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This paper included the diversity and distribution of collembolan fauna in Jharkhand. A checklist of collembolan fauna from Jharkhand has been formulated. Endemic species from Jharkhand have also been reported. Affinities between species and habitat as well as another species of Collembola is basic character for diversity as well as distribution. Different types of methodologies have been deployed for collection from distinctive habitats. Climatic conditions are the limiting factor for species distribution and endemism. Lepidocyrtus is the most diverse and distributed genus. Isotomurus is the highest endemic genus. Some collembolan fauna from Jharkhand are prevailing only in this state while some are distributed in different biogeographic zone in world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article interrogates shared reading between parents and young children, theorised as 'sensory affinities', understood through a sociological lens. I argue that reading cannot be confined to educational aspects, and towards increased prominence for relational dimensions. I explore the narratives of 29 parents/carers of reading with young children. Drawing on data on the embodied aspects of reading, Mason's concept of affinities illuminates the sensory facets of reading applied to family intimacies. Interventions have hitherto distilled literacy from the wider social context. However, an understanding of reading in the context of families from diverse backgrounds, yields insights into the sensory character of everyday family life. Findings are of significance to sociology broadly, and specifically, families and relationships. Centring families facilitates a fuller understanding of literacy practices. Finally, the focus on an everyday, tangible practice such as reading can support understandings of hidden and taken-for-granted dimensions of family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing B cell affinity to pathogen‐specific antigens prior to or following exposure could facilitate the assessment of immune status. Current standard tools to assess antigen‐specific B cell responses focus on equilibrium binding of the secreted antibody in serum. These methods are costly, time‐consuming, and assess antibody affinity under zero force. Recent findings indicate that force may influence BCR‐antigen binding interactions and thus immune status. Herein, a simple laminar flow microfluidic chamber in which the antigen (hemagglutinin of influenza A) is bound to the chamber surface to assess antigen‐specific BCR binding affinity of five hemagglutinin‐specific hybridomas from 65 to 650 pN force range is designed. The results demonstrate that both increasing shear force and bound lifetime can be used to enrich antigen‐specific high‐affinity B cells. The affinity of the membrane‐bound BCR in the flow chamber correlates well with the affinity of the matched antibodies measured in solution. These findings demonstrate that a microfluidic strategy can rapidly assess BCR‐antigen‐binding properties and identify antigen‐specific high‐affinity B cells. This strategy has the potential to both assess functional immune status from peripheral B cells and be a cost‐effective way of identifying individual B cells as antibody sources for a range of clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might a painter or a painting correspond? In this dialogue, artists Rebecca Fortnum and Kelly Chorpening explore the ambiguity of the word correspondence as a creative method in painting. They examine the word as a set of equivalences or affinities, forged through the act of painting, as well as painting as a form of address. They evoke Charles Baudelaire's poem 'Correspondences' (1857) and its many translations as a starting point to explore how things and ideas co-respond. Their discussion thinks through the relation between touch and sight within the painting process and how gestures or marks represent spatial dimensions and materialities. Debating ideas of mediation and copying suggested by the notion of correspondence, they propose that the term may be useful in allowing painters to forge multiple and varied connections and explore coincidences with and through their subject. Painting is positioned as a form of co-response that happens across time, allowing the painter to form correlations between past and present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the significant emphasis in Scandinavian cities on vital urban spaces and creative unfolding in urban development, there is a tendency towards designing for "finished" urban spaces with a pre-defined conclusion. The result is often standardised design and staged play, ignoring the diversity of lived experiences taking place in the here and now. How can urban spaces be generated to accommodate unforeseen encounters fostering moments of intensity, affect, and disorder? In this article, we explore the potential of improvisation in urban spaces by examining how urban public spaces facilitate improvisation in interactions between places, senses, materials, and participants. Improvisation is understood as a productive force in urban development that gives space to what occurs in urban encounters. The article draws on Richard Sennett's concept of "disorder" and Jennifer Mason's concept of "affinity." By using design experiments and sensory and visual methods inspired by ethnographic methodology the article analyses two improvisational practices occurring in public spaces in Norway and Denmark, which emphasise the performative, affective, and sensory elements of urban life. The analysis brings forth a discussion of how improvisation unfolds in multimodal urban encounters, between order and disorder, and sensory and emotional connections. The authors argue for a more place-sensitive form of city-making and more improvisatorial urban designs that