Education matters: cumulative advantages and disadvantages amongst Portuguese older men

Our paper sought to analyse the influence of the educational background over various dimensions of the lives of Portuguese older men (age 60+) across the life course. Drawing on the theory of cumulative advantages and disadvantages we used biographical research, namely narrative interviews with men from different educational background: men with a very low educational background and men with a medium/high educational background. Our results show the influence of educational background in the life course, and how it can contribute to accumulation of advantages/disadvantages that explain their biographies and the very different situations in which they live today.Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT): project UID/SOC/04020/2013info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Measuring the predictability of life outcomes with a scientific mass collaboration.

How predictable are life trajectories? We investigated this question with a scientific mass collaboration using the common task method; 160 teams built predictive models for six life outcomes using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a high-quality birth cohort study. Despite using a rich dataset and applying machine-learning methods optimized for prediction, the best predictions were not very accurate and were only slightly better than those from a simple benchmark model. Within each outcome, prediction error was strongly associated with the family being predicted and weakly associated with the technique used to generate the prediction. Overall, these results suggest practical limits to the predictability of life outcomes in some settings and illustrate the value of mass collaborations in the social sciences

Applications of Magnetic Resonance to Current Detection and Microscale Flow Imaging

Magnetic resonance has evolved into a remarkably versatile technique, with major applications in chemical analysis, molecular biology, and medical imaging. Despite these successes, there are a large number of areas where magnetic resonance has the potential to provide great insight but has run into significant obstacles in its application. The projects described in this thesis focus on two of these areas. First, I describe the development and implementation of a robust imaging method which can directly detect the effects of oscillating electrical currents. This work is particularly relevant in the context of neuronal current detection, and bypasses many of the limitations of previously developed techniques. The approach rests on a resonant interaction between an applied radiofrequency field and an oscillating magnetic field in the sample and, as such, permits quantitative, frequency-selective measurements of current density with sensitivity near the threshold required for the detection of neuronal currents. The second part of this thesis focuses on novel methodology and applications for remotely detected magnetic resonance. Remote detection separates the encoding and detection steps of a traditional magnetic resonance experiment in both time and space, allowing for high-resolution time-of-flight imaging of very small volumes of flowing nuclei. Following a discussion of the recent developments in methodology and hardware design, I present a series of remotely detected imaging experiments within microporous bead packs and organic polymer monoliths. These techniques allow for the acquisition of high-resolution images which correlate velocity, spin relaxation, and time-of-flight in previously inaccessible microscale systems

Does Participating in a Long-Term Cohort Study Impact Research Subjects’ Longevity? Experimental Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study

There is considerable evidence that the act of participating in a survey can alter participants' attitudes, behaviors, and other outcomes in meaningful ways. Considering findings that this form of panel conditioning also impacts health behaviors and outcomes, we investigated the effect of participating in an intensive half-century-long cohort study on participants’ longevity. To do so, we used data from a 1957 survey of more than 33,000 Wisconsin high school seniors linked to mortality records. One third of those people were selected at random to participate in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS); the other two thirds were never again contacted. Our survival models show no evidence of panel conditioning effects on longevity: People selected at random to participate in the WLS had the same mortality outcomes as their peers who were not selected. This finding holds for the full sample, for women, for men, for population subgroups defined by family socioeconomic origins and educational experiences, and for treatment compliers

Electronic Excited States of Tetracyanonickelate(II)

We revisit the assignment of the absorption spectrum of tetracyanonickelate(II) by calculating energies of excitations with time-dependent density functional theory. Our results give strong evidence that the original assignment of the spectrum is only partially correct. We thus propose an alternative assignment consistent with our theoretical calculations and all available experimental evidence. In particular, we reassign the bands at 22 400 and 32 300 cm-1 to the ^1A_(1g) → ^3A_(2g) (b_(2g) → b_(1g)) and ^1A_(1g) → ^1A_(2g) (b_(2g) → b_(1g)) excitations