Student Experience: Consultancy project presentation at the Houses of Parliament

On 24 June 2014, four students studying for the MSc in International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies presented the findings of their consultancy project to an expert panel and a select audience at the Houses of Parliament

Religiousness, Coping, and Locus of Control as Predictors of Anxiety.

In order to evaluate the cognitive appraisal and meaning-making components of the Transactional Model (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and Meaning-making Model (Park & Folkman, 1997) of coping, several specific forms of appraisal and coping strategies were analyzed in the present study. It has been proposed that religiousness and time influence the meaning-making process (Park, 2005); therefore, an interaction of intrinsic religiousness and time were key variables in the study as well. A survey designed to address relationships among locus of control, type of situation, intrinsic religious orientation, specific coping styles, and maladaptive psychological symptoms was administered to 240 students of a regional university. Evidence was found for the importance of primary cognitive appraisal, but no evidence was found for the interaction of intrinsic religious orientation and time on meaning-making coping or psychological symptoms

Milk Glass Moon

The purpose of this thesis is to tell the mostly untold story of the 900 or so families that left the Oak Ridge valley in 1942-42 in order for the federal government to build the Manhattan Project, the secret project that built the atomic bomb. The story is fiction but based loosely on the experience of the Sam and Mary Kesterson family. While the story covers the experiences of most of the family, it is told primarily through Lydia Mae Johnson’s point of view, a young teen who must confront adult issues early: a strange man comes into the community, the boy she has a crush on joins the military, a man is murdered in their community, and the family is forced to move from their home

Behavioral Characteristics of Stalkers Who Kill

The purpose of this study is to identify behavioral characteristics of stalkers who ultimately kill their targets, with the goal of creating a risk factor checklist to help identify current offenders most at risk for escalating to homicide. The study involved case comparisons of stalking-homicide cases from the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western cultures. This study examines twenty cases involving stalkers who killed or attempted to kill their victims. Stalking has evolved considerably with the introduction of new technology, yet the dangers posed by stalkers who ultimately kill their targeted victims, the data was coded, compared and analyzed to create a risk factor checklist to identify those types of offenders most likely to resort to homicide. The data was gathered from public resources and news articles. The study examined, age, race, gender, the type of stalker, the relationship between the stalker and the victim, as well as other factors preceding the death of the victims. Not surprisingly, males were found to be the most dangerous offenders the majority of the time. Of the known typologies of stalkers, only one case of the predatory stalker was found, and no cases of the intimacy seeker were found within the cases examined

Addressing Leandro: Supporting Student Learning by Mitigating Student Hunger

Many students face barriers that prevent them from reaching their full potential in school and beyond. Although some of these barriers are outside the domain of education, solving hunger is one challenge that is both important for school performance and feasible as a policy option. This report reviews the economic importance of investing in strategies to reduce hunger among students, highlights innovative approaches available to schools and districts, and reviews state-level policies to mitigate this challenge for students in North Carolina

Post-adoption Contact and Adoptive Parents' Receptiveness to Direct Contact in the Four Nations of the UK : Research Briefing

This briefing paper reports key findings from a recent study of direct contact between adoptive families and birth relatives within the four nations of the UK. The study involved secondary analysis of a data set generated from the Adoption Barometer, a largescale annual survey of adoptive parents conducted by Adoption UK (n=3,470). The analysis focused on data relating to actual direct contact between adoptive and birth families in 2018, and anticipated future direct contact. The key purpose of this study was to compare experiences of adoptive families across the four nations of the United Kingdom: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Key findings • Rates of direct contact between birth families and adoptive families vary considerably across the UK from a low of 16% in Wales to high of 54% in Northern Ireland. • In addition, there are differences in rates of direct contact with various categories of birth relative such as birth parents and birth siblings. • A significant minority of adopters across all four nations are receptive to considering additional direct contact with birth relatives than is currently experienced, particularly, with birth siblings. • The variations across nations in rates and types of contact suggest that decisions regarding a child’s best interests are open to considerable interpretation. • Some opportunities for positive ongoing contact between adopted children and birth family members, especially siblings, may be being misse

Chicago Semester Experiential Learning Amid COVID-19

Excerpt Chicago Semester is an experiential education program that was founded 45 years ago by six private, faith-based colleges in the Midwest. During the spring semester of 2020, we were serving 56 traditional-aged undergraduate students. These students came from 16 different colleges with student bodies between 1000-4000 students, mainly located in rural or suburban communities. On March 13, 2020, we made the decision to conclude our in-person programming because of COVID-19. Students moved home and the program continued remotely for the duration of the semester

DESI Commissioning Instrument Metrology

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is under construction to measure the expansion history of the Universe using the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation technique. The spectra of 35 million galaxies and quasars over 14000 sq deg will be measured during the life of the experiment. A new prime focus corrector for the KPNO Mayall telescope will deliver light to 5000 fiber optic positioners. The fibers in turn feed ten broad-band spectrographs. We will describe the methods and results for the commissioning instrument metrology program. The primary goals of this program are to calculate the transformations and further develop the systems that will place fibers within 5um RMS of the target positions. We will use the commissioning instrument metrology program to measure the absolute three axis Cartesian coordinates of the five CCDs and 22 illuminated fiducials on the commissioning instrument

The sound of social cognition: Toddlers’ understanding of how sound influences others

Understanding others’ perceptions is a fundamental aspect of social cognition. Children’s construal of visual perception is well investigated, but there is little work on children’s understanding of others’ auditory perception. The current study assesses toddlers’ recognition that producing different sounds can affect others differentially—auditory perspective taking. Two- and three-year-olds were familiarized with two objects, one loud and one quiet. The adult then introduced a doll, and children were randomly assigned to one of two goals: either to wake the doll or to let her sleep. Children’s object choice and the sound intensity they produced significantly varied in the predicted direction as a function of the goal task. These findings reveal young children’s understanding of the effects of sound on other people’s behavior and psychological states

Student Experience: the IDHE Trip to Geneva 2014

Post by MSc International Development and Humanitarian Emergencies student, Rebecca Brooks