Understanding very high rates of young child poverty in the south

It is widely known that the South is home to some of the places with the highest rates of child poverty. To address the many challenges poor families face there, policy makers and community leaders need to understand the complex factors that converge in this region of the United States. This brief presents an analysis of and state-by-state data to help readers understand high child poverty in the South

Nucleophilic substitution in polyhaloaromatic systems

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Phenomenological model for predicting the energy resolution of neutron-damaged coaxial HPGe detectors

The peak energy resolution of germanium detectors deteriorates with increasing neutron fluence. This is due to hole capture at neutron-created defects in the crystal which prevents the full energy of the gamma-ray from being recorded by the detector. A phenomenological model of coaxial HPGe detectors is developed that relies on a single, dimensionless parameter that is related to the probability for immediate trapping of a mobile hole in the damaged crystal. As this trap parameter is independent of detector dimensions and type, the model is useful for predicting energy resolution as a function of neutron fluence.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Geographic Variation in Health Care: The Role of Private Markets

health care, public sector, Medicare, insurance

Explosives Detection and Identification by PGNAA

The feasibility of using field-portable prompt gamma-ray neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) to detect and identify explosives in improvised nuclear devices has been studied computationally, using the Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Monte Carlo results, in turn were tested experimentally using explosive simulants and the PINS PGNAA system developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The results of the MCNP calculations and PINS measurements have been previously reported. In this report we describe measurements performed on actual explosives and compare the results with calculations. The calculations and measurements were in good agreement and indicate that most explosives are readily distinguishable from one another by PGNA

Tissue Tropism in Host Transcriptional Response to Members of the Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the most common infectious disease of beef and dairy cattle and is characterized by a complex infectious etiology that includes a variety of viral and bacterial pathogens. We examined the global changes in mRNA abundance in healthy lung and lung lesions and in the lymphoid tissues bronchial lymph node, retropharyngeal lymph node, nasopharyngeal lymph node and pharyngeal tonsil collected at the peak of clinical disease from beef cattle experimentally challenged with either bovine respiratory syncytial virus, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, bovine viral diarrhea virus, Mannheimia haemolytica or Mycoplasma bovis. We identified signatures of tissue-specific transcriptional responses indicative of tropism in the coordination of host's immune tissue responses to infection by viral or bacterial infections. Furthermore, our study shows that this tissue tropism in host transcriptional response to BRD pathogens results in the activation of different networks of response genes. The differential crosstalk among genes expressed in lymphoid tissues was predicted to be orchestrated by specific immune genes that act as 'key players' within expression networks. The results of this study serve as a basis for the development of innovative therapeutic strategies and for the selection of cattle with enhanced resistance to BRD

A Comparison of Neutron-Based Non-Destructive Assessment Methods for Chemical Warfare Materiel and High Explosives

Prompt Gamma Neutron Activation Analysis (PGNAA) systems employ neutrons as a probe to interrogate items, e.g. chemical warfare materiel-filled munitions. The choice of a neutron source in field-portable systems is determined by its ability to excite nuclei of interest, operational concerns such as radiological safety and ease-of-use, and cost. Idaho National Laboratory’s PINS Chemical Assay System has traditionally used a Cf-252 isotopic neutron source, but recently a Deuterium-Tritium (DT) Electronic Neutron Generator (ENG) has been tested as an alternate neutron source. This paper presents the results of using both of these neutron sources to interrogate chemical warfare materiel (CWM) and high explosive (HE) filled munitions