Disordered Eating and Body Dysmorphic Concerns in Asian American Women: Sociocultural and Culture-Specific Predictors

The sociocultural idealization of thinness and Eurocentric features (e.g., lighter skin) is ubiquitous in Westernized cultures, yet only some women internalize these ideals and/or perceive heightened pressures to conform to such ideals. Elevated internalization and perceived pressures to obtain thinness and Eurocentric features may contribute to disordered eating and unique types of body dysmorphic concerns (e.g., dissatisfaction with skin color, eye size/ shape), respectively. Such difficulties may be particularly relevant for ethnic minority women; however, little research exists examining such effects. Further, few studies have comprehensively examined the intersection between sociocultural and culture-specific (e.g., ethnic identity; biculturalism) predictors on disordered eating and/or body dysmorphic difficulties. Culture-specific factors may contribute to individual differences that, in combination with sociocultural influences, lead to the development of disordered eating or Eurocentric body dysmorphic concerns in some ethnic minority women, but not others. This project examined an intersection of sociocultural and culture-specific predictors of disordered eating and Eurocentric body dysmorphic concerns in Asian American college women (N = 430). Data collected online via self-report measures tested the intersection and predictive effects of sociocultural and culture-specific influences on disordered eating and Eurocentric body dysmorphic symptoms. Path analyses indicated that thin-ideal internalization and pressures for thinness both positively predicted disordered eating. Acculturative stress was identified as an additional positive predictor of disordered eating. Likewise, Eurocentric-ideal internalization and pressures for Eurocentric ideals positively predicted Eurocentric body dysmorphic concerns. The relative role of ethnic identity, biculturalism, and acculturative stress for Eurocentric body dysmorphic concerns were undeterminable due to poor model fit. Overall, findings: (1) indicated that the leading sociocultural model for disordered eating is relevant to Asian American women; (2) supported a corollary sociocultural model for Eurocentric-body dysmorphic concerns; and (3) highlighted the need for further examination of acculturative stress as a predictor of disordered eating. Findings also can inform the treatment of disordered eating and Eurocentric body dysmorphic concerns in Asian American women. Specifically, assessing culture-specific factors (i.e., biculturalism, and acculturative stress) could be useful for developing culturally informed case conceptualization and interventions for Asian American women

Anisotropic Organised Eddy Simulation for the prediction of non-equilibrium turbulent flows around bodies

The unsteady turbulent flow around bodies at high Reynolds number is predicted by an anisotropic eddy-viscosity model in the context of the Organised Eddy Simulation (OES). A tensorial eddy-viscosity concept is developed to reinforce turbulent stress anisotropy, that is a crucial characteristic of non-equilibrium turbulence in the near-region. The theoretical aspects of the modelling are investigated by means of a phase-averaged PIV in the flow around a circular cylinder at Reynolds number 1.4×10^5. A pronounced stress–strain misalignment is quantified in the near-wake region of the detached flow, that is well captured by a tensorial eddy-viscosity concept. This is achieved by modelling the turbulence stress anisotropy tensor by its projection onto the principal matrices of the strain-rate tensor. Additional transport equations for the projection coefficients are derived from a second-order moment closure scheme. The modification of the turbulence length scale yielded by OES is used in the Detached Eddy Simulation hybrid approach. The detached turbulent flows around a NACA0012 airfoil (2-D) and a circular cylinder (3-D) are studied at Reynolds numbers 105 and 1.4×10^5, respectively. The results compared to experimental ones emphasise the predictive capabilities of the OES approach concerning the flow physics capture for turbulent unsteady flows around bodies at high Reynolds numbers

Syntactically Supervised Transformers for Faster Neural Machine Translation

Standard decoders for neural machine translation autoregressively generate a single target token per time step, which slows inference especially for long outputs. While architectural advances such as the Transformer fully parallelize the decoder computations at training time, inference still proceeds sequentially. Recent developments in non- and semi- autoregressive decoding produce multiple tokens per time step independently of the others, which improves inference speed but deteriorates translation quality. In this work, we propose the syntactically supervised Transformer (SynST), which first autoregressively predicts a chunked parse tree before generating all of the target tokens in one shot conditioned on the predicted parse. A series of controlled experiments demonstrates that SynST decodes sentences ~ 5x faster than the baseline autoregressive Transformer while achieving higher BLEU scores than most competing methods on En-De and En-Fr datasets.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted to ACL 201

