Food Insecurity Rates Rise Steeply with Recession

Children's HealthWatch finds that the prevalence of food insecurity in a five-city sample of low-income families with young children increased from 18.5 percent to 22.6 percent between 2007 and 2008. This is the largest year-to-year change seen in the dataset since 2001. The increase is an indication of the economic hardships facing low-income families with young children. This data suggests that we are likely to see significant increases in food insecurity when the U.S. Department of Agriculture issues its own statistics for 2008 in late fall

Even Very Low Levels of Food Insecurity Found to Harm Children's Health

This publication is the first in a series of Children's HealthWatch Policy Action Briefs, which will provide a summary of our research, as well as that of others, on issues affecting children's health and well-being. This brief finds that more children are at risk for health and developmental problems due to lack of food than were previously thought. These children and their families are classified as

Federal Programs that Protect Young Children's Health

An investment in children's health is an investment in our country's economic health. Infants and toddlers, whose bodies and brains are in their most rapid period of growth, are uniquely vulnerable to even shortterm deprivation. Ensuring that they have the basic physiologic building blocks for healthy bodies and minds is not only the right thing to do -- it is the smart thing to do. Research has shown that children who suffer from poor nutrition, unstable housing and inadequate home heating have a greater likelihood of poor health, a higher risk of developmental delays and, in some cases, an increased risk of hospitalization

Constitutive response of Rene 80 under thermal mechanical loads

The applicability of a classical constitutive model for stress-strain analysis of a nickel base superalloy, Rene' 80, in the gas turbine thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) environment is examined. A variety of tests were conducted to generate basic material data and to investigate the material response under cyclic thermomechanical loading. Isothermal stress-strain data were acquired at a variety of strain rates over the TMF temperature range. Creep curves were examined at 2 temperature ranges, 871 to 982 C and 760 to 871 C. The results provide optimism on the ability of the classical constitutive model for high temperature applications

A period of calm in Scottish seas: a comprehensive study of ΔR values for the northern British Isles coast and the consequent implications for archaeology and oceanography

The Marine Radiocarbon Reservoir Effect (MRE) is a 14C age offset between contemporaneous marine- and terrestrially-derived carbon. In Northern Hemisphere surface waters it is of the order of 400 years but temporal and spatial deviations, known as ΔR, occur. This study provides a comprehensive dataset of 21 ΔR and MRE values for the east coast of Scotland and 21 recalculated values for the west coast of Scotland and Ireland, for the period c. 3500 BC to 1450 AD. They are presented as mean, site-specific ΔR and MRE values, together with their associated uncertainties, calculated as standard errors for predicted values. The ΔR values range from -320 ± 35 to +150 ± 28 14C years and show no spatial or temporal trends. The MRE values range from 59 ± 40 to 531 ± 26, show an almost identical distribution pattern to the ΔR values and again show no spatial or temporal trends. Results show that ΔR values calculated for a single site using statistically indistinguishable groups of terrestrial and marine radiocarbon age measurements can produce variability of up to 225 14C years. ΔR is an important factor in the accurate calibration of samples containing marine-derived carbon for archaeological interpretation but is often also used as an indicator of changes in 14C specific activity of the oceans, and therefore a proxy for changes in ocean circulation and/or climate. Using the methods outlined in this paper, it is apparent that ΔR values for the northern part of the British Isles have been relatively stable, within our ability to quantify non-random variation in the data. The fact that significant climatic shifts have been recorded during this time, yet these are not visible in the ΔR data, presents a cautionary tale regarding the use of ΔR to infer large-scale oceanographic or climatic changes. Upon the exclusion of 5 outliers from the 42 values, the remaining ΔR values are statistically indistinguishable from one another and range from -142 ± 61 to +40 ± 47 14C years. 34 of these values are from Scottish archaeological sites and can be combined to produce a mean value for Scotland of -47 ± 52 14C years for the period 3500 BC to 1450 AD, to be used only in the absence of site- and period-specific data

Application of shock tubes to transonic airfoil testing at high Reynolds numbers

Performance analysis of a gas-driven shock tube shows that transonic airfoil flows with chord Reynolds numbers of the order of 100 million can be produced, with limitations being imposed by the structural integrity of the facility or the model. A study of flow development over a simple circular arc airfoil at zero angle of attack was carried out in a shock tube at low and intermediate Reynolds numbers to assess the testing technique. Results obtained from schlieren photography and airfoil pressure measurements show that steady transonic flows similar to those produced for the same airfoil in a wind tunnel can be generated within the available testing time in a shock tube with properly contoured test section walls

Excited nucleon electromagnetic form factors from broken spin-flavor symmetry

A group theoretical derivation of a relation between the N --> Delta charge quadrupole transition and neutron charge form factors is presented.Comment: 4 pages, Proc. of the 12 th Int'l. Workshop on the Physics of Excited Nucleons, NSTAR 2009, Beijing, April 19-22, 200

Living Knowledge Production: Indigenous Approaches and Intersections in Higher Education

As educators and practitioners reflect on the relatively young lifespan of the United States higher education system, it is important to take this opportunity to explore and rethink our country’s systems of knowledge production. Currently many of the approaches within the United States rely heavily on Western European epistemologies. Through exploration of narrative and its influence on indigenous epistemologies, we hope to challenge and expand the Western emphasis on the empirical way of knowing. We will learn from the epistemologies of three indigenous communities: Hawaii, New Zealand, and the continental United States. We will examine the creation of worldviews, knowledge production, and the philosophy of Aloha

Magnetic Braking and Viscous Damping of Differential Rotation in Cylindrical Stars

Differential rotation in stars generates toroidal magnetic fields whenever an initial seed poloidal field is present. The resulting magnetic stresses, along with viscosity, drive the star toward uniform rotation. This magnetic braking has important dynamical consequences in many astrophysical contexts. For example, merging binary neutron stars can form "hypermassive" remnants supported against collapse by differential rotation. The removal of this support by magnetic braking induces radial fluid motion, which can lead to delayed collapse of the remnant to a black hole. We explore the effects of magnetic braking and viscosity on the structure of a differentially rotating, compressible star, generalizing our earlier calculations for incompressible configurations. The star is idealized as a differentially rotating, infinite cylinder supported initially by a polytropic equation of state. The gas is assumed to be infinitely conducting and our calculations are performed in Newtonian gravitation. Though highly idealized, our model allows for the incorporation of magnetic fields, viscosity, compressibility, and shocks with minimal computational resources in a 1+1 dimensional Lagrangian MHD code. Our evolution calculations show that magnetic braking can lead to significant structural changes in a star, including quasistatic contraction of the core and ejection of matter in the outermost regions to form a wind or an ambient disk. These calculations serve as a prelude and a guide to more realistic MHD simulations in full 3+1 general relativity.Comment: 20 pages, 19 figures, 3 tables, AASTeX, accepted by Ap

Implementing an apparent-horizon finder in three dimensions

Locating apparent horizons is not only important for a complete understanding of numerically generated spacetimes, but it may also be a crucial component of the technique for evolving black-hole spacetimes accurately. A scheme proposed by Libson et al., based on expanding the location of the apparent horizon in terms of symmetric trace-free tensors, seems very promising for use with three-dimensional numerical data sets. In this paper, we generalize this scheme and perform a number of code tests to fully calibrate its behavior in black-hole spacetimes similar to those we expect to encounter in solving the binary black-hole coalescence problem. An important aspect of the generalization is that we can compute the symmetric trace-free tensor expansion to any order. This enables us to determine how far we must carry the expansion to achieve results of a desired accuracy. To accomplish this generalization, we describe a new and very convenient set of recurrence relations which apply to symmetric trace-free tensors.Comment: 14 pages (RevTeX 3.0 with 3 figures