Vulnerability to future dependence among former AFDC mothers

This study analyzes short-run AFDC recidivism among mother- only families. Findings suggest that a sizable minority of former AFDC recipients return to AFDC rapidly. Those most likely to return to AFDC are those switching jobs, those moving to publichousing, those adding children, and those not getting regular child support payments. The results also suggest that wages are better predictors of staying off AFDC than are alternative measures of success in the labor market.

Density functional theory of the trapped Fermi gas in the unitary regime

We investigate a density-functional theory (DFT) approach for an unpolarized trapped dilute Fermi gas in the unitary limit . A reformulation of the recent work of T. Papenbrock [Phys. Rev. A, {\bf 72}, 041602(R) (2005)] in the language of fractional exclusion statistics allows us to obtain an estimate of the universal factor, $\xi_{3D}$, in three dimensions (3D), in addition to providing a systematic treatment of finite-$N$ corrections. We show that in 3D, finite-$N$ corrections lead to unphysical values for $\xi_{3D}$, thereby suggesting that a simple DFT applied to a small number of particles may not be suitable in 3D. We then perform an analogous calculation for the two-dimensional (2D) system in the infinite-scattering length regime, and obtain a value of $\xi_{2D}=1$. Owing to the unique properties of the Thomas-Fermi energy density-functional in 2D our result, in contrast to 3D, is {\em exact} and therefore requires no finite-$N$ corrections

Trends over time in the educational attainments of single mothers

Although high school dropout rates have been declining among members of virtually all major demographic groups, the dropout rates of single mothers remain high. This is troubling, given that the author finds that over the last quarter century single mothers who do not graduate from high school have been more likely to go on welfare than single mothers who do graduate. In fact, single mothers on welfare are more than twice as likely to be high school dropouts than are single mothers who are not on welfare. The author also discovers that the welfare participation rate of single white mothers who are high school dropouts has been rapidly rising and is approaching the welfare participation rate of black single mothers who are dropouts. Data are from March supplements of the Current Population Survey.

Penicillin Allergy Assessment and Skin Testing in the Outpatient Setting

Penicillin allergies are among of the most commonly reported allergies, yet only 10% of these patients are truly allergic. This leads to potential inadvertent negative consequences for patients and makes treatment decisions challenging for clinicians. Thus, allergy assessment and penicillin skin testing (PST) are important management strategies to reconcile and clarify labeled penicillin allergies. While PST is more common in the inpatient setting where the results will immediately impact antibiotic management, this process is becoming of increasing importance in the outpatient setting. PST in the outpatient setting allows clinicians to proactively de-label and educate patients accordingly so beta-lactam antibiotics may be appropriately prescribed when necessary for future infections. While allergists have primarily been responsible for PST in the outpatient setting, there is an increasing role for pharmacist involvement in the process. This review highlights the importance of penicillin allergy assessments, considerations for PST in the outpatient setting, education and advocacy for patients and clinicians, and the pharmacist’s role in outpatient PST

Testing of a novel web browser interface for the Chinese market

This paper compares the perspicacity, appropriateness and preference of web browser icons from leading software providers with those of a culture-specific design. This online study was conducted in Taiwan and involved 103 participants, who were given three sets of web browser icons to review, namely Microsoft Internet Explorer, Macintosh Safari, and culturally specific icons created using the Culture-Centred Design methodology. The findings of the study show that all three sets have generally high recognition rates, but that some icon functions (e.g. Go/Visit and Favourite) in all three sets have poor recognition rates and are considered inappropriate

Cranial ontogenetic variation in early saurischians and the role of heterochrony in the diversification of predatory dinosaurs

Non-avian saurischian skulls underwent at least 165 million years of evolution and shapes varied from elongated skulls, such as in the theropod Coelophysis, to short and box-shaped skulls, such as in the sauropod Camarasaurus. A number of factors have long been considered to drive skull shape, including phylogeny, dietary preferences and functional constraints. However, heterochrony is increasingly being recognized as an important factor in dinosaur evolution. In order to quantitatively analyse the impact of heterochrony on saurischian skull shape, we analysed five ontogenetic trajectories using two-dimensional geometric morphometrics in a phylogenetic framework. This allowed for the comparative investigation of main ontogenetic shape changes and the evaluation of how heterochrony affected skull shape through both ontogenetic and phylogenetic trajectories. Using principal component analyses and multivariate regressions, it was possible to quantify different ontogenetic trajectories and evaluate them for evidence of heterochronic events allowing testing of previous hypotheses on cranial heterochrony in saurischians. We found that the skull shape of the hypothetical ancestor of Saurischia likely led to basal Sauropodomorpha through paedomorphosis, and to basal Theropoda mainly through peramorphosis. Paedomorphosis then led from Orionides to Avetheropoda, indicating that the paedomorphic trend found by previous authors in advanced coelurosaurs may extend back into the early evolution of Avetheropoda. Not only are changes in saurischian skull shape complex due to the large number of factors that affected it, but heterochrony itself is complex, with a number of possible reversals throughout non-avian saurischian evolution. In general, the sampling of complete ontogenetic trajectories including early juveniles is considerably lower than the sampling of single adult or subadult individuals, which is a major impediment to the study of heterochrony on non-avian dinosaurs. Thus, the current work represents an exploratory analysis. To better understand the cranial ontogeny and the impact of heterochrony on skull evolution in saurischians, the data set that we present here must be expanded and complemented with further sampling from future fossil discoveries, especially of juvenile individuals

Lupus-TR-3b: A Low-Mass Transiting Hot Jupiter in the Galactic Plane?

We present a strong case for a transiting Hot Jupiter planet identified during a single-field transit survey towards the Lupus Galactic plane. The object, Lupus-TR-3b, transits a V=17.4 K1V host star every 3.91405d. Spectroscopy and stellar colors indicate a host star with effective temperature 5000 +/- 150K, with a stellar mass and radius of 0.87 +/- 0.04M_sun and 0.82 +/- 0.05R_sun, respectively. Limb-darkened transit fitting yields a companion radius of 0.89 +/- 0.07R_J and an orbital inclination of 88.3 +1.3/-0.8 deg. Magellan 6.5m MIKE radial velocity measurements reveal a 2.4 sigma K=114 +/- 25m/s sinusoidal variation in phase with the transit ephemeris. The resulting mass is 0.81 +/- 0.18M_J and density 1.4 +/- 0.4g/cm^3. Y-band PANIC image deconvolution reveal a V>=21 red neighbor 0.4'' away which, although highly unlikely, we cannot conclusively rule out as a blended binary with current data. However, blend simulations show that only the most unusual binary system can reproduce our observations. This object is very likely a planet, detected from a highly efficient observational strategy. Lupus-TR-3b constitutes the faintest ground-based detection to date, and one of the lowest mass Hot Jupiters known.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

Oceanographic observations at the shelf break of the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica

The part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that drains into the Amundsen Sea is currently thinning at such a rate that it contributes nearly 10% of the observed rise in global mean sea level. Acceleration of the outlet glaciers appears to be caused by thinning at their downstream ends, where the ice goes afloat, indicating that the changes are probably being forced from the ocean. Observations made since the mid-1990s on the Amundsen Sea continental shelf have revealed that the deep troughs, carved by previous glacial advances, are flooded by almost unmodified Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) with temperatures around 3-4°C above the freezing point, and that this water mass drives rapid melting of the floating ice. Here we report observations of water properties and currents made in the region where one of those troughs reaches the continental shelf edge. We estimate the absolute circulation within the trough from a combination of detided Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler data and geostrophic shear derived from Conductivity-Temperature-Depth sections. The shelf edge region is characterised by a landward deepening of the pycnocline separating CDW from the overlying colder and fresher surface waters. This feature, the so-called Antarctic Slope Front (ASF), is almost circumpolar in extent, and is typically a full-depth feature, the pycnocline intersecting the seabed over the upper continental slope. However, the ASF is weaker in the Amundsen Sea, where it is rarely a full-depth feature. Geostrophic shear associated with the ASF leads to a weakening of the associated westward current with depth, and an eastward undercurrent of varying strength has been reported at other locations. At the time of our Amundsen Sea observations the westward surface flow was weak, giving rise to a strong eastward undercurrent flowing along the continental shelf edge and upper slope. At the upstream (western) side of the trough the undercurrent turns south, driving a net on-shelf flow of CDW in the western part of the trough, and leaving a weakened shelf edge flow that re-establishes itself on the downstream (eastern) side of the trough. An analogous feature was captured, albeit crudely, in an earlier coarse-resolution model of the circulation on the Amundsen Sea shelf, and variability in its strength, associated with variability in the surface wind stress, was the main cause of variations in the heat content of the waters on the inner continental shelf. Our observations thus lend support to the earlier hypothesis that changes in atmospheric forcing over the continental shelf edge could be the ultimate driver of changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet outlet glaciers that drain into the Amundsen Sea

Tropical cyclone wind speed constraints from resultant storm surge deposition : a 2500 year reconstruction of hurricane activity from St. Marks, FL

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 14 (2013): 2993–3008, doi:10.1002/ggge.20217.Recent work suggests that the patterns of intense (≥category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale) hurricane strikes over the last few millennia might differ from that of overall hurricane activity during this period. Prior studies typically rely on assigning a threshold storm intensity required to produce a sedimentological overwash signal at a particular coastal site based on historical analogs. Here, we improve on this approach by presenting a new inverse-model technique that constrains the most likely wind speeds required to transport the maximum grain size within resultant storm deposits. As a case study, the technique is applied to event layers observed in sediments collected from a coastal sinkhole in northwestern Florida. We find that (1) simulated wind speeds for modern deposits are consistent with the intensities for historical hurricanes affecting the site, (2) all deposits throughout the ∼2500 year record are capable of being produced by hurricanes, and (3) a period of increased intense hurricane frequency is observed between ∼1700 and ∼600 years B.P. and decreased intense storm frequency is observed from ∼2500 to ∼1700 and ∼600 years B.P. to the present. This is consistent with prior reconstructions from nearby sites. Changes in the frequency of intense hurricane strikes may be related to the degree of penetration of the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.2014-02-2