Not So Lonely Surfers: Loneliness, Social Support, Internet Use and Life Satisfaction in Older Adults

Older adults often encounter diminished social support, loneliness and lower life satisfaction levels. Many of these struggles stem from a loss of social interaction with social network ties that are important to them. Information and communication technology (ICT) use offers promise in helping them maintain their social ties. In this longitudinal study, participants included 306 older adults in 19 different assisted and independent living communities. Through random assignment at the community level, residents were offered ICT training, interaction with trainees (placebo), and a survey only control condition with no interaction. Residents in each group were surveyed at pretest, posttest, and 3, 6, and 12 months post training. This analysis examines the use of the Internet as a tool for stress buffering to maintain and enrich social ties, reducing the impact of loneliness and improving life satisfaction measures. Significant interactions were found between ICT attitudes and loneliness, social support and life satisfaction.ye

Single-shot measurement of the Josephson charge qubit

We demonstrate single-shot readout of quantum states of the Josephson charge qubit. The quantum bits are transformed into and stored as classical bits (charge quanta) in a dynamic memory cell - a superconducting island. The transformation of state |1> (differing form state |0> by an extra Cooper pair) is a result of a controllable quasiparticle tunneling to the island. The charge is then detected by a conventional single-electron transistor, electrostatically decoupled from the qubit. We study relaxation dynamics in the system and obtain the readout efficiency of 87% and 93% for |1> and |0> states, respectively.Comment: submitted to Rapid Communications of Phys. Rev. B (february 2004

Relativistic wave equations for interacting massive particles with arbitrary half-intreger spins

New formulation of relativistic wave equations (RWE) for massive particles with arbitrary half-integer spins s interacting with external electromagnetic fields are proposed. They are based on wave functions which are irreducible tensors of rank $n ($n=s-\frac12$) antisymmetric w.r.t. n pairs of indices, whose components are bispinors. The form of RWE is straightforward and free of inconsistencies associated with the other approaches to equations describing interacting higher spin particles

Characterization of a c-Rel inhibitor that mediates anticancer properties in hematologic malignancies by blocking NF-κB-controlled oxidative stress responses

NF-\u3baB plays a variety of roles in oncogenesis and immunity that may be beneficial for therapeutic targeting, but strategies to selectively inhibit NF-\u3baB to exert antitumor activity have been elusive. Here, we describe IT-901, a bioactive naphthalenethiobarbiturate derivative that potently inhibits the NF-\u3baB subunit c-Rel. IT-901 suppressed graft-versus-host disease while preserving graft-versus-lymphoma activity during allogeneic transplantation. Further preclinical assessment of IT-901 for the treatment of human B-cell lymphoma revealed antitumor properties in vitro and in vivo without restriction to NF-\u3baB-dependent lymphoma. This nondiscriminatory, antilymphoma effect was attributed to modulation of the redox homeostasis in lymphoma cells resulting in oxidative stress. Moreover, NF-\u3baB inhibition by IT-901 resulted in reduced stimulation of the oxidative stress response gene heme oxygenase-1, and we demonstrated that NF-\u3baB inhibition exacerbated oxidative stress induction to inhibit growth of lymphoma cells. Notably, IT-901 did not elicit increased levels of reactive oxygen species in normal leukocytes, illustrating its cancer selective properties. Taken together, our results provide mechanistic insight and preclinical proof of concept for IT-901 as a novel therapeutic agent to treat human lymphoid tumors and ameliorate graft-versus-host disease

Making things happen : a model of proactive motivation

Being proactive is about making things happen, anticipating and preventing problems, and seizing opportunities. It involves self-initiated efforts to bring about change in the work environment and/or oneself to achieve a different future. The authors develop existing perspectives on this topic by identifying proactivity as a goal-driven process involving both the setting of a proactive goal (proactive goal generation) and striving to achieve that proactive goal (proactive goal striving). The authors identify a range of proactive goals that individuals can pursue in organizations. These vary on two dimensions: the future they aim to bring about (achieving a better personal fit within one’s work environment, improving the organization’s internal functioning, or enhancing the organization’s strategic fit with its environment) and whether the self or situation is being changed. The authors then identify “can do,” “reason to,” and “energized to” motivational states that prompt proactive goal generation and sustain goal striving. Can do motivation arises from perceptions of self-efficacy, control, and (low) cost. Reason to motivation relates to why someone is proactive, including reasons flowing from intrinsic, integrated, and identified motivation. Energized to motivation refers to activated positive affective states that prompt proactive goal processes. The authors suggest more distal antecedents, including individual differences (e.g., personality, values, knowledge and ability) as well as contextual variations in leadership, work design, and interpersonal climate, that influence the proactive motivational states and thereby boost or inhibit proactive goal processes. Finally, the authors summarize priorities for future researc

The Dependence of the Superconducting Transition Temperature of Organic Molecular Crystals on Intrinsically Non-Magnetic Disorder: a Signature of either Unconventional Superconductivity or Novel Local Magnetic Moment Formation

We give a theoretical analysis of published experimental studies of the effects of impurities and disorder on the superconducting transition temperature, T_c, of the organic molecular crystals kappa-ET_2X and beta-ET_2X (where ET is bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene and X is an anion eg I_3). The Abrikosov-Gorkov (AG) formula describes the suppression of T_c both by magnetic impurities in singlet superconductors, including s-wave superconductors and by non-magnetic impurities in a non-s-wave superconductor. We show that various sources of disorder lead to the suppression of T_c as described by the AG formula. This is confirmed by the excellent fit to the data, the fact that these materials are in the clean limit and the excellent agreement between the value of the interlayer hopping integral, t_perp, calculated from this fit and the value of t_perp found from angular-dependant magnetoresistance and quantum oscillation experiments. If the disorder is, as seems most likely, non-magnetic then the pairing state cannot be s-wave. We show that the cooling rate dependence of the magnetisation is inconsistent with paramagnetic impurities. Triplet pairing is ruled out by several experiments. If the disorder is non-magnetic then this implies that l>=2, in which case Occam's razor suggests that d-wave pairing is realised. Given the proximity of these materials to an antiferromagnetic Mott transition, it is possible that the disorder leads to the formation of local magnetic moments via some novel mechanism. Thus we conclude that either kappa-ET_2X and beta-ET_2X are d-wave superconductors or else they display a novel mechanism for the formation of localised moments. We suggest systematic experiments to differentiate between these scenarios.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figure

The NuSTAR Extragalactic Survey: A First Sensitive Look at the High-energy Cosmic X-Ray Background Population

We report on the first 10 identifications of sources serendipitously detected by the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) to provide the first sensitive census of the cosmic X-ray background source population at gsim 10 keV. We find that these NuSTAR-detected sources are ≈100 times fainter than those previously detected at gsim 10 keV and have a broad range in redshift and luminosity (z = 0.020-2.923 and L 10-40 keV ≈ 4 × 1041-5 × 1045 erg s–1); the median redshift and luminosity are z ≈ 0.7 and L 10-40 keV ≈ 3 × 1044 erg s–1, respectively. We characterize these sources on the basis of broad-band ≈0.5-32 keV spectroscopy, optical spectroscopy, and broad-band ultraviolet-to-mid-infrared spectral energy distribution analyses. We find that the dominant source population is quasars with L 10-40 keV > 1044 erg s–1, of which ≈50% are obscured with N H gsim 1022 cm–2. However, none of the 10 NuSTAR sources are Compton thick (N H gsim 1024 cm–2) and we place a 90% confidence upper limit on the fraction of Compton-thick quasars (L 10-40 keV > 1044 erg s–1) selected at gsim 10 keV of lsim 33% over the redshift range z = 0.5-1.1. We jointly fitted the rest-frame ≈10-40 keV data for all of the non-beamed sources with L 10-40 keV > 1043 erg s–1 to constrain the average strength of reflection; we find R < 1.4 for Γ = 1.8, broadly consistent with that found for local active galactic nuclei (AGNs) observed at gsim 10 keV. We also constrain the host-galaxy masses and find a median stellar mass of ≈1011 M ☉, a factor ≈5 times higher than the median stellar mass of nearby high-energy selected AGNs, which may be at least partially driven by the order of magnitude higher X-ray luminosities of the NuSTAR sources. Within the low source-statistic limitations of our study, our results suggest that the overall properties of the NuSTAR sources are broadly similar to those of nearby high-energy selected AGNs but scaled up in luminosity and mass

Tau Decays and Chiral Perturbation Theory

In a small window of phase space, chiral perturbation theory can be used to make standard model predictions for tau decays into two and three pions. For $\tau \to 2\pi \nu_\tau$, we give the analytical result for the relevant form factor $F_V$ up to two loops, then calculate the differential spectrum and compare with available data. For $\tau \to 3 \pi \nu_\tau$, we have calculated the hadronic matrix element to one loop. We discuss the decomposition of the three pion states into partition states and we give detailed predictions for the decay in terms of structure functions. We also compare with low energy predictions of meson dominance models. Overall, we find good agreement, but also some interesting discrepancies, which might have consequences beyond the limit of validity of chiral perturbation theory.Comment: 39 pages, Latex, including 8 Postscript figures. The complete paper is also available via anonymous ftp at ftp://www-ttp.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/ , or via www at http://www-ttp.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de/cgi-bin/preprint