Planet Texas 2050 Shares Support for Austin Climate Equity Plan

You are viewing an article about Planet Texas 2050 published in November 2020.Office of the VP for Researc

Can AI Support Youth Mental Health?

You are viewing a news article about Good Systems from 2020.Office of the VP for Researc

Helping Our Students Reach Their Full Potential: The Insidious Consequences of Stereotype Threat

A psychological phenomenon may be a significant cause of academic underachievement by minorities in law school. This phenomenon, called stereotype threat, occurs as a result of the fear of confirming a negative group stereotype (such as African-Americans are not as intelligent as Whites). When subject to this threat — as a consequence of being confronted with environmental or explicit triggers — people do worse in academic settings than they otherwise are capable of doing. In this article, I explore the implications of the research on stereotype threat for law schools and make several recommendations to deal with the threat. There are natural implications for law school admissions, of course. If a portion of our applicant pool is affected by stereotype threat, then we cannot trust the accuracy of the metrics we typically use in law school admissions, i.e., prior academic performance and LSAT scores of law school applicants. Indeed, those credentials actually may under-evaluate the academic potential of these applicants, who are often minority students. This should cause law schools to reevaluate their admissions policies. After students are admitted, law school provides fertile ground within which stereotype threat can flourish. This, of course, means that the performance of minorities in law school — in class, on exams, and in other areas — is likely to be diminished, such that many minorities will not perform up to their academic capacity. And, obviously, we would expect this same dynamic to play out on the bar exam. Law schools can address stereotype threat at each of these levels, and they should do so. This article lays out a framework for understanding and dealing with the threat

Families and work: revisiting barriers to employment

"In recent years, considerable effort has been put into supporting parents to make the transition into work. This study was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to explore whether these incentives were helping parents to overcome the barriers known to impede their engagement in the formal labour market. The report is based on fieldwork conducted in 2009. However, the concluding chapter considers the significance of the findings in light of proposals for the introduction of the Universal Credit and other reforms of the tax and benefit systems proposed by the Coalition Government." - Page 1

Attitudes, Belief, and Barriers of Indonesian Oncology Nurses on Providing Assistance to Overcome Sexuality Problem

Background: Sexuality and problems related to sexuality have been identified as components of nursing care by the nursing profession, nurse educators, other disciplines and patients.Purpose: This study aimed to describe the attitudes and beliefs of the Indonesian oncology nurses towards providing sexual care for the patients with cancer.Methods: The study used a descriptive design. Using convenient sampling method, 135 oncology nurses from three hospitals in Jakarta, Indonesia participated in this study.Results: Over 85% of the nurses believed that discussing sexuality with patients is a taboo and private issue. More than 90% of nurses understood that giving a patient permission to talk about sexual concerns is a nursing responsibility. About 73.3% nurses had beliefs that most hospitalized patients are too sick to be interested in sexuality and agreed that sexuality should be discussed if only the patient initiates it. However, more than 70% of the nurses believed that the patients expect nurses to ask about their sexual concerns.Conclusion: This study revealed that inappropriate attitude and belief of nurses on sexuality aspect of their patients might become a barrier in facilitating the needs of cancer patients to manage the sexuality problem caused by cancer and the treatment. Nurses need to overcome those various barriers so that they can increase the quality of life of the cancer patients

Surmounting Oscillating Barriers

Thermally activated escape over a potential barrier in the presence of periodic driving is considered. By means of novel time-dependent path-integral methods we derive asymptotically exact weak-noise expressions for both the instantaneous and the time-averaged escape rate. The agreement with accurate numerical results is excellent over a wide range of driving strengths and driving frequencies.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Extremal Surface Barriers

We present a generic condition for Lorentzian manifolds to have a barrier that limits the reach of boundary-anchored extremal surfaces of arbitrary dimension. We show that any surface with nonpositive extrinsic curvature is a barrier, in the sense that extremal surfaces cannot be continuously deformed past it. Furthermore, the outermost barrier surface has nonnegative extrinsic curvature. Under certain conditions, we show that the existence of trapped surfaces implies a barrier, and conversely. In the context of AdS/CFT, these barriers imply that it is impossible to reconstruct the entire bulk using extremal surfaces. We comment on the implications for the firewall controversy.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures. Version 3: fixed typos and made a small correction to the proof of theorem 2.

Review of Barriers to Engaging Black and Minority Ethnic Groups in Physical Activity in the United Kingdom

Introduction and Objective: The lower physical activity levels in Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups as compared with general population in the United Kingdom (UK) could relate to barriers to engaging these groups in physical activity. Hence, the aim to conduct a review to examine UK primary studies reporting barriers to engaging BME groups in physical activity. Method: This is a narrative review of literature from 1970 to 2008. The search looked for English literature from five bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsyINFO, Ethnicity and Health). Broad search terms ‘physical activity and minority’ were used and views from BME groups were considered in this review. Results & Conclusion: The search yielded 391 studies and 18 were finally included in the review. Our review identified 20 barriers clustered among four broad themes of: (a) perceived personal barriers; (b) socio-economic barriers; (c) cultural barriers; and (d) environmental barriers. Overcoming these barriers in these broad areas is important in development of sensitive multicultural health promotion addressing physical inequalities

Person-related and Treatment-related Barriers to Alcohol Treatment

Treatment underutilization by persons with alcohol use disorder is well-documented. This study examined barriers to treatment at the latter stages of the treatment-seeking process, which was conceptualized as recognizing the problem, deciding that change is necessary, deciding that professional help is required, and seeking care. All participants identified themselves as having a drinking problem that was severe enough to warrant treatment. Differences between those who had (Treatment Seekers) and those who had not (Comparison Controls) sought treatment were evaluated, including the experience of person-related (e.g., shame) and treatment-related (e.g., cost) barriers. Person-related barriers were more commonly endorsed by both groups than treatment-related barriers. Comparison Controls were more likely to endorse both types of barriers, especially the preference for handling the problem without treatment. Treatment-related barriers were less relevant than person-related barriers at the latter stage of help seeking. The significance of barriers endured after accounting for other differences, such as drinking-related negative consequences. Treatment implications are discussed