The effects of mindfulness meditation on rumination in depressed people

Mindfulness meditation is a practice of focus, awareness, and non-judgmental acceptance of one\u27s thoughts (Deyo et al., 2009; Kenny et al., 2007). Rumination is a maladaptive pattern of thought that is common in people with depression and other mood disorders. It can lead to further episodes of depression, and can be very destructive in that way (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2008). This paper reviews several studies on mindfulness meditation, depression, and rumination, with a focus on certain areas and phenomena such as alpha asymmetry (Keune et al 2013) and gamma band activity (Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2012). Modalities such as fMRI and EEG are both used in these studies. Finally, directions for further research are considered, while accepting the challenges unique to this and inherent in any neuroscientific research

First Record of the Arid-Land Termite, \u3ci\u3eReticulitermes Tibialis\u3c/i\u3e Banks, in Wisconsin

During a survey of termites in Wisconsin, one colony was found from a different habitat than the remaining populations. This observation led to further genetic testing which resulted in a determination of Reticulitermes tibialis Banks. This is the first record of a termite species other than Reticulitermes flavipes (Kollar) to be established in the state

Pursuing Accountability for Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence: The Peril (and Utility?) of Shame

This Article explores the use of shame as an accountability intervention for perpetrators of intimate partner abuse, urging caution against its legitimization. Shaming interventions—those designed to publicly humiliate, denigrate, or embarrass perpetrators or other criminal wrongdoers—are justified by some as legitimate legal and extralegal interventions. Judges have sentenced perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence (“IPV”) to hold signs reading, “This is the face of domestic abuse,” among other publicly humiliating sentences. Culturally, society increasingly uses the Internet and social media to expose perpetrators to public shame for their wrongdoing. On their face, shaming interventions appear rational: perpetrators often belittle, humiliate, and disgrace their partners within a larger pattern of physical abuse, and survivors often report feeling an abiding sense of shame as a result. Further, perpetrators are assigned en masse a dominant narrative about their motivations and traits as controlling, violent, and beyond reform. Consequently, they are cast into a category of individuals for whom traditional forms of rehabilitation are identified as ineffective and for whom shaming may be particularly apropos. However, even if stigmatizing perpetrators to achieve accountability has some legitimate purpose, any benefit is outweighed by the fact that shaming perpetrators undermines the goals of violence reduction and survivor safety. Internalized shame can lead to externalized violence, thereby increasing, rather than decreasing, a survivor’s risk of harm. Further, using shame to punish an act that is itself built on shame can blur clarity about socially acceptable behavior, have a profound social and economic impact on the individual shamed, and devastate a person’s dignity and sense of self-worth. Moreover, many perpetrators have cumulative shaming experiences in their pasts, intensifying the negative consequences that can flow from shaming interventions. To understand the unique risks of shaming in the context of IPV, this Article explores shame as a tool for achieving perpetrator accountability

Non-Singular Black Holes in Massive Gravity: Time-Dependent Solutions

When starting with a static, spherically-symmetric ansatz, there are two types of black hole solutions in dRGT massive gravity: (i) exact Schwarzschild solutions which exhibit no Yukawa suppression at large distances and (ii) solutions in which the dynamical metric and the reference metric are simultaneously diagonal and which inevitably exhibit coordinate-invariant singularities at the horizon. In this work we investigate the possibility of black hole solutions which can accommodate both a non-singular horizon and Yukawa asymptotics. In particular, by adopting a time-dependent ansatz, we derive perturbative analytic solutions which possess non-singular horizons. These black hole solutions are indistinguishable from Schwarzschild black holes in the limit of zero graviton mass. At finite graviton mass, they depend explicitly on time. However, we demonstrate that the location of the apparent horizon is not necessarily time-dependent, indicating that these black holes are not necessarily accreting or evaporating (classically). In deriving these results, we also review and extend known results about static black hole solutions in massive gravity.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Coercing Pregnancy

Intimate partners coerce thousands of women in the United States into pregnancy each year through manipulation, threats of violence, or acts that deliberately interfere with the use of, or access to, contraception or abortion. Although many of these pregnancies occur within the context of otherwise abusive relationships, for others, pregnancy serves as a trigger for intimate partner violence. Beyond violence preceding or resulting from pregnancy, women who experience coerced pregnancies often suffer other physical, financial and emotional harms. Despite its correlation to domestic violence, reproductive coercion fits imperfectly, if at all, within our existing laws designed to combat domestic violence or rape. Although the harms of forced sex and, though to a slightly lesser extent, the harms of domestic violence, are well understood and accepted in our culture and our laws, the harm of experiencing a pregnancy through coercive acts remains largely invisible in both spheres, despite the prevalence of coerced pregnancies. This article begins by filling in the missing narrative of reproductive coercion by exploring the social and legal contours of how women are coerced into pregnancy, the harms that can result, and the deep correlation between such acts and domestic violence. It then explores how our cultural and legal conflation of pregnancy with sex, motherhood and even abortion, limits our ability to isolate and understand the experience of pregnancy coercion. This article concludes by considering how arming feminists and other advocates with an increased understanding of the interrelatedness between pregnancy, coercion, and intimate partner abuse can help to broaden domestic violence laws and policies, and reconceptualize pregnancy prevention as violence prevention

Confronting the Concept of Intersectionality: The Legacy of Audre Lorde and Contemporary Feminist Organizations

Audre Lorde was one of many women to criticize second wave feminism for overlooking issues of intersectionality. This paper examines the ways in which Lorde introduced intersectionality into feminist discourse and how feminist organizations embrace this concept today. Five organizations are examined (National Organization for Women, Grand Valley State University Women’s Center, Ms. Foundation, Third Wave Foundation, and Guerilla Girls) by interviewing representatives and/or evaluating websites to assess organizational mission, vision, values and practices. Analyses reveal that all five organizations have specific policy statements addressing intersectionality. This research can conclusively say that intersectionality is at least considered by all of the organizations. Determining whether or not the current intervention strategies are effective for women experiencing overlapping oppressions is beyond the scope of this study. The different rhetoric used by each organization to address the intersectional issue, however, suggests that intersectionality is “applied” or put into practice differently by different organizations

Spectral C*-categories and Fell bundles with path-lifting

Following Crane's suggestion that categorification should be of fundamental importance in quantising gravity, we show that finite dimensional even $S^o$-real spectral triples over \bbc are already nothing more than full C*-categories together with a self-adjoint section of their domain and range maps, while the latter are equivalent to unital saturated Fell bundles over pair groupoids equipped with a path-lifting operator given by a normaliser. Interpretations can be made in the direction of quantum Higgs gravity. These geometries are automatically quantum geometries and we reconstruct the classical limit, that is, general relativity on a Riemannian spin manifold.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur