386 research outputs found
Comments Concerning Proposed United States-Andean Free Trade Agreement
Vogt presents two cases of US multinational corporations that benefit from violence against unionists in Colombia. He argues that a trade agreement with Colombia would normalize the violence instead of fight against it
Labor Rights in the Generalized System of Preferences: A 20-Year Review
[Excerpt]In the fall of 1982, a small group of labor, religious, and human rights activists began charting a new course for human rights and workers\u27 rights in American trade policy. The principles of these labor rights advocates were straightforward:
1. No country should attract investment or gain an edge in international trade by violating workers\u27 rights;
2. No company operating in global trade should gain a competitive edge by violating workers\u27 rights; and,
3. Workers have a right to demand protection for labor rights in the international trade system, and to have laws to accomplish it.
The coalition that took shape 20 years ago made a labor rights amendment to the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), the chief policy vehicle in U.S. law to promote these principles. This article reviews 20 years\u27 experience with the GSP labor rights clause
A knowledge-based system for life-cycle design considerations in two-girder I-shaped steel bridges /
Brief Report: Does Gender Matter in Intervention for ASD? Examining the Impact of the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention on Social Behavior Among Females with ASD
A paucity of research has been conducted to examine the effect of social skills intervention on females with ASD. Females with ASD may have more difficulty developing meaningful friendships than males, as the social climate can be more complex (Archer, Coyne, Personality and Social Psychology Review 9(3):212–230, 2005). This study examined whether treatment response among females differed from males. One hundred and seventy-seven adolescents and young adults with ASD (N = 177) participated in this study. When analyzed by group, no significant differences by gender emerged: PEERS® knowledge (TASSK/TYASSK, p = .494), direct interactions (QSQ, p = .762), or social responsiveness (SRS, p = .689; SSIS-RS, p = .482). Thus, females and males with ASD respond similarly to the PEERS® intervention
Changes in Depressive Symptoms Among Adolescents with ASD Completing the PEERS® Social Skills Intervention
Depression is a common concern among people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is often associated with social skills and relationship challenges. The present data, from a randomized controlled trial, examined the effect of PEERS® on self-reported depressive symptoms via the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) among 49 adolescents with ASD. Findings revealed that many CDI subscale scores declined (p’s \u3c 0.05) and were related to direct social contact on the Quality of Socialization Questionnaire at posttest (p’s \u3c 0.05). Exploratory analyses uncovered that suicidality was less evident following PEERS®. Findings support the notion that social functioning and depression may be intimately intertwined in ASD; therefore, bolstering social skills in ASD may positively influence other domains of functioning, including mental health
A Six-Planet System Around the Star HD 34445
We present a new precision radial velocity dataset that reveals a
multi-planet system orbiting the G0V star HD 34445. Our 18-year span consists
of 333 precision radial velocity observations, 56 of which were previously
published, and 277 which are new data from Keck Observatory, Magellan at Las
Campanas Observatory, and the Automated Planet Finder at Lick Observatory.
These data indicate the presence of six planet candidates in Keplerian motion
about the host star with periods of 1057, 215, 118, 49, 677, and 5700 days, and
minimum masses of 0.63, 0.17, 0.1, 0.05, 0.12 and 0.38 Jupiter masses
respectively. The HD 34445 planetary system, with its high degree of
multiplicity, its long orbital periods, and its induced stellar radial velocity
half-amplitudes in the range is fundamentally unlike either our own solar system (in which only
Jupiter and Saturn induce significant reflex velocities for the Sun), or the
Kepler multiple-transiting systems (which tend to have much more compact
orbital configurations)Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure
Examining the Links Between Challenging Behaviors in Youth with ASD and Parental Stress, Mental Health, and Involvement: Applying an Adaptation of the Family Stress Model to Families of Youth with ASD
Raising a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) poses unique challenges that may impact parents’ mental health and parenting experiences. The current study analyzed self-report data from 77 parents of youth with ASD. A serial multiple mediation model revealed that parenting stress (SIPA) and parental mental health (BAI and BDI-II) appears to be impacted by challenging adolescent behaviors (SSIS-PBs) and, in turn, affect parental involvement (PRQ), controlling for social skills (SSIS-SSs). Further, the study explored the malleability of parents’ mental health over the course of a social skills intervention, and provides modest evidence that parent depressive symptoms decline across intervention. This study illustrates the importance of considering the entire family system in research on youth with ASD
The test case of HD26965: difficulties disentangling weak Doppler signals from stellar activity
We report the discovery of a radial velocity signal that can be interpreted
as a planetary-mass candidate orbiting the K dwarf HD26965, with an orbital
period of 42.3640.015 days, or alternatively, as the presence of residual,
uncorrected rotational activity in the data. Observations include data from
HIRES, PFS, CHIRON, and HARPS, where 1,111 measurements were made over 16
years. Our best solution for HD26965 is consistent with a super-Earth that
has a minimum mass of 6.920.79 M orbiting at a distance of
0.2150.008 AU from its host star. We have analyzed the correlation between
spectral activity indicators and the radial velocities from each instrument,
showing moderate correlations that we include in our model. From this analysis,
we recover a 38 day signal, which matches some literature values of the
stellar rotation period. However, from independent Mt. Wilson HK data for this
star, we find evidence for a significant 42 day signal after subtraction of
longer period magnetic cycles, casting doubt on the planetary hypothesis for
this period. Although our statistical model strongly suggests that the 42-day
signal is Doppler in origin, we conclude that the residual effects of stellar
rotation are difficult to fully model and remove from this dataset,
highlighting the difficulties to disentangle small planetary signals and
photospheric noise, particularly when the orbital periods are close to the
rotation period of the star. This study serves as an excellent test case for
future works that aim to detect small planets orbiting `Sun-like' stars using
radial velocity measurements.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 13 tables, accepted for publication in A
Accelerated deep self-supervised ptycho-laminography for three-dimensional nanoscale imaging of integrated circuits
Three-dimensional inspection of nanostructures such as integrated circuits is
important for security and reliability assurance. Two scanning operations are
required: ptychographic to recover the complex transmissivity of the specimen;
and rotation of the specimen to acquire multiple projections covering the 3D
spatial frequency domain. Two types of rotational scanning are possible:
tomographic and laminographic. For flat, extended samples, for which the full
180 degree coverage is not possible, the latter is preferable because it
provides better coverage of the 3D spatial frequency domain compared to
limited-angle tomography. It is also because the amount of attenuation through
the sample is approximately the same for all projections. However, both
techniques are time consuming because of extensive acquisition and computation
time. Here, we demonstrate the acceleration of ptycho-laminographic
reconstruction of integrated circuits with 16-times fewer angular samples and
4.67-times faster computation by using a physics-regularized deep
self-supervised learning architecture. We check the fidelity of our
reconstruction against a densely sampled reconstruction that uses full scanning
and no learning. As already reported elsewhere [Zhou and Horstmeyer, Opt.
Express, 28(9), pp. 12872-12896], we observe improvement of reconstruction
quality even over the densely sampled reconstruction, due to the ability of the
self-supervised learning kernel to fill the missing cone.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
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