Texas A&M International University: Research Information Online (RIO)
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Evaluation of antibacterial activity of Artemisia vulgaris extracts
No full textPlants have been and still are the main source of a variety of drugs. Due to this trend, there is a need to investigate plants and determine if they possess any medicinal property. In this study, medicinal compounds in the stem, root and shoot of Artemisia vulgaris were extracted sequentially via Soxhlet extract using petroleum ether, acetone and 90% ethanol on water respectively. Antimicrobial activity of these extracts was tested against Staphylococcus aureus (SA), Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Bacillus subtilis (BS) using the disc diffusion method. Whereas acetone extract exhibited high antimicrobial activity (5 mg mLG1 against B. subtilis, 25 mg mLG1 against MRSA and 5 mg mLG1 against S. aureus), the ethanol extract showed very moderate activity (25 mg mLG1 against B. subtilis 50 mg mLG1 against S. aureus and no activity against MRSA). Diminished or lack of antibacterial activity from the ethanol extract reported in this study conflicts previous studies which report higher antimicrobial activity in ethanolic extracts. Findings in this study therefore suggest that the active antimicrobial agents in A. vulgaris can be extracted better acetone than with ethanol
How likely is Simpson\u27s paradox in path models?
No full textSimpson\u27s paradox is a phenomenon arising from multivariate statistical analyses that often leads to paradoxical conclusions in the field of e-collaboration as well as many other fields where multivariate methods are employed. This work derives a general inequality for the occurrence of Simpson\u27s paradox in path models with or without latent variables. The inequality is then used to estimate the probability that Simpson\u27s paradox would occur at random in path models with two predictors and one criterion variable. This probability is found to be approximately 12.8 percent, slightly higher than 1 occurrence per 8 path models. This estimate suggests that Simpson\u27s paradox is likely to occur in empirical studies, in the field of e-collaboration and other fields, frequently enough to be a source of concern
A balanced finite element method for a system of singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion two-point boundary value problems
No full textA system of linear coupled reaction-diffusion equations is considered, where each equation is a two-point boundary value problem and all equations share the same small diffusion coefficient. A finite element method using piecewise quadratic splines that are globally C1 is introduced; its novelty lies in the norm associated with the method, which is stronger than the usual energy norm and is “balanced”, i.e., each term in the norm is O(1) when the norm is applied to the true solution of the system. On a standard Shishkin mesh with N subintervals, it is shown that the method is O(N−1lnN) accurate in the balanced norm. Numerical results to illustrate this result are presented
Metaphoric reference: A real-time analysis
No full textIn two experiments, we examine the processing of metaphoric reference, where a metaphoric description (e.g., creampuff) makes reference to an antecedent describing a cowardly boxer during the online comprehension of spoken sentences. We measured activation levels of figurative (e.g., boxer) and literal (e.g., pastry) interpretations of the metaphoric referential description. Experiment 1 measured meaning activation at 0 ms and 1000 ms after the metaphoric referential description. At the metaphoric reference offset, only activation for the nonliteral interpretation was observed. At 1000 ms only activation for the literal interpretation was evidenced. Experiment 2 involved Spanish-English bilinguals immersed in a bilingual community where usage of both languages is a common occurrence. Meaning activation was measured at 0 ms and 300 ms after metaphoric reference offset. Results revealed that bilinguals were much faster to name targets consistent with a figurative interpretation at 300 ms than at 0 ms after prime offset. The same pattern was observed for the literal target interpretation. Implications for theories of bilingual metaphoric language processing are discussed
Research experiences and mentoring practices in selected east asian graduate programs: Predictors of research productivity among doctoral students in molecular biology
No full textAlthough doctoral mentors recognize the benefits of providing quality advisement and close guidance, those of sharing project management responsibilities with mentees are still not well recognized. We observed that mentees, who have the opportunity to co-manage projects, generate more written output. Here we examine the link between research productivity, doctoral mentoring practices (DMP), and doctoral research experiences (DRE) of mentees in programs in the non-West. Inspired by previous findings that early career productivity is a strong predictor of later productivity, we examine the research productivity of 210 molecular biology doctoral students in selected programs in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Using principal component (PC) analysis, we derive two sets of PCs: one set from 15 DMP and another set from 16 DRE items. We model research productivity using Poisson and negative-binomial regression models with these sets as predictors. Our findings suggest a need to re-think extant practices and to allocate resources toward professional career development in training future scientists. We contend that doctoral science training must not only be an occasion for future scientists to learn scientific and technical skills, but it must also be the opportunity to experience, to acquire, and to hone research management skills. © 2014 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
International insurance? Democratic consolidation and support for international human rights regimes
No full textJudicial empowerment has traditionally been explained as a response to political uncertainty. This article applies this insight to the international context to explain patterns of support for the empowerment of supranational courts. Our analysis of the negotiations that produced the International Criminal Court suggests that the relationship between democratic consolidation and support for empowering such courts is curvilinear. States with no recent experience with the type of autocratic regime particularly likely to commit serious human rights violations generally favored a somewhat weaker Court. In this respect their positions sometimes aligned with those of autocracies. Conversely, states that had recently emerged from the shadow of autocratic rule, for whom the sovereignty costs associated with the Court were countervailed by the benefit of insurance against backsliding toward autocracy, generally favored a stronger Court. Thus, just as uncertainty drives judicial empowerment in domestic contexts, it also drives judicial empowerment in the international context
Institutionalizing the Culture of Control: Modeling the Changing Dynamics of U.S. Supreme Court Death Penalty Decisions
No full textThe turn away from “penal welfarism” and toward a more punitive approach to crime control policy that began in the late 1960s has been the product of a deeply rooted social and political transformation, one giving rise to what Garland (2001) has termed a “culture of control.” Perhaps the most emblematic manifestation of this culture has been the reemergence of the death penalty as a crime control tool, a reemergence facilitated by a Supreme Court that has generally acted to limit or remove constitutional and legal obstacles to carrying out death sentences. This article analyzes the Court’s role in deregulating the death penalty from a “political regimes” perspective. Using a data set of all of the votes cast in every death penalty case decided by the Court since 1969, it demonstrates the importance of regime cohort in understanding death penalty jurisprudence. Specifically, it demonstrates that the construction of the “New Right” political regime, which spearheaded the punitive trend in crime control policy, represents the critical turning point in terms of justices’ attitudes toward the death penalty. Justices appointed after 1968, even when controlling for background, ideology, partisanship, public opinion, and a variety of legal factors, were significantly more likely to vote to affirm death sentences than justices appointed prior to 1968. Moreover, this turning point also marked a reversal in the relationship between partisanship and death penalty jurisprudence. While post-1968 Republican appointees were more supportive of the death penalty than post-1968 Democratic appointees, this pattern was notably reversed among pre-1968 appointees
The Auteurism of Baz Luhrmann: An Analysis of Moulin Rouge! And The Great Gatsby
Get PDFBaz Luhrmann is widely known for his personal vision in his five feature films. Luhrmann has claimed that the first three films have the “Red Curtain” style, and their style is different from his last two films. Through the Auteur theory and Formalist style, it is shown that Luhrmann has a consistent personal stamp in all his films. The visuals, the editing, the narrative use of the characters, the symbols and themes of Moulin Rouge!, a Red Curtain style film, is compared to The Great Gatsby, Luhrmann’s last film, to show how strikingly similar they are. Before the analysis of the oeuvre, Luhrmann’s career is overviewed. My contribution to the field is to show that Luhrmann is an authentic auteur by proving a detailed analysis from areas in his films that have not been deeply discussed
Percepción de la diversidad cultural y construcción de estereotipos a partir del impacto mediático de Los Simpsons
No full textSe propone un análisis del modo en que la serie globalizada ‘Los Simpsons’ influye en la percepción y en los estereotipos que los jóvenes elaboran acerca de diferentes minorías socioculturales. Para el logro de este objetivo de investigación se realizaron dos grupos de enfoque con estudiantes de dos universidades privadas en México. Las minorías sobre las que se debatió han sido categorizadas según la clasificación de estigma propuesta por Goffman, destacando una respuesta cognitiva y emotiva claramente diferenciada según la categoría a la que se refiriesen los estudiantes, principalmente condicionada por la existencia o inexistencia de contacto interpersonal entre el sujeto estereotipificador y el sujeto estereotipificado.Palabras clave: Estereotipos, estigmatización, minorías socioculturales, diversidad cultural, medios masivos de comunicación Abstract The following is an analysis of the way in which the globalized T.V. series The Simpsons influences the perception and stereotypes that you people elaborate with regards to different sociocultural minorities. In order to achieve this research goal, two focus groups were conducted with students from two private universities in Mexico. The minorities discussed in these groups were categorized according to the stigma classification proposed by Goffman, emphasizing cognitive and emotive responses clearly differentiated depending on the category to which the students refer, and mainly determined by the existence or absence of interpersonal contact between the stereotyping subject and the stereotyped subject. Keywords: Stereotype, stigmatization, sociocultural minorities, cultural diversity, mass medi
Trabajo creativo, TIC y mecanismos de control en los procesos laborales en las industrias culturales. Un estudio de caso en Argentina
Get PDFEn este estudio se analiza en qué medida la aplicación de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC) afectan al trabajo creativo de periodistas de una redacción online, dependiente de una empresa tradicional de diario en Argentina. Este artículo forma parte de una investigación en curso, cuya metodología es de corte cualitativa y basada en las técnicas de entrevistas en profundidad y observación directa de las prácticas laborales. A partir de los estudios de la Economía Política de la Comunicación, como enfoque principal, buscamos analizar qué mecanismos de control de trabajo existen en una redacción online y las reacciones de los trabajadores, la colaboración y resistencias, para comprender –parcialmente- las rutinas periodísticas, los cambios en la cultura profesional y las condiciones laborales de los periodista