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To test the applicability of Kim's integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation it is necessary to approach the theory in a holistic sense and not as a collection of independent theoretical pieces. As Kim points out, "the change from sojourner with an ethnic identity to an assimilated individual with an intercultural identity is a process rich in complexity, with a myriad of influential forces pushing and pulling in multiple directions but ending in an individual, changed, in varying degrees, by the experience" (Kim 2003)
While Kim's theory includes empirically testable theorems for each of the 'forces' involved in the adaptation process, testing an individual theorem would be only minimally helpful in terms of validating the theory because it would only look at one aspect of adaptation in one direction and neglect the influence of all the other factors. Even a more ambitious project of empirically testing all 21 theorems would neglect explaining how all the theorems work together as a whole. It is the meaning and experience behind the axioms and theorems which change an interesting way of predicting outcomes in the process of adaptation into understanding of that process. This study seeks to test Kim's theory as a whole from an ethnographic-case study perspective.
Literature Review
Kim's integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation is a comprehensive theory grounded in the open-system perspective. Drawing on a broad array of communication, psychological and sociological research, Kim's theory attempts to increase understanding of the process of intercultural adaptation with special emphasis on the following five areas: 1. The effects of both macro (cultural and
|Cross-Cultural Adaptation
|institutional patterns of host culture) and micro (individual backgrounds and
|psychological characteristics) level factors on the cross-cultural adaptation process.
|The integration of short and long term adaptation investigation in the interest of
|identifying common conceptual issues. 3. The understanding of cross-cultural
|adaptation in the context of both new learning and psychological growth in order to
form a more complete understanding of the cross-cultural adaptation process. 4. The organization and consolidation of factors influencing the cross cultural adaptation process. 5. The incorporation of both pluralistic and assimilation ideological viewpoints.
Kim sets the following three boundaries on the theory to define the situations in which cross-cultural adaptation occurs: 1.The strangers have had a primary socialization in one culture (or subculture) and have moved into a different and unfamiliar culture (or subculture). 2. The strangers are at least minimally dependent on the host environment for meeting their personal and social needs. 3. The strangers are at least minimally engaged in firsthand communication experiences with that environment.
Kim's process based approach to understanding cross-cultural adaptation focuses on the transformation of the stranger or sojourner within the boundary conditions of socialization, dependence and contact; and operates under the following assumptions: 1. Humans have an innate self-organizing drive and capacity to adapt to environmental challenges. (White 1976) 2. Adaptation of an individual to a given cultural environment occurs in and through communication. (Slavin & Kriegman 1992) 3. Adaptation is a complex and dynamic process that brings about a qualitative transformation of the individual. (Ford & Lerner 1992)
Within these boundaries and assumptions Kim claims the Sojourner goes through a continuous cycle of stress and adaptation which results in growth over time which Kim calls the Stress-Adaptation-Growth dynamic. (Ruben 1983) The inability to communicate competently results in stress which increases the motivation to adapt, this is followed by growth and further experimentation leading to more stress and the cycle repeats itself.
Over time this cycle results in the three facets Kim identifies as synonymous to intercultural adaptation: 1. Functional fitness which is being capable of fulfilling your needs within the society, having communication competence or knowing how to be both effective and appropriate are skills developed through shared meaning and having interpersonal interactions (which view the other as an individual and not a group representative) rather than inter-group interactions. 2. Psychological health which involves minimizing the gap between internal and external reality. While psychological disturbance is associated with being unable to meet personal needs within the society. Increased functional fitness corresponds with increased psychological health, inner cohesiveness and a decrease in symptoms of distress like withdraw, denial and hostility. 3. Intercultural Identity which is a feeling of not specifically belonging to any culture but being part of multiple cultures, boundary ambiguity syndrome (Hall 1976) in which the original identity loses some of its rigidity.
Kim identified five constructs which are factors in adaptation; personal communication, host social communication, ethnic social communication, environmental factors, and predisposition. These factors have an impact on what Kim calls intercultural transformation which is the process of reaching functional fitness, psychological health, and intercultural identity.
Kim breaks communication competence down into three parts: cognitive, affective, and operational. The cognitive aspect of communication competence is split into an individual's knowledge of the communication system, cultural understanding, and cognitive complexity. According to Kim knowledge of the host communication system is primarily knowledge of the language, but this includes not just linguistic knowledge of vocabulary, syntax and phonetics; but also knowledge of social codes and the way language is used in formal and informal settings. Also within the realm of knowledge of the communication system are non verbal codes in the form of vocal and physical ancillary codes, ritualized actions, ceremonies, standardized behaviors and the rhythm and pace of social interactions. Cultural understanding, and obtaining a full knowledge of the communication codes of the host culture involves an extensive understanding of the historical, political, economic, religious, and educational institutions as well as its values, ideologies, arts, sciences, technologies, attitudes, beliefs, values, and reciprocal role requirements. (Sechres, Fay & Zaidi 1982) Kim claims the sojourner's initial knowledge of the host culture is simplistic and stereotypical, but that through interaction with the host environment they gain proficiency in understanding the host culture.
Cognitive complexity refers to the refinement of screening categories which are used to process information. The higher the level of cognitive complexity is and the more accurately the information can be classified and understood, the greater differentiation and integration there will be. Conversely low cognitive complexity is associated with more simplistic, stereotypical, and incohesive interpretation. Kim says that the sojourner develops greater communication competence in parallel with developing greater cognitive complexity which allows them the flexibility to distinguish between perspectives within the host culture.
The affective aspect of host communication competence is composed of the individual's adaptation motivation, identity flexibility, and aesthetic co orientation. Adaptation motivation or the willingness to adapt and become functionally fit is played out as an internal conflict between the persons self-command to act and their resistance to acting. This conflict is influenced and influences how the stranger envisions their relationship with the host environment. One of the key factors in adaptation motivation is the expectation of a future relationship with the host culture; therefore those who expect to live in the host culture for a long time tend to have a stronger motivation to adapt and thus expend more effort in learning about the host culture (Atken 1973). In general a temporary sojourner has a low motivation to adapt because they do not expect to use the knowledge they acquire over the long term. Identity flexibility refers to the psycho/social orientation of individual strangers in terms of how they view themselves, their host culture, and their original culture. Flexibility is associated with higher openness and lower prejudicial cynicism toward new cultural experiences. In contrast identity rigidity is associated with in-group bias and an unreasonable desire to maintain a critical and closed minded posture. Underlying the effects associated with rigid identity is the concept of frustration-aggression (Berkowitz, 1962; Zajonc, 1952), which connects the blockage of a goal with aggression. The aggression is sometimes subtle and not always directed toward the actual source of frustration, but they are often manifested in anger and hostility toward the host environment in general.
Aesthetic co orientation refers to what degree the sojourner shares the aesthetic preferences of the host culture. If the sojourner finds them repellent or is unable to participate in them they will have to resort to the ethnic subculture to fulfill aesthetic needs. If they find themselves in a culture where they share similar aesthetic values they will be inside of the host culture and have a greater sense of connection.
The operational aspect or ability to express one's cognitive and affective experience outwardly through specific behaviors aspect of host communication competence is made up of technical skills, synchrony, and resourcefulness. Technical skills are the skills necessary to do day to day tasks and fill social roles. Skills include job skills, basic language skills, academic skills, and the ability to locate sources of information necessary to function within society. Synchrony refers to the ability of the sojourner to effectively communicate with people from the host culture in ways that are compatible, congruent, and harmonious. This amounts to convergence within the realm of interaction rhythm and action chains, and includes temporal, proxemic, paralinguistic, and kinesic convergence patterns (Hall 1983). This synchrony is split into asymmetrical (complementary) and symmetrical (mirroring) behavioral adjustments. Synchrony is developed through contact with the host culture and through trial and error, it is considered to be more difficult than acquiring technical skills. Resourcefulness refers to the ability to understand and reconcile cultural differences and use that understanding to come up with plans of action. It is used in day to day interactions such as face to face encounters, maintaining relationships with members of host culture, information seeking behavior, problem solving, and accomplishing goals. Higher levels of resourcefulness are associated with an increase in the quality of interpersonal encounters, more effective coping with differences and an increase in identity security which allows sojourner to negotiate different identities on a situational and appropriate basis. There is little research explaining how resourcefulness can be developed although there are several studies which tie it to communication competence and behavioral flexibility.
Kim breaks host social communication down into interpersonal communication and mass communication. Host interpersonal communication refers to the interaction on an interpersonal level between the sojourner and member of the host culture. Host interpersonal communication is used to learn host cultural practices, engage in corrective exchanges, confirm or reject presumed meanings in communication behavior of natives, and provide emotional support. Development of interpersonal communication and formation of relationships with members of the host culture are normally constrained by both physical and social circumstances. They are normally voluntary in nature and are based on mutual interest and willingness. The most observable pattern of relationship formation is that of personal networks. The number of host ties is important because it is associated with successful adaptation even while its difficulty is high due to both psychological barriers and language. Strangers develop, increase, the number of host contacts with time. The composition of the relational network changes with time but its size remains roughly constant. In the beginning it is composed primarily of co ethnics but this gradually changes as ethnic ties are replaced by host ties. The strength of host ties are comprised of their intimacy and centrality. Intimacy is best defined by Atman and Taylor's social penetration theory in terms of breadth and depth of mutual self disclosure. Centrality is the importance of the contact to the ego, as compared to others in the personal network. A contact could be central but not intimate or vice versa.
