The challenge of parenting girls in neighborhoods of different perceived quality

It is well-known that disadvantaged neighborhoods, as officially identified through census data, harbor higher numbers of delinquent individuals than advantaged neighborhoods. What is much less known is whether parents’ perception of the neighborhood problems predicts low parental engagement with their girls and, ultimately, how this is related to girls’ delinquency, including violence. This paper elucidates these issues by examining data from the Pittsburgh Girls Study, including parent-report of neighborhood problems and level of parental engagement and official records and girl-reported delinquency at ages 15, 16, and 17. Results showed higher stability over time for neighborhood problems and parental engagement than girls’ delinquency. Parents’ perception of their neighborhood affected the extent to which parents engaged in their girls’ lives, but low parental engagement did not predict girls being charged for offending at age 15, 16 or 17. These results were largely replicated for girls’ self-reported delinquency with the exception that low parental engagement at age 16 was predictive of the frequency of girls’ self-reported delinquency at age 17 as well. The results, because of their implications for screening and early interventions, are relevant to policy makers as well as practitioners

On chains in HH-closed topological pospaces

We study chains in an $H$-closed topological partially ordered space. We give sufficient conditions for a maximal chain $L$ in an $H$-closed topological partially ordered space such that $L$ contains a maximal (minimal) element. Also we give sufficient conditions for a linearly ordered topological partially ordered space to be $H$-closed. We prove that any $H$-closed topological semilattice contains a zero. We show that a linearly ordered $H$-closed topological semilattice is an $H$-closed topological pospace and show that in the general case this is not true. We construct an example an $H$-closed topological pospace with a non-$H$-closed maximal chain and give sufficient conditions that a maximal chain of an $H$-closed topological pospace is an $H$-closed topological pospace.Comment: We have rewritten and substantially expanded the manuscrip

Investigations of mechanisms of microbial enhanced oil recovery by microbes and their metabolic products

Experiments at NIPER have demonstrated that oil mobilization by microbial formulations is not merely the result of the effects of the metabolic products from the in situ fermentation of nutrient. A combination of two microorganisms, Bacillus licheniformis, NIPER and a Clostridium species (NIPER 6) was determined to be an effective microbial formulation for the recovery of residual crude oil in porous media. Flask tests with various nutrients and environmental conditions were used to evaluate the growth and metabolite production of NIPER 1 and 6. Several interfacial tension (IFT) measurements were conducted using certain metabolic products from the combined microbial cultures NIPER 1 and NIPER 6. Nonane was used as the oil for these experiments, since crude oil from Delaware-Childers field emulsifies very easily. The IFT of a selected microbial formulation were measured with two different crude oils using brines of varying salinities. Comparisons were made with saline brines containing only the nutrient and with microbial metabolite solutions from which the active cells have been removed by filtration to isolate the specific effects of the microbial cells. Etched-glass micromodel studies showed that the microbial formulation effectively mobilized crude oil trapped after waterflooding. Wettability alteration and unsteady-state relative permeability tests were performed in Berea Sandstone cores. 16 refs., 17 figs., 12 tabs

Second-scale rotational coherence and dipolar interactions in a gas of ultracold polar molecules

Ultracold polar molecules combine a rich structure of long-lived internal states with access to controllable long-range anisotropic dipole–dipole interactions. In particular, the rotational states of polar molecules confined in optical tweezers or optical lattices may be used to encode interacting qubits for quantum computation or pseudo-spins for simulating quantum magnetism. As with all quantum platforms, the engineering of robust coherent superpositions of states is vital. However, for optically trapped molecules, the coherence time between rotational states is typically limited by inhomogeneous differential light shifts. Here we demonstrate a rotationally magic optical trap for 87Rb133Cs molecules that supports a Ramsey coherence time of 0.78(4) s in the absence of dipole–dipole interactions. This is estimated to extend to >1.4 s at the 95% confidence level using a single spin-echo pulse. In our trap, dipolar interactions become the dominant mechanism by which Ramsey contrast is lost for superpositions that generate oscillating dipoles. By changing the states forming the superposition, we tune the effective dipole moment and show that the coherence time is inversely proportional to the strength of the dipolar interaction. Our work unlocks the full potential of the rotational degree of freedom in molecules for quantum computation and quantum simulation

Structure and photophysics of indigoids for singlet fission: Cibalackrot

We report an investigation of structure and photophysics of thin layers of cibalackrot, a sturdy dye derived from indigo by double annulation at the central double bond. Evaporated layers contain up to three phases, two crystalline and one amorphous. Relative amounts of all three have been determined by a combination of X-ray diffraction and FT-IR reflectance spectroscopy. Initially, excited singlet state rapidly produces a high yield of a transient intermediate whose spectral properties are compatible with charge-transfer nature. This intermediate more slowly converts to a significant yield of triplet, which, however, does not exceed 100% and may well be produced by intersystem crossing rather than singlet fission. The yields were determined by transient absorption spectroscopy and corrected for effects of partial sample alignment by a simple generally applicable procedure. Formation of excimers was also observed. In order to obtain guidance for improving molecular packing by a minor structural modification, calculations by a simplified frontier orbital method were used to find all local maxima of singlet fission rate as a function of geometry of a molecular pair. The method was tested at 48 maxima by comparison with the ab initio Frenkel-Davydov exciton model. Published under license by AIP Publishing

The Decreasing Significance of Stigma in the Lives of Bisexual Men: Keynote Address, Bisexual Research Convention, London

This article is constructed around a keynote address given at the Bisexual Research Convention, held in London 2010. The keynote was delivered by sociologist Eric Anderson, on behalf of himself and the other authors of this article. The keynote reflected upon a body of ongoing research, funded by the American Institute of Bisexuality and collected by this team of researchers, into the changing relationship between men and homophobia. It first contextualizes 20th-century attitudes toward homo/bisexuality before showing a declining significance of biphobia and homophobia in men's lives today. In accordance with the keynote, this article draws from preliminary findings of multiple ongoing studies of bisexual men in the United States and the United Kingdom

The QUIJOTE-CMB experiment: studying the polarisation of the galactic and cosmological microwave emissions

The QUIJOTE (Q-U-I JOint Tenerife) CMB Experiment will operate at the Teide Observatory with the aim of characterizing the polarisation of the CMB and other processes of Galactic and extragalactic emission in the frequency range of 10-40GHz and at large and medium angular scales. The first of the two QUIJOTE telescopes and the first multi-frequency (10-30GHz) instrument are already built and have been tested in the laboratory. QUIJOTE-CMB will be a valuable complement at low frequencies for the Planck mission, and will have the required sensitivity to detect a primordial gravitational-wave component if the tensor-to-scalar ratio is larger than r = 0.05.The QUIJOTE-CMB experiment is being developed by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), the Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria (IFCA), and the Universities of Cantabria, Manchester and Cambridge. Partial financial support is provided by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the projects AYA2010-21766-C03 (01, 02 and 03), and also by the Consolider-Ingenio project CSD2010-00064 (EPI: Exploring the Physics of Inflation49)

Novel interactions of transglutaminase-2 with heparan sulphate proteoglycans: reflection on physiological implications

This mini-review brings together information from publications and recent conference proceedings that have shed light on the biological interaction between transglutaminase-2 and heparan sulphate proteoglycans. We subsequently draw hypothesis of possible implications in the wound healing process. There is a substantial overlap in the action of transglutaminase-2 and the heparan sulphate proteoglycan syndecan-4 in normal and abnormal wound repair. Our latest findings have identified syndecan-4 as a possible binding and signalling partner of fibronectinbound TG2 and support the idea that transglutaminase-2 and syndecan-4 acts in synergy