Caddo Ceramics from an Early 18th Century Spanish Mission in East Texas: Mission San Jose de los Nasonis (41RK200)

Mission San Jose de los Nasonis (4JRK200) and two contemporaneous Nasoni Caddo sites (41RK191 and 41RK197) were located by Mr. Bill Young more than 25 years ago in the southern part of Rusk County, Texas after the general area of the site had been cleared of timber. The mission site covers ca. 6.6 acres of an upland ridge along a small tributary to the Angelina River; the ridge projects into the Angelina River floodplain. The topographic setting of Mission San Jose conforms in all particulars to the settings of other known mission sites established among the Caddo: small hills adjacent to a floodplain, next to a stream, with the hills lower extensions of more extensive upland areas. Corbin also notes that these missions were located within the area of the local dispersed Caddoan village, none of the locations are places suited to support the Indian-based community that the Spanish hoped to entice to the location. This mission was established as one of six different missions by the Spanish in 1716 during their second attempt (the first being in 1690-1691) to establish a religious and political presence among the Caddo peoples in East Texas, specifically to minister to the Nasoni Caddo living in the area. Mission San Jose de los Nasonis ·was formally established on July 10, 1716. Father Espinosa and Captain Don Domingo Ramon, the leader of the expedition, had noted that there were many Hasinai Caddo ranchos in the general area along with arroyos of water and good places for settlement. Both Nasoni and Nacono Caddo were then living in this area of the Angelina river. Mr. Young made those collections available for study in 2006, and this article is a summary of the Caddo ceramics in the Mission Nasonis collections. In 1990, Dr. James E. Corbin of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) and Dr. Kathleen Gilmore of the University of North Texas conducted limited excavations in Area A at the mission site, but these excavations have never been published. More than 930 Caddo ceramic sherds were recovered in that work, and are curated at SFASU; the separate analysis of these ceramic artifacts is underway

Neuropsychological Functioning of Homeless Men

Numerous biological and psychological factors associated with impaired neurological functioning have been identified as common among the homeless, but there has been relatively little systematic examination of the cognitive functioning of homeless people. This study explored the neuropsychological functioning of 90 homeless men. There was great variability in their test scores, but the presence of possible cognitive impairment was detected in 80% of the sample. Average general intellectual functioning and reading abilities were found to be relatively low, and the incidence of impairments in reading, new verbal learning, memory, and attention and concentration was high. These findings suggest that the homeless men in this study had considerable assessment and treatment needs that were not being met by most of the health and social services offered to them

Hypervelocity Star Candidates in the SEGUE G & K Dwarf Sample

We present 20 candidate hypervelocity stars from the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) G and K dwarf samples. Previous searches for hypervelocity stars have only focused on large radial velocities; in this study we also use proper motions to select the candidates. We determine the hypervelocity likelihood of each candidate by means of Monte Carlo simulations, considering the significant errors often associated with high proper motion stars. We find that nearly half of the candidates exceed their escape velocities with at least 98% probability. Every candidate also has less than a 25% chance of being a high-velocity fluke within the SEGUE sample. Based on orbits calculated using the observed six-dimensional positions and velocities, few, if any, of these candidates originate from the Galactic center. If these candidates are truly hypervelocity stars, they were not ejected by interactions with the Milky Way's supermassive black hole. This calls for a more serious examination of alternative hypervelocity-star ejection scenarios.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, published in ApJ, this version includes all figures as intende

Borrowing from the Future: 401(k) Plan Loans and Loan Defaults

Tax-qualified retirement plans seek to promote saving for retirement, yet most employers permit pre-retirement access by letting 401(k) participants borrow plan assets. This paper examines who borrows and why, and who defaults on their loans. Our administrative dataset tracks several hundred plans over 5 years, showing that 20% borrow at any given time, and almost 40% do at some point over five years. Employer policies influence borrowing behavior, in that workers are more likely to borrow and borrow more in aggregate, when a plan permits multiple loans. We estimate loan default “leakage” at $6 billion annually, more than prior studies

Metallicity Gradients in the Milky Way Disk as Observed by the SEGUE Survey

The observed radial and vertical metallicity distribution of old stars in the Milky Way disk provides a powerful constraint on the chemical enrichment and dynamical history of the disk. We present the radial metallicity gradient, \Delta[Fe/H]/\Delta R, as a function of height above the plane, |Z|, using 7010 main sequence turnoff stars observed by the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) survey. The sample consists of mostly old thin and thick disk stars, with a minimal contribution from the stellar halo, in the region 6 < R < 16 kpc, 0.15 < |Z| < 1.5 kpc. The data reveal that the radial metallicity gradient becomes flat at heights |Z| > 1 kpc. The median metallicity at large |Z| is consistent with the metallicities seen in outer disk open clusters, which exhibit a flat radial gradient at [Fe/H] ~ -0.5. We note that the outer disk clusters are also located at large |Z|; because the flat gradient extends to small R for our sample, there is some ambiguity in whether the observed trends for clusters are due to a change in R or |Z|. We therefore stress the importance of considering both the radial and vertical directions when measuring spatial abundance trends in the disk. The flattening of the gradient at high |Z| also has implications on thick disk formation scenarios, which predict different metallicity patterns in the thick disk. A flat gradient, such as we observe, is predicted by a turbulent disk at high redshift, but may also be consistent with radial migration, as long as mixing is strong. We test our analysis methods using a mock catalog based on the model of Sch\"onrich & Binney, and we estimate our distance errors to be ~25%. We also show that we can properly correct for selection biases by assigning weights to our targets.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; 22 pages, 14 figures in emulateapj format; Full resolution version available at http://www.ucolick.org/~jyc/gradient/cheng_apj_fullres.pd

Cultural variability in the effects of question design features on respondent comprehension

Um Charakteristika gleicher Fragen in Gesundheitsumfragen im Zusammenhang mit interkulturellen Unterschieden im Verständnis dieser Fragen zu identifizieren, analysieren die Verfasser Befragungen zum Gesundheitssystem, wobei die Befragten vier verschiedene kulturelle Subgruppen in den USA repräsentieren (weiße Nicht-Hispanics, Afroamerikaner, mexikanische Amerikaner und Puerto Ricaner) mit Hilfe des Instruments des Behaviour Coding. Untersucht werden die Auswirkungen von vier Merkmalen der Fragebogenkonstruktion auf kulturelle Schwierigkeiten beim Verständnis der Fragen. Die empirische Datenbasis bilden 13514 Antworten von 345 Befragten auf 42 Fragen. Es zeigt sich, dass das Antwortformat, die Länge der Frage sowie das Lese- und Abstraktionsniveau der Fragen einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf das Verständnis der Fragen bei den Befragten haben. Die Kultur der Befragen hatte einen moderierenden Einfluss auf die Effekte von Antwortformat, Fragenlänge und Leseniveau. Verschiedene Aspekte des Fragebogendesigns, die den Fragebogen allgemein verständlicher machen sollen, haben ebenfalls kulturspezifische Auswirkungen. (ICEÜbers

Egg intake during carbohydrate restriction alters peripheral blood mononuclear cell inflammation and cholesterol homeostasis in metabolic syndrome

Egg yolk contains bioactive components that improve plasma inflammatory markers and HDL profiles in metabolic syndrome (MetS) under carbohydrate restriction. We further sought to determine whether egg yolk intake affects peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) inflammation and cholesterol homeostasis in MetS, as HDL and its associated lipid transporter ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) reduce the inflammatory potential of leukocytes through modulation of cellular cholesterol content and distribution. Thirty-seven men and women classified with MetS consumed a moderate carbohydrate-restricted diet (25%–30% of energy) for 12 weeks, in addition to consuming either three whole eggs per day (EGG) or the equivalent amount of yolk-free egg substitute (SUB). Interestingly, lipopolysaccharide-induced PBMC IL-1β and TNFα secretion increased from baseline to week 12 in the SUB group only, despite increases in PBMC toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) mRNA expression in the EGG group. Compared to baseline, ABCA1 and 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl (HMG)-CoA reductase mRNA expression increased by week 12 in the EGG group only, whereas changes in PBMC total cholesterol positively correlated with changes in lipid raft content. Together, these findings suggest that intake of whole eggs during carbohydrate restriction alters PBMC inflammation and cholesterol homeostasis in MetS