1,965 research outputs found
Social and Cultural Contexts of Alcohol Use: Influences in a Social-Ecological Framework.
Alcohol use and misuse account for 3.3 million deaths every year, or 6 percent of all deaths worldwide. The harmful effects of alcohol misuse are far reaching and range from individual health risks, morbidity, and mortality to consequences for family, friends, and the larger society. This article reviews a few of the cultural and social influences on alcohol use and places individual alcohol use within the contexts and environments where people live and interact. It includes a discussion of macrolevel factors, such as advertising and marketing, immigration and discrimination factors, and how neighborhoods, families, and peers influence alcohol use. Specifically, the article describes how social and cultural contexts influence alcohol use/misuse and then explores future directions for alcohol research
The FIRST Actās demand for relevance at the expense of replication puts the entire scientific enterprise at risk.
The United Statesā controversial FIRST Act would have profound implications for how social science research is managed and its funding allocated. David Takeuchi argues that even if the act doesnāt pass, it is clear that politicians are demanding more of a say in federally funded research. While a push to ensure research remains relevant can be a good thing, scientists and politicians must not forget that initial outcomes do not constitute substantive evidence. Scientific integrity and replication shouldnāt have to be sacrificed in order to meet political timeframes
Psychiatric Disorders and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the National Latino and Asian American Study
This paper investigates to what extent psychiatric disorders and mental distress affect labor market outcomes among ethnic minorities of Latino and Asian descent, most of whom are immigrants. Using data from the National Latino and Asian American Study, we examine the labor market effects of meeting diagnostic criteria for any psychiatric disorder in the past 12 months as well as the effects of psychiatric distress in the past year. Among Latinos, psychiatric disorders and mental distress are associated with detrimental effects on employment and absenteeism, similar to effects found in previous analyses of mostly white, American born populations. Among Asians, we find mixed evidence that psychiatric disorders and mental distress detract from labor market outcomes.
Early-Life Air Pollution Exposure, Neighborhood Poverty, and Childhood Asthma in the United States, 1990ā»2014.
Ambient air pollution is a well-known risk factor of various asthma-related outcomes, however, past research has often focused on acute exacerbations rather than asthma development. This study draws on a population-based, multigenerational panel dataset from the United States to assess the association of childhood asthma risk with census block-level, annual-average air pollution exposure measured during the prenatal and early postnatal periods, as well as effect modification by neighborhood poverty. Findings suggest that early-life exposures to nitrogen dioxide (NOā), a marker of traffic-related pollution, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a mixture of industrial and other pollutants, are positively associated with subsequent childhood asthma diagnosis (OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.10ā»1.41 and OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.06ā»1.46, respectively, per interquartile range (IQR) increase in each pollutant (NOā IQR = 8.51 ppb and PM2.5 IQR = 4.43 Āµ/mĀ³)). These effects are modified by early-life neighborhood poverty exposure, with no or weaker effects in moderate- and low- (versus high-) poverty areas. This work underscores the importance of a holistic, developmental approach to elucidating the interplay of social and environmental contexts that may create conditions for racial-ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in childhood asthma risk
GLB: Lifeline-based Global Load Balancing library in X10
We present GLB, a programming model and an associated implementation that can
handle a wide range of irregular paral- lel programming problems running over
large-scale distributed systems. GLB is applicable both to problems that are
easily load-balanced via static scheduling and to problems that are hard to
statically load balance. GLB hides the intricate syn- chronizations (e.g.,
inter-node communication, initialization and startup, load balancing,
termination and result collection) from the users. GLB internally uses a
version of the lifeline graph based work-stealing algorithm proposed by
Saraswat et al. Users of GLB are simply required to write several pieces of
sequential code that comply with the GLB interface. GLB then schedules and
orchestrates the parallel execution of the code correctly and efficiently at
scale. We have applied GLB to two representative benchmarks: Betweenness
Centrality (BC) and Unbalanced Tree Search (UTS). Among them, BC can be
statically load-balanced whereas UTS cannot. In either case, GLB scales well--
achieving nearly linear speedup on different computer architectures (Power,
Blue Gene/Q, and K) -- up to 16K cores
Showing Strength, Overcoming Silence: Improving the Mental Health of Men of Color
Examines the barriers faced by men of color in need of mental health care and highlights some promising approaches to provide models for larger scale state or federal reforms to improve their ability to seek and receive adequate care
Mechanical and physical characterization of composite bamboo-guadua products: Plastiguadua
The bamboo species Guadua angustifolia Kunth (Guadua) was subjected to different fibre extraction processes, chemically treated and used in combination with a set range of polymers to form various composite materials. Novel technologies and artisan methods for veneer production and fibre extraction were explored. Extensive experimental work was undertaken on the composites manufacture, mixes and arrangements to form flat sheets. Physical and mechanical properties of these sheets were assessed on two material configurations: Plastiguadua-L and Plastiguadua-P. The former was a laminated material with 70% by weight of thin veneers of Guadua and 30% thermoset polyester resin. The latter had a 1:1 ratio by weight of short fibre bundles and resin content respectively. For the mechanical characterization, bending, tensile and impact-Izod tests were undertaken. Rockwell hardness, UV, condensation and water absorption were carried out to assess their physical properties. Values obtained for the elastic properties of Plastiguadua-L were lower than those of Plastiguadua-P, whilst strength values showed the opposite response for both bending, tension and impact. Bending and tensile modulus of elasticity for the former were 3.96 GPa and 2.21 GPa respectively, and 4.61 GPa and 2.38 GPa respectively for the latter. Tensile and impact strength values obtained were 38.3 MPa and 20.73 MPa respectively for Plastiguadua-L and 157 J/m and 55 J/m respectively for Plastiguadua-P. Improved resistance to degradation was observed through the UV/condensation test on samples embedded on resin when compared to those with none or slight preservation treatments. Overall, the research project showcased a range of products manufactured by mixing different forms of Guadua fibres and mats with polymers and assessed the mechanical and physical features of two of them. The project focused on a holistic approach to the use and manufacture of bamboo products for engineering applications and as potential substitutes for wood applications
Psychiatric Disorders and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the National Comorbidity Survey - Replication
This paper uses the National Comorbidity Survey ā Replication to estimate the effects of recent psychiatric disorder on employment, hours worked, and earnings. We employ methods proposed in Altonji, Elder and Taber (2005) which use selection on observable traits to provide information regarding selection along unobservable factors. Among males, disorder is associated with reductions of 13-17 percentage points in labor force participation and employment, depending on the sample and the model. Among females, we find smaller, less consistent associations between disorder and labor force participation and employment. There are no effects of disorder on earnings or hours worked among employed individuals.
Competing protein-protein interactions regulate binding of Hsp27 to its client protein tau.
Small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) are a class of oligomeric molecular chaperones that limit protein aggregation. However, it is often not clear where sHSPs bind on their client proteins or how these protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are regulated. Here, we map the PPIs between human Hsp27 and the microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT/tau). We find that Hsp27 selectively recognizes two aggregation-prone regions of tau, using the conserved Ī²4-Ī²8 cleft of its alpha-crystallin domain. The Ī²4-Ī²8 region is also the site of Hsp27-Hsp27 interactions, suggesting that competitive PPIs may be an important regulatory paradigm. Indeed, we find that each of the individual PPIs are relatively weak and that competition for shared sites seems to control both client binding and Hsp27 oligomerization. These findings highlight the importance of multiple, competitive PPIs in the function of Hsp27 and suggest that the Ī²4-Ī²8 groove acts as a tunable sensor for clients
- ā¦