Evaluating the Chinese Revised Controlling Behaviors Scale (C-CBS-R)

The present study evaluated the utility of the Chinese version of the Revised Controlling Behaviors Scale (C-CBS-R) as a measure of controlling behaviors in violent Chinese intimate relationships. Using a mixed-methods approach, in-depth, individual interviews were conducted with 200 Chinese women survivors to elicit qualitative data about their personal experiences of control in intimate relationships. The use of controlling behaviors was also assessed using the C-CBS-R. Interview accounts suggested that the experiences of 91 of the women were consistent with the description of coercive control according to Dutton and Goodman’s (2005) conceptualization of coercion. Using the split-half validation procedure, a receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis was conducted with the first half of the sample. The area under the curve (AUC) for using the C-CBS-R to identify high control was .99, and the cutoff score of 1.145 maximized both sensitivity and specificity. Applying the cutoff score to the second half gave a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 95%. Overall, the C-CBS-R has demonstrated utility as a measure of controlling behaviors with a cutoff score for distinguishing high from low levels of control in violent Chinese intimate relationships

Geologic and Hydrologic Controls on Reservoir-Scale Variability in Formation-Water Compositions

Subsurface formation waters exhibit regional trends in measured chemistries, but the data also exhibit marked local variance that has not been adequately described or explained. An integrated study of chemical, petrologic, and fluid-pressure data from a well-characterized natural gas field in the Gulf Coast basin will allow us to determine reservoir-scale controls on chemical and diagenetic variability. Understanding the controls on chemistry can provide insight into fluid flow and rock-water interactions in similar geologic settings. Knowledge of solute distributions will aid in the assessment of compartmentalization within reservoirs and fluid communication between reservoirs. Such assessment is relevant not only to improved hydrocarbon exploitation but also to the safe injection of chemical wastes. Finally, understanding small-scale chemical changes would further the interpretation of regional variations in water chemistry, diagenetic facies, and fluid flow within the Cenozoic section of the Gulf Coast basin. This interpretation is potentially important in the study of hydrocarbon migration and entrapment. We propose to sample in detail formation waters from Stratton Field in Nueces and Kleberg Counties, Texas, in order to map and interpret chemical variations within and between individual reservoirs. The results of water analyses will be mapped with respect to facies and reservoir geometries and features such as faults in order to determine stratigraphic, structural, and hydraulic controls on chemical variability. Hydrochemical data will be compared with mineralogic analyses of core, and geochemical modeling will be conducted. Results will be assessed in terms of the extent of rock-water equilibration to determine plausible reaction and mixing sequences along flow paths.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Blood transfusion in critical care

Blood transfusion is frequent in critical care. Transfusion raises the mass of transfused blood components and is lifesaving in acute hemorrhage. In massive transfusion (>10 units of red blood cells), early attempts to restore coagulation function appear helpful. Transfusion in non-bleeding patients is largely prophylactic, is seldom evidence-based, and may be deleterious. In hemodynamically stable critical care patients, level I evidence suggests that a hemoglobin of >7 g/dL and platelet counts of >10,000/μL are well tolerated

Robust Chauvenet Outlier Rejection

Sigma clipping is commonly used in astronomy for outlier rejection, but the number of standard deviations beyond which one should clip data from a sample ultimately depends on the size of the sample. Chauvenet rejection is one of the oldest, and simplest, ways to account for this, but, like sigma clipping, depends on the sample's mean and standard deviation, neither of which are robust quantities: Both are easily contaminated by the very outliers they are being used to reject. Many, more robust measures of central tendency, and of sample deviation, exist, but each has a tradeoff with precision. Here, we demonstrate that outlier rejection can be both very robust and very precise if decreasingly robust but increasingly precise techniques are applied in sequence. To this end, we present a variation on Chauvenet rejection that we call "robust" Chauvenet rejection (RCR), which uses three decreasingly robust/increasingly precise measures of central tendency, and four decreasingly robust/increasingly precise measures of sample deviation. We show this sequential approach to be very effective for a wide variety of contaminant types, even when a significant -- even dominant -- fraction of the sample is contaminated, and especially when the contaminants are strong. Furthermore, we have developed a bulk-rejection variant, to significantly decrease computing times, and RCR can be applied both to weighted data, and when fitting parameterized models to data. We present aperture photometry in a contaminated, crowded field as an example. RCR may be used by anyone at https://skynet.unc.edu/rcr, and source code is available there as well.Comment: 62 pages, 48 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

