With a Little Help from Our Friends: Social Support as a Source of Well-being and of Coping with Stress

The relationship between one\u27s psycho-emotional and physiological health has long been of interest to social scientists. While many factors have been examined for their impact on causation and prevention, over the past two decades the concepts of social support, stress and well-being have undergone much scrutiny. In this article the authors provide empirical data to enhance our understanding of the interrelatedness of these three concepts. Based on the findings from a study of stress and health in organizations, a model is proposed which elucidates some of the conditions under which social support networks mediate the impact of stress on psychological well-being

The UCSD Radio-Selected Quasar Survey for Damped Lyman alpha System

As large optical quasar surveys for damped Lya become a reality and the study of star forming gas in the early Universe achieves statistical robustness, it is now vital to identify and quantify the sources of systematic error. Because the nature of optically-selected quasar surveys makes them vulnerable to dust obscuration, we have undertaken a radio-selected quasar survey for damped Lya systems to address this bias. We present the definition and results of this survey. We then combine our sample with the CORALS dataset to investigate the HI column density distribution function f(N) of damped Lya systems toward radio-selected quasars. We find that f(N) is well fit by a power-law f(N) = k_1 N^alpha_1, with log k_1 = 22.90 and alpha_1 = -2.18. This power-law is in excellent agreement with that of optically-selected samples at low N(HI), an important yet expected result given that obscuration should have negligible effect at these gas columns. However, because of the relatively small size of the radio-selected sample, 26 damped Lya systems in 119 quasars, f(N) is not well constrained at large N(HI) and the first moment of the HI distribution function, Omega_g, is, strictly speaking, a lower limit. The power-law is steep enough, however, that extrapolating it to higher column densities implies only a modest, logarithmic increase in Omega_g. The radio-selected value of Omega_g = 1.15 x 10^-3, agrees well with the results of optically-selected surveys. While our results indicate that dust obscuration is likely not a major issue for surveys of damped Lya systems, we estimate that a radio-selected sample of approximately 100 damped Lya systems will be required to obtain the precision necessary to absolutely confirm an absence of dust bias.Comment: 12 pages, 9 Figures. Accepted to ApJ April 11, 200

Magnetic Anisotropy of Co2MnSn1−xSbx Thin Films Grown on GaAs (001)

Heusler alloy Co2MnSn1−xSbx (x = 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0) thin films were grown on GaAs (001) substrates using pulsed laser deposition techniques. Growth parameters have been determined that result in highly magnetically anisotropic, crystalline, and oriented (001) films. The angular dependences, relative to the GaAs (001) crystallographic directions, of the coercive field Hc(θ) and the remanence Mr(θ) were determined from angle dependent magneto-optic Kerr effect (MOKE) measurements. It was found that Hc(θ) revealed higher order symmetry contributions to the magnetic anisotropy than did Mr(θ). The Fourier analysis of rotational MOKE data was used to determine the symmetry contributions to the total anisotropy

Magnetic and Transport Properties of Co2MnSnxSb1−x Heusler Alloys

We present the magnetic, structural, and transport properties of the quaternary Heusler alloys Co2MnSnxSb1−x (x = 0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.0), which have been theoretically predicted to be half-metallic. Magnetization measurements as a function of applied field show that the saturation moment for x = 1 (Co2MnSn) is near the Slater–Pauling value of 5μB; however, the moment for x = 0 (Co2MnSb) falls far short of its predicted value of 6μB. Resistivity as a function of temperature was measured from 5 to 400 K, and a phase transition from a half-metallic ferromagnetic phase to a normal ferromagnetic phase was observed between 50 and 80 K for all of the alloys. At low temperature (10 K\u3cT\u3c40 K), the resistivity ratio was found to vary as R(T)/R(T = 5 K) = A+BT2+CT9/2, where the T2 term results from electron-electron scattering, whereas the T9/2 term is a consequence of double magnon scattering

Induced Magnetic Anisotropy and Spin Polarization in Pulsed Laser-Deposited Co2MnSb Thin Films

Co2MnSb thin films were grown on glass and GaAs (001) substrates using pulsed laser deposition. The films were grown in magnetic fields (HG = 500 Oe and 0 Oe) that were applied in the plane of the substrate during the deposition process. Angle-dependent magneto-optic Kerr effect measurements for films grown on glass revealed a uniaxial magnetic anisotropy in the direction of the applied growth field. Films grown on GaAs (001) exhibited more complicated magnetic anisotropy behavior, due to additional contributions from the substrate. Point contact Andreév reflection spectroscopy measurements indicated that the spin polarizations of the films were about P~ 50%, with negligible difference between films grown in zero and non-zero applied fields