Foster Care in Reno, Nevada: Does Aging-Out of Foster Care Increase the Presence of Risk Factors and Criminality?

Aging-out of foster care is a difficult experience to endure. Independent living facilities and assistance programs do exist, but most assistance ends when a participant turns 21 years old. This thesis examines the presence of risk factors in aged-out participants' lives. Using a Blackian Analysis as the theoretical framework, aged-out young adults are placed in models where law is present at a greater level in their lives. With no stable foundation and support from their families, most participants succumb to risk factors. Compared with state and national averages on risk factors (e.g. homelessness, alcoholism, substance abuse, etc.), aged-out foster care participants are a vulnerable sub-group. Averages show they are more likely to be homeless, drink alcohol, and experiment with drugs. Overall, the results of this study suggest that despite aged-out foster care participants being a small sub-group, they are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system

Cyanine platelet single crystals: Growth, crystal structure and optical spectra

© the Owner Societies. Crystalline organic semiconducting materials are much in demand for multiple electronic and optoelectronic device applications. Here, solution grown ultrathin rhombic crystals of a trimethine carbocyanine anionic dye are used to establish relationships between structural and optical properties. The dye crystallized in the monoclinic space group P21/c featuring alternating layers of molecules in two different herringbone type patterns, with perchlorate counterions located mostly within one of the two layers. Micro transmittance spectroscopy revealed a broadened spectrum compared to those obtained in solution and in an amorphous thin film. Using polarized light, transmission spectroscopy revealed strong low-energy and weak high-energy bands polarized along the crystallographic b- and c-axis, respectively. Using the extended dipole approximation, significant exciton couplings are predicted between neighboring molecules in the crystal, of the order of the intrinsic monomer reorganization energies associated with nuclear relaxation after excitation, depicting a complex spectral scenario. The exciton coupling pattern explains the relative energies of the b- and c-polarized components but the observed intensities are opposite to expectations based on chromophore alignment within the crystal

MULTIPASS: gestion des consentements pour accéder aux données des exploitations dans une chaîne de confiance afin de favoriser l'émergence de nouveaux services pour les agriculteurs

12th EFITA International Conference, Rhode island, GRC, 27-/06/2019 - 29/06/2019International audienceWith the emergence of digital technologies, farms become a relevant source of data to meet the challenges of multi-performance agriculture. Beyond the services provided, access to farmers' data depends on a clear understanding of their use, which must be done in a transparent way. Several codes of conduct at a national or international level push for a voluntary commitment to respect some good practices in the use of agricultural data. To provide a tool and answer farmer's questions on the control of their data and the transparency of the data processing, the partners of the MULTIPASS project, have imagined an interoperable ecosystem of farmer consents management, protecting farmers from no consented uses of their data.Farmers' expectations of such an ecosystem have been expressed during workshops. They want to better identify existing data flows, including actors, data processes, and data clusters. Based on the farmers' expectations, the MULTIPASS project stakeholders have proposed the architecture of an ecosystem integrating two consent management tools as "pilots". This ecosystem should take in charge the interoperability between each consent management tools or with future tools. This solution is based on a shared typology of data and data processes as well as on the specifications of the consent message content. All these elements should be easily accessible to meet the interoperability need of the ecosystem. It is also based on a router, which provides unified access to consent management tools (using API). In particular, it provides the farmer (beneficiary) with an exhaustive view of his/her consents (which can be distributed on several consent management systems), meeting farmers' expectations for transparency. It is also the point where a data provider can check whether the consent required to provide data exists, without needing to know which consent management system is concerned. In this project, the stakeholders want to demonstrate to agricultural professional organizations the benefits and feasibility of a consent management ecosystem. By strengthening the confidence of farmers to share data, the project will allow the emergence of new knowledge and new services

Gut microbiota analysis reveals a marked shift to bifidobacteria by a starter infant formula containing a synbiotic of bovine milk-derived oligosaccharides and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis CNCM I-3446.