Host mass communication is the means through which the host culture is distributed and perpetuated. It includes both traditional media such as radio, television, and newspapers; and also non media based institutions such as schools, churches, businesses, theaters or any public form where communication takes place in a culturally ritualized form. Host mass communication functions as a force in the adaptation process by transmitting topical events, societal values, behavioral norms, and traditional environmental interpretation perspectives.
Ethnic social communication can be split into the same categories as host social communication. In terms of this theory Kim assumes the total sphere of personal contacts remains roughly constant while it composition can shift from primarily ethnic to primarily host during the adaptation process. The adaptive trends correlated with the amount of host social communication are therefore inversely proportional to the amount of ethnic social communication. There are two areas in which ethnic social communication impacts adaptation. First is the positive short term adaptation-facilitating function which shows that over the short term many strangers seek out ethnic communication as a refuge and method to relieve cross cultural stress. This is partly because, according to Berger's uncertainty reduction theory, there is less relational uncertainty from co-ethnics than from the host culture. The availability of ethnic communication is a function of the institutional completeness of the ethnic group in the host culture. Co-ethnics with higher levels of adaptation, more contacts and a higher understanding of the host culture can act as 'gate keepers' for the stranger to the host culture. The second is the long term ethnicity-maintenance function. Over the long term social communication with co-ethnic groups can be counterproductive by creating an insulating effect. If the personal network reinforces ethnic communication it can minimize the stranger's learning about the host culture. Reliance on ethnic communication beyond the adaptive phase is associated with the stranger identifying more strongly with their home culture than the host culture. This is true for both interpersonal communication – when the stranger is surrounded by co-ethnics in a community; and mass communication – when the stranger chooses to view primarily co-ethnic news media which focuses on information about their home culture.
Kim splits the environment construct into host receptivity, host conformity pressure, and ethnic group strength. Host receptivity refers to the willingness of the host culture to accept and accommodate strangers with opportunities to take part in social communication. From the perspective of the stranger this is considered accessibility, or opportunity for contact. Receptivity is comprised of the host's attitude toward strangers and the host's associative/dissociative communication messages. Receptivity can be largely expressed in terms of both public and private attitudes, in a continuum from highly open, friendly, and accepting to very closed, indifferent, and hostile. The degree of receptivity can be affected both by circumstantial factors and by the confidence of the host group. Associative and dissociative communication messages take the form of both implicit and explicit messages that range from public laws and policies to the behaviors of individuals in face to face encounters. Associative communication facilitates the communication process between the stranger and the host while dissociative behavior makes it more difficult. The communication messages can be used to increase or decrease the communicative distance between the stranger and the guest.
Conformity pressure is a combination of the conscious and unconscious pressure on the stranger to adopt the practices of the host culture, and the tolerance of the host in respect to cultural practices different from their own. Pressure to conform in linguistic and cultural terms is increased by the strangers dependence on the host culture for livelihood, and the pursuit of personal goals. An important factor in conformity pressure is the contrast between assimilative or pluralist ideology. The first encourages conformity while the second encourages ethnic distinctiveness. It is also important to note that an ethnic composition which is primarily comprised of one ethnicity will/may have more pressure to conform than one made up of multiple groups.
Ethnic group strength refers to the relative status accorded to the ethnic group in terms of prestige, institutional completeness, and identity politics. It is comprised of ethnic prestige, institutional completeness, and identity politics. Ethnic prestige, which is closely associated with socioeconomic status, is the social standing attributed to the ethnic group in comparison to other groups in society. Prestige increases interest of the host culture in the ethnic group and decreases conformity pressure. Institutional completeness is the degree to which the ethnic community has adjusted in terms of economic security, then community building, and finally self-assertion in the existing political system. The further they have moved toward self-assertion the greater their prestige within the host culture. The ability to develop community and political power is tied to the size of the ethnic group. The power of an ethnic group can be detrimental to adaptation, if the ethnic community is large and strong when both the need to adapt and the contact with the host culture are lower. Identity politics refers to the relative power of an ethnic group in comparison to other groups, as well as the competition for power between ethnic groups and the host culture. Conformity pressure on members is exercised by the ethnic group to increase unity, while the host culture emphasizes differences and increases conformity pressure as well in an attempt to maintain the existing power differential. This is manifested in the concept of 'going native' from the perspective of the stranger.
Predisposition refers to the personal state of the stranger when they arrive in the host culture, what type of background they have, and what types of experience they have before joining the host culture. The composite of these factors give the overall the adaptation potential of the stranger. Kim breaks predisposition down into preparedness for change, ethnic proximity, and adaptive personality.
Preparedness for change refers to the degree in which the stranger is prepared to change, their understanding of the host culture and communication system, and how realistic their expectations are. It is comprised of education/training, prior cross cultural experience, and voluntary/planned relocation. A higher level of education, regardless of cultural context, prepares strangers for new learning. It also increases the chance that they have been exposed to the language, geography, and history of the host culture. This will help them have more realistic expectations for the host culture. In addition to general education, specific training in both language and culture, provided prior to traveling can facilitate adaptation. (Furnham & Bochner, 1982) Previous travel outside of the home culture also helps prepare strangers to adapt to the host culture (Selltiz, Havel & Coock, 1963), even when the culture visited was not similar to the host culture. Voluntary, and planned relocations are associated with quicker and more complete adaptation, partly because the planned relocation allows more time to prepare.
Ethnic proximity is a broad reference to the degree of similarity or difference between the stranger and the host culture. In the context of this theory ethnicity refers to both internal background traits such as thought processes, values, social orientations, and to externally visible physical or material markers. Ethnic proximity can affect adaptation in both terms of overall similarity and compatibility. Ethnic similarity is important intergroup interaction situations. In general the more visible the ethnic marker is the greater the chance of psychological posturing. This could be in the form of treating the person as an ethnic stereotype rather than an individual in interpersonal situations. Ethnic compatibility focuses on the low visibility, internal, ethnic markers; differences in values and communication patterns which can increase the difficulty of adaptation even when the external factors are similar. In the context of this theory adaptive personality refers to the relatively constant ways in which different people respond to environmental stimuli. While not all aspects of personality are examined, the three Kim deems most relevant to intercultural adaptation are openness, strength and positivity. Openness refers to the threshold of receptivity (Stewart & Healy 1985) toward external stimuli. It is associated with the following variables such as open mindedness, risk taking, gregariousness, extroversion, readiness, motivation for self development, and willingness to communicate. Strength refers to the way the stranger copes with stress. It could be considered synonyms with coping capacity and the ability to continue to make things work under stress. Positivity refers to the tendency to look at the hopeful side of things despite their negative aspects. It facilitates engagements with social processes and is more likely to be met with positive response.
Kim synthesizes the assumptions and constructs to form 10 axioms and 21 theorems which relate the variables in the six construct areas to predict increased or decreased effectiveness in the facets of intercultural transformation.
Testing the Theory
Kim's theory is testable through ethnography and case study such as that described in Ethnographic Interviewing (Marshall & Rossman, 1989, pp 93-94) and Qualitative Interviewing (Rubin & Rubin, 1995). Kim states the following, "The Theory … seeks to achieve a loose correspondence with the reality of cross-cultural
adaptation…" (Kim, p, 29). Susan Soy states, "Case study research excels at bringing us to an understanding of a complex issue or object and can extend experience or add strength to what is already known through previous research" (Soy 1997). The ability of case study to capture complex issues makes it a useful tool for answering the central question of how accurately Kim's theory achieves its goal of correspondence with the complex reality of cross-cultural adaptation.
This study seeks to test Kim's theory by comparing the predictions of the 21 theorems with the reality of two personal adaptation experiences in different cultures with different surrounding factors. The first was a three month unplanned stay in Italy Italy where I had to meet all of my needs in the host society without support from my home culture. I found a job and an apartment but struggled to fit in. The second was a planned three month stay as a language student in Salamanca, Spain which mirrored a typical university study abroad program in that classes were my primary activities, I pre-paid for my housing and was only minimally dependent on the host culture for survival. Both experiences fit within Kim's boundary conditions for the process based theory of intercultural adaptation; primary socialization in one culture and then moved to a different culture, at least minimally dependent on the host culture for meeting personal and social needs, and at least minimally engaged in first hand communication experiences with the host environment.
The theorems are based on Kim's constructs in the form of comparative statements, the greater the X; then the greater the Y. For organizational clarity I will briefly review the constructs and compare the two sojourns in terms of host communication competence, host communication, ethnic communication, environment, predisposition and intercultural transformation. I will then apply the comparisons to the theorems to generate predictive statements and compare those statements to my experience.
Host Communication Competence
Host Communication Competence is split into cognitive, affective and operational competence. The cognitive aspect is made up of knowledge of the communication system, cultural understanding and cognitive complexity. Before starting my sojourns I spoke Spanish not Italian; so while my knowledge of social codes was similar for both. In terms of cultural understanding I had fewer preconceptions and stereotypes about Spanish than Italians to start. My cognitive complexity increased throughout this study, my sojourn in Spain was after the one in Italy. Over all I had greater cognitive communication competence in Spain.
