On the Analysis of Inter-Relationship between Auto-Scaling Policy and QoS of FaaS Workloads.

A recent development in cloud computing has introduced serverless technology, enabling the convenient and flexible management of cloud-native applications. Typically, the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) solutions rely on serverless backend solutions, such as Kubernetes (K8s) and Knative, to leverage the advantages of resource management for underlying containerized contexts, including auto-scaling and pod scheduling. To take the advantages, recent cloud service providers also deploy self-hosted serverless services by facilitating their on-premise hosted FaaS platforms rather than relying on commercial public cloud offerings. However, the lack of standardized guidelines on K8s abstraction to fairly schedule and allocate resources on auto-scaling configuration options for such on-premise hosting environment in serverless computing poses challenges in meeting the service level objectives (SLOs) of diverse workloads. This study fills this gap by exploring the relationship between auto-scaling behavior and the performance of FaaS workloads depending on scaling-related configurations in K8s. Based on comprehensive measurement studies, we derived the logic as to which workload should be applied and with what type of scaling configurations, such as base metric, threshold to maximize the difference in latency SLO, and number of responses. Additionally, we propose a methodology to assess the scaling efficiency of the related K8s configurations regarding the quality of service (QoS) of FaaS workloads.

Expansion of Child Tax Credits and Mental Health of Parents With Low Income in 2021.

Importance: The 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC) expansion, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, offered financial relief through generous monthly tax benefits to families with children amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of heightened concerns about mental health during the pandemic, the expanded CTC may have alleviated parental mental health challenges, especially within families with low income. Objective: To investigate the association between the 2021 CTC expansion and mental health among parents with low income as measured by depression and anxiety symptoms. Design, Setting, and Participants: This repeated cross-sectional study used data from the Household Pulse Survey covering April 14, 2021, to January 10, 2022, in the US. A difference-in-difference-in-differences estimator combined with propensity score matching was used to estimate the association of the expanded CTC with mental health symptoms among households with income less than $35 000. Exposure: The monthly payment of expanded CTC from July 15 to December 15, 2021. Main Outcomes and Measures: Parental mental health was measured by analyzing depression and anxiety symptoms using logistic regression. Results: The weighted sample comprised 546 366 adults (mean [SD] age, 43.02 [14.54] years; 52.9% female). The most common education level was high school or less (36.0%), the highest frequency of household income distribution was $50 000 to $74 999 (16.1%), and the majority of the sample was employed (67.3%). The weighted mean (SD) number of children in the household was 0.92 (1.18). For the full sample, receiving expanded CTC benefits was associated with lower odds of experiencing anxiety symptoms (odds ratio, 0.730; 95% CI, 0.598-0.890). Subgroup analyses indicated that the positive associations of the policy with anxiety symptoms were particularly pronounced among the female, working-age (17-60 years), non-Hispanic White, and higher education groups. However, the policy expansion had no association with depression. Conclusions and Relevance: These findings may provide valuable evidence for policy makers to consider when deliberating on the possibility of making the CTC expansion permanent or transforming it into a universal program.

Effect of gas temperature on carbon soot oxidation via non-thermal plasma: two-dimensional numerical study integrating reactive flow and discharge models.

Non-thermal plasma (NTP) efficiently regenerates diesel particulate filters by oxidizing carbon soot (CS) at low temperatures. However, numerical studies on the spatial characteristics of CS oxidation by NTP are scarce. In addition, the influence of background gas heating on the CS-oxidizing performance by NTP remains inadequately understood. This research investigates the impact of gas temperature (323-573 K) on heterogeneous CS oxidation using NTP in a two-dimensional configuration. The results indicate that CS is mainly oxidized by [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] during NTP treatment. The energy efficiency of CS removal by NTP ranges from 0.1 to 2.6 g kWh-1 for varying gas temperature and applied voltage, consistent with previous research. Higher gas temperatures enhance both CS removal rate and efficiency, whereas higher applied voltages enhance rate at the expense of efficiency. The study also assesses energy conversion efficiency from electrical power input to chemical bonding energy during CS oxidation by NTP, yielding 0.03 to 0.23% efficiency for the considered gas temperature and voltage ranges, with higher temperatures leading to better efficiency.

IVIVC of Octreotide in PLGA-Glucose Microsphere Formulation, Sandostatin® LAR.

In vitro-in vivo correlation (IVIVC) analysis reveals a relationship between in vitro release and in vivo pharmacokinetic response of the drug of interest. Sandostatin LAR Depot (SLD) for endocrine tumors and acromegaly is a sustained-release formulation of octreotide, a cyclic oligomer of 8 amino acids, which prolongs therapeutic efficacy and enhances medication compliance of octreotide. Since the efficacy of SLD is dependent on the pharmacokinetic characteristics of octreotide released from a biodegradable matrix polymer, poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-glucose, of SLD, the IVIVC of SLD is critical for predicting an in vivo behavior of the octreotide. In this study, in vitro release of octreotide from SLD was investigated using the release test media each containing 0.02% or 0.5% surfactant and having different pH values of 7.4 and 5.5. In vivo pharmacokinetic profiles of SLD were determined by LC-MS/MS analysis of the systemic blood concentration of octreotide after the SLD injection to rodents. In IVIVC analysis, the Weibull model was adopted as a drug release model for biodegradable microsphere formulation. The IVIVC analyses revealed the in vitro release test condition of SLD with the highest IVIV correlation coefficient. By applying the in vitro release data to the model derived from the IVIVC analysis, pharmacokinetic parameters of SLD could be predicted with the prediction error of ± 10 ~ 15%. IVIVC analysis and pharmacokinetic prediction model of SLD in our study can be an efficient tool for the development of long-acting pharmaceutical dosage forms.

