MD-SOAR Maryland Shared Open Access Repository
Not a member yet
34521 research outputs found
Sort by
Prevalence of family-based elder abuse and its associated factors in Gandaki Province of Western Nepal: A cross-sectional study
No full textBackground Elder abuse is a rarely discussed public health and human rights issue in Nepal, largely due to traditional values emphasizing reverence for parents. These cultural norms can discourage recognition and reporting, especially within families. Consequently, nationwide or large-scale data on this issue is lacking. This study aims to estimate the prevalence and explore the factors associated with family-based elder abuse in Gandaki province, western Nepal. Methods A cross-sectional design was conducted interviewing 612 participants (≥ 60 years) in household settings. The study areas, representing mountain, hill and tarai regions of Gandaki province, were randomly selected using multistage stratified sampling process. The dependent variable was measured using 17-item elder abuse scale. Multivariable logistic regression explored the factors associated with elder abuse. Results More than half of the participants were from Nawalpur (57.2%), urban residents (68.1%), female (57.2%), without education (79.8%), and lived in multigenerational households (73.0%). The overall prevalence of elder abuse was reported at 56.4%, with caregiver neglect (50.8%) being the most prevalent sub-type. The prevalence was higher among females (66.6%) than males (42.8%). In adjusted multivariable logistic regression, those who were female (AOR = 2.56, 95%CI: 1.64–4.01), older than 70 years (AOR = 1.53, 95%CI: 1.03–2.29), reluctant to disclose health issues to family members (AOR = 2.13, 95%CI: 1.36–3.34), believed in traditional healers (AOR = 1.89, 95%CI: 1.28–2.77) and lived in nuclear households (AOR = 1.85, 95%CI: 1.19–2.89) had higher odds of elder abuse. Those living in rural areas (AOR = 0.39, 95%CI: 0.25–0.61), having formal education (AOR = 0.31, 95%CI: 0.10–0.95), and having good self-reported health (AOR = 0.23, 95%CI: 0.12–0.46) were associated with lower odds of elder abuse. Conclusions The study highlights a high prevalence of elder abuse, particularly caregiver neglect, with a disproportionate impact on women. Policy recommendations include raising awareness, strengthening legal protections, and improving caregiver training to meet these challenges effectively.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.032371
Mental Health Equity in LLMs: Leveraging Multi-Hop Question Answering to Detect Amplified and Silenced Perspectives
No full textLarge Language Models (LLMs) in mental healthcare risk propagating biases that reinforce stigma and harm marginalized groups. While previous research identified concerning trends, systematic methods for detecting intersectional biases remain limited. This work introduces a multi-hop question answering (MHQA) framework to explore LLM response biases in mental health discourse. We analyze content from the Interpretable Mental Health Instruction (IMHI) dataset across symptom presentation, coping mechanisms, and treatment approaches. Using systematic tagging across age, race, gender, and socioeconomic status, we investigate bias patterns at demographic intersections. We evaluate four LLMs: Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Jamba 1.6, Gemma 3, and Llama 4, revealing systematic disparities across sentiment, demographics, and mental health conditions. Our MHQA approach demonstrates superior detection compared to conventional methods, identifying amplification points where biases magnify through sequential reasoning. We implement two debiasing techniques: Roleplay Simulation and Explicit Bias Reduction, achieving 66-94% bias reductions through few-shot prompting with BBQ dataset examples. These findings highlight critical areas where LLMs reproduce mental healthcare biases, providing actionable insights for equitable AI development.http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.1811
Controlled Assembly of Anisotropic Noble Metal Nanoparticles and a Semiconductor Quantum Dot for Plasmon-Exciton Coupling
No full textThe assembly of metal nanoparticles and semiconductor quantum dots into well-defined nanoscale architectures enables exploitation of plasmon-exciton coupling, a phenomenon arising from the interactions between plasmons of metal nanoparticles and excitons of quantum dots. This coupling results in novel optical properties like enhanced photoluminescence, Fano interference, and Rabi splitting, with applications in photonic devices, sensors, and quantum information systems. Precise self-assembly control allows tailoring these features for specific uses in photonics and nanotechnology. Anisotropic gold nanobipyramids (AuBP) and gold nanotriangles (AuNT) offer shape-dependent optical properties, exhibiting strong, geometry-tunable localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) for efficient coupling with red-emitting quantum dot’s exciton. Furthermore, liquid/liquid interfacial assembly techniques enable uniform, reproducible nanoarchitectures, enhancing assembly efficiency and providing stable