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Monitoring, Scaffolding, Intervening, and Overriding: Adult Children\u27s Perspectives on Supporting Older Parents
No full textWhen older parents experience age-related functional limitations, adult children may begin to monitor and try to control their parents\u27 behavior. This shift can lead to tension due to differences in values both generations share, with parents prioritizing autonomy and self-sufficiency and adult children prioritizing safety and convention. Although a great deal of research on the transition from adolescence to adulthood focuses on governance transfer and changing boundaries of autonomy, monitoring, and control, less is known about how this happens in later life. The current study used qualitative methodology to explore the dynamic balance of autonomy, safety, and care between older parents and adult children who provide assistance in their daily lives. It focused on which areas adult children were most likely to monitor and try to control and how they did so, how parents respond to those efforts, and the dynamics of information management. Sixteen adult children who had at least one living parent (M-age = 53, SD = 6.1) discussed the challenges of managing two conflicting caregiving goals: respecting parents\u27 autonomy and ensuring parents\u27 moral well-being, health, and safety. Data were analyzed using directive content analysis. Although participants were concerned about the negative consequences of their parents\u27 current behaviors and health conditions, they rarely impinged on their parents\u27 autonomy until they were prompted by an authority figure or had clear evidence that their parents\u27 health or safety were threatened. Parents often kept information about their activities and well-being from their children in order to protect their autonomy. Implications for balancing parents and adult children\u27s goals of governance transfer are discussed
Prospection: Can Thinking About the Future Change Attitudes About Climate Change in the Present?
No full textNumerical solution of differential equations for analyzing black hole event horizons
No full textWe present a solver capable of numerically computing the solution to a system of nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs). Our long-term goal is to solve the embedding problem of a black hole horizon in Euclidean space by adding this solver to the Spectral Einstein Code (SpEC). Knowing that the PDEs involved in this problem are strongly nonlinear and nonstandard, we have used simple models of varying complexity to approximate the embedding conditions at each version. Current results imply a robust and efficient method combining the Newton-Raphson method (N-R) for the nonlinear equations and a generalized version of the biconjugate gradient stabilized method (BiCGSTAB) for the linear equations at each step of N-R
Hunting Dark Matter
No full textIn our Universe, Galaxies are rotating with such speed that the gravity created by their observable matter could not possibly hold them together. They should have been dismantled long ago, which causes scientists to believe that something that is not visible is at work. They think something we have yet to discover directly is giving these galaxies extra mass, making the extra gravity they need to stay and not fall apart. This unknown matter is called dark matter because it cannot be seen. The Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics (GNOME) is an experiment designed to detect Dark Matter using a network of optical magnetometers which are distributed around the world, such as Oberlin. In Oberlin, we are developing an analysis method aimed at a specific category of proposed dark matter structures: Boson stars. Our research is based on the theoretical scenario that dark matter constituent is an ultra-light axion-like particle that forms a Boson star. We search the data for patterns of signals propagating through the network consistent with Boson stars. A characteristic of these stars\u27 fields is that they can form patterns and structures based on theoretical models. Therefore, the density of dark matter could be concentrated in many different regions resulting in Bosons stars that are smaller than a galaxy but larger than Earth. If the Earth passes through one of these stars, it would be detected by the GNOME network and could cause transient characteristic signal patterns in the magnetometers. The signals are related to each other in specific ways that depend on the speed and direction the wall is moving in and when it reaches each location. The analysis method is divided into two stages: The coincidence and the consistency check. The first stage\u27s goal is to locate any transient oscillatory signals in each station that could represent an event where the Earth passes through a Boson star. Potential events then undergo a coincidence check to determine if a similar signal was located simultaneously and with the same frequency in at least three other stations in the network. Events that pass the coincidence check are sent to the second stage. As a result, after all these steps, we realize whether our data is consistent with other stations around the world or we found something odd, which can indicate the existence dark matter. Based on the convincing theory that the dark matter constituent is the ultra-light axion-like particle, we expect to find a transient signal that proves the existence of dark matter
Political Processes of Displacement in Infrastructure Development: the Case of Aldeia da Luz and the Alqueva Dam Project
