Personality, relationship closeness and loneliness of the oldest old and their children

The purpose of this study was to examine parent-child relationships in late life. The design of the first part of the study was quantitative. The sample consisted of 100 parent-child dyads. Personality, attachment, and dimensions of solidarity were hypothesized to predict loneliness for oldest old adults (i.e., 85 years of age and older) and their adult children. The design of the second part of the study was qualitative. Members of four intergenerational family units (i.e., parents and all children) were interviewed in order to explore factors that influenced relationship closeness over the life span;Results from the quantitative study indicated that affective solidarity negatively predicted oldest old adults\u27 loneliness, while depression (a control variable) positively predicted loneliness. Attachment positively predicted affective solidarity, while anxiety negatively predicted affective solidarity. Adult children\u27s loneliness was predicted by associative and normative solidarity, extraversion, as well as by the quality of friendships and depression. Attachment positively predicted affective, associative and normative solidarity;In addition to personality, affection, association, and expectations, the qualitative study identified the following factors that influenced relationship closeness of oldest old adults and their adult children: life events, education, financial status, friendships, marriage, social roles of parents and children, and individual and environmental factors;Results from this study indicate that oldest old adults perceive relationships to be closer than do their adult children. Anxiety negatively predicts affective relationships for oldest old adults but not for their adult children. Based on a reduced number of close relationships and the high stake oldest old adults have in their children, affectionate relationships with children are of prime importance for reducing loneliness. In contrast, it is association with parents, fulfillment of filial obligations, extraversion, and friendships that reduce adult children\u27s loneliness

Performance of the star‐shaped flyer in the study of brittle materials: Three dimensional computer simulations and experimental observations

A three dimensional finite element computer simulation has been performed to assess the effects of release waves in normal impact soft‐recovery experiments when a star‐shaped flyer plate is used. Their effects on the monitored velocity‐time profiles have been identified and their implications in the interpretation of wave spreading and spall signal events highlighted. The calculation shows that the star‐shaped flyer plate indeed minimizes the magnitude of edge effects. The major perturbation to the one‐dimensional response within the central region of the target plate results from spherical waves emanating from the corners of the star‐shaped plate. Experimental evidence of the development of a damage ring located in coincidence with the eight entrant corners of the flyer plate is reported. Microscopy studies performed in the intact recovered samples revealed that this damage ring eliminates undesired boundary release waves within the central region of the specimen. Consequently, the observed damage in compression and tension within this region can be attributed primarily to the conditions arising from a state of uniaxial strain.

Avaliação do método de extração para análise de HPAs em amostras de solo e biocarvão por GC-MS.

Os hidrocarbonetos policíclicos aromáticos (HPAs) são compostos orgânicos semi-voláteis formados principalmente pela combustão incompleta de materiais orgânicos (Grover et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2015), sendo listados como poluentes pela União Européia e pela Agência de Proteção Ambiental dos EUA em solos (Xue et al., 2015). No processo de produção de biocarvão, durante a pirólise, ocorre a formação de HPAs devido aos fragmentos instáveis gerados (Hale et al., 2012). O método tradicional de extração de HPAs é realizado através do Soxhlet (United States, 1996). Em comparação com outros métodos de extração, o Soxhlet apresenta desvantagens como maior tempo despendido, grande quantidade de solvente e como consequência, problemas ambientais (Castro et al., 2010). O método de extração por ultrassom apresenta vantagens como simplicidade, menor tempo de extração e de baixo volume de solventes, diminuindo os possíveis danos ao ambiente (Cardoso et al., 2014). Dessa forma, nosso objetivo foi comparar os métodos de extração, Soxhlet e ultrassom, de acordo com o percentual de recuperação de HPAs em amostras de biocarvão (BC) e mistura de solo/biocarvão (SBC) por cromatografia gasosa

Performance of the star‐shaped flyer in the study of brittle materials: Three dimensional computer simulations and experimental observations

A three dimensional finite element computer simulation has been performed to assess the effects of release waves in normal impact soft‐recovery experiments when a star‐shaped flyer plate is used. Their effects on the monitored velocity‐time profiles have been identified and their implications in the interpretation of wave spreading and spall signal events highlighted. The calculation shows that the star‐shaped flyer plate indeed minimizes the magnitude of edge effects. The major perturbation to the one‐dimensional response within the central region of the target plate results from spherical waves emanating from the corners of the star‐shaped plate. Experimental evidence of the development of a damage ring located in coincidence with the eight entrant corners of the flyer plate is reported. Microscopy studies performed in the intact recovered samples revealed that this damage ring eliminates undesired boundary release waves within the central region of the specimen. Consequently, the observed damage in compression and tension within this region can be attributed primarily to the conditions arising from a state of uniaxial strain.

Confluence Modulo Equivalence in Constraint Handling Rules

Previous results on proving confluence for Constraint Handling Rules are extended in two ways in order to allow a larger and more realistic class of CHR programs to be considered confluent. Firstly, we introduce the relaxed notion of confluence modulo equivalence into the context of CHR: while confluence for a terminating program means that all alternative derivations for a query lead to the exact same final state, confluence modulo equivalence only requires the final states to be equivalent with respect to an equivalence relation tailored for the given program. Secondly, we allow non-logical built-in predicates such as var/1 and incomplete ones such as is/2, that are ignored in previous work on confluence. To this end, a new operational semantics for CHR is developed which includes such predicates. In addition, this semantics differs from earlier approaches by its simplicity without loss of generality, and it may also be recommended for future studies of CHR. For the purely logical subset of CHR, proofs can be expressed in first-order logic, that we show is not sufficient in the present case. We have introduced a formal meta-language that allows reasoning about abstract states and derivations with meta-level restrictions that reflect the non-logical and incomplete predicates. This language represents subproofs as diagrams, which facilitates a systematic enumeration of proof cases, pointing forward to a mechanical support for such proofs

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 48, No. 01

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1142/thumbnail.jp

Calcium in Kenyon Cell Somata as a Substrate for an Olfactory Sensory Memory in Drosophila

Animals can form associations between temporally separated stimuli. To do so, the nervous system has to retain a neural representation of the first stimulus until the second stimulus appears. The neural substrate of such sensory stimulus memories is unknown. Here, we search for a sensory odor memory in the insect olfactory system and characterize odorant-evoked Ca2+ activity at three consecutive layers of the olfactory system in Drosophila: in olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) and projection neurons (PNs) in the antennal lobe, and in Kenyon cells (KCs) in the mushroom body. We show that the post-stimulus responses in ORN axons, PN dendrites, PN somata, and KC dendrites are odor-specific, but they are not predictive of the chemical identity of past olfactory stimuli. However, the post-stimulus responses in KC somata carry information about the identity of previous olfactory stimuli. These findings show that the Ca2+ dynamics in KC somata could encode a sensory memory of odorant identity and thus might serve as a basis for associations between temporally separated stimuli

Notch signaling expands a pre-malignant pool of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia clones without affecting leukemia-propagating cell frequency

NOTCH1 pathway activation contributes to the pathogenesis of over 60% of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). While Notch is thought to exert the majority of its effects through transcriptional activation of Myc, it also likely has independent roles in T-ALL malignancy. Here, we utilized a zebrafish transgenic model of T-ALL, where Notch does not induce Myc transcription, to identify a novel Notch gene expression signature that is also found in human T-ALL and is regulated independently of Myc. Cross-species microarray comparisons between zebrafish and mammalian disease identified a common T-ALL gene signature, suggesting that conserved genetic pathways underlie T-ALL development. Functionally, Notch expression induced a significant expansion of pre-leukemic clones; however, a majority of these clones were not fully transformed and could not induce leukemia when transplanted into recipient animals. Limiting-dilution cell transplantation revealed that Notch signaling does not increase the overall frequency of leukemia-propagating cells (LPCs), either alone or in collaboration with Myc. Taken together, these data indicate that a primary role of Notch signaling in T-ALL is to expand a population of pre-malignant thymocytes, of which a subset acquire the necessary mutations to become fully transformed LPCs