OBJECTIVE To characterize the health status of older island Puerto Ricans, a segment of the U.S. population that has been largely overlooked in aging research. METHOD Data from the 2002 Puerto Rican Elderly Health Conditions Project and the 2002 Health and Retirement Study are used to examine differences in disease, disability, and self-rated health among island Puerto Ricans and the mainland...

Here, we report a study of the morphology and growth dynamics of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of the amide containing poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) thiol (CH3O(CH2CH2O)17NHCO(CH2)2SH) on atomically flat Au(111) surfaces. SAM growth from a 20 muM ethanolic solution reveals island growth through three distinct steps: island nucleation, island growth, and coalescence. The coalescence-step, filli...

Using a multiscale approach combining continuum model with first-principles calculation, we develop a quantitative theoretical model for heterogeneous nucleation and the growth of a quantum dot molecule-a few islands "strain bonded" by a pit in heteroepitaxy of thin films, in contrast to homogeneous nucleation and growth of isolated strain islands on the surface. We show that the critical size ...

Parallel Genetic Algorithms have often been reported to yield better performance than Genetic Algorithms which use a single large panmictic population. In the case of the Island Model Genetic Algorithm, it has been informally argued that having multiple subpopulations helps to preserve genetic diversity, since each island can potentially follow a di erent search trajectory through the search sp...

Only 0.7% of 28,205 known New England ant specimens (1861–2011) were from Rhode Island. Consequently, apparent ant species richness of Rhode Island counties was lower than expected based on simple biogeographic models. Collections from two poorly sampled areas—Block Island and Tiverton—and from the 2013 Rhode Island Natural History Survey’s BioBlitz increased Rhode Island’s ant specimens by 46%...

Sea turtles are capable of navigating across large expanses of ocean to arrive at remote islands for nesting, but how they do so has remained enigmatic. An interesting example involves green turtles (Chelonia mydas) that nest on Ascension Island, a tiny land mass located approximately 2000 km from the turtles' foraging grounds along the coast of Brazil. Sensory cues that turtles are known to de...

Groundwater models are being constructed to evaluate the impact of increased development on two adjacent sandy barrier islands on the northern Gulf coast of Florida, USA. To characterize the hydrostratigraphy and seasonal variability we are conducting resistivity and electromagnetic profiles across the freshwater lens and seepage meter and well sampling of freshwater fluxes and heads. The islan...

The introduction of species into new ecosystems, especially in small and isolated regions such as islands, offers an excellent opportunity to answer questions of the evolutionary processes occurring in natural conditions on a scale that could never be achieved in laboratory conditions. In this study, we examined the Mexican red rump tarantula Brachypelma vagans Ausserer (Mygalomorphae: Therapho...

Wildlife conservation in Turkey does not get a high priority. Yet the country lies in a key location for birds migrating from Asia and Africa to Europe. Wildlife reserves exist but often have worryingly little support. So the development of Lake Kuyucuk in the Kars province of eastern Turkey as a wildlife reserve for thousands of birds of more than two hundred species, while also supporting loc...

A clinician's chance encounter on the subway, after a long day seeing patients, prompts reflections on the nature of our interactions with our patients and with others we come across in our lives. Random yet precise, these interactions create a string of opportunities to witness other people's lives as well as our own. Sitting next to a young girl and her mother, the author daydreams about the ...