1,278 research outputs found
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Residential proximity to major roadways and prevalent hypertension among postmenopausal women: results from the Women's Health Initiative San Diego Cohort.
BackgroundLiving near major roadways has been linked with increased risk of cardiovascular events and worse prognosis. Residential proximity to major roadways may also be associated with increased risk of hypertension, but few studies have evaluated this hypothesis.Methods and resultsWe examined the cross-sectional association between residential proximity to major roadways and prevalent hypertension among 5401 postmenopausal women enrolled into the San Diego cohort of the Women's Health Initiative. We used modified Poisson regression with robust error variance to estimate the association between prevalence of hypertension and residential distance to nearest major roadway, adjusting for participant demographics, medical history, indicators of individual and neighborhood socioeconomic status, and for local supermarket/grocery and fast food/convenience store density. The adjusted prevalence ratios for hypertension were 1.22 (95% CI: 1.07, 1.39), 1.13 (1.00, 1.27), and 1.05 (0.99, 1.12) for women living ≤100, >100 to 200, and >200 to 1000 versus >1000 m from a major roadway (P for trend=0.006). In a model treating the natural log of distance to major roadway as a continuous variable, a shift in distance from 1000 to 100 m from a major roadway was associated with a 9% (3%, 16%) higher prevalence of hypertension.ConclusionsIn this cohort of postmenopausal women, residential proximity to major roadways was positively associated with the prevalence of hypertension. If causal, these results suggest that living close to major roadways may be an important novel risk factor for hypertension
On the CSFT approach to localized closed string tachyons
We compute the potential for localized closed string tachyons in bosonic
string theory on the orbifold C/Z_4 using level-truncated closed string field
theory. The critical points of the potential exhibit features which agree with
their conjectured identification as lower-order orbifolds. However this case
also raises some questions regarding the quantitative predictions associated
with these conjectures.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, v2: The relation between the flat space and
orbifold gravitational constants has been corrected. This resolves the puzzle
of multiple predictions, but worsens the agreement between the depth of the
potential and the change in the deficit angl
The Gravitational Demise of Cold Degenerate Stars
We consider the long term fate and evolution of cold degenerate stars under
the action of gravity alone. Although such stars cannot emit radiation through
the Hawking mechanism, the wave function of the star will contain a small
admixture of black hole states. These black hole states will emit radiation and
hence the star can lose its mass energy in the long term. We discuss the
allowed range of possible degenerate stellar evolution within this framework.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, one figure, accepted to Physical Review
Jet Reconstruction in Heavy Ion Collisions
We examine the problem of jet reconstruction at heavy-ion colliders using
jet-area-based background subtraction tools as provided by FastJet. We use
Monte Carlo simulations with and without quenching to study the performance of
several jet algorithms, including the option of filtering, under conditions
corresponding to RHIC and LHC collisions. We find that most standard algorithms
perform well, though the anti-kt and filtered Cambridge/Aachen algorithms have
clear advantages in terms of the reconstructed transverse-momentum offset and
dispersion.Comment: 31 pages, 17 figure
Employing culturally responsive pedagogy to foster literacy learning in schools
 In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that, to enable students in schools from an increasingly diverse range of cultural backgrounds to acquire literacy to a standard that will support them to achieve academically, it is important to adopt pedagogy that is responsive to, and respectful of, them as culturally situated. What largely has been omitted from the literature, however, is discussion of a relevant model of learning to underpin this approach. For this reason this paper adopts a socio-cultural lens (Vygotsky, 1978) through which to view such pedagogy and refers to a number of seminal texts to justify of its relevance. Use of this lens is seen as having a particular rationale. It forces a focus on the agency of the teacher as a mediator of learning who needs to acknowledge the learner’s cultural situatedness (Kozulin, 2003) if school literacy learning for all students is to be as successful as it might be. It also focuses attention on the predominant value systems and social practices that characterize the school settings in which students’ literacy learning is acquired. The paper discusses implications for policy and practice at whole-school, classroom and individual student levels of culturally-responsive pedagogy that is based on a socio-cultural model of learning. In doing so it draws on illustrations from the work of a number of researchers, including that of the author
