The Impact Of Stuttering On Quality Of Life Of Children And Adolescents.

Understanding the experience of people who stutter, both in and out treatment, will lead to improved outcomes. To investigate how stuttering affects the quality of life of children and adolescents who stutter. The Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering--School-Age (OASES-S) was used to assess the impact of stuttering and the Fluency Profile Protocol was used to stuttering severity. These age groups do experience moderate negative impact as measured by the OASES-S. The results showed a tendency toward a positive correlation between severity and the impact of stuttering on quality of life. A better understanding of the impact of stuttering in these age groups provides a needed guide for the development of stuttering treatments and treatment outcomes research.22567-

Chemically Cross-Linked Graphene Oxide as a Selective Layer on Electrospun Polyvinyl Alcohol Nanofiber Membrane for Nanofiltration Application.

Graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets were utilized as a selective layer on a highly porous polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofiber support via a pressure-assisted self-assembly technique to synthesize composite nanofiltration membranes. The GO layer was rendered stable by cross-linking the nanosheets (GO-to-GO) and by linking them onto the support surface (GO-to-PVA) using glutaraldehyde (GA). The amounts of GO and GA deposited on the PVA substrate were varied to determine the optimum nanofiltration membrane both in terms of water flux and salt rejection performances. The successful GA cross-linking of GO interlayers and GO-PVA via acetalization was confirmed by FTIR and XPS analyses, which corroborated with other characterization results from contact angle and zeta potential measurements. Morphologies of the most effective membrane (CGOPVA-50) featured a defect-free GA cross-linked GO layer with a thickness of ~67 nm. The best solute rejections of the CGOPVA-50 membrane were 91.01% for Na2SO4 (20 mM), 98.12% for Eosin Y (10 mg/L), 76.92% for Methylene blue (10 mg/L), and 49.62% for NaCl (20 mM). These findings may provide one of the promising approaches in synthesizing mechanically stable GO-based thin-film composite membranes that are effective for solute separation via nanofiltration

Hydroacoustic Estimates of Fish Density Distributions in Cougar Reservoir, 2011

Day and night mobile hydroacoustic surveys were conducted once each month from April through December 2011 to quantify the horizontal and vertical distributions of fish throughout Cougar Reservoir, Lane County, Oregon

Hydroacoustic Estimates of Fish Density Distributions in Cougar Reservoir, 2011

Day and night mobile hydroacoustic surveys were conducted once each month from April through December 2011 to quantify the horizontal and vertical distributions of fish throughout Cougar Reservoir, Lane County, Oregon

Mesorhizobium septentrionale sp nov and Mesorhizobium temperatum sp nov., isolated from Astragalus adsurgens growing in the northern regions of China

Ninety-five rhizobial strains isolated from Astragalus adsurgens growing in the northern regions of China were classified into three main groups, candidate species 1, 11 and 111, based on a polyphasic approach. Comparative analysis of full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences of representative strains showed that candidate species I and 11 were Mesorhizobium, while candidate species 111, which consisted of non-nodulating strains, was closely related to Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The phylogenetic relationships of the three candidate species and some related strains were also confirmed by the sequencing of glnA genes, which were used as an alternative chromosomal marker. The DNA-DNA relatedness was between 11.3 and 47-1 % among representative strains of candidate species I and 11 and the type strains of defined Mesorhizobium species. Candidate III had DNA relatedness of between 4(.)3 and 25(.)2 % with type strains of Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Agrobacterium rubi. Two novel species are proposed to accommodate candidate species I and 11, Mesorhizobium septentrionale sp. nov. (type strain, SIDW014(T) =CCBAU 11014(T) = HAMBI 2582(T)) and Mesorhizobium temperatum sp. nov. (type strain, SIDW018(T) = CCBAU 11018(T) =HAMBI 2583(T)), respectively. At least two distinct nodA sequences were identified among the strains. The numerically dominant nodA sequence type was most similar to that from the Mesorhizobium tianshanense type strain and was identified in strains belonging to the two novel species as well as other, as yet, undefined genome types. Host range studies indicate that the different nodA sequences correlate with different host ranges. Further comparative studies with the defined Agrobacterium species are needed to clarify the taxonomic identity of candidate species 111

