Urban Students and Career Options.

Urban American Youth may not receive sufficient exposure to career opportunities and a lifestyle outside of their norm. The American Dream for minorities, particularly African Americans and Latinos, revolves around their loyalty to their ghettos. Securing white collar jobs are not the dreams of this community: settling for minimum wage positions in neighborhoods more familiar are realistic ideas. Families in urban communities lack secondary education and support from social agencies to increase their ratio of success, Therefore, minimum wage opportunities become attractive, despite the struggle the wages create. Single parenting as well as of lack of appropriate role models results in minors’ involvement in gangs, violence, sexual activities and like mannerism

Average Strength Comparison Between Males and Females in Weight Training

In our research we wanted to look at the comparison in strength between males and females in weight training. In recent research, we were able to look at sex stereotypes when considering sport and exercise. A particular study stated that, “… sport is still viewed as a “male area” in western countries, and recent reports indicate that boys/men still participate more in sports, compared to girls/women” (Boiche 1). So, we took three males and three females from Parkland College to test our hypothesis. Before beginning our research, our hypothesis was that males would be higher in all categories. In other research testing sit-ups and push-ups with male and female subjects, we were able to see that, “… when designing training programs for women strengthening exercises for the upper body” (Augustsson 1). The research population would be our male and female subjects ranging from moderate to athletic subgroups, between the ages of 20 and 30. The materials that we used were gym machines, such as, bench press, leg press, etc. The methods used were to test our hypothesis by comparing leg press and bench press max, alongside crunches and leg lifts to fatigue

Social network structure and the spread of complex contagions from a population genetics perspective

Ideas, behaviors, and opinions spread through social networks. If the probability of spreading to a new individual is a non-linear function of the fraction of the individuals' affected neighbors, such a spreading process becomes a "complex contagion". This non-linearity does not typically appear with physically spreading infections, but instead can emerge when the concept that is spreading is subject to game theoretical considerations (e.g. for choices of strategy or behavior) or psychological effects such as social reinforcement and other forms of peer influence (e.g. for ideas, preferences, or opinions). Here we study how the stochastic dynamics of such complex contagions are affected by the underlying network structure. Motivated by simulations of complex epidemics on real social networks, we present a general framework for analyzing the statistics of contagions with arbitrary non-linear adoption probabilities based on the mathematical tools of population genetics. Our framework provides a unified approach that illustrates intuitively several key properties of complex contagions: stronger community structure and network sparsity can significantly enhance the spread, while broad degree distributions dampen the effect of selection. Finally, we show that some structural features can exhibit critical values that demarcate regimes where global epidemics become possible for networks of arbitrary size. Our results draw parallels between the competition of genes in a population and memes in a world of minds and ideas. Our tools provide insight into the spread of information, behaviors, and ideas via social influence, and highlight the role of macroscopic network structure in determining their fate

Characterization and synthesis of mono- and diphytanyl ethers of glycerol.

The methanolyzed lipids of the extreme halo- phile, Halobacterium cutirubrum, were separated into glycerol diether and glycerol monoether fractions. The diether was shown by synthesis to be 2,3-di-O-(3'R,7'R,ll 'R,15'-tetra- methylhexadecy1)-sn-glycerol. The monoether fraction was separated by thin-layer chromatography on boric acid-im- pregnated silicic acid into about equal amounts of a- and j3- isomers. The a-isomer was found to be identical with the synthetic 3-0-(3'R,7 'R,ll 'R,15 '-tetramethylhexadecy1)-sn- glycerol, and the j3-isomer was identical with the synthetic 2-0-(3 'R,7 'R,11 'R,15 '-tetramethylhexadecyl) glycerol