The affective part of host communication competence is made up of adaptation motivation, identity flexibility and aesthetic co orientation. I had a high motivation to adapt in both cultures but the motivations were different. In Italy I was motivated by basic needs like getting a job, finding an apartment and earning enough money to live. In Spain I was motivated by a desire to learn the language and the culture because I wanted to seek a career which used this type of understanding. My Identity flexibility was relatively consistent across both cultures as was my aesthetic co orientation.
Operational competence is made up of technical skills, synchrony and resourcefulness. My technical skills were clearly higher in Spain because of my language skills. Synchrony was perhaps slightly higher in Spain because of practice in Italy. However resourcefulness was similar across both cultures.
Host Communication
Host communication is split into interpersonal and mass communication. Host interpersonal communication is made up of the size and proportion of the host ties and the strength of those ties. I had more ties with the host culture when I was in Italy than in Spain. I had daily contact with my employer, roommates who were member of the host culture and through them I came into contact with many of their friends and acquaintances. By contrast in Spain, while I did have daily contact with Spanish teachers in a class room setting, all of my social contacts were classmates rather than people from the host culture. In Italy the ties I had to the host culture were also stronger and more central. I had several close Italian friends in Italy but equivalent friendships is Spain were all with people from outside the host culture.
Host mass communication is composed of the amount of host media used and the information oriented use of the host media. I used much more host media in Spain than in Italy. In Spain I read Spanish newspapers online, read Spanish books for entertainment and watched Spanish television. In Italy I did none of these things for entertainment and only used Italian sources of information where there was no alternative.
Ethnic Communication
Ethnic communication is also split into interpersonal and mass communication. Ethnic interpersonal communication is divided into the size and proportion of ethnic ties and the strength of those ties. I had no ties with Americans in Italy, but some of my contacts were with English speakers from other cultures. In Spain I had more contact with Americans, and a lot of contact with people from other parts of Europe. The strength of ethnic ties was obviously higher in Spain since I did not really have any in Italy.
Ethnic mass communication is made up of the amount of ethnic media used and the information seeking nature of that media. I used more ethnic mass communication in Italy than in Spain. I read books in English for entertainment, did not watch Italian television and stuck to American newspapers online. In Spain I mostly used host media.
I also used ethnic media in Italy to gain information. I looked for jobs in Rome on websites geared toward English speakers because I assumed if I were to get a job it would be one where knowing English was more important than knowing Italian. In Spain I did not really have to use ethnic media for information at all. Everything I wanted to know was available and understandable to me in Spanish.
Environmental factors are comprised of host receptivity, host conformity pressure and ethnic group strength. Host receptivity is split into positive attitude toward strangers, inclusive and associative communication messages. When it came to positive attitude toward strangers the Italians I had contact with in Rome did not seem to have a positive attitude towards tourists, eastern Europeans or Africans. The Spanish I met seemed more accepting of foreign students. I did not observe a significant difference in inclusive or associative communication messages.
Host conformity pressure is made up of assimilative ideologies and homogeneous ethnic composition. I felt slightly more host conformity pressure in Italy than in Spain. In my job in Italy there was strong pressure to conform to the norms and expectations not only with my employment but also with the community of tourism business people which were loosely networked with my employer. The impact of homogeneous ethnic composition was not quite as relevant. Salamanca Spain is home to a large university with a significant number of foreign students who bring diversity; Rome Italy is a huge and ancient city which has had a large number of tourists and immigrants probably as long as it has been the home of the Vatican.
Ethnic group strength is seen through ethnic prestige, institutional completeness and identity politics. The ethnic prestige of United States students in Salamanca was average, they seemed to be accepted by the host culture as not much worse than all the other students. In Rome however, people from the United States were usually assumed to be a bit denser than most tourists with very little prestige. In Italy and Spain the institutional completeness seemed roughly the same as did the identity politics.
Predisposition is made up of preparedness for change, ethnic proximity and adaptive personality. Preparedness for change is comprised of education and training, prior cross-cultural experience and voluntary verses planned relocation. I had more relevant education preparing for Spain because I had taken classes in the language. I also had more cross-cultural experience both because I had been to Spain once before and because my trip to Spain followed adapting to Italy for three months so I had developed some experience working in an unfamiliar culture. Another key difference was that my stay in Italy was unplanned, I found myself stuck there unexpectedly. When I went to Spain I had planned out where I would stay, what I would do and how I would pay for it which made things in Spain much easier.
Ethnic proximity is made up of ethnic similarity and compatibility. I did not experience a great difference in either of these aspects.
Adaptive personality refers to openness, strength and positivity. When it comes to openness I like to think that I am open but I learned I have some trouble accepting different values. One of the biggest challenges I faced in Italy was learning and accepting the concept of bargaining and reconciling with my perceptions of honesty and fairness. But even with these challenges I think my level of openness stayed roughly the same across both sojourns although I might have become more accepting of different points of view through facing challenges to what I thought were my open values. The same is true for strength and positivity. They were roughly the same across both sojourns but were probably increased slightly through facing and coming through challenges.
Intercultural Transformation
Intercultural transformation is broken down into changes in functional fitness, psychological health and intercultural identity. Functional fitness is specifically perceptual mutuality, lack of psychological alienation and socioeconomic status. In terms of perceptual mutuality I felt more a part of the Italian Culture at the end of my stay in Italy than in I felt a part of Spanish culture in Salamanca. In Spain I never bridged the gap between foreign student and participant in the culture; I came a student and left a student. When I arrived in Italy I was simply a tourist but I quickly made the change to a member of culture. Psychological alienation was also stronger in Spain than in Italy. Socioeconomic status was harder to rate. In Italy I had some income but it was very low, low enough to put me at the bottom of the economic chain. In Spain I had student status with no income but perceived to be wealthy by the host culture because I was an American student.
Psychological health is indicated by the presence or lack of hostility to the host environment, mental illness and culture shock symptoms. Over all I was more strained in Italy at the beginning than Spain, but better toward the end. My hostility toward host environment was more frequent with Italian culture than with Spanish culture, especially at the beginning of my sojourn. I also experienced more culture shock symptoms in Italy than in Spain but I did not develop any symptoms of mental illness in either sojourn.
Intercultural identity split into individualization and universilization of identity. My intercultural identity developed more in Italy than in Spain. I started in Italy with a more definitive idea of my identity and morality, these ideas were challenged and some of them remained while others changed. I did not face the same level of identity challenges in Spain so there was not as much development.
1. The greater the host communication competence, the greater the host interpersonal and mass communication.
The theorem predicts greater host interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This matches my experience for mass communication where I had choices available but not for interpersonal communication where my contacts were determined by my situation. In Italy I had a job at a hostel, my boss and a couple of my co workers were Italian. I found an apartment which I shared with four other people, two from Italy, one from Poland and one from Sweden. These were the people I had the most contact with, they all spoke Italian and even the foreign people had been living in Italy long enough to develop local friends who, along with my roommates comprised most of my interpersonal contacts. In Spain I enrolled in a language school and I had two basic groups of contacts, the teachers at the school who I only had contact with in the classroom, and the other students, none of which were Spanish. Because Salamanca was a university town there were lots of students from a variety of places, and it was much easier to develop friendships with them than it was to meet locals.
The major source of mass communication for me was the internet where there were choices of host or ethnic communication available. In Italy I used ethnic mass communication instead of host because it was so much faster and easier to read something in English than to try to struggle through it in Italian. I also stuck with English books for entertainment. In Spain my Spanish language skills were much better and I was focused on trying to learn the language. I stuck to reading Spanish newspapers on the internet, bought books in Spanish for entertainment and watched Spanish television.
2. The greater the host communication competence, the lesser the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication
Theorem predicts less ethnic interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This does not match my experience; I had less ethnic interpersonal contact in Italy than in Spain, although I used less ethnic mass communication in Spain than in Italy. The only ethnic interpersonal communication I had with people from the United States was brief and superficial communication with guests at the hotel where I was working. It was mostly doing the mechanics of selling them a room, checking them in, explaining the hotel rules and answering questions related to tourism in Italy.
In Spain even though my communication competence was higher I had much more opportunity to make friends with other students, many of whom were from the United States, than I had to interact with Spanish people. This may have been different if I had been studying a subject other than Spanish.
3. The greater the host communication competence, the greater the intercultural transformation.
Theorem predicts intercultural transformation increasing with intercultural communication competence. This corresponds with my experience in that in both sojourns my communication competence and intercultural transformation both increased over time. The theorem also seems to suggest that communication competence drives intercultural transformation. If this were true I should have experienced greater intercultural transformation in Spain where my communication competence was higher than in Italy where it was comparatively low. This did not match my experience, I found myself much more challenged and driven to change in Italy than in Spain.
4. The greater the host interpersonal and mass communication, the lesser the ethnic
interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts less ethnic interpersonal communication in Italy than Spain and less ethnic mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This theorem corresponds with my experience. Throughout both sojourns the amount of time I spent using mass communication and interpersonal communication remained consistent. Given that there was an approximately set amount of time spent on each communication type the ethnic versus host content within each would be inversely proportional to each other.