systems for optical testing. This dissertation advances controlled self-assembly techniques for anisotropic gold nanoparticles and quantum dots, focusing on synthesis, functionalization, and assembly. Novel strategies, including functionalization using 6-aminohexanethiol and MeO-PEG-SH for the gold nanoparticles, and activated thioctic acid-NHS for the quantum dots, facilitated efficient linkage of the nanoparticles through covalent bond formation. Interfacial assembly methods yielded colloidal AuNT-QD and AuBP-QD discrete assemblies, characterized using UV-Vis, TEM, and single-particle optical measurements, with observed Fano interference confirming plasmon-exciton coupling. These findings establish a framework for designing nanoparticle assemblies, contributing to advancements towards high-performance photonic devices and quantum technologie
Global Ionospheric F Region Parameters From GNSS-POD Limb Measurements: Evaluations and Comparisons With Two Empirical Models - IRI-2020 and NeQuick-2
No full textAn optimal estimation (OE) technique has recently been developed for F region electron density (Ne) using Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) limb sounding on low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites (COSMIC-2, Spire, and FengYun-3). This method provides unprecedented spatiotemporal sampling for global monthly Ne climatology within 100–500 km in 2 hr intervals. The global dataset, collected during mid to moderately high solar activity, is compared with leading models: IRI-2020 and NeQuick-2. Diurnal variations in summer, winter, and equinoctial months are examined for the F2-layer peak, as well as the topside and bottomside of the F region. The observed and modeled NmF2 and hmF2 show good agreement during the daytime, but discrepancies appear with NeQuick-2 at night. The OE-retrieved dataset reveals distinct interhemispheric differences in topside scale height between the summer and winter hemispheres, which are not adequately captured by models. The estimated topside scale heights in IRI-2020 are ~20–30 km higher than observations on regional scale, but this difference decreases to ~12–20 km on global scale. In the bottomside, the agreement between observations and models varies significantly between daytime and nighttime conditions. During the daytime, the global bottomside thicknesses derived from OE-retrieved profiles agree within 10 km with the IRI-2020, but they are ~10–15 km higher than NeQuick-2. The nighttime thicknesses differ substantially, with deviations reaching up to ~30 km compared to IRI-2020 and ~45 km compared to NeQuick2. As models face challenges due to lack of reliable measurements, especially in the topside and bottomside, improvements in GNSS-LEO observing techniques can provide more accurate and comprehensive data to characterize the global ionosphere.This research was funded by NASAs Living With a Star LWS and Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition CSDA programs WBS numbers 93672302011248 and 88029204020168 UCAR CDAAC Services NASA CSDA on Amazon Web Service AWS and FengYun Satellite Data Center FSDC from China Meteorological Administration CMA for GNSSRO and GNSSPOD data processing and distribution are acknowledged The authors thank Alessio Pignalberi and an additional anonymous reviewer for their thorough reviews which helped to improve this workhttps://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JA03346
A Climate Activist Goes to Jail
No full textTwo years ago climate activists Tim Martin and Joanna Smith poured red and black paint on the enclosure and pedestal of a famous Degas statue, The Little Dancer, in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Martin and Smith were a part of a group called Declare Emergency, which engages in disruptive protests to compel urgent climate action. Sunil Dasgupta talked with Tim Martin as his trial in DC courts finally began this month, April 2025. Music by Washington art-pop rock band Catscan!https://open.spotify.com/episode/3chPWqC06YiZDYKXQayNA
Gas-Phase Water-Soluble Organic Carbon: CMAQ Model Evaluation in Baltimore County
No full textPrediction of gas-phase water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC*), a precursor for secondary organic aerosol formed through processing in atmospheric waters (aqSOA), has not yet been evaluated in models. We pair the WSOC* predictions from the U.S. EPA’s Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model with continuous mist chamber measurements during February–March 2015 and August 2016 in Baltimore County, MD. We simulate mist chamber collection of WSOC* from CMAQ’s atmosphere with application of compound-specific collection efficiencies as a function of Henry’s law. CMAQ predictions of WSOC* mass concentrations are highest in August, while measurements are highest during February–March. CMAQ does not replicate the average diurnal pattern of the measured WSOC* in any month. The CMAQ prediction of directly emitted VOCs that oxidize to form WSOC* is more reasonable, and the model skill for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone (O₃) is relatively excellent in comparison (R² = 0.5 and R² = 0.6, respectively; p ≈ 0). These findings suggest that representation of organic gases and their chemistry in this CMAQ simulation is sufficient to accurately predict the criteria pollutants NO₂ and O₃, but not necessarily the chemical transformations that produce WSOC*, an important precursor for aqSOA.CJH acknowledges support from the National ScienceFoundation through awards CHE 1454763 and AGS 2430366 AGC acknowledges support from the NationalScience Foundation through awards AGS 2430367 and AGS 2024170https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.4c0037
