Search

Presents several abstracts of research on specimen mineralogy that were presented at the 30th Rochester Mineralogical Symposium. "Mineralogy of the Kimberlites From New York State," by M. Lupulescu; "Mineralogy of the Hiddenite and Emerald Vein Assemblage, Hiddenite, North Carolina," M. A. Wise, A. J. Anderson and R. L. Isaac; "Diopside From the Atwater Quarry Area, Westfield, Massachusetts," by W. Shelton, G. W. Robinson, D. Burgess and D. Levine.

Reviews the efforts of the Martin Luther King Jr., Papers Project to prepare a definitive, multivolume edition of King's papers as part of a long-term effort to preserve the historical legacy of the African-American freedom struggle. The initial two volumes of `The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.'; Historical and intellectual context in which King's Crozer and Boston University academic papers were created; Selective use of appropriated passages; Citation and attribution practices; Details.

The article presents titles and abstracts of papers submitted at a meeting held in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1938. The paper "The Sequent Occupance of a Boston Suburban Community," presented by Edward A. Ackerman focuses on areas surrounding the Boston metropolitan district. The proximity of a large city market, plots of level land and fertile soil determine the existence of these suburban fanning communities. The article "The Recession of Victoria Falls," by Wallace W. Atwood. The world famous falls on the Zainbesi have had a strange and remarkable history in recession. The gorge is serpentine with many curious off-shoots, and located on the floor of a broad and much older flat-bottomed valley. Today the water tumbles over a ledge, fully a mile in length, and into a very narrow chasm 350 ft. deep.

Lists reports presented at the General Scientific Meetings of the Marine Biological Laboratory on August 14-16, 1995.

Land conservation efforts throughout the United States sustain ecological benefits while generating wealth in the housing market through capitalization of amenities. This paper estimates the benefits of conservation that are capitalized into proximate home values and quantifies how those benefits are distributed across demographic groups. Using detailed property and household-level data from Massachusetts, we estimate that new land conservation led to $62 million in new housing wealth equity. However, houses owned by low-income or Black or Hispanic households are less likely to be located near protected areas, and hence, these populations are less likely to benefit financially. Direct study of the distribution of this new wealth from capitalized conservation is highly unequal, with the richest quartile of households receiving 43%, White households receiving 91%, and the richest White households receiving 40%, which is nearly 140% more than would be expected under equal distribution. We extend our analysis using census data for the entire United States and observe parallel patterns. We estimate that recent land conservation generated $9.8 billion in wealth through the housing market and that wealthier and White households benefited disproportionately. These findings suggest regressive and racially disparate incidence of the wealth benefits of land conservation policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents abstracts of papers to be presented at the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the American Society of Primatologists, scheduled from August 18-22, 1993 in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. A paper studies the proximate mechanisms regulating reproductive success in female Marmosets. Another paper focuses on the causes , risks and consequences of dispersal in male Savannah Baboons in Amboseli National Park. Heterochrony and sexual dimorphism in the skull of the Liberian Chimpanzee are explored in yet another paper.

This article presents abstracts of papers presented at the twelfth annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, which was held at the Hotel Sheraton-Plaza in Boston, Massachusetts on November 9-12, 1972. The paper presented by J.C. Jackson and F.K. Graham of the University of Wisconsin cites threshold intensity effects on two orienting response components. Sokolovian theory suggests that the orienting response should be large near psychophysical threshold, fall to a minimum around 10-20 decibels and then rise again until it is depressed by competition with the defense reflex.

