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We incorporate deep learning techniques into capacitive images of body parts (ear, four fingers, and thumb) to improve the performance of user authentication in smartphones. Use of a capacitive touchscreen as an image sensor has several advantages, such as it is less sensitive to poor illumination conditions, occlusions, and pose variations. Also, it does not need an additional hardware like iris or fingerprint scanner. Use of capacitive images for user authentication is not new. However, the performance, specially, false reject rates (FRRs) of the state-of-the-art capacitive image-based systems are poor. In this paper, we focus on improving the performance and leverage deep learning. Deep learning techniques demonstrated spectacular performance in previous physical biometrics-based research. However, to our knowledge, effectiveness of deep learning is still unexplored in capacitive touchscreen-based user authentication. In order to bridge this research gap, we devise a multi-modal deep learning model, namely UASNet, and compare its performance with a large set of uni- and multi-modal baselines. Using the UASNet, we achieve an accuracy of 99.77%, an EER of 0.48%, and an FRR of 1.19% at FAR of 0.06%.

The United States’ seaweed industry is worth over $300 million annually thanks in part to the rising popularity of seaweed-based products. Seaweed has myriad uses and great potential for novel product innovation and development while also providing numerous environmental benefits including carbon and nitrogen sequestration and other crucial ecosystem services . One of the most promising and prevalent species under domestic cultivation is Saccharina latissma. Also known as sugar kelp, this abundantly grown cold-water species dominates the edible seaweed market in the United States . This paper provides an in-depth geographical analysis of the current state of the U.S. sugar kelp industry, comparing regional market differences and opportunities for growth in Maine, Alaska, and Connecticut. Data was collected from the 2020 National Sea Grant Seaweed Symposium (https://seaweedhub.org/symposium/) and through a series of semi-structured interviews with key industry participants, yielding insights into the challenges that seaweed stakeholders face across the country. Proposed solutions for increasing the profitability of sugar kelp are explored and include market differentiation through regional origin labels, eco-labels, and quality labels.

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are increasingly called upon to help assess students with word-recognition difficulties, including dyslexia. Although SLPs tend to have comparatively strong knowledge regarding the phonological awareness skills that support word reading, findings from survey research indicate that many SLPs report limited knowledge and training on word recognition and phonics. The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic framework for assessing and interpreting students’ word reading skills. Five potential components of word reading assessment will be examined: word recognition, phonological decoding, automaticity, performance with specific phonics patterns, and reading multimorphemic and multisyllabic words. Emphasis will be given to how specific test formats and procedures can be used to help identify patterns of word reading difficulty.

Employees often demonstrate various regulatory intentions toward multiple responsibilities they must fulfill on the job. Therefore, it is possible that employees’ motivation changes during the workday because of the various situations they have experienced and that these motivational fluctuations affect their subjective well-being across different activities. Following the integrated frameworks of the self-determination theory (SDT) and the hierarchical model of motivation (H-SDT), the present research studied the variations of employees’ daily motivation for work across different activities using the survey of day reconstruction method (DRM). Multi-level structural equation modeling (MSEM) was used to analyze the variations in the perceived three basic psychological (i.e., autonomy-, relatedness-, and competence-) needs-supportive features (NSFs), situational motivation, and variables capturing the employees’ subjective well-being (including vitality and positive/negative affect) laid out according to a list of work episodes in DRM. Results of this study confirmed that employees’ subjective well-being (mainly vitality and positive affect) were positively promoted by NSFs pertained to specific work activities via the indirect path of situational autonomous motivation at work. Furthermore, vitality and positive affect were also directly predicted by situational autonomous motivation. These empirical findings expanded the research evidence supporting employees’ subjective well-being as a multi-level and multi-dimensional dynamic motivational consequence promoted by configurable specific NSFs at work. We also discussed the limitations and future directions for this line of research.

The U.S. coal industry is in the midst of a transition. Changes in regulation and technological innovation from other fossils and renewables have affected its competitiveness. These could have significant impacts on the labor market where jobs could be lost. In this study, we investigate how changes in employment in the coal industry affect wages in 20 industries in 10 U.S. coal producing states. We assess how these transitions impact welfare programs, since coal producing regions are associated with higher poverty levels. Results show that in the long run, migration of coal workers decreased wages in the construction, manufacturing sectors. Point estimates reveal that an increase in separations of coal workers increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) caseloads. In states where coal mining has a smaller contribution to GDP, an increase in coal employment increases SNAP caseloads.