Non-digestible milk oligosaccharides were proposed as receptor decoys for pathogens and as nutrients for beneficial gut commensals like bifidobacteria. Bovine milk contains oligosaccharides, some of which are structurally identical or similar to those found in human milk. In a controlled, randomized double-blinded clinical trial we tested the effect of feeding a formula supplemented with a mixture of bovine milk-derived oligosaccharides (BMOS) generated from whey permeate, containing galacto-oligosaccharides and 3'- and 6'-sialyllactose, and the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis (B. lactis) strain CNCM I-3446. Breastfed infants served as reference group. Compared with a non-supplemented control formula, the test formula showed a similar tolerability and supported a similar growth in healthy newborns followed for 12 weeks. The control, but not the test group, differed from the breast-fed reference group by a higher faecal pH and a significantly higher diversity of the faecal microbiota. In the test group the probiotic B. lactis increased by 100-fold in the stool and was detected in all supplemented infants. BMOS stimulated a marked shift to a bifidobacterium-dominated faecal microbiota via increases in endogenous bifidobacteria (B. longum, B. breve, B. bifidum, B. pseudocatenulatum)

Beyond aggression: Androgen-receptor blockade modulates social interaction in wild meerkats

In male vertebrates, androgens are inextricably linked to reproduction, social dominance, and aggression, often at the cost of paternal investment or prosociality. Testosterone is invoked to explain rank-related reproductive differences, but its role within a status class, particularly among subordinates, is underappreciated. Recent evidence, especially for monogamous and cooperatively breeding species, suggests broader androgenic mediation of adult social interaction. We explored the actions of androgens in subordinate, male members of a cooperatively breeding species, the meerkat (Suricata suricatta). Although male meerkats show no rank-related testosterone differences, subordinate helpers rarely reproduce. We blocked androgen receptors, in the field, by treating subordinate males with the antiandrogen, flutamide. We monitored androgen concentrations (via baseline serum and time-sequential fecal sampling) and recorded behavior within their groups (via focal observation). Relative to controls, flutamide-treated animals initiated less and received more high-intensity aggression (biting, threatening, feeding competition), engaged in more prosocial behavior (social sniffing, grooming, huddling), and less frequently initiated play or assumed a ‘dominant’ role during play, revealing significant androgenic effects across a broad range of social behavior. By contrast, guarding or vigilance and measures of olfactory and vocal communication in subordinate males appeared unaffected by flutamide treatment. Thus, androgens in male meerkat helpers are aligned with the traditional trade-off between promoting reproductive and aggressive behavior at a cost to affiliation. Our findings, based on rare endocrine manipulation in wild mammals, show a more pervasive role for androgens in adult social behavior than is often recognized, with possible relevance for understanding tradeoffs in cooperative systems

Effect of Acupressure by Sea-Bands on Nausea and Vomiting of Pregnancy

To determine the effect of continuous acupressure at P, applied by Sea-Bands with acupressure buttons on the frequency and severity of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy during the 1 st trimester. Design : A two-group, quasi-experimental, posttest-only and posttest-repeated measure. Setting : Seventeen medical clinics or offices in southern Michigan. Participants : Convenience sample of English-speaking, healthy pregnant women in their 1 st trimester, who had at least one episode of nausea, vomiting, or both before their prenatal clinic/office visit where they were recruited. After being accepted for the study, the women were randomly assigned to treatment or placebo groups. Intervention : Treatment group 1 applied Sea-Bands with acupressure buttons to both wrists for 4 days and removed the Sea-Bands for 3 subsequent days. Placebo group 2 applied the Sea-Bands without acupressure buttons to both wrists on the same time schedule as group 1. Main Outcome Measure : Self-report daily diaries of the number of times per day that participants experienced nausea, the severity of nausea, the number of vomiting episodes per day, and the severity of vomiting. Results : Mann-Whitney U procedures revealed that the treatment group had significantly less frequency and severity of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy while wearing the Sea-Bands than did the placebo group. The treatment group also had significantly less frequency and severity of nausea and vomiting of pregnancy while wearing the Sea-Bands than when not wearing the Sea-Bands. Conclusions : Sea-Bands with acupressure buttons are a noninvasive, inexpensive, safe, and effective treatment for the nausea and vomiting of pregnancy.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/74975/1/j.1552-6909.2001.tb01522.x.pd

