Simulation of improper complex-valued sequences

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On Testing for Impropriety of Complex-Valued Gaussian Vectors

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Kinematics of complex-valued time series

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Multidimensional treatment foster care for preschoolers: early findings of an implementation in the Netherlands

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) has been shown to be an evidence based alternative to residential rearing and an effective method to improve behavior and attachment of preschool foster children in the US. This preliminary study investigated an application of MTFC for preschoolers (MTFC-P) in the Netherlands focusing on behavioral outcomes in course of the intervention. To examine the following hypothesis: “the time in the MTFC-P intervention predicts a decline in problem behavior, as this is the desired outcome for children assigned to MTFC-P”, we assessed the daily occurrence of 38 problem behaviors via telephone interviews. Repeated measures revealed significant reduced problem behavior in course of the program. MTFC-P promises to be a treatment model suitable for high-risk foster children, that is transferable across centres and countries

The rhetoric of revenge : atrocity and identity in the revolutionary Carolinas

"The Rhetoric of Revenge" addresses the way that individual acts of brutality during the War for Independence in North and South Carolina were perceived and interpreted by both Whig and Tory participants. This thesis looks at the processes of identity formation and contextualization, whereby individuals took the facts as they knew them and tried to make sense of both their own and their opponents’ place in the unfolding drama. It also examines the ways these events were incorporated into the rhetoric of each side and were used as tools in creating narratives of heroism on one side and brutality on the other. Through analysis of opposing accounts of the same event, this work is able to break through the facts of these events to understand the way individuals understood them. It is more interested in perception than reality, and in the choices that were made regarding the inclusion, exclusion, interpretation and exaggeration of individual factual elements. This work also use the journals of two young men, Thomas Young, a Whig, and Anthony Allaire, a Tory, throughout, as a common thread to tie together the many disparate and chaotic events that became a part of conflicting identities and ultimately created two opposing narratives of the events of the American Revolution, based on atrocity

Seamounts

Definition: Seamounts are literally mountains rising from the seafloor. More specifically, they are “any geographically isolated topographic feature on the seafloor taller than 100 m, including ones whose summit regions may temporarily emerge above sea level, but not including features that are located on continental shelves or that are part of other major landmasses” (Staudigel et al., 2010). The term “guyot” can be used for seamounts having a truncated cone shape with a flat summit produced by erosion at sea level (Hess, 1946), development of carbonate reefs (e.g., Flood, 1999), or partial collapse due to caldera formation (e.g., Batiza et al., 1984). Seamounts <1,000 m tall are sometimes referred to as “knolls” (e.g., Hirano et al., 2008). “Petit spots” are a newly discovered subset of sea knolls confined to the bulge of subducting oceanic plates of oceanic plates seaward of deep-sea trenches (Hirano et al., 2006)

Having a lot of a good thing: multiple important group memberships as a source of self-esteem.

Copyright: © 2015 Jetten et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedMembership in important social groups can promote a positive identity. We propose and test an identity resource model in which personal self-esteem is boosted by membership in additional important social groups. Belonging to multiple important group memberships predicts personal self-esteem in children (Study 1a), older adults (Study 1b), and former residents of a homeless shelter (Study 1c). Study 2 shows that the effects of multiple important group memberships on personal self-esteem are not reducible to number of interpersonal ties. Studies 3a and 3b provide longitudinal evidence that multiple important group memberships predict personal self-esteem over time. Studies 4 and 5 show that collective self-esteem mediates this effect, suggesting that membership in multiple important groups boosts personal self-esteem because people take pride in, and derive meaning from, important group memberships. Discussion focuses on when and why important group memberships act as a social resource that fuels personal self-esteem.This study was supported by 1. Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT110100238) awarded to Jolanda Jetten (see http://www.arc.gov.au) 2. Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP110200437) to Jolanda Jetten and Genevieve Dingle (see http://www.arc.gov.au) 3. support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being Program to Nyla Branscombe, S. Alexander Haslam, and Catherine Haslam (see http://www.cifar.ca)

Fertility History and Physical and Mental Health Changes in European Older Adults

Previous studies have shown that aspects of reproductive history, such as earlier parenthood and high parity, are associated with poorer health in mid and later life. However, it is unclear which dimensions of health are most affected by reproductive history, and whether the pattern of associations varies for measures of physical, psychological and cognitive health. Such variation might provide more insight into possible underlying mechanisms. We use longitudinal data for men and women aged 50–79 years in ten European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to analyse associations between completed fertility history and self-reported and observed health indicators measured 2–3 years apart (functional limitations, chronic diseases, grip strength, depression and cognition), adjusting for socio-demographic, and health factors at baseline. Using multiple imputation and pattern mixture modelling, we tested the robustness of estimates to missing data mechanisms. The results are partly consistent with previous studies and show that women who became mothers before age 20 had worse functional health at baseline and were more likely to suffer functional health declines. Parents of 4 or more children had worse physical, psychological and cognitive health at baseline and were more likely to develop circulatory disease over the follow-up period. Men who delayed fatherhood until age 35 or later had better health at baseline but did not experience significantly different health declines. This study improves our understanding of linkages between fertility histories and later life health and possible implications of changes in fertility patterns for population health. However, research ideally using prospective life course data is needed to further elucidate possible mechanisms, considering interactions with partnership histories, health behaviour patterns and socio-economic trajectories

A comparison of Power Doppler with conventional sonographic imaging for the evaluation of renal artery stenosis

Percutaneous coronary intervention can be associated with distal embolization of thrombotic material causing myocardial necrosis and infarction. We discuss the role of intravascular imaging to guide the use of a distal protection device by describing the outcome of a young woman presenting with non-ST elevation myocardial infarction. Coronary angiography demonstrated an isolated minor stenosis in the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery with slight haziness beyond the lesion. Intravascular ultrasound confirmed an extensive thrombus overlying a bulky atherosclerotic plaque. A distal filter wire was therefore successfully used to reduce the risk of distal embolization. The use of intravascular ultrasound in patients presenting with acute coronary syndrome may reveal large thrombi that are difficult to image using conventional angiographic techniques. Intravascular ultrasound can therefore be used as a tool to select lesions requiring distal protection

Medical education reform in the South, 1910-1941

Medical education in colonial America and early nationhood was a derivative of the British system based on the University and affiliated teaching hospital. The American system’s graduates required the approval of state licensing agencies in order to practice. Beginning with the proliferation of proprietary medical schools in the 1820s, state regulations involving the quality of medical schools and their students were ignored, both of which rapidly became substandard. State agencies responsible for licensing restrictions were withdrawn in the Jacksonian era of deregulation for businesses and professions, and these for-profit medical schools prospered to the detriment of the quality of its institutions and graduate physicians. Attempts to reverse this trend by professional organizations, including state medical societies, the American Medical Association (AMA) formed in 1847, and the American Medical College Association (AMCA) formed in 1876, were unsuccessful. It was not until the 1880s that state boards of health were given the authority of its legislatures to deny graduates of the marginal medical schools access to the necessary licensing exams. Together with the AMA and the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC, previously the AMCA), they created the first “Reform Coalition.” In the first decade of the twentieth century the AMA developed its Council on Medical Education (CME) that conducted inspection surveys of the nation’s 166 medical schools, and allied with the Carnegie Foundation administered a similar survey in 1909, known as “The Flexner Report,” named after its chief investigator, the educator Abraham Flexner. Evaluating the quality of these institutions, Flexner concluded that only 31 met the necessary criteria to continue operation, which included only 6 southern institutions. Several of the failing institutions, not selected by the CME or Flexner to remain viable, developed unique strategies to improve and become acceptable and eventually accredited medical schools over the next two to three decades. These strategies included the institutions becoming organic departments of state universities shedding their proprietary model, merging with other endangered medical schools and pooling their resources, and developing relationships with local hospitals to control an adequate number of teaching beds for their students’ clinical exposure. These borderline institutions also appealed to their community’s pride and pragmatism and elicited financial support, gifts, and favorable publicity from local agencies, newspapers and politicians to build infrastructure and goodwill. Most importantly, these institutions made overtures to local wealthy benefactors and national medically-oriented philanthropies to build endowments and to develop relationships with regional “pathfinder” institutions to emulate their model, especially with assistance in academic and organizational issues). Employing these strategies during the education reform years sustained the South with fourteen complete medical schools (including three new institutions) and three preclinical institutions. Fortunately for the Allied cause, the last of the medical schools was in place on the cusp of World War II, when the South was able to provide quality healthcare for the region and the increased demand from those in the armed forces