This paper aims to examine how reversibility in disclosing personal information – that is, having (vs not having) to option to later revise or retract personal information – can impact consumers’ willingness to divulge personal information. Three studies examined how informing consumers they may (reversible condition) or may not (irreversible condition) revise their personal information in the future affected their propensity to disclose personal information, compared to a control condition. Study 1 (which included three experiments with different time intervals between initial and revised disclosure) showed that consumers disclose less in both the reversible and irreversible conditions, compared to the control condition. Studies 2 and 3 showed that this is because consumers treat reversibility as a cue to the sensitivity of the information they are asked to divulge, and that leads them to disclose less when reversibility or irreversibility is made explicitly salient beforehand. As many marketers are interested in hoarding consumers’ personal information, privacy advocates call for methods that would ensure careful and well-informed disclosure. Offering reversibility to a decision to disclose personal information, or merely pointing out the irreversibility of that decision, can make consumers reevaluate the sensitivity of the situation, leading to more careful disclosures. Although previous research on reversibility in consumer behavior focused on product return policies and showed that reversibility increases purchases, none have studied how reversibility affects self-disclosure and how it can decrease it.
ABSTRACTUnderstanding the chemical interactions of common allergens in urban environments may help to decipher the general increase in susceptibility to allergies observed in recent decades. In this study, asexual conidia of the allergenic mold Aspergillus fumigatus were exposed to air pollution under natural (ambient) and controlled (laboratory) conditions. The allergenic activity was measured using two immunoassays and supported by a protein mass spectrometry analysis. The allergenicity of the conidia was found to increase by 2–5 fold compared to the control for short exposure times of up to 12h (accumulated exposure of about 50ppb NO2 and 750ppb O3), possibly due to nitration. At higher exposure times, the allergenicity increase lessened due to protein deamidation. These results indicate that during the first 12h of exposure, the allergenic potency of the fungal allergen A. fumigatus in polluted urban environments is expected to increase. Additional work is needed in order to determine if this behavior occurs for other allergens.
There is today a well-established consensus that belligerents must be disarmed in order to reconstruct shattered states and establish a robust and durable peace in the wake of internal armed conflict. Indeed, nearly every UN peacekeeping intervention since the end of the Cold War has included disarmament provisions in its mandate. Disarmament is guided by the arrestingly simple premise that weapons cause conflict and, therefore, must be eradicated for a civil conflict to end. If the means by which combatants fight are eliminated, it is thought, actors will have little choice but to commit to peace. Disarmament is, therefore, considered a necessary condition for establishing the lasting conditions for peace. To date, however, no systematic quantitative analysis has been undertaken of the practice of disarmament and the causal mechanisms remain underspecified. This paper is a preliminary attempt to fill that gap. In it we outline a series of hypotheses with which to run future statistical analyses on the effects of disarmament programs. The success of negotiations and the durability of peace are, perhaps, the single most salient issues concerning those engaged in conflict termination efforts. We therefore focus the bulk of this paper on a review of the supposed effects of disarmament on negotiating outcomes and war recurrence.
This chapter summarizes the authors' efforts to develop modified microemulsions as nano-sized self-assembled liq. vehicles for the solubilization of nutraceuticals and to improve transmembrane transport for addnl. health benefits. Construction of U-type phase diagrams is essential for formulations of water-dilutable microemulsions. The solubilized active mols. are compds. with nutritional value to human health that are used in food applications. The chapter mentions a few such examples, such as lycopene, phytosterols, lutein, toco-pherols, CoQ10 , and essential oils. Some nutraceuticals are known to be practically insol. in water and, therefore, tablets or capsules that are taken orally tend to ppt. once the active ingredient is dild. with water. As a result, the bioavailability is very limited, and the adsorption from the intestine to the blood serum is poorly controlled. Water entrapped at the core of a w/o microemulsion can be bound to the surfactant head group that will restrict the water activity. [on SciFinder(R)]
The effect of Cu impurities on the absorption cross section, the rate of hot exction thermalization, and on exciton recombination processes in InAs quantum dots was studied by femtosecond transient absorption. Our findings reveal dynamic spectral effects of an emergent impurity sub-band near the bottom of the conduction band. Previously hypothesized to explain static photophysical properties of this system, its presence is shown to shorten hot carrier relaxation. Partial redistribution of interband oscillator strength to sub-band levels reduces the band edge bleach per exciton progressively with the degree of doping, even though the total linear absorption cross section at the band edge remains unchanged. In contrast, no doping effects were detected on absorption cross sections high in the conduction band, as expected due to the relatively high density of sates of the undoped QDs.
Bone implants must be biocompatible and are usually built to promote osseointegration, e.g. by application of plasma spray calcium phosphate (CaP) coating. The risk of infection and biofilm formation on implant surfaces is a well-known problem. The combination of electrochem. deposited CaP coating with antibiotics may offer significant benefits. Here, we demonstrate an innovative in situ electrodeposition of gentamicin encapsulated in chitosan nanoparticles along with CaP. The deposition of the coating was obsd. and studied at several temps. A high drug loading into the coating and a controlled release of the drug over two days were demonstrated. [on SciFinder(R)]
Exposure to war is associated with psychological disturbances, but ongoing communication between adolescents and teachers may contribute to adolescents’ resilience. This study examined the extent and nature of teacher-student communication on Social Network Sites (SNS) during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. Israeli adolescents (N = 208, 13-18 yrs) completed information about SNS communication. A subset of these (N = 145) completed questionnaires on social rejection and distress sharing on SNS. More than a half (56%) of the respondents communicated with teachers via SNS. The main content category was ’emotional support’. Adolescents’ perceived benefits from SNS communication with teachers were associated with distress sharing. Social rejection was negatively associated with emotional support and perceived benefits from SNS communication. We conclude that SNS communication between teachers and students may provide students with easy access to human connections and emotional support, which is likely to contribute to adolescents’ resilience in times of war.
Background: T2R bitter taste receptors play a crucial role in sinonasal innate immunity by upregulating mucociliary clearance and nitric oxide (NO) production in response to bitter gram-negative quorum-sensing molecules in the airway surface liquid. Previous studies showed that phytochemical flavonoid metabolites, known as anthocyanidins, taste bitter and have antibacterial effects. Our objectives were to examine the effects of anthocyanidins on NO production by human sinonasal epithelial cells and ciliary beat frequency, and their impact on common sinonasal pathogens Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Methods: Ciliary beat frequency and NO production were measured by using digital imaging of differentiated air-liquid interface cultures prepared from primary human cells isolated from residual surgical material. Plate-based assays were used to determine the effects of anthocyanidins on bacterial swimming and swarming motility. Biofilm formation and planktonic growth were also assessed. Results: Anthocyanidin compounds triggered epithelial cells to produce NO but not through T2R receptors. However, anthocyanidins did not impact ciliary beat frequency. Furthermore, they did not reduce biofilm formation or planktonic growth of P. aeruginosa. In S. aureus, they did not reduce planktonic growth, and only one compound had minimal antibiofilm effects. The anthocyanidin delphinidin and anthocyanin keracyanin were found to promote bacterial swimming, whereas anthocyanidin cyanidin and flavonoid myricetin did not. No compounds that were tested inhibited bacterial swarming. Conclusion: Results of this study indicated that, although anthocyanidins may elicited an innate immune NO response from human cells, they do not cause an increase in ciliary beating and they may also cause a pathogenicity-enhancing effect in P. aeruginosa. Additional studies are necessary to understand how this would affect the use of anthocyanidins as therapeutics. This study emphasized the usefulness of in vitro screening of candidate compounds against multiple parameters of both epithelial and bacterial physiologies to prioritize candidates for in vivo therapeutic testing.
Plant glandular secreting trichomes are epidermal protuberances that produce structurally diverse specialized metabolites, including medically important compounds. Trichomes of many plants in the nightshade family (Solanaceae) produce O-acylsugars, and in cultivated and wild tomatoes these are mixtures of aliphatic esters of sucrose and glucose of varying structures and quantities documented to contribute to insect defense. We characterized the first two enzymes of acylsucrose biosynthesis in the cultivated tomato Solanum lycopersicum. These are type I/IV trichome-expressed BAHD acyltransferases encoded by Solyc12g006330-or S. lycopersicum acylsucrose acyltransferase 1 (Sl-ASAT1)-and Solyc04g012020 (Sl-ASAT2). These enzymes were used.in concert with two previously identified BAHD acyltransferases. to reconstruct the entire cultivated tomato acylsucrose biosynthetic pathway in vitro using sucrose and acyl-CoA substrates. Comparative genomics and biochemical analysis of ASAT enzymes were combined with in vitro mutagenesis to identify amino acids that influence CoA ester substrate specificity and contribute to differences in types of acylsucroses that accumulate in cultivated andwild tomato species. This work demonstrates the feasibility of the metabolic engineering of these insecticidal metabolites in plants and microbes.
Both William Shakespeare (1564–1616) and his contemporary Chinese counterpart Tang Xianzu (1550–1616) explore three types of human lust — incest, zoophilia and greed for power but show remarkable disparities in the ways of treating them. Shakespearean plays and western classical drama in general present more severe forms of incest, whereas Tang Xianzu’s works and traditional Chinese drama as a whole are quite free from incest between blood relatives, which is muted as an abhorred violation of Confucian principles guiding family life. By contrast, Tang Xianzu demonstrates tolerance of zoophilia; whereas Shakespeare’s oblique evocation of zoophilia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream reflects his culture’s intolerance of bestiality. In regard to greed for power, Tang Xianzu’s protagonists never have political ambitions that go beyond the position of prime minister, showing no covetous desire for the throne; Shakespeare, however, includes several incidents of regicide in his plays. The paper points to the difference in the cultural contexts of the two masters lived that to a large extent determine the difference in their ways of representing these forms of lust.
June 2016: Chen Maoqing is Associate Professor in the English Department, the School of Foreign Languages, of East China Normal University in Shanghai. His research interests are comparative drama, Australian literature, and applied linguistics. As a Fulbright visiting scholar, he researched “Traditional Chinese Drama on the American Stage: Performance and Receptions since 1850s” at the University of California, Irvine, in 2013-14. He has just completed the Shanghai municipal project on “The Dissemination and Reception of Traditional Chinese Theatres in Hawaii” and is currently working on the state-funded project “The Dissemination and Reception of Traditional Chinese Theaters across the United States of America.” His articles include “Chinese Plays on the Hawaiian Stage: 1905-1976,” “Women as ‘Dasein’: A Philosophical Approach to Maria Irene Fornes’ Fefu and Her Friends,” “A Young Artist Struggling in the Bush: On the Heroine in Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career” and “Tacit Knowledge and Second Language Acquisition.”