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"This book explores the work of five influential pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) queer academic activists-Sarah Schulman, Jasbir Puar, Angela Davis, Dean Spade, and Judith Butler-each of whom exemplify different ideological and critical practices around anti-Zionism"--

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) engage in less physical activity than typically-developing peers. This can result in serious negative consequences for individual well-being and may contribute to the physical, behavioral, and emotional challenges associated with ASD. This study explored the potential benefits of trainer-led, individualized, physical fitness sessions specialized for ASD. Eleven individuals (ages 7–24 years) with ASD were assessed at baseline and following 15 fitness sessions. Participants demonstrated improvements in core and lower-body strength and reductions in restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior, along with non-significant but marked reductions in issues with daytime sleepiness. Results suggest the merit of specialized fitness programs and emphasize the need for larger and more rigorous research studies on this topic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Contactless services have become a common way for public libraries to provide services. As a result, the strategy used by public libraries in China will effectively stop the spread of epidemics caused by human touch and will serve as a model for other libraries throughout the world. The primary goal of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the contactless service measures provided by large Chinese public libraries for users in the pandemic era, as well as the challenges and countermeasures for providing such services. The data for this study was obtained using a combination of website investigation, content analysis, and telephone interviews for an analytical survey study of 128 large public libraries in China. The study finds that touch-free information dissemination, remote resources use, no-touch interaction self-services, network services, online reference, and smart services without personal interactions are among the contactless services available in Chinese public libraries. Exploring the current state of contactless services in large public libraries in China will help to fill a need for empirical attention to contactless services in libraries and the public sector. Up-to-date information to assist libraries all over the world in improving their contactless services implementation and practices is provided. © 2022.

We present high-precision measurements of elliptic, triangular, and quadrangular flow v2, v3, and v4, respectively, at midrapidity for identified hadrons π, p, K, φ, Ks, Λ as a function of centrality and transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at the center-of-mass energy sNN=200 GeV. We observe similar vn trends between light and strange mesons which indicates that the heavier strange quarks flow as strongly as the lighter up and down quarks. The number-of-constituent-quark scaling for v2, v3, and v4 is found to hold within statistical uncertainty for 0-10%, 10-40%, and 40-80% collision centrality intervals. The results are compared to several viscous hydrodynamic calculations with varying initial conditions, and could serve as an additional constraint to the development of hydrodynamic models. © 2022 American Physical Society.

M dwarfs are favorable targets for exoplanet detection with current instrumentation, but stellar companions can induce false positives and inhibit planet characterization. Knowledge of stellar companions is also critical to our understanding of how binary stars form and evolve. We have therefore conducted a survey of stellar companions around nearby M dwarfs, and here we present our new discoveries. Using the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument at the 4.3 m Lowell Discovery Telescope, and the similar NN-EXPLORE Exoplanet Stellar Speckle Imager at the 3.5 m WIYN telescope, we carried out a volume-limited survey of M-dwarf multiplicity to 15 parsecs, with a special emphasis on including the later M dwarfs that were overlooked in previous surveys. Additional brighter targets at larger distances were included for a total sample size of 1070 M dwarfs. Observations of these 1070 targets revealed 26 new companions; 22 of these systems were previously thought to be single. If all new discoveries are confirmed, then the number of known multiples in the sample will increase by 7.6%. Using our observed properties, as well as the parallaxes and 2MASS K magnitudes for these objects, we calculate the projected separation, and estimate the mass ratio and component spectral types, for these systems. We report the discovery of a new M-dwarf companion to the white dwarf Wolf 672 A, which hosts a known M-dwarf companion as well, making the system trinary. We also examine the possibility that the new companion to 2MASS J13092185-2330350 is a brown dwarf. Finally, we discuss initial insights from the POKEMON survey. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the world as we know it. Service delivery for the instrumental evaluation of dysphagia in hospitalized patients has been significantly impacted. In many institutions, instrumental assessment was halted or eliminated from the clinical workflow, leaving clinicians without evidence-based gold standards to definitively evaluate swallowing function. The aim of this study was to describe the outcomes of an early, but measured return to the use of instrumental dysphagia assessment in hospitalized patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was extracted via a retrospective medical record review on all patients on whom a swallowing consult was placed. Information on patient demographics, type of swallowing evaluation, and patient COVID status was recorded and analyzed. Statistics on staff COVID status were also obtained. Over the study period, a total of 4482 FEES evaluations and 758 MBS evaluations were completed. During this time, no staff members tested COVID-positive due to workplace exposure. Results strongly support the fact that a measured return to instrumental assessment of swallowing is an appropriate and reasonable clinical shift during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drawing on samples from Canada, Pakistan, China, the US, and Brazil comprising over 800 employees, we examined whether servant leaders (SL) - characterized as putting the needs of others above their own - promote employees’ well-being via autonomous motivation, accounting for employees’ power distance and collectivism values as moderating variables. Autonomous motivation, a type of self-regulation, sustains one’s well-being. Personal values facilitate one’s work behaviors cross-culturally. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results confirmed matrix invariance of all the measures. The path and moderation analyses result using multilevel structural equation modeling (SEM) supported the positive direct and indirect paths among SL, autonomous motivation, and psychological well-being across the five cultures; Collectivistic value negatively moderated the relationship between servant leadership and autonomous motivation across the Chinese and US samples. In addition, with only a limited number of items, measurements of SL and vitality achieved scalar invariance. ANOVA test results also confirmed the significant comparative differences in these two variables among the cultural groups. Findings in this research provided robust and empirical support for the motivational effects of the servant leadership theory across the globe. Theoretical and practical implications for evidence-based cross-cultural management practices and future directions for leadership training in diverse cultural contexts are discussed.

