University of St Andrews

About: University of St Andrews is a education organization based out in St Andrews, Fife, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Laser. The organization has 16260 authors who have published 43364 publications receiving 1636072 citations. The organization is also known as: St Andrews University & University of St. Andrews.

Migrant Parents and the Psychological Well-Being of Left-Behind Children in Southeast Asia.

Abstract: Several million children currently live in transnational families, yet little is known about impacts on their health. We investigated the psychological well-being of left-behind children in four Southeast Asian countries. Data were drawn from the CHAMPSEA study. Caregiver reports from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) were used to examine differences among children under age 12 by the migration status of their household (N = 3,876). We found no general pattern across the four study countries: Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Multivariate models showed that children of migrant fathers in Indonesia and Thailand are more likely to have poor psychological well-being, compared to children in nonmigrant households. This finding was not replicated for the Philippines or Vietnam. The paper concludes by arguing for more contextualized understandings.

Inhibition of Interferon Signaling by the New York 99 Strain and Kunjin Subtype of West Nile Virus Involves Blockage of STAT1 and STAT2 Activation by Nonstructural Proteins

Abstract: The interferon (IFN) response is the first line of defense against viral infections, and the majority of viruses have developed different strategies to counteract IFN responses in order to ensure their survival in an infected host. In this study, the abilities to inhibit IFN signaling of two closely related West Nile viruses, the New York 99 strain (NY99) and Kunjin virus (KUN), strain MRM61C, were analyzed using reporter plasmid assays, as well as immunofluorescence and Western blot analyses. We have demonstrated that infections with both NY99 and KUN, as well as transient or stable transfections with their replicon RNAs, inhibited the signaling of both alpha/beta IFN (IFN-α/β) and gamma IFN (IFN-γ) by blocking the phosphorylation of STAT1 and its translocation to the nucleus. In addition, the phosphorylation of STAT2 and its translocation to the nucleus were also blocked by KUN, NY99, and their replicons in response to treatment with IFN-α. IFN-α signaling and STAT2 translocation to the nucleus was inhibited when the KUN nonstructural proteins NS2A, NS2B, NS3, NS4A, and NS4B, but not NS1 and NS5, were expressed individually from the pcDNA3 vector. The results clearly demonstrate that both NY99 and KUN inhibit IFN signaling by preventing STAT1 and STAT2 phosphorylation and identify nonstructural proteins responsible for this inhibition.

Fish Cognition and Behavior

Abstract: The field of animal cognition is the modern approach to understanding the mental capabilities of animals. The theories are largely an extension of early comparative psychology with a strong influence of behavioural ecology and ethology. Cognition has been variously defined in the literature. Some researchers confine cognition to higher order mental functions including awareness, reasoning and consciousness. However, a more general definition of cognition also includes perception, attention, memory formation and executive functions related to information processing such as learning and problem solving. The study of animal cognition has been largely confined to birds and mammals, particularly non-human primates. This bias in the literature is in part due to the approach taken in the 1950s when cognitive psychologists began to compare known human mental processes with other closely related species. This bias was reinforced by an underlying misconception that learning played little or no role in the development of behaviour in reptiles and fishes. Throughout scientific history fishes have largely been viewed as automatons. Their behaviour was thought to be almost exclusively controlled by unlearned predispositions. Ethologists characterised their behaviour as a series of fixed action patterns released on exposure to appropriate environmental cues (sign stimuli). Whilst there is no doubt that fishes are the most ancient form of vertebrates, they are only ‘primitive’ in the sense that they have been on earth for in excess of 500 million years and that all other vertebrates evolved from some common fish-like ancestor (around 360 million years ago). However, it is important to note that fishes have not been stuck in an evolutionary quagmire during this time. Their form and function have not remained stagnant over the ages. On the contrary, within this time frame they have diversified immensely to the point where there are more species of fish than all other vertebrates combined (currently over 32,000 described species) occupying nearly every imaginable aquatic niche. The erroneous view that both behavioural and neural sophistications are associated in a linear progression from fishes through reptiles and birds to mammals is largely due to a heady mix of outdated and unscientific thinking. Aristotle’s concept of Scala naturae

Multifunctional magnetoelectric materials for device applications.

Abstract: Over the past decade magnetoelectric (ME) mutiferroic (MF) materials and their devices are one of the highest priority research topics that has been investigated by the scientific ferroics community to develop the next generation of novel multifunctional materials. These systems show the simultaneous existence of two or more ferroic orders, and cross-coupling between them, such as magnetic spin, polarisation, ferroelastic ordering, and ferrotoroidicity. Based on the type of ordering and coupling, they have drawn increasing interest for a variety of device applications, such as magnetic field sensors, nonvolatile memory elements, ferroelectric photovoltaics, nano-electronics etc. Since single-phase materials exist rarely in nature with strong cross-coupling properties, intensive research activity is being pursued towards the discovery of new single-phase multiferroic materials and the design of new engineered materials with strong magneto-electric (ME) coupling. This review article summarises the development of different kinds of multiferroic material: single-phase and composite ceramic, laminated composite and nanostructured thin films. Thin-film nanostructures have higher magnitude direct ME coupling values and clear evidence of indirect ME coupling compared with bulk materials. Promising ME coupling coefficients have been reported in laminated composite materials in which the signal to noise ratio is good for device fabrication. We describe the possible applications of these materials.