Flavonoids in Australian Melaleuca, Guioa, Lophostemon, Banksia and Helianthus honeys and their potential for floral authentication

Flavonoids in Australian honeys from five botanical species (Melaleuca, Guioa, Lophostemon, Banksia and Helianthus) have been analyzed in relation to their floral origins. Tea tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia) and heath (Banksia ericifolia) honeys show a common flavonoid profile comprising myricetin (3,5,7,3',4',5'-hexahydroxyflavone), tricetin (5,7,3',4,5'-pentahydroxyflavone), querectin (3,5,7,3',4'-pentahydroxyflavone) and luteolin (5,7,3',4'-tetrahydroxyflavone), which was previously suggested as a floral marker for an Australian Eucalyptus honey (bloodwood or Eucalyptus intermedia honey). These honeys of various floral species can be differentiated by their levels of total flavonoids, being 2.12 mg/100 g for heath honey and 6.35 m/100 g for tea tree honey. In brush box (Lophostemon conferta) honey, the flavonoid profile comprising mainly tricetin, luteolin and quercetin is similar to that of another Eucalyptus honey (yellow box or Eucalyptus melliodora honey). These results indicate that the flavonoid profiles in some of the Australian non-Eucalyptus honeys may contain more or less certain flavonoids from Eucalyptus floral sources because of the diversity and extensive availability of Eucalyptus nectars for honeybee foraging yearly around or a possible cross contamination of the monofloral honeys during collection, transportation and/or storage. Further analyses are required to differentiate and/or verify the botanical sources of the flavonoids that contribute to the flavonoid profiles of these honeys, by restricting honey sampling areas and procedures, employing other complementary analytical methods (e.g. pollen analysis, sugar profile) and using materials (e.g. nectar) directly sourced from the flowering plant for comparative studies. In Australian crow ash (Guioa semiglauca) honey, myricetin, tricetin, quercetin, luteolin and an unknown flavonoid have been found to be the main flavonoids, which is characteristic only to this type of honey, and could thus be used as the floral marker, while in Australian sunflower (Helianthus annuus) honey, the content of total flavonoids is the smallest amount comparing to those in the other honeys analysed in this study. However, the flavonoid quercetin and the flavonoid profile mainly consisting of quercetin, quercetin 3,3'-dimethyl ether (5,7,4'-trihydroxy3,3'-dimethoxyflavone), myricetin and luteolin are characteristic only to this sunflower honey and could thus be used for the authentication.

Phenolic acids in Australian Melaleuca, Guioa, Lophostemon, Banksia and Helianthus honeys and their potential for floral authentication

Eight phenolic acids and two abscisic acid isomers in Australian honeys from five botanical species (Melaleuca, Guioa, Lophostemon, Banksia and Helianthus) have been analyzed in relation to their botanical origins. Total phenolic acids present in these honeys range from 2.13 mg/100 g sunflower (Helianthus annuus) honey to 12.11 mg/100 g tea tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia) honey, with amounts of individual acids being various. Tea tree honey shows a phenolic profile of gallic, ellagic, chlorogenic and coumaric acids, which is similar to the phenolic profile of an Australian Eucalyptus honey (bloodwood or Eucalyptus intermedia honey). The main difference between tea tree and bloodwood honeys is the contribution of chlorogenic acid to their total phenolic profiles. In Australian crow ash (Guioa semiglauca) honey, a characteristic phenolic profile mainly consisting of gallic acid and abscisic acid could be used as the floral marker. In brush box (Lophostemon conferta) honey, the phenolic profile, comprising mainly gallic acid and ellagic acid, could be used to differentiate this honey not only from the other Australian non-Eucalyptus honeys but also from a Eucalyptus honey (yellow box or Eucalyptus melliodora honey). However, this Eucalyptus honey could not be differentiated from brush box honey based only on their flavonoid profiles. Similarly, the phenolic profile of heath (Banksia ericifolia) honey, comprising mainly gallic acid, an unknown phenolic acid (Phl) and coumaric acid, could also be used to differentiate this honey from tea tree and bloodwood honeys, which have similar flavonoid profiles. Coumaric acid is a principal phenolic acid in Australian sunflower honey and it could thus be used together with gallic acid for the authentication. These results show that the HPLC analysis of phenolic acids and abscisic acids in Australian floral honeys Could assist the differentiation and authentication of the honeys. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stability for parametric implicit vector equilibrium problems

In this paper, we consider a class of parametric implicit vector equilibrium problems in Hausdorff topological vector spaces where a mapping f and a set K are perturbed by parameters is an element of and lambda respectively. We establish sufficient conditions for the upper semicontinuity and lower semicontinuity of the solution set mapping S : Lambda(1) x A(2) -> 2(X) for such parametric implicit vector equilibrium problems. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analysis of trigonometric implicit Runge-Kutta methods

