Females’ quality of relationships in adolescence and friendship support in adulthood.

Thirty-one couples and their daughters participated in a study of the contribution of family and friendship relationships in adolescence, and of daughter/friend communication in adulthood to the adult daughters’ perception of friendship support in adulthood. Questionnaires and direct observation of communication skills were used to evaluate marital quality, parental quality, and friendship quality at Time 1 (T1). At Time 2 (T2), 7 years later, daughters and their best friends completed questionnaires and videotaped social support interactions. A hierarchical regression model was used to predict daughters’ perception of friendship support in adulthood. The findings indicated that higher levels of T1 mother/father marital satisfaction, higher levels of T1 mother/daughter positive communication, lower levels of T1 mother/daughter negative communication, and higher levels of T2 daughters’ validation during communication with best friend uniquely predicted higher levels of T2 daughters’ perception of friendship support. The findings suggest that family relationship quality in adolescence contributes to children’s ability to develop and maintain adaptive resources for coping with stress in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The schema-driven chameleon: How mimicry affects executive and self-regulatory resources.

The authors propose that behavioral mimicry is guided by schemas that enable efficient social coordination. If mimicry is schema driven, then the operation of these schemas should be disrupted if partners behave in counternormative ways, such as mimicking people they generally would not or vice versa, rendering social interaction inefficient and demanding more executive and self-regulatory resources. To test this hypothesis, Experiments 1–3 used a resource-depletion paradigm in which participants performed a resource-demanding task after interacting with a confederate who mimicked them or did not mimic them. Experiment 1 demonstrated impaired task performance among participants who were not mimicked by a peer. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect and also demonstrated a significant reversal in social contexts where mimicry is counternormative, suggesting that inefficiency emerges from schema inconsistency, not from the absence of mimicry per se. Experiment 4 used a divided attention paradigm and found that resources are taxed throughout schema-inconsistent interactions. These findings suggest that much-needed resources are preserved when the amount of mimicry displayed by interacting individuals adheres to norms, whereas resources are depleted when mimicry norms are violated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thermodynamic evaluation and optimization of Al–Gd, Al–Tb, Al–Dy, Al–Ho and Al–Er systems using a Modified Quasichemical Model for the liquid

The Al–Gd, Al–Tb, Al–Dy, Al–Ho and Al–Er (Al–heavy rare earths) binary systems have been systematically assessed and optimized based on the available experimental data and ab-initio data using the FactSage thermodynamic software. A systematic technique (reduced melting temperature proposed by Gschneidner) was used for estimating the Al–Tb phase diagram due to lack of experimental data. Optimized model parameters of the Gibbs energies for all phases which reproduced all the reliable experimental data to satisfaction have been obtained. The optimization procedure was biased by putting a strong emphasis on the observed trends in the thermodynamic properties of Al–RE phases. The Modified Quasichemical Model, which takes short-range ordering into account, is used for the liquid phase and the Compound Energy Formalism is used for the solid solutions in the binary systems. It is shown that the Modified Quasichemical Model used for the liquid alloys permits one to obtain entropies of mixing that are more reliable than that based on the Bragg–Williams random mixing model which does not take short-range ordering into account.     

Effect of Grain Boundaries on the Lattice Thermal Transport Properties of Insulating Materials: A Predictive Model

We present two theoretical models to predict the lattice thermal conductivity degradation of insulating materials at high temperature (above one‐third of the Debye temperature). This degradation is due to the presence of grains, with known sizes and shapes, inducing thermal resistance at their boundaries. The first model is derived directly from the kinetic theory of gases (KTG). The formulation of the second is based on a localized continuum model (LCM), assuming phonon Umklapp scattering and the Debye approximation of phonon density of state. The two proposed models are purely predictive, as no experimental information related to the grain size dependence of the thermal conductivity is necessary for the parameterization of the models. The predictive accuracy of the two proposed models is tested on several different types of electrically insulating compounds. Although the model derived from the KTG is similar to the well‐known Kapitza thermal resistance formalism, it fails to predict the grain size dependence of the lattice thermal conductivity. The one derived from a LCM is a new formalism predicting, with good accuracy, the lattice thermal conductivity as a function of the average grain size. It is applicable for microstructures with a grain size typically above 20–50 nm.     

Recension des études utilisant un échantillon probabiliste sur la santé des personnes gaies, lesbiennes et bisexuelles.

Reviews of empirical studies examining the health of gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals (GLB) led to contradictory findings about the prevalence of health problems in this population. These studies employed non probability sampling and suffered from a number of methodological shortcomings that could explain the contradictory findings. Given that many recently published studies on GLB health employed probability sampling and used health measures with good psychometric properties, a comprehensive review of these studies could help to draw a more coherent picture of GLB individuals' health. Objectives: a) To catalogue studies that employed probability sampling and compared the health of individuals of different sexual orientations; b) to describe methodological characteristics of these studies; and c) to examine the convergence of the findings regarding GLB health. Method: Using medical sciences, psychology and sociology databases, 32 publications were identified and catalogued using a coding system enabling content, method, and metric properties classification. Two independent judges conducted the analyses of the documents. Results: As compared to studies not using probability sampling, studies using probability sampling had fewer methodological shortcomings and more coherent findings on GLB health. There were higher proportions of GLB individuals, relative to heterosexual individuals, who reported suicide attempts, high levels of psychological distress, substance abuse, and incidence of victimization. Conclusion: The probability sample studies on GLB health showed robust findings suggesting that the GLB population is vulnerable. Because no empirical findings have documented that homosexuality per se is a cause of illness, future studies should identify the environmental factors likely to account for the higher prevalence of health problems in the GLB population relative to the heterosexual population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thermodynamic and volumetric databases and software for magnesium alloys

Extensive databases for the thermodynamic and volumetric properties of magnesium alloys have been prepared by critical evaluation, modeling, and optimization of available data. Software has been developed to access the databases to calculate equilibrium phase diagrams, heat effects, etc., and to follow the course of equilibrium or Scheil-Gulliver cooling, calculating not only the amounts of the individual phases, but also of the microstructural constituents.     

Ecosystem change and population declines in gulls: Shifting baseline considerations for assessing ecological integrity of protected areas

In Lake Superior's Pukaskwa National Park (PNP) in northern Ontario, Canada, herring gull (Larus argentatus) population size is used as an indicator of ecological integrity. Since the 1970s, gull populations have declined by 70% suggesting deteriorating park conditions. However, most other rated park indicators show stable or positive trends. Here, we focus on reconciling these seemingly disparate trends through a better understanding of factors regulating PNP gull populations. Lake-wide declines in surface-schooling prey fish may be limiting aquatic food resources for PNP gulls. To investigate this, we examined gull population trends in different parts of the park in the context of food availability. Gull diets were assessed using regurgitated pellets, egg stable isotopes (nitrogen, carbon) and fatty acids. Population declines were more severe in southern PNP compared to northern PNP and inter-region differences in bird diets likely contributed to these population trends. Gulls in the south relied to a greater extent on dwindling aquatic food resources, i.e., prey fish, while birds in northern PNP supplemented their diets with anthropogenic foods, i.e., garbage. Recognizing that regional declines in aquatic food availability have occurred across eastern Lake Superior is important for the interpretation of PNP gull population trends. Wide-scale ecological changes affecting PNP suggest that factors limiting PNP's herring gull population are not park-specific but, instead, reflect broader ecosystem-wide changes. Defining an appropriate threshold based on current knowledge of ecological conditions on Lake Superior is critical for using herring gull populations as an indicator of park ecological integrity.