Taiwanese Adolescent Psychosocial Development in Urban and Rural Areas

The purpose of this study was to investigate Taiwanese adolescent psychosocial development (i.e., autonomy and identity development) based on psychosocial theoretical models developed in western societies. Data were collected from both public senior high and vocational high schools in both urban and rural areas in Taiwan. Adolescent participants, with an average age of 17 years old, included 447 (about 54% were females) from urban areas, and 702 (62% were females) from rural areas. The results of this study revealed that Taiwanese adolescents from both urban and rural areas were similar to adolescent developmental ranges suggested in western theories. There were a few variations revealed in this study, such as scores of internal consistency, average scores of each scale, associations among indicators, and the numbers of youth classified of certain developmental status. In general, the relationships between factors and adolescent psychosocial developmental outcomes did not moderate by regional differences. Identity development of Taiwanese youth from both areas was more likely to be predicted by both situational (e.g., family income and school type) and agential factors (e.g., collectivism, parent attachment, and resiliency) than Taiwanese adolescent cognitive, emotional, and behavioral autonomy. Higher family income level and greater resiliency scores were positively associated with high autonomy and/or achieved identity status. Strong beliefs in collectivism and secure attachments with parents did not significantly correlate with autonomy but did correlate with foreclosure identity status. Across the analysis models in this study, resiliency was the strongest factor which was associated with high autonomous status and identity achievement. Implications and further recommendations for research and practical uses were further discussed

A Parametric Study of Piled Raft Foundation in Clay Subjected to Concentrated Loading

The use of piled raft foundation in building and infrastructure constructions is increasingly popular because of its effectiveness in reducing overall and differential settlements. Parameters influencing the performance of the piled raft foundation need to be comprehended in order to optimize the design of the piled raft system. Most of the current available literature focused on the piled raft foundation subjected to a uniform distributed load in sandy material.  This parametric study aims to provide insights into the performance of the piled raft foundations subjected to concentrated loading in clay. A series of 2D finite element analyses were performed to investigate the influencing parameters affecting the load distribution and settlement behaviour of the piled raft. The results suggested that increases in both pile length and raft thickness, as well as a decrease in pile spacing would reduce the differential settlement of the piled raft. Comparatively, raft thickness was the most significant controlling parameter affecting the differential settlement. The study also revealed the importance of placing the pile nearer to the location of concentrated load as it would yield a more uniform load distribution, and hence a lower differential settlement

Invariance Principles and Observability in Switched Systems with an Application in Consensus

Using any nonnegative function with a nonpositive derivative along trajectories to define a virtual output, the classic LaSalle invariance principle can be extended to switched nonlinear time-varying (NLTV) systems, by considering the weak observability (WO) associated with this output. WO is what the output informs about the limiting behavior of state trajectories (hidden in the zero locus of the output). In the context of switched NLTV systems, WO can be explored using the recently established framework of limiting zeroing-output solutions. Adding to this, an extension of the integral invariance principle for switched NLTV systems with a new method to guarantee uniform global attractivity of a closed set (without assuming uniform Lyapunov stability or dwell-time conditions) is proposed. By way of illustrating the proposed method, a leaderless consensus problem for nonholonomic mobile robots with a switching communication topology is addressed, yielding a new control strategy and a new convergence result

Prevalence and correlates of vaccine attitudes and behaviors in a cohort of low-income mothers