5. The greater the host interpersonal and mass communication, the greater the intercultural transformation.
Theorem predicts greater intercultural transformation in Italy than in Spain. This corresponds with my experience. In Italy I went from a complete newcomer who knew nothing about the city to being a relatively well adjusted participant in the culture. I had found a job and apartment and made local friends. In Spain the only host interpersonal contacts I really had were my teachers in a class room setting. While this greatly increased my language competence it did not help me feel more part of the community.
6. The greater the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication, the lesser the intercultural transformation.
Theorem predicts greater intercultural transformation in Italy than in Spain. This corresponds with my experience. In Spain I started out as a language student and stayed a language student the entire time. The vast majority of the people I interacted with socially were also language students which made it much more difficult to step beyond the student identity and join the host culture.
7. The greater the host receptivity and host conformity pressure, the greater the host communication competence.
Theorem predicts greater communication competence in Italy than in Spain. This corresponds with my experience. In general the conformity pressure in Italy and in Spainwas probably similar, but for my specific situation working in a small hotel in Italy the conformity pressure was much higher. I had to accept the values related to bargaining and cooperation between the other local members of the tourism industry in Italy as more important than my United States values concerning fair play and cooperation. This pressure to conform forced me to develop new communication skills which were more suited to the Italian way of life. As a student in Spain I did not face new challenges of that kind because being a student in Spain was much like being a student in the United States.
8. The greater the host receptivity and host conformity pressure, the greater the host interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts more host interpersonal and mass communication in Italy than in Spain. This corresponds with my experience in terms of host interpersonal communication, but in my situation it did not hold for mass communication. Again the requirements of my job in Italy forced me to participate in more host interpersonal communication. Mass communication did not seem to be impacted by host receptivity and conformity pressure. Perhaps if I had been more involved in commonly talked about mass communication events like soccer matches or regular Italian television programs I would have noticed more of a difference. As it was most of my mass communication experiences were solitary experiences via internet where the impact of conformity pressure was very low and the choices of what type of mass communication to use was very open.
9. The greater the host receptivity and host conformity pressure, the lesser ethnic interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts less ethnic interpersonal and mass communication in Italy than in Spain. This matches my experience for interpersonal but not mass communication. In Italy the pressure from my employer was to not make friends with guests at the hotel, she explicitly told me that I worked for her and not for them. From her perspective she wanted to discourage ethnic loyalty in an employee who she believed would set a lower prices for co-ethnic contacts than an Italian employee would. For example room rates were in part determined by how much a guest was expected to be willing to pay. People from the United States, England or Japan were normally quoted higher prices than those from Italy, Spain or South America. Mass communication was a more solitary affair and as stated before it did not seem to be impacted by host conformity pressure.
10. The greater the ethnic group strength, the lesser the host communication competence.
Theorem predicts lower communication competence in Spain than in Italy. This does not really match my experience because I started in Spain with higher host communication competence than in Italy, this was due mostly to language skills. However I had a much greater change in my level of host communication competence during my stay in Italy than in Spain. This is probably attributable in part to the difference in ethnic group strength. Since I did not have a large group of people from the United States to interact with in Italy I was more reliant on the host culture. In Spain it was easier to interact with other students from the United States so I did not have to work as hard at developing my host communication competence.
11. The greater the ethnic group strength, the lesser the host interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts less host interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This matched my experience for interpersonal but not mass communication.
Being a member of the U.S. student group in Spain made it more difficult to interact with the host culture. This was because I already had a ready made group of interpersonal contacts in the form of co-ethnic classmates. Theorem proved important here because my total interpersonal communication time was eaten into by my ethnic communication contacts, I had less time available to develop friendships with members of the host culture. These factors did not seem as important in making the choice between host and ethnic mass communication.
12. The greater the ethnic group strength, the greater the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts greater ethnic interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This matched my experience with personal communication in Spain but I used more host mass communication while in Spain than in Italy. In Spain there was a large population of students from the U.S. so there was more opportunity to interact. It also seemed that students from the U.S. gathered somewhat separately from Spanish students which made host interpersonal communication more difficult since I was already a member of the U.S. student 'group'. With mass communication ethnic group strength seemed less important because the internet made a broad range of mass communication options equally available. I was able to freely choose based on my communication competence the type of mass communication I wanted.
13. The greater the preparedness for change, the greater the host communication competence.
Theorem predicts greater host communication competence in Spain than in Italy. This matched my experience. I had greater communication competence on arriving in Spain than I did in Italy. I spoke the language and had some idea of how the culture worked. I had also been able to plan ahead and kind of knew the city I would be arriving in. However the over all change in communication competence was greater in Italy, where I was completely unprepared. This may mean that preparedness for change is only important in the initial phase of the sojourn and not later.
14. The greater the preparedness for change, the greater the host interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts greater host interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This matched my experience in host mass communication but not in host interpersonal communication. The mass communication may have followed the theorem because it was more choice based; the internet was my primary source of mass communication. The interpersonal communication probably did not follow the theorem because the preparedness for change was far outweighed by other factors like the comparative availability and necessity of host interpersonal communication.
15. The greater the preparedness for change, the lesser the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts less ethnic interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This matched my experience for mass communication but not for interpersonal communication for the same reasons as theorem 15.
16. The greater the ethnic proximity, the greater the host communication competence.
Theorem predicts approximately equal host communication competence. This prediction matched my experience in terms of social codes and context outside of language knowledge. It seems that ethnic proximity was much less important in this study than other factors. It seems likely that this study is ill suited to gain insight into theorems dealing with ethnic proximity because there is not enough ethnic contrast between Italy, Spain and my own ethnic background to gain meaningful insight.
17. The greater the ethnic proximity, the greater the host interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts approximately equal host interpersonal and mass communication. This did not match my experience.
18. The greater the ethnic proximity the lesser the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts approximately equal ethnic interpersonal and mass communication. This did not match my experience.
19. The greater the adaptive personality, the greater the host communication competence.
Theorem predicts greater host communication competence in Spain than in Italy, provided my adaptive personality increased during my stay in Italy. Kim suggests that adaptive personality my also be relatively constant in which case I would have similar communication competence in Italy and Spain. This did match my experience in terms of having greater adaptive personality when I arrived in Spain than when I arrived in Italy; however, the increased adaptive personality at the start of my sojourn to Spain did not correspond to an over all greater increase in host communication competence throughout my stay in Spain.
20. The greater the adaptive personality, the greater the host interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts greater or equal host interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This did not match my experience in terms of host interpersonal communication; I had more personal communication in Italy. It was true for host mass communication. I think that adaptive personality may be best demonstrated by how a person responds to the requirement of adaptation. In Italy I needed to adapt more and my host interpersonal communication was greater. In Spain I had less need to adapt and had less host interpersonal communication. This does not necessarily mean I was less willing or able to adapt in Spain only that the ability was not as greatly stressed.
21. The greater the adaptive personality, the lesser the ethnic interpersonal and mass communication.
Theorem predicts less or equal ethnic interpersonal and mass communication in Spain than in Italy. This did not match my experience. I had more ethnic interpersonal communication in Spain than in Italy for the same reasons outlined in theorem 20.
In general the theoretical predictions corresponded with the reality of the experience slightly more frequently than they diverged from it. Specifically seven of the theorems were directly supported, eight were supported in terms of mass communication but not interpersonal communication and in six the results contradicted the theorems predictions. Strictly speaking the numbers are not vital to this study because it is not quantitative. However; this indicates that Kim's theory was more successful than not and the points of correspondence can be taken as supportive of Kim's theory.
The common theme underlying the theorems where predictions did not match experience were the overwhelming importance of necessity in driving stress, adaptation and growth, the relative importance or impact of some constructs on others and the disconnect between personal and mass communication.
Kim correctly identifies stress as the force behind the need to adapt; but just as there are different levels of human needs there are different levels of stress which people act on accordingly. For example theorems 1 and 2 link communication competence to the amount of host and ethnic communication, similarly theorems 14 and 15 link preparedness for change to ethnic and host communication; my experience was the opposite of the prediction in terms of personal communication for all of these. The common difference driving who I communicated with during the two sojourns was the level of importance I attached to being successful in getting what I needed. In Italy I was attempting to fill basic needs like food, shelter and security and consequently had more host interpersonal communication. In Spain I arranged for my basic needs in advance and was attempting to fill the more abstract goal of bettering my understanding of the Spanish culture and language. Despite my intentions, communication competence and preparation I had significantly less host personal communication in Spain.
These results did not match with the theorems but they are not necessarily contrary to Kim's theory. The underlying principles of stress-adaptation-growth seem consistent with experience. Rather the results suggest a problem with the testing method and in the difficulty of testing a theorem in isolation from all the other factors that affect it. Instead of only changing one construct factor I changed multiple factors, this rendered the theorems less accurate. Perhaps the theorems should read 'all other things being equal' changing communication competence will change host personal and mass communication. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the theorems were supported in the areas of host and ethnic mass communication. The factors surrounding my use of mass communication were much more consistent across both sojourns and my use of ethnic and host mass communication changed as predicted by the theory. Unfortunately; it would be difficult if not impossible to study the theory reality correspondence by only changing one factor and holding all the others constant because no to adaptation experiences are exactly the same. This study supports the basic theory and the form of the theorems, but there needs to be a better system of ranking the relative importance of factors.