Transgender patients are at elevated risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), but national guidelines do not recommend routine screening for this population. This paper explores the feasibility and effectiveness of routine IPV screening of transgender patients in a primary care setting by describing an existing screening program and identifying factors associated with referral and engagement in IPV-related care for transgender patients. An IPV "referral cascade" was created for 1,947 transgender primary care patients at an urban community health center who were screened for IPV between January 1, 2014 to May 31, 2016: (a) Of those screening positive, how many were referred? (b) Of those referred, how many engaged in IPV-specific care within 3 months? Logistic regression identified demographic correlates of referral and engagement. Of the 1,947 transgender patients screened for IPV, 227 screened positive. 110/227 (48.5%) were referred to either internal or external IPV-related services. Of those referred to on-site services, 65/103 (63.1%) had an IPV-related appointment within 3 months of a positive screen. IPV referral was associated with being assigned male at birth (AMAB) versus assigned female at birth (AFAB) (AOR = 2.69, 95% CI 1.52, 4.75) and with nonbinary, rather than binary, gender identity (AOR = 2.07, 95%CI 1.09, 3.73). Engagement in IPV-related services was not associated with any measured demographic characteristics. Similar to published rates for cisgender women, half of transgender patients with positive IPV screens received referrals and two-thirds of those referred engaged in IPV-specific care. These findings support routine IPV screening and referral for transgender patients in primary care settings. Provider training should focus on how to ensure referrals are made for all transgender patients who screen positive for IPV, regardless of gender identity, to ensure the benefits of screening accrue equally for all patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aims to present a general bibliometric overview of the development status of global nursing research from 2000 to 2019. Design: A longitudinal bibliometric analysis of nursing research was conducted. Methods: Nursing research publications (N = 88,665) were obtained from Web of Science. Bibliometric method was used to map the output and citation impact trends of countries/regions, institutions, disciplines, and journals and analyse the research collaboration among countries/regions and institutions. Results: The global paper output in nursing research increased steadily over the past two decades and it varied in different countries/regions with the USA being far ahead of the others. The paper output and cross‐border collaboration are mainly distributed in several developed countries like the USA, the UK, Australia, and Canada. The University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, University of Toronto, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have high academic influence in the field of nursing. Increasing attention from academic fields has been paid to research on nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing is the most prolific and most cited journal in nursing field. Conclusion: Nursing research has developed steadily over the last two decades. Both the scientific output and research collaboration are disproportionally distributed between high‐income countries/regions and low‐ and middle‐income countries/regions. Most research and collaboration have taken place in a few developed countries across North America, Europe, and Oceania. Impact: The study highlighted the need for policy makers and funding agencies, especially those from low‐ and middle‐income countries/regions, to allocate research funding that supports the nursing higher education and international cooperation so as to promote the development of high‐quality nursing research in those countries/regions. At the same time, researchers from non‐English‐speaking countries/regions should attach more importance to publishing papers in English, strengthening the academic exchanges with international nursing colleagues and better integrating into the international academic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Screening of filter paper urine specimens for metabolic and transport disorders has been conducted in Massachusetts for the past few years. Disorders not identifiable by blood screening are detectable by this program. Specimens are obtained routinely by the parents on 3- to 4-week-old infants and mailed to a central laboratory. Testing is performed on discs punched directly from each specimen utilizing several methods of paper chromatography. Cystinuria, histidinemia, Hartnup disease, and iminoglycinuria (Group I) is each approximately as frequent as is phenylketonuria (PKU) in Massachusetts (1:14,219). Other disorders identified, including the hyperglycinemias, argininosuccinic aciduria, hyperlysinemia, hyperornithinemia, and the Fanconi syndrome (Group II) each has a frequency that seems to be no greater than 1:200,000 of the population. Transient abnormalities, such as tyrosinuria-tyrosyluria, generalized hyperaminoaciduria, iminoglycinuria, cystine-lysinuria, and others have been noted. Also diaper creme or fetal contamination of specimens as well as the ingestion of formulas supplemented with DL-methionine, of ampicillin, or of n-acetylcysteine may result in unusual amino acid patterns. A program such as this requires multiple testing procedures, access to proper evaluative and investigative facilities, and cooperation among the various participating groups. The total expense of this program is about $80,000 per year or approximately $1.00 per infant tested. Pediatrics, 49:825 1972, SCREENING, METABOLIC DISORDERS, TRANSPORT DISORDERS, NEONATAL URINE TESTING, PAPER CHROMATOGRAPHY. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to clear the misinterpretation on the study done by Kirshen and Fennessey (KF) devoted to Climatic Change and Water Resources Planning Criteria. Water supply system of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority; Total system demand of the KF study; Description on the KF scenario.

Focuses on the Harvard University School of Law's compulsory retirement policy for its faculty members. Retirement age; Conflicts in approaches to the problem of aging; Issues related to the school's retirement policy raised in the student paper 'Harvard Law Record.'

Reports the scientific convention held at the Sheraton in Boston, Massachusetts. Effects of the sponsorship by Sun Myong Moon's Unification Church on the convention; Details on agenda's over religiosity and emphasized science in the meeting; Aims by Moon for the scientists.

Reports on the call for papers to be presented at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Second Conference on Firesafety Design in the 21st Century. When the conference is expected to take place in Worcester, Massachusetts; Focus of the conference; Suggested topics to be discussed at the conference; Contact point for details on the conference.

