Identity Reconstruction as Shiduers: Narratives from Chinese Older Adults Who Lost Their Only Child

The purpose of this qualitative study was to illustrate how the identity of Chinese older adults who lost their only child changed after the traumatic event in the context of unique culture and policy settings. The individuals studied were 14 adults over the age of 50. Each respondent was interviewed concerning his or her post-loss experiences. Results indicated that these bereaved parents are not only deeply impacted by the loss of the most loved one, but are also stigmatized by the culture and victimized by the one-child policy. The collective identity as shiduer is defined not only by personal grief but also by cultural uniqueness and the unintended consequences of the one-child policy

The impact of owner age on companionship with virtual pets

This paper focuses on issues of interaction with a particular type of mobile information system – virtual pets. It examines the impact of owner age on companionship with virtual pets, and tests the hypothesis that younger virtual pet owners will experience closer companionship with their virtual pet than older owners. This is in response to the marketing stance adopted by virtual pet manufacturers who clearly target younger people as the main consumers of their products. The hypothesis was tested using survey data and companionship was measured using the Comfort from Companion Animals Scale. Support was found for the hypothesis at all definitions of young: there is a highly significant difference between the companionship offered by a virtual pet to young people than that offered to older people. Although this finding generally indicates that virtual pets offer more, in terms of emotional-engagement, to younger people than older people we suggest that much more research in this area is needed in order to better understand the phenomenal commercial success of virtual pets. In addition, there is an abundance of literature examining the benefits of owning real pets. It is possible that a virtual pet might be able to deliver some of these, and given our result, it is likely that virtual pets will be more likely to bring these benefits to young people rather than to old peopl

The distribution of chlorophyll in the western Indian Ocean during the northeast monsoon period, February 13-July 16, 1965

This report contains the observations of phytoplankton pigment characteristics made during ATLANTIS II Cruise No. 15 in the western Indian Ocean and its reaches during the period of February 13 through July 16, 1965. As pointed out in a previous report for this region (Laird et al., 1964), the observations should by no means be considered synoptic since short-term variation will occur in biological measurements. The value of the present observations is greatly enhanced by the fact that they repeat and extend the previous data from ATLANTIS II Cruise No. 8 for the area, but are taken at the opposite period of the year for all regions. The data permit only a first approximation of the relative fertility in the area, yet the seasonal contrast becomes an important consideration in the analysis and interpretation of the data. It is believed that this represents the first such large-scale survey for Indian Ocean waters.The National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-GP 82

Does State Policy Help or Hurt the Dropout Problem in California?

Examines the scope and causes of California's dropout problem, and assesses whether some state policies unintentionally drive students out of schools. Proposes a comprehensive policy framework focused on effectively serving at-risk students

“Our Only Child Has Died” – A Study of Bereaved Older Chinese Parents

Long and complicated grief is a relevant factor contributing to the deterioration of the older adults’ later life quality. In China, the unintentional consequence of the one child policy has emerged. There, the group of older adults who lost their only child is called shiduers. The current study compared 42 older adults who lost their only child to 33 older adults who have a child, in term of their physical and mental health, and social support. The results confirmed the general deteriorating trend in those aspects of the bereaved Chinese parents’ life after their only child’s death. The results also revealed the impairments on the shiduers’ physical, mental, and social aspects were significant, compared to the clinical diagnosis cutoff points used in Western countries. Unique policy and cultural characteristics are the main factors contributing to the severe impairment of shiduers. Results have implications for policy advocacy and practice intervention in specific cultural environments

Factoring Safe Semiprimes with a Single Quantum Query

Shor's factoring algorithm (SFA), by its ability to efficiently factor large numbers, has the potential to undermine contemporary encryption. At its heart is a process called order finding, which quantum mechanics lets us perform efficiently. SFA thus consists of a \emph{quantum order finding algorithm} (QOFA), bookended by classical routines which, given the order, return the factors. But, with probability up to $1/2$, these classical routines fail, and QOFA must be rerun. We modify these routines using elementary results in number theory, improving the likelihood that they return the factors. The resulting quantum factoring algorithm is better than SFA at factoring safe semiprimes, an important class of numbers used in cryptography. With just one call to QOFA, our algorithm almost always factors safe semiprimes. As well as a speed-up, improving efficiency gives our algorithm other, practical advantages: unlike SFA, it does not need a randomly picked input, making it simpler to construct in the lab; and in the (unlikely) case of failure, the same circuit can be rerun, without modification. We consider generalizing this result to other cases, although we do not find a simple extension, and conclude that SFA is still the best algorithm for general numbers (non safe semiprimes, in other words). Even so, we present some simple number theoretic tricks for improving SFA in this case.Comment: v2 : Typo correction and rewriting for improved clarity v3 : Slight expansion, for improved clarit

Methods of Accelerating the Removal of Moisture from Duckweed and their effect on the Crude Protein Content

The two major objectives were to investigate methods for drying duckweed and to determine the effect of the methods on the crude protein content of the plant. The drying methods were oven drying, sun drying, pressing with heat, pressing without heat, pressing combined with oven drying, parboiling combined with oven drying and drying in a spouted bed. A series of drying curves were developed for each drying method. Due to the high moisture content of duckweed (92.9 to 94.0% wet basis), the drying curves exhibited a long constant rate drying period as opposed to grain crops and hay. Equations were developed for each set of curves in the form F = 1-bT Where: F = fraction of water remaining in the sample T = drying time in hours b = drying coefficient In the oven drying, the duckweed was exposed to temperatures of 80, 100, 120 and 140°C. At 120°C and above, the samples exhibited a burned appearance. The samples dried in the sun generally took 11/2 times to 3 times as long to dry as in the oven with the same depth. Parboiling prior to oven drying increased the initial moisture by 0.9% but reduced the drying time. Samples were pressed at 60, 125 and 250 psi and then oven dried. These samples took less time to dry than oven dried samples at the same depth. The samples pressed at higher pressures turned darker green as the pressure was increased. Duckweed was also dried in a spouted bed apparatus at 27 and 50°C. This method took less time to dry the duckweed than any other drying method investigated in this study. The crude protein content of the samples was determined by a standard Kjeldahl analysis. A statistical analysis was then made on the results. Two analyses of variance were made: (1) to compare the oven dried samples to the untreated samples and (2) to compare all other methods to one another. In the second analysis the samples pressed at 780 to 7,810 psi were not included since it was obvious from visual observation that the crude protein contents were significantly decreased by pressing. Pressing at high pressures reduced the crude protein by 66 to 71%

Advances in data-driven research methodology for precision public health

The rise of precision medicine has ushered in manifold opportunities and challenges, many of them linked. For instance: precision medicine offers an avenue to revisit assumption-rich, knowledge-driven research practices, but requires careful and creative thinking to replace them. In this manuscript, we turn our attention to three such areas of interest: subgroup determination, modeling of dynamical systems, and accounting for measurement error. In each case, we construct a statistical and machine learning framework for the problem at hand, develop methodology to address it, and present theoretical and numerical justifications for the methodology. In the first chapter, we develop a data-driven method for subgroup determination in a clinical trial of treatment or intervention, where subgroups are based on predicted efficacy of treatment and not based on a limited number of a priori-specified markers. The proposed subgroup determination method is illustrated in a trial of a lifestyle intervention in type 1 diabetes, where we use it to determine subgroups who are expected to benefit from intervention and from control conditions. In the second chapter, we formulate a fully nonparametric stochastic differential equation model that performs model selection for factors affecting both the mean and variability of a dynamic process. The model is applied to data arising from a type 1 diabetes trial. In the third chapter, we turn our attention to developing model-agnostic influence statistics to assess the impact of observations' mismeasurement on analysis results. This method is illustrated in detail in three different settings, one of which is a study of water quality with a complex mechanism of measurement error.Doctor of Philosoph

Demonstrating genuine multipartite entanglement and nonseparability without shared reference frames

Multipartite nonlocality is of great fundamental interest and constitutes a useful resource for many quantum information protocols. However, demonstrating it in practice, by violating a Bell inequality, can be difficult. In particular, standard experimental setups require the alignment of distant parties' reference frames, which can be challenging or impossible in practice. In this work we study the violation of certain Bell inequalities, namely the Mermin, Mermin-Klyshko and Svetlichny inequalities, without shared reference frames, when parties share a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state. Furthermore, we analyse how these violations demonstrate genuine multipartite features of entanglement and nonlocality. For 3, 4 and 5 parties, we show that it is possible to violate these inequalities with high probability, when the parties choose their measurements from the three Pauli operators, defined only with respect to their local frames. Moreover, the probability of violation, and the amount of violation, are increased when each party chooses their measurements from the four operators describing the vertices of a tetrahedron. We also consider how many randomly chosen measurement directions are needed to violate the Bell inequalities with high probability. We see that the obtained levels of violation are sufficient to also demonstrate genuine multipartite entanglement and nonseparability. Finally, we show analytically that choosing from two measurement settings per party is sufficient to demonstrate the maximum degree of genuine multipartite entanglement and nonseparability with certainty when the parties' reference frames are aligned in one direction so that they differ only in rotations around one axis