Paternal Psychosocial Characteristics and Corporal Punishment of their 3-Year Old Children

This study uses data from 2,309 biological fathers who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to examine associations between psychosocial characteristics and levels of corporal punishment (CP) toward their 3-year old children over the past month. Results indicate that 61% of the fathers reported no CP over the past month, 23% reported using CP once or twice, and 16% reported using CP a few times in the past month or more. In multivariate models controlling for important socio-demographic factors as well as characteristics of the child, fathers’ parenting stress, major depression, alcohol use, and drug use were significantly associated with greater use of CP, whereas involvement with the child and generalized anxiety order were not. Girls were less likely to be the recipient of CP than boys, and child externalizing behavior problems but not internalizing behavior problems were associated with more CP.Fragile families, childbearing, nonmarital childbearing, fartherhood, fathers, corporal punishment, behavior problems, stress, depression

Order in a Spatially Anisotropic Triangular Antiferromagnet

The phase diagram of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on an anisotropic triangular lattice of weakly coupled chains, a model relevant to Cs2CuCl4, is investigated using a renormalization group analysis, which includes marginal couplings important for connecting to numerical studies of this model. In particular, the relative stability of incommensurate spiral spin-density order and collinear antiferromagnetic order is studied. While incommensurate spiral order is found to exist over most of the phase diagram in the presence of a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction, at small interchain and extremely weak DM couplings, collinear antiferromagnetic order can survive. Our results imply that Cs2CuCl4 is well within the part of the phase diagram where spiral order is stable. The implications of the renormalization group analysis for numerical studies, many of which have found spin-liquidlike behavior, are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, minor edits and reference adde

Profiles in Parole Release and Revocation Connecticut

Connecticut shifted from indeterminate to "definite" sentencing in 1981. This means that crimes have statutory minimum and maximum penalties, and that defendants are sentenced to a term of years rather than a range of years. For a time after the 1981 reforms, there was no traditional parole in the state; however, discretionary parole release for those with sentences over two years was reestablished in 1993. In the 1980s and 1990s, there was also an increase in mandatory minimum legislation. In 1995, the legislature established truth in sentencing laws for violent offenders, requiring them to serve at least 85% of a sentence before release. In 2004, the Board of Pardons (established in 1883) and the Board of Paroles (established in 1957) were merged to form the Board of Pardons and Paroles

Modulation of the ComA-Dependent Quorum Response in \u3ci\u3eBacillus subtilis\u3c/i\u3e by Multiple Rap Proteins and Phr Peptides

In Bacillus subtilis, extracellular peptide signaling regulates several biological processes. Secreted Phr signaling peptides are imported into the cell and act intracellularly to antagonize the activity of regulators known as Rap proteins. B. subtilis encodes several Rap proteins and Phr peptides, and the processes regulated by many of these Rap proteins and Phr peptides are unknown. We used DNA microarrays to characterize the roles that several rap-phr signaling modules play in regulating gene expression. We found that rapK-phrK regulates the expression of a number of genes activated by the response regulator ComA. ComA activates expression of genes involved in competence development and the production of several secreted products. Two Phr peptides, PhrC and PhrF, were previously known to stimulate the activity of ComA. We assayed the roles that PhrC, PhrF, and PhrK play in regulating gene expression and found that these three peptides stimulate ComA-dependent gene expression to different levels and are all required for full expression of genes activated by ComA. The involvement of multiple Rap proteins and Phr peptides allows multiple physiological cues to be integrated into a regulatory network that modulates the timing and magnitude of the ComA response

Non Magnetic Impurities in the Spin-Gap Phase of the Cuprate

It is now well established that Zn doping of high-$T_C$ cuprates reduces their $T_C$ and triggers the appearence of a spin glass phase. In this context, we have solved exactly the problem of N non magnetic impurities in the staggered flux phase of the Heisenberg model which we assume to be a good mean-field approximation for the spin-gap phase of the cuprates. In this model, the quasiparticule spectrum has four nodes on the Fermi surface, and linearization of the spectrum in the neighbourhood of these nodes leads to a system of 2D Dirac fermions. In the presence of a macroscopic number of (non magnetic) impurities, the problem has a characteristic logarithmic structure that renders ineffective the usual perturbative expansions. We have used this logarithmic structure to calculate an exact solution. For a concentration ni of impurities in the unitary scattering limit, the additional density of states is found to be proportional to $ni/(w \ln^2 (|w|/D))$ (where D is the infrared cut-off of the linearized spectrum) in analogy with the 1D case of doped spin-Peierls and two-leg ladders compounds. We argue that the system exhibits a quasi long-range order at T=0 with instantaneous spin-spin correlations decreasing as $ni/ \ln^4 (ni/R_{ij})$ for large distances $R_{ij}$ between impurity sites. We predict enhanced low energy fluctuations and compare these results to NMR and inelastic neutron scattering experiments in the high-$T_C$ cuprates.Comment: proceeding of SCES98 conference in Paris, July '9

Glutathione is required for growth and cadmium tolerance in the amphibian chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is a lethal amphibian pathogen, partly due to its ability to evade the immune system of susceptible frog species. In many pathogenic fungi, the antioxidant glutathione is a virulence factor that helps neutralize oxidative stressors generated from host immune cells, as well as other environmental stressors such as heavy metals. The role of glutathione in stress tolerance in Bd has not been investigated. Here, we examine the changes in the glutathione pool after stress exposure and quantify the effect of glutathione depletion on cell growth and stress tolerance. Depletion of glutathione repressed growth and release of zoospores, indicating that glutathione is essential for life cycle completion in Bd. Supplementation with 2 mM were strongly inhibitory to Bd cells. While hydrogen peroxide exposure lowered the total cellular glutathione levels by 42 %, glutathione depletion did not increase the sensitivity to hydrogen peroxide. Exposure to cadmium increased total cellular glutathione levels by 93 %. Glutathione-depleted cells were more sensitive to cadmium, and this effect was attenuated by glutathione supplementation, suggesting that glutathione plays an important role in cadmium tolerance. The effects of heat and salt were exacerbated by the addition of exogenous glutathione. The impact of glutathione levels on Bd stress sensitivity may help explain differences in host susceptibility to chytridiomycosis and may provide opportunities for synergistic therapeutic