Comparative transcriptome sequencing of germline and somatic tissues of the Ascaris suum gonad

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Ascaris suum </it>(large roundworm of pigs) is a parasitic nematode that causes substantial losses to the meat industry. This nematode is suitable for biochemical studies because, unlike <it>C. elegans</it>, homogeneous tissue samples can be obtained by dissection. It has large sperm, produced in great numbers that permit biochemical studies of sperm motility. Widespread study of <it>A. suum </it>would be facilitated by more comprehensive genome resources and, to this end, we have produced a gonad transcriptome of <it>A. suum</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two 454 pyrosequencing runs generated 572,982 and 588,651 reads for germline (TES) and somatic (VAS) tissues of the <it>A. suum </it>gonad, respectively. 86% of the high-quality (HQ) reads were assembled into 9,955 contigs and 69,791 HQ reads remained as singletons. 2.4 million bp of unique sequences were obtained with a coverage that reached 16.1-fold. 4,877 contigs and 14,339 singletons were annotated according to the <it>C. elegans </it>protein and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) protein databases. Comparison of TES and VAS transcriptomes demonstrated that genes participating in DNA replication, RNA transcription and ubiquitin-proteasome pathways are expressed at significantly higher levels in TES tissues than in VAS tissues. Comparison of the <it>A. suum </it>TES transcriptome with the <it>C. elegans </it>microarray dataset identified 165 <it>A. suum </it>germline-enriched genes (83% are spermatogenesis-enriched). Many of these genes encode serine/threonine kinases and phosphatases (KPs) as well as tyrosine KPs. Immunoblot analysis further suggested a critical role of phosphorylation in both testis development and spermatogenesis. A total of 2,681 <it>A. suum </it>genes were identified to have associated RNAi phenotypes in <it>C. elegans</it>, the majority of which display embryonic lethality, slow growth, larval arrest or sterility.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Using deep sequencing technology, this study has produced a gonad transcriptome of <it>A. suum</it>. By comparison with <it>C. elegans </it>datasets, we identified sets of genes associated with spermatogenesis and gonad development in <it>A. suum</it>. The newly identified genes encoding KPs may help determine signaling pathways that operate during spermatogenesis. A large portion of <it>A. suum </it>gonadal genes have related RNAi phenotypes in <it>C. elegans </it>and, thus, might be RNAi targets for parasite control.</p

Metadiffusers : deep-subwavelength sound diffusers

We present deep-subwavelength diffusing surfaces based on acoustic metamaterials, namely metadiffusers. These sound diffusers are rigidly backed slotted panels, with each slit being loaded by an array of Helmholtz resonators. Strong dispersion is produced in the slits and slow sound conditions are induced. Thus, the effective thickness of the panel is lengthened introducing its quarter wavelength resonance in the deep-subwavelength regime. By tuning the geometry of the metamaterial, the reflection coefficient of the panel can be tailored to obtain either a custom reflection phase, moderate or even perfect absorption. Using these concepts, we present ultra-thin diffusers where the geometry of the metadiffuser has been tuned to obtain surfaces with spatially dependent reflection coefficients having uniform magnitude Fourier transforms. Various designs are presented where, quadratic residue, primitive root and ternary sequence diffusers are mimicked by metadiffusers whose thickness are 1/46 to 1/20 times the design wavelength, i.e., between about a twentieth and a tenth of the thickness of traditional designs. Finally, a broadband metadiffuser panel of 3 cm thick was designed using optimization methods for frequencies ranging from 250 Hz to 2 kHz