Plimoth Plantation: Producing Historical Knowledge Through Performance

As one of the earliest living history museums, Plimoth Plantation has recently been criticized by museum and performance theorists for maintaining its reliance on first-person role playing. It has been suggested that these practices help codify the history that Plimoth represents to visitors. The Mayflower II, Hobbomock’s Homesite, and the Seventeenth Century English Village are the three distinct museum sites that Plimoth Plantation uses to help present an important period of European colonization in American history to their visitors. Each of these three sites uses interpretive methods differently to reflect their individual goals. First-person interpretation works to bring history alive for museum visitors, allowing them the opportunity to touch the crumbling walls of a replicated seventeenth century Colonist’s home and to help its owner grind meal to make dinner. Third-person interpretation and guides work differently to present historical information. Unlike role-players, third-person interpreters are able to present information from our contemporary understanding of history, and this new perspective changes visitors’ ideas of the past. Second-person interpretation allows visitors to become role-players and historians, as they help create their own interpretations of history, for the duration of their visit. It is a more active kind of learning which allows visitors to not only become aware of historical construction as a process, but also to participate in it. Then visitors can take the critical skills they have learned and their experiences with them as they visit other museum sites around the world

Imagery Rehearsal Therapy for Posttraumatic Nightmares: Symptom Severity and Control Appraisal Outcomes

This research included a small-scale randomized, controlled trial of IRT (Imagery Rehearsal Therapy) with a sample of military veterans receiving treatment for PTSD from the VAMC in Huntington, WV. Domains assessed included nightmare severity, posttraumatic cognition, general sleep quality, and PTSD symptom severity. The intended purposes were to evaluate the relative contribution of the imagery rehearsal and rescripting component of IRT intervention in isolation from the sleep hygiene component, to assess fluctuations in symptoms across time, and to assess any relative contribution of control appraisals in outcomes. Due to an unexpectedly small sample size, no definitive conclusions can be drawn from the results. However, general trends in participants’ symptom fluctuations across time are described, as well as considerations for factors that likely influenced these outcomes

Gaze Patterns of Social and Nonsocial Stimuli: A Possible Early Marker for Autism Spectrum Disorder

The push for early identification and diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has led to new developments in this area of research. Eye tracking is a promising behavioral screening measure that has been heavily investigated for over a decade. Differences in eye gaze between typically developing (TD) children and children with ASD when viewing social and nonsocial videos have been observed, but only within videos of children playing as social stimuli and with geometric shapes as nonsocial stimuli (Pierce et al., 2016; Shaffer et al., 2017). In addition to social stimuli and geometric shapes, the current study expanded on previous research by including nonsocial inverted and blurred videos as stimuli. Participants were 15 TD children, ages 8 months to 5 years, and two children with ASD, ages 3 months and 3 years old. Each child was observed through a Tobii eye tracking system as they watched eight consecutive 10 second videos with video clips alternating between social and nonsocial conditions (geometric, inverted, or blurred). The two children with ASD looked for a similar amount of time and with a similar number of saccades for each video type; the same was also true within the TD children condition. The absence of a difference in looking time and saccade number calls into question what really accounted for the difference in gaze patterns found in the previous research. Further examination into the use of eye tracking as a screening measure must be conducted before a fully implementable measure is established

AN EDUCATIONAL PILOT INTERVENTION TO INCREASE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH LITERACY AMONG RURAL KENTUCKY YOUTH ATTENDING SUMMER CAMP

Risk factors, including exposure to environmental pollutants, poor dietary and overall health outcomes, and low environmental health literacy (EHL), place the rural Appalachian youth population at increased risk for chronic diseases. Implementation of nutrition and pollution curriculum into two week-long summer day camps for youth ages 5-12 years that focus around healthy lifestyles and environmental stewardship has the potential to increase health protective action in this community. This research utilized qualitative interviews of 30 Kids on the Creek Camp attendees to determine the efficacy of the implementation of an active learning lesson to increase EHL by explaining the link between exposure to environmental pollutants and negative human health effects and explaining nutrition’s mitigating effects on environmental pollutants among rural youth. The majority of the participants were found to achieve the recognition level of EHL but those of older age (8-11 years) and whom attended both camps showed greater understanding of the relationship between consuming a healthy diet and reduction of pollution-initiated health issues. Results suggest that further implementation of educational materials into low-EHL youth populations have the potential to provide a means by which future health protective action through healthy lifestyle strategies can result