The US is facing a rise in vaccine hesitancy, delay, and refusal, though little is known about these outcomes in socio-economically disadvantaged populations. This study examines the prevalence and correlates of vaccine attitudes and behaviors in a diverse cohort of low-income mothers receiving home visiting services. Survey data were collected from 813 recipients of evidence-based home visiting services in Wisconsin from 2013 to 2018. Analyses were performed to describe outcome measures of vaccine attitudes and self-reported completion, and multivariate regressions were used to test associations between vaccine-related outcomes and hypothesized correlates. Most women (94%) reported their children were up to date on vaccines; 14.3% reported having ever delayed vaccination. A small minority disagreed that vaccines are important (5.0%), effective (5.4%), and safe (6.2%), though a larger proportion responded ambivalently (10.9%–21.9%). Participants with greater trust in health care providers reported more positive overall vaccine attitudes (B = 0.24; 95% CI = 0.17, 0.31), a lower likelihood of vaccine delay (OR = 0.57; 95% CI = 0.46, 0.73), and a greater likelihood of being up to date on vaccines (OR = 1.79, 95% CI = 1.30, 2.44). Women with greater trust in a home visitor also rated vaccines more positively (B = 0.09; 95% CI = 0.02, 0.15), and women who reported better mental health were more likely to report their children were up to date (OR = 1.05; 95% CI = 1.02, 1.09). Compared to non-Hispanic whites, American Indians and non-Hispanic blacks had poorer vaccine-related outcomes. More research on vaccine attitudes and behaviors among higher-risk populations is needed to develop tailored strategies aimed at addressing vaccine hesitancy and underimmunization

Core-shell versus inert polymer grafted adsorbents for the negative chromatography of virus-like particle

Core-shell and polymer grafted adsorbents are new generation media developed for the separation of virus-like particle (VLP) in a negative chromatography. The inert shell and grafted polymer chain are designed to exclude the big biomolecules such as VLP from adsorbing onto the ligands situated on the surface of the adsorbents. Meanwhile, these exclusion layers should be permeable for the smaller impurities which will be adsorbed by the ligands to prevent its presence in the flowthrough fractions. In this study, the performance of these negative chromatography media were compared in the purification of recombinant hepatitis B VLPs (HB-VLPs) from clarified E. coli feedstock. The core-shell adsorbents with different shell thickness (InertShell and InertLayer 1000) and poly[(ethylene glycol) methacrylate] grafted adsorbents (SQ) were studied in a packed bed mode. SQ adsorbed more impurities, thus achieving a higher purity in flowthrough while core-shell adsorbents recovered more HB-VLPs and recorded nearly 100% recovery in InertShell. This suggests the shielding effect of the core shell layer is higher than the inert polymer chain. For core-shell adsorbents, there was a trade-off between the purity and recovery of flow-through HB-VLPs due to the shell thickness. A thicker shell allows more HB-VLP exclusion but less impurities adsorption. Prolonging the residence time of the negative chromatography only resulted in a slight improvement in the impurities adsorption in all adsorbents, but the recovery of HB-VLPs in InertShell was reduced substantially. Atomic force microscopic (AFM) analysis revealed funnel-shaped pore channels on the shell layer which may contribute to the entrapment of HB-VLPs on core-shell adsorbents, thus decreasing the HB-VLP recovery. Overall, SQ performed better than the core-shell adsorbents in handling feedstock with high concentration

Girdling improved berry coloration in summer but suppressed return growth in the following spring in 'Kyoho' grapevines cultivated in the subtropical double cropping system

Improving berry skin coloration is one of the major challenges in the tropical and subtropical viticulture. In this paper we aimed to document the effects of girdling at veraison on berry coloration and quality in grapevines on different rootstocks and we assessed the seasonal variations of girdling effects in the subtropical double cropping system. In the first experiment, gird-ling at veraison was tested in 'Kyoho' on 5C rootstocks. In the second experiment, own-rooted 'Kyoho', 5C or 1202C rootstocks were compared. Vines were trained to a horizontal overhead trellis with a single trunk and two short arms. One arm of each vine was girdled at veraison and the other arm served as the control. Girdling at veraison significantly improved skin color of berries from own-rooted vines or 5C rootstocks in the summer cropping cycle but was less effective in the winter cropping cycle. Girdling improved total soluble solids in own-rooted vines in the summer cropping cycle and in vines on 1202C in the winter cropping cycle. Girdling made in the winter cropping cycle did not completely heal until post-bloom in the following spring and reduced length of the fruiting shoot, number of leaves per shoot, and length of inflorescences of the next summer cropping cycle. We concluded that girdling at veraison is a good practice to improve berry color and quality for the summer cropping cycle but is not recommended for the winter cropping cycle