Revolutionary Concepts of Radiation Shielding for Human Exploration of Space
This Technical Memorandum covers revolutionary ideas for space radiation shielding that would mitigate mission costs while limiting human exposure, as studied in a workshop held at Marshall Space Flight Center at the request of NASA Headquarters. None of the revolutionary new ideas examined for the .rst time in this workshop showed clear promise. The workshop attendees felt that some previously examined concepts were de.nitely useful and should be pursued. The workshop attendees also concluded that several of the new concepts warranted further investigation to clarify their value
Complete Genome Sequence of Brucella suis VBI22, Isolated from Bovine Milk
Brucella suis is the causative agent of swine brucellosis and is known to be able to infect several different hosts, including cattle, dogs, and horses, without causing disease symptoms. Here we report the complete genome sequence of Brucella suis VBI22, which was isolated from raw milk from an infected cow
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Integrating Stand and Soil Properties to Understand Foliar Nutrient Dynamics during Forest Succession Following Slash-and-Burn Agriculture in the Bolivian Amazon
Secondary forests cover large areas of the tropics and play an important role in the global carbon cycle. During secondary forest succession, simultaneous changes occur among stand structural attributes, soil properties, and species composition. Most studies classify tree species into categories based on their regeneration requirements. We use a high-resolution secondary forest chronosequence to assign trees to a continuous gradient in species successional status assigned according to their distribution across the chronosequence. Species successional status, not stand age or differences in stand structure or soil properties, was found to be the best predictor of leaf trait variation. Foliar δ13C had a significant positive relationship with species successional status, indicating changes in foliar physiology related to growth and competitive strategy, but was not correlated with stand age, whereas soil δ13C dynamics were largely constrained by plant species composition. Foliar δ15N had a significant negative correlation with both stand age and species successional status, – most likely resulting from a large initial biomass-burning enrichment in soil 15N and 13C and not closure of the nitrogen cycle. Foliar %C was neither correlated with stand age nor species successional status but was found to display significant phylogenetic signal. Results from this study are relevant to understanding the dynamics of tree species growth and competition during forest succession and highlight possibilities of, and potentially confounding signals affecting, the utility of leaf traits to understand community and species dynamics during secondary forest succession
A Photometric Survey for Variables and Transits in the Field of Praesepe with KELT
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project is a small aperture,
wide-angle search for planetary transits of solar-type stars. In this paper, we
present the results of a commissioning campaign with the KELT telescope to
observe the open cluster Praesepe for 34 nights in early 2005. Lightcurves were
obtained for 69,337 stars, out of which we identify 58 long period variables
and 152 periodic variables. Sixteen of these are previously known as variable,
yielding 194 newly discovered variable stars for which we provide properties
and lightcurves. We also searched for planetary-like transits, finding four
transit candidates. Follow-up observations indicate that two of the candidates
are astrophysical false positives, with two candidates remaining as potential
planetary transits.Comment: 45 pages, 16 figures. Submitted to AJ. PDF version with full
resolution figures located at
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pepper/kelt.pd
Quest for Localized 4-D Black Holes in Brane Worlds
We investigate the possibility of obtaining localized black hole solutions in
brane worlds by introducing a dependence of the four-dimensional line--element
on the extra dimension. An analysis, performed for the cases of an empty bulk
and of a bulk containing either a scalar or a gauge field, reveals that no
conventional type of matter can support such a dependence. Considering a
particular ansatz for the five-dimensional line--element that corresponds to a
black hole solution with a ``decaying'' horizon, we determine the bulk
energy--momentum tensor capable of sustaining such a behaviour. It turns out
that an exotic, shell-like distribution of matter is required. For such
solutions, the black hole singularity is indeed localized near the brane and
the spacetime is well defined near the AdS horizon, in contrast to the
behaviour found in black string type solutions.Comment: 17 pages, RevTex, 3 figures, version to appear in Physical Review D,
comments and references added, typos correcte
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