The Relationship Experience of Latina/o-White Couples

Interethnic Latina/o-white couples are becoming more common, yet little is understood about why these couples stay together or get divorced (Fu & Wolfinger, 2011; Garcia, Riggio, Palavinelu, & Culpepper, 2012; Qian & Lichter, 2007). This study uses phenomenology methodology to better understand their lived experience. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five Latino-white couples and one Latina-white couple. The five themes discovered include interethnic couple identity; combining languages; external support of the relationship; external stressors of the relationship; and partaking in the partner’s culture. Using a Human ecology lens allows for understanding of what makes these couples different and similar to monoethnic couples. Viewing a couple’s co-constructed culture at a microsystemic level may be more beneficial than viewing each individual’s culture of origin from a macrosystemic level. Clinical recommendations for interethnic Latina/o-white couples include helping couples cope with discrimination, having therapists use the correct terminology, and addressing what language they are comfortable with in session. Further investigation is needed in regards to how Latina/o-white interethnic couples handle language choice, discrimination, and perceptions of participating in their partner’s culture

A floor sensor system for gait recognition

This paper describes the development of a prototype floor sensor as a gait recognition system. This could eventually find deployment as a standalone system (eg. a burglar alarm system) or as part of a multimodal biometric system. The new sensor consists of 1536 individual sensors arranged in a 3 m by 0.5 m rectangular strip with an individual sensor area of 3 cm2. The sensor floor operates at a sample rate of 22 Hz. The sensor itself uses a simple design inspired by computer keyboards and is made from low cost, off the shelf materials. Application of the sensor floor to a small database of 15 individuals was performed. Three features were extracted : stride length, stride cadence, and time on toe to time on heel ratio. Two of these measures have been used in video based gait recognition while the third is new to this analysis. These features proved sufficient to achieve an 80 % recognition rate

A smart environment for biometric capture

The development of large scale biometric systems require experiments to be performed on large amounts of data. Existing capture systems are designed for fixed experiments and are not easily scalable. In this scenario even the addition of extra data is difficult. We developed a prototype biometric tunnel for the capture of non-contact biometrics. It is self contained and autonomous. Such a configuration is ideal for building access or deployment in secure environments. The tunnel captures cropped images of the subject's face and performs a 3D reconstruction of the person's motion which is used to extract gait information. Interaction between the various parts of the system is performed via the use of an agent framework. The design of this system is a trade-off between parallel and serial processing due to various hardware bottlenecks. When tested on a small population the extracted features have been shown to be potent for recognition. We currently achieve a moderate throughput of approximate 15 subjects an hour and hope to improve this in the future as the prototype becomes more complete

Analysis of lightning surge effects on small-scale rooftop photovoltaic systems

Abstract: Small-scale rooftop PV systems have become an attractive investment for small businesses and home owners. PV systems are inherently exposed to lightning phenomena and hence protection of the electrical system is required. In this paper, a simulation approach using MATLAB and Simulink is adopted to analyse the impacts of lightning induced effects on small-scale, rooftop, grid-connected PV systems. It is found that based on different coupling points, lightning surges could cause damage to the PV array, inverter as well as the connected load. The installation of surge protective devices could mitigate the potential damaging effects. In analysing the surge effects on the PV system, an understanding of the associated risk of damage to the PV system can be developed and hence the requirements for lightning protection of small-scale rooftop grid-connected PV systems can be comprehended

An improved bound for the rigidity of linearly constrained frameworks

We consider the problem of characterising the generic rigidity of bar-joint frameworks in Rd in which each vertex is constrained to lie in a given a ne subspace. The special case when d = 2 was previously solved by I. Streinu and L. Theran in 2010 and the case when each vertex is constrained to lie in an a ne subspace of dimension t, and d t(t 1) was solved by Cruickshank, Guler and the rst two authors in 2019. We extend the latter result by showing that the given characterisation holds whenever d 2t

Cyberbullying

Technology now allows people — often children — to bully online. Social messaging sites can open up the user to a variety of bullying techniques outside of the playground. How parents and other adults can help reduce bullying over the Internet is examined in this NebGuide. ... What can a parent do about cyberbullying? First, it’s important that parents and youth not reply or respond in any way to cyberbullies. Research indicates that being responsive may, in fact, escalate the activity. Instead, parents will need to think like a detective or lawyer. Document the activity with dates and times and print out any offensive materials. Keep the original email or other digital information, which can help computer specialists find the digital source. Use this information to report the activity to appropriate authorities, such as the school, local police department, state patrol, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), your Internet service provider (ISP), and/or groups like WiredSafety

Neuron-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Modulate Microglia Activation and Function

Microglia act as the immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS). They play an important role in maintaining brain homeostasis but also in mediating neuroimmune responses to insult. The interactions between neurons and microglia represent a key process for neuroimmune regulation and subsequent effects on CNS integrity. However, the molecular mechanisms of neuron-glia communication in regulating microglia function are not fully understood. One recently described means of this intercellular communication is via nano-sized extracellular vesicles (EVs) that transfer a large diversity of molecules between neurons and microglia, such as proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. To determine the effects of neuron-derived EVs (NDEVs) on microglia, NDEVs were isolated from the culture supernatant of rat cortical neurons. When NDEVs were added to primary cultured rat microglia, we found significantly improved microglia viability via inhibition of apoptosis. Additionally, application of NDEVs to cultured microglia also inhibited the expression of activation surface markers on microglia. Furthermore, NDEVs reduced the LPS-induced proinflammatory response in microglia according to reduced gene expression of proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-6, MCP-1) and iNOS, but increased expression of the anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-10. These findings support that neurons critically regulate microglia activity and control inflammation via EV-mediated neuron–glia communication. (Supported by R21AA025563 and R01AA025591)