Marriage and Religion: The Effect of Religious Study Materials on Marital Happiness

The purpose of this research was to assess the impact of marital enrichment materials on marital happiness. In addition, the study attempted to determine if gender or number of years married made a difference in regard to the impact on marital happiness. The participants consisted of 56 New Life Christian Church members (28 male and 28 female) who comprised 28 married couples. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control or the experimental group. Every participant took a pre-test survey designed to assess marital happiness across ten different variables. Then the experimental group completed the Love Talk study by Les and Leslie Parrott over the course of eight weeks. At the end of the eight weeks, all of the participants took a post-test survey identical to the pre-test survey. It was hypothesized that participants in the experimental group would see a significant increase in their marital happiness after participating in the study, while the marital happiness for participants in the control group would remain the same over the eight weeks. A 2 X 2 Factorial Analysis of Variance was conducted on these data and a significant effect was found on some but not all of the ten marital happiness variables for participants in the experimental group. These results show that marital happiness is positively affected by marital enrichment materials

Topological complexity of the relative closure of a semi-Pfaffian couple

Gabrielov introduced the notion of relative closure of a Pfaffian couple as an alternative construction of the o-minimal structure generated by Khovanskii's Pfaffian functions. In this paper, use the notion of format (or complexity) of a Pfaffian couple to derive explicit upper-bounds for the homology of its relative closure. Keywords: Pfaffian functions, fewnomials, o-minimal structures, Betti numbers.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure. v3: Proofs and bounds have been slightly improve

Polarization of Astronomical Maser Radiation. IV. Circular Polarization Profiles

Profile comparison of the Stokes parameters $V$ and $I$ is a powerful tool for maser data analysis, providing the first direct methods for unambiguous determination of (1) the maser saturation stage, (2) the amplification optical depth and intrinsic Doppler width of unsaturated masers, and (3) the comparative magnitudes of Zeeman splitting and Doppler linewidth. Circular polarization recently detected in OH 1720 MHz emission from the Galactic center appears to provide the first direct evidence for maser saturation.Comment: 14 pages, 1 Postscript figures (included), uses aaspp4.sty. To appear in Astrophysical Journa

Optical Coherence Tomography Used as a Modality to Delineate Basal Cell Carcinoma prior to Mohs Micrographic Surgery

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has potential as a modality for in vivo imaging of non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). By allowing identification of sub-surface margins of NMSC lesions, the use of OCT could improve the rate of complete excision and reduce the average number of stages during Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS). The objective of this study was to use OCT to delineate the apparent sub-surface margins of NMSC lesions prior to their excision by MMS. Lesions were scanned with reference to a physical marker on the skin, and the apparent margins were then identified from the OCT images and marked on the skin. Photographs of these margins and the Mohs defect were correlated and compared. OCT appears capable of visualizing the transition from lesional to normal tissue. In this case study, margins marked by use of the OCT system before surgery exhibit excellent correlation with the MMS defect. OCT offers the promise of better outcomes by enabling accurate margin mapping of NMSC in advance of MMS. Priorities now are to demonstrate this capability in a larger study, and to understand clearly indications and contraindications for use