Supply-side interventions such as prescription drug monitoring programs, "pill mill" laws, and dispensing limits have done little to quell the burgeoning opioid crisis. An increasingly popular demand-side alternative to these measures – now adopted by 38 jurisdictions in the USA and 7 provinces in Canada — is court-mandated involuntary commitment and treatment. In Massachusetts, for example, Part I, Chapter 123, Section 35 of the state's General Laws allows physicians, spouses, relatives, and police officers to petition a court to involuntarily commit and treat a person whose alcohol or drug abuse poses a likelihood of serious harm. This paper explores the ethical underpinnings of this law as a case study for others. First, we highlight the procedural and substantive standards of Section 35 and evaluate the application of the law in practice, including the frequency with which it has been invoked and outcomes. We then use this background to inform an ethical critique of the law. Specifically, we argue that the infringement of autonomy and privacy associated with involuntary intervention under Section 35 is not currently justified on the grounds of a lack of evidenced benefits and a risk of significant of harm. Further ethical concerns also arise from a lack of standard of care provided under the Section 35 pathway. Based on this analysis, we advance four recommendations for change to mitigate these ethical shortcomings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the revival of the cold fusion debate on the `Technology Review' publication of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Indignation of MIT researchers who had previously refuted the technique; Claim of reports of energy-releasing nuclear reactions at room temperature.

It is no secret that collegiality matters in academe regardless of the size and type of institution. When it comes to promotion, reappointment and tenure, the invocation of collegiality occurs. This paper aims to examine the perception and issues surrounding collegiality in the academic library setting. The data, based on the survey results of the Massachusetts public higher education librarians, reveals gender disparity on collegiality issues, attitudes and perception. The study findings also include that congeniality is not the same as collegiality. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Focuses on the experience of the librarians at the Simmons College Libraries in Boston, Massachusetts as they integrated active learning strategies into the library instruction program for first year students. Library tour; Game of library jeopardy; Participation in the research process during workshops; Measurement of the success of the program through anecdotal evidence and reviews of student's research paper bibliographies.

