Chapter 4- Formal Mentoring Programs: Characteristics, Benefits, and Outcomes

In this chapter, we review the characteristics of mentoring that distinguish so-called formal from informal mentoring opportunities. Through this discussion, we provide a broad view of what could be formalized and how to distinguish these opportunities. We then turn to a discussion of the observed and anticipated benefits of formalized mentoring (and some benefits of mentoring broadly) and provide an argument for why mentoring, with all its recognized importance and impact at multiple levels, should not be left to chance. By formalizing mentoring opportunities and practices, to varying and customizable degrees, programs and institutions stand to distribute the benefits of such relationships more equitably and more effectively among their members and guard against the recognized risks of mentorship gone wrong. The benefits are clear to both mentees and mentors within formalized mentoring frameworks

Asylum Essentials:The U.S. Asylum Program Needs More Resources, Not Restrictions

The public debate surrounding passage of the REAL ID Act by the House of Representatives on February 10 has raised the question of whether or not the U.S. asylum system is vulnerable to infiltration by foreign terrorists. Sponsors of the legislation, which now moves to the Senate for consideration, claim the Act would enhance security by making it more difficult for asylum seekers to prove their cases. However, the realities of asylum processing and the impact of reforms to the asylum system over the past decade point to a need for more resources rather than new restrictions. Abuses of the asylum system, including the most notorious cases cited by supporters of the REAL ID Act, have resulted primarily from applicants getting lost in bureaucratic backlogs or from over-worked Asylum Officers not having sufficient time to closely scrutinize the stories and evidence presented by asylum seekers. The integrity of the asylum system is enhanced by sufficient staffing and funding to allow the thorough and timely adjudication of asylum cases, and adequate training of the immigration inspectors who first come into contact with asylum seekers. Current law already denies asylum to individuals who have engaged in terrorist activity, committed serious crimes, or who may pose a danger to national security.1 And asylum applicants already undergo extensive security checks. The critical issue is whether or not the Asylum Officers who are assigned to review asylum claims have the time and resources they need to efficiently and effectively determine who is a legitimate refugee. The provisions of the REAL ID Act that would raise the bar for all asylum applicants do nothin

Maladaptive behavior and affect regulation: A functionalist perspective.

Clinical science has benefited tremendously from taking seriously the proposition that putatively maladaptive behaviors serve psychological functions, prominently among these affect regulation (AR). These functionalist accounts have not only advanced basic clinical science, but also formed the bedrock for the development of effective treatments. Drawing heavily on reinforcement learning theory, we aim to elucidate functional relationships between maladaptive behavior and AR. Specifically, we take the view that maladaptive behaviors are frequently motivated and reinforced by hedonic AR functions (i.e., decreasing negative affect and increasing positive affect) but are also susceptible to becoming stimulus-bound habits. We review empirical evidence related to one such behavior, nonsuicidal self-injury. We close with a brief reflection on future directions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

On the Stability of Periodic Solutions of the Generalized Benjamin-Bona-Mahony Equation

We study the stability of a four parameter family of spatially periodic traveling wave solutions of the generalized Benjamin-Bona-Mahony equation to two classes of perturbations: periodic perturbations with the same periodic structure as the underlying wave, and long-wavelength localized perturbations. In particular, we derive necessary conditions for spectral instability to perturbations to both classes of perturbations by deriving appropriate asymptotic expansions of the periodic Evans function, and we outline a nonlinear stability theory to periodic perturbations based on variational methods which effectively extends our periodic spectral stability results.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

Measuring Galaxy Star Formation Rates From Integrated Photometry: Insights from Color-Magnitude Diagrams of Resolved Stars

We use empirical star formation histories (SFHs), measured from HST-based resolved star color-magnitude diagrams, as input into population synthesis codes to model the broadband spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of ~50 nearby dwarf galaxies (6.5 < log M/M_* < 8.5, with metallicities ~10% solar). In the presence of realistic SFHs, we compare the modeled and observed SEDs from the ultraviolet (UV) through near-infrared (NIR) and assess the reliability of widely used UV-based star formation rate (SFR) indicators. In the FUV through i bands, we find that the observed and modeled SEDs are in excellent agreement. In the Spitzer 3.6micron and 4.5micron bands, we find that modeled SEDs systematically over-predict observed luminosities by up to ~0.2 dex, depending on treatment of the TP-AGB stars in the synthesis models. We assess the reliability of UV luminosity as a SFR indicator, in light of independently constrained SFHs. We find that fluctuations in the SFHs alone can cause factor of ~2 variations in the UV luminosities relative to the assumption of a constant SFH over the past 100 Myr. These variations are not strongly correlated with UV-optical colors, implying that correcting UV-based SFRs for the effects of realistic SFHs is difficult using only the broadband SED. Additionally, for this diverse sample of galaxies, we find that stars older than 100 Myr can contribute from <5% to100% of the present day UV luminosity, highlighting the challenges in defining a characteristic star formation timescale associated with UV emission. We do find a relationship between UV emission timescale and broadband UV-optical color, though it is different than predictions based on exponentially declining SFH models. Our findings have significant implications for the comparison of UV-based SFRs across low-metallicity populations with diverse SFHs.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, ApJ accepte