Self-regulation of Arabic reading comprehension of upper Elementary students

Este estudio examina los procesos de autorregulación de la comprensión lectora en árabe de los estudiantes libaneses en la escuela primaria superior que tienen un rendimiento deficiente solo en este idioma. La atención se centra en las estrategias cognitivas y metacognitivas que utilizan estos estudiantes y en los componentes motivacionales de la autorregulación. Un cuestionario y dos entrevistas semiestructuradas diferentes se administraron a quince estudiantes de primaria y a sus profesores de árabe en una escuela francófona en Beirut. Los participantes no autorregulan de manera eficiente su comprensión de lectura en árabe y tienden a usar rara vez estrategias de aprendizaje cognitivo. Los procesos de autorregulación se predicen por la falta de motivación de los participantes, que se manifiesta principalmente a través de percepciones de moderada autoeficacia del desempeño y bajas expectativas de éxito. Este es el primer paso hacia la comprensión de los procesos de aprendizaje de los estudiantes con bajo rendimiento en lectura árabe. Puede proporcionar medios que ayudarán a los estudiantes a aplicar el aprendizaje de contenido autorregulado no solo de textos en árabe, sino también de lecturas en general.This study examines the self-regulation processes of reading comprehension in Arabic of Lebanese students in upper elementary who perform poorly only in this language. The focus is on the cognitive and metacognitive strategies these students use, and on the motivational components of self-regulation. A questionnaire and two different semi-structured interviews were administered to fifteen elementary students and to their Arabic teachers, in a French-speaking school in Beirut. Participants do not self-regulate efficiently their Arabic reading comprehension and they tend to seldom use cognitive learning strategies. Self-regulatory processes are predicted by participants’ lack of motivation that manifests itself mostly through perceptions of moderate self-efficacy of performance and low expectations of success. This is the first step towards understanding the learning processes of students poorly performing in Arabic reading. It can provide means that will help students in applying self-regulated content learning of not only texts in Arabic but readings in general.peerReviewe

Analyse physique des effets de rotation de paroi en écoulements transitionnels et modélisation d'écoulements turbulents autour de structures portantes

Cette thèse a étudié les effets de rotation pariétale sur la transition laminaire-turbulente en nombre de Reynolds modéré et la modélisation de la turbulence d'écoulements instationnaires fortements détachés. Les étapes successives de la transition de l'écoulement autour d'un cylindre en rotation sont analysées par simulations numériques 2D et 3D. Les effets de rotation peuvent amplifier, maintenir ou atténuer les modes d'instabilité qui apparaissent d'une façon naturelle dans l'écoulement. L'amplification de l'instabilité 3D est étudiée à partir de la DNS et du modèle d'oscillateur global de Landau pour évaluer le nombre de Reynolds critique d'apparition de l'instabilité secondaire. L'analyse des structures organisées est réalisée par la POD. Les approches de macrosimulation statistique OES, Organised Eddy Simulation et hybride DES, Detached Eddy Simulation sont étudiées quant à leur capacité prédictive d'écoulements turbulents autour d'obstacles à nombre de Reynolds élevé. ABSTACT : This thesis studied the effect of wall rotation on the laminar-turbulent transition at moderate Reynolds number, and the turbulence modelling in highly unsteady detached flows. The successive stages of the transition in the flow around a rotating cylinder are analysed by 2D and 3D numerical simulations. The rotation effects can amplify, maintain or attenuate the instability modes that appear inherently in the flow. The amplification of the 3D instability is studied by means of the DNS and the Landau global oscillator model in order to quantify the critical Reynolds number for the appearance of the secondary instability. The analysis of the coherent pattern is carried out by the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition. Statistical and Hybrid macrosimulation approaches, OES, Organised Eddy Simulation and DES, Detached Eddy Simulation are studied at high Reynolds number, according to their ability to predict the strongly detached turbulent flows around obstacle

Teacher Authenticity: a Theoretical and Empirical Investigation

Thesis advisor: Lillie R. AlbertThis study builds on a small, under-acknowledged body of educational works that speak to the problem of an overly technical focus on teaching, which negates a more authentic consideration of what it means to teach, including an exploration of the spiritual and moral dimensions. A need for educational change and the teacher's authentic way of being are presented as the basis for the primary research question: "What does it mean to be an authentic teacher?" The study consists of two equally intensive parts, i.e., a theoretical and empirical investigation. The theoretical developed a framework on authenticity, drawing from the Buddhist and Christian theological traditions; the Twentieth Century philosophical writings of Buber and Heidegger; and the in-depth review of conceptual and empirical educational literature. This framework supported the empirical design, which was a phenomenological study of six teachers in a small Catholic urban K-8 school. An empirical framework on authenticity evolved through the data analysis. Ultimately, the theoretical and empirical parts were integrated into a comprehensive framework on teacher authenticity, defined as follows: Teacher authenticity is a trust that, through the desire and intention to care, the teacher can awaken through teaching a profound life-giving potential for the well-being of oneself, others, and the world. This trust is the teacher's faith perspective, and is lived, dynamic, and iterative, which makes authenticity an ongoing process. A sub-question was also presented in the study: "What does it mean for the researcher to engage as an authentic learner in the research process?" The focus on the researcher as an authentic learner presented an expanded view of reflexivity, probing deeply into the philosophical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of the researcher's learning process throughout the study. The implications of the study are presented, focusing on the professions of teaching and research, and also showing the relevance for education and society. The most impending implication pertains equally to teachers and to researchers, and emphasizes the need for professional development programs of self-learning and self-formation.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction