1,246 research outputs found
SOCIOECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF FOOD EXPENDITURE PATTERNS AMONG RACIALLY DIFFERENT LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
This paper examines the impact of selected socioeconomic characteristics on aggregate and group food expenditure patterns of racially different low-income households. A double logarithmic functional form was used to explain responses in household food expenditures to socioeconomic factors. Household income, family size, and Food Stamp Program participation were found to exert a strong positive impact on food expenditures. The general educational level of the homemaker registered no significant impact on household food expenditures. However, the nutritional knowledge of the homemaker increased the efficiency of food purchasing activities.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,
Role of the compaction energy level on the small strain stiffness of a silty sand soil subjected to wetting and drying
The dynamic properties of a soil are routinely quantified to describe its engineering behaviour under repeated loading. While the results of previous research studies indicate that the effect of changes in suction on the dynamic response is significant, only limited research has been engaged in the assessment of post-compacted changes in suction induced by cycles of wetting and drying. In this paper, aspects related to the dynamic properties with special reference to small strain shear modulus behaviour at different compaction energy levels are described and outlined. Particular emphasis is placed on the hysteric behaviour observed (i.e. amplitude of the hysteresis loop) and its dependence on the imparted compaction energy. The results not only confirm the importance of the recent suction ratio (or CSR) in governing the mechanical response at small strain, but they also indicate that higher compaction energy levels induce smaller hysteresis loops
Analysis of No-Difference Findings in Evaluation Research
Conclusions of no difference are becoming increasingly important in evaluation research. We delineate three major uses of no-difference findings and analyze their meanings. (1) No-differ ence findings in randomized experiments can be interpreted as support for conclusions of the absence of a meaningful treatment effect, but only if the proper analytic methods are used. (2) Statistically based conclusions in quasi-experiments do not allow causal statements about the treatment impact but do provide a metric to judge the size of the resulting difference. (3) Using no-difference findings to conclude equivalence on control variables is inefficient and potentially misleading. The final section of the article presents alternative methods by which conclusions of no difference may be supported when applicable. These methods include the use of arbitrarily high alpha levels, interval estimation, and power analysis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67182/2/10.1177_0193841X8901300604.pd
Biosynthesis and incorporation of side-chain-truncated lignin monomers to reduce lignin polymerization and enhance saccharification
Persil Çetinkol, Özgül (Dogus author)Lignocellulosic biomass is utilized as a renewable feedstock in various agro-industrial activities. Lignin is an aromatic, hydrophobic and mildly branched polymer integrally associated with polysaccharides within the biomass, which negatively affects their extraction and hydrolysis during industrial processing. Engineering the monomer composition of lignins offers an attractive option towards new lignins with reduced recalcitrance. The presented work describes a new strategy developed in Arabidopsis for the overproduction of rare lignin monomers to reduce lignin polymerization degree (DP). Biosynthesis of these 'DP reducers' is achieved by expressing a bacterial hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA hydratase-lyase (HCHL) in lignifying tissues of Arabidopsis inflorescence stems. HCHL cleaves the propanoid side-chain of hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA lignin precursors to produce the corresponding hydroxybenzaldehydes so that plant stems expressing HCHL accumulate in their cell wall higher amounts of hydroxybenzaldehyde and hydroxybenzoate derivatives. Engineered plants with intermediate HCHL activity levels show no reduction in total lignin, sugar content or biomass yield compared with wild-type plants. However, cell wall characterization of extract-free stems by thioacidolysis and by 2D-NMR revealed an increased amount of unusual C 6C 1 lignin monomers most likely linked with lignin as end-groups. Moreover the analysis of lignin isolated from these plants using size-exclusion chromatography revealed a reduced molecular weight. Furthermore, these engineered lines show saccharification improvement of pretreated stem cell walls. Therefore, we conclude that enhancing the biosynthesis and incorporation of C 6C 1 monomers ('DP reducers') into lignin polymers represents a promising strategy to reduce lignin DP and to decrease cell wall recalcitrance to enzymatic hydrolysis
SIGMA: Scala Internal Domain-Specific Languages for Model Manipulations
