Typologies of post-divorce coparenting and parental well-being, parenting quality and children’s psychological adjustment

First published online: 30 October 2015The aim of this study was to identify post-divorce coparenting profiles and examine whether these profiles differentiate between levels of parents’ well-being, parenting practices, and children’s psychological problems. Cluster analysis was conducted with Portuguese heterosexual divorced parents (N = 314) to yield distinct postdivorce coparenting patterns. Clusters were based on parents’ self-reported coparenting relationship assessed along four dimensions: agreement, exposure to conflict, undermining/support, and division of labor. A three cluster solution was found and replicated. Parents in the highconflict coparenting group exhibited significantly lower life satisfaction, as well as significantly higher divorce-related negative affect and inconsistent parenting than parents in undermining and cooperative coparenting clusters. The cooperative coparenting group reported higher levels of positive family functioning and lower externalizing and internalizing problems in their children. These results suggested that a positive coparenting alliance may be a protective factor for individual and family outcomes after parental divorce

Bimorph mirrors for adaptive optics in space telescopes

This paper discusses a concept of bimorph deformable mirror used in adaptive optics to compensate for manufacturing errors, gravity release and thermal distortion affecting large lightweight mirrors in space telescopes. The mirror consists of a single-crystal Silicon wafer (D=75 mm t=500μm) covered with an optical coating on the front side and an array of 25 independent PZT actuators acting in d31 mode on the back side. The mirror is mounted on an isostatic support with three linear PZT actuators controlling the rigid-body motion. The paper presents the experimental results obtained with this design and a new, more compact alternative.SCOPUS: cp.pinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Quality of non-resident father-child relationships: between “caring for” and “caring about”

The book series “European Studies of Population” (ESPO), ISSN 1381-3579Using the cross-sectional Fathering after Union Dissolution in Lithuania survey data (2016), this chapter analyzes the quality of non-resident father-child relationships after a parental union dissolution. We assess the relationship quality perceived by fathers and focus on both positive elements such as intimacy and approval and negative ones such as conflict and child’s dominance in relationships. The influence of fathers’ resources such as their personal well-being, socio-economic resources, parenting practices and a family situation on relationship quality is also examined in the chapter. Following Smart (J Law Soc 18(4):485–500, 1991) we use the concepts of “caring for” and “caring about” specifically developed to describe the post-divorce father-child relationship quality. We make the hypotheses that fathers’ higher personal, socio-economic resources and involved parenting practices contribute positively to the “caring for” type of relationship, while limited resources contribute to the “caring about” type of relationships. Our findings demonstrate that the father-child relationship quality is associated with personal and parenting resources, while the effect of men’s socio-economic resources is not relevant if child-related characteristics are controlled. We also find the positive association between fathers’ re-partnering and new children and the quality of the relationships (less conflict and more paternal authority) with non-resident childrenSociologijos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta