bland Beverage Taste Nice

To demonstrate that sensory and emotional states play an important role in moral processing, previous research has induced physical disgust in various sensory modalities (visual, tactile, gustatory, and olfactory modalities, among others) and measured its effects on moral judgment. To further assess the strength of the connection between embodied states and morality, we investigated whether the directionality of the effect could be reversed by exposing participants to different types of moral events prior to rating the same neutral tasting beverage. As expected, reading about moral transgressions, moral virtues, or control events resulted in inducing gustatory disgust, delight, or neutral taste experiences, respectively. Results are discussed in terms of the relation between embodied cognition and processing abstract conceptual representations

Genetic architecture and evolution of the S locus supergene in Primula vulgaris

Darwin’s studies on heterostyly in Primula described two floral morphs, pin and thrum, with reciprocal anther and stigma heights that promote insect-mediated cross-pollination. This key innovation evolved independently in several angiosperm families. Subsequent studies on heterostyly in Primula contributed to the foundation of modern genetic theory and the neo-Darwinian synthesis. The established genetic model for Primula heterostyly involves a diallelic S locus comprising several genes, with rare recombination events that result in self-fertile homostyle flowers with anthers and stigma at the same height. Here we reveal the S locus supergene as a tightly-linked cluster of thrum-specific genes that are absent in pins. We show that thrums are hemizygous not heterozygous for the S locus, which suggests that homostyles do not arise by recombination between S locus haplotypes as previously proposed. Duplication of a floral homeotic gene 51.7 MYA, followed by its neofunctionalisation, created the current S locus assemblage which led to floral heteromorphy in Primula. Our findings provide new insights into the structure, function and evolution of this archetypal supergene

Investigating relationships between cost and CO₂ emissions in reinforced concrete structures using a BIM-based design optimisation approach

An integrated design approach for the cost and embodied carbon optimisation of reinforced concrete structures is presented in this paper to inform early design decisions. A BIM-based optimisation approach that utilises Finite Element Modelling (FEM) and a multi-objective genetic algorithm with constructability constraints is established for that purpose. A multilevel engineering analysis model is developed to perform structural layout optimisation, slab and columns sizing optimisation, and slab and columns reinforcement optimisation. The overall approach is validated using real buildings and the relationships between cost and carbon optimum solutions are explored. The study exhibits how cost effective and carbon efficient solutions could be obtained without compromising the feasibility of the optimised designs. Results demonstrate that the structural layout and the slab thickness are amongst the most important design optimisation parameters. Finally, the overall analysis suggests that the building form can influence the relationships between cost and carbon for the different structural components

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Sensor recorded changes in rates of hand washing with soap in response to the media reports of the H1N1 pandemic in Britain

Objectives To examine how the frequency of information regarding a real disease threat influences hand washing with soap. Design and setting The authors installed wireless devices in highway service station lavatories in England to record the proportion of individuals washing hands with soap from May 2009 to January 2010. Participants Participants were users of men's and women's toilets. Combined there was an average of 6800 participant entrances into the lavatories daily. Primary outcome measure The primary outcome measure is the proportion of soap usage to the number of entries into the lavatories. Results Hand-washing rates were positively related to both H1NI coverage in blogs and the news; however, these relationships were stronger for men than for women. Conclusions Hand washing with soap increases proportionally to the frequency of media key words related to H1N1. Women's hand washing was more strongly associated with incidence of media keywords than men's

Digital Signal Processing Group

Contains an introduction and reports on nineteen research projects.U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-77-C-0266)U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-81-K-0742)National Science Foundation (Grant ECS80-07102)Bell Laboratories FellowshipAmoco Foundation FellowshipU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (Contract N00014-77-C-0196)Schlumberger-Doll Research Center FellowshipToshiba Company FellowshipVinton Hayes FellowshipHertz Foundation Fellowshi

Subseasonal variability associated with Asian summer monsoon simulated by 14 IPCC AR4 coupled GCMs

This study evaluates the subseasonal variability associated with the Asian summer monsoon in 14 coupled general circulation models (GCMs) participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Eight years of each model's twentieth-century climate simulation are analyzed. The authors focus on the three major components of Asian summer monsoon: the Indian summer monsoon (ISM), the western North Pacific summer monsoon (WNPSM), and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM), together with the two dominant subseasonal modes: the eastward- and northward-propagating boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSIO) and the westward-propagating 12-24-day mode. The results show that current state-of-the-art GCMs still have difficulties and display a wide range of skill in simulating the subseasonal variability associated with Asian summer monsoon. During boreal summer (May-October), most of the models produce reasonable seasonal-mean precipitation over the ISM region, but excessive precipitation over the WNPSM region and insufficient precipitation over the EASM region. In other words, models concentrate their rain too close to the equator in the western Pacific. Most of the models simulate overly weak total subseasonal (2-128 day) variance, as well as too little variance for BSIO and the 12-24-day mode. Only 4-5 models produce spectral peaks in the BSIO and 12-24-day frequency bands; instead, most of the models display too red a spectrum, that is, an overly strong persistence of precipitation. For the seven models with three-dimensional data available, five reproduce the preconditioning of moisture in BSIO but often with a too late starting time, and only three simulate the phase lead of low-level convergence. Interestingly, although models often have difficulty in simulating the eastward propagation of BSIO, they tend to simulate well the northward propagation of BSIO, together with the westward propagation of the 12-24-day mode. The northward propagation in these models is thus not simply a NW-SE-tilted tail protruding off of an eastward-moving deep-tropical intraseasonal oscillation.open444