College Students\u27 Attitudes on Neighborhood Integration: From the Classroom to the Community and Back Again

I grew up in an all white suburb, well, almost all white. There were two black families that literally lived on the wrong side of the tracks. Two large run-down old houses sat within five feet of the rumbling trains. Sometimes my family drove past those houses in our old station wagon. On days that our drive was interrupted by a crossing train, I would watch the barefoot black children playing by the street. I never thought of our suburb as being segregated, at least not until I was in high school

Learning from one another: the U.S. and European banking experience

Banking structure ; European Economic Community

Gender differences in adolescents' academic motivation and classroom behaviour

© 2013 Taylor & Francis. The present study investigated gender differences in adolescents’ academic motivation and classroom behaviour and gender differences in the extent to which motivation was associated with, and predicted, classroom behaviour. Seven hundred and fifty students (384 boys and 366 girls) aged 11–16 (M age = 14.0, 1.59 SD) completed a questionnaire examining academic motivation and teachers completed assessments of their classroom behaviour. Girls generally reported higher levels of academic motivation, whilst teacher reports of behaviour were poorer for boys. Interestingly, boys’ reported levels of academic motivation were significantly more closely associated with teacher reports of their classroom behaviour. Furthermore, cognitive aspects of boys’ motivation were better predictors of their classroom behaviour than behavioural aspects. On the other hand, behavioural aspects of girls’ motivation were better predictors of their behaviour. Implications for understanding the relationship between motivation and behaviour among adolescent boys and girls are discussed, in addition to interventions aimed at improving adolescents’ classroom behaviour

Shared geriatric mental health care in a rural community

Introduction: A pilot project in shared mental health care was initiated to explore opportunities to increase the capacity of the rural primary care system as a resource for older people with mental health needs. This was done within a framework for the delivery of best practices in geriatric mental health outreach. Methods: Shared-care strategies combining education and clinical consultation between mentor psychiatrists and family physicians were implemented and then evaluated after one year to identify key factors in the success of approaches to shared mental health care for older people in a rural setting. Results: Results provided new insights into shared care between primary care and specialty geriatric mental health services, rural geriatric mental health service delivery, developmental phases in service learning approaches, and building knowledge networks to promote continuing best practices. Conclusion: The results from the project's process evaluation have been integrated into the development of a permanent shared geriatric mental health care service for the rural setting. Preparation for an outcome evaluation that will focus on the impact on patient care has also been initiated

Family Environment Externalizing and Internalizing Behaviors Among Adolescents in St. Lucia

The family is uniquely positioned either to positively or negatively influence the well-being, development, and adjustment of adolescents. There is a considerable body of research in the general literature associating the family environment with adolescent externalizing and internalizing behaviors of adolescents. St. Lucia, and the rest of the Caribbean, have distinctive cultural and familial habits and patterns that may influence adolescents\u27 behavior. However, little or no attention has been given to assessing empirically the role that family dynamics may play in adolescents\u27 behavior on the island of St. Lucia. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the family environment and internalizing or depression withdrawn, and somatic symptoms and externalizing behaviors or rule breaking and aggression among adolescents in St. Lucia. The sample was drawn from nine secondary schools and a total of 597 students and their parents also participated in the study. Result of multiple regression analysis revealed that family environment plays a complex role in its impact on adolescents internalizing and externalizing behaviors. That is, while system maintenance is inversely related to internalizing behaviors, relationship and personal growth are unrelated to this outcome. In contrast, relationship, personal growth, and systems maintenance are all unrelated to externalizing behaviors. Additional analyses of the subscales for the predictor and outcome variables suggest relationships that were not indicated by the composite variables. Future research might include variables that are descriptive of the family environment, such as number of siblings and family structure that were not included in this study. The results of this study points to the importance of a comprehensive assessment of family environment in predicting adolescents\u27 behaviors in St. Lucia, and offer important implications for theory, research, and practice

Nitrogen oxides and PAN in plumes from boreal fires during ARCTAS-B and their impact on ozone: an integrated analysis of aircraft and satellite observations

We determine enhancement ratios for NO_x, PAN, and other NO_y species from boreal biomass burning using aircraft data obtained during the ARCTAS-B campaign and examine the impact of these emissions on tropospheric ozone in the Arctic. We find an initial emission factor for NO_x of 1.06 g NO per kg dry matter (DM) burned, much lower than previous observations of boreal plumes, and also one third the value recommended for extratropical fires. Our analysis provides the first observational confirmation of rapid PAN formation in a boreal smoke plume, with 40% of the initial NO_x emissions being converted to PAN in the first few hours after emission. We find little clear evidence for ozone formation in the boreal smoke plumes during ARCTAS-B in either aircraft or satellite observations, or in model simulations. Only a third of the smoke plumes observed by the NASA DC8 showed a correlation between ozone and CO, and ozone was depleted in the plumes as often as it was enhanced. Special observations from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) also show little evidence for enhanced ozone in boreal smoke plumes between 15 June and 15 July 2008. Of the 22 plumes observed by TES, only 4 showed ozone increasing within the smoke plumes, and even in those cases it was unclear that the increase was caused by fire emissions. Using the GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry model, we show that boreal fires during ARCTAS-B had little impact on the median ozone profile measured over Canada, and had little impact on ozone within the smoke plumes observed by TES