Socioeconomic Adaptation of Post-1991 Eastern European Immigrants in the USA

Very little is known about new Eastern European immigrants in the USA, despite the rapid growth of this immigrant population. In particular, their socioeconomic adaptation to American life has not been systematically studied. Extending previous research on post-1965 immigration to the USA, this study examines the socioeconomic adaptation of post-1991 Eastern European immigrants by focusing on their educational attainment, occupational status, and income. We test our hypotheses using data from the pooled 2006–2010 American Community Surveys and ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression. The results show that new Eastern European immigrants tend to be highly educated and professional, but their income is surprisingly low. The results of regression models indicate that the individual characteristics of immigrants largely explain their socioeconomic adaptation. In addition, such conditions in the countries of origin as gross domestic product and political and personal freedom also influence their socioeconomic performance to some extent. The implications of findings are discussed.     

Differences in the micromechanical properties of dendrites and interdendritic regions in superalloys

Statistical analysis of white-light interferometry (WLI) experiments performed on Ni-based single-crystal superalloys (SX) have revealed a different height distribution between the dendritic cores (DCs) and the interdendritic regions (IRs) of the polished samples. The micromechanical property difference is largely ascribed to the uneven distribution of the alloying elements. In this context, possible reasons for this difference are discussed by comparing with different experiment results obtained by previous researchers, and a proposal forecasting the hardness ratio of IRs/DCs is put forward.     

Influence of bidirectional perspective on learning routes and spatial layout

The capacity to remain spatially oriented is an essential function in our day to day lives and it seems that the form in which we acquire the spatial information affects the way in which the spatial knowledge is represented in our memory. The goal of this research was to investigate whether the acquisition of spatial information through the learning of three routes within an immersive environment was improved or impaired when participants have access to the backward perspective in addition to the forward perspective. Results, both in reproduction and drawing tasks, showed a poorer performance of the bidirectional group maybe due to the extra-effort involved in updating the spatial information trial by trial. However it seems that the experience enhanced the performance of the bidirectional group in one respect, as they were able to reduce significantly the number of error directions in the last path.     

Timing in a dual-task in children and adults: when the interference effect is higher with concurrent non-temporal than temporal information

This study used a dual task with participants of different levels of cognitive capacities, assessed with neuropsychological tests, to examine the attentional cost on time judgment of processing concurrent temporal and non-temporal information. Children and adults performed a temporal reproduction task with either an interfering temporal or non-temporal discrimination task. The results showed an underestimation of time in the dual task compared to the single task, the extent of which was directly linked to individual attentional capacities. However, the non-temporal task interfered more than the temporal task on the reproduced durations. Nonetheless, the temporal reproduction task equally affected performance in the non-temporal and the temporal discrimination task. These results reveal the predominant role of the cost of dual-tasking in interference effects on time judgment, and the lesser role of concurrent information, especially of temporal information. This suggests a lack of competition for attentional resources in the processing of multiple durations.     

Estimating group size from human speech: Three's a conversation,but four's a crowd

Much previous research has examined various aspects of auditory processing, including the localization of sounds, and the influence of lexical and indexical information on language processing. In the present set of experiments we explored the ability of listeners to estimate the number of speakers in a group solely from the information in an auditory signal. The bound on accurately estimating the number of simultaneous speakers is 3. We suggest that subitization—the ability to estimate numerosity of visual and auditory elements without explicitly counting these elements—rather than the capacity of short-term memory, may underlie this limitation. The cognitive constraint on estimating the number of simultaneous speakers may have implications for a wide variety of seemingly unrelated psychological phenomena.     

Semantics and the sacred

ABSTRACT

This article looks at four different scholarly perspectives on ‘sacred’ – the ineffable sacred, the experienced sacred, the polarized sacred and the contextualized sacred – in order to draw out their implicit presuppositions about meaning. The first two stances presuppose that meaning depends on what bits of language are about (referentialism), and the other two stances presuppose that meaning depends on relations between bits of language (holism). The article concludes three things: these prominent views of ‘sacred’ rest on usually implicit or unrecognized assumptions about the nature of meaning; some of those assumptions explain why certain theories are contentious and problematic and others ground more promising and productive approaches.     

New polytypes of long-period stacking ordered structures in a near-equilibrium Mg97Zn1Y2 alloy

By atomic-scale high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy, the long-period stacking ordered (LPSO) structures in a near-equilibrium Mg₉₇Zn₁Y₂ (at.%) alloy have been characterised. In addition to 18R and 14H, new polytypes of LPSO structures are analysed and determined as 60R, 78R, 26H, 96R, 38H, 40H, 108H and 246R. All of these LPSO structures feature AB′C′A building blocks with two Mg layers and three Mg layers sandwiched between them. The Bravais lattices and space groups of new polytypes of LPSO structures were easily determined via the newly introduced method. A structural relationship between the LPSOs is proposed.     

A first-principles study of the formation of θ′′ phase in Al–Cu alloys

The θ′′-Al₃Cu phase plays an important role in the precipitation process of Al–Cu alloys. This phase has a sandwich structure—every two {200}_Cu layers are separated by three {200}_Al layers. To analyse the formation mechanism of this structure, the elastic strain energy of the {200}_Cu and {200}_Al layers, and the chemical bonding energy that reflects the interaction between the electrons in Cu and neighbouring Al atoms are calculated and analysed by first-principles calculations, projected density of states and Bader analysis. Our computation results reveal that this sandwich structure is energetically preferred in the competition of elastic strain and chemical bonding energies. To minimise the elastic strain energy of {200}_Al and {200}_Cu layers, the {200}_Cu layers prefer being apart from each other, whereas the chemical bonding energy favours the opposite arrangement because the intermetallic bond between Al and Cu atoms may form through p-d hybridization.     

Perceptions of Stress,Coping, and Intervention Preferences among Caregivers of Disadvantaged Children with Asthma

Asthma remains the most prevalent chronic illness among children. Despite the substantial body of literature examining children with asthma, few studies have examined parents’ perspectives of the condition and experiences of caregiver stress. Parents of children with chronic illnesses experience elevated stress and may have limited opportunities to cope with complex emotions while caring for children with asthma. Drawing from focus groups and interviews with African American and Hispanic parents of children with asthma, this qualitative study was conducted as part of a patient-centered engagement process to inform the refinement of an intervention aimed at reducing stress among parents of children with asthma. All data were transcribed and underwent three waves of inductive analysis. The content analysis indicated that the unpredictable nature of asthma and the caregiving burden associated with managing children’s asthma contributed to parents’ stress, and external contexts compounded the impact of these stressors. Parents also reported having difficulty identifying how they coped with stress and employed approaches to coping with stress that they applied intermittently but encountered several barriers to enacting known or available coping strategies. Analyses also revealed that parents desired a multimodal stress reduction intervention that emphasized building relationships, allowed for flexibility, and encouraged staff-parent communication. Whereas African American and Hispanic parents’ experiences of stress and coping strategies were similar, their preferences differed in regards to incorporating technology into the intervention, the credentials of facilitators, and the salience of language preferences. Understanding the complexities of stressors facing caregivers is important for developing interventions to support parents and children coping with asthma, and in particular when working with families from diverse backgrounds.