The Effect of Neighborhood Disadvantage and Parental Involvement on African American Adolescent’s Externalizing Behavior and Academic Outcome

African American adolescents are more likely to live in disadvantaged neighborhoods than their European American counterparts. The impact that neighborhood disadvantage such as poverty, unemployment, population turnover, and community violence exerts on youth’s behavior becomes more prevalent as they grow older, increasing the risk for engaging in externalized behavior and hindering academic outcomes. Consistent with the developmental theory, an examination of parental involvement (PI) as moderator between neighborhood disadvantage and externalizing behavior is warranted. There is a dearth of longitudinal research that examines how neighborhood disadvantage operates and, to what extent influences, directly or indirectly, behaviors and academic outcomes of African American high school students. A sample of 519 students, 9th to 11th grade (45% females) with a mean age of 14.8 years (SD± 0.35), participated in the present study. Nearly half of the participants (45.6%) were eligible for free or reduced lunch. A moderated mediation model was proposed in which externalizing behavior mediates the association between neighborhood disadvantage and academic outcomes, and parental involvement moderates the association between neighborhood disadvantage and externalizing behavior. Path analysis employing maximum likelihood was conducted using Mplus7 to examine the associations between study variables. Results from the moderated mediation analysis supported that parental involvement (PI) served as a protective factor against neighborhood disadvantage exposure. Specifically, in the low (PI) group, poverty and community violence in 9th grade predicted externalizing behavior in 10th grade, whereas in the high PI group, unemployment in 9th grade predicted externalizing behavior in 10th grade. With regard to academic outcomes, in the low PI group, population turnover in 9th grade predicted low academic outcomes in 11th grade. In contrast, in the high PI group, none of the neighborhood disadvantage variables was related to academic outcomes in 11th grade was which in turn predicted negative academic outcomes in 11th grade. The only significant path that remained significant in both, low and high PI groups, was the strong association between externalizing behavior in 10th grade and academic outcomes in 11th grade. Mediation analysis using Bootstrapped standard errors procedure indicated indirect effects from poverty to academic outcome via externalizing behavior, and community violence to academic outcome via externalizing behavior in the low PI group, whereas there was no significant indirect effects in the high PI group. These results are a robust support for moderated mediation effects. The use of a defined epidemiological sample facilitates generalization of findings to individuals from the same ethnic group living in similar neighborhoods. Preventive interventions need to capitalize on specific characteristics of the African American community, such as strong family ties and collectivism to enhance the social fabric. Promotion of social capital through increased collaboration between families, community agencies and institutions may provide more resources for youth to achieve academic outcomes

Entropy Production of Brownian Macromolecules with Inertia

We investigate the nonequilibrium steady-state thermodynamics of single Brownian macromolecules with inertia under feedback control in isothermal ambient fluid. With the control being represented by a velocity-dependent external force, we find such open systems can have a negative entropy production rate and we develop a mesoscopic theory consistent with the second law. We propose an equilibrium condition and define a class of external forces, which includes a transverse Lorentz force, leading to equilibrium.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Super-paramagnetic clustering of yeast gene expression profiles

High-density DNA arrays, used to monitor gene expression at a genomic scale, have produced vast amounts of information which require the development of efficient computational methods to analyze them. The important first step is to extract the fundamental patterns of gene expression inherent in the data. This paper describes the application of a novel clustering algorithm, Super-Paramagnetic Clustering (SPC) to analysis of gene expression profiles that were generated recently during a study of the yeast cell cycle. SPC was used to organize genes into biologically relevant clusters that are suggestive for their co-regulation. Some of the advantages of SPC are its robustness against noise and initialization, a clear signature of cluster formation and splitting, and an unsupervised self-organized determination of the number of clusters at each resolution. Our analysis revealed interesting correlated behavior of several groups of genes which has not been previously identified

5G: Una nueva generación para una nueva sociedad

El desarrollo de las telecomunicaciones móviles ha mostrado tremendos cambios en los últimos años, pasando de 3G a 4G, haciendo evidente el crecimiento tecnológico. Es en este momento en el que la investigación se vuelca hacia el desarrollo de la siguiente tecnología. En este artículo se presentan las claves que darán nacimiento a 5G (quinta generación), exponiendo las investigaciones que vienenrealizando diferentes grupos e instituciones a nivel mundial

Absence of microemboli on transcranial Doppler identifies low-risk patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis who do not warrant endarterectomy or stenting

Background and Purpose - Carotid endarterectomy clearly benefits patients with symptomatic severe stenosis (SCS), but the risk of stroke is so low for asymptomatic patients (ACS) that the number needed to treat is very high. We studied transcranial Doppler (TCD) embolus detection as a method for identifying patients at higher risk who would have a lower number needed to treat. Methods - Patients with carotid stenosis of ≥60% by Doppler ultrasound who had never been symptomatic (81%) or had been asymptomatic for at least 18 months (19%) were studied with TCD embolus detection for up to 1 hour on 2 occasions a week apart; patients were followed for 2 years. Results - 319 patients were studied, age (standard deviation) 69.68 (9.12) years; 32 (10%) had microemboli at baseline (TCD+). Events were more likely to occur in the first year. Patients with microemboli were much more likely to have microemboli 1 year later (34.4 versus 1.4%; P\u3c0.0001) and were more likely to have a stroke during the first year of follow-up (15.6%, 95% CI, 4.1 to 79; versus 1%, 95% CI, 1.01 to 1.36; P\u3c0.0001). Conclusions - Our findings indicate that TCD- ACS will not benefit from endarterectomy or stenting unless it can be done with a risk \u3c1%; TCD+ may benefit as much as SCS if their surgical risk is not higher. These findings suggest that ACS should be managed medically with delay of surgery or stenting until the occurrence of symptoms or emboli. © 2005 American Heart Association, Inc

Surrogacy Among Filipinos Who Have Struggled With Infertility: A Discourse Analysis

Surrogacy continues to be practiced to address infertility in the Philippines; however, discussions on the method are sparse, given its limited accessibility and morally questionable procedures that may concern potential parents in a developing country. Using discourse analysis, the researchers interviewed ten (10) Filipino Roman Catholics who were struggling with infertility, to uncover how they construct the idea of surrogacy. The study shows the discourses on surrogacy are often approached in a detached manner, where potential parents describe the method as a last choice or one that is never considered. They articulate this position by highlighting the emotional factors surrogacy would entail; the women, in particular, described the involvement of another individual as “taking over” the role of the mother. Participants placed themselves in positions of both power and vulnerability, reconciling the split between surrogacy as a compassionate act or a transactional business. The ambiguous role of faith was also negotiated by the participants, where they argued for surrogacy using alternative teachings or through God-given “free will”. The discourses present considerations for the continued practice of surrogacy among key players in reproductive health in developing countries, recognizing the concerns of infertile couples to enable informed decision-making and policy creation

Cumulants of the three state Potts model and of nonequilibrium models with C3v symmetry

The critical behavior of two-dimensional stochastic lattice gas models with C3v symmetry is analyzed. We study the cumulants of the order parameter for the three state (equilibrium) Potts model and for two irreversible models whose dynamic rules are invariant under the symmetry operations of the point group C3v. By means of extensive numerical analysis of the phase transition we show that irreversibility does not affect the critical behavior of the systems. In particular we find that the Binder reduced fourth order cumulant takes a universal value U* which is the same for the three state Potts model and for the irreversible models. The same universal behavior is observed for the reduced third-order cumulant.Comment: gzipped tar file containing: 1 latex file + 6 eps figure