Computing Instanton Numbers of Curve Singularities

We present an algorithm for computing instanton numbers of curve singularities. A comparison is made between these and some other invariants of curve singularities. The algorithm has been implemented in the symbolic computer algebra program Macaulay2, and can be downloaded from http://www.math.nmsu.edu/\~{}iswanson/instanton.m2.}Comment: Revised version, several new examples have been added. To appear in J. Symbolic Computatio

Conjuring Creative Citizenship Beyond Rights

A Review of Writing and Righting: Literature in the Age of Human Rights by Lyndsey Stonebridge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 176. $25 hardcover

The Use of SM-FRET Spectroscopy to Determine Whether Cooperative Binding is Involved in the Chaperone Function of HIV-1 Nucleocapsid Protein

Human immunodeficiency virus nucleocapsid protein (HIV-1 NC) is known to have both structural and nucleic acid chaperone functions in the replication cycle of the retrovirus. As a nucleic acid chaperone, NC protein interacts with TAR RNA and TAR DNA structures during the minus-strand transfer step of reverse transcription. The aim of this study is to use single molecule florescence resonance energy transfer (SM-FRET) spectroscopy to study biotin-immobilized TAR DNA hairpins at various concentrations of NC protein. The resulting data will subsequently be used to determine whether cooperative binding occurs between the NC protein and the TAR DNA hairpins. The results of this study are inconclusive; however, refinement of the experimental technique may provide conclusive data regarding cooperative binding in NC protein-TAR DNA interactions

Opioid vs Antidepressant Efficacy in Treatment of Comorbid Chronic Pain and Depression in Older Adults: An Integrative Literature Review

Background: Complexity of treatment of older adults frequently suffering from comorbid chronic pain and depression necessitates a further understanding of how best to focus treatment for these conditions to increase functional ability, quality of life, social, physical, and emotional well-being. Nurse practitioners should be aware of how to best treat these patients. The question whether to treat the pain directly, treat the depression, or using combined treatment for both conditions is a barrier to effective treatment by clinicians. Objectives: The purpose of this research is to compare the pharmacological treatment strategies and explore their differences, similarities, and effectiveness in improving comorbid pain and depression in older adults. Method: The framework used for the integrative literature review was established by Whitmore and Knafl (2005). The databases used in the research were CINAHL, PsycInfo, and PubMed. Two separate searches were performed to obtain literature on both opioids and antidepressants in relation to pain and depression. Both literature searches were limited to full text articles, primary sources, research articles, English language, age group 65+, and publication dates 2006 through 2017. A total of seven studies were included in the analysis and met the inclusion and exclusion criteria that focused on mean age 55 or older and treatment with either an opioid or antidepressant. The inclusion of a pain and depression scale was a focus of all seven studies as well. Results: The literature demonstrated support for the use of antidepressants, duloxetine and venlafaxine, for treatment of comorbid chronic pain associated with musculoskeletal conditions, neuropathy, and arthritis in depressed older adults. The research also points to length of medication use and consistency of use as better predictors of positive outcome versus the superiority of a single antidepressant. Although the findings show transdermal opioids as safe and effective for older adults with comorbid chronic pain and depression, the use of oral opioids may actually increases rates of depression in those older adults using them for the pain. Signs of early improvement in pain and depression may be a reliable measure of progress to gauge continued response to treatment. The improvement of pain and depression occurs simultaneously but at different rates and may be affected by the cause of the chronic pain. The effective treatment of both chronic pain and depression can have other benefits such as increased functional ability, better general health, and increased quality of life. Conclusion: Both antidepressants and opioids for the treatment of chronic pain and depression present potential risks but also many benefits making them effective treatment options. Future research should be focused on the exclusive study of older adults with chronic pain and depression, single medication use without adjunct therapies, and comparison studies of antidepressants vs opioids for treatment of older adults with these conditions

