The Interests of Children and the Interests of the State: Rethinking the Conflict between Child Welfare Policy and Foster Care Practice

The social welfare literature -- whether embodied in the ideology of the profession, claimed in its social policy, substantiated through empirical research, or espoused in practice -- suggests that children should not be removed from their natural hones as a solution to economic woes or to the unavailability of social support services. This apparent convergence of ideology, policy and practice -- buttressed by social values which recognize the importance of family life -- would suggest that few children, if any, would enter foster care because of inadequate income or the absence of social services. Yet, in 1977, between one quarter and one half a million children in the United States are in foster care and most of them are children of the poor. While policy statements claim that substitute care should be a last resort, it is more often than not the only resource available to child welfare practitioners

A theoretical study of non-adiabatic surface effects for a model in the NTF cryogenic wind tunnel

A theoretical analysis was made of the severity and effect of nonadiabatic surface conditions for a model in the NTF cryogenic wind tunnel. The nonadiabatic condition arises from heaters that are used to maintain a constant thermal environment for instrumentation internal to the model. The analysis was made for several axi-symmetric representations of a fuselage cavity, using a finite element heat conduction code. Potential flow and boundary layer codes were used to calculate the convection condition for the exterior surface of the model. The results of the steady state analysis show that it is possible to maintain the surface temperature very near the adiabatic value, with the judicious use of insulating material. Even for the most severe nonadiabatic condition studied, the effects on skin friction drag and displacement thickness were only marginally significant. The thermal analysis also provided an estimate of the power required to maintain a specified cavity temperature

The Gordon-Haus effect for modified NLS solitons

Random jitter in the soliton arrival time (the Gordon-Haus effect) is analyzed for solitons being solutions of the integrable modified nonlinear Schroedinger equation. It is shown that the mean square fluctuation of the soliton position depends on the soliton parameters which can be properly adjusted to suppress the Gordon-Haus jitter.Comment: LaTeX, 7 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Europhys. Let

Clinical Validation of Fragile X Syndrome Screening by DNA Methylation Array

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability. It is most frequently caused by an abnormal expansion of the CGG trinucleotide repeat (\u3e200 repeats) located in the promoter of the fragile X mental retardation gene (FMR1), resulting in promoter DNA hypermethylation and gene silencing. Current clinical tests for FXS are technically challenging and labor intensive, and may involve use of hazardous chemicals or radioisotopes. We clinically validated the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 DNA methylation array for FXS screening. We assessed genome-wide and FMR1-specific DNA methylation in 32 males previously diagnosed with FXS, including nine with mosaicism, as well as five females with full mutation, and premutation carrier males (n = 11) and females (n = 11), who were compared to 300 normal control DNA samples. Our findings demonstrate 100% sensitivity and specificity for detection of FXS in male patients, as well as the ability to differentiate patients with mosaic methylation defects. Full mutation and premutation carrier females did not show FMR1 methylation changes. We have clinically validated this genome-wide DNA methylation assay as a cost- and labor-effective alternative for sensitive and specific screening for FXS, while ruling out the most common differential diagnoses of FXS, Prader-Willi syndrome, and Sotos syndrome in the same assay

Very high energy observations of the BL Lac objects 3C 66A and OJ 287

Using the Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment (STACEE), we have observed the BL Lac objects 3C 66A and OJ 287. These are members of the class of low-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects (LBLs) and are two of the three LBLs predicted by Costamante and Ghisellini to be potential sources of very high energy (>100 GeV) gamma-ray emission. The third candidate, BL Lacertae, has recently been detected by the MAGIC collaboration. Our observations have not produced detections; we calculate a 99% CL upper limit of flux from 3C 66A of 0.15 Crab flux units and from OJ 287 our limit is 0.52 Crab. These limits assume a Crab-like energy spectrum with an effective energy threshold of 185 GeV.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, Accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

Stimulus - response curves of a neuronal model for noisy subthreshold oscillations and related spike generation

We investigate the stimulus-dependent tuning properties of a noisy ionic conductance model for intrinsic subthreshold oscillations in membrane potential and associated spike generation. On depolarization by an applied current, the model exhibits subthreshold oscillatory activity with occasional spike generation when oscillations reach the spike threshold. We consider how the amount of applied current, the noise intensity, variation of maximum conductance values and scaling to different temperature ranges alter the responses of the model with respect to voltage traces, interspike intervals and their statistics and the mean spike frequency curves. We demonstrate that subthreshold oscillatory neurons in the presence of noise can sensitively and also selectively be tuned by stimulus-dependent variation of model parameters.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

A randomized controlled trial of the effects of a prudent diet on cardiovascular risk factors, gene expression, and DNA methylation - the Diet and Genetic Intervention (DIGEST) Pilot study

Background Risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) can be increased by single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the 9p21 region of the genome. However, observational studies have shown that the deleterious effect of 9p21 SNPs on CVD might be offset by consuming a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. This association may be driven by diet-influenced modifications in epigenetic and gene expression profiles. In this pilot study, we aimed to: i. test the feasibility of provision of a ‘Prudent’ and ‘Western’ diet outside of a specialized clinic, ii. assess the impact of each diet on cardiovascular risk factors. Methods A single centre, parallel two-arm, pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) with food provision was conducted in a university teaching hospital outpatient clinic (McMaster university, Hamilton, ON, Canada). The aim was to recruit 80 participants, which allowed for a 10 % dropout. The actual study consisted of 84 apparently healthy participants (69 % women, 18 to 77 years) at low cardiovascular risk. Participants were randomly assigned to follow one of two weight-maintaining diets: ‘Prudent’ or ‘Western’ for 2-weeks. The Prudent diet provided 92 % of provided food consumed). The Prudent diet was 48 % more palatable than the Western diet (P < 0.05). Participants receiving the Prudent diet showed a trend toward reduced systolic (-4 mmHg; P = 0.10) and diastolic (-3 mmHg; P = 0.07) blood pressure, and total cholesterol (-0.24 mmol/L; P = 0.08), compared to individuals receiving the Western diet. Data collection from all randomized participants was completed within 18 months. Conclusions Recruitment, and retention of apparently healthy, normotensive adults into a feeding study for a 2-week duration is feasible outside of specialized dietary clinic, and modest diet-related changes in biomarkers begin to appear after two weeks

Spectrum and Variability of Mrk501 as observed by the CAT Imaging Telescope

The CAT Imaging Telescope has observed the BL Lac object Markarian 501 between March and August 1997. We report here on the variability over this time including several large flares. We present also preliminary spectra for all these data, for the low emission state, and for the largest flare.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Late