Preserving the Past: The Future of Museums

This project explores the future of the museum industry and seeks to examine the ways in which the industry has changed to adapt to the current competitive environment. It explores the increasing competitiveness inside the industry and the growing concentration of funding that has resulted in an extremely high percentage of unfunded museums. The strategies that can be effectively employed to ‘modernize’ a museum are examined and several living history museums that have employed these strategies are used as examples of their relative effectiveness/ineffectiveness. An analysis of how the museum industry has morphed over time to create these mega-museums which effectively dominate all their competitors is explored. It appears that they are a product of funding trends within the industry. How the evolution of these mega-museums has created an opportunity for smaller museums to regain market share by duplicating their museum partnerships on a different scale. The possibility that these partnerships may enable small museums to overcome many of the barriers that have held them back (awareness, location, etc)

Investigating Denial of the Harmful Effects of Corporal Punishment in a Religious Context

Corporal punishment continues to be a controversial topic. Many people who experienced spanking as children feel that they were not harmed by the corporal punishment and go on to believe that using corporal punishment on their children will not harm them, especially if it is administered calmly. This study looked at the attitudes of 203 parents in the context of religion using Holden\u27s Attitudes Toward Spanking a Child questionnaire. The results of this study showed that parents that said religion guided their parenting were more likely to view corporal punishment positively and were more likely to believe that corporal punishment is not harmful to their children. The results also showed that calm spanking creates a positive view of corporal punishment, thus leading to a greater likelihood of denying that spanking is harmful to children

Examining Administrators\u27 Perceived Influence of Social Media on Adolescent School Discipline: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand middle and high school administrators’ perceived influence of social media on school discipline and student behavior in southeastern Virginia. Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Skinner’s behavioral theory of operant conditioning guided this study and provided the theoretical framework for learning through observation and reinforcement. Twelve middle and high school administrators participated in this study and shared their administrative experiences regarding social media and its perceived influence on student discipline and behavior in their respective schools. The central question guiding this research study was the following: What are the experiences of middle and high school administrators as they manage school discipline when student behaviors are influenced by outside interactions on social media? Data collection included interviews, a focus group, and an analysis of current disciplinary policies and procedures. Data analysis followed those procedures outlined in Moustakas’ (1994) guidelines for transcendental phenomenological studies, including using epoche for bracketing, identifying, and coding emergent themes, utilizing textural and structural descriptions, and developing a composite description to derive a universal essence of the shared experiences. The essence of this study revealed the increased usage of social media among adolescents influences their behavior. Both negative and positive behaviors are reinforced through the quantifiability of social media. These behaviors spill into the school environment, affecting discipline at the secondary level. Even without social-media-specific policies to guide them, administrators leverage the code of conduct to teach students about appropriate behavior and effectively address negative behaviors

The Formal, the Informal, and the Precarious: Making a Living in Urban Papua New Guinea

For many Papua New Guineans, the dominant accounts of 'the economy' � contained within development reports, government documents and the media � do not adequately reflect their experiences of making a living. Large-scale resource extraction, the private sector, export cash cropping and wage employment have dominated these accounts. Meanwhile, the broader economic picture has remained obscured, and the diversity of economic practices, including a flourishing 'informal' economy, has routinely been overlooked and undervalued. Addressing this gap, this paper provides some grounded examples of the diverse livelihood strategies people employ in Papua New Guinea's growing urban centres. We examine the strategies people employ to sustain themselves materially, and focus on how people acquire and recirculate money. We reveal the interconnections between a diverse range of economic activities, both formal and informal. In doing so, we complicate any clear narrative that might, for example, associate waged employment with economic security, or street selling with precarity and urban poverty. Our work is informed by observations of people's daily lives, and conversations with security guards (Stephanie Lusby), the salaried middle class (John Cox), women entrepreneurs (Ceridwen Spark), residents from the urban settlements (Michelle Rooney) and betel nut traders and vendors (Timothy Sharp). Collectively, our work takes an urban focus, yet the flows and connectivity between urban and rural, and our focus on livelihood strategies, means much of our discussion is also relevant to rural people and places. Our examples, drawn from urban centres throughout the country, each in their own way illustrate something of the diversity of economic activity in urban PNG. Our material captures the innovation and experimentation of people's responses to precarity in contemporary PNG.AusAI

Predictors of Binge Eating among Bariatric Surgery Candidates: Disinhibition as a Mediator of the Relationship Between Depressive Symptoms and Binge Eating

Background—Current and lifetime psychopathology is common in adult patients seeking bariatric surgery, with major depressive disorder and binge eating disorder affecting a higher proportion of this group than the general population. While depressive symptoms have been previously associated with eating pathology, potential mediators of this relationship are not well understood. Methods—This study used a naturalistic, retrospective design to investigate cognitive and behavioral aspects of eating behavior (cognitive restraint, disinhibition, and hunger) as potential mediators of the relationship between depressive symptoms and binge eating within a sample of 119 adult patients (82.4% female; 96.6% white; mean age = 47 years) seeking bariatric surgery (Rouxen-Y and sleeve gastrectomy) at a large university medical center. Patients completed a standardized presurgical psychological evaluation to determine appropriateness for bariatric surgery as part of routine clinical practice. Binge eating was assessed via clinician rating (number of binge eating episodes per week) based on DSM-IV diagnostic criteria and self-report measures (Binge Eating Scale) in order to account for potential methodological differences. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory. Results—Depressive symptoms were a significant predictor of binge eating, disinhibition, and hunger. However, only disinhibition emerged as a significant mediator of the relationship between depressive symptoms and binge eating. Conclusions—Behavioral disinhibition, or a tendency toward overconsumption of food and challenges restraining impulses associated with a loss of control eating, may represent an important variable in determining the relation between depressive symptoms and binge eating, in bariatric surgery patients

Building Act Reform for Building Users

The Building Act 1991 established the New Zealand government’s role in ensuring the safety, health, independence and well-being of building users. To this end, the 1991 Act and subsequent iterations recognise that people with disabilities need buildings that meet disability design standards. However, these standards are not required for the design of private dwellings. This article uncovers the historical practices that made such exclusion acceptable, and challenges policymakers to rethink the relationship between government, private dwellings and the health and wealth of the nation. The purpose is to highlight flaws in the framing of the review of the current Building Act, identify critical questions that need to be addressed by policy analysts, and call for a full review of the Act’s failure to achieve its stated purposes

The effects of low protein during gestation on mouse pancreatic development and beta cell regeneration

Beta cells are partially replaced in neonatal rodents after deletion with streptozotocin (STZ). Exposure of pregnant rats to a low protein (LP) diet impairs endocrine pancreas development in the offspring, leading to glucose intolerance in adulthood. Our objective was to determine whether protein restriction has a similar effect on the offspring in mice, and if this alters the capacity for beta cell regeneration after STZ. Pregnant Balb/c mice were fed a control (C) (20% protein) or an isocaloric LP (8% protein) diet during gestation. Pups were given 35 mg/kg STZ (or vehicle) from d 1 to 5 for each dietary treatment. Histologic analysis showed that C-fed offspring had largely replaced beta cell mass (BCM) after STZ by d 30, but this was not sustained over time. Female LP-fed offspring showed an initial increase in BCM by d 14 but developed glucose intolerance by d 130. In contrast, male LP offspring showed no changes in BCM or glucose tolerance. However, LP exposure limited the capacity for recovery of BCM in both genders after STZ treatment. Copyright © 2010 International Pediatric Research Foundation, Inc