stimulate varied, spontaneous, and changeable use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Ageing in place' is a key component of UK policy, aimed at supporting older people to remain living in their own homes and communities for as long as possible. Although wide-ranging, the scholarly literature in this field has not sufficiently examined the interconnections between ageing in place and the changing experience of 'home' over time. This article addresses this gap in a novel way by bringing together qualitative secondary analysis of longitudinal data with critical literature on 'home' and Mason's cutting-edge concept of 'affinities' to understand the multi-dimensionality of home in relation to ageing in place. The article makes significant methodological, empirical, and theoretical contributions to the field of scholarship on home, by demonstrating how homes are made and unmade over time. Discussions of home emerged organically in the longitudinal data that focused on people's travel and transport use, allowing our qualitative secondary analysis approach to look anew at how experiences of home are dynamically shaped by people's potent connections inside and outside the dwelling. Presenting an empirical analysis of four case studies, the article suggests that future discussions in the field of ageing in place should pay closer attention to the factors that shape experiences of the un/making of home over time, such as how deteriorating physical and mental health can shape how people experience their dwelling and neighbourhood as well as their relationships across these settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates transnational families' experiences of the COVID‐19 pandemic outbreak and the accompanying sudden and unexpected travel restrictions. Our data consist of written stories collected in April–June 2020 from migrants with ageing kin living in another country. For many respondents, the situation provoked an acutely felt urge for physical proximity with their families. By analysing their experiences of 'not being there', we seek to understand what exactly made the urge to 'be there' so forceful. Bringing into dialogue literature on transnational families with Jennifer Mason's recent theoretical work on affinities, we move the focus from families' transnational caregiving practices to the potent connections between family members. We argue that this approach can open important avenues for future research on families—transnational or otherwise—because it sheds light on the multisensory and often ineffable charges between family members that serve to connect them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reflects on how we read the classics from our location in South Africa, in conversation with the other essays in the special issue. How do our reading spaces shape our reading and re-reading of classic works of literature which come to hold meaning for us? How is our "sense of discovery" of a classic work re-ignited by conversations, spoken and written? How do we make, and re-make, connections between texts and contexts of reading, over time, and in different places? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we study some conics defined, up to dilatation, by an affinity of the plane. We discuss the mutual relations between the conic and the defining affinity and, in particular, we show how to reproduce affinities related to a given conic. As an application of the theory, we show that the orbital conics of equiaffinities are dilatations of the considered conics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leafhoppers (family: Cicadellidae) are among the most common plant sap-sucking pests, causing damage to wild and agronomic plants worldwide. The current paper aims to assess the zoogeography, diversity and population dynamics of the leafhopper species in an agricultural land converted ecosystem. Twenty species (two identified only to the genus level) belonging to 17 genera, 10 tribes, and three subfamilies were collected from Toshka Region, Aswan Governorate, Egypt, in 2020. The most common cicadellid species was Orosius albicinctus, representing 46.7% of the total catch. Low values of species richness and diversity were measured for leafhopper species as compared with those reported in our recent study carried out in Alexandria and Qena governorates. In sum, conversion of any natural ecosystem to agricultural land uses may cause declines in insect diversity. However, desert conversion may increase the diversity pattern of some insect pests. Analysis of the zoogeographic affinities of the leafhopper species from Toshka Region indicated a closer affiliation to the Palaearctic Region (35%) than any other region. Most leafhopper populations exhibited a unimodal seasonal pattern and were abundant in hot and dry months (May–September). The abundance of some leafhopper species correlated positively with temperature (seven species) and negatively with relative humidity (nine species). Six of these species correlated with both variables. This study is the first to investigate leafhopper communities in a converted ecosystem of Toshka Depression, Western Desert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The detection and staging of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using non-invasive imaging biomarkers is of substantial clinical importance. Positron emission tomography (PET) provides readouts to uncover molecular alterations in the brains of AD patients with high sensitivity and specificity. A variety of amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau PET tracers are already available for the clinical diagnosis of AD, but there is still a lack of imaging biomarkers with high affinity and selectivity for tau inclusions in primary tauopathies, such as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and Pick's disease (PiD). This review aims to provide