LOVE RELATIONSHIPS:

What is it about the people to whom we are most attracted that gives them the greatest potential to satisfy our deepest longings, while at the same time, the greatest likelihood to frustrate us? This is because of an unconscious image of the opposite sex which we carry deep within our mind. This image began to develop in infancy, and became fairly complete in later childhood.

That image, that mental picture, that map programmed in our unconscious mind affects both the type of person we select as a primary love partner in adult life and how we relate to them. That image is actually a synthesis of the positive and negative traits of our primary caregivers, relating to how well our early needs were met. As children, we did our best to get our caregivers to meet our needs. In most cases, our caregivers did the best they knew how to meet our needs. However, no matter how adequate our caregivers were, they could not and did not meet all our needs all the time, and that left us frustrated some of the time. Each frustration, each pain, left an imprint. Each imprint became part of a picture in that deep part of our unconscious mind. So the picture or image of the opposite sex which we formed was a combination of our caregivers' positive and negative characteristics.

When we choose a partner for a romantic relationship, we pick someone who matches the image in our unconscious. For practical purposes, our current partner is a psychological replacement of our childhood caregivers. The unfinished business, the unmet needs and emotional wounds with the early caregivers became a compelling agenda with our adult partner. The early childhood pain and frustration is unconsciously recreated with an adult partner possessing the same or similar negative traits as our early caregivers. The purpose of this unconscious recreation is expressly to bring the impasse to a resolution, to work through and heal the early pain.

Unfortunately, the absence of the knowledge and skills necessary to do this causes an increase in pain and frustration rather than its resolution. Thus new information, awareness, and new decisions are necessary as a springboard to develop new skills and strategies for transforming our relationships into more realistic love. Without these skills, people often go through a cycle of finding a new partner, enjoying the excitement, attraction, attachment, hope, illusion and ecstasy of this romantic love phase, only to hit the wall of disappointment and leave their partner to start over again and again. This cycle often continues to be repeated until help is sought.

The hopeful part of this whole process is that with the right awareness and skills, the individuals that we are unconsciously attracted to can be instrumental in helping to heal our old wounds. And for those who begin the healing process alone, comfort can be found in the fact that as we heal our early emotional wounds and resolve our old issues, the type of person we need in our life, the type we are attracted to, improves along with us.


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Heavy-metal ion sensors using chitosan-capped gold nanoparticles

We report a novel strategy for using gold nanoparticles capped with chitosan for sensing ions of heavy metals. Acidic anions (glutamate ions in our case) are expected to cap the nanoparticle surfaces similar to conventional methods of stabilization of gold nanoparticles by citrate ions. The polycationic nature of chitosan enables attachment of the polymer to the negatively charged gold nanoparticle surfaces through electrostatic interactions. Use of chitosan serves dual purpose of providing sufficient steric hindrance ensuring stability of the colloid and also to functionalize the nanoparticles for use as sensors. The well-documented chelating properties of chitosan and the sensitivity of the optical properties of gold nanoparticles to agglomeration have been employed to detect low concentrations of heavy metals ions (Zn2+ and Cu 2+) in water. A comparison of the optical absorption spectra of the colloidal suspension before and after exposure to metal ions is a good indicator of the concentration of the heavy metal ions. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Nanocomposites - A new material design concept

Ceramic-based nanocomposites were reviewed, emphasizing the newly developed concept of material design for ceramics. First, characteristics of the nanocomposites observed by previous researchers were summarized as, significant or moderate improvement in strength, drastic change of the fracture mode from intergranular fracture of monolithic ceramics to transgranular fracture of nanocomposites, moderate enhancement of fracture toughness, improvement of other mechanical properties, and observations of dislocations. Second, several mechanisms proposed previously to explain these characteristics were reviewed. Third, our strengthening and toughening mechanisms of nanocomposites on the basis of dislocation activities were explained. In nanocomposites, the highly localized residual stresses in the matrix grains are generated by the mismatch of thermal expansion coefficients between the matrix and the dispersed particles, and the dislocations are yielded during the cooling process after sintering. These dislocations then release the tensile residual stresses intrinsically existing in the matrix grains of sintered ceramics and improve the strength of the materials. In addition, as these dislocations cannot move at room temperature the sessile dislocations in the matrix operate as nano-crack nuclei in a frontal process zone (FPZ) ahead of the crack tip when the tip of a propagating crack approaches this area. Therefore, the size of the FPZ is expanded and as a result the fracture toughness is improved. Finally, estimation of the critical FPZ size was explained in order to clarify its toughening mechanism in nanocomposites. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ORALTEST

Reading books has many benefits both mentally and morally. Firstly, your mind will be active and engaged into old age, and reading can help you forget the problems in your life, and get you captivated by the adventures of someone else. Reading from child also helps set a good, mentally engaging example for the new generation. And reading has benefits that can help with everyday activities. With more reading comes better reading skills, thus allowing easier comprehension of, oh, say, instructions on how to build something or warnings on chemicals. Reading is a fun and great way to leave the stresses of your life and just unwind.