ACOUSTIC METHODS FOR MAPPING AND CHARACTERIZING SUBMERGED AQUATIC VEGETATION USING A MULTIBEAM ECHOSOUNDER

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) is an important component of many temperate global coastal ecosystems. SAV monitoring programs using optical remote sensing are limited by water clarity and attenuation with depth. Here underwater acoustics is used to analyze the water volume above the bottom to detect, map and characterize SAV. In particular, this dissertation developed and applied new methods for analyzing the full time series of acoustic intensity data (e.g., water column data) collected by a multibeam echosounder. This dissertation is composed of three separate but related studies. In the first study, novel methods for detecting and measuring the canopy height of eelgrass beds are developed and used to map eelgrass in a range of different environments throughout the Great Bay Estuary, New Hampshire, and Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts. The results of this study validated these methods by showing agreement between boundaries of eelgrass beds in acoustic and aerial datasets more in shallow water than at the deeper edges, where the acoustics were able to detect eelgrass more easily and at lower densities. In the second study, the methods developed for measuring canopy height in the first study are used to delineate between kelp-dominated and non-kelp-dominated habitat at several shallow rocky subtidal sites on the Maine and New Hampshire coast. The kelp detection abilities of these methods are first tested and confirmed at a pilot site with detailed diver quadrat macroalgae data, and then these methods are used to successfully extrapolate kelp- and non-kelp-dominated percent coverages derived from video photomosaic data. The third study examines the variability of the acoustic signature and acoustically-derived canopy height under different tidal currents. Submerged aquatic canopies are known to bend to accommodate the drag they generate in response to hydrodynamic forcing, and, in turn, the canopy height measured by acoustics will not be a perfect representation of canopy height as defined by common seagrass monitoring protocols, which is usually measured as the length of the blade of seagrass. Additionally, the bending of the canopy affects how the blades of seagrass are distributed within the footprint of the sonar, changing the acoustic signature of the seagrass canopy. For this study, a multibeam echosounder, a current profiler and an HD video camera were deployed on a stationary frame in a single eelgrass bed over 2 tidal cycles. Acoustic canopy heights varied by as much as 30 cm over the experiment, and although acoustic canopy height was correlated to current magnitude, the relationship did not follow the predictive flexible vegetation reconfiguration model of Luhar and Nepf (2011). Results indicate that there are significant differences in the shape of the return from a deflected (i.e., bent-over) canopy and an upright canopy, and that these differences in shape have implications for the accuracy of bottom detection using the maximum amplitude of a beam time series. These three studies clearly show the potential for using multibeam water column backscatter data for mapping coastal submerged aquatic vegetation while also testing the natural variability in acoustic canopy height measurements in the field

Oops I Drank It Again: Predictors Of Emerging Adults’ Unplanned Drinking

Heavy alcohol consumption in college increases risk for sexual assault, decreases academic performance, and can lead to future development of alcohol-related problems or negative developmental outcomes. Given these potential negative consequences, it is critical to investigate ways emerging adults at colleges are using and abusing alcohol. Previous research has shown that unplanned drinking is related to negative outcomes; therefore, examining predictors of unplanned drinking is important for determining at-risk groups. The current study investigated variables that are established predictors of alcohol use and misuse in emerging adults, including impulsivity, caregiver problem drinking, and age of onset alcohol use. These variables served as predictors in a model of unplanned drinking. Unplanned drinking was captured through participation in a 10-day daily diary study. Heaviest alcohol consumption day during the 10-day period was examined for each participant. This day chosen as it represents a participant’s riskiest day of consumption. An unplanned drinking score was computed by subtracting a participant’s planned consumption from reported actual consumption. By controlling for age and gender in a sample of emerging adult alcohol consumers, I sought to identify predictors of unplanned drinking that can be characterized as unplanned overconsumption, planned alcohol use, and unplanned drinking moderation (i.e., drinking less than planned). Results did not support hypotheses; however, descriptive statistics revealed characteristics specific to the unplanned overconsumption group. Participants consumed more alcohol than planned when they began drinking regularly at an earlier age. Gender differences were evident with respect to patterns of overconsumption, met alcohol plans, and unplanned moderation. The current study attempted to fill a gap in current alcohol use literature by focusing on unplanned alcohol consumption, capitalizing on data from an intensive longitudinal design. Although findings were not consistent with hypotheses, other results demonstrated differences in how emerging adults were consuming alcohol on their riskiest day of consumption. These differences have the potential to educate emerging adults of risks associated with unplanned drinking and support alcohol prevention strategies at Universities