Hidden memories

Using the Cottage Plantation ruins as a vehicle for investigation, this thesis demonstrates how fragments of information can be layered on each other to draw relationships between the past and present, self and space, memory and experience, architecture and nature. And, in turn, how an understanding of these relationships presents a greater perception of the self

Integration of gaze information during online language comprehension andlearning

Face-to-face communication provides access to visual information that can support language processing. But do listenersautomatically seek social information without regard to the language processing task? Here, we present two eye-trackingstudies that ask whether listeners’ knowledge of word-object links changes how they actively gather a social cue to refer-ence (eye gaze) during real-time language processing. First, when processing familiar words, children and adults did notdelay their gaze shifts to seek a disambiguating gaze cue. When processing novel words, however, children and adultsfixated longer on a speaker who provided a gaze cue, which led to an increase in looking to the named object and lesslooking to the other objects in the scene. These results suggest that listeners use their knowledge of object labels whendeciding how to allocate visual attention to social partners, which in turn changes the visual input to language processingmechanisms

Self-Talk and Handicapped Children's Academic Needs: Applications of Cognitive Behavior Modification

This article addresses the practical validity of self-instruction training as an intervention for severely handicapped children. Three issues are addressed: (I) the development of verbal strategies that are adaptable to children with knowledge deficits, (2) the effects of generalization training, and (3) the role of self-talk (verbalization) in self-instruction. Four studies that address these issues are reviewed. The remedial implications of these studies are also discussed

'Let Us Begin with a Smaller Gesture': An Ethos of Human Rights and the Possibilities of Form in Chris Abani's Song for Night and Becoming Abigail

This essay intervenes in current debates over human rights-oriented approaches to literature through a reading of Chris Abani's two novellas.  As opposed to critics who want either to embrace or unmask human rights in literature, we argue that Abani mediates between these two poles through close attention to the ways in which literary form and aesthetic can craft a shared ethos between reader and text.  In depicting the short lives of a child soldier and sex trafficked young girl, he emphasizes the limits of the law: the gap between the human subject and the legal person whose legal claims are recognizable.  At the same time, his narratives are not sentimental, and they challenge readers to extend a recognition of shared humanity across easy divides of right or wrong behavior.  If, as Abani posits, we cannot become fully human without the courage to unmask ourselves, then too the endeavor of human rights must submit to a similar unmasking (of its foundational paradoxes, its limitations, its pretentions, its complicities) precisely in order to live into, to embrace, the fuller manifestation of justice toward which it gestures.  More specifically, we examine the interplay of lyric and narrative voices within the context of the novella in order to show how Abani deploys temporal and aesthetic constructions to respond to the limits within normative human rights (legal instruments and official discourses). This delicate balance of lyric and narrative, instead of calling upon the reader's responsibility toward the human rights violations he depicts and fostering literary humanitarianism (which has been extensively critiqued as paternalistic by scholars such as Slaughter and Anker), generates a more complicated ethos of reciprocity between reader and text

Open Science Practices are on the Rise: The State of Social Science (3S) Survey

Has there been meaningful movement toward open sci-ence practices within the social sciences in recent years? Discussions about changes in practices such as posting data and pre-registering analyses have been marked by controversy—including controversy over the extent to which change has taken place. This study, based on the State of Social Science (3S) Survey, provides the first com-prehensive assessment of awareness of, attitudes towards, perceived norms regarding, and adoption of open science practices within a broadly representative sample of scholars from four major social science disciplines: economics, political science, psychology, and so-ciology. We observe a steep increase in adoption: as of 2017, over 80% of scholars had used at least one such practice, rising from one quarter a decade earlier. Attitudes toward research transpar-ency are on average similar between older and younger scholars, but the pace of change di˙ers by field and methodology. According with theories of normal science and scientific change, the timing of increases in adoption coincides with technological innovations and institutional policies. Patterns are consistent with most scholars underestimating the trend toward open science in their discipline