Social support, social control and health behavior change in spouses

Our work on support processes in intimate relationships has focused on how partners in committed relationships help one another contend with personal difficulties, and how partners elicit and provide support in their day-to-day interactions. We are particularly interested in how these support skills relate to marital outcomes (Pasch & Bradbury, 1998; Pasch, Harris, Sullivan, & Bradbury, 2004; Sullivan, Pasch, Eldridge, & Bradbury, 1998) and how they relate to behavior change in spouses (Sullivan, Pasch, Johnson, & Bradbury, 2006), especially health behavior changes. In this chapter, we review research examining the effects of social support and social control on spouses\u27 health behaviors, propose a theory to account for discrepancies in these findings, and report initial data examining the usefulness of this theory in understanding the relationship between social support, social control, and partner health behavior

Necessary and unnecessary complexity in construction

The nature of complexity varies as construction progresses. This paper presents concepts and practices with which project (knowledge) management must foster complexity when it is necessary and dampen complexity when it is unnecessary in order to generate value and control time and costs. Complexity management has to be adjusted to the current state of the project. Before and during programming the building as a solid object can not be predicted; the user activities, extent, mass and materials are unknown. We might renovate, build a new building or we might not invest at all. The problem is inductive since there are several correct answers, not right or wrong but good or poor. After design and before on-site construction we know the object and its performances, the single “right answer” for construction. The system is deductive. The building process is initially inductive and becomes predominantly deductive, being complex all the time. The destruction of an inductive system can be avoided only if there is enough variety in the controller. Only a management system which contains variation can produce alternatives in a creative way to keep to goals in spite of disturbance. It is called necessary or requisite variety. If a problem “do we need an activity?” is dealt with simultaneously as the question “where would it be located in a plan?”, there are limitless possible alternatives. If we first answer “no” to the first question, there are no alternatives left. Does the “Where it will be” answer create more valuable information to the question “do we need it”? If not, the variables are orthogonal. Combining orthogonal variables causes more iterations and can be called unnecessary complexity. In the beginning of construction the building as an object can be predicted. However, due to the peculiarities of construction, there is a lot of complexity confronting the production phase. The issue is to consider whether any peculiarity could be eliminated or at least reduced. In operations management, three different conceptualizations should be simultaneously used: production as transformation, flow and value generation. From these, the transformation model is in an auxiliary position, whereas the flow model addresses the time-dependent complexity and value generation addresses the time-independent complexity. In the framework of these conceptualizations, the insights and principles of complexity thinking should be applied as appropriate

Reforming Project Management: The Role of Lean Construction

Project management as taught by professional societies and applied in current practice must be reformed because it is inadequate today and its performance will continue to decline as projects become more uncertain, complex and pressed for speed. Project management is failing because of flawed assumptions and idealized theory: it rests on a faulty understanding of the nature or work in projects, and a deficient definition of control. It is argued that a reform of project management will be driven by theories from production management that add the management of workflow and the creation and delivery of value to the current emphasis on activities. Of all the approaches to production management, the theory and principles drawn from Lean Production seem to be best suited for project management. Promising results in this regard have been reached already in one project management area, namely in Lean Construction

Commercial bank lending practices in the development of urban projects : underwriting criteria in a changing environment

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1990.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-83).by Alison J. Waltch and Lauri A. Webster.M.S

Physical aggression, compromised social support, and 10-year marital outcomes: Testing a relational spillover model

The purpose of the present study was to test a relational spillover model of physical aggression whereby physical aggression affects marital outcomes due to its effects on how spouses ask for and provide support to one another. Newlywed couples (n = 172) reported levels of physical aggression over the past year and engaged in interactions designed to elicit social support; marital adjustment, and stability were assessed periodically over the first 10 years of marriage. Multilevel modeling revealed that negative support behavior mediated the relationship between physical aggression and 10-year marital adjustment levels whereas positive support behavior mediated the relationship between physical aggression and divorce status. These findings emphasize the need to look beyond conflict when explaining how aggression affects relationships and when working with couples with a history of physical aggression who are seeking to improve their relationships

Symmetry breaking in driven and strongly damped pendulum

We examine the conditions for appearance of symmetry breaking bifurcation in damped and periodically driven pendulum in the case of strong damping. We show that symmetry breaking, unlike other nonlinear phenomena, can exist at high dissipation. We prove that symmetry breaking phases exist between phases of symmetric normal and symmetric inverted oscillations. We find that symmetry broken solutions occupy a sufficiently smaller region of pendulum's parameter space in comparison to the statements made in earlier considerations [McDonald and Plischke, Phys. Rev. B 27 (1983) 201]. Our research on symmetry breaking in a strongly damped pendulum is relevant to an understanding of phenomena of dynamic symmetry breaking and rectification in a pure ac driven semiconductor superlattices.Comment: 11 pages, 4 color figures, RevTeX

Social support, problem solving, and the longitudinal course of newlywed marriage

Married couples (N = 172) were observed as newlyweds and again one year later while engaging in 2 problem-solving and 2 personal support discussions. Microanalytic coding of these conversations was used to examine associations between problem-solving and social support behaviors over one year and their relative contributions to 10-year trajectories of self-reported relationship satisfaction and dissolution. Results demonstrated that initially lower levels of positive support behaviors and higher levels of negative support behaviors predicted 1-year increases in negative emotion displayed during problem-solving conversations. Emotions coded from the initial problem-solving conversations did not predict 1-year changes in social support behaviors. Controlling for emotions displayed during problem-solving interactions eliminated or reduced associations between initial social support behaviors and (a) later levels of satisfaction and (b) relationship dissolution. These findings corroborate models that prioritize empathy, validation, and caring as key elements in the development of intimacy (e.g., Reis & Shaver, 1988), and they suggest that deficits in these domains foreshadow deterioration in problem-solving and conflict management. Implications for integrating support and problem-solving in models of relationship change are outlined, as are implications for incorporating social support in education programs for developing relationships

Inverse problem for wave equation with sources and observations on disjoint sets

We consider an inverse problem for a hyperbolic partial differential equation on a compact Riemannian manifold. Assuming that $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ are two disjoint open subsets of the boundary of the manifold we define the restricted Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator $\Lambda_{\Gamma_1,\Gamma_2}$. This operator corresponds the boundary measurements when we have smooth sources supported on $\Gamma_1$ and the fields produced by these sources are observed on $\Gamma_2$. We show that when $\Gamma_1$ and $\Gamma_2$ are disjoint but their closures intersect at least at one point, then the restricted Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator $\Lambda_{\Gamma_1,\Gamma_2}$ determines the Riemannian manifold and the metric on it up to an isometry. In the Euclidian space, the result yields that an anisotropic wave speed inside a compact body is determined, up to a natural coordinate transformations, by measurements on the boundary of the body even when wave sources are kept away from receivers. Moreover, we show that if we have three arbitrary non-empty open subsets $\Gamma_1,\Gamma_2$, and $\Gamma_3$ of the boundary, then the restricted Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators $\Lambda_{\Gamma_j,\Gamma_k}$ for $1\leq j<k\leq 3$ determine the Riemannian manifold to an isometry. Similar result is proven also for the finite-time boundary measurements when the hyperbolic equation satisfies an exact controllability condition

Whole-exome sequencing identifies novel candidate predisposition genes for familial polycythemia vera

Background: Polycythemia vera (PV), characterized by massive production of erythrocytes, is one of the myeloproliferative neoplasms. Most patients carry a somatic gain-of-function mutation in JAK2, c.1849G > T (p.Val617Phe), leading to constitutive activation of JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Familial clustering is also observed occasionally, but high-penetrance predisposition genes to PV have remained unidentified. Results: We studied the predisposition to PV by exome sequencing (three cases) in a Finnish PV family with four patients. The 12 shared variants (maximum allowed minor allele frequency G (p.Phe418Leu) in ZXDC, c.1931C > G (p.Pro644Arg) in ATN1, and c.701G > A (p.Arg234Gln) in LRRC3. We also observed a rare, predicted benign germline variant c.2912C > G (p.Ala971Gly) in BCORL1 in all four patients. Somatic mutations in BCORL1 have been reported in myeloid malignancies. We further screened the variants in eight PV patients in six other Finnish families, but no other carriers were found. Conclusions: Exome sequencing provides a powerful tool for the identification of novel variants, and understanding the familial predisposition of diseases. This is the first report on Finnish familial PV cases, and we identified three novel candidate variants that may predispose to the disease.Peer reviewe