Positive parenting as a moderator for reducing depression in inner-city children exposed to contextual risk factors? A longitudinal multilevel analysis of a family-based intervention program.

Depression in inner-city children is a serious social problem. Given the existing evidence supporting the links among neighborhood conditions, family functioning, parenting, and child outcome, this study expands the examination of the relationship among contextual factors and child depression from a longitudinal developmental perspective. This study also aims to examine how positive parenting as a protective factor moderates the effect of contextual risk factors on child depression in a sample of low-income, inner-city families. This present study used the secondary data from the Schools and Families Educating (SAFE) Children study (aka SAFE Children Project) with is a longitudinal panel study with randomized controlled trial of a family-based preventive intervention on children from Chicago’s inner-city neighborhoods. This project started in 1997 with 424 first-grade students and their primary caregivers receiving the intervention treatment or being assigned to control group. Subsamples for this present study were selected from waves 1 to 9 datasets, including related instruments and demographic information. The selected sample at Wave 1 consisted of 47.6% Mexican American children (n=201), 42.5% African American children (41), and 9.7% other Hispanic or Anglo-White American children (n=41). Out of 49% were male children, while 51% were female children. Two studies were conducted using the SAFE Children project dataset. The first study focused on exploring the effects of major study variables on child depression using wave 1 through wave 5 datasets of the SAFE Children project. The second study focused on exploring the effects on child depression of major study variables using Wave 6 to Wave 9 datasets. This dissertation has employed the multilevel analysis to examine predictors of children’s depression using parental reports. The finding has indicated that the developmental trajectory of child depression is not linear, as evidenced by a significant negative quadratic effect from wave 1 to 5, but the trajectory decreased from wave 6 to 9. No difference was found between treatment status and child depression in Study one, but in Study two, the booster group showed lower levels of depression than the treatment and control groups. Across the nine waves, increases in parental depression were found to contribute to the development of children’s depression. Higher levels of positive parenting led to lower depressive symptoms in children age 6-8 but seemed to be an emerging trend in association with decreased levels of child depression in children age 9-12. Results of this dissertation study did not confirm that positive parenting buffered the effects on child depression of contextual risk factors, including low family cohesion communication, negative school climate, and negative neighborhood conditions over the years. Lastly, implications for future practice, policy, and research are discussed

Spectral Deferred Correction Method for Landau-Brazovskii Model with Convex Splitting Technique

The Landau-Brazovskii model is a well-known Landau model for finding the complex phase structures in microphase-separating systems ranging from block copolymers to liquid crystals. It is critical to design efficient numerical schemes for the Landau-Brazovskii model with energy dissipation and mass conservation properties. Here, we propose a mass conservative and energy stable scheme by combining the spectral deferred correction (SDC) method with the convex splitting technique to solve the Landau-Brazovskii model efficiently. An adaptive correction strategy for the SDC method is implemented to reduce the cost time and preserve energy stability. Numerical experiments, including two- and three-dimensional periodic crystals in the Landau-Brazovskii model, are presented to show the efficiency of the proposed numerical method.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Private Equity Firms\u27 Reputational Concerns and the Costs of Debt Financing

A popular view is that private equity (PE) firms tend to expropriate other stakeholders of their portfolio companies. Bonds offered during 1992-2011 by companies after their initial public offerings (IPOs) do not reflect this view. We find that yield spreads on bonds offered by PE-backed companies are on average 70 basis points lower, holding other things constant. We also find that PE-backed companies have more conservative investment and dividend policies after bond offerings compared to non-PE-backed companies. These results suggest that PE firms’ reputational concerns dominate their wealth expropriation incentives and help their portfolio companies reduce the costs of debt

Optimal concentration of ropivacaine for brachial plexus blocks in adult patients undergoing upper limb surgeries: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Aim of the Study: Brachial plexus block (BPB) is widely used for patients undergoing upper limb surgeries. Ropivacaine is the most commonly used local anesthetic for BPB. This study aimed to identify the optimal ropivacaine concentration for BPB in adult patients undergoing upper limb surgeries.Materials and Methods: PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were searched to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared the effects of different concentrations of ropivacaine for BPB in adult patients undergoing upper limb surgeries. The primary outcomes were the onset time of sensory and motor block. RevMan 5.4 software was used for analysis. The GRADE approach was used to assess evidence quality.Results: Nine studies involving 504 patients were included. Compared to 0.5% ropivacaine, 0.75% ropivacaine shortened the onset time of sensory (WMD, −2.54; 95% CI; −4.84 to −0.24; <0.0001, moderate quality of evidence) and motor blockade (WMD, −2.46; 95% CI, −4.26 to −0.66; p = 0.01; moderate quality of evidence). However, 0.5% and 0.75% ropivacaine provided similar duration time of sensory (WMD, −0.07; 95% CI, −0.88 to 0.74; p = 0.81; high quality of evidence) and motor blockade (WMD, −0.24; 95% CI, −1.12 to 0.65; p = 0.55; high quality of evidence), as well as time to first request for oral analgesia (WMD, −1.57; 95% CI, −3.14 to 0.01; p = 0.5; moderate quality of evidence).Conclusion: Moderate-quality evidence suggested that, in terms of the onset time of sensory and motor blockade, 0.75% ropivacaine is a preferred concentration for BPB in upper limb surgeries.Systematic Review Registration: identifier CRD42023392145

Integrated molecular diode as 10 MHz half-wave rectifier based on an organic nanostructure heterojunction

Considerable efforts have been made to realize nanoscale diodes based on single molecules or molecular ensembles for implementing the concept of molecular electronics. However, so far, functional molecular diodes have only been demonstrated in the very low alternating current frequency regime, which is partially due to their extremely low conductance and the poor degree of device integration. Here, we report about fully integrated rectifiers with microtubular soft-contacts, which are based on a molecularly thin organic heterojunction and are able to convert alternating current with a frequency of up to 10 MHz. The unidirectional current behavior of our devices originates mainly from the intrinsically different surfaces of the bottom planar and top microtubular Au electrodes while the excellent high frequency response benefits from the charge accumulation in the phthalocyanine molecular heterojunction, which not only improves the charge injection but also increases the carrier density

Double Twist in Helical Polymer Soft Crystals

In natural and synthetic materials having non-racemic chiral centers, chirality and structural ordering each play a distinct role in the formation of ordered states. Configurational chirality can be extended to morphological chirality when the phase, structures possess low liquid crystalline order. In the crystalline states the crystallization process suppresses the chiral helical morphology due to strong ordering interactions, In this Letter, we report the first observation of helical single lamellar crystals of synthetic non-racemic chiral polymers. Experimental evidence shows that the molecular chains twist along both the long and short axes of the helical lamellar crystals, which is the first time a double-twist molecular orientation in a helical crystal has been observed

Managing Underwriters and the Marketing of Seasoned Equity Offerings

Using a sample of 2,281 SEOs from 1995-2004, we show that the marketing of securities is important to issuers. The number of managing underwriters for an SEO is negatively related to the offer price discount, especially when the relative offer size is large and the stock return volatility is high. Larger investor networks of co-managing underwriters also lower offer price discounts. We argue that the evidence is supportive of the marketing hypothesis - the underwriters\u27 marketing efforts can lower the offer price discount by shifting up and flattening the demand curve of an SEO