Cultural similarities and differences in couples' adjustment to competing family and work demands

Conflicting work and family demands can lead to individual and interpersonal stress in close relationships. The literature suggests that individuals from various cultural contexts differ in how they organize domestic work in the family and in the support they receive from other persons. At the same time, past findings suggest effects of culture on individuals’ emotional behaviors and expression, and on the regulation of negative emotions. Although these topics are likely strongly interconnected, they have rarely been considered together and the cultural differences found are insufficiently understood. The current thesis combines five studies conducted to better understand how culture influences married partners’ behavior and emotion when managing their daily life between the family and the workplace. This research is based on ambulatory assessment data from 623 dual-earner couples from eight cultural contexts. This approach provides good validity to explore individuals’ daily family behavior and emotional experience. We examined working couples’ family work organization, including third party’s contribution, considering collectivistic values at social and individual levels. Moreover, we investigated spouses’ emotional experiences under stressful everyday life conditions in different cultures, and examined the interpersonal consequences and subsequent regulation and recovery of affective experiences. The results showed that spouses in collectivistic cultures received more support from extended family, which might result in a more equal division of family work between spouses. In addition, spouses were more likely to suppress their negative emotional responses to relational stress, and these negative emotions showed more cross-over effects between spouses, while spouses needed more time to recover under relational stress in collectivistic cultures than in individualistic cultures. Overall, the findings provided further evidence to a cultural effect on individuals’ daily behavior and emotional experience in close relationships

Separation and Identification of HSP-Associated Protein Complexes from Pancreatic Cancer Cell Lines Using 2D CN/SDS-PAGE Coupled with Mass Spectrometry

Protein complexes are a cornerstone of many biological processes and together they form various types of molecular machinery. A broad understanding of these protein complexes is crucial for revealing and building models of protein function and regulation. Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal disease which is difficult to diagnose at early stage and even more difficult to cure. In this study, we applied a gradient clear native gel system combined with subsequent second-dimensional SDS-PAGE to separate protein complexes from cell lysates of SW1990 and PANC-1 pancreatic cancer cell lines with different degrees of differentiation. Ten heat-shock-protein- (HSP-) associated protein complexes were separated and identified, and the differentially expressed proteins related to cancers were also found, such as HSP60, protein disulfide-isomerase A4 (ERp72), and transitional endoplasmic reticulum ATPase (TER ATPase)

Tailoring the Spectra of White Organic Light-Emitting Devices by Trap Effect of a Concentration-Insensitive Dopant

Highly efficient phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices (PhOLEDs) had been fabricated by using a novel iridium complex, bis[2-(3′,5′-di-tert-butylbiphenyl-4-yl)benzothiazolato-N,C2′]iridium(III) (acetylacetonate) [(tbpbt)2Ir(acac)], as the emitter. With a wide doping ratio ranging from 15 wt% to 25 wt%, the PhOLEDs maintained a comparable high performance, indicating concentration-insensitive property of the (tbpbt)2Ir(acac). On the basis of the unique characteristic of concentration insensitivity, the application of this phosphor was explored by fabricating white organic light-emitting devices (WOLEDs) with altered doping ratio, indicating that trap effect of (tbpbt)2Ir(acac) could effectively tailor WOLEDs spectra. Typically, a high-power efficiency, current efficiency, and external quantum efficiency of 30.0 lm/W, 38.8 cd/A, 18.1%, were achieved by 20 wt% doped WOLEDs

Moderate strength (0.23–0.28 T) static magnetic fields (SMF) modulate signaling and differentiation in human embryonic cells

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Compelling evidence exists that magnetic fields modulate living systems. To date, however, rigorous studies have focused on identifying the molecular-level biosensor (e.g., radical ion pairs or membranes) or on the behavior of whole animals leaving a gap in understanding how molecular effects are translated into tissue-wide and organism-level responses. This study begins to bridge this gulf by investigating static magnetic fields (SMF) through global mRNA profiling in human embryonic cells coupled with software analysis to identify the affected signaling pathways.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Software analysis of gene expression in cells exposed to 0.23–0.28 T SMF showed that nine signaling networks responded to SMF; of these, detailed biochemical validation was performed for the network linked to the inflammatory cytokine IL-6. We found the short-term (<24 h) activation of IL-6 involved the coordinate up-regulation of toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) with complementary changes to NEU3 and ST3GAL5 that reduced ganglioside GM3 in a manner that augmented the activation of TLR4 and IL-6. Loss of GM3 also provided a plausible mechanism for the attenuation of cellular responses to SMF that occurred over longer exposure periods. Finally, SMF-mediated responses were manifest at the cellular level as morphological changes and biochemical markers indicative of pre-oligodendrocyte differentiation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides a framework describing how magnetic exposure is transduced from a plausible molecular biosensor (lipid membranes) to cell-level responses that include differentiation toward neural lineages. In addition, SMF provided a stimulus that uncovered new relationships – that exist even in the absence of magnetic fields – between gangliosides, the time-dependent regulation of IL-6 signaling by these glycosphingolipids, and the fate of embryonic cells.</p

Coordinate-free formation control of multi-agent systems using rooted graphs

This paper studies how to control large formations of autonomous agents in the plane, assuming that each agent is able to sense relative positions of its neighboring agents with respect to its own local coordinate system. We tackle the problem by adopting two types of controllers. First, we use the classical gradient-based controllers on three leader agents to meet their distance constraints. Second, we develop other type of controllers for follower agents: utilizing the properties of rooted graphs, one is able to design linear controllers incorporating relative positions between the follower agents and their neighbors, to stabilize the overall large formations. The advantages of the proposed method are fourfold: (i) fewer constraints on neighboring relationship graphs; (ii) simplicity of linear controllers for follower agents; (iii) global convergence of the overall formations; (iv) implementation in local coordinate systems, in no need of a global coordinate system. Numerical simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed method