Amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces relates to bullying and victimization in adolescents.

Relational bullying and victimization are common social experiences during adolescence, but relatively little functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research has examined the neural correlates of bullying and victimization in adolescents. The aim of the present study was to address this gap by examining the association between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces and peer relational bullying and victimization in a community-based sample of adolescents. Participants included 49 adolescents, 12-15 years old, who underwent fMRI scanning while completing an emotional face matching task. Results indicated that interactions between amygdala activity to angry and fearful faces predicted self-reported relational bullying and victimization. Specifically, a combination of higher amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted more bullying behavior, whereas a combination of lower amygdala activity to angry faces and lower amygdala activity to fearful faces predicted less relational victimization. Exploratory whole-brain analyses also suggested that increased rostral anterior cingulate cortex activity to fearful faces was associated with less bullying. These results suggest that relational bullying and victimization are related to different patterns of neural activity to angry and fearful faces, which may help in understanding how patterns of social information processing predict these experiences

Preliminary evaluation of Glass Resin materials for solar cell cover use

The glass resins were deposited by several techniques on 200 micron thick cells and on 50 microns thick wafers. The covered cells were exposed to ultraviolet light in vacuum to an intensity of 10 UV energy-equivalent solar constants at air mass zero for 728 hr. The exposure was followed by a single long thermal cycle from ambient temperature to -150 C. Visual inspection of the samples indicated that all samples had darkened to varying degrees. The loss in short-circuit current was found to range from 8 to 24%, depending on the resin formulation. In another test over 40 glass resin-coated silicon wafers withstood 15 thermal cycles from 100 to-196 C in one or more of the thicknesses tested. Several of the resin-coated wafers were tested at 65 C and 90% relative humidity for 170 hr. No change in physical appearance was detected

Performance and temperature dependencies of proton irradiated n/p GaAs and n/p silicon cells

The n/p homojunction GaAs cell is found to be more radiation resistant than p/nheteroface GaAs under 10 MeV proton irradiation. Both GaAs cell types outperform conventional silicon n/p cells under the same conditions. An increase temperature dependency of maximum power for the GaAs n/p cells is attributed largely to differences in Voc between the two GaAs cell types. These results and diffusion length considerations are consistent with the conclusion that p-type GaAs is more radiation resistant than n-type and therefore that the n/p configuration is possibly favored for use in the space radiation environment. However, it is concluded that additional work is required in order to choose between the two GaAs cell configurations

Indium phosphide solar cell research in the US: Comparison with nonphotovoltaic sources

Highlights of the InP solar cell research program are presented. Homojunction cells with AMO efficiences approaching 19 percent were demonstrated while 17 percent was achieved for indium tin oxide (ITO)/InP cells. The superior radiation resistance of these latter two cell configurations over both Si and GaAs were demonstrated. InP cells on board the LIPS III satellite show no degradation after more than a year in orbit. Computer modeling calculations were directed toward radiation damage predictions and the specification of concentrator cell parameters. Computed array specific powers, for a specific orbit, are used to compare the performance of an InP solar cell array to solar dynamic and nuclear systems

Existentialism and Social Meaning: The Development of a Social Being

Individuals are defined by their beliefs. A tension exists in the development of personhood between the concepts of individually chosen existential meaning, and societally imposed social meaning. The essay explores these concepts and how an individuals is to navigate a world of meaning. Ultimately, the creation of art is examined as a means of creating new meaning individually and societally

Amygdala reactivity predicts adolescent antisocial behavior but not callous-unemotional traits.

Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested divergent relationships between antisocial behavior (AB) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits and amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry facial expressions in adolescents. However, little work has examined if these findings extend to dimensional measures of behavior in ethnically diverse, non-clinical samples, or if participant sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, and age moderate associations. We examined links between amygdala reactivity and dimensions of AB and CU traits in 220 Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caucasian adolescents (age 11-15; 49.5% female; 38.2% Hispanic), half of whom had a family history for depression and thus were at relatively elevated risk for late starting, emotionally dysregulated AB. We found that AB was significantly related to increased right amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions independent of sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression. CU traits were not related to fear- or anger-related amygdala reactivity. The present study further demonstrates that AB is related to increased amygdala reactivity to interpersonal threat cues in adolescents, and that this relationship generalizes across sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression