Confirming the multidimensionality of psychologically controlling parenting among Chinese-American mothers: Love withdrawal, guilt induction, and shaming

© The Author(s) 2014. Despite the theoretical conceptualization of parental psychological control as a multidimensional construct, the majority of previous studies have examined psychological control as a unidimensional scale. Moreover, the conceptualization of shaming and its associations with love withdrawal and guilt induction are unclear. The current study aimed to fill these gaps by evaluating the latent factor structure underlying 18 items from Olsen et al. (2002) that were conceptually relevant to love withdrawal, guilt induction, and shaming practices in a sample of 169 mothers of Chinese-American preschoolers. A multidimensional three-factor model and bi-factor model were specified based on our formulated operational definitions for the three dimensions of psychological control. Both models were found to be superior to the unidimensional model. In addition, results from the bi-factor model and an additional second-order factor model indicated that psychological control is essentially empirically isomorphic with guilt induction. Although love withdrawal and shaming factors were also fairly strong indicators of psychological control, each exhibited important additional unique variability and mutual distinctiveness. Implications for the conceptualization of love withdrawal, guilt induction, and shaming as well as directions for future studies are discussed

A method for concentrating lipid peptide DNA and siRNA nanocomplexes that retains their structure and transfection efficiency

Nonviral gene and small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery formulations are extensively used for biological and therapeutic research in cell culture experiments, but less so in in vivo and clinical research. Difficulties with formulating the nanoparticles for uniformity and stability at concentrations required for in vivo and clinical use are limiting their progression in these areas. Here, we report a simple but effective method of formulating monodisperse nanocomplexes from a ternary formulation of lipids, targeting peptides, and nucleic acids at a low starting concentration of 0.2 mg/mL of DNA, and we then increase their concentration up to 4.5 mg/mL by reverse dialysis against a concentrated polymer solution at room temperature. The nanocomplexes did not aggregate and they had maintained their biophysical properties, but, importantly, they also mediated DNA transfection and siRNA silencing in cultured cells. Moreover, concentrated anionic nanocomplexes administered by convection-enhanced delivery in the striatum showed efficient silencing of the β-secretase gene BACE1. This method of preparing nanocomplexes could probably be used to concentrate other nonviral formulations and may enable more widespread use of nanoparticles in vivo

The Mediating Role of Korean Immigrant Mothers’ Psychological Well-Being in the Associations between Social Support and Authoritarian Parenting Style

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. We examined the mediating role of Korean immigrant mothers’ psychological well-being in the associations between mothers’ emotional vs. instrumental support received from their kin, and their authoritarian parenting style with their preschoolers using longitudinal data. First-generation Korean immigrant mothers with preschool-aged children (N = 158; Mmaternal age = 36.11 years, SD = 3.90; Mchild age = 4.43 years, SD = 1.10) residing in Maryland, U.S., participated in three assessment waves. Each assessment wave was 6 months apart. Mothers reported on the amount of perceived emotional and instrumental support they received from their kin, their behavioral acculturation towards the American culture, and their family demographic information at Wave 1, their psychological well-being at Wave 2, and their authoritarian parenting style at Wave 3. The results revealed that higher levels of perceived instrumental support (but not emotional support) received from kin predicted higher levels of maternal psychological well-being 6 months later, which in turn predicted lower levels of reported authoritarian parenting style 6 months later. Our findings highlighted the importance of psychological well-being as a mechanism that explains how instrumental support can impact Korean immigrant mothers’ parenting style, and the importance of distinguishing between types of support. Services providing instrumental support (e.g., childcare assistance) for first-generation immigrant mothers, particularly those with smaller or less effective kin networks, appear important to implement

Why Primate Models Matter

Research involving nonhuman primates (NHPs) has played a vital role in many of the medical and scientific advances of the past century. NHPs are used because of their similarity to humans in physiology, neuroanatomy, reproduction, development, cognition, and social complexity – yet it is these very similarities that make the use of NHPs in biomedical research a considered decision. As primate researchers, we feel an obligation and responsibility to present the facts concerning why primates are used in various areas of biomedical research. Recent decisions in the United States, including the phasing out of chimpanzees in research by the National Institutes of Health and the pending closure of the New England Primate Research Center, illustrate to us the critical importance of conveying why continued research with primates is needed. Here we review key areas in biomedicine where primate models have been, and continue to be, essential for advancing fundamental knowledge in biomedical and biological research

