A well-established effect of animated agents in educational and other contexts is their potential to motivate and engage. "Increased motivation in users" is also one of the more frequent answers given to the question, "What is gained by adding an animated pedagogical agent to an intelligent tutoring system?" To further develop and exploit this potential, there are, however, several issues that nee

A piezoelectric sprayer was recently developed for precision release of odor stimuli in olfactory research. The device replaces conventional dispensers used to release semiochemicals in studies of moth flight toward odor sources. However, the device generates high-frequency sounds in the range that some moths can hear. Ultrasound from the standard set-up sprayer had a considerable impact on flight

In foster care research the focus is generally placed on the children, not on the parents who perform the foster care. In this article the focus is on foster parents of 10-11 year-old children. They were interviewed about their motives for becoming foster parents, which were linked to their family and work circumstances. Among the 21 foster families in the study, four different but equally frequen

We present a general framework for computing various optimal embeddings of undirected and directed connected graphs in two and multi-dimensional integer lattices in time sub-exponential either in the minimum number n of lattice points used by such optimal embeddings or in the budget upper bound b on the number of lattice points that may be used in an embedding. The sub-exponential upper bounds in

Systemic lupus erythematosus is a disease of unknown etiology. Multiple genetic factors are believed to be involved in its pathogenesis. In addition, and due to genetic heterogeneity, these factors and/or their combinations may be different in different ethnic groups, while some might be shared between populations. We have performed genome scans in multicase families from three different populatio

During evolution of land plants, a specific motif occurred in the N-terminal domain of the chloroplast-localized small heat shock protein, Hsp21: a sequence with highly conserved methionines, which is predicted to form an amphipathic -helix with the methionines situated along one side. The functional role of these conserved methionines is not understood. We have found previously that treatment, wh

The article’s findings show how in the Chinese reform-era of the 1980s and 90s, language control and strategic management of political discourse exercised by cadres in China's communist party propaganda apparatus helped forestall a development along Soviet lines ending with the sudden collapse of the socialist state. The findings indicate that the post-reform future—which in parts of China has, in

A steady state agglomerate model for the MCFC cathode which takes into account the heterogeneous structure of this porous electrode is presented. The resulting model equations are solved by means of the finite element method. Calculations have been performed on two different test structures and include the influence of kinetics, porosity, outer surface area and distribution of electrolyte film. Co

We report a novel a lift-off method for nanoimprint lithography. This is a bi-layer method, using a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) on lift-off layer (LOL) resist scheme. For the imprint step, direct evidence for good pattern transfer down to 20 nm is shown. Oxygen plasma ashing is required to remove residual PMMA. A liquid solvent, MF 319, is used to transfer the pattern down to the silicon. The L

Cyclic dynamics of bird and mammal populations are commonly reported in northern latitudes throughout the world, and recent European observations on rodents and grouse suggest that cycle periods decline towards southern latitudes. To investigate latitudinal patterns of cyclic dynamics in North America, we assembled 27 long-term data sets collected between 1939 and 2001 for three grouse species. By

The Nef protein of human and simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV/SIV) is believed to interfere with T cell activation signals by forming a signaling complex at the plasma membrane. Composition and function of the complex are not fully understood. Here we report that Nef recruits the Polycomb Group (PcG) protein Eed, so far known as a nuclear factor and repressor of transcription, to the membrane of

The hallmark of severe haemophilia, defined as a circulating level of factor (F) VIII (haemophilia A cases) or FIX (haemophilia B cases) of < 1%, is recurrent bleeding into muscles and joints (haemarthroses) from an early age of life. The inevitable result of such bleeding is progressive joint damage, leading to disabling arthritis that is typically evident within the first 2 decades of life in pe