Enhanced Preference for Ethanol Odor and Increased Voluntary Intake Following Exposure to Ethanol During the Early Postnatal Period

A focus on early development is critical for understanding the etiology of alcoholism. The observation that alcoholism runs in families has strengthened the idea of a genetic basis for the disease. It is also recognized, however, that growing up in a household where alcohol cues are omnipresent may provide critical experiences that could increase that risk. The effects of early experience with ethanol cues can be examined using the demonstrator-observer paradigm in rats. During the early postnatal period, experimental subjects (observers) were exposed to intoxicated siblings (demonstrators) in their home cage. Controls were exposed to sibling demonstrators that were administered water. Animals were tested for voluntary ethanol intake (Experiments 1, 2a, 3 and 4) or ethanol odor preference (Experiment 2b) when they reached an age corresponding to early adolescence in humans, postnatal day 30. Results revealed that infant experience with ethanol cues in the home environment resulted in increased ethanol intake and ethanol odor preference by adolescent-age subjects. These responses to alcohol were not only evident in observer subjects, but in the demonstrator animals as well (Experiments 2a and 2b). Thus, both direct (intoxication) and indirect (via siblings) exposure to ethanol cues in the home environment can increase animals\u27 preferences for this drug. Experiment 3 was designed to evaluate whether a reactivation treatment (exposure to ethanol odor) prior to a test for ethanol ingestion would increase the expression of the ethanol preference. Results of this experiment failed to reveal such an effect. Finally, Experiment 4 evaluated the hypothesis that the endogenous opioid system is involved in this type of social learning. Observer subjects were injected with the mu opioid antagonist naltrexone prior to interactions with intoxicated siblings. Results failed to support our hypothesis. Observers injected with naltrexone ingested just as much ethanol during the intake test as those that were injected with saline. Collectively, the results of these experiments indicate that social interactions with an intoxicated conspecific early in development are critical experiences impacting later ethanol ingestion. The findings from these experiments emphasize the important influence of early social experiences on later behavioral responses toward ethanol, and suggest that this type of ethanol exposure can have long-lasting consequences. Early learning about alcohol in the context of the home environment may result in increased risk for the later development of alcohol abuse and dependence

Investigating novice White Teachers in African American Classrooms: A Phenomenological Investigation of Cultural Responsiveness

ABSTRACT INVESTIGATING NOVICE WHITE TEACHERS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN CLASSROOMS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS by Debra J. Barrineau This study deconstructed the degree to which novice White teachers in an elementary school in a rural middleGeorgiadistrict were aware of and prepared for the challenges inherent in teaching in a predominantly African American classroom. Four novice, White teachers participated in the study. The student population of the school was 72% African American, nearly 10% White, and more than 17% Hispanic. Using a phenomenological approach, data were collected using an open-ended questionnaire in order to determine the teachers’ perceived academic and non-academic needs of their students and to explore how their awareness of the needs of their students influenced the educational experiences the teachers provided in their classrooms. Classroom observations were utilized in order to determine how the teachers related to their students and the manner in which they demonstrated responsiveness to the students’ academic needs, through the activities they provided. The teachers demonstrated only a limited ability to understand the academic and non-academic needs of their students, due mainly to a lack of understanding of the cultural dynamics of the African American students residing in this rural community. Through a lack of ability to build necessary bridges within the school community, the teachers failed to establish a trusting relationship with parents, which would have helped mitigate the disconnect between the environment of the school and the environment of the students’ homes. In addition, the teachers’ efforts to support their students through multicultural activities were merely superficial. Some of the teachers were more focused on the perceived needs of the students than on using the rich heritage of students in order to build a community of learners that would foster greater levels of academic success. The findings of this study will benefit those interested in cultural responsiveness by suggesting the need for teacher preparation programs to increase the academic and experiential focus on cross-cultural teaching. It will also benefit school districts by suggesting the need for ongoing professional development and focused induction programs for teachers who are teaching cross-culturally

Relationship Between Recruitment Practice, Employer Knowledge, and Applicant Attraction

Attracting quality job applicants is a chief recruiting concern. Resources managers recognize that attracting and retaining the most talented workforce contributes to a company’s success and financial survival. Grounded in media richness theory, the purposes of this quantitative quasi-experimental study were to (1) examine the effects of recruitment practice (print, web, or print and web) on employer knowledge (employer familiarity, employer reputation, and job information) and applicant attraction, and (2) to assess the relationships between employer knowledge (employer familiarity, employer reputation, job information), media richness, and applicant attraction. The participants were 186 students attending a Florida higher education institution who completed a media richness survey. The analysis of variance indicated no statistically significant differences. The results of the multiple linear regression were significant, F(4, 180) = 42.231, p \u3c .001, R2 = .473. Job information was the only significant contributor to the model (β = .570, p \u3c .001). A key recommendation is for human resources managers to design more effective recruitment tools containing specific job information about the type and nature of work performed in the job role. The implications for positive social change include the potential to attract and retain qualified employees, thereby supporting the local community workforce and economy

System Controls on the South Texas Sand Sheet

Semi-stabilized dune systems are important indicators of Quaternary drought variability across central North America. The South Texas sand sheet (STSS) is the southernmost relict dune system in central North America and is exposed to higher evapotranspiration and moisture variability than similar landscapes farther north. This study uses multi-scale analysis of LiDAR data, geophysical surveys, optically stimulated luminescence dates of core samples, and X-ray fluorescence analysis to identify historical periods of desertification across the STSS. These data suggest long-term relationships between climate, ecological disturbances, geological framework, and desertification. Aeolian activations dated at ca. 75, 230, 2000, 4100, and 6600 yr bp correspond to periods of persistent regional drought, changes in sediment supply, and anthropogenic disturbances of native ecology. From these results it appears that regionalized activation in semi-stabilized dune systems is controlled primarily by climatic variations that reduce the overall moisture available for maintaining vigorous vegetation growth, while localized activation patterns depend more on stresses related to site-specific morphodynamics as well as human activity. With enhanced aridity forecast for much of central North America through the 21st century, understanding the specific thresholds of desertification is an important step towards building a conceptual model of desertification in semi-stabilized dune landscapes

Differentiating tidal and groundwater dynamics from barrier island framework geology: Testing the utility of portable multifrequency electromagnetic induction profilers

Electromagnetic induction (EMI) techniques are becoming increasingly popular for near-surface coastal geophysical applications. However, few studies have explored the capabilities and limitations of portable multifrequency EMI profilers for mapping large-scale (101-102 km) barrier island hydrogeology. The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of groundwater dynamics on apparent conductivity σa to separate the effects of hydrology and geology from the σa signal. Shorenormal and alongshore surveys were performed within a highly conductive barrier island/wind-tidal flat system at Padre Island National Seashore, Texas, USA. Assessments of instrument calibration and signal drift suggest that σa measurements are stable, but vary with height and location across the beach. Repeatability tests confirm σa values using different boom orientations collected during the same day are reproducible. Measurements over a 12 h tidal cycle suggest that there is a tide-dependent step response in sa, complicating data processing and interpretation. Shore-normal surveys across the barrier/wind-tidal flats show that σa is roughly negatively correlated with topography and these relationships can be used for characterizing different coastal habitats. For all surveys, σa increases with decreasing frequency. Alongshore surveys performed during different seasons and beach states reveal a high degree of variability in sa. Here, it is argued that surveys collected during dry conditions characterize the underlying framework geology, whereas these features are somewhat masked during wet conditions. Differences in EMI signals should be viewed in a relative sense rather than as absolute magnitudes. Small-scale heterogeneities are related to changing hydrology, whereas low-frequency signals at the broadest scales reveal variations in framework geology. Multiple surveys should be done at different times of the year and tidal states before geologic interpretations can confidently be made from EMI surveys in coastal environments. This strategy enables the geophysicist to separate the effects of hydrology and geology from the σa signal. © 2016 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved

Factors affecting public acceptance of flood insurance in Larimer and Weld Counties, Colorado

Submitted to the Water Resources Planning Fellowship, Steering Committee ... in fulfillment of requirements for a special study project in planning.Bibliography: page [48]

Container Resource Allocation versus Performance of Data-intensive Applications on Different Cloud Servers

In recent years, data-intensive applications have been increasingly deployed on cloud systems. Such applications utilize significant compute, memory, and I/O resources to process large volumes of data. Optimizing the performance and cost-efficiency for such applications is a non-trivial problem. The problem becomes even more challenging with the increasing use of containers, which are popular due to their lower operational overheads and faster boot speed at the cost of weaker resource assurances for the hosted applications. In this paper, two containerized data-intensive applications with very different performance objectives and resource needs were studied on cloud servers with Docker containers running on Intel Xeon E5 and AMD EPYC Rome multi-core processors with a range of CPU, memory, and I/O configurations. Primary findings from our experiments include: 1) Allocating multiple cores to a compute-intensive application can improve performance, but only if the cores do not contend for the same caches, and the optimal core counts depend on the specific workload; 2) allocating more memory to a memory-intensive application than its deterministic data workload does not further improve performance; however, 3) having multiple such memory-intensive containers on the same server can lead to cache and memory bus contention leading to significant and volatile performance degradation. The comparative observations on Intel and AMD servers provided insights into trade-offs between larger numbers of distributed chiplets interconnected with higher speed buses (AMD) and larger numbers of centrally integrated cores and caches with lesser speed buses (Intel). For the two types of applications studied, the more distributed caches and faster data buses have benefited the deployment of larger numbers of containers

Person-centered counseling with Malay clients: spirituality as an indicator of personal growth

A qualitative study was carried out to explore the inner experiences and personal growth of one male and three female Malay university student clients undergoing twelve sessions of person-centered counseling. Data analysis was based on the verbatim accounts of the counseling sessions, Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) interviews, clients’ journal entries and their non-verbal expressions throughout the sessions. The findings manifest that in the non-directive, egalitarian and person-centered counseling relationship, constructive changes were experienced by the Malay clients in the study, including getting in touch with their religious realization