Developmental Patterns of Religiosity in Relation to Criminal Trajectories among Serious Offenders across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

The knowledge about the relationship between changes in both religiosity and crime over time remains limited. This dissertation aims to add to the existing body of literature and fill the gaps in prior studies by examining the religiosity-crime relationship in a sample of adjudicated adolescents studied in the Pathways to Desistance Study, a seven-year longitudinal dataset. Using Group-Based Trajectory Models and Growth Curve Models, this dissertation identifies distinctive trajectories of religious attendance, religious importance, and spirituality and their dynamic relationships with changes in different types of substance use and criminal behavior. Given the initial level of substance use and criminal behavior, the results show that offenders with higher religiosity have a lower likelihood of engaging in substance use and criminal behavior than those who are less religious or nonreligious, regardless of dimensions of religiosity. With respect to changes in religiosity, not all trajectory groups of religious attendance, religious importance, and spirituality are significantly associated with each type of substance use and criminal behavior. It is not very clear which dimensions of changing religiosity are more strongly associated with which types of changing crime and deviance. For those significant dynamic relationships, the results generally indicate that gains in religiosity continue to attenuate the risk of substance use and criminal behavior, while losses in religiosity are associated with elevated risk of substance use and criminal behavior. In addition, the findings regarding these relationships are consistent despite the confounding variables controlled. The results suggest that religiosity may be an important variable in predicting the trajectory of substance use and criminal behavior from adolescence to young adulthood, and may serve as a protective factor assisting serious offenders to desist from crime. Strengthening, emphasizing, and reinforcing different elements of religiosity may increase the chances that religiosity becomes a prosocial turning point in the lives of serious offenders. Religiosity may be an important resource for prevention of drug abuse and criminal behavior, as well as rehabilitation from drug dependence and recidivism

Analysis of OAM Mode Purity in Phased Array Antenna

In this paper, the orbital angular momentum of different modes in electric field is decomposed, and the definition of purity of OAM mode in OAM antenna are proposed. Based on the purity theory, the purity of circular array is derived. And the effects of different parameters on the purity are analyzed. An intuitive and quantifiable dimension for comparing the OAM performance in phased array antenna is provided in this paper

Six macrophage-associated genes in synovium constitute a novel diagnostic signature for osteoarthritis

BackgroundSynovial macrophages play important roles in the formation and progression of osteoarthritis (OA). This study aimed to explore the biological and clinical significance of macrophage-associated genes (MAGs) in OA.MethodsThe OA synovial gene expression profiles GSE89408 and GSE82107 were obtained from the GEO database. Single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) and GSEA were employed to decipher differences in immune infiltration and macrophage-associated biological pathways, respectively. Protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis and machine learning were utilized to establish a macrophage-associated gene diagnostic signature (MAGDS). RT-qPCR was performed to test the expression of key MAGs in murine models.ResultsOA synovium presented high levels of immune infiltration and activation of macrophage-associated biological pathways. A total of 55 differentially expressed MAGs were identified. Using PPI analysis and machine learning, a MAGDS consisting of IL1B, C5AR1, FCGR2B, IL10, IL6, and TYROBP was established for OA diagnosis (AUC = 0.910) and molecular pathological evaluation. Patients with high MAGDS scores may possess higher levels of immune infiltration and expression of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), implying poor biological alterations. The diagnostic value of MAGDS was also validated in an external cohort (AUC = 0.886). The expression of key MAGs was validated in a murine model using RT-qPCR. Additionally, a competitive endogenous RNA network was constructed to reveal the potential posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms.ConclusionsWe developed and validated a MAGDS model with the ability to accurately diagnose and characterize biological alterations in OA. The six key MAGs may also be latent targets for immunoregulatory therapy

CRM With Mental Issues

This paper discussed the mental issues in crew resource management (CRM). After analyzing the safety data, the CRM was highlighted in the aviation industry. Mental conditions out of human factors in CRM were pointed out as the main role in this paper. The tragedy of Germanwings flight 9525 was discussed in details, related with mental illness. Mental conditions and shared mental models were introduced briefly. The last part was the recommendations made by myself according to the research

Moderating Effects of Delinquent Peer Association, Social Control, and Negative Emotion on Cyberbullying and Delinquency: Gender Differences

Under the integrated model of General Strain Theory (GST), the present study sought to examine whether delinquent peer association, social control, and negative emotion moderated the relations of distinctive cyberbullying roles with delinquency, as well as whether the moderating effects varied by gender among a nationally representative sample of American adolescents. Based on the data from the 2009–2010 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children study in the U.S., hierarchical moderated tobit regressions were conducted to test the potential moderating effects and gender differences. Adolescents involved in cyberbullying as different roles were more likely to engage in physical fight and substance use than noninvolved peers. The relationships remained significant after controlling for delinquent peer association, social control, and negative emotion, except for the relation of being cyber-victims with substance use. In addition, delinquent peer association conditioned the relationships of three cyberbullying roles with physical fight, while negative emotion moderated the relations of being cyberbullies or cyberbullyvictims with substance use. Certain gender differences were found for the moderating effects of social control/delinquent peer association on cyberbullying roles related to physical fight and substance use. The findings suggest that GST may be useful for explaining the relations of distinctive cyberbullying roles with delinquency. Differentiating such relationships and the relevant moderating effects can be important in understanding adolescent violence and substance use. Cyberbullying-involved boys and girls under certain conditions are more vulnerable to react with violence and substance use in response to strains derived from cyberbullying experiences

Impacts of tree height on the phloem anatomy of Norway spruce (Picea abies)

This thesis represents a thorough study on association between tree height and phloem anatomy of a tree. Phloem is one of the major components of the vascular system of a plant as it facilitates the transportation of products of photosynthesis from source to sink. In this research, a coniferous tree species, Picea abies (L.) Karst, which is commonly known as Norway spruce, was carefully examined as a model plant. Specifically, the correlation between tree height and the anatomical features of cells that constitute each compartment of a tree stem (i.e., outer bark, phloem, cambium, and xylem, which is composed of sapwood and heartwood) was investigated, aiming to help understand the phloem anatomy and elucidate the underlying mechanisms that govern the secondary tree growth. In particular, the variations of an array of anatomical properties of wood, such as cell number, cell size, structural dimensions, were measured at different height levels to establish the axial profiles for these anatomical features. Notably, the number of tracheid and sieve cells in the stem of Norway spruce was found to increase with tree height and water stress gradient. While the size of tracheid cell in radial direction exhibited no distinct axial pattern, a decrease in sieve cell size from the middle part of the living crown towards the top of the crown in both radial and tangential direction was observed. Also, the widths of wood layer, phloem and periderm exhibited dependence on tree height. This dissertation consists of a literature review relevant to this study, the detailed experimental methods involved in this work, a summary of the results and discussion, and a conclusion chapter

Childhood and/or Adolescence Bullying Victimization and Trajectories of Hard Drug Use from Late Adolescence to Young Adulthood

The study aimed to identify developmental trajectories of hard drug use throughout late adolescence and into early adulthood and assess the unique and joint contribution of bullying victimization occurred in childhood and/or adolescence to the development of hard drug use. Using group-based trajectory modeling and multinomial logistic regression, the current study analyzed the data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to investigate these phenomena. Results indicated that a four-group trajectory model best fit the data of hard drug use. Bullying victimization was important in understanding the developmental trajectories of hard drug use. Its effect differed by when the victimization occurs, in childhood only, in adolescence only, or in both. There is a great need to intervene with those being repeatedly bullied as early as possible in order to reduce the likelihood of hard drug use

Cyberbullying and Delinquency in Adolescence: The Potential Mediating Effects of Social Attachment and Delinquent Peer Association

Adopting the integrated model of General Strain Theory (GST), the current study tested the relations between cyberbullying roles (i.e., cyberbully, cybervictim, and cyberbully-victim) and delinquent behaviors (i.e., physical fighting and substance use), as well as the potential mediating effects of delinquent peer association and perceived social attachment from parents, friends, and teachers. This was conducted in a cross-sectional sample of 12,642 American adolescents via the use of structural equation models. The results indicated that being involved in cyberbullying might be not only directly associated with an increase in delinquent behaviors, but also indirectly via delinquent peer associations and perceived social attachment from parents, friends, and teachers. Furthermore, both direct and indirect (mediating) relationships between cyberbullying and delinquency might depend upon specific cyberbullying roles and the types of delinquency. Potential implications for prevention and intervention strategies were discussed

Effective Learning During COVID-19: Multilevel Covariates Matching and Propensity Score Matching

In large-scale observational data with a hierarchical structure, both clusters and interventions often have more than two levels. Popular methods in the binary treatment literature do not naturally extend to the hierarchical multilevel treatment case. For example, most K-12 and universities have moved to an unprecedented hybrid learning module during the COVID-19 pandemic where learning modes include hybrid and fully remote learning, while students were clustered within a class and school region. It is challenging to evaluate the effectiveness of the learning outcomes of the multilevel treatments in a hierarchically data structured. In this paper, we study a covariates matching method and develop a generalized propensity score matching method to reduce the bias of estimation in the intervention effect. We also propose simple algorithms to assess the covariates balance for each approach. We examine the finite sample performance of the methods via simulation studies and apply the proposed methods to analyze the effectiveness of learning modes during the COVID-19 pandemic