Children's ideas about the environmental impact of cars: a cross age study

The ideas of children about the environmental impact of vehicle emissions have been explored using a precoded questionnaire. The children were from British National Curriculum Years 7 (age 11/12 years), 9 (age 13/14) and 11 (age 15/16). Even in the oldest group only about half of the children appreciated the advantages of smaller, well‐maintained cars; this could have practical implication if not corrected in the adult population. Children seemed well aware of the environmental problems, smog, Acid Rain and Global Warming, to which vehicle emissions contribute, but these are part of an over‐generalised model which children employ in which cars are envisaged as contributing to other problems such as Ozone Layer depletion. We suggest that the use of the generic term ‘pollution’ to describe a wide range of environmental insults and the use of the word ‘environment’ in a non‐defined way might hinder children's differentiation of the different causes of separate environmental problems. The gaps in children's knowledge of the different components of vehicle emissions may reflect and exacerbate this difficulty. Ironically, children have a regard for the environmental and an interest in cars, and a combination of these enthusiasms may provide an opportunity for environmental education and curriculum science teaching.     

Incentives and disincentives for using renewable energy: Turkish students’ ideas

A closed-form questionnaire was used to explore the prevalence of ideas of Turkish school students in years 7 and 8 (age 13–14 years) about renewable power generation. The questionnaire investigated students’ ideas about the characteristics of renewable energy, its perceived advantages and disadvantgaes, and, separately, their views about the importance of the characteristics of energy production; it is likely that a combination of such beliefs could act as incentives or disincentives to the acceptability of renewable power. In terms of cost, about half of the students thought that it is cheaper to generate electricity from renewable sources, and only a quarter thought that renewable power generators would be expensive to dismantle at the end of their working life. There were some concerns about safety; although half of the students thought that renewable power installations were safer than other types of power generators, over half thought that renewable power generators could in some way harm plants, animals or humans that lived nearby. In terms of the capacity of renewable electricity generation, nearly two-third of the students thought that such sources could provide sufficient power for the population, and a similar proportion thought that electricity from renewable sources would be available continuously. Only about half of the students appreciated the contribution that renewable sources could make to a reduction in global warming, and more than half thought that such generators would in fact create environmental problems. Most of the characteristics mentioned were regarded as important, although the cost of electricity appeared less so to these particular students. When the responses about believed characteristics and views about their importance were combined, it appeared that the belief that renewable power could produce a reliable supply of electricity and, encouragingly, that it could contribute to a reduction in global warming, would be persuasive arguments for its implementation.     

Group treatment for child sexual abuse.

Describes a 12-wk group therapy program used with more than 50 preadolescent children (aged 7–12 yrs) who have experienced intrafamilial sexual abuse. A cotherapy model is used. 90-min group sessions consist of 4 parts: circle time, focused activities, diary time, and snack. Activities are designed to highlight (1) development of trust, cohesiveness, and safety; (2) identification and labeling of feelings; (3) discussion of family relationships and family changes; and (4) exploration of issues associated with the offender. Sessions also examine legal issues and concerns and focus on self-esteem enhancement, social skills development, sex education, prevention of future abuse, and termination issues. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In situ nanoscale wet imaging of the heterogeneous catalyzationof nitriles in a solution phase: novel hydrogenation chemistry through nanocatalysts on nanosupports

Wet-environmental transmission electron microscopy studies of heterogeneous hydrogenation of complex nitriles in a liquid phase over new mesoporous cobalt-promoted ruthenium nanocatalysts on reducible nanotitania supports are presented. The desorbed organic products in the dynamic liquid phase hydrogenation are imaged situ on the nanoscale. The direct studies on the “nanocomposite” catalysts are correlated with parallel reaction chemistry measurements. They demonstrate high hydrogenation activity at low operating temperatures in the presence of atomic scale anion vacancy defects associated with Lewis acid sites at the nanosupport surface and an electronic and synergistic contribution to the promoter mechanism. The combined synergistic effect between the two metals and the interaction with the reduced nanosupport leading to an electronic modification lead to highly reactive site for the hydrogenation catalysis. The results illustrate novel selective hydrogenation chemistry with mesoporous nanocatalyst systems on nanosupports.     

Repetition of overdose: a retrospective 5-year study

This study investigated the number, timing and disposal (admission or discharge) of patients repeating an overdose who attended the accident and emergency department of a district general hospital during a 5-year period. There was a total of 1958 overdoses by 1597 individuals over the 5-year period. Overdoses were repeated by 12% (n = 191) of patients and accounted for 552 of the total overdoses (representing 361 repeats). First repeats were found to occur more frequently in the 3 months following the original overdose for 43% of patients, 70% of repetitions occurring within a year. The distribution of first repeats showed a similar pattern for males and females. During the 5-year period 49% of all repetitions occurred within 3 months. Almost one-fifth of repeaters were discharged, irrespective of whether it was the patient's 'index' (first overdose within the study period) or a repeat overdose. Within the repeater population, 31% of overdoses occurred on a Friday, Saturday and on, or immediately prior to, a Bank Holiday. Since there was no on-site psychiatric service available at such times, those patients had to wait until the next working day for assessment. The study recommends that all overdose patients should receive psychiatric assessment, and therefore on-site psychiatric services should be available for accident and emergency patients.     

