Growing evidence suggests that toxic stressors early in life not only convey developmental impacts but also augment risk of proliferating chains of additional stressors that can overwhelm individual coping and undermine recovery and health. Examining trauma within a life course stress process perspective, we posit that early childhood adversity carries a unique capacity to impair adult psychological well-being both independent of and cumulative with other contributors, including social disadvantage and stressful adult experiences. This study uses data from a representative population-based health survey (N = 13,593) to provide one of the first multivariate assessments of unique, cumulative, and moderated effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) toward explaining 3 related yet distinct measures of adult mental health: perceived well-being, psychological distress, and impaired daily activities. Results demonstrate support for each set of hypothesized associations, including exacerbation and amelioration of ACEs effects by adult stress and resilience resources, respectively. Implications for services and future research are discussed.

In this study, we examine the direct and vicarious impact of the social processes of felt and enacted stigma and their impact on the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families. Specifically, findings of interactive interviews with eight adults with disabilities and seven mothers of children with disabilities were analyzed for themes related to components of stigma described by Link and Phelan (2001): labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination within the context of power differential. Findings suggest that while these social processes can have important negative psychosocial consequences for individuals living with disabilities, the severity of the consequences varies among the components. Findings also indicate that these individuals find varied and creative ways to resist and actively counter the negative effects of stigma in their lives. Findings support the complexity of the experience of stigma and the importance of the socio/cultural context to the lived experience of disability.

Amorphous materials represent a large and important emerging area of material's science. Amorphous oxides are key technological oxides in applications such as a gate dielectric in Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor devices and in Silicon-Oxide-NitrideOxide-Silicon and TANOS (TaN-Al 2 O 3 -Si 3 N 4 -SiO 2 -Silicon) flash memories. These technologies are required for the high packing density of today's integrated circuits. Therefore the investigation of defect states in these structures is crucial. In this work we present X-ray synchrotron measurements, with an energy resolution which is about 5-10 times higher than is attainable with standard spectrometers, of amorphous alumina. We demonstrate that our experimental results are in agreement with calculated spectra of amorphous alumina which we have generated by stochastic quenching. This first principles method, which we have recently developed, is found to be superior to molecular dynamics in simulating the rapid gas to solid transition that takes place as this material is deposited for thin film applications. We detect and analyze in detail states in the band gap that originate from oxygen pairs. Similar states were previously found in amorphous alumina by other spectroscopic methods and were assigned to oxygen vacancies claimed to act mutually as electron and hole traps. The oxygen pairs which we probe in this work act as hole traps only and will influence the information retention in electronic devices. In amorphous silica oxygen pairs have already been found, thus they may be a feature which is characteristic also of other amorphous metal oxides.stochastic quench | X-ray absorption spectroscopy | ab initio | coating D espite early attempts to describe the fundamental electronic properties of noncrystalline semiconductors (1-5), experimental and theoretical knowledge of localized states in the gap of amorphous semiconductors and insulators is still limited. General features of the electronic structure of amorphous semiconductors are quite well known, such as the broad distribution of coordinations and the lack of long range order that induces valence and conduction band tails in the band gap (6). However, the origin of these states is less explored experimentally (7,8) and theoretical investigations are mainly limited to the crystalline polymorphs (9-11). Amorphous Alumina (am-Al 2 O 3 ) is currently one of the key technological amorphous materials, where one promising application of am-Al 2 O 3 is as a high-k dielectric in transistors (12). The use of am-Al 2 O 3 in TANOS (TaN-Al 2 O 3 -Si 3 N 4 -SiO 2 -Silicon) flash memories, which are currently investigated for gigabite and terabite scale flash memories, puts even higher demands on alumina as a current-blocking high-k dielectric.From optical absorption and photoluminescence, states related to F-centers (9, 10) and impurities have been identified in the band gap of am-Al 2 O 3 down to 3.18 and 3.25 eV relative to the valence band edge (13,14). In another study, electronbeam induced states in the am-Al ...

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The deleterious impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may be confounded with frequently co-occurring social disadvantage. In this analysis we test the effects of ACEs on adult mental health within a social disadvantage framework, using a population-based survey (n=7,444; mean age=55.2 years) from Washington State. We also examined the protective effects of socioemotional support, and the distinct and combined contribution of the measured ACE factors. Results demonstrated sustained impact of ACEs on mental health many decades later, even net of social disadvantage and demographic contributors. Protective factors provided both direct and moderating influences, potentially masking the elevated effects of ACEs for those with few resources. Toxicity examination of ACE items evinced differential effects of ACE experiences on mental health. These results demonstrate that interventions ameliorating the effects of ACEs and bolstering protective resources such as socioemotional support may be effective toward augmenting mental health even late in life.