Leisure Activity, Ethnic Preservation, and Cultural Integration of Older Korean Americans

For immigrant groups, leisure activity has the potential both to increase familiarity with a new culture and to preserve cultural history and identity. Using a qualitative case study design, this research analyzed leisure activities of six older Korean Americans to determine both personal and cultural meanings of leisure. From a personal perspective, leisure was used to create two effects for the older adults: Ki-Bun-Chun-Whan, which is the experience of a shift in emotional atmosphere as a result of engaging in activities; and self-development activities, which provide the older adults with opportunities for learning or growth. Cultural meanings of leisure activities included the re-creation of Koreanness and the reliance on familiar patterns to create a sense of security in a still-strange land. Thus, with the individuals studied in this investigation, leisure activities were used more often for continuity and ethnic preservation than for cultural integration. Social workers can use leisure activities as avenues to increase knowledge and social participation, but they should also take into account the need to preserve cultural and collective identity in older immigrants

Oscillatory relaxation of zonal flows in a multi-species stellarator plasma

The low frequency oscillatory relaxation of zonal potential perturbations is studied numerically in the TJ-II stellarator (where it was experimentally detected for the first time). It is studied in full global gyrokinetic simulations of multi-species plasmas. The oscillation frequency obtained is compared with predictions based on single-species simulations using simplified analytical relations. It is shown that the frequency of this oscillation for a multi-species plasma can be accurately obtained from single-species calculations using extrapolation formulas. The damping of the oscillation and the influence of the different inter-species collisions is studied in detail. It is concluded that taking into account multiple kinetic ions and electrons with impurity concentrations realistic for TJ-II plasmas allows to account for the values of frequency and damping rate in zonal flows relaxations observed experimentally.Comment: 11 figures, 22 page

Graphical representations of ELEFAN I response surfaces

Growth, Graphics, ELEFAN (computer programme), Fishery biology, Computer programs Engraulis ringens, Upeneus moluccensis, Sarda chiliensis

A finite element based formulation for sensitivity studies of piezoelectric systems

Sensitivity Analysis is a branch of numerical analysis which aims to quantify the affects that variability in the parameters of a numerical model have on the model output. A finite element based sensitivity analysis formulation for piezoelectric media is developed here and implemented to simulate the operational and sensitivity characteristics of a piezoelectric based distributed mode actuator (DMA). The work acts as a starting point for robustness analysis in the DMA technology

On neoclassical impurity transport in stellarator geometry

The impurity dynamics in stellarators has become an issue of moderate concern due to the inherent tendency of the impurities to accumulate in the core when the neoclassical ambipolar radial electric field points radially inwards (ion root regime). This accumulation can lead to collapse of the plasma due to radiative losses, and thus limit high performance plasma discharges in non-axisymmetric devices.\\ A quantitative description of the neoclassical impurity transport is complicated by the breakdown of the assumption of small $\mathbf{E}\times \mathbf{B}$ drift and trapping due to the electrostatic potential variation on a flux surface $\tilde{\Phi}$ compared to those due to the magnetic field gradient. The present work examines the impact of this potential variation on neoclassical impurity transport in the Large Helical Device (LHD) stellarator. It shows that the neoclassical impurity transport can be strongly affected by $\tilde{\Phi}$. The central numerical tool used is the $\delta f$ particle in cell (PIC) Monte Carlo code EUTERPE. The $\tilde{\Phi}$ used in the calculations is provided by the neoclassical code GSRAKE. The possibility of obtaining a more general $\tilde{\Phi}$ self-consistently with EUTERPE is also addressed and a preliminary calculation is presented.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figures, presented at Joint Varenna-Lausanne International Workshop on Theory of Fusion Plasmas, 2012. Accepted for publication to Plasma Phys. and Control. Fusio

Pareto versus lognormal: a maximum entropy test

It is commonly found that distributions that seem to be lognormal over a broad range change to a power-law (Pareto) distribution for the last few percentiles. The distributions of many physical, natural, and social events (earthquake size, species abundance, income and wealth, as well as file, city, and firm sizes) display this structure. We present a test for the occurrence of power-law tails in statistical distributions based on maximum entropy. This methodology allows one to identify the true data-generating processes even in the case when it is neither lognormal nor Pareto. The maximum entropy approach is then compared with other widely used methods and applied to different levels of aggregation of complex systems. Our results provide support for the theory that distributions with lognormal body and Pareto tail can be generated as mixtures of lognormally distributed units