Using generalized collocation techniques based on fitting functions that are trigonometric (rather than algebraic as in classical integrators), we develop a new class of multistage, one-step, variable stepsize, and variable coefficients implicit Runge-Kutta methods to solve oscillatory ODE problems. The coefficients of the methods are functions of the frequency and the stepsize. We refer to this class as trigonometric implicit Runge-Kutta (TIRK) methods. They integrate an equation exactly if its solution is a trigonometric polynomial with a known frequency. We characterize the order and A-stability of the methods and establish results similar to that of classical algebraic collocation RK methods. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A sensor-based multimedia authentication system

User requirements of multimedia authentication are various. In some cases, the user requires an authentication system to monitor a set of specific areas with respective sensitivity while neglecting other modification. Most current existing fragile watermarking schemes are mixed systems, which can not satisfy accurate user requirements. Therefore, in this paper we designed a sensor-based multimedia authentication architecture. This system consists of sensor combinations and a fuzzy response logic system. A sensor is designed to strictly respond to given area tampering of a certain type. With this scheme, any complicated authentication requirement can be satisfied, and many problems such as error tolerant tamper method detection will be easily resolved. We also provided experiments to demonstrate the implementation of the sensor-based system

Context-enhanced authentication for infrastructureless network environments

Infrastructureless networks are becoming more popular with the increased prevalence of wireless networking technology. A significant challenge faced by these infrastructureless networks is that of providing security. In this paper we examine the issue of authentication, a fundamental component of most security approaches, and show how it can be performed despite an absence of trusted infrastructure and limited or no existing trust relationship between network nodes. Our approach enables nodes to authenticate using a combination of contextual information, harvested from the environment, and traditional authentication factors (such as public key cryptography). Underlying our solution is a generic threshold signature scheme that enables distributed generation of digital certificates.

Implicit learning is not subject to blocking

Explicit (aware) learning has been shown to evidence certain characteristics, such as extinction, blocking, occasion setting, and reliance on context. These characteristics have not been assessed in implicit (unaware) learning. The current study investigated whether implicit learning is subject to blocking. Participants completed a cued reaction time task, where they watched rapid presentations of a random sequence of 8 pairs of shapes, and responded to two target shapes. One target was always preceded by a cue. The experimental group completed a pretraining phase where half the cue, one shape, was followed by the target. Both experimental and control groups completed a training phase where both elements of the cue, two shapes, were followed by the target. Both aware and unaware participants evidenced learning, whereby responding was faster for cued than uncued targets. Aware participants in the experimental group responded faster to targets preceded by the pretrained element than by the other element of the cue. Control and unaware experimental participants were faster to respond to targets preceded by either element of the cue. As blocking was only evident in aware participants, but implicit learning was observed in all participants, it is concluded that implicit learning is not subject to blocking.

Role of organizational identification, on Implicit Leadership Theories ILTs, transformational leadership and work attitudes

This investigation explores the effects of organizational identification on employees’ Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) and the perception of leader behaviors. The study involved a cross-sectional survey of 439 employees from seven companies based in South Wales. Respondents completed two questionnaires that measured their organizational identification, ILTs, recognition of ILTs in their manager, manager’s leadership behaviors (transactional and transformational), and psychological reactions (job satisfaction, well-being, and turnover intentions). The level of organizational identification did not affect the prototype of an ideal work-based leader. However, high organizational identification was associated with more positive ratings on the actual manager, the extent to which their manager displayed transactional and transformational behaviors, and with more positive psychological reactions to work. Employees high in organizational identification based their judgments of their leader’s transactional and transformational behaviors on the extent to which they recognized their leader as possessing leadership traits. However, those low on organizational identification allowed their prototype of their ideal leader to bias their judgment of their actual leader’s behavior. Finally, there was partial support for the augmenting hypothesis (that tranformational leadership would predict additional variance in psychological outcomes above that predicted by transactional leadership) for those high in organizational identification but not for those low in organizational identification.

Workplace gender discrimination and the implicit association test

Women are under-represented at senior levels within organisations. They also fareless well than their male counterparts in reward and career opportunities. Attitudestoward women in the workplace are thought to underpin these disparities and moreand more organisations are introducing attitude measures into diversity and inclusioninitiatives to: 1) raise awareness amongst employees of implicit attitudes, 2) educateemployees on how these attitudes can influence behaviour and 3) re-measure theattitude after an intervention to assess whether the attitude has changed. TheImplicit Association Test (IAT: Greenwald, et al., 1998) is the most popular tool usedto assess attitudes. However, questions over the predictive validity of the measurehave been raised and the evidence for the real world impact of the implicit attitudes islimited (Blanton et al., 2009; Landy, 2008; Tetlock & Mitchell, 2009; Wax, 2010).Whilst there is growing research in the area of race, little research has explored theability of the IAT to predict gender discrimination. This thesis addresses thisimportant gap in the literature. Three empirical studies were conducted. The firststudy explored whether gender IATs were predictive of personnel decisions thatfavour men and whether affect- and cognition-based gender IATs were equallypredictive of behaviour. The second two studies explored the predictive validity ofthe IAT in comparison to an explicit measure of one type of gender attitude,benevolent sexism. The results revealed implicit gender attitudes were stronglyheld. However, they did not consistently predict behaviour across the studies.Overall, the results suggest that the IAT may only predict workplace genderdiscrimination in a very select set of circumstances. The attitude component that anIAT assesses, the personnel decision and participant demographics all impact thepredictive validity of the tool. The interplay between the IAT and behaviour thereforeappears to be more complex than is assumed.

Implicit leadership theories in applied settings:factor structure, generalizability, and stability over time

The present empirical investigation had a 3-fold purpose: (a) to cross-validate L. R. Offermann, J. K. Kennedy, and P. W. Wirtz's (1994) scale of Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) in several organizational settings and to further provide a shorter scale of ILTs in organizations; (b) to assess the generalizability of ILTs across different employee groups, and (c) to evaluate ILTs' change over time. Two independent samples were used for the scale validation (N 1 = 500 and N 2 = 439). A 6-factor structure (Sensitivity, Intelligence, Dedication, Dynamism, Tyranny, and Masculinity) was found to most accurately represent ILTs in organizational settings. Regarding the generalizability of ILTs, although the 6-factor structure was consistent across different employee groups, there was only partial support for total factorial invariance. Finally, evaluation of gamma, beta, and alpha change provided support for ILTs' stability over time.

The effective use of implicit parallelism through the use of an object-oriented programming language

This thesis explores translating well-written sequential programs in a subset of the Eiffel programming language - without syntactic or semantic extensions - into parallelised programs for execution on a distributed architecture. The main focus is on constructing two object-oriented models: a theoretical self-contained model of concurrency which enables a simplified second model for implementing the compiling process. There is a further presentation of principles that, if followed, maximise the potential levels of parallelism. Model of Concurrency. The concurrency model is designed to be a straightforward target for mapping sequential programs onto, thus making them parallel. It aids the compilation process by providing a high level of abstraction, including a useful model of parallel behaviour which enables easy incorporation of message interchange, locking, and synchronization of objects. Further, the model is sufficient such that a compiler can and has been practically built. Model of Compilation. The compilation-model's structure is based upon an object-oriented view of grammar descriptions and capitalises on both a recursive-descent style of processing and abstract syntax trees to perform the parsing. A composite-object view with an attribute grammar style of processing is used to extract sufficient semantic information for the parallelisation (i.e. code-generation) phase. Programming Principles. The set of principles presented are based upon information hiding, sharing and containment of objects and the dividing up of methods on the basis of a command/query division. When followed, the level of potential parallelism within the presented concurrency model is maximised. Further, these principles naturally arise from good programming practice. Summary. In summary this thesis shows that it is possible to compile well-written programs, written in a subset of Eiffel, into parallel programs without any syntactic additions or semantic alterations to Eiffel: i.e. no parallel primitives are added, and the parallel program is modelled to execute with equivalent semantics to the sequential version. If the programming principles are followed, a parallelised program achieves the maximum level of potential parallelisation within the concurrency model.

An investigation into the nature and consequences of teachers' implicit philosophies of science

The aims of this study were to investigate the beliefs concerning the philosophy of science held by practising science teachers and to relate those beliefs to their pupils' understanding of the philosophy of science. Three philosophies of science, differing in the way they relate experimental work to other parts of the scientific enterprise, are described. By the use of questionnaire techniques, teachers of four extreme types were identified. These are: the H type or hypothetico-deductivist teacher, who sees experiments as potential falsifiers of hypotheses or of logical deductions from them; the I type or inductivist teacher, who regards experiments mainly as a way of increasing the range of observations available for recording before patterns are noted and inductive generalisation is carried out; the V type or verificationist teacher, who expects experiments to provide proof and to demonstrate the truth or accuracy of scientific statements; and the 0 type, who has no discernible philosophical beliefs about the nature of science or its methodology. Following interviews of selected teachers to check their responses to the questionnaire and to determine their normal teaching methods, an experiment was organised in which parallel groups were given H, I and V type teaching in the normal school situation during most of one academic year. Using pre-test and post-test scores on a specially developed test of pupil understanding of the philosophy of science, it was shown that pupils were positively affected by their teacher's implied philosophy of science. There was also some indication that V type teaching improved marks obtained in school science examinations, but appeared to discourage the more able from continuing the study of science. Effects were also noted on vocabulary used by pupils to describe scientists and their activities.