The ability to make decisions within an emotional context requires a balance between two functionally integrated neural systems that primarily support executive control and affective processing. Several studies have demonstrated effects of emotional interference presented during an ongoing cognitive task, but it is unclear how activating the emotional circuitry prior to a cognitive task may enhance or disrupt the executive system. In this study we used fMRI to examine the effects of emotional priming on executive processing during a number Stroop task. Our results indicated that during trials with less executive requirements, there was a greater aversive emotional attenuation effect in a network of regions including the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), insula and cingulate gyrus. This attenuation effect was counteracted during trials with increased executive demand, suggesting that while pre-activation of the emotional system may lead to an automatic attenuation of activity in multiple regions, requirements for executive function may override the aversive emotional attenuation effect. Furthermore, this override effect was found to be associated with faster reaction times during executive processing. These findings demonstrate that activity in the vlPFC, cingulate and insula is dynamically adjusted in order to optimize performance, and illustrate the importance of the timing of each system's engagement in determining how competing cognitive and emotional information is processed.

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State Wellhead Protection Programs (WHPPs), utilize various methods to delineate the extent and configuration of those areas that contribute water to supply wells or wellfields. Once these Wellhead Protection Areas (WHPAs) are defined, state and local governments can implement zoning laws and land use regulations designed to protect these areas. These regulation may limit or prohibit activitities that may re-define zoning laws that could eliminate high risk activities from land areas that pose a threat to the water supply wells or wellfields. However, the methods used to delineate WHPAs, can, and often do, produce misleading results. These inaccuracies are due to either the method's inability to account for specific data in its calculation or the lack of sufficient hydrogeologic data to support more complex delineation methods. Data from a New Jersey site was evaluated using three different methods, relative differences were measured between the resultant 2-year wellhead protection areas for each method (i.e., Calculated Fixed Radius (CFR), Analytical Equations, and Numerical Modeling). The size differences in the resulting delineated 2-year WHPAs size ranged from 11% to 45% greater than and 16% to 68% less than the baseline 2-year WHPA.