The Evaluation of Attitudes towards Individuals with Mental Illness among Counselors in Training

Negative attitudes and stigma associated with mental illness have a profound impact on individuals who experience them. Researchers have defined stigma as the attribution of a deviant characteristic to members of a particular group. Persons with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) face many difficulties that impact their full participation in social life. Although attitudinal reactions to individuals with SPMI have improved considerably over the last few decades, there are still areas for improvement. Limited research has been conducted to evaluate attitudes and stigma associated with individuals with SPMI among human service professionals-in-training (HSPs). For this study HSPs were defined as individuals entering into social service, mental health, and substance abuse professions. Further, there have only been a few published studies in attitude research that utilized randomized vignettes portraying individuals with two different mental health diagnoses. Data collection occurred in counselor education and similar programs at many universities. A total of 79 participants (20 males and 58 females) took part in this study. Recruitment efforts reached HSPs at 27 universities throughout the contiguous United States. For this study, participants were asked to respond to self-report surveys and to one of two written vignettes to quantify their attitudes toward the individuals depicted in them. The two vignettes described an individual with a mental illness and differed in the diagnosis attributed to the individual: schizophrenia spectrum disorder in one vignette and generalized anxiety disorder in the other vignette. Results indicated that although there were slight mean differences between the two groups of participants, the differences were not statically significant, t (77) = 0.63, p =53. The Attribution Questionnaire-27 (AQ-27; Corrigan, 2012) gathered overall attitudes towards mental illness. The Mental Health Provider Stigma Inventory (MHPSI; Kennedy, Abell, & Mennicke, 2014) was used to collect data on attitudes, behaviors, and social pressure impacting stigma towards individuals who have SPMI. Data collected with these two scales yielded evidence to indicate that participants held stigmatizing attitudes towards individuals with SPMI. Data gathered suggested that graduate students in rehabilitation counselor education programs expressed fewer stigmatizing attitudes than students from other programs. This result was seen across both measures. Data were collected on frequency of contact with persons with mental illness to evaluate the association between contact frequency and knowledge of mental illness and negative attitudes. Demographic data gathered included gender, age, professional training, and number of years of work experience in a counseling-related role. Further, a hierarchical multiple regression was used to determine which order of predictors were statistically significant to the outcome measure. Prior literature suggest that prior contact and familiarity scores playing a more important role in predicting the outcome variable (AQ-27) then the demographic information. The first model was statistically significant F(6,72) =3.64, p= .003 and explained 23% of the variance in the dependent variable (AQ-27 total scores). After the input of these demographic factors the second step included LOF and SADP- PCF-R scores. After entry of the second step the overall variance was 28%. The second model was statically significant F(8,70) = 3.39 p = 002 and explained an additional 4% variance in the model. In the final adjusted model, four out of the seven predictor variables were statistically significant. A small pilot study consisting of rehabilitation counseling professionals was used to develop the methodologies for this study. The primary limitation of the primary study was the sample size. Further details of the methodology used and limitations of this particular study will be described in subsequent chapters. Implications of this study and suggested future research are proposed

Sound in Video Games: How Sound Is an Important Aspect of the Virtual Experience

This paper will take the form of an analysis, with video games as the medium/text that will be analysed. Although analysis is typically reserved for poems, books, short stories, or plays, video games are simply a form of conveying ideas and a form of text that is representative of the 21st century. Video games is a rare medium that has an interactive element, which can alter/enhance the experience an audience member can have, even if there were the same audio/visual components in a film or play. In most forms of media with an audio component, the analysis is done by a passive listener, one who is not interacting with the piece/having any form of impact on it as it is being played (Collins, 2008) . With forms of media that invite passive listening, it is easier for every potential audience member to have the same experience, with the meaning of the experience being relatively the same. This paper will analyse the usage of sound/music in video games and how the experience of the medium can be affected greatly by it

Simulating large volumes of granular matter

Master of ScienceDepartment of Computer ScienceDaniel AndresenModern techniques for simulating granular matter can produce excellent quality simulations, but usually involve a great enough performance cost to render them ineffective for real time applications. This leaves something to be desired for low-cost systems and interactive simulations which are more forgiving to inaccurate simulations, but much more strict in regards to the performance of the simulation itself. What follows is a proposal for a method of simulating granular matter that could potentially support millions of particles and several types for each particle while maintaining acceptable frame rates on consumer level hardware. By leveraging the power of consumer level graphics cards, effective data representation, and a model built around Cellular Automata a simulation can be run in real time

The role of socioeconomic factors in Black-White health inequities across the life course: Point-in-time measures, long-term exposures, and differential health returns

Research links Black-White health disparities to racial differences in socioeconomic status (SES), but understanding of the role of SES in racial health gaps has been restricted by reliance on static measures of health and socioeconomic well-being that mask the dynamic quality of these processes and ignore the racialized nature of the SES-health connection. Utilizing twenty-three years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1984-2007), this study uses multilevel growth curve models to examine how multiple dimensions of socioeconomic well-being—including long-term economic history and differential returns to SES—contribute to the life course patterning of Black-White health disparities across two critical markers of well-being: body mass index (N=9,057) and self-rated health (N=11,329). Findings indicate that long-term SES exerts a significant influence on both body mass index and self-rated health, net of point-in-time measures, and that Black-White health gaps are smallest in models that adjust for both long-term and current SES. I also find that Blacks and Whites receive differential health returns to increases in SES, which suggests that other factors—such as neighborhood segregation and exposure racial discrimination—may restrict Blacks from converting increases in SES into health improvements in the same way as Whites. Together, these processes contribute to the life course patterning of Black-White health gaps and raise concerns about previous misestimation of the role of SES in racial health disparities

Investigation of advanced navigation and guidance system concepts for all-weather rotorcraft operations

Results are presented of a survey conducted of active helicopter operators to determine the extent to which they wish to operate in IMC conditions, the visibility limits under which they would operate, the revenue benefits to be gained, and the percent of aircraft cost they would pay for such increased capability. Candidate systems were examined for capability to meet the requirements of a mission model constructed to represent the modes of flight normally encountered in low visibility conditions. Recommendations are made for development of high resolution radar, simulation of the control display system for steep approaches, and for development of an obstacle sensing system for detecting wires. A cost feasibility analysis is included

Measuring Fiscal Effects Based on Changes in Deepwater Off-Shore Drilling Activities

This paper accomplishes two objectives. First, this paper estimates a model for oil wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico using specific time series models. In the second objective, the number of wells drilled are applied to the COMPAS model for Louisiana. Wells drilled are treated as final demand in an input-output model framework to estimate exogenous changes in employment demand. This demand is then applied to a block recursive labor force module that measures changes in key labor market variables. These variables then serve as exogenous variables in revenue capacity equations. These revenue capacity variables are finally applied to local government expenditure demand equations. Per capita demand changes for key local government variables are then estimated.oil and gas drilling, fiscal effects, public expenditure demands, COMPAS models, time series models, Public Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q43,

The physiological impacts of wealth shocks in late life: Evidence from the Great Recession

Given documented links between individual socioeconomic status (SES) and health, it is likely that—in addition to its impacts on individuals’ wallets and bank accounts—the Great Recession also took a toll on individuals’ disease and mortality risk. Exploiting a quasi-natural experiment design, this study utilizes nationally representative, longitudinal data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) (2005-2011) (N=930) and individual fixed effects models to examine how household-level wealth shocks experienced during the Great Recession relate to changes in biophysiological functioning in older adults. Results indicate that wealth shocks significantly predicted changes in physiological functioning, such that losses in net worth from the pre- to the post-Recession period were associated with increases in systolic blood pressure and C-reactive protein over the six year period. Further, while the association between wealth shocks and changes in blood pressure was unattenuated with the inclusion of other indicators of SES, psychosocial well-being, and health behaviors in analytic models, we document some evidence of mediation in the association between changes in wealth and changes in C-reactive protein, which suggests specificity in the social and biophysiological mechanisms relating wealth shocks and health at older ages. Linking macro-level conditions, meso-level household environments, and micro-level biological processes, this study provides new insights into the mechanisms through which economic inequality contributes to disease and mortality risk in late life

The Health Impacts of Eviction: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health

Eviction represents an urgent social and economic issue in the United States, with nearly two million evictions occurring annually in the U.S. Still, the population health impacts of evictions, as well as the pathways linking eviction to health, are not well documented or understood, particularly among young adults. Using nationally-representative, longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (1994-2008) (n=9,029), the present study uses a combination of analytic methods—including prospective lagged dependent variable regression models, inverse probabilities of treatment weighting, longitudinal first difference models, causal mediation techniques—to comprehensively assess whether and how evictions relate to depressive risk and self-rated health across early adulthood, paying particular attention to the stress-related pathways linking eviction and health. Results provide robust evidence of positive longitudinal associations between eviction and depressive risk, in particular. In the prospective regression models, young adults who experienced recent eviction had more depressive symptoms and worse self-rated health than those who were not evicted, net a host of background characteristics. Using treatment weighting techniques, results showed that young adults who experienced eviction had more depressive symptoms than those who were not evicted (5.921 vs. 4.998 depressive symptoms, p=0.003). Perceived social stress mediated nearly 18 percent of the associations between eviction and the depressive symptoms (p\u3c0.001). In the first difference models, young people who experienced eviction between survey waves experienced greater increases in depressive symptoms over time compared to those who were not evicted, net of changes in other indicators of socioeconomic status and residential instability. Taken together, our results suggest that the recent surges in evictions in the U.S. serve as a potent threat to population health during the emerging adult period, with especially devastating consequences for low-income individuals and communities of color