On-demand electrostatic droplet charging and sorting

This study reports a droplet-based microfluidic device for on-demand electrostatic droplet charging and sorting. This device combines two independent modules: one is a hydrodynamic flow focusing structure to generate water-in-oil droplets, and the other is the two paired-electrodes for charging and sorting of the droplets. Depending on the polarity on charging electrodes, water-in-oil droplets can be electrostatically charged positively or negatively, followed by automatic real-time electric sorting. This approach will be useful when preformed droplets, with a positive, a negative, or with no charge, need to be manipulated for further on-chip droplet manipulation.     

Serum gamma glutamyl transferase (γ-GT) activity in alcoholics with liver abscess and chronic alcoholics

Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (γ-GT) is a microsomal enzyme. Its activity in serum is assayed in alcoholics with liver abscess and alcoholics without liver abscess after screening by ultrasonography. The enzyme activity in serum is increased by 334% in the patients with liver abscess compared to normal control subjects (p<0.0001), and 172% when compared to patients with chronic alcoholism without liver abscess (p<0.0001). The enzyme activity was increased by 59.3% in the serum of patients without liver abscess compared to the normal control subjects (p<0.001). Measurement of γ-GT in serum appears to be a sensitive index in the diagnosis of alcoholics with liver abscess.     

Childcare Food Handling Employees’ Perceived Barriers and Motivators to Follow Food Safety Practices

Each year millions of children are enrolled in center-based childcare. Childcare employees are tasked with handling over half the children’s weekly meals. Proper food handling practices are crucial in mitigating this high-risk population’s risk of foodborne illness. The purpose of this study was to identify childcare food handling employees’ (n?=?278) perceived barriers and motivators to follow recommended food safety practices. Six important barriers and 14 key motivators to following recommended food safety practices were identified. Important barriers pertained to time restraints, workloads, and lack of understanding of the importance of following proper food safety practices. Key motivators were focused on children’s safety, available supplies, communication, and food safety training/information. Employee and facility characteristics were shown to influence perceived importance of barriers and motivators to following food safety practices. Childcare directors should review scheduling and job duties of employees as the majority of identified barriers focused on “work pace” and “time restraints.” Directors should also attempt to increase food safety communication through practical situational training, written food safety policies, and use of food safety signage to increase understanding of the importance of proper food safety practices. Ensuring proper supplies are available is necessary.     

Difficulties in co‐opting a complex sign: Our Lady of Guadalupe as a site of semiotic struggle and entanglement

The Cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the product of appropriations authored by both the Aztecs and the Roman Catholic Church, has served as a tool of empowerment, dominion, and accommodation. Central to this contested cult is an indigenous reinvention of the Virgin Mary that is simultaneously index, icon, and symbol. This study demonstrates the difficulties in attempting to selectively appropriate the desirable features of such a sign while excluding those deemed undesirable. In attempting to appropriate certain features of the Virgin it deemed desirable, the authors argue, the Church also annexed aspects of the Aztec religious tradition at odds with the teachings of Catholicism. While Catholicism's attempt to co‐opt this Virgin extended the influence of the institutional Catholic Church, the authors suggest, it also undermined the integrity of the faith the Church promotes by fostering a form of popular Catholicism contrary to the teachings and practices of orthodox Catholicism. This study is grounded in data obtained through interviews conducted with pilgrims in the vicinity of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe immediately prior to, during, and after the Virgin's annual feastday (December 12). The authors also draw upon anthropological, historical, and religious studies scholarship to make sense of the pilgrims’ beliefs and place them within the broader historical and religious contexts in which they operate.     

Monetary donations to an open source software platform

Online open source software platforms, such as Sourceforge.net, play a vital role in creating an ecosystem that enables the creation and growth of open source projects. However, there is little research exploring the interactions between open source stakeholders and the platform. We believe that the sustainability of the platform crucially depends on financial incentives. While platforms can obtain these incentives through multiple means, in this paper we focus on one form of financial incentives—voluntary monetary donations by open source community members. We report findings from two empirical studies that examine factors that impact donations. Study 1 investigates the factors that cause some community members to donate and not others. We find that the decision to donate is impacted by relational commitment with open source software platform, donation to projects and accepting donations from others. Study 2 examines what drives the level of donation. We find that the length of association with the platform and relational commitment affects donation levels.     

Bioresistive identification of heat shock protein 90

90 kDa heat shock protein (HSP90) is a ubiquitous molecular chaperone and is one of the abundant proteins present in a cell under normal and stressed conditions. The adenosine triphosphate (ATP) binding region of HSP90 is currently under a great degree of study because of the interest of its role in cancer and protein maintenance; the binding of ATP to HSP90 induces a large conformational change in the protein as a result of the activity of different types of stressors within the cells. In the present paper, a simple microfluidic biosensor is proposed for the characterization of ATP-HSP90 interactions through the principle of bioresistive variation. The experimental results prove that the present biosensor system is highly suitable for the detection of heat shock proteins present in a real-time biological sample, which is very useful for in-situ biomedical applications and rapid pathogenic detections.     

Acceptance of monetary rewards in open source software development

The open source software (OSS) movement thrives on innovation and volunteer effort of developers. Scholars have expressed widespread concern about the sustainability of the OSS movement due to high levels of volunteerism. In this paper, we address a central challenge to the sustainability of OSS-developers’ acceptance of monetary rewards. We strive to explain why some OSS developers accept monetary rewards and others do not. Viewed through the theoretical lens of the private-collective innovation model (0395 and 0400), this allows us to describe when developers will accept private financial rewards. Our main research objective is to clearly map the web of relationships between causal antecedents, and developers’ acceptance behavior. Using a unique dataset that combines survey and behavioral measures, we find that – (a) intention to accept monetary rewards mediates the impact of motivational elements on developers’ acceptance of monetary rewards; (b) intrinsic and extrinsic motivations positively affect their intention to accept monetary rewards, community motivation negatively impacts intention and ideological motivation does not affect the intention to accept rewards and (c) these effects are obtained even after inclusion of several control variables. The theoretical and managerial implications of our work are described.     

Lipid peroxidation in erythrocytes of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Lipid peroxidation by measurement of Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances (TBARS) and antioxidant status by determining the activities of the enzymes, Catalase (Cat), Glutathione Peroxidase (GPx) and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) and the level of Reduced Glutathione (GSH) in the erythrocytes of patients with type 2 Diabetes Mellitus were investigated. It was observed that the level of TBARS in the erythrocytes was increased by 50% showing a significant generation of free radicals in the erythrocytes of these patients. The activities of both Cat and SOD were enhanced while that of GPx was not altered. The level of GSH was also not changed.     

Mediating modernity: Theorizing reception in a non‐western society

This article theorizes non‐Western media reception, based on a reception study of a Hindu epic, “The Ramayan,”; screened on the state‐owned Indian television system, Doordarshan, in 78 episodes beginning in January 1987. Based on interviews with viewers from a variety of social backgrounds and on analysis of press response to the epic, it argues that the epic represented, for many viewers, a narrative of community opposed to bourgeois modernity, and superior to it. For Doordarshan, as a broadcaster in a non‐western/incompletely modern society, the epic represented a way of mediating between a secular bourgeois public, and a “communitarian public sphere”; which, it is argued, characterizes Indian popular culture.     

Partisan Balance and Bias in Network Coverage of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections

This study conceptualizes news bias as a causal factor producing systematic imbalance in the coverage of conflicting sides. Partisan bias is distinguished from structural bias by coverage that systematically favors one side with more prominence and attention. Content analysis was used to compare the television networks' balance in their treatment of Republican and Democratic candidates in stories and segments covering the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Presidential candidates received balanced aggregate treatment in both elections. But individual networks differed in their partisan balance. CBS News consistently favored the Democratic candidate in both elections, unlike the mixed results for ABC and NBC. CBS's pattern of imbalance, especially in the 2004 election, suggests a possible political bias in its coverage.