At the intersection of culture and religion: A cultural analysis of religion's implications for secondary control and social affiliation.

Religion helps people maintain a sense of control, particularly secondary control—acceptance of and adjustment to difficult situations—and contributes to strengthening social relationships in a religious community. However, little is known about how culture may influence these effects. The current research examined the interaction of culture and religion on secondary control and social affiliation, comparing people from individualistic cultures (e.g., European Americans), who tend to be more motivated toward personal agency, and people from collectivistic cultures (e.g., East Asians), who tend to be more motivated to maintain social relationships. In Study 1, an analysis of online church mission statements showed that U.S. websites contained more themes of secondary control than did Korean websites, whereas Korean websites contained more themes of social affiliation than did U.S. websites. Study 2 showed that experimental priming of religion led to acts of secondary control for European Americans but not Asian Americans. Using daily diary methodology, Study 3 showed that religious coping predicted more secondary control for European Americans but not Koreans, and religious coping predicted more social affiliation for Koreans and European Americans. These findings suggest the importance of understanding sociocultural moderators for the effects of religion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Broadband branchline coupler for S-band

The design of an S-band, broadband, microstrip 3 dB, 90 degrees branchline coupler is described and measured results for a prototype version are given. The design uses broadbanding stubs and three branches, with the central branch split into two of twice the characteristic impedance and separated by half wavelength transmission lines. This is a new technique to improve the bandwidth of which a theoretical account was given by Mayer (see ibid., vol.26, no.18, p.1477-8, 1990). Measured results for the prototype coupler show return loss greater than 17 dB and isolation greater than 16.5 dB, over a percentage bandwidth of 45%.<>     

The treatment of disordered money behaviors: Results of an open clinical trial.

While destructive financial behaviors permeate our culture, the field of psychology has remained relatively silent on the issue. This article argues for the need for psychologists to identify disordered money behaviors as treatable psychological problems and provide the public with effective approaches to treatment. It describes one such experimental treatment utilizing experiential therapy and examines treatment outcomes of 33 individuals with problematic financial behaviors who participated in a 6-day experiential therapy program. Following treatment, participants showed significant and lasting reductions in psychological distress, anxiety, and worry about money and finance-related situations and showed measurable signs of better overall financial health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Design,Prototype and Command for an Anthropomorphic Modular Reconfigurable Gripper with Three Fingers for Industrial Robots

This paper describes one anthropomorphic modular reconfigurable gripper for robots, including a prototype and one command solution. For the first time the stages of synthesis, analysis design and functional simulation are presented. The structural synthesis of the anthropomorphic grippers for robots can be made regarding the following main criteria： the number of fingers, the number of phalanxes, the relative dimensions of the phalanxes, the relative position of the fingers, the degree of freedom of the gripping mechanism and the characteristic constructive elements used. We have chosen a version with three identical fingers with three phalanxes on finger. The kinematic synthesis is used to obtain a correct closing of the finger and of the gripping mechanism. The static synthesis solves the problem to obtaining the necessary gripping force on each finger and the total gripping force. With the constructive dimensions a 3D model can be obtained using CATIA soft. Aspects regarding functional CAD and virtual simulations are shown too. For one variant of this type of gripper, the technical documentation is completed and the technical project has all the conditions for practical achievement and a prototype was made. There are two main constructive modules： the support, the palm and the finger. Main technical characteristics of the prototype are indicated. Some aspects regarding actuated and command schemes are shown.     

Finite state automata representing two-dimensional subshifts

A new type of two-dimensional automaton has been defined to recognize a class of two-dimensional shifts of finite type having the property that every admissible block found within the related local picture language can be extended to a point of the subshift. Here it is shown that this automaton accurately represents the image of the represented two-dimensional shift of finite type under a block code. It is then shown that these automata can be used to check for a certain type of two-dimensional transitivity in the factor language of the corresponding shift space and how this relates to periodicity in the two-dimensional case. The paper closes with a notion of “follower sets” that are used to reduce the size of the automata representing two-dimensional sofic shifts.