The effects of universal child allowance on maternal health: Evidence from South Korea.

BACKGROUND: Child allowance (CA) in South Korea was first introduced in September 2018. CA provides a monthly allowance to children from birth to age 5. To date, existing studies on the effects of CA in Korea have focused mainly on household economic outcomes. The current study is the first to examine the effect of CA on maternal physical and mental health, measured by self-reported health status, depression, and life satisfaction. METHODS: We use nationally representative data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study (KOWEPS) from 2017 to 2018. The analytic sample consists of 772 Korean mothers whose youngest child is between age 2 and age 7. Taking advantage of an exogenous policy change and the age eligibility of the policy, we employ a difference-in-regression-discontinuities (DRD) strategy to identify the effects of CA on self-reported health status, depression, and life satisfaction. RESULTS: Overall, we find suggestive evidence that the introduction of CA contributed to reducing depression while improving self-reported health and life satisfaction. In particular, the policy reform had a significant effect on life satisfaction, showing that CA improves life satisfaction by 0.497 points. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that CA can improve both physical and mental health for eligible mothers. Such findings are indicative of a causal link between income and health. There has been a recent political movement to raise the age threshold of CA to up to age 18 to cover older children and increase benefit levels. Our findings provide important policy implications for the political discussion on CA expansion.

Reducing poverty among children: Evidence from state policy simulations.

State approaches to reducing child poverty vary considerably. We exploit this state-level variation to estimate what could be achieved in terms of child poverty if all states adopted the most generous or inclusive states' policies. Specifically, we simulate the child poverty reductions that would occur if every state were as generous or inclusive as the most generous or inclusive state in four key policies: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), state Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and state Child Tax Credits (CTC). We find that adopting the most generous or inclusive state EITC policy would have the largest impact on child poverty, reducing it by 1.2 percentage points, followed by SNAP, TANF, and lastly state CTC. If all states were as generous or inclusive as the most generous or inclusive state in all four policies, the child poverty rate would decrease by 2.5 percentage points, and five and a half million children would be lifted out of poverty.

Young adult poverty in historical perspective: The role of policy supports and early labor market experiences.

Recent research using an improved measure of poverty finds that poverty has fallen by nearly forty percent since the 1960s in the United States. But past research has not examined whether this finding holds across detailed demographic groups who might be more or less vulnerable to poverty. This paper helps fill that gap, focusing on one such vulnerable subgroup: young adults. Using the Current Population Survey, this paper examines long-term trends in young adult poverty in comparison to other groups. In contrast to almost all other groups, young adults have seen no decrease in poverty since the 1960s. We explore potential reasons for this fact, finding that young adults lack access to benefits from government programs, and are increasingly unmarried, living alone, and disconnected from the labor market, factors that leave young adults more vulnerable than other groups to poverty. The findings have implications for how antipoverty policies might assist this vulnerable group.

Young child poverty in the United States: Analyzing trends in poverty and the role of anti-poverty programs using the Supplemental Poverty Measure.

Between 1968 and 2013, the poverty rate of young children age 0 to 5 years fell by nearly one third, in large part because of the role played by anti-poverty programs. However, young children in the U.S. still face a much higher rate of poverty than do older children in the U.S. They also continue to have a much higher poverty rate than do young children in other developed countries around the world. In this paper, we provide a detailed analysis of trends in poverty and the role of anti-poverty programs in addressing poverty among young children, using an improved measure of poverty, the Supplemental Poverty Measure. We examine changes over time and the current status, both for young children overall and for key subgroups (by child age, and by child race/ethnicity). Our findings can be summarized in three key points. First, poverty among all young children age 0-5 years has fallen since the beginning of our time series; but absent the safety net, today's poverty rate among young children would be identical to or higher than it was in 1968. Second, the safety net plays an increasing role in reducing the poverty of young children, especially among Black non-Hispanic children, whose poverty rate would otherwise be 20.8 percentage points higher in 2013. Third, the composition of support has changed from virtually all cash transfers in 1968, to about one third each of cash, credit and in-kind transfers today.

Trends in Child Poverty Using an Improved Measure of Poverty.

The official measure of poverty has been used to assess trends in children's poverty rates for many decades. But because of flaws in official poverty statistics, these basic trends have the potential to be misleading. We use an augmented Current Population Survey data set that calculates an improved measure of poverty to reexamine child poverty rates between 1967 and 2012. This measure, the Anchored Supplemental Poverty Measure, is based partially on the US Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics' new Supplemental Poverty Measure. We focus on 3 age groups of children, those aged 0 to 5, 6 to 11, and 12 to 17 years. Young children have the highest poverty rates, both historically and today. However, among all age groups, long-term poverty trends have been more favorable than official statistics would suggest. This is entirely due to the effect of counting resources from government policies and programs, which have reduced poverty rates substantially for children of all ages. However, despite this progress, considerable disparities in the risk of poverty continue to exist by education level and family structure.