Another element of divergence of my experience from the theory's prediction is the difference between interpersonal and mass communication. Eight of the theorems which contained both had different experience based outcomes for interpersonal as opposed to mass. It seems they should not be linked in theorems because they are clearly not always impacted by the same things. Technology changes throw open choices in mass communication content which are not as greatly impacted by external factors as are personal communication. This is obviously not universally true because different places have different types of technology available. However in both my sojourns I found myself able to surf the internet and access the same sources of information with equal facility.
The key practical implication of this study for students and educators is that the stress which drives the development of communication competence and intercultural identity should be emphasized to students thinking of investing in study abroad. Development in intercultural identity and communication competence are the primary goals of study abroad. Kim's theory illustrates the importance of stress in the development of these constructs. Study abroad is more than just an exercise in developing better language skills and viewing other cultures; it is an opportunity to participate in a different society and by doing so changing oneself. When programs are chosen with an emphasis on security and minimal risk they are inconsistent with their principal goals. I do not wish to suggest that stress is the only factor to consider or that risks to safety and mental stability are unimportant. But it is important to note that international corporations training and placing employees in other cultures will want people who can move beyond tactics for mitigating culture shock and handle the complex identity negotiation required to a new culture.
This project had a number of limitations. It was tied to the personal biases of the researcher and the sample size made it difficult to generalize beyond the constraints of this specific situation. However, these are both problems common to ethnographic research. Other limitations specific to this study were that in both sojourns only short term adaptations of three months each were examined, a more comprehensive examination of the theory should include short and long term adaptation. Another problem encountered with this method was the number of constructs where factors changed between the two studies. This made it difficult to attribute specific changes in concrete things like the amount of host communication to changes in one construct area like host communication competence.
Despite its limitation this study was useful in suggesting methods of further research. A case study of multiple sojourners using the same format for testing the theorems where background information for the constructs are used to compare the theorem's predictions to the sojourners experience would add some statistical support for the theory. A more targeted approach to testing the relative impact of different constructs could be achieved through careful selection of groups with specific similarities and differences. This might reveal common themes in which aspects have greater and lesser importance in cross-cultural adaptation and could improve the predictive power of the theory. It could also be used to more concretely test the disconnected nature of interpersonal and mass communication within the theorems.
Kim's integrative theory of cross-cultural adaptation was supported by this study. While there was not a perfect synchrony between the theoretical and empirical, the points of difference were attributable to limitations in the study. They still followed the underlying principle of stress-adaptation-growth and while this study does suggest that further testing may reveal improvements in the theory and the fundamental assumptions and structure be validated.
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Furnham, A., & Bochner, S. (1982). Social difficulty in a foreign culture: An empirical analysis of culture shock. In S. Bochner (Ed.), Cultures in contact: Studies in cross-cultural interaction (pp. 161-198). New York: Pergamon.
Hall, E.T. (1983). The dance of life: The other dimension of time. Carden City, NY: Anchor.
Kim, Y.Y. (2003). Becoming Intercultural: An integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Marshall, C., & Rossman, G.B. (1989). Designing qualitative research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Ruben, B.D. (1983). A system-theoretic view. In W.B. Gudykunst (Ed.), International and intercultural communication annual: Vol. 12. Intercultural communication theory (pp. 131-145). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Rubin, H.J., & Rubin, I.S. (1995). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sechres, L., Fay, T., & Zaidi, S. (1982). Problems of translation in cross-cultural communication. In L.A. Samovar & R.E. Potter (Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader (3rd ed.,pp.223-233). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Selltiz, C., Christ, J.R., Havel, J., & Cook, S.W. (1963). Attitudes and social relations
of foreign student in the United States. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Slavin, M., & Kriegman, D. (1992). The adaptive design of the human psyche. New York: Guilford.
Soy, S. K. (1997). The case study as a research method. Unpublished paper, University of Texas at Austin. Retreated 9/20/07, from www.gslis.utexas.edu/~ssoy/
Stewart, A., & Healy, J., Jr. (1985). Personality and adaptation to change. In R. Hogan & W. Jones (Eds.), Perspectives in personality (Vol. 1, pp. 117-144). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
White, R. (1976). Strategies of adaptation: An attempt at systemic description. In R. Moos (Ed.), Human adaptation: Coping with life crises (pp. 17-32). Lexington, MA: D.C. Health.
Zajonc, R. (1952). Aggressive attitude of the "stranger" as a function of conformity pressures. Human Realtions, 5, 205-216.


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|Alva, Ashok
Submitted to: Journal of Crop Improvement
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/11/2007
Publication Date: 6/1/2008
Citation: Alva, A.K. 2008. Set points for potato irrigation using real-time continuous monitoring of soil water content in soil profile. J. Crop Improvement. 21:117-137. Interpretive Summary: Potato is very sensitive to adequate availability of water during most of the growing period. However, application of excess water should be avoided in order to minimize leaching of water and nutrients below the rootzone. Irrigation decisions are generally made based on either crop or soil monitoring. Real-time, continuous monitoring of soil water content within the rooting depth provides a basis to determine when and how much to irrigate to overcome water deficits. Likewise, simultaneous monitoring of water content below the rootzone soil provides a basis to judge leaching of water below the rootzone. Capacitance probes were used to monitor soil water content at 10, 30, 60, 90, and 120 cm depth in Ranger Russet potato fields irrigated by center pivot. Plants were irrigated to replensih full evapotranspiration (ET) or 70% of ET. The latter constitutes deficit irrigation. Using the soil water monitoring data, we developed the following irrigation guidelines: (i) full point: maximum amount of water that can be held in the rooting depth soil, i.e. equivalent to 72 mm in the top 60 cm; (ii) refill point: the allowable soil water content below which causes serious negative effects on growth and quality of tubers, i.e. equivalent to 54 mm water in the top 60 cm depth soil; (iii) driest point: the lowest water content which cannot be extracted by the plants, i.e. equivalent to wilting point or 18 mm in the top 60 cm depth soil. Thus, for optimal production of high quality potatoes, the soil water content in the top 60 cm depth soil should be maintained between 54 and 72 mm water. Application of water in excess of 72 mm will result in leaching of water and nutrients below the rootzone. Deficit irrigation below 54 mm water in the top 60 cm depth soil will results in serious negative affects on the crop growth, production and quality of tubers. For the field studies, it is necessary to validate the above irrigation setpoints.
Technical Abstract: Adequate availability of water during the potato growing season is critical for production of high yields of premium processing quality tubers. Real-time, continuous monitoring of soil water content in the soil profile can be used to develop irrigation setpoints to ensure adequate availability of water in the rootzone and minimize excess water application which can be leached below the rootzone. In this study, capacitance probes were used for automated measurement of soil water content at 10, 30, 60, 90, and 120 cm depth in a Center Pivot irrigated potato (cv. Ranger Russet) field in a Quincy fine sand (mixed, mesic, Xeric Torripsamments). Depth integrated soil water content was calculated in the soil profile to which represents the rooting depth (0-60 cm) and below the rooting depth (60-120 cm). Irrigation was scheduled to replenish either full evapotranspiration (ET), or 70% of ET (deficit irrigation). The soil water content at the 10 and 30 cm depth, as well as depth integrated soil water content in the 0-60 cm depth soil responded to each irrigation event. The "Full Point" and "Refill Point" for the soil within potato rootzone (0-60 cm depth) were estimated to represent the maximum water holding capacity (without leaching below), and the soil water content at which irrigation is to be scheduled to avoid soil water stress, respectively. Depth integrated soil water content in the 0-60 cm depth soil profile remained mostly above the Full Point during most of the growing season in the Full ET irrigation treatment, but remained within the Full Point and Refill Point for the deficit irrigation treatment. The tuber yield for the latter treatment was lower by 24% as compared to that for the former treatment. Thus, further research is necessary to reevaluate the irrigation setpoints to facilitate optimal irrigation to minimize water leaching below the rootzone and ensure no negative effects on the tuber yield and quality.

subset: commoncrawl


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THE DETAILS: Researchers observed ninety patients who had had their appendixes removed and recovered in identical hospital rooms, some of them with potted plants. Both groups were on the same floor of a Korean hospital and had views of the sky, but no outdoor trees or plants were visible. Flowering and foliage plants included dendrobium, peace lily, golden pothos, kentia palm, arrowhead vine, cretan brake fern, variegated vinca, and yellow-star jasmine. The biggest reduction in stronger painkiller use came on the third day after surgery, when just 4% of patients in rooms with plants used moderate painkillers, compared to nearly 20% in the no-plant group. Researchers also found that patients with plants used less medication, had lower blood pressures and heart rates, felt less pain, anxiety and fatigue, and reported feeling more positive and satisfied with their rooms. While offering a more pleasant experience, the plants didn't seem to help patients leave the hospital any sooner—both groups averaged about five days in the hospital following surgery.