International audienceModel manipulation environments automate model operations such as model consistency checking and model transformation. A number of external model manipulation Domain-Specific Languages (DSL) have been proposed, in particular for the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF). While their higher levels of abstraction result in gains in expressiveness over general-purpose languages, their limitations in versatility, performance, and tool support together with the need to learn new languages may significantly contribute to accidental complexities. In this paper, we present Sigma, a family of internal DSLs embedded in Scala for EMF model consistency checking, model-to-model and model-to-text transformations. It combines the benefits of external model manipulation DSLs with general-purpose programming taking full advantage of Scala versatility, performance and tool support. The DSLs are compared to the state-of-the-art Epsilon languages in non-trivial model manipulation tasks that resulted in 20% to 70% reduction in code size and significantly better performance
Background Thermal Contributions in Testing the Unruh Effect
We consider inertial and accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detectors moving in a
background thermal bath and calculate their excitation rates. It is shown that
for fast moving detectors such a thermal bath does not affect substantially the
excitation probability. Our results are discussed in connection with a possible
proposal of testing the Unruh effect in high energy particle accelerators.Comment: 13 pages, (REVTEX 3.0), 3 figures available upon reques
One-loop corrections to the metastable vacuum decay
We evaluate the one-loop prefactor in the false vacuum decay rate in a theory
of a self interacting scalar field in 3+1 dimensions. We use a numerical
method, established some time ago, which is based on a well-known theorem on
functional determinants. The proper handling of zero modes and of
renormalization is discussed. The numerical results in particular show that
quantum corrections become smaller away from the thin-wall case. In the
thin-wall limit the numerical results are found to join into those obtained by
a gradient expansion.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figure
Evidence for a Binary Companion to the Central Compact Object 1E 1207.4-5209
Unique among neutron stars, 1E 1207.4-5209 is an X-ray pulsar with a spin
period of 424 ms that contains at least two strong absorption features in its
energy spectrum. This neutron star has been identified as a member of the
radio-quiet compact central objects in supernova remnants. It has been found
that 1E 1207.4-5209 is not spinning down monotonically suggesting that this
neutron star undergoes strong, frequent glitches, contains a fall-back disk, or
possess a binary companion. Here, we report on a sequence of seven XMM-Newton
observations of 1E 1207.4-5209 performed during a 40 day window in June/July
2005. Due to unanticipated variance in the phase measurements beyond the
statistical uncertainties, we could not identify a unique phase-coherent timing
solution. The three most probable timing solutions give frequency time
derivatives of +0.9, -2.6, and +1.6 X 10^(-12) Hz/s (listed in descending order
of significance). We conclude that the local frequency derivative during our
XMM-Newton observing campaign differs from the long-term spin-down rate by more
than an order of magnitude, effectively ruling out glitch models for 1E
1207.4-5209. If the long-term spin frequency variations are caused by timing
noise, the strength of the timing noise in 1E 1207.4-5209 is much stronger than
in other pulsars with similar period derivatives. Therefore, it is highly
unlikely that the spin variations are caused by the same physical process that
causes timing noise in other isolated pulsars. The most plausible scenario for
the observed spin irregularities is the presence of a binary companion to 1E
1207.4-5209. We identified a family of orbital solutions that are consistent
with our phase-connected timing solution, archival frequency measurements, and
constraints on the companions mass imposed by deep IR and optical observations.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. To be published in the proceedings of "Isolated
Neutron Stars: from the Interior to the Surface" (April 24-28, 2006) - eds.
D. Page, R. Turolla & S. Zan
Modeling Application for Disability Insurance as a Retirement Decision: A Hazard Model Approach Using Choice-Based Sampling
This paper models the decision to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance Benefitsas a special case of a more general dynamic retirement decision model. It uses a multi-state, continuous-time hazard to test the effect of policy variables on the speed at which workers applyfor benefits following the onset of a work limitation. Policy variables are found to matter. A higher expected replacement rate increases the risk of application. This effect is significant in asmall sample of the general population and in a sample which also includes a weighted choice-based sample of disability insurance applicants
Quantum railroads and directed localization at the juncture of quantum Hall systems
The integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) and one-dimensional Anderson
localization (AL) are limiting special cases of a more general phenomenon,
directed localization (DL), predicted to occur in disordered one-dimensional
wave guides called "quantum railroads" (QRR). Here we explain the surprising
results of recent measurements by Kang et al. [Nature 403, 59 (2000)] of
electron transfer between edges of two-dimensional electron systems and
identify experimental evidence of QRR's in the general, but until now entirely
theoretical, DL regime that unifies the QHE and AL. We propose direct
experimental tests of our theory.Comment: 11 pages revtex + 3 jpeg figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
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