Telling tales: Aging, working memory, and the narrative cohesion of story retellings.

This study investigated adult age differences in the cohesion of narrative retellings in both the reference and conjunction discourse systems and explored the role of information-processing factors in accounting for any such differences. Twenty Ss in each of the age groups 18–25, 26–55, and 60–87 either read a story or its parallel cartoon version, then retold it twice. Stories were coded for recall, clarity of referencing, and types of propositional connectives. We also obtained Daneman's (1980) measure of sentence memory span. The oldest group scored significantly lower on the memory span measure, recalled less story information, and made more referential errors in retellings. There were no age differences in complexity of conjunction usage. Working memory span scores partly accounted for the differences observed in referential quality both within and between age groups. Results are generally consistent with an information-processing account of story telling and aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Arabidopsis thaliana RPM1 disease resistance gene product is a peripheral plasma membrane protein that is degraded coincident with the hypersensitive response

Disease resistance in plants is often controlled by a gene-for-gene mechanism in which avirulence (avr) gene products encoded by pathogens are specifically recognized, either directly or indirectly, by plant disease resistance (R) gene products. Members of the NBS-LRR class of R genes encode proteins containing a putative nucleotide binding site (NBS) and carboxyl-terminal leucine-rich repeats (LRRs). Generally, NBS-LRR proteins do not contain predicted transmembrane segments or signal peptides, suggesting they are soluble cytoplasmic proteins. RPM1 is an NBS-LRR protein from Arabidopsis thaliana that confers resistance to Pseudomonas syringae expressing either avrRpm1 or avrB. RPM1 protein was localized by using an epitope tag. In contrast to previous suggestions, RPM1 is a peripheral membrane protein that likely resides on the cytoplasmic face of the plasma membrane. Furthermore, RPM1 is degraded coincident with the onset of the hypersensitive response, suggesting a negative feedback loop controlling the extent of cell death and overall resistance response at the site of infection.     

Colposcopic evaluation of pregnant patients with abnormal cervical smears

Colposcopic examination and biopsy were used to assess 123 pregnant patients presenting with abnormal cervical smears. Eighty-seven per cent were 30 years of age or less and 95 (77 per cent) had had one or no previous children. Two patients were found to have microinvasive carcinoma and, in an additional 95 patients, either severe dysplasia or carcinoma in situ was present. Fifty-five patients (45 per cent) had subsequent conization or hysterectomy and in no instance was the histological diagnosis more serious than that anticipated from the colposcopic evaluation. Only three patients (1-6 per cent) had a cone biopsy during pregnancy; only one minor complication occurred. Colposcopic examination is the choice method of evaluating patients with abnormal cervical smears in pregnancy.     

Synthesis of gadolinium nanoscale metal-organic framework with hydrotropes: manipulation of particle size and magnetic resonance imaging capability

Gadolinium metal-organic framework (Gd MOF) nanoparticles are an interesting and novel class of nanomaterials that are being studied as a potential replacement for small molecule positive contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Despite the tremendous interest in these nanoscale imaging constructs, there are limitations, particularly with respect to controlling the particle size, which need to be overcome before these nanoparticles can be integrated into in vivo applications. In an effort to control the size, shape, and size distribution of Gd MOF nanoparticles, hydrotropes were incorporated into the reverse microemulsion synthesis used to produce these nanoparticles. A study of how hydrotropes influenced the mechanism of formation of reverse micelles offered a great deal of information with respect to the physical properties of the Gd MOF nanoparticles formed. Specifically, this study incorporated the hydrotropes, sodium salicylate (NaSal), 5-methyl salicylic acid, and salicylic acid into the reverse microemulsion. Results demonstrated that addition of each of the hydrotropes into the synthesis of Gd MOFs provided a simple route to control the nanoparticle size as a function of hydrotrope concentration. Specifically, Gd MOF nanoparticles synthesized with NaSal showed the best reduction in size distributions in both length and width with percent relative standard deviations being nearly 50% less than nanoparticles produced via the standard route from the literature. Finally, the effect of the size of the Gd MOF nanoparticles with respect to their MRI relaxation properties was evaluated. Initial results indicated a positive correlation between the surface areas of the Gd MOF nanoparticles with the longitudinal relaxivity in MRI. In particular, Gd MOF nanoparticles with an average size of 82 nm with the addition of NaSal, yielded a longitudinal relaxivity value of 83.9 mM?1 [Gd3?] sec?1, one of the highest reported values compared to other Gd-based nanoparticles in the literature to date.