401 research outputs found
Diseño y validación del Cuestionario Socio-familiar de los Dominios de Alfabetización Emergentes en estudiantes de enseñanza pre-escolar chilenos
The purpose of this paper is to present the design and validation of the Socio-Familial Questionnaire of Emerging Literacy Domains (CSDAE), which evaluates the context of socio-familial literacy of Chilean children at early ages. The study included a sample of 213 families of low, low-middle and middle socio-economic levels. The results show a reliability according to Cronbach's alpha of 0.90 and an omega coefficient of 0.94. The first version of the questionnaire grouped the items into five factors that explained a satisfactory fit. The proposed instrument contributes to studies related to the evaluation of the literate socio-familial environment. El presente trabajo tiene por objetivo dar a conocer el diseño y validación del Cuestionario Socio- Familiar de los Dominios de Alfabetización Emergente (CSDAE), que evalúa el contexto socio-familiar alfabetizador de niños/as chilenos/as en edades tempranas. El estudio contó con una muestra de 213 familias de los niveles socio-económicos bajo, bajo-medio y medio. Los resultados muestran una fiabilidad según alfa de Cronbach de ,90 y un coeficiente de omega ,94. La primera versión del cuestionario agrupó los ítems en cinco factores que explicaron un ajuste satisfactorio. El instrumento es un aporte para la investigación relacionada con la evaluación del ambiente socio-familiar alfabetizador
Shock Wave Structure in a Strongly Nonlinear Granular Lattice with Viscous Dissipation
The shock wave structure in a one-dimensional lattice (e.g. granular chain)
with a power law dependence of force on displacement between particles with
viscous dissipation is considered and compared to the corresponding long wave
approximation. A dissipative term depending on the relative velocity between
neighboring particles is included in the discrete model to investigate its
influence on the shape of steady shock profiles. The critical viscosity
coefficient is obtained from the long-wave approximation for arbitrary values
of the exponent n and denotes the transition from an oscillatory to a monotonic
shock profile in stronly nonlinear systems. The expression for the critical
viscosity coefficient converges to the known equation for the critical
viscosity in the weakly nonlinear case. Values of viscosity based on this
expression are comparable to the values obtained in the numerical analysis of a
discrete particle lattice with a Herzian contact interaction corresponding to n
= 3/2. An initial disturbance in a discrete system approaches a stationary
shock profile after traveling a short distance that is comparable to the width
of the leading pulse of a stationary shock front. The shock front width is
minimized when the viscosity is equal to its critical value.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Tunneling dynamics in exactly-solvable models with triple-well potentials
Inspired by new trends in atomtronics, cold atoms devices and Bose-Einstein
condensate dynamics, we apply a general technique of N=4 extended
Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics to isospectral Hamiltonians with triple-well
potentials, i.e. symmetric and asymmetric. Expressions of quantum-mechanical
propagators, which take into account all states of the spectrum, are obtained,
within the N = 4 SQM approach, in the closed form. For the initial Hamiltonian
of a harmonic oscillator, we obtain the explicit expressions of potentials,
wavefunctions and propagators. The obtained results are applied to tunneling
dynamics of localized states in triple-well potentials and for studying its
features. In particular, we observe a Josephson-type tunneling transition of a
wave packet, the effect of its partial trapping and a non-monotonic dependence
of tunneling dynamics on the shape of a three-well potential. We investigate,
among others, the possibility of controlling tunneling transport by changing
parameters of the central well, and we briefly discuss potential applications
of this aspect to atomtronic devices.Comment: Latex, 28 pages, 7 Figs, 2 Tables; minor presentation changes,
journal versio
Epithelial immune activation and intracellular invasion by non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae
Type-2 low asthma affects 30-50% of people with severe asthma and includes a phenotype characterized by sputum neutrophilia and resistance to corticosteroids. Airways inflammation in type-2 low asthma or COPD is potentially driven by persistent bacterial colonization of the lower airways by bacteria such as non-encapsulated Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi). Although pathogenic in the lower airways, NTHi is a commensal of the upper airways. It is not known to what extent these strains can invade airway epithelial cells, persist intracellularly and activate epithelial cell production of proinflammatory cytokines, and how this differs between the upper and lower airways. We studied NTHi infection of primary human bronchial epithelial cells (PBECs), primary nasal epithelial cells (NECs) and epithelial cell lines from upper and lower airways. NTHi strains differed in propensity for intracellular and paracellular invasion. We found NTHi was internalized within PBECs at 6 h, but live intracellular infection did not persist at 24 h. Confocal microscopy and flow cytometry showed NTHi infected secretory, ciliated and basal PBECs. Infection of PBECs led to induction of CXCL8, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and TNF. The magnitude of cytokine induction was independent of the degree of intracellular invasion, either by differing strains or by cytochalasin D inhibition of endocytosis, with the exception of the inflammasome-induced mediator IL-1β. NTHi-induced activation of TLR2/4, NOD1/2 and NLR inflammasome pathways was significantly stronger in NECs than in PBECs. These data suggest that NTHi is internalized transiently by airway epithelial cells and has capacity to drive inflammation in airway epithelial cells
Tunability of solitary wave properties in one dimensional strongly nonlinear phononic crystals
One dimentional strongly nonlinear phononic crystals were assembled from
chains of PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) and stainless steel spheres with
gauges installed inside the beads. Trains of strongly nonlinear solitary waves
were excited by an impact. A significant modification of the signal shape and
an increase of solitary wave speed up to two times (at the same amplitude of
dynamic contact force)were achieved through a noncontact magnetically induced
precompression of the chains. Data for PTFE based chains are presented for the
first time and data for stainless steel based chains were extended into a
smaller range of amplitudes by more than one order of magnitude than previously
reported. Experimental results were found to be in reasonable agreement with
the long wave approximation and with numerical calculations based on Hertz
interaction law for discrete chains.Comment: 36 pages, 7 figure
LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in
the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of
science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will
have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is
driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking
an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and
mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at
Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m
effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel
camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second
exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given
night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000
square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5
point-source depth in a single visit in will be (AB). The
project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations
by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg with
, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, ,
covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time
will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a
18,000 deg region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the
anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to . The
remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a
Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products,
including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion
objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures
available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie
NOX1 loss-of-function genetic variants in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
Genetic defects that affect intestinal epithelial barrier function can present with very early-onset inflammatory bowel disease (VEOIBD). Using whole-genome sequencing, a novel hemizygous defect in NOX1 encoding NAPDH oxidase 1 was identified in a patient with ulcerative colitis-like VEOIBD. Exome screening of 1,878 pediatric patients identified further seven male inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients with rare NOX1 mutations. Loss-of-function was validated in p.N122H and p.T497A, and to a lesser degree in p.Y470H, p.R287Q, p.I67M, p.Q293R as well as the previously described p.P330S, and the common NOX1 SNP p.D360N (rs34688635) variant. The missense mutation p.N122H abrogated reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in cell lines, ex vivo colonic explants, and patient-derived colonic organoid cultures. Within colonic crypts, NOX1 constitutively generates a high level of ROS in the crypt lumen. Analysis of 9,513 controls and 11,140 IBD patients of non-Jewish European ancestry did not reveal an association between p.D360N and IBD. Our data suggest that loss-of-function variants in NOX1 do not cause a Mendelian disorder of high penetrance but are a context-specific modifier. Our results implicate that variants in NOX1 change brush border ROS within colonic crypts at the interface between the epithelium and luminal microbes
- …