Relational Cultural Theory: A Guiding Framework for Study Abroad Experiences

Faculty led-study abroad programs promote cultural competence and professional and personal development for students. However, students from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups do not participate in these experiences at the same rate as students from majority cultures. Counselor educators must seek ways to recruit diverse populations to promote equity in and access to international education experiences. Relational Cultural Theory (RCT) provides a guiding framework for counselor educators to diversify study abroad programs while also attending to cultural and power dynamics. Implications for counselor educators and recommendations for future research are also included

Women Counselor Educators’ Experiences of Microaggressions

This phenomological study explored seven women counselor educators’ experiences with committing and receiving microaggressions within the context of their professional roles and academic responsibilities. The following themes emerged: continuum of awareness, responding to microaggressions, power in academia, impact of microaggressions, and intersection of identity. Implications and recommendations for counselor educators and administrators are provided

What then shall we say to these things? an investigation of African American pastors' response to mental health needs in the Black church and their influence on African American help-seeking behaviors and coping strategies

African Americans are often disproportionately represented in vulnerable populations that could likely cause them to be at a greater risk for struggling with anxiety and depression (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001), however, they tend to seek professional counseling at a much lower rate than other racial and ethnic populations and instead turn their spiritual leaders as a resource (Ayalon & Young, 2005). Because of under-utilization of mental health services within the African-American community (Avalon & Young, 2005), more research attention should be directed toward factors that affect the help-seeking behaviors of African Americans (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Generally, the Black Church is considered a less stigmatized method of getting help in the Black community (Andrews, Stefurak, & Mehta, 2010), a solution for many mental health problems (Newhill & Harris, 2007) and pastors are valued as credible sources for assistance with social and psychological problems because of their status as pastor, often regardless of the pastor's educational background, knowledge of mental health issues, and previous experience (Kane & Greene, 2009). There remains much that is unknown about pastoral motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and influence related to mental health needs of their parishioners. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the pastors' response to parishioners dealing with anxiety, depression, unemployment, bereavement, and familial concerns; their motivations to encourage or discourage help-seeking outside of the Black Church; their perspectives on secular counseling services in their community; their perspective on spiritual, biological, psychological, and social coping methods; and their beliefs about identifying and responding to maladaptive religious coping strategies. Consensual Qualitative Research was used as the research protocol to collect and analyze the data. Findings from this study suggest that African Americans frequently seek help from their pastors regarding anxiety, depression, bereavement, unemployment, and relationship issues. Further, results from this study also suggest that African American pastors attribute anxiety and depression to social and spiritual spheres of influence and endorse spiritual, social, and integrative coping strategies. Moreover, African American pastors seem to differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive forms of religious coping

Principles of thermoacoustic energy harvesting

Thermoacoustics exploit a temperature gradient to produce powerful acoustic pressure waves. The technology has a key role to play in energy harvesting systems. A time-line in the development of thermoacoustics is presented from its earliest recorded example in glass blowing through to the development of the Sondhauss and Rijke tubes to Stirling engines and pulse-tube cryo-cooling. The review sets the current literature in context, identifies key publications and promising areas of research. The fundamental principles of thermoacoustic phenomena are explained; design challenges and factors influencing efficiency are explored. Thermoacoustic processes involve complex multi-physical coupling and transient, highly non-linear relationships which are computationally expensive to model; appropriate numerical modelling techniques and options for analyses are presented. Potential methods of harvesting the energy in the acoustic waves are also examined

Information needs after stroke: What to include and how to structure it on a website. A qualitative study using focus groups and card sorting

Background: Use of the Internet to obtain health and other information is increasing. Previous studies have identified the specific information needs of people with stroke but not in relation to the Internet. People with aphasia (PwA) may face barriers in accessing the Internet: Navigating websites requires an ability to categorise information and this ability is often impaired in PwA. The website categorisation preferences of people with stroke and with aphasia have not yet been reported. Aims: This study aimed: (a) to determine what information people who have had a stroke would like to see on a website about living with stroke; (b) to determine the most effective means of structuring information on the website so that it is accessible to people with stroke; and c) to identify any differences between people with and without aphasia in terms of preferences for structuring information on the website. Methods & Procedures: Participants were recruited from a hospital's Stroke Database. Focus groups were used to elicit what information participants wanted on a website about living with stroke. The themes raised were depicted on 133 cards. To determine the most effective way of structuring information on the website, and whether there were any differences in preferences between PwA and PwoA, participants used a modified closed card-sorting technique to sort the cards under website categories. Outcomes & Results: A total of 48 people were invited, and 12 (25%) agreed to take part. We ran three focus groups: one with PwA (n = 5) and two with people without aphasia (PwoA) (n = 3, n = 4). Participants wanted more information about stroke causes and effects (particularly emotional issues), roles of local agencies, and returning to previous activities (driving, going out). All participants completed the card-sorting exercise. Few cards (6%) were categorised identically by everyone. Cards relating to local agencies and groups were not consistently categorised together. Cards relating to emotions were segregated. The categorisation preferences for PwA were more fragmented than those for PwoA: 60% of PwA agreed on the categorisation of 51% of the cards, whereas 60% of PwoA agreed on the categorisation of 76% of the cards. Conclusions: Information needs covered all stages of the stroke journey. The card sorting was accessible to everyone, and provided evidence of structuring preferences and of some of the categorisation difficulties faced by PwA. More research is needed on what an accessible website looks like for PwA

African American Pastors on Mental Health, Coping, and Help Seeking

Within the Black Church, there remains much that is unknown about pastoral motivations, beliefs, and attitudes about mental health. The purpose of this study was to investigate pastors' responses to parishioners dealing with mental health issues, including perspectives on counseling services and coping strategies. According to this study's findings, African American pastors often are the first line of support for parishioners' mental health and recognizing adaptive and maladaptive forms of coping

Economic value of preconditioning feeder calves

The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service periodically issues revisions to its publications. The most current edition is made available. For access to an earlier edition, if available for this title, please contact the Oklahoma State University Library Archives by email at [email protected] or by phone at 405-744-6311

Prochlo: Strong Privacy for Analytics in the Crowd

The large-scale monitoring of computer users' software activities has become commonplace, e.g., for application telemetry, error reporting, or demographic profiling. This paper describes a principled systems architecture---Encode, Shuffle, Analyze (ESA)---for performing such monitoring with high utility while also protecting user privacy. The ESA design, and its Prochlo implementation, are informed by our practical experiences with an existing, large deployment of privacy-preserving software monitoring. (cont.; see the paper