Judge Nonverbal Communication on Trial: Do Mock Trial Jurors Notice?

This study investigated jurors' reactions to judges' nonverbal communication in mock trials. Participants in 80 mock juries viewed taped segments of direct and cross examination that varied the judges' level of nonverbal involvement. Comments about the judge were solicited in predeliberation questionnaires and unsolicited comments obtained from dialogue that occurred during mock jury deliberations. The investigation found that jurors are aware of nonverbal cues from judges, particularly negative behaviors. Although the high- and low-involved judges solicited roughly the same number of comments, more negative comments were made about the judge displaying low than high nonverbal involvement. The results also revealed that jurors made more negative comments than positive ones. Overall, jurors are most aware of a judge's lack of involvement and apparent bias. Discussion focuses on ways to minimize the influence of judge nonverbal communication on jurors.     

The effect of aluminium coating on elemental standards in X-ray microanalysis

The standardisation of frozen hydrated bulk biological specimens using gelatin standards is described. The relationship between corrected elemental X-ray counts and ionic concentration was found to be linear, and minimum detectable limits for each element are stated. Variations in uncorrected standard curves were found to be due to changes in aluminium coating thickness. There was an inverse relationship between coating thickness and elemental X-ray counts. The factors causing this are discussed. To avoid errors arising from inconsistent aluminium thickness, experimental material should only be compared with standards of similar aluminium net counts. This can be achieved most easily by mounting and analysing specimen and standard together.     

Differentiating anxiety and depression in older adults with generalized anxiety disorder.

To examine affect and cognition in differentiating anxiety and depression, 83 older participants with generalized anxiety disorder completed the Cognitive Checklist (CCL) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). A 3-factor solution was found for the PANAS: positive affect (PA), anxiety and anger (Negative Affect 1 [NA-1]), and guilt and shame (Negative Affect 2 [NA-2]). A 2-factor structure was noted for the CCL. Correlations with anxiety and depression measures suggested that the CCL Depression (CCL-D) subscale showed stronger correlations with depression, whereas the CCL Anxiety subscale did not uniquely correlate with anxiety. The NA-1 subscale correlated positively with measures of depression and anxiety, whereas the PA subscale showed negative correlations. Hierarchical regression suggested that the CCL-D subscale was a significant predictor of self-reported depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antimicrobial activity of dogwood fruits (Cornus drummondii) from winter food caches of eastern woodrats (Neotoma floridana)

Post-harvest loss of resources to microbial competitors affects a number of species of animals, and many of them have evolved behaviors that reduce the likelihood of such loss. We previously described the inhibition ofBacillus psychrophilus by dogwood fruits (Cornus drummondii), which can comprise a significant portion of the winter food cache of the eastern woodrat (Neotoma floridana). The present study is a further investigation of the ability of dogwood fruits to inhibit growth ofB. psychrophilus. Additionally, we tested the antimicrobial activity of dogwood fruits onEscherichia coli andStaphlococcus aureus. Results of our study indicate that fresh fruits inhibit the growth ofB. psychrophilus andS. aureus but notE. coli. However, fruits taken from woodrat dens after four and six months storage inhibited growth of all three species of bacteria. Further, the strength of inhibition increased over the test period. We suggest the presence of an inhibitor allows woodrats to compete effectively for a valuable and limited food resource.     

Risky Business: Why People Feel Safe in Sexually Expicit On-Line Communication

The purpose of this study was to assess the use, in computer-mediated communication, of the strategic message structuring tactic known as framing. Interlocutors in computer-mediated environments have software supported systemic resources facilitative of constructing messages using framing tactics in their argumentative discourse. It is hypothesized that framing strategies are related to the emotional tenor of a disputant's message and that a speaker's emotional involvement with an issue should be curvilinearly related to the appropriation of framing as an argumentative discourse strategy. Results from the analysis of 3000 messages, obtained from a diverse sampling of computer-mediated discussion groups and forums, provided support for the primary hypothesized relationship. A speaker's emotional involvement was significantly and curvilinearly related to two message framing devices (message dependency and coalition building) and a measure of conciliatory face-saving moves.     

Efficient generation of a reshaped human mAb specific for the {alpha} toxin of Clostridium perfringens

We have used the technique of antibody reshaping to producea humanized antibody specific for the a toxin of Clostridiumperfringens. The starting antibody was from a mouse hybridomafrom which variable (V) region nucleo-tide sequences were determined.The complementarity-determining regions (CDRs) from these Vregions were then inserted into human heavy and light chainV region genes with human constant region gene fragments subsequentlyadded. The insertion of CDRs alone into human frameworks didnot produce a functional reshaped antibody and modificationsto the V region framework were required. With minor frameworkmodifications, the affinity of the original murine mAb was restoredand even exceeded. Where affinity was increased, an alteredbinding profile to overlapping peptides was observed. Computermodelling of the reshaped heavy chain V regions suggested thatamino acids adjacent to CDRs can either contribute to, or distort,CDR loop conformation and must be adjusted to achieve high bindingaffinity.     

Chiroptical activity of holmium pyrogermanate: tetragonal Ho2Ge2O7

Chiroptical luminescence and circular dichroism measurements are reported for single crystals of Ho₂Ge₂O₇. These crystals belong to the tetragonal space group P4,2,2 (or P4₃2₁2) with Z=4. Each Ho³⁺ ion in the crystal structure is coordinated to seven oxygens to form a distorted pentagonal bipyramid. The Ho³⁺ ions exhibit luminescence from several excited multiplet levels; chiroptical luminescence spectra are reported for ⁶I₈ → ⁶F₆, ⁶S₂, and ⁶F₃ at a sample temperature of 10 K. Room-temperature absorption and circular dichroism measurements are reported for the ⁶I₈ → ⁶F₆, ⁵S₂, ⁶F₄, and ⁶F₃ transition regions.     

Postpartum adjustment in first-time mothers: Relations between mood, maternal attitudes, and mother-infant interactions.

Self-report data were obtained from a middle-income sample of first-time mothers during pregnancy and at 1 and 3 months postpartum, and behavioral interactions between the mother and her infant were observed at 3 days and 1, 3, and 16 months postpartum. The main analyses revealed that pregnancy and postpartum mood states together explain a high proportion of the variance in mothers' maternal attitudes during the postpartum, although postpartum mood has the greater predictive power. Additionally, prior experience with children is significantly associated with maternal attitudes at all time points. Moreover, at both 1 and 3 months postpartum, depressed mothers, relative to nondepressed mothers, exhibit fewer affectionate contact behaviors toward their infants and are less likely to respond to infant vocalizations by vocalizing themselves, and, at 3 months, a higher proportion of the depressed mothers had started bottle-feeding their infants. Finally, differences in maternal behavior between depressed and nondepressed mothers during the early postpartum period were no longer apparent at 16 months postpartum. The implications of these findings are discussed with particular reference to the interrelations between prior child-care experience, mood, and maternal responsiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Application of parallelized analogical planning to engineering design

Analogical planning provides a means of solving engineering problems where other machine learning methods fail. Unlike many machine learning paradigms, analogy does not require numerous previous examples or a rich domain theory. Instead, analogical planners adapt knowledge of solved problems in similar domains to the current problem. Unfortunately, the analogical planning task is an expensive one. While the process of forming correspondences between a known problem and a new problem is complex, the problem of selecting a base case for the analogy is virtually intractable.This paper addresses the issue of efficiently forming analogical plans. The Anagram planning system is described, which takes advantage of the massively parallel architecture of the Connection Machine to perform base selection and map formation. Anagram provides a tractable solution to analogical planning, with a complexity that is sublinear in the size of the plans.This paper describes the Anagram system and its parallel algorithms. The paper also presents theoretical analyses and empirical results of testing the system on a large database of plans from the domain of automatic programming.