Supporting Conflict Resolution in an Early Childhood Montessori Environment

The study aimed to determine in what way daily grace and courtesy lessons and more thoughtful, consistent adult intervention would affect children’s responses to conflict in an early childhood Montessori environment. There were 17 participants between the ages of three and six in an independent Montessori school in Northern Michigan. The researcher gave the children daily lessons on aspects of conflict resolution, used a scripted intervention strategy during conflict, and implemented three guided discussions throughout the course of the study. The researcher collected data by tallying number of conflicts, recording responses during guided discussions, recording details and language of each conflict, and reflecting in a journal. The study revealed that children knew many conflict resolution strategies before beginning the intervention, but they used more language from the lessons after the intervention and solved more conflicts independently. The number of conflicts decreased overall but did not consistency decline. The data shows further research is needed to support children to calm down before attempting to apply conflict resolution strategies and to determine the most effective waiting time before teacher intervention

Somatic Anacrusis: An Experiential Poetics of Deborah Hay's Choreography and Practice in the Solo At Once

This project is a kind of doingmovingthinking: a close study of iconic American dancer/choreographer Deborah Hays choreography and practice through my particular dancing experience of her solo At Once. The resulting experiential poetics illuminates both the implicit critique of an instrumental/rational paradigm and also the ethical implications of the particular relationality enacted in Hays work. I characterize Hays work as a radical communication practice, one that moves language through the body in a dynamic torqueing process that both gathers toward and unravels from the edges of meaningfulness in a process of perception. I work at the interdisciplinary intersection of dance, performance, somatics and cultural studies, and my thinking draws substantially on Maurice Merleau-Pontys phenomenological philosophy and language. Aspiring to a balanced integration of moving and writing, of practice and theory, I follow a performance studies approach, attempting, as characterized by performance scholar Dwight Conquergood: to live betwixt and between theory and theatricality, paradigms and practices, critical reflection and creative accomplishment (318). Through personal daily practice and performance of Hays work allied with close description, I apply my devised method of emergent choreographic analysis to Hays choreography and practice. This analysis, conducted from inside the practice of the work, reveals how Hays complex and distinctly linguistic choreography operates as a constructed situation for the practice of perception and that, in performance, this practice moves language through the body in a dynamic torqueing process that engenders a unique lived experience of paradoxical simultaneity. I coin the term somatic anacrusis to articulate this underlying processual phenomenon. Reconsidering the dimension of relationality in Hays work, I re-frame somatic anacrusis as a pre-relational pre-disposing, a kind of suspended or unconsummated relationality. Feminist philosopher Luce Irigarays thinking helps illuminate the ethical implications of Hays work as a practice of perception that opens a new way toward the other. I conclude by appropriating Hays own rhetorical interrogative strategy what if? What if somatic anacrusis offers a possible answer to Irigarays call for a new way to approach the other that respects fundamental difference and yet allows encounter

Income Poverty and Material Hardship among U.S. Women with Disabilities

This study analyzes the 2002 wave of the National Survey of America’s Families to describe income poverty and material hardship among women with and without disabilities in the United States. Results suggest that women with disabilities experience such hardships as food insecurity, housing instability, inadequate health care, and loss of phone service at rates that are higher than those among nondisabled women. Rates of hardship remain higher even after adjusting for a host of individual characteristics, including marital status, age, race, and education. Although hardship declines as incomes rise for all women, those with disabilities show worse outcomes at every income level and experience substantial levels of hardship well into the middle and upper income ranges. The federal poverty level does not accurately capture women’s experiences of material hardship, and these discrepancies are considerably worse among women with disabilities

#21 - A salivary hormonal study on individuals of African ancestry living in different socio-economic environments, in order to understand etiology of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer ranks high among some of the most serious public health problems that significantly impact the lives of men globally. Established risk factors for this disease include age, family history, and African ancestry. While the incidence and mortality of prostate cancer have decreased in the US in recent decades, men of African descent are disproportionately affected. To better understand the etiology of prostate cancer among men of African ancestry, this study examined hormonal differences among men of African descent living in different socio-economic environments by using their saliva samples to study their hormone levels. Using ELISA kits specific to either testosterone or cortisol, hormone levels were determined for each individual’s saliva using standards and low and high-quality control samples for validation. The saliva samples collected from individuals living in African countries (n=21) had a mean testosterone concentration of 93.43 pg/mL and standard deviation of 35.924 pg/mL while the mean cortisol concentration was 0.120 mg/dL and the standard deviation was 0.078 mg/dL. The saliva samples collected from individuals with African ancestry in the United States (n=84) had a mean testosterone concentration of 94.680 pg/mL with a standard deviation of 35.218 pg/mL while the mean cortisol concentration was found to be 0.136 mg/dL with a standard deviation of 0.101 mg/dL. This poster will explain data collected for both hormones for males living in African countries and the United States and will discuss whether these hormone levels can be used to determine individuals at risk for prostate cancer. Any observed effects from socio-economic differences will also be discussed

Integrated Analysis of EEG and eye tracking to measure emotional responses in a simulated healthcare setting

Electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking devices are used in this study to assess the capability of such systems to measure emotional responses in a healthcare-related environment. Experiments are conducted in which positive, negative and neutral stimuli are presented to participants and data is captured from both systems simultaneously. Images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) are employed to trigger standardised emotion states and calibrate the experiment, whilst images from a medical drama are used to provide hospital-based stimuli. It is found that EEG and eye tracking can successfully indicate emotion features, with the EEG data providing better visualisation, whilst eye metrics are more meaningful with statistics. Both devices show that the emotional responses to hospital-based images differ to the responses from standardised images. Greater variation between participants in the hospital-based stimuli indicates that personal experiences from healthcare related events can influence emotional responses to related stimuli

