Mental representations of important real-life decisions

Two studies investigated how decision makers characterize alternatives in important real-life decisions, which they themselves had made (to leave a partner, to choose an education and to choose a home). First, the participants indicated a very high degree of involvement in the decisions studied and about half of the participants gave maximum involvement ratings for the partner decision. Second, the results showed that concepts that are essential in most decision theories, such as, consequence, probability and value were important characteristics of the decisions. Third, emotion, positive and negative affect were also important characteristics. Fourth, value and emotion were uncorrelated. Fifth, the patterns of characteristics of decisions made in the past did not differ markedly from the characteristics given to future decisions. Principal component analyses were performed on the ratings of applicability of the different characteristics across participants for each decision situation. Three factors were extracted. There was one factor for positive affect/emotions and another factor for negative affect/emotions verified in oblique solutions. Thus, different scales are needed to represent emotion/affect components (and not bipolar scales) in real-life important decisions. The third factor represented the way in which a decision was represented (moving pictures dialogue etc.). An analysis restricted to the participants who rated 100% involvement showed an additional fourth factor with “what others would think”, “similar situations”, “values” and “money” as the most prominent characteristics. This points to the importance of controlling for participant involvement in studies of human decision making to enable generalizations to real-life decisions.     

Non-linear advertising capital model with time delayed feedback between advertising and stock of goodwill

According to the classical Nerlove-Arrow model, advertising expenditure can be considered as a capital investment to create present and future demand for the firm's products and, hence, to create present and future revenues for the firm. Advertising is assumed to influence via stock of goodwill which cumulatively counts for the effects of the firm's current and past advertising outlays. The paper presents a time delayed feedback model describing the relations between advertising and goodwill. Three different types of effects of advertising upon the dynamics of goodwill are modelled. The advertising policy of the management is incorporated into the model via a non-linear advertising function. The advertising function controls the advertising outlay e.g. by budget constraint and by the actual and target values of goodwill. The behavior of the model is analysed both analytically and numerically. Special attention is given for deriving the stability conditions for the limiting solution. The cases of repelling or chaotic limiting solutions are analysed by bifurcation and state space diagrams. Several numerical examples are given.     

Thermal and spectroscopic investigation of europium and samarium sulphates hydrates by TG-FTIR and ICP-MS techniques

The investigation of europium(III) sulphate hydrate and samarium(III) sulphate hydrate was performed by thermal analysis (TG-DTG) and simultaneous infrared evolved gas analysis-Fourier transformed infrared (EGA-FTIR) spectroscopy. The TG, DTG and DTA curves were recorded at the 25–1400 °C in the dynamic air atmosphere by TG/DTA analyser. The infrared evolved gas analysis was obtained on the FTIR spectrometer. Eu₂(SO₄)₃·nH₂O (n = 3.97) and Sm₂(SO₄)₃·nH₂O (n = 8.11) were analysed, the dehydration and decomposition steps were investigated and the water content was calculated. The formation of different oxysulphates was studied.

The trace rare earth elements in Eu and Sm sulphates were determined by ICP-MS. The concentration of trace Eu, Sm, La, Gd, Y and Ce ranged from 3.9 × 10⁻⁶ to 1.5 × 10⁻⁴% (m/m).     

Novel Thiazole-Containing Complexing Agents and Luminescence of Their Europum(III) and Terbium(III) Chelates

The synthesis of novel thiazole-containing complexing agents and their luminescence properties with Eu^III and Tb^III ions are reported. One of these terpyridine analogues was also tested as an Eu^III labelling reagent, and its luminescence properties as an antibody conjugate were studied.     

Automated liquid chromatographic/tandem mass spectrometric method for screening beta-blocking drugs in urine

An automated liquid chromatographic/tandem mass spectrometric (LC/MS/MS) method is presented for the screening and confirmation of 16 beta-blocking drugs in clinical and autopsy urine samples. The described method involved C(18) solid phase extraction, LC separation and MS analysis on a triple-stage quadrupole mass analyser. Samples were initially pre-screened for the presence of any beta-blocking drugs using LC/MS with selected ion monitoring. Any compounds tentatively identified as beta-blocking drugs on the basis of their LC retention time and protonated molecular ion were then automatedly subjected to a second analysis in which the relevant MS/MS product ion mass spectra were acquired. These product ion mass spectra were then automatically searched against a 400-substance mass spectral library containing previously acquired beta-blocking drugs. The results demonstrated that library search of beta-blocking drugs in urine with MS/MS product ion mass spectra was more reliable and produced fewer false negatives than library searching with mass spectra derived from single-stage quadrupole MS. The limits of identification in the MS/MS product ion scan ranged from 0.02 mg l(-1) for carvedilol to 1.2 mg l(-1) for pindolol, the majority of the values being below 0.2 mg l(-1).     

Migration behaviour and separation of tramadol metabolites and diastereomeric separation of tramadol glucuronides by capillary electrophoresis

Capillary electrophoresis with UV detection was used to separate tramadol (TR), a centrally acting analgesic, and its five phase I (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5) and three phase II metabolites (glucuronides of M1, M4 and M5). Several factors were evaluated in optimisation of the separation: pH and composition of the background electrolyte and the influence of a micellar modifier, sodium dodecyl sulfate. Baseline separation of TR and all the analytes was obtained with use of 65 mM tetraborate electrolyte solution at pH 10.65. The lowest concentrations of the analytes that could be detected were below 1 microM for the O-methylated, below 2 microM for the phenolic and ca. 7 microM for the glucuronide metabolites. The suitability of the method for screening of real samples was tested with an authentic urine sample collected after a single oral dose (50 mg) of TR. After purification and five-fold concentration of the sample (solid-phase extraction with Oasis MCX cartridges), the parent drug TR and its metabolites M1, M1G, M5 and M5G were easily detected, in comparison with standards, in an interference-free area of the electropherogram. Diastereomeric separation of TR glucuronides in in vitro samples was achieved with 10 mM ammonium acetate-100 mM formic acid electrolyte solution at pH 2.75 and with basic micellar 25 mM tetraborate-70 mM SDS electrolyte solution at pH 10.45. Both separations showed that glucuronidation in vitro produces glucuronide diastereomers in different amounts. The authentic TR urine sample was also analysed by micellar method, but unambiguous identification of the glucuronide diastereomers was not achieved owing to many interferences.     

Color Bricks: Building Highly Organized and Strongly Absorbing Multicomponent Arrays of Terpyridyl Perylenes on Metal Oxide Surfaces

Terpyridine‐substituted perylenes containing cyclic anhydrides in the peri position were synthesized. The anhydride group served as an anchor for assembly of the terpyridyl‐crowned chromophores as monomolecular layers on metal oxide surfaces. Further coordination with Zn²⁺ ions allowed for layer‐by‐layer formation of supramolecular assemblies of perylene imides on the solid substrates. With properly selected anchor and linker molecules it was possible to build high quality structures of greater than ten successive layers by a simple and straightforward procedure. The prepared films were stable and had a broad spectral coverage and high absorbance. To demonstrate their potential use, the synthesized dyes were employed in solid‐state dye‐sensitized solar cells, and electron injection from the perylene antennas to titanium dioxide was observed.     

Phase-separation of cellulose from ionic liquid upon cooling: preparation of microsized particles

Cellulose - Cellulose is an historical polymer, for which its processing possibilities have been limited by the absence of a melting point and insolubility in all non-derivatizing molecular...     

Simultaneous analysis of catechol‐O‐methyl transferase activity,S‐adenosylhomocysteine and adenosine

Novel HPLC method utilizing UV‐detection was developed to analyse catechol‐O‐methyltransferase (COMT) products, vanillic acid and isovanillic acid, S‐adenosylhomocysteine (SAH) and adenosine formed from dihydroxybenzoic acid and S‐adenosyl‐L‐methionine (SAM) by incubation of the rat tissues. Entacapone, a COMT inhibitor, prevented the formation of SAH only partially in the striatal homogenate whereas in the kidney homogenate the increase of SAH was prevented by entacapone. In conclusion, this method was reliable, rapid and simple. COMT seemed to be partially responsible on the SAM utilizing methylations in the striatal homogenates while in the high COMT activity tissue, COMT was the main SAH producing methyltransferase. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.