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Visual Evidence (visual + evidence)
Selected AbstractsVisual Evidence for Formation of Water-in-Ionic Liquid MicroemulsionsCHEMPHYSCHEM, Issue 18 2009Kamalakanta Behera Now you see it: Formation of water-in-ionic liquid [bmim][PF6] microemulsions by the nonionic surfactant triton X-100 can be observed from the color change of CoII within the solution (see picture). [source] INCONGRUOUS IMAGES: "BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER" THE HOLOCAUST,HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 4 2009MARIANNE HIRSCH ABSTRACT When historians, archivists, and museologists turn to Eastern European photos from family albums or collections,for example, photos from the decades preceding the Holocaust and the early years of the Second World War,they seek visual evidence or illustrations of the past. But photographs may refuse to fit expected narratives and interpretations, revealing both more and less than we expect. Focusing on photos of Jews taken on the main avenues of Cernǎu,i, Romania, before the Second World War and during the city's occupation by Fascist Romanians and their Nazi-German allies, this essay shows how a close reading of these vernacular images, both for what they show and what they are unable to show, can challenge the "before, during, and after" timeline that, in Holocaust historiography, we have come to accept as a given. [source] Assessing damaged road verges as a suspended sediment source in the Hampshire Avon catchment, southern United KingdomHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 9 2010A. L. Collins Abstract Diffuse sediment pollution impairs water quality, exerts a key control on the transfer and fate of nutrients and contaminants and causes deleterious impacts on freshwater ecology. A variety of catchment sediment sources can contribute to such problems. Sediment control strategies and effective targeting of mitigation options therefore require robust quantitative information on the key sources of the sediment problem at catchment scale. Recent observations by Catchment Sensitive Farming Officers (CSFO's) in England have highlighted road verges damaged and eroded by passing vehicles, particularly large farm machinery, and livestock herd movement as visually important potential sources of local sediment problems. A study was therefore undertaken to assess the relative importance of damaged road verges as a suspended sediment source in three sub-catchments of the Hampshire Avon drainage basin, southern UK. Road verge sediment contributions were apportioned in conjunction with those from agricultural topsoils and channel banks/subsurface sources. Time-integrating isokinetic samplers were deployed to sample suspended sediment fluxes at the outlets of two control sub-catchments drained by the Rivers Chitterne and Till selected to characterize areas with a low road network density and limited visual evidence of verge damage, as well as the River Sem sub-catchment used to represent areas where road verge damage is more prevalent. The findings of a sediment source fingerprinting investigation based on a combination of intermittent sampling campaigns spanning the period 22/5/02,27/4/08 suggested that the respective overall mean relative sediment contributions from damaged road verges were 5 ± 3%, 4 ± 2% and 20 ± 2%. Relative inputs from damaged road verges for any specific sampling period in the River Sem sub-catchment were as high as 33 ± 2%. Reconstruction of historical sources in the same sub-catchment, based on the geochemical record stored in a floodplain depth profile, suggested that the significance of damaged road verges as a sediment source has increased over the past 15,20 years. The findings provide important information on damaged road verges as a primary source of suspended sediment and imply that catchment sediment control strategies and mitigation plans should consider such verges in addition to those agricultural and channel sources traditionally taken into account when attempting to reduce sediment pressures on aquatic resources. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Microscopic observation of aerobic granulation in sequential aerobic sludge blanket reactorJOURNAL OF APPLIED MICROBIOLOGY, Issue 1 2001J.