Three-dimensional fluid simulation of a plasma display panel cell

In order to understand the discharge characteristics in an alternating current plasma display panel (ac PDP) and optimize it further, a three-dimensional fluid code (FL3P) has been developed. Using this simulator, various three-dimensional features of discharges are investigated in the sustain mode of PDP. First, the striations of wall charge are observed at both the anode and cathode side. Second, the local efficiency is obtained as a function of position. It is mainly divided into the anode region and the cathode region and highest near the anode center. Finally, the effects of various three-dimensional parameters are studied. As one of the examples showing the effect of electrode shaping, the discharge characteristics of a T-shaped electrode cell are compared with those of a conventional cell. The phosphor on barrier ribs contributes to over 44% of the total luminance, but barrier ribs themselves do not play an important role in the overall discharge efficiency. Address electrode width is not always proportional to the size of the discharge because of the wall loss of the particles to barrier ribs.open435

Evidence for the exclusive decay Bc+- to J/psi pi+- and measurement of the mass of the Bc meson

We report first evidence for a fully reconstructed decay mode of the B_c^{\pm} meson in the channel B_c^{\pm} \to J/psi \pi^{\pm}, with J/psi \to mu^+mu^-. The analysis is based on an integrated luminosity of 360 pb$^{-1} in p\bar{p} collisions at 1.96 TeV center of mass energy collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We observe 14.6 \pm 4.6 signal events with a background of 7.1 \pm 0.9 events, and a fit to the J/psi pi^{\pm} mass spectrum yields a B_c^{\pm} mass of 6285.7 \pm 5.3(stat) \pm 1.2(syst) MeV/c^2. The probability of a peak of this magnitude occurring by random fluctuation in the search region is estimated as 0.012%.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Version 3, accepted by PR

Search for the Higgs boson in events with missing transverse energy and b quark jets produced in proton-antiproton collisions at s**(1/2)=1.96 TeV

We search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with an electroweak vector boson in events with no identified charged leptons, large imbalance in transverse momentum, and two jets where at least one contains a secondary vertex consistent with the decay of b hadrons. We use ~1 fb-1 integrated luminosity of proton-antiproton collisions at s**(1/2)=1.96 TeV recorded by the CDF II experiment at the Tevatron. We find 268 (16) single (double) b-tagged candidate events, where 248 +/- 43 (14.4 +/- 2.7) are expected from standard model background processes. We place 95% confidence level upper limits on the Higgs boson production cross section for several Higgs boson masses ranging from 110 GeV/c2 to 140 GeV/c2. For a mass of 115 GeV/c2 the observed (expected) limit is 20.4 (14.2) times the standard model prediction.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Observation and Mass Measurement of the Baryon Ξb−\Xi^-_b

We report the observation and measurement of the mass of the bottom, strange baryon $\Xi^-_b$ through the decay chain $\Xi^-_b \to J/\psi \Xi^-$, where $J/\psi \to \mu^+ \mu^-$, $\Xi^- \to \Lambda \pi^-$, and $\Lambda \to p \pi^-$. Evidence for observation is based on a signal whose probability of arising from the estimated background is 6.6 x 10^{-15}, or 7.7 Gaussian standard deviations. The $\Xi^-_b$ mass is measured to be $5792.9\pm 2.5$ (stat.) $\pm 1.7$ (syst.) MeV/$c^2$.Comment: Minor text changes for the second version. Accepted by Phys. Rev. Let

Measurement of the Lifetime Difference Between B_s Mass Eigenstates

We present measurements of the lifetimes and polarization amplitudes for B_s --> J/psi phi and B_d --> J/psi K*0 decays. Lifetimes of the heavy (H) and light (L) mass eigenstates in the B_s system are separately measured for the first time by determining the relative contributions of amplitudes with definite CP as a function of the decay time. Using 203 +/- 15 B_s decays, we obtain tau_L = (1.05 +{0.16}/-{0.13} +/- 0.02) ps and tau_H = (2.07 +{0.58}/-{0.46} +/- 0.03) ps. Expressed in terms of the difference DeltaGamma_s and average Gamma_s, of the decay rates of the two eigenstates, the results are DeltaGamma_s/Gamma_s = (65 +{25}/-{33} +/- 1)%, and DeltaGamma_s = (0.47 +{0.19}/-{0.24} +/- 0.01) inverse ps.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; as published in Physical Review Letters on 16 March 2005; revisions are for length and typesetting only, no changes in results or conclusion