Economic Insecurity, Poverty, and Parental Alcohol Misuse

Because parental alcohol misuse is associated with numerous negative outcomes for drinkers and other family members, it is important to examine factors predictive of alcohol misuse patterns among parents living with at least one child under the age of 18. Two possible factors include economic insecurity and poverty. This study sought to address whether measures of economic insecurity (i.e., housing and/or food insecurity in the past 12 months) and a dichotomous measure of poverty predict parental binge drinking and parental heavy alcohol consumption in a large population-based sample. It was hypothesized that economic insecurity and poverty, analyzed separately, would predict both occurrence of parental alcohol misuse and amount of alcohol consumed. Results did not support hypotheses; rather, where significant, they indicated that measures of economic insecurity and poverty negatively predicted parental alcohol misuse. However, effect sizes were small and preclude practical application. Findings are discussed and future research directions are identified

The Impact of Internet Experiences on Embarrassment

Media technology (e.g., Internet via social networking, email, and texting) has changed the way we interact with one another. For instance, the more time college students spend communicating on Facebook, the less time they spend socializing in face-to-face settings. Although studies have predominantly examined Internet experiences of college students in general, specific attention has also been paid to Internet experiences of shy and socially anxious individuals. Prior research suggests that individuals who fear social rejection prefer the anonymous nature of the Internet (Shepherd & Edelmann, 2005). Additionally, shy and socially anxious individuals seem to prefer online relationships to in-person relationships, although they have fewer Facebook friends than those without impairment (Orr et a]., 2009). It is possible that the anonymity of the Internet might lessen fears of embarrassment typically experienced by shy individuals. To date, no research has explored the impact of technology on embarrassment for any population. The current study investigated differences in levels of embarrassment during face-to-face interactions compared to online interactions. Participants responded to either hypothetical in-person or Internet scenarios that described an embarrassing situation. The impact on both shy and non-shy individuals was investigated. Results indicated that face-to-face social mistakes were more embarrassing than online interactions in general. Socially anxious individuals found awkward and uncomfoitable situations more embarrassing than did those without anxiety

The Impact of Internet Experiences on Embarrassment

Media technology (e.g., Internet via social networking, email, and texting) has changed the way we interact with one another. For instance, the more time college students spend communicating on Facebook, the less time they spend socializing in face-to-face settings. Although studies have predominantly examined Internet experiences of college students in general, specific attention has also been paid to Internet experiences of shy and socially anxious individuals. Prior research suggests that individuals who fear social rejection prefer the anonymous nature of the Internet (Shepherd & Edelmann, 2005). Additionally, shy and socially anxious individuals seem to prefer online relationships to in-person relationships, although they have fewer Facebook friends than those without impairment (Orr et a]., 2009). It is possible that the anonymity of the Internet might lessen fears of embarrassment typically experienced by shy individuals. To date, no research has explored the impact of technology on embarrassment for any population. The current study investigated differences in levels of embarrassment during face-to-face interactions compared to online interactions. Participants responded to either hypothetical in-person or Internet scenarios that described an embarrassing situation. The impact on both shy and non-shy individuals was investigated. Results indicated that face-to-face social mistakes were more embarrassing than online interactions in general. Socially anxious individuals found awkward and uncomfoitable situations more embarrassing than did those without anxiety

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Homeless Chronicity, and Age at Onset of Homelessness

Childhood adversity is associated with numerous negative outcomes across multiple domains, including mental and physical health, interrelationships, and social functioning. Notably, research suggests that childhood adversity has a dose-response relationship with these outcomes; that is, greater numbers of adverse experiences in childhood are associated with worse outcomes. These outcomes overlap with many risk factors of homelessness. This study sought to address two questions: 1) Does a dose-response relationship exist between childhood adversity and chronic homelessness? 2) Does childhood adversity negatively predict the age at which homelessness first occurs? Adults experiencing homeless who are accessing homeless services in the Tri-Cities area of Northeast Tennessee responded to a brief instrument that includes measures of homeless chronicity, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and age of onset of homelessness. Although relationships between ACEs and homeless chronicity was not observed, a relationship did emerge between number of ACEs and number of episodes and number of ACEs and age at initial onset of homelessness

To ‘Noob or Not to ‘Noob, That is the Question

After watching a documentary entitled Black on White, by Robert MacNeil, we realized that many people still tend to make a distinction between white and black English. Since the documentary was rather dated, we decided to pursue this topic to further investigate whether or not the views expressed in the film are still the general consensus of the population. Some of the people we interviewed for this project did indeed express the belief that white and black English differ very much one from the other. In fact, as we began to investigate this topic, we realized that it is even more controversial than ever before. The people interviewed for the film seemed far more open to discuss differences between blacks and whites than the people that we interviewed. Perhaps incidents such as Don Imus’ being fired for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball players ‘nappy headed-hoes’ has made people paranoid about expressing how they feel. After completing this project, we ended up with some interesting data that will ideally help us conclude what white and black college students linguistically feel about black and white English dialects in the American South

Covariant three-body equations in phi^3 field theory

We derive four-dimensional relativistic three-body equations for the case of a field theory with a three-point interaction vertex. These equations describe the coupled 2->2, 2->3, and 3->3 processes, and provide the means of calculating the kernel of the 2->2 Bethe-Salpeter equation. Our equations differ from all previous formulations in two essential ways. Firstly, we have overcome the overcounting problems inherent in earlier works. Secondly, we have retained all possible two-body forces when one particle is a spectator. In this respect, we show how it is necessary to also retain certain three-body forces as these can give rise to (previously overlooked) two-body forces when used in a 2->3 process. The revealing of such hidden two-body forces gives rise to a further novel feature of our equations, namely, to the appearance of a number of subtraction terms. In the case of the piNN system, for example, the NN potential involves a subtraction term where two pions, exchanged between the nucleons, interact with each other through the pi-pi t-matrix. The necessity of an input pi-pi interaction is surprising and contrasts markedly with the corresponding three-dimensional description of the piNN system where no such interaction explicitly appears. This illustrates the somewhat unexpected result that the four-dimensional equations differ from the three-dimensional ones even at the operator level.Comment: 33, FIAS-R-22

A Comprehensive analysis of Dental Remains from the Early Bronze Age I site of Wadi Faynan 100, Jordan

Five looted Early Bronze Age Tombs were excavated at the site of Wadi Faynan 100, Southern Jordan, in 2019. While archaeological site looting is a common problem worldwide, the lack of research utilizing commingled and fragmented burial assemblages is an inherent bias in bioarchaeological research. This preliminary study uses dental anthropological methodology to learn as much as possible about the individuals buried at Wadi Faynan 100 despite their fragmentation and commingling due to looting, specifically by calculating minimum number of individuals (MNI), recording nonmetric traits, dental wear, tooth development for age-at death, and pathology (enamel defects, caries, and calculus). Results yielded an MNI of 14 using teeth alone and tooth development indicated a large proportion of subadult individuals, particularly in Grave 3. Nonmetric traits were not conclusive but not out of place when compared to other Jordanian archaeological populations. Dental wear rates were quite low, possibly a result of the age profile of the population, and pathology showed a high rate of linear enamel hypoplasia, suggesting childhood stress in the population, an extremely low caries rate and a low calculus rate, which again may be a result of the ages of the individuals. Overall, this research demonstrates the ability to use even fragmented and commingled assemblages to learn about individuals in the past, and guide future research projects

Reflection High-Energy Electron Diffraction oscillations during epitaxial growth of artificially layered films of (BaCuOx)m /(CaCuO2)n

Pulsed Laser Deposition in molecular-beam epitaxy environment (Laser-MBE) has been used to grow high quality BaCuOx/CaCuO2 superlattices. In situ Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) shows that the growth mechanism is 2-dimensional. Furthermore, weak but reproducible RHEED intensity oscillations have been monitored during the growth. Ex-situ x-ray diffraction spectra confirmed the growth rate deduced from RHEED oscillations. Such results demonstrate that RHEED oscillations can be used, even for (BaCuOx)2/(CaCuO2)2 superlattices, for phase locking of the growth.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Corresponding author: Dr. A. Tebano: [email protected]

Epidemiologia molecolare di canine parvovirus (CPV) in Italia

Canine parvovirus (CPV) is a major pathogen for dogs. Its history is featured by a quick emergence and diffusion that guided the research on the disease, with particular attention towards the phenotypic differences among the circulating strains, as traits related to clinical manifestations and epidemiology. However, the antigenic classification that recognized several variants has been recently questioned, because of the low variability represented by the selected amino acidic markers instead of the whole nucleotide heterogeneity. The real evolutionary and phylogenetic relationships among CPV circulating strains are in fact evaluable only on genome bases, embracing the widest information available and avoiding the misinterpretation of the strain affinity due to similar morphological features, which could actually be due to convergent evolution rather than necessarily to a common ancestor. The present study aims to describe Italian molecular epidemiology of CPV, by analysing VP2 sequences from samples collected from several regions between 2008 and 2015. Additionally, the Italian scenario has been compared to a database of worldwide sequences. The results highlighted a huge variability and circulation at the Italian level, which is also mirrored by the global situation, where many introduction events take place with the consequent strain persistence. These circumstances set the premises both for the co-circulation of different strains in the same region and the presence of strictly related strains in distant places. Other than measuring the spread of the virus, the international connections and dissemination patterns using a phylogeographic approach, CPV nucleotide variability allows the reconstruction of the population dynamics, depicting the viral expansion in relation to time and possible impacting events on genetic variability, such as vaccination or new strain introduction, population immunity onset, etc. CPV appears to be a recent virus, with its origin placed in the early ‘70s, characterized by a high substitution rate (~10-4 substitutions*site-1*year-1), which can be the cause of the ongoing viral population expansion and possibly of unexpected variations in the clinical aspects of the disease. These elements enforce the importance and usefulness of the genetic information, whose collection should be improved in order to achieve a deeper knowledge of CPV and the genetic determinants of its peculiar biological, epidemiological and clinical features