In 2006, the Massachusetts legislature passed a landmark health care reform bill (the Reform) that has served as a model for the national health care reform. By aiming to provide 'access to affordable, quality, accountable health care,' the goals of this reform were to reduce the number of uninsured Massachusetts residents while containing the growth of health care costs and improving the quality of health care services. The current paper examines the impact of the Reform on the quality of care in addition to hospital costs simultaneously from a perspective of efficiency analysis. We develop an integer-valued non-radial Russell data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, which is unit variant and calculate the hospitals' efficiency directly. However, the proposed integer-valued model is non-linear. The current paper thus transforms this model into a parametric integer linear programming. We develop a method to derive its optimal solutions. We then use the new DEA model to calculate and compare the efficiency scores of hospitals in Massachusetts and Connecticut pre- and post-Reform. The analysis shows that the Reform has achieved its cost containment and quality improvement goals at the same time. These analyses provide potentially useful information to hospital regulators and government regulators, especially in light of the national interest on health care legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the United States, worksite wellness programs are more often offered by larger employers. The Massachusetts Working on Wellness (WoW) program is an innovative, statewide capacity-building model designed to increase the number of smaller employers (200 or fewer workers) adopting health promotion initiatives. This article describes the WoW program design and approaches to recruitment, implementation, and evaluation.Methods/design: WoW provides employer training, technical assistance and seed funding, utilizing a Wellness Program Development framework based on recognized good practices. For-profit employers with 200 employees or fewer are eligible for and encouraged to apply for a Massachusetts Small Business Wellness Tax Credit. During the phase described in this paper, employer organizations applied to the program and committed to designating a champion responsible for program implementation. Interventions were to include policy and environmental supports, as well as those targeting individual behavior change through raising awareness and education. Supports provided to employers included seed grants for qualifying activities (up to $10,000 with matching required), community linkages, data collection and organization-specific feedback tools, an on-line curriculum supplemented with technical assistance, and an expert webinar series. Data collection at multiple time points, from the initial application through program completion, provides information for evaluation of recruitment, planned and completed activities.Discussion: This model is grounded in literature on good practices as well as in local knowledge about Massachusetts employers. It does not directly address the influence of working conditions, which can affect both worker participation and health behaviors. Implementation may be less successful with some organizations, such as those with many workers who are part-time or geographically distributed rather than in a centralized physical location. Program evaluation will assess the extent to which WoW achieves its goals. The data are expected to increase understanding of the needs of smaller employers and industries not traditionally implementing employee wellness programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Collabo RATE is a brief patient survey focused on shared decision making. This paper aims to (i) provide insight on facilitators and challenges to implementing a real-time patient survey and (ii) evaluate Collabo RATE scores and response rates across multiple clinical settings with varied patient populations. Method All adult patients at three United States primary care practices were eligible to complete Collabo RATE post-visit. To inform key learnings, we aggregated all mentions of unanticipated decisions, problems and administration errors from field notes and email communications. Mixed-effects logistic regression evaluated the impact of site, clinician, patient age and patient gender on the Collabo RATE score. Results While Collabo RATE score increased only slightly with increasing patient age ( OR 1.018, 95% CI 1.014-1.021), female patient gender was associated with significantly higher Collabo RATE scores ( OR 1.224, 95% CI 1.073-1.397). Clinician also predicts Collabo RATE score (random effect variance 0.146). Site-specific factors such as clinical workflow and checkout procedures play a key role in successful in-clinic implementation and are significantly related to Collabo RATE scores, with Site 3 scoring significantly higher than Site 1 ( OR 1.759, 95% CI 1.216 to 2.545) or Site 2 (z=−2.71, 95% CI −1.114 to −0.178). Discussion This study demonstrates that Collabo RATE can be used in diverse primary care settings. A clinic's workflow plays a crucial role in implementation. Patient experience measurement risks becoming a burden to both patients and administrators. Episodic use of short measurement tools could reduce this burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mounting evidence over the past several decades has demonstrated inequitable distribution of pollutants of ambient origin between sociodemographic groups in the United States. Most environmental inequality studies to date are cross-sectional and used proximity-based methods rather than modeled air pollution concentrations, limiting the ability to examine trends over time or the factors that drive exposure inequalities. In this paper, we use 1 km 2 modeled PM 2.5 and NO 2 concentrations in Massachusetts over an 8-year period and Census demographic data to quantify inequality between sociodemographic groups and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the drivers and trends in longitudinal air pollution inequality. Annual-average population-weighted PM 2.5 and NO 2 concentrations were highest for urban non-Hispanic black populations (11.8 µg/m 3 in 2003 and 8.4 µg/m 3 in 2010, vs. 11.3 µg/m 3 and 8.1 µg/m 3 for urban non-Hispanic whites) and urban Hispanic populations (15.9 ppb in 2005 and 13.0 ppb in 2010, vs. 13.0 ppb and 10.2 ppb for urban non-Hispanic whites), respectively. While population groups experienced similar absolute decreases in exposure over time, disparities in population-weighted concentrations increased over time when quantified by the Atkinson Index, a relative inequality measure. Exposure inequalities were approximately one order of magnitude greater for NO 2 compared to PM 2.5 , were more pronounced in urban compared to rural geographies, and between racial/ethnic groups compared to income and educational attainment groups. Our results also revealed similar longitudinal PM 2.5 and NO 2 inequality trends using Census 2000 and Census 2010 data, indicating that spatio-temporal shifts in air pollution may best explain observed trends in inequality. These findings enhance our understanding of factors that contribute to persistent inequalities and underscore the importance of targeted exposure reduction strategies aimed at vulnerable populations and neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a case study of Transition House in Cambridge, MA, a pioneering feminist agency founded in 1976. Transition House has survived and is, today, a thriving agency. Based on interviews with and papers collected from those involved in founding and running it, as well as a few guests/clients, I argue that Transition House's evolution was impelled by three major forces shared with other early domestic violence agencies: changes in the culture due in part to successes of the battered women's movement in the early years, changes in the larger political-economic context due to national policies and economic trends, which make getting out of poverty in 2017 more difficult than it was in the 1970s, and learning from survivors and from evolving research on domestic violence. In 1976, the immediate focus was on women "battered" by their partners, and the agency was strongly identified with the women's movement. In 2017, the focus is on women who are battered by economic and social conditions as much as by their partners, and the agency is seen as a partner with the city and with other nonprofit agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The US is experiencing an unprecedented opioid overdose epidemic fostered in recent years by regional contamination of the heroin supply with the fentanyl family of synthetic opioids. Since 2011 opioid-related overdose deaths in the East Coast state of Massachusetts have more than tripled, with 75% of the 1374 deaths with an available toxicology positive for fentanyl. Fentanyl is 30-50X more potent than heroin and its presence makes heroin use more unpredictable. A rapid ethnographic assessment was undertaken to understand the perceptions and experiences of people who inject drugs sold as 'heroin' and to observe the drugs and their use.Methods: A team of ethnographers conducted research in northeast Massachusetts and Nashua, New Hampshire in June 2016, performing (n=38) qualitative interviews with persons who use heroin.Results: (1) The composition and appearance of heroin changed in the last four years; (2) heroin is cheaper and more widely available than before; and (3) heroin 'types' have proliferated with several products being sold as 'heroin'. These consisted of two types of heroin (alone), fentanyl (alone), and heroin-fentanyl combinations. In the absence of available toxicological information on retail-level heroin, our research noted a hierarchy of fentanyl discernment methods, with embodied effects considered most reliable in determining fentanyl's presence, followed by taste, solution appearance and powder color. This paper presents a new 'heroin' typology based on users' reports.Conclusion: Massachusetts' heroin has new appearances and is widely adulterated by fentanyl. Persons who use heroin are trying to discern the substances sold as heroin and their preferences for each form vary. The heroin typology presented is inexact but can be validated by correlating users' discernment with drug toxicological testing. If validated, this typology would be a valuable harm reduction tool. Further research on adaptations to heroin adulteration could reduce risks of using heroin and synthetic opioid combinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles on the philosophy of science, presented at the 1998 World Congress of Philosophy in Boston, Massachusetts.

This paper highlights recent results obtained with the Turbulent Eddy Profiler (TEP), which was developed by the University of Massachusetts. This unique 915-MHz radar has up to 64 spatially separated receiving elements, each with an independent receiver. The calibrated raw data provided by this array could be processed using sophisticated imaging algorithms to resolve the horizontal structures within each range gate. After collecting all of the closely spaced horizontal slices, the TEP radar can produce three-dimensional images of echo power, radial velocity, and spectral width. From the radial velocity measurements, it is possible to estimate the three-dimensional wind with high horizontal and vertical resolution. Given the flexibility of the TEP system, various array configurations are possible. In the present work exploitation of the flexibility of TEP is attempted to enhance the rejection of clutter from unwanted biological targets. From statistical studies, most biological clutter results from targets outside the main imaging field of view, that is, the sidelobes and grating lobes (if they exist) of the receiving beam. Because the TEP array's minimum receiver separation exceeds the spatial Nyquist sampling requirement, substantial possibilities for grating-lobe clutter exist and are observed in actual array data. When imaging over the transmit beam volume, the receiving array main lobe is scanned over a ±12.5° region. This scanning also sweeps the grating lobes over a wide angular region, virtually guaranteeing that a biological scatterer outside of the main beam will appear somewhere in the imaged volume. This paper focuses on suppressing pointlike targets in the grating-lobe regions. With a subtle change to the standard TEP array hardware configuration, it is shown via simulations and actual experimental observations (collected in June 2003) that adaptive beamforming methods can subsequently be used to significantly suppress the effects of point targets on the wind field estimates. These pointlike targets can be birds or planes with strong reflectivity. By pointlike the authors mean its appearance is a distinct point (up to the imaging resolution) in the images. The pointlike strong reflectivity signature exploits the capability of adaptive beamforming to suppress the interference using the new array configuration. It should be noted that this same array configuration does not exhibit this beneficial effect when standard Fourier beamforming is employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper announces the imminent availability of a major extension of the well-known Bateman-Foust sample. This new resource will contain linked agricultural and population census data between 1850 and 1880 for thousands of individuals in an expanded group of townships including some from the Pacific Coast states and Massachusetts and has in excess of 220,000 person-observations. The paper discusses a number of problems and complications associated with the creation of this retrospective panel database. It also shows how these data may be linked to other computer-searchable databases and resources (such as land records) and discusses the impact of personal and family characteristics on persistence and the likelihood of record linkage within the sample townships using a panel from a completed subsection of the project [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the theoretical foundations, empirical findings, and practical and philosophical implications of the Boston Area Diary Study (BADS), a study of the caring behavior of 44 participants over one calendar year. In particular, the paper presents an identification theory of care and discusses how it shaped the conceptualization, collection, and analysis of the data in a year-long diary study of daily voluntary assistance. The findings from the BADS (1) theoretically confirm the identification theory of care; (2) methodologically capture how individuals perceive and carry out caring behavior as a unity; and (3rpar; empirically document the existence of a moral citizenship in America that is substantially more vigorous than is implied by the usual indicators of civic and political citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time emotions have been kept out of the deliberate tools of science; scientists have expressed emotion, but no tools could sense and respond to their affective information. This paper highlights research at the MIT Media Laboratory aimed at giving computers the ability to comfortably sense, recognize, and respond to the human communication of emotion, especially affective states such as frustration, confusion, interest, distress, anger, and joy. Two main themes of sensing--self-report and concurrent expression--are described, together with examples of systems that give users new ways to communicate emotion to computers and, through computers, to other people. In addition to building systems that try to elicit and detect frustration, our research group has built a system that responds to user frustration in a way that appears to help alleviate it. This paper highlights applications of this research to interface design, wearable computing, entertainment, and education, and briefly presents some potential ethical concerns and how they might be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]