What parents in Australia know and do about head lice

INTRODUCTION: Although parents in developed market economies regard head lice infections (pediculosis) as a significant problem, health departments generally rate pediculosis as a low priority health issue, encouraging parents to manage and control it. But how well equipped and willing are parents to manage the infections? There do not appear to be any studies in the literature addressing these issues. This article presents the results of a survey conducted in Australia that aimed to answer these questions. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of parents of primary school aged children in Victoria (Vic) and north Queensland (NQ) was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire. The study investigated the knowledge, attitudes and practices of parents regarding head lice infections. RESULTS: Only 7.1% of 1338 who completed the questionnaire answered all 10 knowledge questions correctly and more than one-third failed to answer half correctly. There was a weak negative correlation between parents\u27 knowledge and the prevalence of active pediculosis in the school. Almost all parents wanted the responsibility for treating pediculosis and more than three-quarters saw it as a health concern. A higher proportion of parents in NQ used preventative strategies (67% vs 41%). Most parents spent less than AU$50 per year on treatments. Alarmingly, however, the proportion of children missing school as a result of pediculosis was 24.4% and 30.3% in Vic and NQ, respectively. In Vic there was a positive correlation (r = 0.39) between missing school in the previous 12 months and prevalence of pediculosis in the school. CONCLUSIONS: This appears to be the most comprehensive study of parental knowledge, beliefs, and practices regarding head lice infections. Although parents wanted responsibility for the management of pediculosis, deficiencies in their knowledge indicate they may be inadequately equipped to do so. Given the high proportion of children in both states who have missed school as a result of head lice, it is recommended that health departments in Australia should work to ensure that consistent and accurate messages about pediculosis are disseminated, and that relevant legislation is amended to prevent children being excluded from school

Anxiety and Depression During Childhood and Adolescence: Testing Theoretical Models of Continuity and Discontinuity

The present study sought to clarify the trajectory (i.e., continuous vs. discontinuous) and expression (i.e., homotypic vs. heterotypic) of anxiety and depressive symptoms across childhood and adolescence. We utilized a state-of-the-science analytic approach to simultaneously test theoretical models that describe the development of internalizing symptoms in youth. In a sample of 636 children (53% female; M age = 7.04; SD age = 0.35) self-report measures of anxiety and depression were completed annually by youth through their freshman year of high school. For both anxiety and depression, a piecewise growth curve model provided the best fit for the data, with symptoms decreasing until age 12 (the “developmental knot”) and then increasing into early adolescence. The trajectory of anxiety symptoms was best described by a discontinuous homotypic pattern in which childhood anxiety predicted adolescent anxiety. For depression, two distinct pathways were discovered: A discontinuous homotypic pathway in which childhood depression predicted adolescent depression and a discontinuous heterotypic pathway in which childhood anxiety predicted adolescent depression. Analytical, methodological, and clinical implications of these findings are discussed

Phosphonodifluoropyruvate is a mechanism-based inhibitor of phosphonopyruvate decarboxylase from Bacteroides fragilis

Bacteroides fragilis, a human pathogen, helps in the formation of intra-abdominal abscesses and is involved in 90% of anaerobic peritoneal infections. Phosphonopyruvate decarboxylase (PnPDC), a thiamin diphosphate (ThDP)-dependent enzyme, plays a key role in the formation of 2-aminoethylphosphonate, a component of the cell wall of B. fragilis. As such PnPDC is a possible target for therapeutic intervention in this, and other phosphonate producing organisms. However, the enzyme is of more general interest as it appears to be an evolutionary forerunner to the decarboxylase family of ThDP-dependent enzymes. To date, PnPDC has proved difficult to crystallize and no X-ray structures are available. In the past we have shown that ThDP-dependent enzymes will often crystallize if the cofactor has been irreversibly inactivated. To explore this possibility, and the utility of inhibitors of phosphonate biosynthesis as potential antibiotics, we synthesized phosphonodifluoropyruvate (PnDFP) as a prospective mechanism-based inhibitor of PnPDC. Here we provide evidence that PnDFP indeed inactivates the enzyme, that the inactivation is irreversible, and is accompanied by release of fluoride ion, i.e., PnDFP bears all the hallmarks of a mechanism-based inhibitor. Unfortunately, the enzyme remains refractive to crystallization

‘Free text is essentially the enemy of what we’re trying to achieve’: the framing of a national vision for delivering digital police contact

Police organisations in England and Wales, as in many other contexts, are increasingly shifting crime reporting and other public-facing contact online. In this paper we explore the beliefs, motivations, and objectives of those tasked with ‘delivering’ the ‘vision’ of digital police contact at the strategic national level. We use Goffman’s concept of frames – the set of expectations an actor brings to a situation or process – to understand how participants enacted this 'channel shift’ (Wells et al., 2023), the ends they were seeking to meet, and how different interests came to be designed-in to the contact architecture. We suggest that the primary frame centred around notions of efficiency and demand management. Running alongside this is a secondary frame of customer service, where it is assumed that the public also wish for the efficient delivery of this technologically mediated service. This, we suggest, is likely to be only a partial reflection of what people want when contacting police; but the framing of 'contact’ as a separate deliverable by those delivering this agenda serves to occlude or evade this point. Technology, we argue, imprints itself on the context by appearing to offer a convenient solution to problems of public wants and police needs