Racial Disparities in College Students’ Scholastic Adjustment Amidst COVID-19: The Protective Function of Campus Resources and Supports

Scientific investigations are needed to understand the extent to which COVID-19 has affected, and exacerbated racial disparities in, college students’ scholastic adjustment. We propose a study based on two waves of data collected as part of a large-scale, longitudinal study on college students’ well-being amidst COVID-19. More specifically, we will evaluate a model of risk and protective factors for college students’ scholastic adjustment across three time points within the 2020-21 academic year. The first aim is to evaluate contextual risk factors for college students’ scholastic difficulties during COVID-19 and whether contextual risk is more pronounced for minoritized students. The second aim is to examine whether campus supports and resources buffer risk for scholastic difficulties for all students, and especially minoritized students, during COVID-19. College students (N=522) from two, residential liberal arts colleges participated in the first wave of data in the fall and will be invited to participate in two waves of data collection in the spring. Developmental researchers conduct large-scale longitudinal studies in collaborative teams because such studies are extremely labor- and time-intensive. Examples of tasks that necessitate teamwork include recruiting and compensating participants; managing data; and conducting analyses. See below for details about methods and analyse

Assessing banks’ resilience: A complementary approach to stress testing using fair values from banks’ financial statements

For more than a decade, supervisory banking authorities in Europe and the United States have sought to assess the resilience of banks to adverse economic episodes to safeguard the financial system's stability. They rely on regulatory capital measures like Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) relative to risk-weighted assets in the aftermath of potential economic crises. We propose a new measure of banks' resilience based on financial statements. The fair value margin (FVM) is estimated as the difference between the fair value of assets and the book value of liabilities, scaled by the book value of equity. We find that FVM is positively associated with the surplus or shortfall of CET1 resulting from the stress testing results from 2014, 2016 and 2018. To corroborate the relevance of FVM for supervisory authorities, we compare the ability of the loan component of FVM to predict future credit losses with the capital surplus/shortfall metric derived from the stress test. The findings indicate that the fair value of loans predicts net charge-offs better than stress test outcomes. Therefore, we suggest that FVM could be used as a readily available and relatively low-cost tool to assess bank resilience, thus complementing the stress test exercises

Heterogeneous pair approximation for voter models on networks

For models whose evolution takes place on a network it is often necessary to augment the mean-field approach by considering explicitly the degree dependence of average quantities (heterogeneous mean-field). Here we introduce the degree dependence in the pair approximation (heterogeneous pair approximation) for analyzing voter models on uncorrelated networks. This approach gives an essentially exact description of the dynamics, correcting some inaccurate results of previous approaches. The heterogeneous pair approximation introduced here can be applied in full generality to many other processes on complex networks.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, published versio

Grid computing technologies for renewable electricity generator monitoring and control

In this paper we discuss the use of real-time Grid computing for the monitoring, control and simulation of renewable electricity generators and their associated electrical networks. We discuss briefly the architectural design of GRIDCC and how we have integrated a number of real (solar, CHP) and simulated conventional power generators into the GRIDCC environment. A local weather station has also been attached to an Instrument Manager to alert experts appropriately when the Solar Array is not generating. The customised remote control and monitoring environment (a virtual control room), distributed using a standard web server, is discussed

Investigating femtosecond laser interaction with tellurite glass family

Focusing ultrafast laser pulses induce localized permanent structural modifications on the surface or in transparent materials, that are of particular interest for photonic applications. Among the materials of interest, the tellurite glass family is attractive for near-infrared and photonics applications due to its broad-transparency window and high optical nonlinearity. Here, we systematically investigate structural changes occurring in various TeO2-based glasses exposed to femtosecond laser with various laser parameters. Remarkably, in a regime where heat accumulated after successive pulses, we observed the formation of polarization-controlled self-organized patterns expanding well beyond the focal volume, suggesting the presence of an evanescent coupling mechanism enhancing the self-organization. In addition, our results, obtained with compositional elemental analysis coupled with Raman spectra suggest different ion migration mechanisms in the laser affected zone at the surface and inside the glass. The formation of crystalline tellurium (t-Te) from glass structural units due to photo-induced elemental dissociation was observed only at the surface. The formation of ultrathin layer of crystalline tellurium offers the possibility to explore structural transitions in two-dimensional (2D) glasses by observing changes in the short- and medium- range structural orders, induced by spatial confinement

Light-emitting textiles: Device architectures, working principles, and applications

E-textiles represent an emerging technology aiming toward the development of fabric with augmented functionalities, enabling the integration of displays, sensors, and other electronic components into textiles. Healthcare, protective clothing, fashion, and sports are a few examples application areas of e-textiles. Light-emitting textiles can have different applications: Sensing, fashion, visual communication, light therapy, etc. Light emission can be integrated with textiles in different ways: Fabricating light-emitting fibers and planar light-emitting textiles or employing side-emitting polymer optical fibers (POFs) coupled with light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Different kinds of technology have been investigated: Alternating current electroluminescent devices (ACELs), inorganic and organic LEDs, and light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs). The different device working principles and architectures are discussed in this review, highlighting the most relevant aspects and the possible approaches for their integration with textiles. Regarding POFs, the methodology to obtain side emissions and the critical aspects for their integration into textiles are discussed in this review. The main applications of light-emitting fabrics are illustrated, demonstrating that LEDs, alone or coupled with POFs, represent the most robust technology. On the other hand, OLEDs (Organic LEDs) are very promising for the future of light-emitting fabrics, but some issues still need to be addressed

The usability of the Judd-Ofelt theory for luminescent thermometry using Eu3+-doped phosphate glass

The Judd-Ofelt theory, which is the most thorough and insightful method to determine theoretically the luminescent properties of the trivalent rare earth dopants, is here tested on Eu3+-doped glasses in the P2O5 – SrO – CaO – Na2O system to assess their usefulness as luminescent thermometers. It is demonstrated that the thermometric sensitivity (change of the emission lines ratio in response to change in temperature) can be estimated using the Judd-Ofelt theory and aligns well with the experimentally obtained values. It is shown here that the addition of B2O3 or SiO2 in a phosphate network increases the absolute sensitivity due to an increase in the phosphate network connectivity while having no significant impact on the site of Eu3+ ions. The applicability of the Judd-Ofelt theory for predicting the thermometric parameters of a glass luminescent material, without the time-consuming measurement of the glasses spectroscopic properties as a function of temperature, is clearly demonstrated and allows for further development of novel efficient luminescent thermal sensors with high sensitivity

Flexible distributed Bragg reflectors as optical outcouplers for OLEDs based on a polymeric anode

Top-emitting OLEDs (TOLEDs) represent a promising technology for the development of next-generation flexible and rollable displays, thanks to their improved light outcoupling and their compatibility with opaque substrates. Metal thin films are the most used electrodes for the manufacturing of TOLEDs, but they show poor resistance to mechanical deformation, which compromises the long-term durability of flexible devices. This paper reports the exploitation of a dielectric mirror (DBR) based on seven pairs of TiO2 and SiO2 combined with a polymeric electrode as an alternative to the bottom metal electrode in flexible TOLEDs. The DBR showed a maximum reflectivity of 99.9% at about 550 nm, and a stop-band width of about 200 nm. The reflectivity remained unchanged after bending and treatment with water and solvents. Green TOLED devices were fabricated on top of DBRs, and demonstrated good stability in terms of electro-optical and colorimetric characteristics, according to varying viewing angles. These results demonstrate that the combination of the flexible DBR with the polymeric anode is an interesting strategy for improving the durability of flexible TOLEDs for display applications, implemented on different kinds of free-standing ultra-thin substrates