Typology of people in middle and late adulthood based on the profile of coping with everyday life events

Introduction. The purpose of this study was to construct a typology of the proactive coping profiles of individuals in middle and late adulthood. The conceptual layer refers to the theory of proactive coping as defined by Ralf Schwarzer and Steffen Taubert. It means such an approach to everyday life in which problems are treated as a challenge rather than as a great unknown that limits to only reactive responses to emerging difficulties. An attempt was also made to compare the obtained subtypes in terms of wisdom and resilience. According to Ardelt's research, wisdom, understood as a composite of cognitive, reflective, and emotional components, may be a resource characterizing adults who use mature coping strategies, particularly proactive coping. Building resilience in people helps to prevent stress, hence it can be considered as a resource important in proactive coping. Method. A group of 166 people in middle (N=80) and late adulthood (N=86) was surveyed. The Proactive Coping Inventory (Polish Adaptation) by Sęk, Pasikowski, Taubert, Greenglass and Schwarzer, Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS) by Ardelt, adapted by Steuden, Brudek and Izdebski and Resilience Measurement Scale (SPP-25) by Oginska-Bulik and Juczynski were used in the study. Results. Four coping types were obtained: runaway, proactive, autonomous and support-seekers. Individuals belonging to particular profiles of coping differed significantly in the level of wisdom and resilience. Conclusions.The study showed that in a group of people in middle and late adulthood it is possible to distinguish consistent profiles of using coping strategies, which differ in the degree of proactivity. Additionally, wisdom and resilience were shown to characterize individuals with a more proactive, goal-oriented structure of coping strategies.

Stiffness-Oriented Structure Topology Optimization for Hinge-Free Compliant Mechanisms Design

This paper presents a stiffness-oriented structure topology optimization (TO) method for the design of a continuous, hinge-free compliant mechanism (CM). A synthesis formulation is developed to maximize the mechanism’s mutual potential energy (MPE) to achieve required structure flexibility while maximizing the desired stiffness to withstand the loads. Different from the general approach of maximizing the overall stiffness of the structure, the proposed approach can contribute to guiding the optimization process focus on the desired stiffness in a specified direction by weighting the related eigen-frequency of the corresponding eigenmode. The benefit from this is that we can make full use of the material in micro-level compliant mechanism designs. The single-node connected hinge issue which often happened in optimized design can be precluded by introducing the eigen-frequency constraint into this synthesis formulation. Several obtained hinge-free designs illustrate the validity and robustness of the presented method and offer an alternative method for hinge-free compliant mechanism designs.

Government School Principals Style and Its Effect on Academic Achievement in Ethiopia

This research was conducted at 15 government schools in Addis Ababa. The objectives of this research are to identify principal style and its effect on academic achievement. The “Leader Behaviour Description Questionnaire” (LBDQ) formed by Halpin (1966) was used. Meanwhile Academic achievement was measured using the “School Certificate Examination Results from 2017-2020. A total of 191 teachers and 15 principals from government school in Addis Ababa were randomly chosen. Pearson correlation was used to analyse the data. To support data obtained from questionnaire given 10 teachers were interviewed. The results showed that most of the school leaders adopt a democratic style of leadership. There was a significant correlation between the structure of task-oriented leadership style and students’ performance in the examinations. Correlation analysis also showed that principals practice task- oriented structure and consideration-oriented structure in relation to their work responsiblities. Furthermore, findings also showed that majority of the principals are more likely to practice consideration-oriented leadership style compared to structure-oriented leadership style.

Capturing the Transient Microstructure of a Physically Assembled Gel Subjected to Temperature and Large Deformation

The microstructure of physically assembled gels depends on mechanical loading and environmental stimuli such as temperature. Here, we report the real-time change in the structure of physically assembled triblock copolymer gels that consist of 10 wt% and 20 wt% of poly(styrene)-poly(isoprene)-poly(styrene) [PS-PI-PS] triblock copolymer in mineral oil (i) during the gelation process with decreasing temperature, (ii) subjected to large oscillatory deformation, and (iii) during the stress-relaxation process after the application of a step-strain. The presence of loosely bounded PS-aggregates at temperatures higher than the rheologically determined gelation temperature (Tgel) captures the progressive gelation process spanning over a broad temperature range. However, the microstructure fully develops at temperatures sufficiently lower than Tgel. The microstructure orients in the stretching direction with the applied strain. In an oscillation strain cycle, such oriented structure has been observed at low-strain. But, at large-strain, because of strain-localization the oriented structure splits, and only a fraction of midblock participates in load-bearing. Both microstructure recovery and time-dependent moduli during the stress-relaxation process after the application of a step-strain have been captured using a stretched-exponential model. However, the microstructure recovery time has been found to be two orders of magnitude slower than the stress-relaxation time at room temperature, indicating a complex nature of stress-relaxation and microstructure recovery processes involving midblock relaxation, endblock pullout and reassociation. Due to their viscoelastic nature, these gels' mechanical responses are sensitive to strain, temperature, and rate of deformation. Therefore, insights into the microstructural information as a function of these parameters will assist these gels' real-life applications and design new gels with improved properties.

Capturing the Transient Microstructure of a Physically Assembled Gel Subjected to Temperature and Large Deformation

The microstructure of physically assembled gels depends on mechanical loading and environmental stimuli such as temperature. Here, we report the real-time change in the structure of physically assembled triblock copolymer gels that consist of 10 wt% and 20 wt% of poly(styrene)-poly(isoprene)-poly(styrene) [PS-PI-PS] triblock copolymer in mineral oil (i) during the gelation process with decreasing temperature, (ii) subjected to large oscillatory deformation, and (iii) during the stress-relaxation process after the application of a step-strain. The presence of loosely bounded PS-aggregates at temperatures higher than the rheometrically determined gelation temperature (Tgel) captures the progressive gelation process spanning over a broad temperature range. However, the microstructure fully develops at temperatures suciently lower than Tgel, and the storage modulus (G0 ) also reaches a plateau at those temperatures. The microstructure orients in the stretching direction with the applied strain. In an oscillation strain cycle, such oriented structure has been observed at low-strain. But, at large-strain, the oriented structure splits, and only a fraction of midblock participates in load-bearing. This has been attributed to the endblock pullout from the aggregates, likely caused by the strain localization in the samples. Both microstructure recovery and time-dependent moduli during the stress-relaxation process after the application of a step-strain can be captured using a stretched-exponential model. However, the microstructure recovery time has been found to be two orders of magnitude slower than the stress-relaxation time at room temperature, indicating a complex nature of relaxation process involving midblock relaxation, endblock pullout and reassociation process. Due to their viscoelastic nature, these gels' mechanical responses are sensitive to strain, temperature, and rate of deformation. Therefore, insights into the microstructural information as a function of these parameters will assist these gels' real-life applications and design new gels with improved properties<br>

Capturing the Transient Microstructure of a Physically Assembled Gel Subjected to Temperature and Large Deformation

The microstructure of physically assembled gels depends on mechanical loading and environmental stimuli such as temperature. Here, we report the real-time change in the structure of physically assembled triblock copolymer gels that consist of 10 wt% and 20 wt% of poly(styrene)-poly(isoprene)-poly(styrene) [PS-PI-PS] triblock copolymer in mineral oil (i) during the gelation process with decreasing temperature, (ii) subjected to large oscillatory deformation, and (iii) during the stress-relaxation process after the application of a step-strain. The presence of loosely bounded PS-aggregates at temperatures higher than the rheometrically determined gelation temperature (Tgel) captures the progressive gelation process spanning over a broad temperature range. However, the microstructure fully develops at temperatures suciently lower than Tgel, and the storage modulus (G0 ) also reaches a plateau at those temperatures. The microstructure orients in the stretching direction with the applied strain. In an oscillation strain cycle, such oriented structure has been observed at low-strain. But, at large-strain, the oriented structure splits, and only a fraction of midblock participates in load-bearing. This has been attributed to the endblock pullout from the aggregates, likely caused by the strain localization in the samples. Both microstructure recovery and time-dependent moduli during the stress-relaxation process after the application of a step-strain can be captured using a stretched-exponential model. However, the microstructure recovery time has been found to be two orders of magnitude slower than the stress-relaxation time at room temperature, indicating a complex nature of relaxation process involving midblock relaxation, endblock pullout and reassociation process. Due to their viscoelastic nature, these gels' mechanical responses are sensitive to strain, temperature, and rate of deformation. Therefore, insights into the microstructural information as a function of these parameters will assist these gels' real-life applications and design new gels with improved properties<br>