No full textIn 2002, the residents of Aldeia da Luz left their village for the final time, displaced to make room for the Alqueva Dam, a massive hydropower project almost half a century in the making. The Alqueva Multipurpose Project was marketed by the Portuguese government as a way to develop the impoverished region of the Alentejo. The village of Luz was the only physical obstacle to this goal and, therefore, its residents were dispossessed, sacrificed for the development of the greater Alentejo region. However, unlike many other large-scale infrastructure projects that displace populations, the developers of the dam attempted to compensate the residents by reconstructing the village elsewhere. Through analysis of the diverging discourses on the dam and the displacement of Luz this paper compares and examines the perspectives of the residents of Luz, government officials, and residents of the greater Alentejo region on the Alqueva Dam and the displacement of Luz. Using archival news recordings, video testimony, transcribed interviews, and documentary footage, this paper analyzes the displacement of Luz using critical environmental justice and the Marxist concept of accumulation by dispossession. This critical analysis shows that existing distributive and procedural justice mechanisms failed to adequately protect the residents of Luz or prevent developers from benefiting from their dispossession. As Portugal, and the world at large, transitions to renewable energy, the case study of Aldeia da Luz is critical to learn from in order to prevent the further reproduction of unequal power dynamics in future renewable infrastructure projects
Using paramagnetic dopants to investigate spontaneous cocrystal formation via in situ solid-state NMR
No full textCocrystals, or multi-component molecular crystals, can offer a potential solution to pharmaceutical challenges related to solubility and bioavailability. In pharmaceutics, cocrystals are comprised of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and an excipient coformer. Several cocrystal systems are known to form spontaneously in the sold state, but the mechanisms of this formation are unknown. By tracking cocrystal formation in situ using solid-state NMR, it may be possible to detect chemical shift-resolved mechanistic intermediates. Previous in situ studies have been hindered by long spin-lattice relaxation times of small molecule coformers. Here we show that paramagnetic doping of cocrystals and their components significantly increases NMR signal averaging for individual and in situ experiments and does not alter crystal structure or chemical shift. These studies were complemented by the development of methods for growing large, high-quality single crystals for use in future single-crystal NMR experiments. Single crystals for pure and paramagnetically doped theophylline and oxalic acid were successfully grown via slow evaporation in a variety of solvent mixtures and cataloged using a polarized light microscope. While we were not able to find evidence of a chemical shift-resolved intermediate, further study using paramagnetic dopants is required. Future work includes investigating doped cocrystal formation at a higher magic angle spinning speed to eliminate spinning sidebands and using doped single crystals for in situ single-crystal NMR
Extreme nonuniqueness of end-sum
No full textWe give explicit examples of pairs of one-ended, open 4-manifolds whose end-sums yield uncountably many manifolds with distinct proper homotopy types. This answers strongly in the affirmative a conjecture of Siebenmann regarding nonuniqueness of end-sums. In addition to the construction of these examples, we provide a detailed discussion of the tools used to distinguish them; most importantly, the end-cohomology algebra. Key to our Main Theorem is an understanding of this algebra for an end-sum in terms of the algebras of summands together with ray-fundamental classes determined by the rays used to perform the end-sum. Differing ray-fundamental classes allow us to distinguish the various examples, but only through the subtle theory of infinitely generated abelian groups. An appendix is included which contains the necessary background from that area
The miR156 juvenility factor and PLETHORA 2 form a regulatory network and influence timing of meristem growth and lateral root emergence
No full textPlants develop throughout their lives: seeds become seedlings that mature and form fruits and seeds. Although the underlying mechanisms that drive these developmental phase transitions have been well elucidated for shoots, the extent to which they affect the root is less clear. However, root anatomy does change as some plants mature; meristems enlarge and radial thickening occurs. Here, in Arabidopsis thaliana, we show that overexpressing miR156A, a gene that promotes the juvenile phase, increased the density of the root system, even in grafted plants in which only the rootstock had the overexpression genotype. In the root, overexpression of miR156A resulted in lower levels of PLETHORA 2, a protein that affects formation of the meristem and elongation zone. Crossing in an extra copy of PLETHORA 2 partially rescued the effects of miR156A overexpression on traits affecting root architecture, including meristem length and the rate of lateral root emergence. Consistent with this, PLETHORA 2 also inhibited the root-tip expression of another miR156 gene, miR156C. We conclude that the system driving phase change in the shoot affects developmental progression in the root, and that PLETHORA 2 participates in this network