The Political Economy of State-level Emergency Unemployment Relief: The Case of the New York TERA, 1931-37

Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt created The New York State Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA) in response to the Great Depression. Operating from 1931-37, this state-level jobs-and-income style policy featured comprehensive in-kind assistance, “home relief,” and emergency unemployment relief, “work relief.” Though the program is fascinating just in this respect, it has been systematically overshadowed by the alphabet soup of New Deal era relief policies. We revisit the TERA to shed light on what it offered to the people of NY and, overall, what it offered to the economy. We find significant evidence that the program stabilized the State economy by reducing unemployment and generating private sector job creation through the multiplier-accelerator effect

Direct NN-body simulations of globular clusters - II. Palomar 4

We use direct $N$-body calculations to study the evolution of the unusually extended outer halo globular cluster Palomar 4 (Pal~4) over its entire lifetime in order to reproduce its observed mass, half-light radius, velocity dispersion and mass function slope at different radii. We find that models evolving on circular orbits, and starting from a non-mass segregated, canonical initial mass function (IMF) can reproduce neither Pal 4's overall mass function slope nor the observed amount of mass segregation. Including either primordial mass segregation or initially flattened IMFs does not reproduce the observed amount of mass segregation and mass function flattening simultaneously. Unresolved binaries cannot reconcile this discrepancy either. We find that only models with both a flattened IMF and primordial segregation are able to fit the observations. The initial (i.e. after gas expulsion) mass and half-mass radius of Pal~4 in this case are about 57000 M${\odot}$ and 10 pc, respectively. This configuration is more extended than most globular clusters we observe, showing that the conditions under which Pal~4 formed must have been significantly different from that of the majority of globular clusters. We discuss possible scenarios for such an unusual configuration of Pal~4 in its early years.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 1 tabl

Line-Shaped Illumination: A Promising Configuration for a Flexible Two-Photon Microscopy Setup

An innovative two-photon microscope exploiting a line-shaped illumination has been recently devised and then implemented. Such configuration allows to carry out a real-time detection by means of standard CCD cameras and is able to maintain the same resolution as commonly used point-scanning devices, thus overcoming what is usually regarded as the main limitation of linescanning microscopes. Here, we provide an overview of the applications in which this device has been tested and has proved to be a flexible and efficient tool, namely imaging of biological samples, in-depth sample reconstruction, two-photon spectra detection, and dye cross-section measurements. These results demonstrate that the considered setup is promising for future developments in many areas of research and applications

Temporal afterglow between two pulses of repetitively pulsed argon-acetylene plasma:measuring electron and negatively charged species densities

The temporal afterglow between two pulses of a repetitively pulsed radio-frequency driven low-pressure argon-acetylene plasma is experimentally explored using laser-induced photodetachment combined with microwave cavity resonance spectroscopy. The densities of electrons and negatively charged species, i.e. anions and dust particles, are measured temporally resolved until 1.9 s in the temporal plasma afterglow. Two different plasma-on times are adjusted to investigate the dynamics of anions and dust particles in the afterglow phase. The measurements show that while electrons decay rapidly within the first few milliseconds of the afterglow phase, the negatively charged species reside much longer in the plasma after the plasma is switched off. The electron density decay is measured to be faster for a longer plasma-on time. This effect is attributed to an enhanced recombination rate due to a higher dust particle density and/or size. The density of negatively charged species decays within two different timescales. The first 20 milliseconds of the afterglow is marked with a rapid decay in the negatively charged species density, in contrast with their slow density decay in the second time scale. Moreover, a residual of the negatively charged species densities is detected as long as 1.9 s after extinguishing the plasma.</p

A student perspective on the use of motivational strategies by their English-language literature instructors in an Omani University

Motivation has been recognized as one of the most influential factors in language learning. This study examines the frequency of use of motivational strategies by English-language literature instructors at the tertiary level in Oman as viewed by their students. A previous study [1] focused on teachers’ views of the frequency and importance of 48 motivational microstrategies, divided into 10 macrostrategies, in the Omani classroom. Findings indicate that teachers regarded all strategies as important while the degree of importance assigned to them correlated well with frequency of use. As that study involved only teacher participants, the current research utilized a modified version of its questionnaire to explore the frequency with which 65 Omani English-language literature learners believe these motivational strategies are employed by their instructors. Results suggest that participants believe their instructors often employ five of the featured macrostrategies. These include promoting self-confidence, creating a pleasant classroom environment, and making learning tasks engaging. However, the remaining five macrostrategies, such as promoting building group cohesiveness and familiarizing learners with L2 values, were rarely employed. These findings are compared to those from the previous study before a number of implications for motivating learners in Omani classrooms are offered

