New Hope for the Working Poor: Effects After Eight Years for Families and Children

Implemented in 1994 in Milwaukee, New Hope provided full-time, low-wage workers with several benefits for three years: an earnings supplement, low-cost health insurance, and subsidized child care. A random assignment study shows positive effects for both adults and children, some of which persisted five years after the program ended

Children with disturbances in sensory processing: a pilot study examining the role of the parasympathetic nervous system.

This study was a preliminary investigation of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) functioning in children with disturbances in sensory processing. The specific aims of this study were to (1) provide preliminary data about group differences in parasympathetic functions, as measured by the vagal tone index, between children with disturbances in sensory processing and those without; (2) determine effect size and power needed for future studies; and (3) to lay the foundation for further examination of the relations of parasympathetic functioning and functional behavior in children with disturbances in sensory processing. Participants were 15 children, nine with disturbances in sensory processing and six typically developing children. Heart period data were continuously collected for a 2-minute baseline and during administration of the 15-minute Sensory Challenge Protocol, a unique laboratory protocol designed to measure sensory reactivity (Miller, Reisman, McIntosh, & Simon, 2001). Groups were compared on vagal tone index, heart period, and heart rate using two-tailed, independent sample t tests. Children with disturbances in sensory processing had significantly lower vagal tone than the typically developing sample (t(13) = 2.4, p = .05). Statistical power analysis indicated that, for future studies, a sample size of 20 in each group would yield adequate statistical power. Although the number of subjects in this pilot study is small, the results from this study support further investigations of parasympathetic functions and functional behavior in children with disturbances in sensory processing

Fluorescence spectroscopy of low-level endogenous β-adrenergic receptor expression at the plasma membrane of differentiating human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes

Funding: This project was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through Project 421152132 SFB1423 subproject C03 (PA) and SFB 1470 subproject A01 (PA).The potential of human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to be differentiated into cardiomyocytes (CMs) mimicking adult CMs functional morphology, marker genes and signaling characteristics has been investigated since over a decade. The evolution of the membrane localization of CM-specific G protein-coupled receptors throughout differentiation has received, however, only limited attention to date. We employ here advanced fluorescent spectroscopy, namely linescan Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), to observe how the plasma membrane abundance of the β1- and β2-adrenergic receptors (β1/2-ARs), labelled using a bright and photostable fluorescent antagonist, evolves during the long-term monolayer culture of hiPSC-derived CMs. We compare it to the kinetics of observed mRNA levels in wildtype (WT) hiPSCs and in two CRISPR/Cas9 knock-in clones. We conduct these observations against the backdrop of our recent report of cell-to-cell expression variability, as well as of the subcellular localization heterogeneity of β-ARs in adult CMs.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Rates and Characteristics of Intermediate Mass Ratio Inspirals Detectable by Advanced LIGO

Gravitational waves (GWs) from the inspiral of a neutron star (NS) or stellar-mass black hole (BH) into an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) with mass between ~50 and ~350 solar masses may be detectable by the planned advanced generation of ground-based GW interferometers. Such intermediate mass ratio inspirals (IMRIs) are most likely to be found in globular clusters. We analyze four possible IMRI formation mechanisms: (1) hardening of an NS-IMBH or BH-IMBH binary via three-body interactions, (2) hardening via Kozai resonance in a hierarchical triple system, (3) direct capture, and (4) inspiral of a compact object from a tidally captured main-sequence star; we also discuss tidal effects when the inspiraling object is an NS. For each mechanism we predict the typical eccentricities of the resulting IMRIs. We find that IMRIs will have largely circularized by the time they enter the sensitivity band of ground-based detectors. Hardening of a binary via three-body interactions, which is likely to be the dominant mechanism for IMRI formation, yields eccentricities under 10^-4 when the GW frequency reaches 10 Hz. Even among IMRIs formed via direct captures, which can have the highest eccentricities, around 90% will circularize to eccentricities under 0.1 before the GW frequency reaches 10 Hz. We estimate the rate of IMRI coalescences in globular clusters and the sensitivity of a network of three Advanced LIGO detectors to the resulting GWs. We show that this detector network may see up to tens of IMRIs per year, although rates of one to a few per year may be more plausible. We also estimate the loss in signal-to-noise ratio that will result from using circular IMRI templates for data analysis and find that, for the eccentricities we expect, this loss is negligible.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; revised version reflects changes made to the article during the acceptance proces

General Relativistic Electromagnetic Fields of a Slowly Rotating Magnetized Neutron Star. I. Formulation of the equations

We present analytic solutions of Maxwell equations in the internal and external background spacetime of a slowly rotating magnetized neutron star. The star is considered isolated and in vacuum, with a dipolar magnetic field not aligned with the axis of rotation. With respect to a flat spacetime solution, general relativity introduces corrections related both to the monopolar and the dipolar parts of the gravitational field. In particular, we show that in the case of infinite electrical conductivity general relativistic corrections due to the dragging of reference frames are present, but only in the expression for the electric field. In the case of finite electrical conductivity, however, corrections due both to the spacetime curvature and to the dragging of reference frames are shown to be present in the induction equation. These corrections could be relevant for the evolution of the magnetic fields of pulsars and magnetars. The solutions found, while obtained through some simplifying assumption, reflect a rather general physical configuration and could therefore be used in a variety of astrophysical situations.Comment: A few typos corrected; matches the versions in MNRA

Enabling portable I/O analysis of commercially sensitive HPC applications through workload replication

Benchmarking and analyzing I/O performance across high performance computing (HPC) platforms is necessary to identify performance bottlenecks and guide effective use of new and existing storage systems. Doing this with large production applications, which can often be commercially sensitive and lack portability, is not a straightforward task and the availability of a representative proxy for I/O workloads can help to provide a solution. We use Darshan I/O characterization and the MACSio proxy application to replicate five production workloads, showing how these can be used effectively to investigate I/O performance when migrating between HPC systems ranging from small local clusters to leadership scale machines. Preliminary results indicate that it is possible to generate datasets that match the target application with a good degree of accuracy. This enables a predictive performance analysis study of a representative workload to be conducted on five different systems. The results of this analysis are used to identify how workloads exhibit different I/O footprints on a file system and what effect file system configuration can have on performance

Self-control in decision-making involves modulation of the vmPFC valuation system

Every day, individuals make dozens of choices between an alternative with higher overall value and a more tempting but ultimately inferior option. Optimal decision-making requires self-control. We propose two hypotheses about the neurobiology of self-control: (i) Goal-directed decisions have their basis in a common value signal encoded in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and (ii) exercising self-control involves the modulation of this value signal by dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor brain activity while dieters engaged in real decisions about food consumption. Activity in vmPFC was correlated with goal values regardless of the amount of self-control. It incorporated both taste and health in self-controllers but only taste in non–self-controllers. Activity in DLPFC increased when subjects exercised self-control and correlated with activity in vmPFC

Brief behavioural activation for adolescent depression: working with complexity and risk

Given the long-term negative outcomes associated with depression in adolescence, there is a pressing need to develop brief, evidence based treatments that are accessible to more young people experiencing low mood. Behavioural Activation (BA) is an effective treatment for adult depression, however little research has focused on the use of BA with depressed adolescents, particularly with briefer forms of BA. In this article we outline an adaptation of brief Behavioral Activation Treatment of Depression (BATD) designed for adolescents and delivered in eight sessions (Brief BA). This case example illustrates how a structured, brief intervention was useful for a depressed young person with a number of complicating and risk factors