The origin of the term “social work” has long been misattributed to the 1907 work of economist Simon Patten. While Patten’s contribution to social work is important, though mostly forgotten, the term had been used long before regarding the work of nuns and settlement workers. Quoting archival and historical findings, this article traces the origin, evolution, and widespread use of the term “social work.” The words of the early founders of social work are utilized to tell the story of how the work of persons doing “the social work” of the church or settlement evolved into the name of the profession. These shifts in terminology in social work’s early history have influenced the subsequent direction of the field up to the present day. © 2022, Western Michigan University. All rights reserved.

Pharmaceutical products, including active pharmaceutical ingredients and inactive ingredients such as packaging materials, have raised significant concerns due to their persistent input and potential threats to human and environmental health. Discourse on reducing pharmaceutical waste and subsequent pollution is often limited, as information about the toxicity of pharmaceuticals in humans is yet to be fully established. Nevertheless, there is growing awareness about ecotoxicity, and efforts to curb pharmaceutical pollution in the European Union (EU), United States (US), and Canada have emerged along with waste disposal and treatment procedures, as well as growing concerns about impacts on human and animal health, such as through antimicrobial resistance. Yet, the outcomes of such endeavors are often disparate and involve multiple agencies, organizations, and departments with little evidence of cooperation, collaboration, or oversight. Environmental health disparities occur when communities exposed to a combination of poor environmental quality and social inequities experience more sickness and disease than wealthier, less polluted communities. In this paper, we discuss pharmaceutical environmental pollution in the context of health disparities and examine policies across the US, EU, and Canada in minimizing environmental pollution.

Lyonsia hyalina Conrad possesses “radial mantle glands” of a complex structure located deep within the periostracal groove. They occur along the mantle edge in alignment with slightly raised striations of the periostracum, are deeply staining and are composed of three cell types. Secretory and supportive cells, which are flask-shaped, alternate throughout the gland, while a third cell type is ovoid and borders the gland. A sulfated mucopolysaccharide is secreted over the periostracum by the glands and functions in adhesion of sand grains to the shell.

We report the results of a study with proton-induced X-ray emissions (PIXE) of the distribution and concentration of 15 chemical elements (Na to Sr in periodic chart) in four microstructural and two mineralogical regions of shell of rapidly growing adult oysters [Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin)]. Hatchery-raised oysters were grown in Broadkill Estuary, Delaware, USA, for 16 wk in summer 1978. Their valve edges were filed as a marker, and the oysters were replaced in the estuary, where they grew rapidly. Shell deposited after marking had a normal microstructure and mineralogy after a narrow zone of disturbance. After 17 d oysters were sacrificed, and different mineralogical and microstructural regions of valves of three oysters, and parts of valves of two oysters, were analyzed for the elements Na to Sr. Quadrats (2.5 × 0.45 mm) included three calcitic groups (prismatic, foliated, chalky) and one aragonitic (myostracal) microstructural group; four quadrats were on the exterior and five on the interior of right and left valves. Inhalant and exhalant margins of valves and ground right and left valves of one oyster were also analyzed. Elemental chemistry of different regions of shell varied among the three microstructural groups within the single calcitic polymorph, between aragonitic and calcitic regions, and between exhalant and inhalant margins of the valves. Elements were most concentrated in the prismatic region of the right valve. Element concentrations were similar in ground right and left valves, except for higher levels of Si, Fe, and Zn in the right valve (corresponding to their high contents in prismatic shell) and of Cl in the left valve (reflecting high concentration in chalky shell, abundant in this valve). Na, Mg, Cl, Cr, Cu, Zn and Br were more concentrated in prismatic than in foliated shell. Chalky shell contained higher concentrations of Na than did prismatic shell, and high concentrations (but lower than in prismatic shell) of Mg, Cl, Ti, Mn, Fe, Zn and Br. Element concentration in myostracum was approximately the same as, or lower than, in foliated shell, except for Sr, which was higher than that in any other shell group. In the right valve most elements were concentrated in inhalant margins, and on the left valve, in exhalant margins. With increased weathering of the exterior surface of prismatic shell, Mg, Si, and Mn increased in concentration and Na, Al, Cl, Ti, Cr, Fe, Br, and Sr decreased.

A freshwater bioprobe, combining the Asiatic Clam, Corbicula fluminea (Müller) and the laser microprobe mass spectrometer (LAMMA), can determine anthropogenic chemical contamination of freshwater systems. Laser generated mass spectra from the periostracal layers of clams contaminated with either a salt, potassium bromide, or an aromatic compound, phenol, produce distinctive mass spectral signatures that are different from uncontaminated clams. Uncontaminated clams have characteristic signatures with distinctive spectral peaks less than m/z 41; while exposed clams have many strong peaks well above this m/z. This freshwater bioprobe, using LAMMA to analyze the surface of clams, can be used as a screening tool for monitoring the water-treatment systems, for determining the source of contaminated baseflow and return flow discharge to streams, and for monitoring the water chemistry of a body of water. This system exploits the facility of using the shell instead of soft tissue with the LAMMA and has potential to detect anthropogenically-derived chemical stress.