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The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) provides a reliable and ecologically valid model for the assessment of individual risk-taking propensity and is frequently used in neuroimaging and developmental research. Although the test-retest reliability of risk-taking behavior during the BART is well established, the reliability of brain activation patterns in response to risk-taking during the BART remains elusive. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and evaluated the test-retest reliability of brain responses in 34 healthy adults during a modified BART by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Dice’s similarity coefficients (DSC). Analyses revealed that risk-induced brain activation patterns showed good test-retest reliability (median ICC ​= ​0.62) and moderate to high spatial consistency, while brain activation patterns associated with win or loss outcomes only had poor to fair reliability (median ICC ​= ​0.33 for win and 0.42 for loss). These findings have important implications for future utility of the BART in fMRI to examine brain responses to risk-taking and decision-making.

OBJECTIVES: Degradation of oil is characterized by oxidation, polymerization and hydrolysis of the chemical compounds of the oil. This process of deterioration increases the amount of several types of compounds, including polar compounds, such as alcohols, ketones and free fatty acids. Currently, there is no universal assay for measuring the quality of frying oil, and tests that do exist to examine frying oil are often costly and time consuming. This study set out to examine the utility of Reichardt's dye, a solvatochromic dye that indicates degrees of solvent polarity, as a possible way to accurately predict the degree of degradation of cooking oils. METHODS: Several pH indicators were used to indicate the pH of the substances tested. Reichardt's dye was first tested against well-known indicators, including Bromophenol blue, Bromothymol blue, Bromocresol purple, and Phenolphthalein. One milliliter of each oil sample was combined with 0.5 milliliters of the Reichardt's dye solution and the color changes were observed. To determine the percentage of free fatty acids in each of the three oils, approximately 2 grams of oil with a pH indicator was dissolved in 100% ethanol and titrated with 1 M potassium hydroxide solution. The titrations assigned quantitative values to the color changes observed when Reichardt's dye was used. RESULTS: The addition of Reichardt's dye solution to all three oils indicated presence of polarized substances through varying degrees of color change whereby the fresh vegetable oil had the lowest concentration of polar compounds (dark blue) and the degraded oil had the highest concentration of polar compounds (greenish-orange). The degree of color change correlated with the results of titrations which demonstrated increasing amounts of free fatty acid (FFA) content in the fresh vegetable oil (0.17% FFA), the slightly degraded kitchen oil (2.7% FFA) and the degraded oil (15% FFA). CONCLUSIONS: Our experiment showed that Reichardt's dye was effective in indicating the polarity of oil substances, a reflection of the degree of degradation in oil. Given that oxidized oil is harmful to health, it is important to measure this oxidation process. This study warrants future research into the utility of Reichardt's dye. FUNDING SOURCES: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH; University of Pennsylvania TREES Program (R25 ES021649).

The church in Brazil suffers many but by no means all of the ills usually ascribed to Catholicism in Spanish American countries. Concern over these problems has grown throughout the Catholic world, as well it might. One-third of the world's Roman Catholics live in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere. According to many churchmen a state of spiritual bankruptcy confronts the church in most of these countries. Basically it is a matter of the irrelevance of a system still rooted in hierarchic and paternalistic spiritual guardianship among people in transitional societies whose goals are modern, affluent egalitarianism. In simpler terms, more and more people in Latin America learn about widespread wealth among others, and fewer and fewer believe that their own disadvantages are preordained and can be changed for the better only in the next world—as the church has long taught.