H.E.A.R.T.

Healthy parenting and family resilience in early childhood has been shown to be an important factor in building emotional resilience for the children: it illustrates that when parents have higher emotional resilience, their children tend to have higher emotional resilience as well. However, the tools that available in the market right now only teach people what emotional resilience rather than how to practice it in daily life. This report describes our project to create a virtual reality tool that can not only teach the importance of emotional resilience, but also help the parents develop personal resilience. The system is based on the VR Empathy Training Tool created by a former senior design project in which the user can interact with a crying child and learn how to handle stress under certain circumstances. The new system will add new features so that it can inform users about their stress level and allow the users to track their progress

Biological and Mechanical Approaches to Sunscald Management in Bell Pepper Production

Producing red bell peppers in high temperature and light environments can be challenging because many new semi-indeterminate varieties produce small plant canopies that leave fruit exposed to damage (sunscald) caused by solar radiation. Pepper production in Utah coincides with high air temperatures and solar radiation levels during July, August, and September. Increasing plant canopy size is one way to protect fruit from solar radiation. Low tunnels optimize plant growth by increasing air and soil temperatures. Growing plants under low tunnels early in the season could increase fruit shading later in the season. Another way to protect fruit is by using mechanical shade. Hanging shade cloth over a crop has been shown to decrease air temperatures and solar radiation levels reaching fruit. While the common production practice is to horizontally orient shade cloth, vertically orienting shade cloth may also be effective by providing shade to the crop in the morning and evening. These protection methods were evaluated in Layton, Utah for effectiveness of increasing yield by decreasing sunscald occurrence. While plants grown under low tunnels for two weeks after transplanting had larger canopies, they did not increase yield or decrease sunscald compared to plants not grown under low tunnels. Vertical shade increased yield and decreased sunscald most effectively when combined with plants grown under low tunnels. Vertical shade protected exposed fruit when the sun was at lower elevations while increased canopy shade protected fruit when the sun was at high solar elevations. Horizontal shade completely eliminated sunscald and produced the largest yields of high quality fruit. The additional costs associated with using supplemental shade were offset by increased yields and higher value of larger fruit. Separate studies were carried out to determine how sunlight and wind influence the temperature of pepper fruit. Sunlight exceeding 550 W·m-2 increased pepper fruit surface temperature (FST) to damaging levels. Wind decreased pepper FST but moderate wind speeds (3.0 m·s-1) did not decrease it below damaging levels. To insure protection, growers should apply supplemental shade when solar radiation levels exceed 550 W·m-2. These results provide improved guidelines for growers interested in using supplemental shade to provide pepper fruit for local and national consumption. Additionally, pepper growers in high air temperature and light environments can increase productivity and profitability with the use of supplemental shade

Development and Distribution of Thermometry Hardware for the Simons Observatory

The Simons Observatory (SO) is a new cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiment consisting of four telescopes. SO is being constructed at an elevation of 5,190 meters on Cerro Toco in the Atacama Desert in Chile, and is set to begin observation in 2022. SO will employ 60,000 detectors, yielding a sensitivity greater than all previous CMB experiments. To achieve low noise performance the telescope cryostats will be cooled to ~100 mK using low temperature dilution refrigerators. Measuring cryostat temperatures is essential for pre-deployment testing, telescope installation, and telescope monitoring during observation. The purpose of this project is to design, build, and test the hardware necessary for regular measurements at all temperature stages of the SO telescopes. This paper details my design of housekeeping hardware, contribution to temperature sensor calibration, and characterization of calibration discrepancies attributable to faults within my lab’s dilution refrigerator

Method for Preparing Porous Shells or Gels from Glass Particles

A method is provided for preparing shells, concentric shells or porous, homogenous gels from alkali borate glass particles at low temperatures (i.e. room temperature or less than above 100° C.). The alkali borate glass particles contain one or more cations such as aluminum which react with an aqueous solution containing an anion such as hydroxide to form an aqueous insoluble material having a solubility limit of less than about 0.01 wt. percent. TTie resulting shells or gels may be used in many different applications such as a filler in resins, as filters, precursors for nano-sized powders, as thin surface films or catalyst support media. The resulting shells or gels may also have a chemotherapeutic drug added thereto, following which the resulting product is administered to a mammal and the insoluble material is dissolved form the product in vivo through administration of chelating agent

Inhibitors of diacylglycerol metabolism suppress CCR2 receptor signalling in human monocytes

Background and purpose CCL2 is an inflammatory chemokine that stimulates the recruitment of monocytes into tissue via activation of the GPCR CCR2. Experimental approach Freshly isolated human monocytes and THP‐1 cells are used; Fura‐2 loaded cells used to measure intracellular Ca2+ responses; transwell migration; siRNA‐mediated gene knockdown. Key results We observed that CCL2 evokes intracellular Ca2+ signals and stimulates migration in THP‐1 monocytic cells and human CD14+ monocytes in a CCR2‐dependent fashion. Attenuation of diacylglycerol (DAG) catabolism in monocytes by inhibiting DAG kinase (R59949) or DAG lipase (RHC80267) activity suppresses CCL2‐evoked Ca2+ signalling and transwell migration in monocytes. These effects were not due to a reduction in the number of cell surface CCR2 receptors. The effect of DAG kinase or DAG lipase inhibition could be mimicked by the addition of the DAG analogue 1‐oleoyl‐2‐acetyl‐glycerol (OAG) but was not rescued by application of exogenous phosphatidylinositol 4,5‐bisphosphate. Suppressive effects of R59949, RHC80267 and OAG could be partially or fully reversed by the Gö6983 (pan PKC isoenzyme inhibitor) but not by Gö6976 (PKCα and PKCβ inhibitor). RNAi‐mediated knock‐down of DAG kinase α isoenzyme modulated CCL2‐evoked Ca2+ responses in THP‐1 cells. Conclusions & Implications Taken together, these data suggest that DAG production resulting from CCR2 activation is metabolised by both DAG kinase and DAG lipase pathways in monocytes, and that pharmacological inhibition of DAG catabolism or application suppresses signalling on the CCL2‐CCR2 axis via a mechanism dependent upon a PKC isoenzymes(s) that are sensitive to Gö6983 but not Gö6976

The reciprocal relationship between smiles and situational contexts

Smiles provide information about a social partner’s affect and intentions during social interaction. Although always encountered within a specific situation, the influence of contextual information on smile evaluation has not been widely investigated. Moreover, little is known about the reciprocal effect of smiles on evaluations of their accompanying situations. In this research, we assessed how different smile types and situational contexts affected participants’ social evaluations. In Study 1, 85 participants rated reward, affiliation, and dominance smiles embedded within either enjoyable, polite, or negative (unpleasant) situations. Context had a strong effect on smile ratings, such that smiles in enjoyable situations were rated as more genuine and joyful, as well as indicating less superiority than those in negative situations. In Study 2, 200 participants evaluated the situations that these smiles were perceived within (rather than the smiles themselves). Although situations paired with reward (vs. affiliation) smiles tended to be rated more positively, this effect was absent for negative situations. Ultimately, the findings point toward a reciprocal relationship between smiles and contexts, whereby the face influences evaluations of the situation and vice versa

Upholding labour productivity under climate change: an assessment of adaptation options

Changes in labour productivity feed through directly to national income. An external shock, like climate change, which may substantially reduce the productivity of workers is therefore a macroeconomic concern. The biophysical impact of higher temperatures on human performance is well documented. Less well understood are the wider effects of higher temperatures on the aggregate productivity of modern, diversified economies, where economic output is produced in contexts ranging from outdoor agriculture to work in air-conditioned buildings. Working conditions are at least to some extent the result of societal choices, which means that the labour productivity effects of heat can be alleviated through careful adaptation. A range of technical, regulatory/infrastructural and behavioural options are available to individuals, businesses and governments. The importance of local contexts prevents a general ranking of the available measures, but many appear cost-effective. Promising options include the optimization of working hours and passive cooling mechanisms. Climate-smart urban planning and adjustments to building design are most suitable to respond to high base temperature, while air conditioning can respond flexibly to short temperature peaks if there is sufficient cheap, reliable and clean electricity. Key policy insights The effect of heat stress on labour productivity is a key economic impact of climate change, which could affect national output and workers’ income. Effective adaptation options exist, such as shifting working hours and cool roofs, but they require policy intervention and forward planning. Strategic interventions, such as climate-smart municipal design, are as important as reactive or project-level adaptations. Adaptation solutions to heat stress are highly context specific and need to be assessed accordingly. For example, shifting working hours could be an effective way of reducing the effect of peak temperatures, but only if there is sufficient flexibility in working patterns

Robust social categorization emerges from learning the identities of very few faces

Viewers are highly accurate at recognizing sex and race from faces-though it remains unclear how this is achieved. Recognition of familiar faces is also highly accurate across a very large range of viewing conditions, despite the difficulty of the problem. Here we show that computation of sex and race can emerge incidentally from a system designed to compute identity. We emphasize the role of multiple encounters with a small number of people, which we take to underlie human face learning. We use highly variable everyday 'ambient' images of a few people to train a Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) model on identity. The resulting model has human-like properties, including a facility to cohere previously unseen ambient images of familiar (trained) people-an ability which breaks down for the faces of unknown (untrained) people. The first dimension created by the identity-trained LDA classifies both familiar and unfamiliar faces by sex, and the second dimension classifies faces by race- even though neither of these categories was explicitly coded at learning. By varying the numbers and types of face identities on which a further series of LDA models were trained, we show that this incidental learning of sex and race reflects covariation between these social categories and face identity, and that a remarkably small number of identities need be learnt before such incidental dimensions emerge. The task of learning to recognize familiar faces is sufficient to create certain salient social categories

Direct and mediated effects of a social-emotional and character development program on adolescent substance use

Mitigating and preventing substance use among adolescents requires approaches that address the multitude of factors that influence this behavior. Such approaches must be tested, not only for evidence of empirical effectiveness, but also to determine the mechanisms by which they are successful. The aims of the present study were twofold: 1) To determine the effectiveness of a school-based social-emotional and character development (SECD) program, Positive Action (PA), in reducing substance use (SU) among a sample of U.S. youth living in a low-income, urban environment, and 2) to test one mechanism by which the program achieves its success. We used longitudinal mediation analysis to test the hypotheses that: 1) students attending PA intervention schools engage in significantly less SU than students attending control schools, 2) students attending PA intervention schools show significantly better change in SECD than students attending control schools, and 3) the effect of the PA intervention on SU is mediated by the change in SECD. Analyses revealed program effects on both SECD and SU, a relationship between SECD and SU, and the effects of PA on SU were completely mediated by changes in SECD. Future research directions and implications for schoolbased social-emotional and character development efforts and substance use prevention are addressed.peer-reviewe