WHAT IT MEANS: Plants make us feel good. A well-known study by Roger Ulrich, PhD, professor of landscape architecture and urban planning at Texas A&M, found that people in hospital rooms with window views of outdoor vegetation took fewer painkillers during recovery. Potted plants have also been shown to boost pain tolerance. The phenomenon isn't fully understood, but it's possible that humans are hard-wired to know that plants are essential to survival, so seeing them makes us feel calm, says Virginia I. Lohr, PhD, a professor at Washington State University who has been studying the subject for more than 30 years. In one of Lohr's studies, people who worked in a windowless computer lab with common houseplants visible had 2-point lower systolic blood pressure score, compared to a group that had no exposure to plants. That extra two points is equivalent to taking about half a dose of blood-pressure medicine.
Keep this in mind when selecting a plant for someone on the mend:
• This study didn't test fresh-cut blooms, so you may want to stick to potted plants. If your patient's room doesn't provide much sunlight, houseplants that do well in low light include bamboo palm, Chinese evergreen, snake plant, and arrowhead vine.
• Find a native plant nursery in your area to select plants that will benefit the environment as well as your loved one. Native plants are hardy and don't require lots of attention or toxic chemicals to flourish. Pot them for a hospital get-well gift; when the patient recovers, he or she can plant them in the ground.
• If you want to send plants or flowers, try an organic source, such as Organic Bouquet. Synthetic pesticides and fertilizers aren't good for you or the environment.


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Well, I think summer has finally sprung in Ottawa. Not that this picture is from Ottawa mind you; my wife and I live nowhere near this type of real estate.
I was inspired to post this picture because the weather has improved drastically over the last week or so. Instead of days on end of rain, we've experienced high-20s (with the humidity it's been mid-30s) weather filled with hot sun and beautiful breezes in the National Capital Region.
I'm lovin' it 🙂
While there seems to be some rain in the weekend weather forecast, I certainly feel like summer has arrived after a long, cold, drawn-out winter.
I don't know about you, but yardwork and chores are calling my name this weekend. We've got an 0.5 acre lot to maintain, but we're certainly not complaining. We love being outdoors. Come to think of it, doing yardwork isn't that bad when the weather is this great. It does however take me a bit longer to mow the lawn, not because of the heat but because there are cold sips of beer amongst many rows of long grass. Hey, I might as well enjoy the process right??
Amidst a busy work week that saw me travel to Sudbury, then Charlottetown, then back home to Ottawa within a few days, I did manage to read a few blogposts and write a few of my own. Here are some of my favourite articles from this past week. Maybe once your outdoor chores are done over the next few days, you can check out these posts too. Then again, maybe you can procrastinate and simply enjoy the weather. It's your weekend afterall, the choice is up to you. Enjoy it!
I'll be back next week with hopefully, an update on my dividend income for May. On that, I've got more good news to share so stay tuned 🙂
101 Centavos wrote about long supply chains and business ideas.
Our favourite Millionaire Teacher talked about Michael O'Higgins and why he's a fan of him.
Balance Junkie told us how to put money in its place.
One of my favourite guys to follow, especially when it comes to success with junior stocks, bought another stock on his path to Beating The Index.
Echo told us why he loves shopping at Costco.
Larry MacDonald asked: Bye QE2, hello QE3?
Canadian Capitalist told us what would make Vanguard coming to Canada, really meaningful for investors. Ram also provided readers with an update on his Sleepy Mini Portfolio, his passive approach to building wealth using TD e-series funds.
Dan Bortolotti from Canadian Couch Potato discussed the risks associated with swap-based ETFs with Jaime Purvis, Executive Vice-President, National Accounts, for Horizons ETFs.
Big Cajun Man discussed the City of Ottawa's water ban in his neck of our city. I'm with him, watering your lawn is just, watering your lawn. Don't we (civilization) need water for more important things? Just sayin'.
Dividend Growth Investor wrote about the lifecycle of, well, a dividend investor.
Dividend Mantra revealed how he saved about $1,500 by organizing training for work, his vacation and family visit together. Nicely done!
Dividend Monk did an outstanding stock analysis on one of my favourites stocks, Coca-Cola. Long (live) KO:US. 🙂
Dividend Partisan provided everyone with his June portfolio update.
DIY Investor asked his readers how to measure investment risk?
Financial Uproar gave folks an update, and his take, on Nokia.
Gail Vaz-Oxlade continued her series about "The Way We Save"
Kevin from Invest It Wisely told the world why he squirrels away money.
Susan Brunner, who receives lots of dividends from lots of companies, continued her excellent analyses of Canadian dividend-paying stocks. This week, she checked out Emera. I own this one too 🙂
Michael James offered his perspectives (which I agree with) about risks associated with covered-call ETFs. Personally, I'm not touching these things.
Mike from Money Smarts Blog said you can make a guaranteed 20% return in your RESP!
One of Canada's most popular bloggers asked his readers: Can one save too much money?
Jim Yih had an interesting post how believing can help you become wealthy. My comment to Jim was believing
(in yourself), personal finance or any other dicipline, is one of life's most valuable tenants.
Sustainable Personal Finance had an excellent tip about avoiding paper waste.
The Dividend Guy Blog asked if you play with ex-dividend dates? I definitely don't date, I'm a married man!
I read an excellent article from my Passive Income Earner friend who discussed the merits of dividend growth and DRIPping your dividends to build wealth. I'm with you here Passive.
I checked out YoungandThirfty's net worth this week, and for a 20-something who just went into mortgage debt, it remains very impressive!
The Dividend Pig shared a new site with his readers, saying "I think anyone who invests in stocks needs to know about it."
Although The Dividend Ninja is very focused on achieving financial freedom using dividend-paying stocks, this week he provided some excellent advice for passive investors, actually, all investors: don't forget to keep some bonds "short"! I'm doing just that Ninja – my post about that is coming soon.
Have a GREAT weekend everyone!


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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – New insights into the reproductive behaviors of freshwater fish – a process more bizarre and interesting than commonly realized – have been discovered by scientists who used genetic tools first developed for use in humans.
By using genetic fingerprinting techniques such as those used to identify criminals, Andrew DeWoody, assistant professor of forestry and natural resources at Purdue University, and his colleagues, have been able to glean new knowledge about an underwater world of peculiar liaisons.
The findings were published in three scientific papers during the last four months, the most recent appearing in the Monday (4/16) issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Most freshwater fish familiar to sport fishermen reproduce by building nests and laying eggs in the spring. But unlike birds and reptiles, in many freshwater fish species it is the male that builds and tends the nest.
"They try to build an attractive nest to entice females to come and spawn with them," DeWoody says.
Nearly all freshwater fish are external fertilizers, which means that while the female deposits some or all of her eggs in a nest, the male swims over the nest and fertilizes the eggs. The female leaves – often to find another male to spawn with – while the guardian male waits, fanning his tail to aerate the eggs, protecting the nest from predators and hoping to entice another female to add more eggs to the nest.
There's also a problem with other males. "Occasionally a second male will join the spawning pair and attempt to 'steal' fertilizations from the primary male," DeWoody says.
It's a long, lonely vigil hovering over the nest, and the males can't leave for any reason, even to forage for food. "As soon as they leave the nest, minnows or some other fish would come in and destroy the nest by eating the eggs," DeWoody says.
Instead, the males survive by eating a few of the eggs themselves. DeWoody and his colleagues wondered if the males cannibalize just the eggs fertilized by other males, or if they are indiscriminate?
For the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DeWoody and the others captured male darters and sunfish to extract undigested eggs from their stomachs. They then used DNA fingerprinting techniques to compare the DNA of the adults with that of the embryos.
They found that the males were unable to distinguish between eggs that were their kin and those that weren't.
"These findings have implications not only for fish ecologists, but also other areas of biology," DeWoody says. "The question of how well animals are able to recognize their kin is a question that many biologists are asking."
But cannibalism isn't the most bizarre part of the spring spawning season. Even for fish, it turns out that it's not always a father-knows-best kind of world. There are other males on the prowl, and these males use deceptive tactics to ensure that they, too, have small fry.
DeWoody and his colleagues also have studied sunfish and found that as few as 85 percent of the fish were nest-builders, which scientists called bourgeois males. The rest, the researchers found, used their unusual sexual development to trick the bourgeois males and reproduce.
There are two types of non-bourgeois males, which scientists call sneakers and satellites.
Sneakers are adult males disguised as immature males. Besides their smaller size and immature appearance, the sneaker males have another difference: dissections show that despite their size, sneakers' testes are three times as large as those of a bourgeois male. "They're not much more than a swimming sack of sperm," DeWoody says.
As their name implies, sneakers approach a nest guarded by a bourgeois male and, when the moment is right, darts over the nest.
"With no cooperation from the female, as the two fish are spawning, this other male zooms in and releases his gametes," DeWoody says.
The second type of parasite male is even more deceptive. The satellite males lack the colorful pigmentation of bourgeois male sunfish, and they are smaller than a typical male. They look almost exactly like a female sunfish. The satellite sunfish approaches the nest as if it, too, wants to spawn with the bourgeois male, but instead of releasing eggs it releases sperm.