Comparative kinetic analysis of anaerobic nitrite metabolism in phytoglobins

During the course of a plant’s life cycle, there are times when oxygen is a finite resource such as in rapidly growing and metabolizing tissue, in flooding, or in waterlogged root systems. When this occurs the plant develops alternative means of respiration for survival in order to cope with this hypoxic stress. The hypoxic plant cell will use nitrate and nitrite as alternative terminal electron acceptors. Increasing levels of nitrite during hypoxia are connected to higher NO levels within plants. However, in plants overexpressing Hbs there is decreased NO emission. Previous studies have confirmed that the Class 1 phytoglobin, Rice nonsymbiotic hemoglobin (nsHb) 1, could convert nitrite to NO (1). Earlier experiments have also shown the correlation between oxygen affinity and phytoglobin class (2), as well as the ability of hemoglobins to perform the NO dioxygenase reaction in hypoxic environments (3, 4). In fact, plants over-expressing class 1 phytoglobins during hypoxia released less NO (3), and had higher metabolic activity (5) as compared to WT plants. Taken all together, the nitrite reduction reaction presented a promising connection between NO detoxification and maintaining redox balance within the plant cell. This thesis project set out to investigate the relationship, if any, between phytoglobin class and nitrite reduction to NO. To further understand and delineate the functions of the distinct classes of phytoglobins, a comparative kinetic analysis of nitrite reduction across classes was performed. Overall, the capacity of phytoglobins to reduce nitrite to NO appears to cluster according to phytoglobin class, with class 1 being consistently high performers as compared to animal hemoglobins, and the recently evolved symbiotic and leghemoglobin classes being the least efficient at nitrite reduction

A Review Of Mental Health Screening Tools Used In Disaster Research

Introduction: The effects of disasters are widespread and heavily studied. While attention to disasters’ impacts on mental health is growing, knowledge about these effects is fragmented due to the wide variety of assessment tools used in post-disaster settings. The purpose of this study is to review mental health assessment tools and their use in populations affected by disasters. Methods: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar for commonly-used tools that assess PTSD, anxiety, depression, substance use disorder, and general mental health in disaster settings. Next, a search for scientific studies that used the selected tools in disaster-affected populations was conducted to collect the data for analysis. Data were extracted on study outcomes produced from these tools as well as study characteristics and then analyzed to compare across tools within each symptom assessed. Findings: Ten assessment tools for analysis were identified. Seventy-eight studies using these tools were collected. Most of the tools did not have a suggested cutoff score for determining probable diagnosis. Most of the studies identified were conducted in Asia and used the Impact of Events Scale - Revised (IES-R). The outcomes, including prevalence, sample size, sample type, disaster type, and continent did not significantly vary across all of the tools, with the exception of PTSD tools, which were significantly more likely to be used in studies with non-representative samples. Studies in North America disproportionately used the IES-R to study hurricanes. Conclusion: Although the studies show similar results across tools, the variety of tools and cutoff scores still prevent adequate synthesis of the mental health effects of disasters. It is recommended that researchers and humanitarian workers consider the context of the tool that they plan to use and use a tool with a specified cutoff that has been successfully used in similar settings

Effective Transitional Strategies for the First Grade Classroom

Transitions take time in any classroom. First grade students make many transitions in a day. Students transition from activity to activity as well as moving from location to location. With a limited amount of instructional time, teachers strive to have their students engaged in learning and to increase the students’ time on task. There are transitional strategies available that teachers utilize to decrease transition time and increase student-learning time. Two such strategies are visual cues, such as a timer; and auditory cues, like a song. The goal of this research study was to discover effective transition strategies for first grade students to increase time on-task behavior and decrease transition time. The study results revealed that both the use of a visual timer and the use of a musical transition did decrease transition time