Perceived Parental Abilities of Traditional vs. Non-traditional Couples Seeking to Adopt

Prejudice towards those that do not conform to stereotypical roles for their given sex remains a pervasive societal problem, particularly among gay and lesbian couples. However, few experimental studies investigating factors that affect prejudice toward such couples have been conducted. The current study sought to better understand the psychological factors driving these prejudices, particularly considering the long-term implications for gay and lesbian couples seeking to expand their families. One basis for this prejudice seems to be a reaction to gay or lesbian couples violating traditional familial and gender norms. To further investigate this prejudice, participants viewed either an opposite- or same-sex facial dyads along with a vignette indicating that this couple was seeking to adopt. Individual target faces were also manipulated to appear either more masculine or feminine and used to form nine unique pairings of sexually dimorphic couples. Participants then indicated the extent to which they thought each couple was likely to be approved for adoption and the couples’ parental abilities. This was followed by the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale, a measure of value placed upon traditional norms, and a measure of extrinsic and intrinsic religiosity more nuanced understanding of the underpinnings of anti-gay discrimination. Results may guide future research for reducing these prejudices, particularly as it pertains to LGBTQ+ couples seeking to adopt

Black Women in Hattiesburg During World War II: War Work and Community Activism on the Home Front

The remobilization of Camp Shelby during World War II provided many opportunities for Black women to serve their race, community, and nation in the Jim Crow South. The racially segregated United States Army led to the formation of Hattiesburg’s Sixth Street United Service Organization (USO) in 1942, creating a need for Black women’s involvement and support. Eurkea School teachers, many of whom were club women, used their leadership to volunteer at the USO and help their community support the war effort. The influx of war workers and soldiers, along with the limited male workforce resulting from military service, allowed an unprecedented number of Black women to gain meaningful employment. Black women had access to more jobs and less discrimination in wages. These advancements in the civic activism of Black Hattiesburg created a foundation of unity and activism that would be vital during Hattiesburg’s civil rights movement. Without Black women, victory during the war would not have been possible. This thesis will broaden the historiography of WWII and Black women’s contributions to war work in labor, volunteer opportunities, race work, and community activism that has been missing from the historical narrative of women, race, and war. This research focuses on Hattiesburg, home to the second-largest army training camp during the war. By examining newspaper articles, USO archive records, oral histories, letters, and journals from the National Council of Negro Women, this thesis will allow the story of these women and the advancements in community activism achieved during WWII to be told

Effect of Solvent Quality and Sidechain Architecture On the Conjugated Polymer Chain Conformation In Solution

Conjugated polymers (CPs) are solution-processible for various electronic applications, where solution aggregation and dynamics could impact the morphology in the solid state. Various solvents and solvent mixtures have been used to dissolve and process CPs, but few studies quantify the effect of solvent quality on the solution behaviors of CPs. Here, we performed static light scattering, small-angle X-ray scattering, combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, to investigate CPs solution behaviors with various solvent quality, including poly(3‐alkylthiophene) (P3ATs) with various sidechain lengths from -C4H9 to -C12H25, poly[bis(3-dodecyl-2-thienyl)-2,2\u27-dithiophene-5,5\u27-diyl] (PQT-12) and poly[2,5-bis(3-dodecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene] (PBTTT-12). We found that chlorobenzene is a better solvent than toluene for various CPs. It is evident from the majority positive second virial coefficient A2 ranging from 0.3 to 4.7 ×10-3 cm3*mol/g2 towards P3ATs. For P3ATs in non-polar solvents, longer sidechains promote more positive A2 and thus signaling a better polymer-solvent interaction, where in toluene A2 increases from -5.9 to 1.4 ×10-3 cm3*mol/g2 and in CB A2 ranges from 1.0 to 4.7 ×10-3 cm3*mol/g2 when sidechain length increases from -C6H13 to -C12H25. Moreover, PQT-12 and PBTTT-12 have strong aggregation tendencies in all the solutions, with an apparent positive A2 (~0.5 ×10-3 cm3*mol/g2) due to multi-chain aggregates and peculiar chain folding. These solvent-dependent aggregation behaviors can be well correlated to spectroscopy measurement results. Our coarse-grained MD simulation results further suggested that CPs with longer, dense, and branched sidechain can achieve enhance polymer-solvent interaction, and thus enable overall better solution dispersion. Our work here provides quantitative insights into the solution behavior of conjugated polymers that can guide both the design and process of CPs toward next-generation organic electronics

Nudibranch Dondice jupiteriensis

The nudibranch Dondice jupiteriensis found on the colonial hydroid Eueendrium carneum in Tampa Bay, FL. Scale bar = 1 cm. For more information on the abundance and natural history of this nudibranch, see Molina et al. 2024, pages 8-15 in Gulf and Caribbean Research volume 35. https://doi.org/10.18785/gcr.3501.03https://aquila.usm.edu/gcrgallery/1002/thumbnail.jp

A General Strategy for Enhancing Sensitivity and Suppressing Noise in Infrared Organic Photodetectors Using Non‐Conjugated Polymer Additives

Photodetectors operating across the near- to short-wave infrared (NIR–SWIR, λ = 0.9–1.8 µm) underpin modern science, technology, and society. Organic photodiodes (OPDs) based on bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) active layers overcome critical manufacturing and operating drawbacks inherent to crystalline inorganic semiconductors, offering the potential for low-cost, uncooled, mechanically compliant, and ubiquitous infrared technologies. A constraining feature of these narrow bandgap materials systems is the high noise current under an applied bias, resulting in specific detectivities (D*, the figure of merit for detector sensitivity) that are too low for practical utilization. Here, this study demonstrates that incorporating wide-bandgap insulating polymers within the BHJ suppresses noise by diluting the transport and trapping sites as determined using capacitance-frequency analysis. The resulting D* of NIR–SWIR OPDs operating from 600–1400 nm under an applied bias of −2 V is improved by two orders of magnitude, from 108 to 1010 Jones (cm Hz1/2 W−1), when incorporating polysulfone within the blends. This broadly applicable strategy can reduce noise in IR-OPDs enabling their practical operation and the realization of emerging technologies

Exploring the Efficacy of Using an Online Survey to Measure Functional Literacy Among College Students

This research study was conducted to examine the efficacy of using an online survey to assess the literacy proficiency of college students in an area of the United States with historically low socioeconomic status. Two research questions were written to guide the study: R1. What is the factor structure of the Online Collegiate Literacy Scale? R2. What relationship exists between literacy and college students from areas of the United States with a high concentration of poverty? A literacy measure was created and evaluated in three steps: writing and pretest by subject matter experts; pilot test; and data collection and data analysis. The study was created and administered in Qualtrics®. Once data were collected, they were used to examine the factor structure of the literacy assessment through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA). A four-factor model was suggested by the EFA, and the factors were identified as the ability to locate information; the ability to understand what is being asked; the ability to access prior knowledge; and the ability to reflect and evaluate. Subsequently, a hierarchical multiple regression was performed to determine whether the predictor variables of family income, age, race, level of education, high school grade point average, parents’ level of education were correlated with literacy proficiency. Two of the predictor variables were statistically significant with literacy proficiency, and they explained 8% of the variance in scores. The factor’s Z scores were then included in the regression analysis based on a review of literature. An additional 80% of variance in the test scores was predicted by the Z scores, indicating a strong correlation between literacy scores and the four factors denoted by the EFA

Biography to Blobfish

From Biography to Blobfish explores the ways children’s non-fiction materials ignite interests that can be fostered by tools found within the library. Over the course of forty-five minutes, presenters will lead participants into a whirlwind exploration of the learning opportunities presented by biographies. The workshop includes sample lesson plans and ideas for classrooms, public libraries, and afterschool programming

Effectiveness of Automated Formative Feedback in an Online Tutorial for Promoting Summarizing

We conducted a study with the aim to investigate the effectiveness of automated formative feedback in improving students’ ability to summarize. One-hundred and thirty-eight undergraduate students in an elementary education program were asked to summarize six scientific texts, with the experimental group (N=87) receiving automated formative feedback in a computer-based learning environment (FALB). FALB provides automated feedback about content coverage, copying words avoidance, redundancy avoidance, relevance, and length. Comparing the experimental group to a control group (N=51), results implied that summarizing skills could be fostered when interacting with FALB. In particular, the automated formative feedback promoted the adherence to the predefined length and the avoidance of copying words while maintaining a high content coverage, fostering cognitive processes essential for constructing a mental model of a text. In addition, students in the experimental group were able to maintain high quality summaries in their final session when not scaffolded. In conclusion, FALB supports the alignment of internal standards with external standards and provides an incentive to revise and engage with texts

Editor’s Message for the series of Educational Technology in China

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