Reviving Marriage in America: Strategies for Donors

In 1997 a group of Tennessee businessmen began to talk about the direction of their city. "We wanted to know how we could really make a difference in Chattanooga," says Hugh O. Maclellan Jr., president of the Maclellan Foundation. "We realized that the city's biggest problem was the breakdown of families, and that every part of Chattanooga was being affected by it."Maclellan and his colleagues confronted grim statistics that showed Chattanooga families were suffering from unusually high rates of divorce, absentee fathers and teen pregnancies, which were hurting not only the individuals immediately involved, but the community as a whole. The numbers told the story:The divorce rate in Chattanooga was 50 percent higher than the national average. (The state of Tennessee as a whole ranked fourth worst in the nation for divorce.) Chattanooga had the fifth-worst out-of-wedlock birth rate of 128 leading cities in the United States. A 1994 study showed 50 percent of births in the city and 39 percent of births in the county were to unwed mothers. One in three Tennessee families were headed by a single parent, compared to one in four nationwide; in 2000, the state ranked eighth worst in the nation

Dawn of Texas history: an account of the labors of the Franciscan Fathers

Article describing the history of Franciscan missions in Texas during the eighteenth century. Texas Indians, then called Chichimecas, Rev. Andrew de Olmos, a Franciscan father, crossed over from Mexico in 1544 , and although he did not establish any permanent mission, he found some Indians who gave him a favorable hearing, and followed him to Tamaulipas, where he was joined by a secular priest, Rev. John de Mesa. Includes an photograph of a young boy standing next to a grapefruit tree in Brownsville, Texas. Photo by Wheelus.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/gulfcoastmag/1006/thumbnail.jp

Poverty and Self-Sufficiency in the Nine-County Greater Rochester Area

Poverty and Self-Sufficiency in the Nine-County Greater Rochester Area updates data from a 2013 report. Overall, it shows that poverty is rising across the region, from 13.2 percent to 14.3 percent, based on the latest available Census figures. This report aims to update key elements from both previous studies, includingpoverty data for all the counties, towns and villages in the region, relying primarily on the latest U.S. Census data, highlight the financial stress that exists in our community by differentiating between poverty and self-sufficiency; and chronicle and summarize efforts of the greater Rochester community to understand and act upon crisis

Synthesis and Optimisation of P3 Substituted Vinyl Sulfone-Based Inhibitors as Anti-Trypanosomal Agents

A series of lysine-based vinyl sulfone peptidomimetics were synthesised and evaluated for anti-trypanosomal activity against bloodstream forms of T. brucei. This focused set of compounds, varying in the P3 position, were accessed in a divergent manner from a common intermediate (ammonium salt 8). Several P3 analogues exhibited sub-micromolar EC50 values, with thiourea 14, urea 15 and amide 21 representing the most potent anti-trypanosomal derivatives of the series. In order to establish an in vitro selectivity index the most active anti-trypanosomal compounds were also assessed for their impact on cell viability and cytotoxity effects in mammalian cells. Encouragingly, all compounds only reduced cellular metabolic activity in mammalian cells to a modest level and little, or no cytotoxicity, was observed with the series

Mode mixing and losses in misaligned microcavities

We present a study on the optical losses of Fabry-P\'erot cavities subject to realistic transverse mirror misalignment. We consider mirrors of the two most prevalent surface forms: idealised spherical depressions, and Gaussian profiles generated by laser ablation. We first describe the mode mixing phenomena seen in the spherical mirror case and compare to the frequently-used clipping model, observing close agreement in the predicted diffraction loss, but with the addition of protective mode mixing at transverse degeneracies. We then discuss the Gaussian mirror case, detailing how the varying surface curvature across the mirror leads to complex variations in round trip loss and mode profile. In light of the severe mode distortion and strongly elevated loss predicted for many cavity lengths and transverse alignments when using Gaussian mirrors, we suggest that the consequences of mirror surface profile are carefully considered when designing cavity experiments.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Efficient operator method for modelling mode mixing in misaligned optical cavities

The transverse field structure and diffraction loss of the resonant modes of Fabry-P\'erot optical cavities are acutely sensitive to the alignment and shape of the mirror substrates. We develop extensions to the `mode mixing' method applicable to arbitrary mirror shapes, which both facilitate fast calculation of the modes of cavities with transversely misaligned mirrors and enable the determination and transformation of the geometric properties of these modes. We show how these methods extend previous capabilities by including the practically-motivated case of transverse mirror misalignment, unveiling rich and complex structure of the resonant modes.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Optimisation of Scalable Ion-Cavity Interfaces for Quantum Photonic Networks

In the design optimisation of ion-cavity interfaces for quantum networking applications, difficulties occur due to the many competing figures of merit and highly interdependent design constraints, many of which present `soft-limits', amenable to improvement at the cost of engineering time. In this work we present a systematic approach to this problem which offers a means to identify efficient and robust operating regimes, and to elucidate the trade-offs involved in the design process, allowing engineering efforts to be focused on the most sensitive and critical parameters. We show that in many relevant cases it is possible to approximately separate the geometric aspects of the cooperativity from those associated with the atomic system and the mirror surfaces themselves, greatly simplifying the optimisation procedure. Although our approach to optimisation can be applied to most operating regimes, here we consider cavities suitable for typical ion trapping experiments, and with substantial transverse misalignment of the mirrors. We find that cavities with mirror misalignments of many micrometres can still offer very high photon extraction efficiencies, offering an appealing route to the scalable production of ion-cavity interfaces for large scale quantum networks

The convex Positivstellensatz in a free algebra

Given a monic linear pencil L in g variables let D_L be its positivity domain, i.e., the set of all g-tuples X of symmetric matrices of all sizes making L(X) positive semidefinite. Because L is a monic linear pencil, D_L is convex with interior, and conversely it is known that convex bounded noncommutative semialgebraic sets with interior are all of the form D_L. The main result of this paper establishes a perfect noncommutative Nichtnegativstellensatz on a convex semialgebraic set. Namely, a noncommutative polynomial p is positive semidefinite on D_L if and only if it has a weighted sum of squares representation with optimal degree bounds: p = s^* s + \sum_j f_j^* L f_j, where s, f_j are vectors of noncommutative polynomials of degree no greater than 1/2 deg(p). This noncommutative result contrasts sharply with the commutative setting, where there is no control on the degrees of s, f_j and assuming only p nonnegative, as opposed to p strictly positive, yields a clean Positivstellensatz so seldom that such cases are noteworthy.Comment: 22 page

ACE-ASIA - Regional climatic and atmospheric chemical effects of Asian dust and pollution

Although continental-scale plumes of Asian dust and pollution reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface and perturb the chemistry of the atmosphere, our ability to quantify these effects has been limited by a lack of critical observations, particularly of layers above the surface. Comprehensive surface, airborne, shipboard, and satellite measurements of Asian aerosol chemical composition, size, optical properties, and radiative impacts were performed during the Asian Pacific Regional Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-Asia) study. Measurements within a massive Chinese dust storm at numerous widely spaced sampling locations revealed the highly complex structure of the atmosphere, in which layers of dust, urban pollution, and biomass-burning smoke may be transported long distances as distinct entities or mixed together. The data allow a first-time assessment of the regional climatic and atmospheric chemical effects of a continental-scale mixture of dust and pollution. Our results show that radiative flux reductions during such episodes are sufficient to cause regional climate change