Baryonium, tetra-quark state and glue-ball in large N_c QCD

From the large-N_c QCD point of view, baryonia, tetra-quark states, hybrids, and glueballs are studied. The existence of these states is argued for. They are constructed from baryons. In N_f=1 large N_c QCD, a baryonium is always identical to a glueball with N_c valence gluons. The ground state 0^{-+} glueball has a mass about 2450 MeV. f_0(1710) is identified as the lowest 0^{++} glueball. The lowest four-quark nonet should be f_0(1370), a_0(1450), K^*_0(1430) and f_0(1500). Combining with the heavy quark effective theory, spectra of heavy baryonia and heavy tetra-quark states are predicted. 1/N_c corrections are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Measurement of the Charged Multiplicities in b, c and Light Quark Events from Z0 Decays

Average charged multiplicities have been measured separately in $b$, $c$ and light quark ($u,d,s$) events from $Z^0$ decays measured in the SLD experiment. Impact parameters of charged tracks were used to select enriched samples of $b$ and light quark events, and reconstructed charmed mesons were used to select $c$ quark events. We measured the charged multiplicities: $\bar{n}_{uds} = 20.21 \pm 0.10 (\rm{stat.})\pm 0.22(\rm{syst.})$, $\bar{n}_{c} = 21.28 \pm 0.46(\rm{stat.}) ^{+0.41}_{-0.36}(\rm{syst.})$ $\bar{n}_{b} = 23.14 \pm 0.10(\rm{stat.}) ^{+0.38}_{-0.37}(\rm{syst.})$, from which we derived the differences between the total average charged multiplicities of $c$ or $b$ quark events and light quark events: $\Delta \bar{n}_c = 1.07 \pm 0.47(\rm{stat.})^{+0.36}_{-0.30}(\rm{syst.})$ and $\Delta \bar{n}_b = 2.93 \pm 0.14(\rm{stat.})^{+0.30}_{-0.29}(\rm{syst.})$. We compared these measurements with those at lower center-of-mass energies and with perturbative QCD predictions. These combined results are in agreement with the QCD expectations and disfavor the hypothesis of flavor-independent fragmentation.Comment: 19 pages LaTex, 4 EPS figures, to appear in Physics Letters

The MACHO Project 2nd Year LMC Microlensing Results and Dark Matter Implications

The MACHO Project is searching for galactic dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (Machos). Millions of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), and Galactic bulge are photometrically monitored in an attempt to detect rare gravitational microlensing events caused by otherwise invisible Machos. Analysis of two years of photometry on 8.5 million stars in the LMC reveals 8 candidate microlensing events, far more than the $\sim1$ event expected from lensing by low-mass stars in known galactic populations. From these eight events we estimate the optical depth towards the LMC from events with 2 < \that < 200 days to be \tau_2^{200} \approx 2.9 ^{+1.4}_{-0.9} \ten{-7}. This exceeds the optical depth of 0.5\ten{-7} expected from known stars and is to be compared with an optical depth of 4.7\ten{-7} predicted for a ``standard'' halo composed entirely of Machos. The total mass in this lensing population is \approx 2^{+1.2}_{-0.7} \ten{11} \msun (within 50 kpc from the Galactic center). Event timescales yield a most probable Macho mass of 0.5^{+0.3}_{-0.2}\msun, although this value is quite model dependent.Comment: 10 pages, 6 epsf figures and style file included, 451k, also at http://wwwmacho.mcmaster.ca/Pubs/Pubs.html; To appear in the Proceedings of "Sources and Detection of Dark Matter in the Universe", Santa Monica, CA, Feb., 199

The Contested Politics of Corporate Governance: The Case of the Global Reporting Initiative

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has successfully become institutionalized as the preeminent global framework for voluntary corporate environmental and social reporting. Its success can be attributed to the “institutional entrepreneurs” who analyzed the reporting field and deployed discursive, material, and organizational strategies to change it. GRI has, however, fallen short of the aspirations of its founders to use disclosure to empower nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The authors argue that its trajectory reflects the power relations between members of the field, their strategic choices and compromises, their ability to mobilize alliances and resources, and constraints imposed by the broader institutions of financial and capital markets. The authors draw three notable implications from this study. First, institutional theory needs to pay more attention to economic structures, strategies, and resources. Second, institutional entrepreneurship by relatively weak societal groups such as NGOs is inherently constrained by the structural power of wider institutions and by the compromises required to initiate change. Third, the strategies of NGOs represent a form of power capable of shifting, if not transforming, the field of corporate governance

Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events

The $B^0$-$\bar B^0$ oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of 23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives $\Delta m_d = 0.493 \pm 0.012{(stat)}\pm 0.009{(syst)}$ ps$^{-1}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter