Spartan Daily, May 13, 1941

Volume 29, Issue 139https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/3301/thumbnail.jp

A review on seawater as concrete composites and its effects on the strength and durability

The world is facing a big challenge of balancing a growing population and demand with a natural environment that is increasingly under stress. The rapidly changing environmental conditions especially intensity and frequency of extreme weather it has now become very important to explore in green technology. Effective use of natural resources is pressing concern. Particularly, water resources for drinking are predicted to be in serious shortage in 2050 due to increase in population and rapid urbanization throughout the world. The beginning of the 21st century is straddled with enormous environmental problems of which water shortage is one of the most serious. It is a well-known fact that fresh water resources are continuously declining throughout the world and according to a report by the United Nations, water will be very short in future. It is expected that 5bn people will be short of drinking water in 2050 [1]. In another report published by OECD, it is stated that a number of people living in river basins will be under severe water stress which is expected to be double in 2050 .

The coral fauna of the Midway Eocene of Texas

The coral fauna of the Midway Eocene of Texas includes thirteen separate species and varieties. Only two of the species, each represented in a single locality by a single specimen, belong to the colonial types. The remaining eleven species, containing probably 95 per cent of the specimens, are all of solitary forms. Evidently the Texas Midway seas did not afford conditions favorable to the growth of reef-building corals

Understanding the relations between QSOs and their host galaxies from combined HST imaging and VLT spectroscopy

The host galaxies of six nearby QSOs are studied on the basis of high resolution HST optical images and spatially resolved VLT slit spectra. The gas ionization and velocity are mapped as a function of the distance to the central QSO. In the majority of the cases, the QSO significantly contributes to the gas ionization in its whole host galaxy, and sometimes even outside. Reflection or scattering of the QSO \ha line from remote regions of the galaxy is detected in several instances. The line shifts show that, in all cases, the matter responsible for the light reflection moves away from the QSO, likely accelerated by its radiation pressure. The two faintest QSOs reside in spirals, with some signs of a past gravitational perturbation. One of the intermediate luminosity QSOs resides in a massive elliptical containing gas ionized (and probably pushed away) by the QSO radiation. The other medium-power object is found in a spiral galaxy displaying complex velocity structure, with the central QSO moving with respect to the bulge, probably as a result of a galactic collision. The two most powerful objects are involved in violent gravitational interactions and one of them has no detected host. These results suggest that (1) large-scale phenomena, such as galactic collisions, are closely related to the triggering and the feeding of the QSO and (2) once ignited, the QSO has significant influence on its large-scale neighborhood (often the whole host and sometimes further away).Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 31 pages, 17 figures, 3 table

Relationship between social support, quality of life, and Th2 cytokines in a biobehavioral cancer survivorship trial.

ObjectiveBenefits of social support (SS) during cancer survivorship are complex. This study examines change in SS over time in cervical cancer (CXCA) survivors who have completed definitive treatment and how changing SS impacts quality of life (QOL) and T-helper type 2 (Th2) cytokines.MethodsWe conducted a randomized trial in 204 CXCA survivors to test if psychosocial telephone counseling (PTC) could improve QOL compared to usual care (UC). Although PTC did not target SS, data were collected at baseline, 4 and 9 months post-enrollment using the Medical Outcomes Survey Social Support scale. Biospecimens were collected to investigate associations with patient-reported outcomes. Data were analyzed using multivariate linear models and stepwise regression.ResultsParticipants' mean age was 43. PTC participants experienced increasing SS compared to UC at 4 months (PTC-UC = 5.1; p = 0.055) and 9 months (PTC-UC = 6.0; p = 0.046). Higher baseline SS and increasing SS were independently associated with improved QOL at 4 and 9 months after adjusting for patient characteristics (p < 0.05). Differences between study arms were not statistically significant. Improvements in QOL at 4 months were observed with increases in emotional/informational and tangible SS. Increasing SS predicted significant longitudinal decreases in IL-4 and IL-13 at 4 months that were larger in the PTC arm (interactions p = 0.041 and p = 0.057, respectively).ConclusionImproved SS was significantly associated with improved QOL independent of patient characteristics and study arm. Decreasing Th2 cytokines with increasing SS and QOL are consistent with a biobehavioral paradigm in which modulation of the chronic stress response is associated with shifts in immune stance

Entropy and density of states from isoenergetic nonequilibrium processes

Two identities in statistical mechanics involving entropy differences (or ratios of density of states) at constant energy are derived. The first provides a nontrivial extension of the Jarzynski equality to the microcanonical ensemble [C. Jarzynski, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2690 (1997)], which can be seen as a ``fast-switching'' version of the adiabatic switching method for computing entropies [M. Watanabe, W. P. Reinhardt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 3301 (1990)]. The second is a thermodynamic integration formula analogous to a well-known expression for free energies, and follows after taking the quasistatic limit of the first. Both identities can be conveniently used in conjunction with a scaling relation (herein derived) that allows one to extrapolate measurements taken at a single energy to a wide range of energy values. Practical aspects of these identities in the context of numerical simulations are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Inconvenient marriages, or what happens when ethnic minorities marry trans-jurisdictionally according to their self-chosen norms

The Utrecht Law Review is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Articles published in the Utrecht Law Review are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).Initially published in The Utrecht Law Review: http://www.utrechtlawreview.org/ Volume 6, Issue 2 (June) 2010This article presents evidence of a trend in the practice of British immigration control of denying recognition to marriages which take place trans-jurisdictionally across national and continental boundaries and across different state jurisdictions. The article partly draws on evidence gleaned from the writer’s own experience of being instructed as an expert witness to provide opinions of the validity of such marriages, and partly on evidence from reported cases at different levels of the judicial system. The evidence demonstrates that decision making in this area, whether by officials or judges, often takes place in arbitrary ways, arguably to fulfil wider aims of controlling the immigration of certain population groups whose presence in the UK and Europe is increasingly seen as undesirable. However, and quite apart from the immigration control concerns underlying such actions, the field throws up evidence of the kinds of legal insecurity faced by those whose marriages are solemnized under non-Western legal traditions and calls into question respect for those traditions when they come into contact with Western officialdom