OaklandTeenZone: Humming its own new tune

On January 17, 2009, after years of planning, fundraising, and construction delays, the Oakland Public Library (OPL) finally overcame all obstacles and opened its much-anticipated, newly remodeled TeenZone Department. Planning began in 2001 with the vision that OPL TeenZone would accommodate, educate, and celebrate the city\u27s youth; eight years later this teen space is fulfilling that mission

Climate's Long-term Impact on New Zealand Infrastructure (CLINZI) - A Case Study of Hamilton City, New Zealand

Infrastructure systems and services (ISS) are vulnerable to changes in climate. This paper reports on a study of the impact of gradual climate changes on ISS in Hamilton City, New Zealand. This study is unique in that it is the first of its kind to be applied to New Zealand ISS. This study also considers a broader range of ISS than most other climate change studies recently conducted. Using historical climate data and four climate change scenarios, we modelled the impact of climate change on water supply and quality, transport, energy demand, public health and air quality. Our analysis reveals that many of Hamilton City's infrastructure sectors demonstrated greater responsiveness to population changes than changes in gradual climate change. Any future planning decisions should be sensitive to climate change, but not driven by it (even though that may be fashionable to do so). We find there is considerable scope for extending this analysis. First, there is a need for local infrastructure managers to improve the coverage of the data needed for this kind of study. Second, any future study of this kind must focus on daily (rather than monthly) time steps and extreme (as well as gradual) climate changes.Climate change, infrastructure, integrated assessment, adaptation, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, International Relations/Trade, Land Economics/Use, Livestock Production/Industries, Political Economy,

Few Graphene layer/Carbon-Nanotube composite Grown at CMOS-compatible Temperature

We investigate the growth of the recently demonstrated composite material composed of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes capped by few graphene layers. We show that the carbon nanotubes grow epitaxially under the few graphene layers. By using a catalyst and gaseous carbon precursor different from those used originally we establish that such unconventional growth mode is not specific to a precise choice of catalyst-precursor couple. Furthermore, the composite can be grown using catalyst and temperatures compatible with CMOS processing (T < 450\degree C).Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Level attraction in a microwave optomechanical circuit

Level repulsion - the opening of a gap between two degenerate modes due to coupling - is ubiquitous anywhere from solid state theory to quantum chemistry. In contrast, if one mode has negative energy, the mode frequencies attract instead. They converge and develop imaginary components, leading to an instability; an exceptional point marks the transition. This, however, only occurs if the dissipation rates of the two modes are comparable. Here we expose a theoretical framework for the general phenomenon and realize it experimentally through engineered dissipation in a multimode superconducting microwave optomechanical circuit. Level attraction is observed for a mechanical oscillator and a superconducting microwave cavity, while an auxiliary cavity is used for sideband cooling. Two exceptional points are demonstrated that could be exploited for their topological properties.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; includes Supplementary informatio

Propriétés magnétiques d'un oxyde amorphe riche en fer : Fe2 O3 (30) BaO (45) B2O3 (25)

La transition magnétique d'un oxyde amorphe riche en fer a été caractérisée par des mesures d'aimantation et susceptibilité magnétique et par spectroscopie Môssbauer de 57Fe. On note de fortes interactions antiferromagnétiques dans le verre et un comportement mictomagnétique à basse température. L'ordre magnétique au-dessous de la transition est de nature spéromagnétique

Brain amyloid in preclinical Alzheimer\u27s disease is associated with increased driving risk

INTRODUCTION: Postmortem studies suggest that fibrillar brain amyloid places people at higher risk for hazardous driving in the preclinical stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS: We administered driving questionnaires to 104 older drivers (19 AD, 24 mild cognitive impairment, and 61 cognitive normal) who had a recent (18)F-florbetapir positron emission tomography scan. We examined associations of amyloid standardized uptake value ratios with driving behaviors: traffic violations or accidents in the past 3 years. RESULTS: The frequency of violations or accidents was curvilinear with respect to standardized uptake value ratios, peaking around a value of 1.1 (model r(2) = 0.10, P = .002); moreover, this relationship was evident for the cognitively normal participants. DISCUSSION: We found that driving risk is strongly related to accumulating amyloid on positron emission tomography, and that this trend is evident in the preclinical stage of AD. Brain amyloid burden may in part explain the increased crash risk reported in older adults

Of Screening, Stratification, and Scores

Technological innovations including risk-stratification algorithms and large databases of longitudinal population health data and genetic data are allowing us to develop a deeper understanding how individual behaviors, characteristics, and genetics are related to health risk. The clinical implementation of risk-stratified screening programmes that utilise risk scores to allocate patients into tiers of health risk is foreseeable in the future. Legal and ethical challenges associated with risk-stratified cancer care must, however, be addressed. Obtaining access to the rich health data that are required to perform risk-stratification, ensuring equitable access to risk-stratified care, ensuring that algorithms that perform risk-scoring are representative of human genetic diversity, and determining the appropriate follow-up to be provided to stratification participants to alert them to changes in their risk score are among the principal ethical and legal challenges. Accounting for the great burden that regulatory requirements could impose on access to risk-scoring technologies is another critical consideration

Reconsidering the links between sibship size, maternal sensitivity, and child attachment : a multidimensional interactive approach

Despite being a well-documented predictor of children’s cognitive and social development, sibship has received remarkably little attention in the attachment and maternal sensitivity literature. The only study that has examined both sensitivity and attachment in relation to sibship found greater maternal sensitivity but no more secure attachment among first-born infants. In the current study, we sought to examine the same links while testing two related hypotheses: that sibship size relates only to some specific aspects of sensitivity, and that sibship size relates to sensitivity only among certain mothers, namely those who are at risk for suboptimal parenting because of an insecure attachment state of mind. We assessed three dimensions of maternal sensitivity at 12 months and child attachment at 15 and 25 months among 258 mother–infant dyads living in intact biparental families. Compared with mothers who had fewer children, those with more children were observed to be less accessible/available, less positive, but not less cooperative/attuned, when interacting with their infant. These links were moderated by maternal attachment state of mind, such that significant relations were observed only among mothers presenting a more insecure state of mind. Finally, sibship size was unrelated to attachment. These findings suggest that failure to consider different dimensions of sensitivity or important parental moderators may result in the erroneous conclusion that birth order and sibship size are inconsequential for parent–child relationships