Mental illness identity development and service utilization experiences among Asian Americans with mental illness: A qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE: Research is significantly lacking on exploring how Asian Americans with mental illness (AAMI) begin to accept their mental illness and identifying factors that might have a significant impact on mental health service utilization. To bridge the gap, this study aimed to explore mental illness identity development and service utilization experiences among AAMI using a qualitative, narration-based research design. METHOD: Twenty-one AAMI participated in the semistructured interview. Interview questions were designed to assess the participants' perceived experiences of mental illness identity development, microaggression/discrimination experiences, overall positive and negative experiences when using mental health services, and suggestions to make mental health services accessible to AAMI. Thematic analysis was applied to identify key themes throughout multiple steps of coding. RESULTS: Analyses yielded 13 major themes related to the following: (a) contributing factors influencing mental illness identity development, (b) contributing factors utilizing mental health services, and (c) suggestions to make mental health services more available to AAMI. More specifically, it was worth noting that family played a significant role as either a support system or a barrier to adjusting to participants' mental illness and service utilization. Participants also stated that negative attitudes toward mental illness within the Asian community hindered the development of positive self-concept and utilization of mental health services. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Findings from the present study are expected to assist service providers in implementing culturally informed practices when working with AAMI and developing effective strategies to enhance mental health literacy and service utilization. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Establishing Radiological Screening Levels for Defense-related Uranium Mine (DRUM) Sites on BLM Land Using a Recreational Future-use Scenario.

Thousands of former uranium mining sites in the United States, primarily in the southwestern states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, are being identified and evaluated to assess their potential for causing public and environmental impacts. The common radiological contaminant of concern that characterizes these sites is naturally occurring uranium ore and associated wastes that may have been left behind postmining. The majority of these sites were abandoned and in general, are referred to as abandoned uranium mines, regardless of the government authority currently managing the land or in some cases, assigned responsibility for the oversight of assessment and remediation. The U.S. Department of Energy has identified over 4,000 defense-related uranium mine sites from which uranium ore was purchased by the U.S. government for nuclear defense programs prior to 1970. U.S. Department of Energy has established a program to inventory and perform environmental screening on defense-related uranium mine sites. The focus of this paper is the approximately 2,400 defense-related uranium mine sites located on federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. This paper presents the results of an analysis to develop radiological screening criteria for U.S. Department of Energy's defense-related uranium mine sites that can be used as input to the overall ranking of these sites for prioritization of additional assessment, reclamation, or remedial actions. For these sites managed by Bureau of Land Management, public access is typically limited to short-term use, primarily for recreational purposes. This is a broad category that can cover a range of possible activities, including camping, hiking, hunting, biking, all-terrain vehicle use, and horseback riding. The radiological screening levels were developed by calculating the radiological dose to future recreational users of defense-related uranium mine sites assuming a future camper spends two weeks per year at the site engaged in recreational activities. Although a number of possible exposure pathways were included in this analysis (inhalation and ingestion of dust and soil, radon and progeny inhalation, and gamma radiation exposure from the soil), it is desirable as a practical matter to determine what gamma exposure rate would ensure that the annual acceptable exposure as determined by the regulatory authority will not be exceeded in the future. Because these sites are generally remote and located in semiarid environments, traditional exposure scenarios often applied in these types of analyses (e.g., subsistent farmers and ranchers), including exposure pathways for the ingestion of locally grown food products and water, were not considered relevant to short-term recreational use.

Using Synchrotron Radiation Microtomography to Investigate Multi-scale Three-dimensional Microelectronic Packages.

Synchrotron radiation micro-tomography (SRµT) is a non-destructive three-dimensional (3D) imaging technique that offers high flux for fast data acquisition times with high spatial resolution. In the electronics industry there is serious interest in performing failure analysis on 3D microelectronic packages, many which contain multiple levels of high-density interconnections. Often in tomography there is a trade-off between image resolution and the volume of a sample that can be imaged. This inverse relationship limits the usefulness of conventional computed tomography (CT) systems since a microelectronic package is often large in cross sectional area 100-3,600 mm(2), but has important features on the micron scale. The micro-tomography beamline at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), in Berkeley, CA USA, has a setup which is adaptable and can be tailored to a sample's properties, i.e., density, thickness, etc., with a maximum allowable cross-section of 36 x 36 mm. This setup also has the option of being either monochromatic in the energy range ~7-43 keV or operating with maximum flux in white light mode using a polychromatic beam. Presented here are details of the experimental steps taken to image an entire 16 x 16 mm system within a package, in order to obtain 3D images of the system with a spatial resolution of 8.7 µm all within a scan time of less than 3 min. Also shown are results from packages scanned in different orientations and a sectioned package for higher resolution imaging. In contrast a conventional CT system would take hours to record data with potentially poorer resolution. Indeed, the ratio of field-of-view to throughput time is much higher when using the synchrotron radiation tomography setup. The description below of the experimental setup can be implemented and adapted for use with many other multi-materials.

Dynamics of phase transformations and microstructure evolution in carbon-manganese steel arc welds using time-resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction.

Phase transformations that occur in both the heat-affected zone (HAZ) and the fusion zone (FZ) of a carbon-manganese steel spot weld have been investigated using time-resolved X-ray diffraction (TRXRD) with time resolutions down to 50 ms. It is found that in both zones the gamma(f.c.c.) --> alpha(b.c.c.) transformation on cooling is twice as fast as the forward transformation of alpha --> gamma on heating. Profile analysis of the major Bragg reflections recorded in the TRXRD patterns reveals similarities and differences in the microstructural evolution with time in the HAZ and in the FZ. The latter undergoes melting and solidification in addition to solid-state transformations. With increasing temperature, the (110) d-spacing of the alpha phase prior to and during the alpha --> gamma transformation and the (111) d-spacing of the gamma phase just after the same transformation exhibit a decrease. The observed (and unusual) lattice contraction with temperature rise may be attributed to chemical effects, such as carbide precipitation in the alpha matrix, and/or mechanical effects due to stress relief. In the FZ, the gamma-Fe that forms has a preferential (200) texture on solidification of the liquid, whereas, on cooling in the HAZ, the gamma-Fe retains largely a (111) texture that is induced in the alpha --> gamma transformation on heating. On cooling in the HAZ, the width of the gamma(111) reflection increases initially, which is indicative of microstrain developing in the f.c.c. lattice, but decreases as expected, with a reduction of thermal disorder, on further cooling until the completion of the gamma --> alpha transformation. In the FZ, however, the microstrain in the gamma phase increases steadily on solidification and more rapidly for the duration of the gamma --> alpha transformation on further cooling. The final microstructure of the FZ is likely to consist of a single alpha phase dispersed in two morphological entities, whereas in the HAZ the alpha phase persists in one morphological entity in the final microstructure.