An online experiment examining Chinese young adults’ responses to misinformation about the HPV vaccines
No full textThis study examined Chinese young adults’ cognitive and affective responses to conspiracy social media messages about the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines. A 4 (misinformation frames) × 2 (message sources) online experiment identified three major findings. First, regarding message sources, young adults perceived a state-owned news media outlet to be more credible than a popular science organization, but the two message sources did not result in different message believability or affective responses. Second, uncertainty, profit-making, and nationalist conspiracy frames led to different perceived source credibility (PSC), message believability, fear, and anger. Finally, social media use did not affect PSC or message believability, but was associated with affective responses. The research findings exemplified the combined effects of vaccine-related health misinformation, providing novel insights into the complexity and nuances of health communication in developing countries.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12982-025-00844-
Fragile Witness: Sculptural Dialogues in Glass
No full text“Fragile Witness: Sculptural Dialogues in Glass” comprises four conceptually interwoven works—Sarcophagus, Gasps, Untitled sculptures, and Milk and Blood—that explore resilience, fragility, and the dissolution of personal identity into collective experience. Using glass as a medium, the works navigate themes of memory, sacrifice, and the sacred in the mundane, with content illuminated through what I call a revealing gesture.Sarcophagus evokes skeletal forms to reflect on unspoken sacrifice, while Gasps suspends glass spheres shot through with bloody-looking dirt, embodying purity's fragility. Untitled sculptures explore strength and vulnerability through shifting reflections, and Milk and Blood transforms tableware into symbolic vessels marked by milk and blood residue, invoking themes of nourishment and ritual.
Drawing on my post-Soviet upbringing and influences from artist Vera Mukhina and her position with the Russian Avant-Garde art, this series of works examines individualism, inviting viewers to engage in shared acts of witnessing and collective reflection
QLP-DCS: A Quality-Aware, Low-Cost, and Privacy-Preserving Data Collection Service for Mobile Crowd Sensing
No full textIn the service of Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS), High-quality Data Collection (HDC), Bilateral Location Privacy Preservation (BLPP), and sensing cost are three pivotal issues. It is widely believed that HDC necessitates the recruitment of workers with high Quality of Service (QoS), which is related to the sensing data capabilities of the recruited workers and the worker-task distances. However, submitting high-quality data demands more resources from the workers, incurring higher costs. Meanwhile, BLPP techniques, aiming to conceal the locations of the workers and tasks, may impede the evaluation of the workers' QoS. Therefore, there is still a lack of a low-cost and BLPP high QoS data collection research. Motivated by this, we propose a Quality-Aware, Low-Cost, and Privacy-Preserving Data Collection Service (QLP-DCS) for MCS. First, we propose a matrix perturbation-based approach to achieve BLPP while preserving the partial order relationship of distances. Subsequently, we employ the Upper Confidence Bound indexes-based reverse auction recruiting workers to balance exploration and exploitation with the low sensing cost. Then, we propose a multi-level truth discovery approach and establish an effective trust verification mechanism. Theoretical analysis and extensive experiments validate the superior performance of our QLP-DCS.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10980044
The Tambass
No full textThis master’s thesis used research through design approach to investigate the adoption of the new sound blending rhythmic sections of both Hindustani classical music and western music conventions. The approach was combining the jivari timbre of the tanpura and pairing that with the construction of an electric bass guitar. The final product is a new instrument called a “tambass.” The design process was an immersive experience that produced a way to deliver a new sound. The thesis guides the reader through the research through design process while presenting the prototype to a sample group of musicians. The shared insights inform further development and a framework to create similar experiences