Recent aspects on outcomes in geriatric fracture patients

As the population ages, the number of fragility fractures is expected to increase dramatically. These injuries are frequently associated with less than satisfactory outcomes. Many of the patients experience adverse events or death, and few regain their pre-injury functional status. Many also lose their independence as a result of their fracture. This manuscript will explore problems and some potential solutions to evaluate the outcomes of geriatric fracture care. Specific, system-wide, and societal concerns will be discussed. Limited suggestions will be made for future steps to improve outcomes assessment

Luminosity- and morphology-dependent clustering of galaxies

How does the clustering of galaxies depend on their inner properties like morphological type and luminosity? We address this question in the mathematical framework of marked point processes and clarify the notion of luminosity and morphological segregation. A number of test quantities such as conditional mark-weighted two-point correlation functions are introduced. These descriptors allow for a scale-dependent analysis of luminosity and morphology segregation. Moreover, they break the degeneracy between an inhomogeneous fractal point set and actual present luminosity segregation. Using the Southern Sky Redshift Survey~2 (da Costa et al. 1998, SSRS2) we find both luminosity and morphological segregation at a high level of significance, confirming claims by previous works using these data (Benoist et al. 1996, Willmer et al. 1998). Specifically, the average luminosity and the fluctuations in the luminosity of pairs of galaxies are enhanced out to separations of 15Mpc/h. On scales smaller than 3Mpc/h the luminosities on galaxy pairs show a tight correlation. A comparison with the random-field model indicates that galaxy luminosities depend on the spatial distribution and galaxy-galaxy interactions. Early-type galaxies are also more strongly correlated, indicating morphological segregation. The galaxies in the PSCz catalog (Saunders et al. 2000) do not show significant luminosity segregation. This again illustrates that mainly early-type galaxies contribute to luminosity segregation. However, based on several independent investigations we show that the observed luminosity segregation can not be explained by the morphology-density relation alone.Comment: aastex, emulateapj5, 20 pages, 13 figures, several clarifying comments added, ApJ accepte

Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome

Purpose of review: Velo-cardio-facial syndrome has emerged from obscurity to become one of the most researched disorders this past decade. It is one of the most common genetic syndromes in humans, the most common contiguous gene syndrome in humans, the most common syndrome of cleft palate, and the most common syndrome of conotruncal heart malformations. Velo-cardio-facial syndrome has an expansive phenotype, a factor reflected in the wide range of studies that cover both clinical features and molecular genetics. In this review, we cover multiple areas of research during the past year, including psychiatric disorders, neuroimaging, and the delineation of clinical features. Recent findings: The identification of candidate genes for heart anomalies, mental illness, and other clinical phenotypes has been reported in the past year with a focus on TBX1 for cardiac and craniofacial phenotypes and COMT and PRODH for psychiatric disorders. The expansive phenotype of velo-cardio-facial syndrome continues to grow with new behavioral and structural anomalies reported. Treatment issues are beginning to draw attention, although most authors continue to focus on diagnostic issues. Summary: Its high population prevalence, estimated to be as common as 1:2000 has sparked a large amount of research, as has the model the syndrome serves for identifying the causes of mental illness and learning disabilities, but it is obvious that more information is needed. Intensive scrutiny of velo-cardio-facial syndrome will undoubtedly continue for many years to come with the hope that researchers will turn more of their attention to treatment and treatment outcomes

Changing social contracts in climate-change adaptation

Risks from extreme weather events are mediated through state, civil society and individual action 1 , 2 . We propose evolving social contracts as a primary mechanism by which adaptation to climate change proceeds. We use a natural experiment of policy and social contexts of the UK and Ireland affected by the same meteorological event and resultant flooding in November 2009. We analyse data from policy documents and from household surveys of 356 residents in western Ireland and northwest England. We find significant differences between perceptions of individual responsibility for protection across the jurisdictions and between perceptions of future risk from populations directly affected by flooding events. These explain differences in stated willingness to take individual adaptive actions when state support retrenches. We therefore show that expectations for state protection are critical in mediating impacts and promoting longer-term adaptation. We argue that making social contracts explicit may smooth pathways to effective and legitimate adaptation