The Role of Pre- and Postnatal Timing of Family Risk Factors on Child Behavior at 36 months

Children growing up in disharmonious families with anxious/depressed mothers are at risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties, however whether these associations reflect postnatal environment, prenatal exposure, or an overall liability is still unclear. This study used prospectively collected data from 24,259 participants of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Mothers reported on anxiety/depression and family disharmony twice in pregnancy and twice post pregnancy, as well as on their child’s physical aggression and crying behavior at age 36 months. First, results from an autoregressive cross-lagged model showed a substantial stability in both maternal anxiety/depression and family disharmony from pregnancy to 18 months postnatal, but there was no indication that family disharmony led to maternal anxiety/depression, or the other way around. Second, structural equation models further suggests that the main risk derived from an overall liability, that is, a lasting effect of family risks that spanned the two time periods

Passive fear

“Passive fear” denotes a certain type of response to a perceived threat; what is distinctive about the state of passive fear is that its behavioral outlook appears to qualify the emotional experience. I distinguish between two cases of passive fear: one is that of freezing in fear; the other is that of fear-involved tonic immobility. I reconstruct the explanatory strategy that is commonly employed in the field of emotion science, and argue that it leaves certain questions about the nature of passive fear unanswered. I subsequently propose an account of passive fear that builds upon a phenomenological theory of emotions, placing emphasis on the interpretation of current research into human tonic immobility. © 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

Life Testing of Yb14MnSb11 for High Performance Thermoelectric Couples

The goal of this study is to verify the long term stability of Yb14MnSb11 for high performance thermoelectric (TE) couples. Three main requirements need to be satisfied to ensure the long term stability of thermoelectric couples: 1) stable thermoelectric properties, 2) stable bonding interfaces, and 3) adequate sublimation suppression. The efficiency of the couple is primarily based on the thermoelectric properties of the materials selected for the couple. Therefore, these TE properties should exhibit minimal degradation during the operating period of the thermoelectric couples. The stability of the bonding is quantified by low contact resistances of the couple interfaces. In order to ensure high efficiency, the contact resistances of the bonding interfaces should be negligible. Sublimation suppression is important because the majority of thermoelectric materials used for power generation have peak figures of merit at temperatures where sublimation rates are high. Controlling sublimation is also essential to preserve the efficiency of the couple. During the course of this research, three different life tests were performed with Yb14MnSb11 coupons. TE properties of Yb14MnSb11 exhibited no degradation after 6 months of aging at 1273K, and the electrical contact resistance between a thin metallization layer and the Yb14MnSb11 remained negligible after 1500hr aging at 1273K. A sublimation suppression layer for Yb14MnSb11 was developed and demonstrated for more than 18 months with coupon testing at 1273K. These life test data indicate that thermoelectric elements based on Yb14MnSb11 are a promising technology for use in future high performance thermoelectric power generating couples

Life Testing of Segmented High Efficiency Thermoelectric Couples

No abstract availabl