Machismo and Caballerismo Linked with Perceived Social Discrimination and Powerlessness in U.S. Latino Men

Concepts from the Threat Appraisal and Coping Theory, Precarious Manhood Theory, and Ambivalent Sexism suggest that U.S. Latino men who perceive social discrimination and powerlessness may respond with machismo beliefs that serve as coping responses to empower themselves and reassert their manhood. Machismo beliefs include both aggressive “traditional machismo” and gentlemanly family-focused “caballerismo.” Because past research has revealed that individuals respond to social abuse with anger, prompting them to feel empowered but less empathetic, we hypothesized that Latino men who perceive social discrimination combined with a sense of powerlessness would report more traditional machismo and less caballerismo. We also hypothesized that this three-variable sequence would be stronger for men with high rather than low in Latino identity, since discrimination would be a more personal threat to their identity and manhood. Participants included 1,530 U.S. Latinos who completed online surveys to report demographics (age, education, employment, sexual orientation, partner status, household size), perceived social discrimination, powerlessness, traditional machismo, caballerismo, and Latino identity. Mediational analyses confirmed the three-variable sequence in which powerlessness mediated associations between social discrimination and (more) aggressive machismo, and (less) gentlemanly caballerismo. Also as hypothesized, moderated mediational analysis revealed that these three-variable sequences were stronger for men with high rather than low Latino identity. With recent increases in social discrimination against U.S. Latinos, present results caution that men may respond to these challenges with increased aggressive patterns of traditional machismo.

Tandem Repeats in Bacillus: Unique Features and Taxonomic Distribution

Little is known about DNA tandem repeats across prokaryotes. We have recently described an enigmatic group of tandem repeats in bacterial genomes with a constant repeat size but variable sequence. These findings strongly suggest that tandem repeat size in some bacteria is under strong selective constraints. Here, we extend these studies and describe tandem repeats in a large set of Bacillus. Some species have very few repeats, while other species have a large number. Most tandem repeats have repeats with a constant size (either 52 or 20–21 nt), but a variable sequence. We characterize in detail these intriguing tandem repeats. Individual species have several families of tandem repeats with the same repeat length and different sequence. This result is in strong contrast with eukaryotes, where tandem repeats of many sizes are found in any species. We discuss the possibility that they are transcribed as small RNA molecules. They may also be involved in the stabilization of the nucleoid through interaction with proteins. We also show that the distribution of tandem repeats in different species has a taxonomic significance. The data we present for all tandem repeats and their families in these bacterial species will be useful for further genomic studies.

The law of iterated logarithm for a class of random variables satisfying Rosenthal type inequality

<abstract><p>Let $ \{Y_n, n\geq 1\} $ be sequence of random variables with $ EY_n = 0 $ and $ \sup_nE|Y_n|^p &lt; \infty $ for each $ p &gt; 2 $ satisfying Rosenthal type inequality. In this paper, the law of the iterated logarithm for a class of random variable sequence with non-identical distributions is established by the Rosenthal type inequality and Berry-Esseen bounds. The results extend the known ones from i.i.d and NA cases to a class of random variable satisfying Rosenthal type inequality.</p></abstract>