O impacto adverso do isolamento racial no desempenho dos alunos: um estudo na Carolina do Norte.

This study examines the impact of racial isolation on high school student performance in North Carolina, a state in the southeast United States. Our research goal is to investigate if increased isolation negatively impacts Black students’ academic performance. Employing the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) dataset, we test for this using Algebra I and English I scores on End-of-Course exams for ninth graders (N = 134,646) during the 2007-2008 school year. We control for student-level characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, economic disadvantage (eligibility for free and reduced-price lunch), and designation as gifted. We also analyze the effect of school-level characteristics, such as teacher experience, teacher training (advanced degree), teacher accreditation (fully licensed), and the percentage of students who were Black or Latino. Our results suggest racial isolation adversely impacts student performance on Algebra I by as much as three points. With our restricted hierarchical dataset and multi-level modeling, we (a) contribute to the growing body of literature, which finds a negative association between racial isolation/segregation and student performance, and (b) find teacher attributes can moderate some of the adverse student outcomes.Este estudio examina el impacto del aislamiento racial en el desempeño de estudiantes de escuelas secundarias en Carolina del Norte, un estado en el sureste de Estados Unidos. Nuestra objetivo de investigación fue investigar si el mayor aislamiento repercute negativamente en  el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes negros. Empleando datos del Departamento de Instrucción Pública del Estado de Carolina del Norte ( NCDPI ) de puntuaciones Álgebra I y Inglés I en exámenes de Fin de Curso para estudiantes de noveno grado (N = 134.646 ) durante el año escolar 2007-2008. Controlando las características a nivel estudiantil, como raza y origen étnico, desventaja económica (la elegibilidad para programas de almuerzo gratis o a precio reducido), y su designación como intelectualmente dotado. También se analizó el efecto de las características a nivel de la escuela, como experiencia docente, formación del profesorado (título avanzado), la acreditación del profesorado (con licencia), y el porcentaje de estudiantes Negros o Latinos. Nuestros resultados sugieren que el aislamiento racial afecta negativamente en hasta tres puntos el desempeño estudiantil en Algebra I. Con nuestra base de datos jerárquica y modelización multinivel, contribuimos al creciente cuerpo de literatura que ( a) encuentra una asociación negativa entre el aislamiento racial segregación y rendimiento de los estudiantes, y (b ) que ciertos atributos de los docentes pueden moderar algunos de los resultados adversos en los estudiantes.O presente estudo analisa o impacto do isolamento racial no desempenho de estudantes de ensino médio na Carolina do Norte, um estado no sudeste dos Estados Unidos. Nosso objetivo de pesquisa foi investigar se o aumento do isolamento afeta negativamente o desempenho acadêmico dos estudantes negros. Utilizamos dados do Departamento de Instrução Pública da Carolina do Norte ( NCDPI ) das avaliações de Álgebra I e Inglês I em exames de Fim de do curso para os calouros (N = 134.646 ) para o ano letivo de 2007-2008. Controlando pelas características de nível estudantil, tais como raça e etnia, desvantagem econômica (elegibilidade para os programas de almoço gratutitos ou de prezo reduzidos), e a designação como intelectualmente dotado. Também se controlo o efeito das características do nível da escola, tais como experiência de ensino , formação de professores ( nível avançado) , credenciamento de professor (licenciado ), e o percentual de estudantes negros ou latinos também foi analisada. Nossos resultados sugerem que o isolamento racial afeta negativamente até em três pontos o desempenho dos alunos em Álgebra I. Com o nosso banco de dados hierárquico e modelagem multinível, contribuímos para o crescente corpo de literatura indicando que (a) a uma associação negativa entre a segregação racial e isolamento no desempenho do aluno, e ( b) que certos atributos dos professores podem moderar alguns dos resultados adversos para os alunos

Essays in aging: later-life migration and disability, South by Southwest, selective out-migration from Florida, elderly health disparities by race and utilization

In the first essay, I examine long-distance migration and disability. Using the American Community Survey from 2006 and 2007, I show retirees in better health are more likely to relocate to Florida and Arizona, even after controlling for chain migration. In the second essay, I examine the distribution of disability for the United States and test the second-move hypothesis by Litwak and Longino--that is, individuals with progressively worse health are more likely to return to sending destinations. In the last essay, I use the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey from 2004 and 2005 to show Blacks are in worse health than Whites, even after controlling for insurance, usual source of care, health attitudes/behaviors, eligibility for Medicare, and utilization accounts for some of this observed difference

Sustainable development through diversifying pathways in India

From groundwater depletion to toxic air pollution, modernising development pathways are linked with grave unsustainability challenges, as they extend the unbridled extraction of “goods” from nature while carelessly dumping back the “bads.” To move beyond this and to realise sustainable development, plural pathways may be required in each field, be it agriculture or housing. As outcomes of struggles for democracy and sustainability, these diversifying pathways may be structured around caring and cooperative (human–nature) relations

Formulation Graphs for Mapping Structure-Composition of Battery Electrolytes to Device Performance

Advanced computational methods are being actively sought for addressing the challenges associated with discovery and development of new combinatorial material such as formulations. A widely adopted approach involves domain informed high-throughput screening of individual components that can be combined into a formulation. This manages to accelerate the discovery of new compounds for a target application but still leave the process of identifying the right 'formulation' from the shortlisted chemical space largely a laboratory experiment-driven process. We report a deep learning model, Formulation Graph Convolution Network (F-GCN), that can map structure-composition relationship of the individual components to the property of liquid formulation as whole. Multiple GCNs are assembled in parallel that featurize formulation constituents domain-intuitively on the fly. The resulting molecular descriptors are scaled based on respective constituent's molar percentage in the formulation, followed by formalizing into a combined descriptor that represents a complete formulation to an external learning architecture. The use case of proposed formulation learning model is demonstrated for battery electrolytes by training and testing it on two exemplary datasets representing electrolyte formulations vs battery performance -- one dataset is sourced from literature about Li/Cu half-cells, while the other is obtained by lab-experiments related to lithium-iodide full-cell chemistry. The model is shown to predict the performance metrics like Coulombic Efficiency (CE) and specific capacity of new electrolyte formulations with lowest reported errors. The best performing F-GCN model uses molecular descriptors derived from molecular graphs that are informed with HOMO-LUMO and electric moment properties of the molecules using a knowledge transfer technique.Comment: 35 pages, 10 figure

Measuring the Anisotropy in Interfacial Tension of Nematic Liquid Crystals

Liquid crystal (LC) phases typically show anisotropic alignment-dependent properties, such as viscosity and dielectric permittivity, so it stands to reason that LCs also have anisotropic interfacial tensions. Measuring the interfacial tension ? of an LC with conventional methods, such as pendant drops, can be challenging, however, especially when we need to know ? for different LC aligning conditions, as is the case when we seek ??, the interfacial tension anisotropy. Here, we present measurements of ?? of the common synthetic nematic LC compound 5CB against water using a microfluidic droplet aspiration technique. To ensure tangential and normal alignment, respectively, we add poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS), respectively, as a stabilizer and measure ? for different concentrations of stabilizer. By fitting the Szyszkowski equation to the data, we can extrapolate to zero-stabilizer concentration, obtaining the ? of 5CB to pure water for each alignment. For normal alignment, we find ??=31.9?0.8 mN?m-1, on the order of 1 mN?m-1 greater than ?_=30.8?5 mN?m-1 for tangential alignment. This resonates with the empirical knowledge that 5CB aligns tangentially to an interface with pure water. The main uncertainty arises from the use of polymeric PVA as tangential-promoting stabilizer. Future improvements in accuracy may be expected if PVA can be replaced by a low molar mass stabilizer that ensures tangential alignment.</jats:

Global health burden of ambient PM2.5 and the contribution of anthropogenic black carbon and organic aerosols