-H. Tay Aims: This paper attempts to provide visual evidence of how aerobic granulation evolves in sequential aerobic sludge blanket reactors. Methods and Results: A series of experiments were conducted in two column-type sequential aerobic sludge reactors fed with glucose and acetate as sole carbon source, respectively. The evolution of aerobic granulation was monitored using image analysis and optical and scanning electron microscopy. The results indicated that the formation of aerobic granules was a gradual process from seed sludge to compact aggregates, further to granular sludge and finally to mature granules with the sequential operation proceeding. Glucose- and acetate-fed granules have comparable characteristics in terms of settling velocity, size, shape, biomass density and microbial activity. However, the microbial diversity of the granules was associated with the carbon source supplied. In this work, an important aerobic starvation phase was identified during sequential operation cycles. It was found that periodical aerobic starvation was an effective trigger for microbial aggregation in the reactor and further strengthened cell,cell interaction to form dense aggregates, which was an essential step of granulation. The periodical starvation-induced aggregates would finally be shaped to granules by hydrodynamic shear and flow. Conclusions: Aerobic granules can be formed within 3 weeks in the systems. The periodical starvation and hydrodynamic conditions would play a crucial role in the granulation process. Significance and Impact of the Study: Aerobic granules have excellent physical characteristics as compared with conventional activated sludge flocs. This research could be helpful for the development of an aerobic granule-based novel type of reactor for handling high strength organic wastewater. [source] Adjusted Scaling of FDG Positron Emission Tomography Images for Statistical Evaluation in Patients With Suspected Alzheimer's DiseaseJOURNAL OF NEUROIMAGING, Issue 4 2005Ralph Buchert PhD ABSTRACT Background and Purpose. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) gained increasing acceptance for the voxel-based statistical evaluation of brain positron emission tomography (PET) with the glucose analog 2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-d-glucose (FDG) in patients with suspected Alzheimer's disease (AD). To increase the sensitivity for detection of local changes, individual differences of total brain FDG uptake are usually compensated for by proportional scaling. However, in cases of extensive hypometabolic areas, proportional scaling overestimates scaled uptake. This may cause significant underestimation of the extent of hypometabolic areas by the statistical test. Methods. To detect this problem, the authors tested for hyper metabolism. In patients with no visual evidence of true focal hypermetabolism, significant clusters of hypermetabolism in the presence of extended hypometabolism were interpreted as false-positive findings, indicating relevant overestimation of scaled uptake. In this case, scaled uptake was reduced step by step until there were no more significant clusters of hypermetabolism. Results. In 22 consecutive patients with suspected AD, proportional scaling resulted in relevant overestimation of scaled uptake in 9 patients. Scaled uptake had to be reduced by 11.1%± 5.3% in these cases to eliminate the artifacts. Adjusted scaling resulted in extension of existing and appearance of new clusters of hypometabolism. Total volume of the additional voxels with significant hypometabolism depended linearly on the extent of the additional scaling and was 202 ± 118 mL on average. Conclusions. Adjusted scaling helps to identify characteristic metabolic patterns in patients with suspected AD. It is expected to increase specificity of FDGPET in this group of patients. [source] GENTRIFICATION AND THE GRASSROOTS: POPULAR SUPPORT IN THE REVANCHIST SUBURBJOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Issue 2 2006Christopher Niedt Drawing from a year of fieldwork in Dundalk, MD, I argue that developers and the neoliberal state will probably find popular support for gentrification as they reinvest in the politically divided industrial suburbs of the United States. Local homeowners and community associations have emerged as gentrification supporters for three interrelated reasons. First, many of them have drawn from a resurgent national conservatism to explain decline as an effect of government subsidies and "people from the city;" their desire to reclaim suburban space,a "suburban revanchism",although avoiding accusations of racism makes gentrification-induced displacement appealing. Second, the rebirth of urban neighborhoods and other industrial suburbs provides visual evidence of gentrification's success. Third, the neoliberal state's retreat from social programs and its emphasis on private-sector redevelopment allay suspicion of government and enable collaboration between the local state, developers, and homeowners. The redevelopment efforts of two local organizations illustrate how residents have become indispensable partners in Dundalk's emergent pro-gentrification coalition. [source] Visualizing phase separation in polystyrene/polystyrene homo-IPNs via sulfonationPOLYMER INTERNATIONAL, Issue 4 2009Bo Zheng Abstract BACKGROUND: Polystyrene/polystyrene (PS/PS) interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) represent ideal homo-IPNs. Whether phase separation occurs in this system has been a long-standing problem, which is closely related to the self-organization mechanism in IPN formation and is important to the exploration of new polymer morphologies and properties by topological isomerism. RESULTS: A series of bead samples of PS/PS sequential IPNs with the same nominal divinylbenzene contents were synthesized by suspension polymerization, followed by sulfonation. Scanning electron micrographs and energy-dispersive X-ray mapping show unique distinctive topography on both surfaces and fractured surfaces and large heterogeneity in sulfonation of the PS/PS IPN beads, which for the first time provide visual evidence for dual-phase continuity in PS/PS IPNs. CONCLUSION: The phase separation behavior is proposed to be due to hydrodynamic screening, architectural asymmetry and excluded volume interactions between network I and the precursor chains of network II. This is considered to represent pure IPN effects in sequential formation and may shed light on the general constitution mechanism and molecular design of IPN materials. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry [source] Candidate's Thesis: Direct Evidence of Bacterial Biofilms in Otitis Media,THE LARYNGOSCOPE, Issue 12 2001J. Christopher Post MD Abstract Objectives/Hypothesis Bacteriologic studies of otitis media with effusion (OME) using highly sensitive techniques of molecular biology such as the polymerase chain reaction have demonstrated that traditional culturing methods are inadequate to detect many viable bacteria present in OME. The presence of pathogens attached to the middle-ear mucosa as a bacterial biofilm, rather than as free-floating organisms in a middle-ear effusion, has previously been suggested to explain these observations. The suggestion has been speculative, however, because no visual evidence of such biofilms on middle-ear mucosa has heretofore been collected. The hypotheses motivating the current study were: 1) biofilms of nontypable Hemophilus influenzae will form on the middle-ear mucosa of chinchillas in an experimental model of OME, 2) these biofilms will exhibit changes in density or structure over time, and 3) biofilms are also present on tympanostomy tubes in children with refractory post-tympanostomy otorrhea. The objective of this study was to collect visual evidence of the formation of bacterial biofilms in these situations. Study Design Laboratory study of bacteriology in an animal model and on medical devices removed from pediatric patients. Methods Experimental otitis media was induced in chinchillas by transbullar injection of nontypable H. influenzae. Animals were killed in a time series and the surface of the middle-ear mucosa was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for the presence of bacterial biofilms. Adult and fetal chinchilla uninfected controls were similarly examined for comparison. In addition, tympanostomy tubes that had been placed in children's ears to treat OME and removed after onset of refractory otorrhea or other problems were examined by SEM and by confocal scanning laser microscopy for bacterial biofilms, and compared with unused control tubes. Results Bacterial biofilms were visually detected by SEM on the middle-ear mucosa of multiple chinchillas in which H. influenzae otitis media had been induced. Qualitative evaluation indicated that the density and thickness of the biofilm might increase until at least 96 hours after injection. The appearance of the middle-ear mucosa of experimental animals contrasted with that of uninjected control animals. Robust bacterial biofilms were also visually detected on tympanostomy tubes removed from children's ears for clinical reasons, in contrast with unused control tubes. Conclusions Bacterial biofilms form on the middle-ear mucosa of chinchillas in experimentally induced H. influenzae otitis media and can form on tympanostomy tubes placed in children's ears. Such biofilms can be directly observed by microscopy. These results reinforce the hypothesis that the bacterial aggregates called biofilms, resistant to treatment by antibiotics and to detection by standard culture techniques, may play a major etiologic role in OME and in one of its frequent complications, post-tympanostomy otorrhea. [source] Experimental trampling and vegetation recovery in some forest and heathland communitiesAPPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 1 2004P. Roovers Abstract. Over the past decades outdoor recreation has become progressively more important and as a result human-induced potential damage has increased. In this study, short-term effects , a 2-yr period , of human trampling on some common forest and heath communities in Central Belgium were studied experimentally. Vulnerability