Mexican Psittacids held in captivity in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca and their welfare conditions

Many bird species such as parrots and parakeets are held in captivity in various cities in Mexico as ornaments and pets. This study aimed to record the number of Psittacid species kept in captivity in the city of Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, along with assessing their welfare conditions. Information was obtained from 195 bird keepers from March to May 2014, using the “snowball” interview technique. Information about their birds’ cost of acquisition, the season of sale, feeding and care were recorded. Additionally, an assessment of the welfare status of each bird was performed. A total of 245 Psittacid individuals were recorded, and all were illegal. Eupsittula canicularis was the most common species, and Amazona autumnalis was the least common. The most frequent welfare condition found was theabsence of feathers (73.5%), probably associated with excess stress caused by overcrowding. Keeping wild birds in captivity continues clandestinely;therefore, is necessary to create a local strategy that helps prevent the domestic use of the Psittacids as pets.

Associations between individual and couple-level minority stressors and relationship stress in queer women’s interracial/interethnic couple relationships

Intimate relationships provide protections against excess stress. Little research has investigated this in same-sex/gender couples, and particularly interracial/interethnic same-sex/gender couples. In a sample of N = 215 women in same-sex/gender couple relationships, 43% if whom were in interracial/interethnic relationships, we examined differences in general stressors and both individual- and couple-level minority stressors. Women in interracial/interethnic couple relationships reported higher levels of individual-level childhood stress, microaggressions, stress related to race/ethnicity, and couple-level expectations and stereotypes. We also examined the associations between stressors and relationship outcomes and whether these associations differed comparing women in monoracial and interracial/interethnic couple relationships. We found multiple sources of general stressors and individual- and couple-level stressors that were associated with poorer relationship outcomes but found few differences by whether couples were monoracial or interracial/interethnic. Our findings have implications for couple-level interventions and highlight the importance of taking intersectional approaches to research on same-sex couples, as well as the importance of examining multiple sources and levels of stress.

Рост кристаллов при спонтанной кристаллизации в неинерциальных системах в условиях космической станции и в условиях Земли на примере синтеза и роста кристаллов CrSi-=SUB=-2-=/SUB=- из раствора-расплава Zn

The effect of the terrestrial gravitation field on crystal growth from a solution–melt during spontaneous crystallization is considered, taking into account that the space station (SS) and a laboratory at the Earth, in which the crystallization processes occur, are a noninertial system. It is shown that the specific feature that distinguishes the crystal growth in the terrestrial conditions is the pressure in the melt caused by the supporting force (the Newton third law). This pressure is absent at SS, and this fact leads to an increase in the unit cell of the melt that undergoes the first-order phase transition. As a result, the crystals grown at the SS have larger sizes than the same crystals grown in terrestrial conditions. They also exhibit an excess stress, the value of which is equal to the support pressure, which is absent at the SS. This situation is compared to the experimental data on growing CrSi_2 crystals from a solution–melt in Zn of the Cr–Si–Zn system.

Hand-in-Hand Combat: Affectionate Touch Promotes Relational Well-Being and Buffers Stress During Conflict

Relational conflict has a considerable impact on relational and personal well-being, but whether that impact is positive or negative depends on how the conflict is managed. Individuals struggle to have constructive conflicts that protect their relationships and avoid excess stress, which can lead to declines in relationship quality over time. The current set of experiments tested whether a brief touch intervention would promote relational well-being and prevent stress during couple conflict discussions. Results indicated that engaging in touch prior to and during conflict was effective to improve couple-members’ conflict behavior and to buffer stress in real (Experiment 1) and imagined (Experiments 2a and 2b) contexts. The results of these experiments suggest that touch may be a simple yet effective intervention for improving couple conflict discussions. In addition, we provide initial evidence that enhanced state security and cognitive interdependence serve as mechanisms underlying these effects.

Sensitivity of compaction-induced multicomponent seismic time shifts to variations in reservoir properties

Pore-pressure variations inside producing reservoirs result in excess stress and strain that influence the arrival times of reflected waves. Inversion of seismic data for pressure changes requires better understanding of the dependence of compaction-induced time shifts on reservoir pressure reduction. Using geomechanical and full-waveform seismic modeling, we investigate pressure-dependent behavior of P-, S-, and PS-wave time shifts from reflectors located above and below a rectangular reservoir embedded in a homogeneous half-space. Our geomechanical modeling algorithm generates the excess stress/strain field and the stress-induced stiffness tensor as linear functions of reservoir pressure. Analysis of time shifts obtained from full-waveform synthetic data shows that they vary almost linearly with pressure for reflectors above the reservoir, but become nonlinear for reflections from the reservoir or deeper interfaces. Time-shift misfit curves computed with respect to noise-contaminated data from a reference reservoir for a wide range of pressure reductions display well-defined global minima corresponding to the actual pressure. In addition, we evaluate the influence of the reservoir width on time shifts and the possibility of constraining the width using time-lapse data. We also discuss the impact of moderate perturbations in the strain-sensitivity coefficients (i.e., third-order stiffnesses) on time shifts and on the accuracy of pressure inversion. Our feasibility analysis indicates that the most stable pressure estimation from noisy data is provided by multicomponent time shifts from reflectors below the reservoir. For multicompartment reservoirs, time shifts can be accurately modeled by linear superposition of the excess stress/strains computed for the individual compartments.