Chronic exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) poses a major global health risk, commonly assessed by assuming equivalent toxicity for different PM2.5 constituents. We used a data-informed global atmospheric model and recent exposure-response functions to calculate the health burden of ambient PM2.5 from ten source categories. We estimate 4.23 (95% confidence interval 3.0-6.14) million excess deaths annually from the exposure to ambient PM2.5. We distinguished contributions and major sources of black carbon (BC), primary organic aerosols (POA) and anthropogenic secondary organic aerosols (aSOA). These components make up to similar to 20% of the total PM2.5 in South and East Asia and East Africa. We find that domestic energy use by the burning of solid biofuels is the largest contributor to ambient BC, POA and aSOA globally. Epidemiological and toxicological studies indicate that these compounds may be relatively more hazardous than other PM2.5 compounds such as soluble salts, related to their high potential to inflict oxidative stress. We performed sensitivity analyses by considering these species to be more harmful compared to other compounds in PM2.5, as suggested by their oxidative potential using a range of potential relative risks. These analyses show that domestic energy use emerges as the leading cause of excess mortality attributable to ambient PM2.5, notably in Asia and Africa. We acknowledge the uncertainties inherent in our assumed enhanced toxicity of the anthropogenic organic and BC aerosol components, which suggest the need to better understand the mechanisms and magnitude of the associated health risks and the consequences for regulatory policies. However our assessment of the importance of emissions from domestic energy use as a cause of premature mortality is robust to a range of assumptions about the magnitude of the excess risk.Peer reviewe

Combined collider constraints on neutralinos and charginos

Searches for supersymmetric electroweakinos have entered a crucial phase, as the integrated luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider is now high enough to compensate for their weak production cross-sections. Working in a framework where the neutralinos and charginos are the only light sparticles in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, we use gambit to perform a detailed likelihood analysis of the electroweakino sector. We focus on the impacts of recent ATLAS and CMS searches with 36 fb$^{-1}$ of 13 TeV proton-proton collision data. We also include constraints from LEP and invisible decays of the $Z$ and Higgs bosons. Under the background-only hypothesis, we show that current LHC searches do not robustly exclude any range of neutralino or chargino masses. However, a pattern of excesses in several LHC analyses points towards a possible signal, with neutralino masses of $(m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^0}, m_{\tilde{\chi}_2^0}, m_{\tilde{\chi}_3^0}, m_{\tilde{\chi}_4^0})$ = (8-155, 103-260, 130-473, 219-502) GeV and chargino masses of $(m_{\tilde{\chi}_1^{\pm}}, m_{\tilde{\chi}_2^{\pm}})$ = (104-259, 224-507) GeV at the 95% confidence level. The lightest neutralino is mostly bino, with a possible modest Higgsino or wino component. We find that this excess has a combined local significance of $3.3\sigma$, subject to a number of cautions. If one includes LHC searches for charginos and neutralinos conducted with 8 TeV proton-proton collision data, the local significance is lowered to 2.9$\sigma$. We briefly consider the implications for dark matter, finding that the correct relic density can be obtained through the Higgs-funnel and $Z$-funnel mechanisms, even assuming that all other sparticles are decoupled. All samples, gambit input files and best-fit models from this study are available on Zenodo.Comment: 38 pages, 16 figures, v3 is the version accepted by EPJ

Steady state charge conduction through solution processed liquid crystalline lanthanide bisphthalocyanine films

In-plane electrical characteristics of non-peripherally octyl (C8H17) and hexyl (C6H13) substituted liquid crystalline (LC) double decker lanthanide bisphthalocyanine (LnPc2) complexes with central metal ions lutetium (Lu), and gadolinium (Gd) have been measured in thin film formulations on interdigitated gold (Au) electrodes for the applied voltage (V_a) range of 〖0 ≤ V〗_a ≤100 V. The conduction mechanism is found to be Ohmic within the bias of 〖0 ≤ V〗_a ≤30 V 0≤Va≤30 V while the bulk limited Poole-Frenkel mechanism is responsible for the higher bias. The compounds show individual characteristics depending on the central metal ions, substituent chain lengths and their mesophases. Values of 67.55 μS〖cm〗^(-1) and 42.31 μS〖cm〗^(-1) have been obtained. for room temperature in-plane Ohmic conductivity of as-deposited octyl lutetium (C8LuPc2) and hexyl gadolinium (C6GdPc2) films, respectively while C8GdPc2 films exhibit nearly two orders of magnitude smaller conductivity. On annealing at 80 ̊C, Ohmic conductivities of C8LuPc2 and C8GdPc2 are found to have increased but the conductivity of C6GdPc2 decreases by more than one order of magnitude to 1.5 μS〖cm〗^(-1). For physical interpretation of the charge transport behavior of these three molecules, their UV-visible optical absorption spectra have been studied in the solution and in as-deposited and annealed solid phases. It is believed that both orientational and positional reorganisations are responsible depending upon the size of the central ion and side chain length