Sonic hedgehog promotes neuronal differentiation of murine spinal cord precursors and collaborates with neurotrophin 3 to induce islet-1

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) is strongly implicated in the development of ventral structures in the nervous system. Addition of Sonic hedgehog protein to chick spinal cord explants induces floor plate and motoneuron development. Whether Shh acts directly to induce these cell types or whether their induction is mediated by additional factors is unknown. To further investigate the role of Shh in spinal neuron development, we have used low-density cultures of murine spinal cord precursor cells. Shh stimulated neuronal differentiation; however, it did not increase the proportion of neurons expressing the first postmitotic motoneuron marker Islet-1. Moreover, Shh did induce Islet-l expression in neural tube explants, suggesting that it acts in combination with neural tube factors to induce motoneurons. Another factor implicated in motoneuron development is neurotrophin 3 (NT3), and when assayed in isolated precursor cultures, it had no effect on Islet-1 expression. However, the combination of N-terminal Shh and NT3 induced Islet-1 expression in the majority of neurons in low-density cultures of caudal intermediate neural plate. Furthermore, in explant cultures, Shh-mediated Islet-1 expression was blocked by an anti-NT3 antibody. Previous studies have shown expression of NT3 in the region of motoneuron differentiation and that spinal fusimotor neurons are lost in NT3 knock-out animals. Taken together, these findings suggest that Shh can act directly on spinal cord precursors to promote neuronal differentiation, but induction of Islet-1 expression is regulated by factors additional to Shh, including NT3

Superconductivity at 2.3 K in the misfit compound (PbSe)1.16(TiSe2)2

The structural misfit compound (PbSe)1.16(TiSe2)2 is reported. It is a superconductor with a Tc of 2.3 K. (PbSe)1.16(TiSe2)2 derives from a parent compound, TiSe2, which shows a charge density wave transition and no superconductivity. The crystal structure, characterized by high resolution electron microscopy and powder x-ray diffraction, consists of two layers of 1T-TiSe2 alternating with a double layer of (100) PbSe. Transport measurements suggest that the superconductivity is induced by charge transfer from the PbSe layers to the TiSe2 layers.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures. To be published in Physical Review

Electromagnetically induced transparency in superconducting quantum circuits : Effects of decoherence, tunneling and multi-level cross-talk

We explore theoretically electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) in a superconducting quantum circuit (SQC). The system is a persistent-current flux qubit biased in a $\Lambda$ configuration. Previously [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 087003 (2004)], we showed that an ideally-prepared EIT system provides a sensitive means to probe decoherence. Here, we extend this work by exploring the effects of imperfect dark-state preparation and specific decoherence mechanisms (population loss via tunneling, pure dephasing, and incoherent population exchange). We find an initial, rapid population loss from the $\Lambda$ system for an imperfectly prepared dark state. This is followed by a slower population loss due to both the detuning of the microwave fields from the EIT resonance and the existing decoherence mechanisms. We find analytic expressions for the slow loss rate, with coefficients that depend on the particular decoherence mechanisms, thereby providing a means to probe, identify, and quantify various sources of decoherence with EIT. We go beyond the rotating wave approximation to consider how strong microwave fields can induce additional off-resonant transitions in the SQC, and we show how these effects can be mitigated by compensation of the resulting AC Stark shifts

Displaced but not replaced: the impact of e-learning on academic identities in higher education.

Challenges facing universities are leading many to implement institutional strategies to incorporate e-learning rather than leaving its adoption up to enthusiastic individuals. Although there is growing understanding about the impact of e-learning on the student experience, there is less understanding of academics’ perceptions of e-learning and its impact on their identities. This paper explores the changing nature of academic identities revealed through case study research into the implementation of e-learning at one UK university. By providing insight into the lived experiences of academics in a university in which technology is not only transforming access to knowledge but also influencing the balance of power between academic and student in knowledge production and use, it is suggested that academics may experience a jolt to their ‘trajectory of self’ when engaging with e-learning. The potential for e-learning to prompt loss of teacher presence and displacement as knowledge expert may appear to undermine the ontological security of their academic identity