an overview of the existing Aβ and tau PET imaging biomarkers and their binding properties from in silico , in vitro , and in vivo assessment. Imaging biomarkers for pathologic proteins are vital for clinical diagnosis, disease staging and monitoring of the potential therapeutic approaches of AD. Off-target binding of radiolabeled tracers to white matter or other neural structures is one confounding factor when interpreting images. To improve binding properties such as binding affinity and to eliminate off-target binding, second generation of tau PET tracers have been developed. To conclude, we further provide an outlook for imaging tauopathies and other pathological features of AD and primary tauopathies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Límite: Revista de Estudios Portugueses y de la Lusofonía is the property of Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Extremadura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ceropegia jilongensis, a new species from Jilong, Xizang, China, is described and illustrated. This species is similar to C. hookeri, but clearly differs in its indumentum of pedicel and corolla tube, ovoid cage size, corolla lobes and interstaminal corona lobes shape. It is also similar to C. salicifolia and C. angustifolia, but easily distinguished by its leaf shape, peduncle length, indumentum of pedicel and corolla tube, interstaminal corona lobes shape. A comparison table of related species is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to determine predictors and moderators of tourism well-being among destination emotions (DES) (total, joy, love, and positive surprise), loneliness (UCLA) (total, affinities, and isolation) and reasons to travel. Regression and moderation analyses were carried out; factor analysis (exploratory and confirmatory) to validate the emotions destination scale were performed. Marital status, family as a reason to travel, love (DES), positive surprise (DES), and affinities (UCLA) explain tourism well-being variance. Of the motivations for traveling, only family and work proved to moderate the relationship between DES and its subscales and tourism well-being. Traveling in Portugal or abroad was a moderator in the relationship between DES and its subscales and tourism well-being. The relationship between destination emotions and tourism well-being is stronger when people do not travel for family or work; this relationship is also stronger when people travel within Portugal than when traveling outside Portugal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the scholarship on poor Black urban communities focuses on social disorganization at the neighborhood level and how Blacks experience various institutional inequalities that impact their access to quality education and housing, jobs, and equitable public transportation. But Black social life is not a monolith of chaos, subjugation, and inequalities, nor is it confined to stationary neighborhoods. Black urban life is in fact vibrant, celebratory, and communal. Using two years of ethnographic observations on Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) buses and trains, we highlight the sociality of Black mobile experiences within Black spaces. Specifically, we examine how Blacks, while traveling into and through majority Black communities, form positive intraracial relationships that we refer to as Black transit affinities, which are a type of actively developed, temporal, meaningful interactions that take place on mobile systems. These transit affinities move beyond linked fate and solidarity but are actively formed and have four distinctive features, they are: 1) personal; 2) mutually engaged; 3) actively maintained although interrupted by stops on the bus or train; and, 4) particular to majority-minority areas of the city. These transit affinities are intraracial and were not observed, as defined, interracially or in majority White areas of the city. We do not argue that they are exclusive to Blacks but that they took place among Blacks in Black spaces that have often been ascribed a narrative of disorganization, violence, and social fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We frame multilingualisms through a growing interest in a linguistics and sociology of the 'south' and acknowledge earlier contributions of linguists in Africa, the Américas and Asia who have engaged with human mobility, linguistic contact and consequential ecologies that alter over time and space. Recently, conversations of multilingualism have drifted in two directions. Southern conversations have become intertwined with 'de-colonial theory', and with 'southern' theory, thinking and epistemologies. In these, 'southern' is regarded as a metaphor for marginality, coloniality and entanglements of the geopolitical north and south. Northern debates that receive traction appear to focus on recent 're-awakenings' in Europe and North America that mis-remember southern experiences of linguistic diversity. We provide a contextual backdrop for articles in this issue that illustrate intelligences of multilingualisms and the linguistic citizenship of southern people. In these, southern multilingualisms are revealed as phenomena, rather than as a phenomenon defined usually in English. The intention is to suggest a third direction of mutual advantage in rethinking the social imaginary in relation to communality, entanglements and interconnectivities of both South and North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how mundane objects are passed on through kinship networks and how these practices become part of the 'doing' of family and kinship. Using Mason's concept of affinities, I illuminate four strands of material affinities, each of which illustrates how passed on objects can reproduce, imagine and memorialise kin connections both biological and social, and in and through time. Crucially, I argue that it is everyday objects in use which reveal how materiality and kinship are woven together. By starting from the object rather than the subject material affinities are brought to life, illustrating how materials are inscribed with kinship both physically and imaginatively, but in turn inscribe kinship practices, operating as central characters in family narratives. The article stems from research exploring everyday contemporary thrift and involved one-to-one interviews and a Mass Observation Directive on the subject of 'Being thrifty'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fourteenth century witnessed a considerable change in the way in which knights were retained in royal service in England. The system of retaining 'household knights', which had been in operation since at least the twelfth century, gave way to a new system based around the retaining of 'chamber knights' and 'king's knights'. These new ranks were retained in different ways to the household knights and often performed different functions. Consequently, the place they occupied in fourteenth-century kingship was markedly different. Despite the significance of this development, the scholarship on it has been limited and often contradictory. This article offers a detailed reassessment of how and why this development occurred and what its impacts were for the fourteenth-century polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs in-depth qualitative interviews with Arab fans of Korean popular culture who live in Qatar to examine their cultural translation of Korean TV drama and K-pop music. It uses a transcultural approach to fandom studies, rather than foregrounding nationality as an analytic category. It focuses on fans’ appropriations of these cultural texts in relation to their affinities, feelings, emotions, and accumulations of cultural capital used to negotiate their consumption of Korean popular culture. This article identifies emotions of frustration and fascination as central to these fans’ transnational media engagement. It thereby shows that affinity is a central concern for research on transcultural receptions of non-Western cultures by non-Western audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zeliangrong is a collective nomenclature of four sub-structured tribes formed by the first syllables of the names of three tribal groups- Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei. However, the nomenclature Zeliangrong is believed to encompass four tribal groups- Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Inpui, believed to be cognate groups. Linguistically they belong to Naga-Bodo subgroup of the Tibeto-Burman family. There are many written documents where the Zeliangrong are claimed to come from the same ancestor and their origin and migration are well narrated through myths, legends and traditions. However, none have carried out studies based on genetic markers. Aims: Allelic variation and haplotype diversity of the dopamine receptor gene DRD2 among the four sub-population of Zeliangrong Naga of Manipur. Methods: 292 unrelated individuals belonging to 4 tribal groups of Manipur, India were screened using the three TaqI sites (TaqIA,TaqIB, and TaqID). Results and Discussion: All the three sites are found to be polymorphic with greater interpopulation variation seen at the TaqlA site. The overall allele frequencies among the four presently studied groups show close resemblances with each other and indicate a common ancestry for Zeliangrong which is reaffirmed by haplotypes analysis (share seven of the eight haplotypes). Average heterozygosity, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and neighbor-joining tree analysis (constructed from the genetic distance matrix) reveals strong genetic affinities of Zeliangrong populations of Manipur with Chinese populations rather than with other Indian populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The red‐emitting indolium derivative compound (E)‐2‐(4‐(diphenylamino)styryl)‐1,3,3‐trimethyl‐3H‐indol‐1‐ium iodide (H3) was demonstrated as a sensitive membrane fluorescence probe. The probe located at the interface of liposomes when mixed showed much fluorescence enhancement by inhibiting the twisted intramolecular charge transfer state. After ultrasonic treatment, it penetrated into lipid bilayers with the emissions leveling off and a rather large encapsulation efficiency (71.4%) in liposomes. The ζ‐potential and particle size measurement confirmed that the charged indolium group was embedded deeply into lipid bilayers. The probe was then used to monitor the affinities of antioxidant flavonoids for membranes. It was verified that quercetin easily interacted with liposomes and dissociated the probe from the internal lipid within 60 s under the condition of simply mixing. The assessment of binding affinities of six flavonoids and the coincident results with their antioxidation activities indicated that it was a promising membrane probe for the study of drug bio‐affinities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Letras (0326-3363) is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista General de Legislacion y Jurisprudencia is the property of Editorial Reus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Nasleđe is the property of University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Philology & Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The new genusAberropompilusShimizu & Wahis, family Pompilidae, is described from Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Thailand) based on the new speciesA. dayiShimizu & Wahis. Its peculiar morphological characteristics and taxonomic position within the family are discussed and the genus is tentatively placed in the subfamily Pepsinae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An anomopod branchiopod crustacean that displays many structural similarities to the extant generaScapholeberisandMegafenestra(family Daphniidae), fortuitously preserved in amber of Early Cretaceous age, is described. Although most of its appendages have been lost, preservation of several structures is vastly better than in most ‘orthodox’ fossils of these delicate animals. The well-preserved carapace suggests that, like extant representatives of these genera, but in no other daphniid, the animal exploited the surface film, beneath which it suspended itself by means of the straight ventral margins of its functionally bivalved carapace, each of which was armed with a row of close-set setae. Unlike the postabdomen of all the many extant anomopods, which is unsegmented, that of the fossil species, which was well preserved, was segmented; its distal half, or rather more, being clearly divided into four segments. Its topographically ventral margin was armed with pairs of very long spines (relatively longer than in any extant species), and the paired, hook-like terminal spines, clearly homologous with the claws of living species, were modified in a way that has no exact parallel in extant forms. The distal segment shows signs of annulations and may have had slight independent mobility. It is suggested that the long ventral spines of the postabdomen facilitated levering the animal forward over soft substrata. Its minute size reflects the fact that it is a first instar. Moreover, it was possibly squeezed out of the brood pouch prematurely when its parent became trapped in resin. The difficulty of assigning a place to the fossil in the phylogeny of the anomopods, all of which, including fossil forms of greater antiquity, have an unsegmented postabdomen, is briefly noted. The possibility that this attribute represents a very ancient atavism is tentatively suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The binding profiles of many human noroviruses (huNoVs) for human histo-blood group antigens have been characterized. However, quantitative-binding data for these important virus–host interactions are lacking. Here, we report on the intrinsic (per binding site) affinities of HBGA oligosaccharides for the huNoV VA387 virus-like particles (VLPs) and the associated subviral P particles measured using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry. The affinities of 13 HBGA oligosaccharides, containing A, B and H epitopes, with variable sizes (disaccharide to tetrasaccharide) and different precursor chain types (types 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6),were measured for the P particle, while the affinities of the A and B trisaccharides and A and B type 6 tetrasaccharides for the VLP were determined. The intrinsic affinities of the HBGA oligosaccharides for the P particle range from 500 to 2300 M−1, while those of the A and B trisaccharides and the A and B type 6 tetrasaccharides for the VLP range from 1000 to 4000 M−1. Comparison of these binding data with those measured previously for the corresponding P dimer reveals that the HBGA oligosaccharides tested exhibit similar intrinsic affinities for the P dimer and P particle. The intrinsic affinities for the VLP are consistently higher than those measured for the P particle, but within a factor of three. While the cause of the subtle differences in HBGA oligosaccharide affinities for the P dimer and P particle and those for the VLP remains unknown, the present data support the use of P dimers or P particles as surrogates to the VLP for huNoV-receptor- binding studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dialogic syntax investigates the linguistic, cognitive, and interactional processes involved when language users reproduce selected aspects of a prior utterance, and when recipients respond to the parallelisms and resonances that result, drawing inferences for situated meaning. The phenomenon typically arises when a language user constructs an utterance modeled in part on the utterance of a prior speaker or author. The result is resonance, defined as the catalytic activation of affinities across utterances. This paper presents the concept of dialogic syntax and outlines some directions of current research on dialogic resonance, as represented in this Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New economic and enterprise needs have increased the interest and utility of the methods of the grouping process based on the theory of uncertainty. A fuzzy grouping (clustering) process is a key phase of knowledge acquisition and reduction complexity regarding different groups of objects. Here, we considered some elements of the theory of affinities and uncertain pretopology that form a significant support tool for a fuzzy clustering process. A Galois lattice is introduced in order to provide a clearer vision of the results. We made an homogeneous grouping process of the economic regions of Russian Federation and Ukraine. The obtained results gave us a large panorama of a regional economic situation of two countries as well as the key guidelines for the decision-making. The mathematical method is very sensible to any changes the regional economy can have. We gave an alternative method of the grouping process under uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some scientists who study animals have emphasized the need to focus on the 'point of view' of the animals they are studying. This methodological shift has led to animals being credited with much more agency than is warranted. However, as critics suggest, on the one hand, the 'perspective' of another being rests mostly upon 'sympathetic projection,' and may be difficult to apply to unfamiliar beings, such as bees or even flowers. On the other hand, the very notion of agency still conveys its classic understanding as intentional, rational, and premeditated, and is still embedded in humanist and Christian conceptions of human exceptionalism. This paper seeks, in the first part, to investigate the practical link between these two notions and the problems they raise. In the second part, following the work of two historians of science who have revisited Darwin's studies of orchids and their pollinators, it will observe a shift in the meaning of the concept of agency. Indeed, creatures may appear as 'secret agents' as long as we adopt a conventional definition of agency based on subjective experience and autonomous intention. However, when reframed in the terms of ' agencement' - an assemblage that produces 'agentivity' - agency seems to be much more extensively shared in the living world. We will then explore some of the concrete situations in which these agencements are manifested, and through which creatures of different species become, one for another and one with another, companion-agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chrysin, 7-hydroxyflavone, and quercetin were studied for their affinities with human serum albumin (HSA) in the presence and absence of Fe and Co. The fluorescence intensities of HSA decrease remarkably with increasing concentration of the tested flavonoids. Chrysin resulted in a blue-shift of the emission line λ of HSA from 336 to 330 nm whereas quercetin showed an obvious red-shift of λ from 336 to 347 nm. However, the extents of the λ shifts induced by flavonoids in the presence of mental ions are much bigger than those of the corresponding systems in the absence of mental ions. Fe and Co increased the quenching constants of the tested flavonoids for HSA by 12.4-48.1 and 15.0-66.7 %, respectively. The affinities of 7-hydroxyflavone, chrysin and quercetin for HSA increased by about 6.42, 7.38 and 0.62 %, respectively, in the presence of Fe. Co increased the affinities of 7-hydroxyflavone, chrysin, and quercetin for HSA about 8.43, 7.86 and 11.73 %, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Often, in situations of uncertainty in portfolio management, it is difficult to apply the numerical methods based on the linearity principle. When this happens it is possible to use nonnumeric techniques to assess the situations with a non linear attitude. One of the concepts that can be used in these situations is the concept of grouping. In the last thirty years, several studies have tried to give good solutions to the problems of homogeneous groupings. For example, we could mention the Pichat algorithm, the affinities algorithms and several studies developed by the authors of this work. In this paper, we use some topological axioms in order to develop an algorithm that is able to reduce the number of elements of the power sets of the related sets by connecting them to the sets that form the topologies. We will apply this algorithm in the grouping of titles listed in the Stock Exchange or in its dual perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group-living animals have to reach consensus decisions through recruitment processes while collectively exploiting food resources in heterogeneous environments. In farming conditions, the group compositions are frequently modified, which can force the animals to readjust their collective strategies, e.g., when group leaders are removed. We, therefore, conducted a group-manipulation experiment for testing how the loss of the individual with the highest leadership score in spontaneous group movements is likely to influence decision-making and whole-group social organization. Observations were carried out in two groups of nine familiar heifers, as using animals of the same age-class simplifies the analysis of the proximate determinants of leadership. Under the hypothesis of distributed leadership, we expected the emergence of a new leader but no change in social relationships due to the stability of dominance hierarchy and affinities among the familiar remaining heifers. Both group leaders were heifers that had a low cohesion index and expressed few allogrooming interactions. Leadership did not relate to position in the dominance hierarchy. After removing the leader and replacing it with a familiar peer, the number of spontaneous group movements decreased by 40% in both groups, and no new leader emerged. Both groups maintained a structure after leader removal but the distribution of pairwise association was modified. Allogrooming interactions dropped by nearly 60% in one group and their overall distribution were modified in the other group. These findings demonstrate interrelations between various social traits -- even in the case of same-age herbivore groups -- and difficulties with rapidly reaching a new consensus for maintaining synchronized activity and group cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bye-Bye Blackbird, The third novel (in chronology) of Anita Desai, is a story mainly concerned with the varied human relationships. Dev and Adit are the two major characters representing the two streams of life. Adit, from the beginning of the novel, develops attachment to the western ways of life, especially of England; but while Dev living in England, shows his repulsion towards the ways of European life and particularly of England. Sarah, Adit's wife, stands for reconciliatory approach between East and West. Adit cares for England but Dev loves India while Sarah swings between her natural inclination and her willing adoption of the foreign ways of life. The title of the novel refers to Adit's final farewell to Asian immigrants in England when he leaves England for India for good. These three characters face the dilemma of finding their identity exactly because their background is rooted in the class society with group division by birth, and from a definite sense of social placement they are placed in an alien culture. The themes of cultural conflict, alienation, immigration, exile etc. are common in the twentieth century literature. Anita Desai has brilliantly portrayed the dilemma of uprooted individuals in this novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cybium: International Journal of Ichthyology is the property of Societe Francaise d'Ichtyologie (SFI) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines face-to-face contact as a way in which children practise, imagine and constitute their closest relationships. Based on the findings of a qualitative school-based study, the article shows that children regard ‘seeing’ as a family and relational practice that enables them to feel connected to and develop affinities with others. The article traces the interplay of given, negotiated and created, and sensory affinities in children’s family and kin relationships. Face-to-face contact is explored as a context in which children gain knowledge of others and develop intimate, ‘family-like’ relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We propose to measure the quality of an affine motion by its steadiness, which we formulate as the inverse of its Average Relative Acceleration (ARA). Steady affine motions, for which ARA = 0, include translations, rotations, screws, and the golden spiral. To facilitate the design of pleasing in-betweening motions that interpolate between an initial and a final pose (affine transformation), B and C, we propose the Steady Affine Morph (SAM), defined as A[sup t] ο B with A = C ο B[sup -1]. A SAM is affine-invariant and reversible. It preserves isometries (i.e., rigidity), similarities, and volume. Its velocity field is stationary both in the global and the local (moving) frames. Given a copy count, n, the series of uniformly sampled poses. A[sup i/n] ο B, of a SAM form a regular pattern which may be easily controlled by changing B, Cot n, and where consecutive poses are related by the same affinity A[sup 1/n]. Although a real matrix A[sup t] does not always exist, we show that it does for a convex and large subset of orientation-preserving affinities A. Our fast and accurate Extraction of Affinity Roots (EAR) algorithm computes A', when it exists, using closed-form expressions in two or in three dimensions. We discuss SAM applications to pattern design and animation and to key-frame interpolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although personalized search has been under way for many years and many personalization algorithms have been investigated, it is still unclear whether personalization is consistently effective on different queries for different users and under different search contexts. In this paper, we study this problem and provide some findings. We present a large-scale evaluation framework for personalized search based on query logs and then evaluate five personalized search algorithms (including two click-based ones and three topical-interest-based ones) using 12-day query logs of Windows Live Search. By analyzing the results, we reveal that personalized Web search does not work equally well under various situations. It represents a significant improvement over generic Web search for some queries, while it has little effect and even harms query performance under some situations. We propose click entropy as a simple measurement on whether a query should be personalized. We further propose several features to automatically predict when a query will benefit from a specific personalization algorithm. Experimental results show that using a personalization algorithm for queries selected by our prediction model is better than using it simply for all queries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents children’s perspectives on contemporary (sur)naming practices. It critically examines naming as a family practice and as a way of ‘displaying’ family and kinship. Drawing on a study of children’s constructions of family and close relationships, it explores whether and how children consider surname as a way of feeling and being visibly connected to others. It suggests that sociological understanding of naming and its significance for kinship would be illuminated by theorizing surnames as an example of fixed and/or negotiated and creative affinities, and as manifestations of experiential and imagined kinship. Showing surname to be personally meaningful to children, I illuminate how children appeal to and reshape assumptions about the family, exposing their engagement with and reinvention of the cultural family imaginary. The article documents shifting forms of contemporary family and kinship relations from the perspectives of children. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Preferred emigration destinations among adolescents reflect images and stereotypes of other countries that continuously emerge in a multitude of local and global discourses and from concrete experiences with other countries. The affinities of Icelandic adolescents are split among the islands of the Northern Atlantic, continental Nordic countries, European core countries and North American countries. If they had to leave Iceland, however, the largest proportion of Icelandic adolescents would want to move to the United States. Girls are more likely to choose the Nordic countries, in particular Denmark, and boys English-speaking countries with a reputation for economic and military power, such as the United States and Britain. Adolescents are more likely to prefer migrating to Europe rather than North America if they are proud of their Icelandic nationality, live in cohesive communities, have more educated parents and feel closer to Europe. Adolescents who want to move abroad are, in contrast, most likely to have North American destinations in mind. Recent geopolitical changes, however, may shift the attention of Icelandic adolescents eastward towards the European continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced theories exist in the literature to describe the extremely complex load-carrying mechanisms of real bone material. Necessarily, these models rely on constitutive equations involving numerous parameters that have to be determined by extensive (and expensive) experiments. The aim of the present paper, however, is to show that a very simple, one-dimensional model render first insights possible into the mechanical behavior of bone. Loss of mass and loss of connectivity are considered in a strength-of-materials type of theory. Based on constitutive equations with a lot of parameters and the well-known identification problems, a very simple, one-dimensional model is proposed to describe loss of mass and loss of connectivity in bone material. Based on thermodynamic considerations involving material forces, evolution equations for the associated internal variables are derived. The parameters of the model are adapted to experimental observations obtained from sheep with glucocorticoid treatment. The qualitative agreement between the results of the proposed model and other theoretical approaches as well as experimental results appears to be quite satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some two hundred taxa have been recorded from Hong Kong's submarine caves. Of these, at least eleven are new to science. The majority of species occurring on the walls and roofs in particular, however, are not cave endemics and have been recorded from other habitats in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Unlike the Tethyan karsted limestone caves of Japan and the Philippines in the Asian region, and elsewhere, Hong Kong's cave fauna is similar to other local sea bed habitats at similar depths, probably because of their modernity. Although the sediments that make up the cave's floors appear more stable (in terms of their faunistic composition), there is evidence that they are periodically infilled and flushed out. This may be either on a seasonal basis or following severe tropical storm and typhoon events. It is therefore likely that the infaunal taxa of the cave's floors are partly sustained by episodic colonization. Notwithstanding the lack of an identifiable endemicity, the caves act as refugia for a number of otherwise rare taxa, for example, the ahermatypic corals Balanophyllia eguchii and Tubastrea falkneri, and fishes gain protection within them from locally intense fishing activities. The caves also appear to contain epifaunal communities that are representative of earlier, undisturbed times and environmental conditions in Hong Kong. It is recommended that (i) the two caves on Conic Island and Steep Island be designated as Sites of Special Scientific Interest; (ii) that other caves be searched for and studied and (iii) more long-term studies be made of their physical environments and the communities they support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fluctuation theorem is proved for the macroscopic currents of a system in a nonequilibrium steady state, by using Schnakenberg network theory. The theorem can be applied, in particular, in reaction systems where the affinities or thermodynamic forces are defined globally in terms of the cycles of the graph associated with the stochastic process describing the time evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the biogeographical setting of the Falkland Islands, in the context of the relationships of the islands’ biota to other sub-Antarctic/cold temperate lands.The analysis focuses primarily on the Falklands biota, and explores its relationships to those of Patagonian South America and South Africa, other southern lands and the islands of the sub-Antarctic Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans.The study derives largely from literature sources on the biota and geological history of the Falkland Islands.The animals and plants known from the Falkland Islands exhibit strong affinities with those of Patagonian South America, and especially Tierra del Fuego; additional affinities are with various remote islands of the sub-Antarctic, as well as New Zealand and to a lesser extent Australia; often these are shared with Patagonia. While the biotic affinities might be interpreted, by some, as indicating a former Gondwanan/South American geological connection of the Falklands, geological evidence points to the Falklands formerly having a land connection to south-eastern South Africa. Only faint hints of a South African biotic connection remain. The historical biotic and geological connections of the Falklands thus conflict. Moreover, the Falklands biota is so strongly Patagonian that derivation of that biota is best seen as resulting from dispersal, much of it probably recent. This dispersal biota appears to have replaced, and perhaps displaced, the South African biota present on the islands as they detached from South Africa and drifted across the south Atlantic Ocean, as it opened up as South America and Africa drifted apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A porpitoid hydrozoan,Pseudodiscophyllum windermerensisgen. et sp. nov., from Cumbria, represented by a well-preserved internal float (pneumatophore), is only the fourth porpitoid reported from Silurian rocks world-wide and the first to be found in any geological formation in England. Its circular pneumatophore is more than 110 mm in diameter. Because of the paucity of hard parts, these animals are not common as fossils but may have been important elements of the Palaeozoic oceanic plankton. Although the new species is superficially similar to the OrdovicianDiscophyllum, there are what appear to be fundamental differences. Similarities to species ofParopsonema, from the Devonian and Silurian, are also probably superficial. The wider relationships of these animals have long been misinterpreted in the palaeontological literature. They are not siphonophores. Correct understanding involves a complete re-interpretation of various homologies and of the evolutionary history of the group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]