Physics of randomness and regularities for cities, languages, and their lifetimes and family trees

Time evolution of the cities and of the languages is considered in terms of multiplicative noise and fragmentation processes; where power law (Pareto-Zipf law) and slightly asymmetric log-normal (Gauss) distribution result for the size distribution of the cities and for that of the languages, respectively. The cities and the languages are treated differently (and as connected; for example, the languages split in terms of splitting the cities, etc.) and thus two distributions are obtained in the same computation at the same time. Evolutions of lifetimes and families for the cities and the languages are also studied. We suggest that the regularities may be evolving out of randomness, in terms of the relevant processes.Comment: 22 pages including all figures; for Int. J. Mod. Phys. C 18 (2007

Comparing Teachers\u27 and Students\u27 Perceptions of Bullying: Frequency, Location, and Intervention

Bullying is recognized as a significant problem in children and adolescents, and schools are a place where bullying often occurs. For this reason, schools have used programs, such as the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program (OBPP), to increase awareness of bullying and means of intervening. The purpose of this qualitative study is to gain insight into the perspectives of teachers and students on perceived aspects of the bullying problem within the school building and environment in a school where a new bullying prevention program was being implemented. The study examines differing perspectives between teachers and students regarding the frequency of occurrence, location, and teacher intervention in bullying situations. Data was gathered via survey questions and interviews from a sample of students, teachers trained in the new bullying prevention program, and teachers without such training. The outcomes of this study shed light upon various areas in which teacher perceptions of bullying and student perceptions of bullying differ. More specifically, there are vast differences in the ways that teachers and students perceive the frequency of bullying, the hot spots for bullying, and how often teachers intervene. Knowledge of such differences of opinion could be a valuable component of teacher training in a bullying prevention program

The Nature and Cause of Spectral Variability in LMC X-1

We present the results of a long-term observation campaign of the extragalactic wind-accreting black-hole X-ray binary LMC X-1, using the Proportional Counter Array on the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The observations show that LMC X-1's accretion disk exhibits an anomalous temperature-luminosity relation. We use deep archival RXTE observations to show that large movements across the temperature-luminosity space occupied by the system can take place on time scales as short as half an hour. These changes cannot be adequately explained by perturbations that propagate from the outer disk on a viscous timescale. We propose instead that the apparent disk variations reflect rapid fluctuations within the Compton up-scattering coronal material, which occults the inner parts of the disk. The expected relationship between the observed disk luminosity and apparent disk temperature derived from the variable occultation model is quantitatively shown to be in good agreement with the observations. Two other observations support this picture: an inverse correlation between the flux in the power-law spectral component and the fitted inner disk temperature, and a near-constant total photon flux, suggesting that the inner disk is not ejected when a lower temperature is observed.Comment: 35 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Ap

Bisphenol A Is Released from Used Polycarbonate Animal Cages into Water at Room Temperature

doi:10.1289/ehp.5993Bisphenol A (BPA) is a monomer with estrogenic activity that is used in the production of food packaging, dental sealants, polycarbonate plastic, and many other products. The monomer has previously been reported to hydrolyze and leach from these products under high heat and alkaline conditions, and the amount of leaching increases as a function of use. We examined whether new and used polycarbonate animal cages passively release bioactive levels of BPA into water at room temperature and neutral pH. Purified water was incubated at room temperature in new polycarbonate and polysulfone cages and used (discolored) polycarbonate cages, as well as control (glass and used polypropylene) containers. The resulting water samples were characterized with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and tested for estrogenic activity using an MCF-7 human breast cancer cell proliferation assay. Significant estrogenic activity, identifiable as BPA by GC/MS (up to 310 µg/L), was released from used polycarbonate animal cages. Detectable levels of BPA were released from new polycarbonate cages (up to 0.3 µg/L) as well as new polysulfone cages (1.5 µg/L), whereas no BPA was detected in water incubated in glass and used polypropylene cages. Finally, BPA exposure as a result of being housed in used polycarbonate cages produced a 16% increase in uterine weight in prepubertal female mice relative to females housed in used polypropylene cages, although the difference was not statistically significant. Our findings suggest that laboratory animals maintained in polycarbonate and polysulfone cages are exposed to BPA via leaching, with exposure reaching the highest levels in old cages.Support during the preparation of this manuscript was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health (CA50354) and the University of Missouri (VMFC0018) to W.V.W., NIH (ES08293 and ES11283) to F.v.S., and the U.S.G.S

Modeling of oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation to compensate for the acoustic effects of nasalization

Hypernasality is one of the most detrimental speech disturbances that lead to declines of speech intelligibility. Velopharyngeal inadequacy, which is associated with anatomic defects such as cleft palate or neuromuscular disorders that affect velopharygneal function, is the primary cause of hypernasality. A simulation study by Rong and Kuehn [J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 55(5), 1438–1448 (2012)] demonstrated that properly adjusted oropharyngeal articulation can reduce nasality for vowels synthesized with an articulatory model [Mermelstein, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 53(4), 1070–1082 (1973)]. In this study, a speaker-adaptive articulatory model was developed to simulate speaker-customized oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation to compensate for the acoustic effects of nasalization on /a/, /i/, and /u/. The results demonstrated that (1) the oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation effectively counteracted the effects of nasalization on the second lowest formant frequency (F2) and partially compensated for the effects of nasalization on vowel space (e.g., shifting and constriction of vowel space) and (2) the articulatory adaptation strategies generated by the speaker-adaptive model might be more efficacious for counteracting the acoustic effects of nasalization compared to the adaptation strategies generated by the standard articulatory model in Rong and Kuehn. The findings of this study indicated the potential of using oropharyngeal articulatory adaptation as a means to correct maladaptive articulatory behaviors and to reduce nasalit

Low Phytoestrogen Levels in Feed Increase Fetal Serum Estradiol Resulting in the “Fetal Estrogenization Syndrome” and Obesity in CD-1 Mice

doi:10.1289/ehp.10448Although estrogenic chemicals can disrupt development of the reproductive system, there is debate about whether phytoestrogens in soy are beneficial, benign, or harmful. We compared reproductive and metabolic characteristics in male and female mice reared and maintained on non-soy low-phytoestrogen feed or soy-based high-phytoestrogen feed. Removing phytoestrogens from mouse feed produces an obese phenotype consistent with metabolic syndrome, and the associated reproductive system abnormalities are consistent with FES due to elevated endogenous fetal estradiol. Laboratory rodents may have become adapted to high-phytoestrogen intake over many generations of being fed soy-based commercial feed; removing all phytoestrogens from feed leads to alterations that could disrupt many types of biomedical research

Dynamic Models of Language Evolution: The Linguistic Perspective

Language is probably the key defining characteristic of humanity, an immensely powerful tool which provides its users with an infinitely expressive means of representing their complex thoughts and reflections, and of successfully communicating them to others. It is the foundation on which human societies have been built and the means through which humanity’s unparalleled intellectual and technological achievements have been realized. Although we have a natural intuitive understanding of what a language is, the specification of a particular language is nevertheless remarkably difficult, if not impossible, to pin down precisely. All languages contain many separate yet integral systems which work interdependently to allow the expression of our thoughts and the interpretation of others’ expressions: each has, for instance, a set of basic meaningless sounds (e.g. [e], [l], [s]) which can be combined to make different meaningful words and parts of words (e.g. else, less, sell, -less ); these meaningful units can be combined to make complex words (e.g. spinelessness, selling ), and the words themselves can then be combined in very many complex ways into phrases, clauses and an infinite number of meaningful sentences; finally each of these sentences can be interpreted in dramatically different ways, depending on the contexts in which it is uttered and on who is doing the interpretation. Languages can be analysed at any of these different levels, which make up many of the sub-fields of linguistics, and the primary job of linguistic theorists is to try to explain the rules which best explain these complex combinations

Endocrine disruptors and obesity

The purpose of this review is to summarise current evidence that some environmental chemicals may be able to interfere in endocrine regulation of energy metabolism and adipose tissue structure. Recent findings demonstrate that such endocrine disrupting chemicals, termed “obesogens”, can promote adipogenesis and cause weight gain. This includes compounds to which the human population is exposed in daily life through their use in pesticides/herbicides, industrial and household products, plastics, detergents, flame retardants and ingredients in personal care products. Animal models and epidemiological studies have shown that an especially sensitive time for exposure is in utero or the neonatal period. In summarising the actions of obesogens, it is noteworthy that as their structures are mainly lipophilic, their ability to increase fat deposition has the added consequence of increasing the capacity for their own retention. This has the potential for a vicious spiral not only of increasing obesity but also increasing retention of other lipophilic pollutant chemicals with an even broader range of adverse actions. This might offer an explanation as to why obesity is an underlying risk factor for so many diseases including cancer

A Microsatellite Guided Insight into the Genetic Status of Adi, an Isolated Hunting-Gathering Tribe of Northeast India

Tibeto-Burman populations of India provide an insight into the peopling of India and aid in understanding their genetic relationship with populations of East, South and Southeast Asia. The study investigates the genetic status of one such Tibeto-Burman group, Adi of Arunachal Pradesh based on 15 autosomal microsatellite markers. Further the study examines, based on 9 common microsatellite loci, the genetic relationship of Adi with 16 other Tibeto-Burman speakers of India and 28 neighboring populations of East and Southeast Asia. Overall, the results support the recent formation of the Adi sub-tribes from a putative ancestral group and reveal that geographic contiguity is a major influencing factor of the genetic affinity among the Tibeto-Burman populations of India