Religious Coping After Natural Disaster: Predicting Long-Term Mental and Physical Health in Survivors of Hurricane Katrina

Natural disasters are increasing with regards to both frequency and severity (CRED & UNDRR, 2015; NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), 2020). Exposure to natural disasters, in turn, increases the likelihood for the development of adverse mental and physical health outcomes (Augustinavicius et al., 2021). Religion and spirituality is an accessible form of coping that many people turn to during and after natural disasters, and may be especially valuable to those who face barriers to accessing mental health treatment or may not feel served by formal mental health institutions (Abu-Raiya & Pargament, 2015; Bryant-Davis & Wong, 2013). However, there are distinctions between positive religious coping (PRC) and negative religious coping (NRC) both conceptually and in their relation to mental health outcomes (Pargament, Feuille, & Burdzy, 2011). This study utilized data from the Resilience in Survivors of Katrina (RISK) project, an ongoing longitudinal study of low-income, female, primarily Black Hurricane Katrina survivors, and drew on four waves of data from before the hurricane in 2005 through 2018 to explore the longitudinal relationship between religious coping and mental and physical health outcomes. Hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that NRC was a significant predictor of post-traumatic stress, b = .14, p \u3c .05, and general psychological distress, b = .11, p = .05, whereas PRC was a significant predictor of post-traumatic growth, b = .34, p \u3c .001. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses revealed no significant associations between religious coping style and physical health outcomes. Better understanding the ways in which religious coping is associated with later mental and physical health is important for both clinicians and religious leaders to understand the coping processes of those they serve, especially during times of severe distress such as in the wake of a natural disaster

The Relationship Between Community Violence Exposure and Psychological Well-Being Among Latino Adolescents

Honors (Bachelor's)PsychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112150/1/arkin.pd

Development and Validation of a Self-Report Measurement Scale of Summer Camp Counselor Burnout

Each summer, nearly one million seasonal staff work at overnight camps in the U.S. (ACA, 2021). Camp counselors typically fall between the ages of 18 to 25, with many within the 18 to 20 age range (Lubeznik-Warner et al., 2022). Despite their young age, camp counselors are tasked with considerable responsibility, including planning programs, facilitating activities, and caring for campers’ physical, emotional, and social well-being (Epley et al., 2017; Johnson et al., 2011). Due to the combination of a large workload, lack of separation between work and personal life, and limited free time, some camp counselors experience burnout, defined as an occupational phenomenon characterized by exhaustion, mentally distancing oneself from work, and reduced sense of professional efficacy (Bailey et al., 2012; Paisley & Powell, 2007; Wahl-Alexander et al., 2017; WHO, 2019). Burnout can have consequences for job performance including lower effectiveness at work, reduced commitment to one’s role, and exhaustion, which can all negatively impact camp operations including the quality of childcare provided (Maslach et al., 2001). As such, it is important for camp administrators to be aware of which camp counselors are experiencing burnout so that they may intervene to mitigate negative outcomes; however, there is not yet a validated measure for camp counselor burnout. The purpose of the current study is to develop and validate a self-report camp counselor burnout scale. In Study 1, I created a list of potential scale items based on prior research, revised them based on expert feedback, and refined the resulting questionnaire using cognitive interviews. I then analyzed data from camp counselors using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify the factor structure of the scale. In Study 2, I collected data from another group of camp counselors for analysis using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the hypothesized factor structure. Using these data, I conducted tests of validity to establish construct validity and regression analyses to analyze associations between camp counselor burnout and hypothesized predictors of burnout

Religion and Spirituality: Benefits for Latino Adolescents Exposed to Community Violence

Using data from 223 Latino adolescents residing in poor, urban neighborhoods, we investigate whether spirituality, religious importance at home, and religious involvement moderate the relation between community violence exposure and psychological well-being. Results showed significant interaction effects between community violence exposure and spirituality/religiosity. Specifically, personal victimization and witnessing violence were associated with higher depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms at low and average levels of spirituality, but not at high levels of spirituality. Witnessing violence was associated with higher PTSD symptoms at low and average levels of religious importance at home, but not at high levels of religious importance at home. Finally, witnessing violence was associated with higher depressive symptoms at low and average levels of religious involvement, but not at high levels of religious involvement. We discuss the potential benefits of supporting spiritual and religious development in Latino youth exposed to community violence. </jats:p

Transposon insertional mutagenesis in <i>Saccharomyces uvarum</i> reveals <i>trans</i>-acting effects influencing species-dependent essential genes

AbstractTo understand how complex genetic networks perform and regulate diverse cellular processes, the function of each individual component must be defined. Comprehensive phenotypic studies of mutant alleles have been successful in model organisms in determining what processes depend on the normal function of a gene. These results are often ported to newly sequenced genomes by using sequence homology. However, sequence similarity does not always mean identical function or phenotype, suggesting that new methods are required to functionally annotate newly sequenced species. We have implemented comparative analysis by high-throughput experimental testing of gene dispensability in Saccharomyces uvarum, a sister species of S. cerevisiae. We created haploid and heterozygous diploid Tn7 insertional mutagenesis libraries in S. uvarum to identify species dependent essential genes, with the goal of detecting genes with divergent functions and/or different genetic interactions. Comprehensive gene dispensability comparisons with S. cerevisiae predicted diverged dispensability at 12% of conserved orthologs, and validation experiments confirmed 22 differentially essential genes. Surprisingly, despite their differences in essentiality, these genes were capable of cross-species complementation, demonstrating that trans-acting factors that are background-dependent contribute to differential gene essentiality. This study demonstrates that direct experimental testing of gene disruption phenotypes across species can inform comparative genomic analyses and improve gene annotation. Our method can be widely applied in microorganisms to further our understanding of genome evolution.</jats:p

Transposon insertional mutagenesis in Saccharomyces uvarum reveals trans-acting effects influencing species-dependent essential genes

To understand how complex genetic networks perform and regulate diverse cellular processes, the function of each individual component must be defined. Comprehensive phenotypic studies of mutant alleles have been successful in model organisms in determining what processes depend on the normal function of a gene. These results are often ported to newly sequenced genomes by using sequence homology. However, sequence similarity does not always mean identical function or phenotype, suggesting that new methods are required to functionally annotate newly sequenced species. We have implemented comparative analysis by high-throughput experimental testing of gene dispensability in Saccharomyces uvarum, a sister species of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We created haploid and heterozygous diploid Tn7 insertional mutagenesis libraries in S. uvarum to identify species-dependent essential genes, with the goal of detecting genes with divergent functions and/or different genetic interactions. Comprehensive gene dispensability comparisons with S. cerevisiae predicted diverged dispensability at 12% of conserved orthologs, and validation experiments confirmed 22 differentially essential genes. Despite their differences in essentiality, these genes were capable of cross-species complementation, demonstrating that trans-acting factors that are background-dependent contribute to differential gene essentiality. This study shows that direct experimental testing of gene disruption phenotypes across species can inform comparative genomic analyses and improve gene annotations. Our method can be widely applied in microorganisms to further our understanding of genome evolution

Ayllu: Distributed Port-Arbitrated Behavior-Based Control

. Distributed control of a team of mobile robots presents a number of unique challenges, including highly unreliable communication, real world task and safety constraints, scalability, dynamic reconfigurability, heterogenous platforms, and a lack of standardized tools or techniques. Similar problems plagued development of single robots applications until the &quot;behavior-based&quot; revolution led to new techniques for robot control based on port-arbitrated behaviors (PAB). Though there are now many implementations of systems for behavior-based control of single robots, the potential for distributing such control across robots for multi-agent control has not until now been fully realized. This paper presents Ayllu, a system for distributed multi-robot behavioral control. Ayllu allows standard PAB interaction (message passing, inhibition, and suppression) to take place over IP networks, and extends the PAB paradigm to provide for arbitrary scalability. We give a brief overview of the Broadcast..