The question for fish ecologists has always been, how successful are these alternate fertilization strategies? Not very, the researchers discovered.
DeWoody and his colleagues examined the genetics of the nests to determine how successful these alternate approaches were, and found that the parasitic males only sired 1.3 percent of the embryos.
The genetic data also showed that each of the nests had been spawned by an average of more than seven females.
These results were published in the December issue of the scientific journal Molecular Ecology.
But not all freshwater fish are so promiscuous. DeWoody and his colleagues found that the most popular sport fish in the United States, the largemouth bass, is unusual for two reasons: Bass are largely monogamous (at least for one season), and both parents are responsible for guarding the nest.
By using the same gene marker techniques used in the other studies, they determined that only 12 percent of the largemouth bass nests contained any eggs fertilized by another male.
"Cuckoldry by males was rare," the researchers noted in a paper published in the December edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. "The genetic data also revealed that some nests contain juveniles that were not the progeny of the guardian females, a finding that can be thought of as low-level cuckoldry."
"For the most part, you can say that largemouth bass are monogamous," DeWoody says. "This appears to be the first documentation of monogamy and biparental care in externally fertilizing vertebrates."
DeWoody says such advances in the ecology of fish and wildlife is only possible because of advances in genetic techniques. "Genetics in fish and wildlife is always 10 years behind what it is in humans, he says. "But we would not have been able to gather this information without these techniques."
Coauthors on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science paper were John C. Avise of the University of Georgia, Dean Fletcher of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., and David Wilkins of the South Carolina Aquarium.
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Billiard light install
I need some help on determining what kind of wiring to buy to hang my light. The light as it stands now has a 6 ft. cord (male-end) which is designed to be plugged into a ceiling receptable.
I plan to remove an existing light fixture in the ceiling to connect my billiard light into. The ceiling in this room is 20ft tall so I will need to extend the cord coming from the light.
1.) Is it possible to build my own extension cable out of lamp cord? ie. female plug on one end and bare wire on the other to hard-wire to ceiling?
2.) What parts would I need? Im concerned about ground as all lamp cords I've seen are just hot & nuetral.
Assume you plan to mount with fixture chain?
Take fixture apart and replace plug whip with lamp cord ( find color to match chain) hard wire (Wire nuts) Chain could act as your ground if you do it right or get a spool of braided not insulated copper wire for your ground. Weave both thru chain.
Assume you are removing a surface mounted ceiling light that is connected to a metal octagon box that is secured properly.
You will need:
fixture bar
(2) 8/32 screws
canopy / with mounting hardware to fixture bar and for chain.
3 orange wire nuts
Put as much of this together on the ground as you can.
20 feet in the air is no place to scratch your head.
How do you plan to get up 20' over your pool table?
your post said "light in the ceiling" if this is a recessed can you will have a lot more to do.
Thanks for the reply. This is kind of what I was thinking of, however wasn't sure about the ground. I looked for lamp cord with a built-in ground but have not had any luck.
The light itself will be supported by chains separated 4ft which are secured to the ceiling. I plan on running the wire up one of the chains and hopping this over to the existing ceiling outlet. The ceiling outlet holds a dining room light which isn't centered over the room. I will use decorative wire to string the lamp cord to the location.
As far as getting 20' high....I've been stumbling with this one for a while. I found a local store which has a 16ft step ladder that I plan to rent. Hope this should do the trick!
"The light itself will be supported by chains separated 4ft which are secured to the ceiling."
You will need to plumb bob down to get the right spots. Odds are this will be in drywall not the bottom cord of your truss.
? eye bolt w/ toggle? this might work if fixture is not to heavy.
resulting in ugly sag in ceiling/ pull thru damage, PITA to repair.
consider a 6' board (decorate to match your desires) space and mount chains / secure board to bottom cord of truss.. 6' should insure you get 2 locations to secure. Trusses are 2' oc
Good luck / 16' step ladder will not be a lot of fun
Don't get behind the eight ball on this
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GIRLS HOCKEY: Flying Warriors lose 9-2 to Moorhead Spuds
MOORHEAD — Kristina Anderson scored a goal and assisted on the other as the Brainerd/Little Falls Flying Warriors dropped their fifth straight contest, losing 9-2 to the Moorhead Spuds in a Section 8-2A game Thursday night.
CJ Kendall also found the net for the Flying Warriors, who saw their record drop to 1-12-1.
Brainerd/Little Falls was outshot 35-21 with goalie Natalie Berens making 26 saves.
Moorhead 5 1 3 — 9
Brainerd/LF 0 1 1 — 2
First period: M-Kristen Drechsel (Taylor O'Connell) 1:46; M-Jordyn McBain 4:39; M-Missy Setter (Ashlie Talley, Jordan Evavold 6:40; M-Drechsel (Evavold, Jenna Uberg) ppg 12:12; M-Tori Davis (Uberg, Drechsel) 16:06
Second period: BLF-CJ Kendall (Kristina Anderson, Allayna Ernster) 14:08; M-Julia Stetz (Marissa Herdt) 16:20
Third period: M-Talley (Lizzy Stein) 3:45; BLF-Anderson 6:228; M-Ulberg (Rebekah Hakk) 6:50, M-Setter (Talley, Hakk) shg 8:20
Shots on goal: BLF 21, M 35
Goalies: BLF-Natalie Berens (26 saves); M-Beth Myers (19 saves).
Overall: BLF 1-12-1. Next: Brainerd/Little Falls at Bemidji 2 p.m. Saturday.


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Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway
Hi Ladies here is my newest combination I'm wearing the green corset from the giftmachine with the Lockwood gruesome wedding guest's ruffled skirt and Lockwood delirious squid victoriana gothic boots. The lmo is Granzella's chic goth loli parasol in black.
Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway[ Edited ]
Morning everyone!
Awesome shoots BK and Honey. I really love your combo's. It's hard to believe this thread has been going for so long. Thank you everyone for your sweet comments. I know I've been really busy these days both in real life and with the Final Fantasy MMO. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday with friends at my Glittering Sands. Home is special when it comes to the people and we sure have so much content to pick from these days it's amazing.
I have a shoot together of some Player Inspect items I picked up around Home. I think these are awesome and am not sure why they aren't in stores here yet. I suspect they'll be released at some point soon. The tights look a lot like those released by Peakvox and the halter tops simply say Sony Entertainment so I'm not sure who the developer is.
It's been fun shopping with player inspect. I have another shoot together which I still need to photoshop but I hope to have that shoot posted soon as well. I'll also try and get up the female content update in the very near future.
Hope you likey!
And of course a couple images of my Layla from Final Fantasy as a Pugilist and a Dragoon! I'm currently doing some dungeon raids hoping for neat loot (outfits) which are unique to certain treasure chests.
Additional images of this Photo shoot are at Joanna's Photostream on Flickr.
Joanna Dark on Twitter
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MissJoannaDark on YouTube
Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway[ Edited ]
Joanna_Dark_ wrote:
I have a shoot together of some Player Inspect items I picked up around Home. I think these are awesome and am not sure why they aren't in stores here yet. I suspect they'll be released at some point soon. The tights look a lot like those released by Peakvox and the halter tops simply say Sony Entertainment so I'm not sure who the developer is.
These items (which are really nice) have actually been available for around two years via Mall Hack, so it's a quite the mystery why these and many of the other items have never been released in stores, but available to purchase via Mall Hack and Player Inspect.
Interestingly enough though, and perhaps related, is that most of these mystery items are all animated... Which may be why for some reason Sony chose not to officially release them. It's very odd though.
The animated flower tattoo shirts really look great!
As a bonus, it's nice that people are finally discovering these items for purchase during the $10 credit promo for every $50 spent (which ends in only a few days).
Sony's PlayStation Home updated mission statement...
"Like it never happened"
- Stand for something better than mediocrity and don't disguise it as adequate, when clearly it is far from that to anyone willing to be objective and unbiased. -
Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway
Well it's nice D that Tempest clarified buying things with Player Inspect. Obviously that are some items out there which have been acquired by means other than using the mall. I have another fit I'll post soon.
And ladies I have the alphazone content update for the week. Have a lookie see. http://alphazone4.com/store/update/1751/
Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway
Hiya fashionistas! I haven't done a proper shoot in forever, but here's a pic I took yesterday morning of a Tinkerbell-ish look...
Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway
Hey Ladies I just wanted to say thanks for all the kind words and encouragement I have received from everyone here. I will be busy on Halloween so I wanted to wish everyone a safe and Happy Halloween.
Re: PS3 Home: The Ladies Fashion Runway[ Edited ]
Sweet picture Honey Phantom. So happy you're here with your fashion. And Stephie happy to see you back. I wish we could get you here a bit more often. Get that flash drive in action.
Happy Halloween everyone!
And I have a really neat image by Sandara from Deviant Art. I love that site!
I have a shoot to post soon and I'll be getting this weeks female update from Alphazone up soon as well.


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Vladimir Putin has supported with words and weapons the brutal regime of President Assad in Syria on grounds that it is OK to blast away at civilians if you must in order to retain power. When urged to restrain the murder of thousands in Syria, the Russian leader throws his hands up claiming that it is not his responsibility what other leaders do or do not do. In his own nation, there are dozens of innocent civilians locked up in prisons throughout Russia on grounds they did not do what they were told to do by the Supreme Ruler of the land. People have died in his prisons, many beaten to death and not a word of complaint from Vladimir. His usual comment is that if you die in his jail, it is because you beat yourself up.