to disturbance was compared among plant communities in terms of resistance, resilience and tolerance, which are based on cover measurements. The herb layer of the examined mesophilous forest communities appeared to be more sensitive than the heath and dry forest community, which were dominated by more resistant graminoid (Molinia caerulea, Deschampsiaflexuosa) and dwarf-shrub species (Vaccinium myrtillus, Calluna vulgaris, Erica tetralix). The analysis showed that site structure and vegetation were already affected by low intensities of trampling, while vegetation recovery during the first year after trampling was limited in most plant communities. Recovery during the second year in vegetation cover as well as height was most pronounced in mesophilous forest communities. Occasional trampling clearly can lead to increased visual evidence of previous use and continued recreational disturbance. Therefore management plans should discourage hiking activity off paths and restrict recreation activities to the least vulnerable communities. [source] Classicism, Enlightenment and the ,Other': thoughts on decoding eighteenth,century visual cultureART HISTORY, Issue 3 2002Maiken UmbachArticle first published online: 22 DEC 200 Cultural historians have been slow to respond to the pictorial turn. They often find images too ambiguous to use as sources in their own right. This problem is aggravated by two characteristics shared by early modern and postmodern visual culture: both transgress boundaries of genre (such as the text/image divide), and both tend to be notoriously fluid and plural in terms of their ,message'. The nineteenth,century Idealist notion of ,art', by contrast, celebrates unity of style and content, and tolerates multiple meanings only where they can be resolved in dialectical synthesis. This legacy continues to prevent us from understanding visual evidence which conforms to neither requirement. Drawing on readings of the contemporary landscape art of Ian Hamilton Finlay and Cy Twombly, this article proposes a new approach to visual culture of pre,Idealist periods, for which ambiguous allusive fields and transgressions of genre were constitutive. The eighteenth century's use of classical culture is a case in point, here exemplified by a close reading of the multi-layered trope of Arcadia. The conclusions that emerge from this reading call into question negative assumptions about the Enlightenment's dogmatic rationalism which have dominated historiography from Romanticism to postmodernism. The ,image,texts, of the eighteenth century destabilized hegemonic rationality without promoting its opposite, instead integrating the ,other' into a self,reflexive and self,critical Enlightenment ideology. [source] Curcumin Reduces Burn Progression in RatsACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 12 2007Adam J. Singer MD Objectives Cutaneous burns are dynamic injuries with a central zone of necrosis surrounded by a zone of ischemia. Conversion of this ischemic zone to full necrosis over the days following injury is due in part to highly reactive oxygen radicals. Curcumin is a component of the Oriental spice turmeric that has been shown to have antioxidant and antiapoptotic properties. The authors hypothesized that treatment of burns with curcumin would reduce the conversion of the ischemic zone to full necrosis. Methods This was a randomized controlled experiment. Twenty Sprague-Dawley rats were used. Two burns were created on each animal's dorsum using a brass comb with four rectangular prongs preheated in boiling water and applied for 30 seconds, resulting in four rectangular 10 × 20,mm full-thickness burns separated by three 5 × 20,mm unburned interspaces (zone of ischemia). Animals were randomized to curcumin or vehicle by oral gavage 30 minutes before injury and at 24, 48, and 72 hours after injury. Wounds were observed at one, two, and three days after injury for visual evidence of necrosis in the unburned interspaces. Full-thickness biopsy specimens from the interspaces were evaluated with hematoxylin and eosin staining seven days after injury for evidence of necrosis. The percentage of interspaces that progressed to necrosis was compared with chi-square tests. Results Forty comb burns with 120 unburned interspaces were created, evenly distributed between curcumin and vehicle alone. The percentage of interspaces that progressed to full-thickness necrosis at one, two, three, and seven days after injury in the curcumin and vehicle groups were 30% versus 63% (p = 0.003), 30% versus 70% (p < 0.001), 63% versus 95% (p = 0.02), and 63% versus 95% (p = 0.02), respectively. Conclusions Pretreatment of rats with oral curcumin followed by once-daily oral treatment for three days reduced the percentage of unburned skin interspaces that progressed to full necrosis. [source] | |||||||||||||