Time trends in the association of ESRD incidence with area‐level poverty in the US population

The objective of this study was to examine the temporal trends of the association between area‐level poverty status and end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) incidence. We hypothesized that the association between area‐level poverty status and ESRD incidence has increased significantly over time. Patient data from the United States Renal Data System were linked with data from the 2000 and 2010 US census. Area‐level poverty was defined as living in a zip code‐defined area with ≥20% of households living below the federal poverty line. Negative binomial regression models were created to examine the association between area‐level poverty status and ESRD incidence by time period in the US adult population while simultaneously adjusting for the distribution of age, sex, and race/ethnicity within a zip code. Time was categorized as January 1, 1995 through December 31, 2004 (Period 1) and January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2010 (Period 2). The percentage of adults initiating dialysis with area‐level poverty increased from 27.4% during Period 1 to 34.0% in Period 2. After accounting for the distribution of age, sex, and race/ethnicity within a zip code, area‐level poverty status was associated with a 1.24 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.22, 1.25)‐fold higher ESRD incidence. However, this association differed by time period with 1.04‐fold (95% CI 1.02, 1.05) higher ESRD incidence associated with poverty status for Period 2 compared with the association between ESRD and poverty status in Period 1. Area‐level poverty and its association with ESRD incidence is not static over time.     

Growth and interfacial properties of epitaxial oxides on semiconductors: ab initio insights

Crystalline metal oxides display a large number of physical functionalities such as ferroelectricity, magnetism, superconductivity, and Mott transitions. High quality heterostructures involving metal oxides and workhorse semiconductors such as silicon have the potential to open new directions in electronic device design that harness these degrees of freedom for computation or information storage. This review describes how first-principles theoretical modeling has informed current understanding of the growth mechanisms and resulting interfacial structures of crystalline, coherent, and epitaxial metal oxide thin films on semiconductors. Two overarching themes in this general area are addressed. First, the initial steps of oxide growth involve careful preparation of the semiconductor surface to guard against amorphous oxide formation and to create an ordered template for epitaxy. The methods by which this is achieved are reviewed, and possibilities for improving present processes to enable the epitaxial growth of a wider set of oxides are discussed. Second, once a heterointerface is created, the precise interfacial chemical composition and atomic structure is difficult to determine unambiguously from experiment or theory alone. The current understanding of the structure and properties of complex oxide/semiconductor heterostructures is reviewed, and the main challenges to prediction—namely, (i) are these heterostructures in thermodynamic equilibrium or kinetically trapped, and (ii) how do the interfaces modify or couple to the degrees of freedom in the oxide?—are explored in detail for two metal oxide thin films on silicon. Finally, an outlook of where theoretical efforts in this field may be headed in the near future is provided.     

The modelling of sea ice melt-water ponds for the High Arctic using an Airborne line scan camera,and applied to the Satellite Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I)

Melt-water ponds on sea ice in the Northeast Water Polynya (77-82 N, 1-18 W) were mapped using a line scan camera (LSC) mounted on a helicopter. Passive microwave satellite data from the Special Sensor Microwave/ Imager (SSM/I) were employed to analyse the temporal trend of radiances of shorefast ice for 1993 and sea ice during sixteen flights of the LSC (June-July). A simple, linear algorithm tailored to accommodate the summer ice regime, was developed. The LSC measurements of ice (50.9 12.5%), water and melt-water pond fractions compared very well with the SSM/I derived mean ice concentrations (50.9 12.8%). The comparison resulted in a correlation coefficient of 0.953. Combining the LSC melt-water pond fraction data with other data available from the literature provided the basis to construct a second degree polynomial function of a melt-water empirical model to correct the under estimation of SSM/I derived sea ice concentration due to the effect of melt-water ponds.     

A Regional Comparison of Calibration Results for Type K Thermocouple Wire from (100 to 1,100) °C

Under the auspices of the Inter-American Metrology System (SIM), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) initiated a regional comparison for type K thermocouples from (100 to 1,100) °C with 11 participating countries. The use of type K material above approximately 200 °C is considered destructive. Therefore, each participating laboratory was sent new, unused wire from a lot of material characterized by NIST. The uniformity of the lot was remarkable, especially at temperatures above 500 °C; the standard deviation of the thermocouple emf values of multiple cuts tested at NIST was 2.7 μV or less over the full temperature range. The high uniformity eliminated any need to correct for variations of the transfer standard among the laboratories, greatly simplifying the analysis. The level of agreement among the laboratories’ results was quite good. Even though test procedures and equipment varied significantly among the participants, the standard deviation of all emf values at each test temperature was less than the equivalent of 0.20 °C at 200 °C and below, and less than 0.60 °C from (400 to 1,100) °C. Of the 380 total bilateral combinations of the data at the eight test temperatures, only 13 (i.e., 3.4% of all combinations) are outside the k = 2 limits, and of these 13, only 3 are outside k = 3 limits. All the outliers occur at temperatures of 800 °C and below, which suggests that drift of the type K wire due to high-temperature oxidation did not cause changes in the thermocouple emf comparable to or larger than the claimed uncertainties.     

A Single Analog-to-Digital Converter That Converts Two Separate Channels (I and Q) in a Broadband Radio Receiver

An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) architecture that simultaneously converts two channels is presented. The ADC is intended for use in portable broadband radio receivers that employ in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) signal paths and will provide an optimal combination of low cost, low power, and high performance. The architecture is pipeline based and employs two separate first stages followed by shared stages for the remainder of the pipeline. A clock generation system for generating all of the required nonoverlapping clock phases is also presented. A prototype ADC with 10 bit resolution and a 40 MHz sample rate that employs the proposed ADC architecture has been fabricated using a 90 nm all-digital CMOS process and occupies an area of 1.727 mm² for a per-channel area of 0.864 mm². The measured performance for the two-channel ADC is a peak signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio (SNDR) of 58.4 dB and 56.5 dB, respectively, and differential nonlinearity (DNL) and integral nonlinearity (INL) of -0.48/+0.58 LSB and plusmn1 LSB, respectively, with a power dissipation of 50 mW (including analog, digital, and clock generator power) from a 2.5 V supply (1.2 V for the digital section), giving a per-channel power dissipation of 25 mW.     

The spectrum of Trp- mutants isolated as 5-fluoroanthranilate-resistant clones in Saccharomyces bayanus, S. mikatae and S. paradoxus

5-Fluoroanthranilic acid (FAA)-resistant mutants were selected in homothallic diploids of three Saccharomyces species, taking care to isolate mutants of independent origin. Mutations were assigned to complementation groups by interspecific complementation with S. cerevisiae tester strains. In all three species, trp3, trp4 and trp5 mutants were recovered. trp1 mutants were also recovered if the selection was imposed on a haploid strain. Thus, FAA selection may be more generally applicable than was previously described.     

Comparison of measures of adaptive behaviors in preschool children.

Compared 6 measures of adaptive behavior to determine which tests and items best discriminate between behavior problem and nonproblem preschool children. 11 nonproblem and 13 problem children, matched on age (4 yrs) and IQ (110–215), were compared on the following tests: the Minnesota Child Development Inventory, the Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale, the Ottawa School Behavior Survey, the AML (Acting out, Moodiness, Learning disorders) Behavior Rating Scale, the Teacher Rating Scale, and the Denver Developmental Screening Test. Problem Ss scored significantly lower than nonproblem Ss on all 6 measures. In addition, fine-motor items discriminated better than gross-motor, language, social, and behavioral items. The Minnesota Child Development Inventory items were the best discriminators, followed by items on the Ottawa School Behavior Survey and the Teacher Rating Scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)