Terrorists blew themselves up and killed dozens of innocent Russian people. The people of Chechnya hate Russia for its brutal policies which led to the death of hundreds of thousands in their war torn land. Putin rushed to Volgograd, the scene of suicide bombing and told victims. "Whatever motivated the criminals' actions, there is no justification for committing crimes against civilians.!"
How can anyone respond to this comment without bursting into laughter??


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11 Best Video Game Endings Of All Time
Posted on Saturday, November 3 @ 09:47:05 PST by Alex_Osborn
5. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Many fans of Kojima's work will argue until they're blue in the face that Metal Gear Solid 3 is the best game in Konami's super-popular stealth-action series. From double-crosses, to Snake's emotional battle against his beloved mentor, the ending of Snake Eater is loaded with emotion. And then there's the epic finale in which Snake is given the title of Big Boss. This is a prequel done right. A story that not only stands incredibly well on its own, but does a great job in brining everything full circle. Ah, just thinking about it makes me want to go back and play it again... for a fifth time.
4. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Ocarina of Time is not only the greatest Zelda game ever made, it's quite possibly the best game to ever come out of Nintendo. I'm a sucker for games that deal with time, and Ocarina of Time handles it so well at the very end. There's just something magical about returning to the past after experiencing so much as both young and adult Link. If you need a refresher, just watch the video above and tell me you're not impressed. I dare you.
|More On GameRevolution


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Jimmy Choo
Ava glittered suede and lamé shoulder bag
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Jimmy Choo
Ava glittered suede and lamé shoulder bag
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- - This item's measurements are:
- Depth 5.5cm
- Height 12cm
- Max. Strap Length 111cm
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Jimmy Choo takes the unconventional approach to evening with this glittered suede and lustrous lamé bag. This compact satin-lined style has just enough space for your phone, keys and lipstick. Carry yours in hand against a black dress, or work it cross-body for day with the optional chain strap.
Shown here with: Theory Shirt, Victoria Beckham Denim Jeans, Christian Louboutin Pumps, Bottega Veneta Belt, Bottega Veneta Ring, Alexander McQueen Bracelet.
- - Gray glittered suede (Lamb, Goat)
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Back to basics on Grass Roots Farm | Couple says physical labour builds character and a good work ethic
VANSCOY, Sask. — Arlie Laroche points to one of her chickens having a dirt bath.
"You wouldn't see that in a normal chicken operation," she said.
Arlie said the bird is ridding itself of parasites, one example of how stock on Saskatchewan's Grass Roots Farm are treated differently than those in conventional operations.
Raising chickens on fresh pasture in portable housing that is moved every four or five days isn't just a marketing gimmick. Laroche is committed to farming in a holistic manner.
"I think it's better for the environment and better for the animals. I just think it's a more natural way of farming," she said.
"I think farming in this way benefits the soil and farming in a conventional way kind of pollutes it. It's hard physical labour but I think that builds character. I like that my kids are being raised on this farm and seeing that things don't just appear on a Styrofoam tray in the grocery store."
It started as a way to feed the family but has since turned into a viable livestock business.
In June, Laroche quit her job in Saskatoon as a water resource engineering technician at Golder Associates to become a full-time farmer.
She is raising 21 pigs, 24 sheep, seven cows, 200 laying hens and 100 meat chickens on 140 acres of land near Vanscoy.
The animals are butchered locally and sold directly to about 40 mainly urban customers.
Her husband, Brett, is part owner of Catterall & Wright, a civil engineering firm focused on land development projects. They are parents to Maizie, 5, and Emmett, 3.
Arlie grew up on a cattle farm near Buchanan, Sask., and Brett was raised on a mixed operation near Birch Hills, Sask.
They lived in Saskatoon after finishing their schooling but that was a failed experiment.
"We weren't city kids. We weren't cut out for it," said Arlie.
Brett is equally passionate about the farm. He wants his kids to grow up with the same work ethic he developed on a 550 acre grain farm with 30 head of cattle and an 800 farrow-to-finish hog operation.
"We weren't mechanized at all. It was all kind of grunt labour. It taught me a lot about hard work," he said.
Raising chickens, pigs, cattle and lambs on pasture is labour intensive but Brett thinks it is well worth the effort when they provide consumers with the finished product.
"You're giving good, nutritious food to people you know and care about, so it's kind of cool in that respect," he said.
However, he isn't enamoured with all aspects of the operation.
"I have no interest in chickens myself. I grew up having to butcher chickens as a kid and I hated it," he said.
Brett has a similar disdain for Arlie's three garden plots. He doesn't have fond memories of hilling 600 potatoes as a child.
His role in the farming operation is limited to driving the tractor, fixing equipment and creating housing for the animals.
One of the couple's mentors is Joel Salatin, an American farmer and lecturer who promotes his unique style of sustainable livestock management.
His philosophy is to have cattle graze a pasture followed by chickens in portable coops. The birds eat what is left of the grass in addition to digging through cow dung to eat fly larvae.
When the chickens are done with the patch, it's like a "nitrogen bomb" has exploded, said Brett. The new grass that emerges is more lush and green than pasture that hasn't been grazed in that manner.
A similar approach is employed in spring when Arlie turns her pigs loose on the hay pack left over from housing cattle in the winter shelter.
"They just turn it into dirt. They root it all up and it makes really great compost for the garden," she said.
The pigs also eat grass, spent brewery grain and table scraps.
"The pork is really popular because it's rare to find pastured pork," said Arlie.
The couple is committed to growing the business in a slow and sustainable manner.
"We don't need to be multi-millionaires and turning this into a large operation," said Brett, who wants the business to remain nimble, flexible and independent.
"Don't sign contracts with anybody. Then you're not working for yourself anymore."
Arlie also embraces the slow and steady approach.
"I don't really do any marketing at all. It's nice to have it grow through word-of-mouth because it seems to generate really loyal customers," she said.
Arlie typically charges a premium over conventional meat found on grocery store shelves.
Currently, a side of beef sells for $5.50 per pound, pork is $4.85 per lb. and lamb is $5 per lb. Free-range eggs are $5 per dozen and pastured chicken is $4 per lb.
Arlie has friends who help on the farm in return for meat and she recently signed up for the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms program.
Visitors spend time helping on the farm in exchange for food, accommodation and education.
Arlie said it helps fill the social void she is feeling since leaving her job in Saskatoon.
"It's fun to have somebody to work side-by-side with and I feel really passionate about the way that we farm, so it's a way for me to kind of spread the word and show other people how it can be done," she said.


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Date of Stay: March, 2013
Although staff assured me that we could get our satellite signal in the space that was assigned us, it was not true. We believed her and were entirely set up to be disappointed. Only here three days so we decided to rough it. Cable (25 channels) really poor, bad reception. Wi-fi, I had better 10 years ago. The excuse was the park was full (not true). Bad in the daytime, non-existent at night. Several (4, I think) spots here are showing very large animal pens with 10-15 dogs. This is ridiculous. I did not book a KOA to spend it near a kennel. They were very proud of their "5000" foot enclosed dog park. Please, my back yard is bigger than that and no doggie bag dispensers! Really disappointed, will not stay here again. Good point, bus to downtown reasonable, close to Alamo and Riverwalk. Very poor grocery store (HEB). Take the bus for downtown, parking is 15.00 for just a few hours.
Date of Stay: January, 2013
Campground roads not paved. Trash everywhere. Crumbling pads for "patio" area. Weeds, bugs, garbage everywhere. This place looks like it hasn't been cleaned in 5 years. The office is a covered three sided room in the garage. Wi-Fi didn't work the entire time we were there. (3 days). No grocery store except for a convenience store which was pretty decent for the necessities. People do alot of fishing and oysters around here, shells and fishy smells everywhere. They have a fish cleaning table near the parking spots. Nasty is being easy on them, they should close this place down.
Date of Stay: January, 2013
I was very pleased when we first arrived, clean, great Wi-Fi, the bay one our side of the road, the ocean on the other side. Full use of the Ramada Inn pools, beach front etc. BUT then the construction began. They are putting in mini golf course next door. Trucks beeping from 6:30 AM to 6PM, Usual construction noise and we are about 10 steps away. Then they started sanding the water tower. I have never been subjected to this much noise in my life and I am paying for it. I asked then to move us to the other side of the park (we are here for a month) and they couldn't do it. They did not offer a monetary compensation for the racket even though I asked. Customer service sucks. I will not be back. If you come, bring ear plugs.
Date of Stay: December, 2012
They failed to tell me that because we were staying a month we would be charged for electric. The Wi-Fi is as terrible as I have experienced. Down quite often and slow, extremely slow. Difficult to even get connected at times. I finally just gave up. Staff very pleasant. There is no garbage pick up. Small fenced dog run. The site is surrounded by what I would call a moat. Stagnant water that breeds a bug that is extremely small, black and has a bite like a mosquito. Level site and water logged when it rains. Will not come back.