Study of Dialectical Behavior Therapy Versus Cognitive Behavior Therapy on Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness in Patients with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Although the effectiveness of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) has not been addressed to date, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is the gold-standard psychotherapy for GAD patients. The present study investigated effects of DBT versus CBT on emotion regulation and mindfulness in GAD patients. Conducted in Iran, 68 GAD patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: CBT or DBT. Assessment was performed at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and at 3 months follow-up. Evaluation included the Generalized Anxiety Disorder scale (GAD-7), Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders (SCID-I), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Results of the present study showed that both groups had lower scores in depression, anxiety, and emotion dysregulation and higher scores in mindfulness after the interventions, and at follow-up. During the study period, the CBT group experienced greater reductions than the DBT group in symptoms of depression and anxiety, while the DBT group experienced greater improvements than the CBT group in emotion regulation and mindfulness. Findings seem to warrant the conclusion that, although CBT reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety more than DBT, DBT was more effective in improving emotion regulation and mindfulness than CBT. Findings of the study are of significance for psychotherapy and future studies of these treatments. © 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems

Imitation learning enables high-fidelity, vision-based learning of policies within rich, photorealistic environments. However, such techniques often rely on traditional discrete-time neural models and face difficulties in generalizing to domain shifts by failing to account for the causal relationships between the agent and the environment. In this paper, we propose a theoretical and experimental framework for learning causal representations using continuous-time neural networks, specifically over their discrete-time counterparts. We evaluate our method in the context of visual-control learning of drones over a series of complex tasks, ranging from short- and long-term navigation, to chasing static and dynamic objects through photorealistic environments. Our results demonstrate that causal continuous-time deep models can perform robust navigation tasks, where advanced recurrent models fail. These models learn complex causal control representations directly from raw visual inputs and scale to solve a variety of tasks using imitation learning

Mucociliary clearance in COPD can be increased by both a D2/β2 and a standard β2 agonists

SummaryIn addition to breathlessness and cough, excessive mucus production is one of the main symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Excess mucus coupled with deteriorating mucociliary clearance is associated with a decline in lung function and an increased risk of death from pulmonary infection. The effect of ViozanTM (Sibenadet HCI, AR-C68397AA), a novel dual D2 dopamine receptor, β2-adrenoceptor agonist, on mucociliary clearance was investigated together with that of a β2-adrenoceptor agonist, salbutamol. Using a double blind, parallel group study design, 15 patients with COPD, all habitual smokers, were randomised to receive nebulised sidenadet (3mg tid; n=7) or salbutamol (5mg tid; n=8) for 10 days. Lung mucociliary clearance rates were measured, by a standard radioaerosol technique, before and after the treatment period, as were 24-h sputum volumes. Both sibenadet and salbutamol therapies resulted in significant (P<0.02) enhancement of lung mucociliary clearance. The 24-h sputum volume was significantly reduced following sibenadet therapy (P<0.03) whereas salbutamol therapy had no effect. Our results, in addition to illustrating the effects of a standard β2 agonist on mucociliary clearance, strongly suggest the potential dual benefit of dual-agonist compounds in lessening sputum production whilst simultaneously enhancing mucociliary clearance. For reasons unconnected with the present study, development work on this specific formulation is no longer proceeding

Fabrication, swelling, and biological properties of surface-patterned hydrogels based on poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)

Hydrogels are networks of hydrophilic polymers which can retain large amounts of water. Poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) [poly(HEMA)] is a synthetic hydrogel well known for various biomedical applications due to excellent biocompatibility, high retention of water, and high mechanical and chemical stability, but, has limited applications in tissue engineering because of low cell-adhesion properties. Patterning surfaces of hydrogels with microscale features changes the surface properties and enables the regulation of functions of cultured cells. However, generating patterns of intricate microstructures onto the hydrogel surfaces remains challenging. In this work, arrays of micropillars were successfully patterned onto a hydrogel based on 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate by using soft lithography technique. The self-delamination of the hydrogel induced by swelling in solvents such as phosphate buffered saline, deionized water, 60% ethanol, and absolute ethanol facilitated the reproducible replication of the pattern. The swelling, mechanical properties, and structural parameters of the hydrogel were studied in detail. The biological properties of the hydrogel were evaluated using HeLa cells and human mesenchymal stem cells. It was revealed that the attachment of cells on the intrinsically non-adhesive hydrogel was enhanced by the micropillars. As well, the stem cells tend to form aggregates on the hydrogel and the size and number of cell aggregates can be tuned by changing the height of the micropillars. The fabricated material was not cytotoxic and did not inhibit the chondrogenic and adipogenic differentiation of stem cells at the composition used in synthesis