The Influence of Father and Mother Involvement on Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Although much research has highlighted the importance of parents to adolescent well-being, very little work has focused on father involvement. Pleck’s model of father involvement introduces a framework to examine fathers’ influences on development. This study investigated Pleck’s model of father involvement and its relevance to describing mother involvement, examined the relations between mother and father involvement and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and explored the moderating role of adolescent gender on the relationships between mother and father involvement and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Data came from 52 intact heterosexual families where the mother, father, and adolescent child (ages 13-17) completed short online surveys. Mothers and fathers reported on their own involvement behaviors (positive engagement activities, warmth and responsiveness, control, indirect care, and process responsibility), and adolescents reported their internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Bivariate correlations and reliability analyses indicated that the five components of father involvement in Pleck’s model share more commonality for fathers than for mothers. Next, multiple regression analyses indicated that, while controlling on fathers’ self-reports, mothers who reported higher levels of warmth and responsiveness and control had adolescent children with fewer internalizing symptoms. Fathers’ self-reports of all five involvement constructs were not significantly related to either internalizing or externalizing symptoms. Results also indicated that, while controlling on all mother-reported constructs of involvement, more maternal warmth and responsiveness was related to fewer adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In addition, while controlling on all father-reported constructs of involvement, higher levels of paternal positive engagement activities and lower levels of indirect care were related to lower levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms, respectively. When investigating the moderating effects of adolescent gender on the relationships between parental involvement and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms, results indicated that the relationship between maternal process responsibility and adolescent externalizing symptoms was significant for boys but not significant for girls. In addition, the relationships between paternal warmth and responsiveness and adolescent externalizing symptoms, paternal control and adolescent internalizing symptoms, paternal indirect care and adolescent externalizing symptoms, and paternal process responsibility and adolescent externalizing symptoms was significant for boys but not significant for girls. Advisor: Lisa J. Crocket

Eating patterns during pregnancy and postpartum and their association with diet quality and energy intake

This study investigates the relationship between meal-specific eating patterns during pregnancy and postpartum with maternal diet quality and energy intake. Participants in a prospective cohort study completed 24-h dietary recalls three times throughout both pregnancy and 1 year postpartum (n = 420). Linear regressions estimated the associations of eating frequency (number of daily main meals and eating occasions), meal and energy regularity (meal skipping and variation of daily energy intake), and intake timing patterns (distribution of energy intake throughout the day, derived using principal component analysis) with daily energy intake and diet quality (Healthy Eating Index-2015, calculated daily and overall, across both pregnancy and postpartum). Eating frequency was positively associated with energy intake and daily diet quality. Irregular meals were associated with lower energy intake in pregnancy but not postpartum and with lower pregnancy and postpartum diet quality. Energy irregularity was not associated with energy intake or diet quality. Higher postpartum diet quality was associated with a morning energy intake pattern (versus late morning/early afternoon or evening). Differences in these associations between pregnancy and postpartum suggest that efforts to support optimal energy intake and diet quality by modifying eating patterns may require specific strategies for pregnancy and postpartum

Determining cantilever stiffness from thermal noise

Lübbe J, Temmen M, Rahe P, Kühnle A, Reichling M. Determining cantilever stiffness from thermal noise. Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology. 2013;4:227-233.We critically discuss the extraction of intrinsic cantilever properties, namely eigenfrequency f(n), quality factor Q(n) and specifically the stiffness k(n) of the nth cantilever oscillation mode from thermal noise by an analysis of the power spectral density of displacement fluctuations of the cantilever in contact with a thermal bath. The practical applicability of this approach is demonstrated for several cantilevers with eigenfrequencies ranging from 50 kHz to 2 MHz. As such an analysis requires a sophisticated spectral analysis, we introduce a new method to determine kn from a spectral analysis of the demodulated oscillation signal of the excited cantilever that can be performed in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 1 kHz regardless of the eigenfrequency of the cantilever. We demonstrate that the latter method is in particular useful for noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) where the required simple instrumentation for spectral analysis is available in most experimental systems

Thermal noise limit for ultra-high vacuum noncontact atomic force microscopy

Lübbe J, Temmen M, Rode S, Rahe P, Kühnle A, Reichling M. Thermal noise limit for ultra-high vacuum noncontact atomic force microscopy. Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology. 2013;4:32-44.The noise of the frequency-shift signal Delta f in noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) consists of cantilever thermal noise, tip-surface-interaction noise and instrumental noise from the detection and signal processing systems. We investigate how the displacement-noise spectral density d(z) at the input of the frequency demodulator propagates to the frequency-shift-noise spectral density d(Delta f) at the demodulator output in dependence of cantilever properties and settings of the signal processing electronics in the limit of a negligible tip-surface interaction and a measurement under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions. For a quantification of the noise figures, we calibrate the cantilever displacement signal and determine the transfer function of the signal-processing electronics. From the transfer function and the measured dz, we predict d(Delta f) for specific filter settings, a given level of detection-system noise spectral density d(ds)(z) and the cantilever-thermal-noise spectral density d(th)(z). We find an excellent agreement between the calculated and measured values for d(Delta f). Furthermore, we demonstrate that thermal noise in d(Delta f), defining the ultimate limit in NC-AFM signal detection, can be kept low by a proper choice of the cantilever whereby its Q-factor should be given most attention. A system with a low-noise signal detection and a suitable cantilever, operated with appropriate filter and feedback-loop settings allows room temperature NC-AFM measurements at a low thermal-noise limit with a significant bandwidth

Convective Nonlinearity in Non-Newtonian Fluids

In the limit of infinite yield time for stresses, the hydrodynamic equations for viscoelastic, Non-Newtonian liquids such as polymer melts must reduce to that for solids. This piece of information suffices to uniquely determine the nonlinear convective derivative, an ongoing point of contention in the rheology literature.Comment: 4 page

Granular Solid Hydrodynamics

Granular elasticity, an elasticity theory useful for calculating static stress distribution in granular media, is generalized to the dynamic case by including the plastic contribution of the strain. A complete hydrodynamic theory is derived based on the hypothesis that granular medium turns transiently elastic when deformed. This theory includes both the true and the granular temperatures, and employs a free energy expression that encapsulates a full jamming phase diagram, in the space spanned by pressure, shear stress, density and granular temperature. For the special case of stationary granular temperatures, the derived hydrodynamic theory reduces to {\em hypoplasticity}, a state-of-the-art engineering model.Comment: 42 pages 3 fi

LFB-Labs-digital: Schülerlabore als Ort der Lehrkräftefortbildung in der digitalen Welt: Ein Bericht zur Konzeption eines Verbundprojektes

Schülerlabore haben unter anderem zum Ziel, die Motivation, insbesondere das Interesse – i.S. einer gegenstandsbezogenen Motivation – von Schüler*innen an MINT-Themen und -Arbeitsweisen zu fördern. Darüber hinaus konnten sie sich schneller und produktiver als die formalen Bildungsorte den Herausforderungen der digitalen Transformation stellen. Das Potenzial, Schülerlabore auch als innovative Orte der Lehrkräftefortbildung (LFB) zu nutzen und digitalisierungsbezogene Kompetenzen bei Lehrkräften aufzubauen, wurde bisher nicht ausgeschöpft. Im Verbundprojekt mit insgesamt acht Standorten werden Schülerlabore zu LFB-Labs-digital ausgebaut und die Frage nach Implementierungsvoraussetzungen gelingender Fortbildungen in der digitalen Welt im MINT-Bereich bearbeitet. In diesem Artikel werden die theoretische Fundierung, Ziele und anvisierten Forschungsarbeiten des Verbunds LFB-Labs-digital dargelegt. Zur Unterstützung der mit der forschungsbasierten Qualitätsentwicklung der MINT-bezogenen Aus-, Fort- und Weiterbildung von Lehrkräften betrauten Einrichtungen in den Ländern sollen in Kooperation mit dem Kompetenzzentrum MINT des Bundes die Lernorte „Schülerlabore“ für die digitale LFB erschlossen werden, um vermittelt hierüber die Motivation von Schüler*innen für die MINT-Fächer zu fördern. Die in den Schülerlaboren evaluierten und vom fächerübergreifenden adaptiven Qualitätsmanagement für die LFB wissenschaftlich begleiteten Good-Practice-Beispiele werden zur Grundlage für den „Referenzrahmen LFB-Labs-digital“. Dieser wird – vor dem Hintergrund einer Ergebnistriangulation aus der Begleitforschung sowie den damit parallelisierten Studien zur Evidenzbasierung der Lehrkräftequalifizierung in der digitalen Welt und dem Musterqualitätshandbuch LFB – entwickelt und von einem Implementierungsbeirat mit ausgewiesenen Expert*innen in diesem Bereich auf Transferoptionen hin geprüft. Die digitale Infrastruktur für die LFB-Labs-digital-Veranstaltungsformate wird hierzu prozessbegleitend ausgebaut