Acts of kindness in close relationships reduce depression

This study investigated the benefits of performing kind acts within close relationships. Practicing kindness has been shown to strengthen relationships and increase social support. It was expected to be particularly relevant for needy people who are driven by a need for closeness and are vulnerable to depression in the face of interpersonal stress. It was hypothesized that a short term, online kindness exercise would decrease depression and increase happiness in a community sample (at baseline N = 364), and would be particularly beneficial for individuals high on neediness. Participants were recruited online and randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Participants in the kindness condition performed a kind, loving gesture towards someone close and described the ensuing interaction; while participants in the control condition simply wrote about an interaction they had with someone close. Each exercise was repeated every second day for roughly three weeks. The kindness exercise was associated with significant decreases in depressive symptoms when compared to the control condition, and these decreases were maintained up to the two-month follow-up for the general sample. The findings for happiness were mixed and participants high on neediness did not show superior benefits over participants low on neediness from the kindness intervention. The results suggest that practicing kindness within the context of a close relationship can lead to general and sustained improvements in depression. Furthermore, this study offers support for the efficacy of brief, online interventions in the improvement of depressive symptoms

The Ethos of Agency: Exploring Questions of Communication and Categorization in Greece’s Refugee Crisis

This thesis focuses on the historical, social, and political constructions of the category of the refugee, specifically focusing on the recent “refugee crisis” in Greece. In the nearly seventy years since the UNHCR’s 1951 Convention, the historically determined definition of the refugee has yet to change in accordance with the political and geographic landscapes of the world. As a result, the lack of parallel between legal frameworks and the increased global flow of refugees have catalyzed protracted refugee situations. In the wake of the 2016 EU-Turkey Statement, one such protracted situation has emerged in Greece. As of Winter 2019, nearly 15,000 thousand individuals seeking asylum are being held on the Greek “hotspot” islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros, and Kos due to the country’s “containment policy.” The response to the migration “crisis,” in addition to the neoliberal management of the country’s economic depression, contextualize the space for communication and agency in the public sphere. Employing critical and anthropological theory, this thesis explores the permissible forms of communication and existing actors included in the public sphere, and how this in turn affects the agency and representation of asylum-seekers, migrants, and refugees in Greece. In particular, this thesis focuses on how solidarity initiatives which seek to dismantle traditional hierarchical dynamics of humanitarian aid not only work to bolster the agency of those they aid, but also renegotiate the realms of the “social” and the “political.

A Three-Factor Model of Personality Predicts Changes in Depression and Subjective Well-Being Following Positive Psychology Interventions

These studies investigated a new model of personality and its relationship to positive psychology interventions. Previous theoretical models and research into the structure of personality has seen disagreement concerning the true number of factors at the basis of personality. Furthermore, the link between personality and positive psychology interventions has been unclear. The following studies were undertaken to determine the structure of personality in a Canadian sample (N = 4375 at baseline) and to investigate how these personality factors predict depression, satisfaction with life, and affect following positive psychology interventions. Participants were recruited online and randomly assigned to one of ten exercise conditions which were performed every day for one week. Follow-ups were conducted one, three, and six months later. Using half of the sample (n = 2188), exploratory factor analysis was conducted on a comprehensive battery of personality questionnaires, which included measures of extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience (the five-factor model) in addition to neediness, self-criticism, efficacy, self-esteem, gratitude, self-compassion, and attachment styles. The resulting three-factor model was validated using confirmatory factor analysis with the second half of the sample (n = 2186). The best fitting model for personality involved a three-factor solution interpreted to represent Equanimity, Insecurity, and Agency. The factors were then included in a latent growth curve model to determine how personality interacted with positive psychology interventions to predict depression and subjective well-being, both at baseline and over time. The results support the validity of a three-factor model of personality. In addition, this model proved useful in the study of individual differences in responding to positive psychology interventions. Limitations of this research and future directions are discussed

Present status of development of damping ring extraction kicker system for CLIC

The CLIC damping rings will produce ultra-low emittance beam, with high bunch charge, necessary for the luminosity performance of the collider. To limit the beam emittance blow-up due to oscillations, the pulse power modulators for the damping ring kickers must provide extremely flat, high-voltage pulses: specifications call for a 160 ns duration and a flattop of 12.5 kV, 250 A, with a combined ripple and droop of not more than \pm0.02 %. The stripline design is also extremely challenging: the field for the damping ring kicker system must be homogenous to within \pm0.01 % over a 1 mm radius, and low beam coupling impedance is required. The solid-state modulator, the inductive adder, is a very promising approach to meeting the demanding specifications for the field pulse ripple and droop. This paper describes the initial design of the inductive adder and the striplines of the kicker system.Comment: Proceedings of LCWS'11, International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders, Granada, Spain 26-30 Sept 201

Somali Bibliography by Keyword 2012--

A bibliography of resources organized by topical keyword and published after 2012

Somali Bibliography 2012--

A bibliography of resources published before 2012, arranged alphabetically

THE UNCONVENTIONAL BALLET BODY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The Unconventional Ballet Body in the 21st Century represents the written portion of my thesis project in support of my dance choreography Bodily Intelligence, both requirements of the M.F.A. in Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park. Bodily Intelligence premiered on November 17th, 2022, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Dance Theatre. This research explores the impact of unconventionality of ballet in the 21st century and reveals how the search for the ideal body aesthetics has made it exclusive and disconnected from the current times. This paper highlights the influence of dance icons whose atypical aesthetics pushed the art form’s boundaries and contributed to its advancement towards a more inclusive world. It also examines the importance of racial diversity, inclusion, and gender non-conformism within the dance world and explores the impact of the corps de ballet in the current era. Moreover, the research describes how my choreographic influences and professional ballet experience feed into the creative process. It shines a light on my desire to work with a racially diverse cast with various dance training and highlights how their collaborative effort can redefine the future of ballet in the twenty-first century

An exploratory analysis of the sense of identity in four divergent South African school contexts

South African society is currently negotiating a new future. As a result, the sense of identity amongst all groups in South Africa may be undergoing change. This dissertation attempts to identify what type of sense of identity exists in pupils in four different school environments. These schools ranged from a racially integrated to an isolated and racially separate school. A review of the traditional literature on the self (or sense of identity), reveals that it does not allow for the possibility of change in a sense of identity, or the role that language and the social environment plays in the development of a sense of identity. As a result, Harrean and Sampsonian type thinking was used as the theoretical base of the research. Further, discourse analysis was the method of research used. Different schools were found to exhibit different senses of identity, and the implications of this are discussed.PsychologyM.A. (Psychology

Revisiting rho 1 Cancri e: A New Mass Determination Of The Transiting super-Earth

We present a mass determination for the transiting super-Earth rho 1 Cancri e based on nearly 700 precise radial velocity (RV) measurements. This extensive RV data set consists of data collected by the McDonald Observatory planet search and published data from Lick and Keck observatories (Fischer et al. 2008). We obtained 212 RV measurements with the Tull Coude Spectrograph at the Harlan J. Smith 2.7 m Telescope and combined them with a new Doppler reduction of the 131 spectra that we have taken in 2003-2004 with the High-Resolution-Spectrograph (HRS) at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) for the original discovery of rho 1 Cancri e. Using this large data set we obtain a 5-planet Keplerian orbital solution for the system and measure an RV semi-amplitude of K = 6.29 +/- 0.21 m/s for rho 1 Cnc e and determine a mass of 8.37 +/- 0.38 M_Earth. The uncertainty in mass is thus less than 5%. This planet was previously found to transit its parent star (Winn et al. 2011, Demory et al. 2011), which allowed them to estimate its radius. Combined with the latest radius estimate from Gillon et al. (2012), we obtain a mean density of rho = 4.50 +/- 0.20 g/cm^3. The location of rho 1 Cnc e in the mass-radius diagram suggests that the planet contains a significant amount of volitales, possibly a water-rich envelope surrounding a rocky core.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (the 300+ RV measurements will be published as online tables or can be obtained from the author