Using experimental design modules for process characterization in manufacturing/materials processes laboratories

Modules dealing with statistical experimental design (SED), process modeling and improvement, and response surface methods have been developed and tested in two laboratory courses. One course was a manufacturing processes course in Mechanical Engineering and the other course was a materials processing course in Materials Science and Engineering. Each module is used as an 'experiment' in the course with the intent that subsequent course experiments will use SED methods for analysis and interpretation of data. Evaluation of the modules' effectiveness has been done by both survey questionnaires and inclusion of the module methodology in course examination questions. Results of the evaluation have been very positive. Those evaluation results and details of the modules' content and implementation are presented. The modules represent an important component for updating laboratory instruction and to provide training in quality for improved engineering practice

Factor Structure and Administration Measurement Invariance of the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness Scale in Latino College Samples: Paper-Pencil Versus Internet Administrations.

The psychometric properties of the paper–pencil and online versions of the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness Scale (BTMI) were examined in two studies with Latina/o individuals. In Study 1, 316 Latina/o participants completed the BTMI in a paper–pencil mode. The original three-factor model was found to be a poor fit model for the sample. Subsequent exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses identified a four-factor model as the best fitting model for the sample. The identified factors were Dangerousness, Social Dysfunction, Incurability, and Embarrassment. In Study 2, the identified best fit model was tested with 280 Latina/o participants who completed the BTMI online. The four-factor model had adequate fit. A series of measurement invariance tests on the fit model supported equal factor loadings, but rejected equivalent intercepts across paper–pencil and online administration methods, though partially equivalent intercepts and residuals were found. Consequently, modality-specific norms are recommended, depending on whether paper–pencil or online venues are utilized for administration

A Longitudinal Investigation of the Efficacy of Online Expressive Writing Interventions for Hispanic Students Exposed to Traumatic Events: Competing Theories of Action

Objective: Although expressive writing (EW) appears efficacious for treating a range of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms including diagnosed PTSD, little is known about its efficacy when offered online and for ethnic/cultural minority populations such as Hispanic individuals. The current study examined the longitudinal effects of two online EW tasks for treating PTS symptoms in a Hispanic student sample. Design: Seventy-one participants who had experienced a traumatic event were randomly assigned to either an emotion-focused (EM) writing group or a fact-focused (FC) writing group and completed online writing sessions for three consecutive days. Participants completed online assessments at 1-week, 1-month, and 3-month follow-ups. The PTSD Checklist–DSM-5 version was used to assess PTS symptoms. Results: Both groups reported statistically significant reductions in severity of PTS symptoms at 1-week follow-up with the EM group demonstrating statistically significantly greater symptom reductions than the FC group. Differential longitudinal effects over the 3-month follow-up periods were found for some PTS domains, with the EM group showing superior improvements relative to the FC group. Conclusion: EW delivered online can be useful for Hispanic individuals with PTS symptoms following traumatic life events. Further, the current findings align with an inhibitory learning model for explaining EW’s mechanism of action

Beliefs about Mental Illness in a Spanish Speaking Latinx American Sample

The US Hispanic population is large and rapidly growing, with serious healthcare disparities. Alarmingly, 67% of Hispanic adults with a mental illness go untreated. Attempts to increase treatment rates have had limited success, likely partly due to stigma beliefs. There is an urgent need to develop and utilize a Spanish language stigma assessment tool. The current study is the first to do so, translating the Beliefs Toward Mental Illness (BTMI; Hirai et al., 2018) scale into Spanish (S-BTMI). Our psychometric findings with English-Spanish bilingual Latinx undergraduate students suggest that the S-BTMI can be a reliable measure of mental illness stigma. The BTMI’s 4-factor solution was confirmed by the S-BTMI. Language invariance tests for the S-BTMI and BTMI demonstrated metric invariance and partial scalar invariance. The S-BTMI’s factors produced strong internal consistency and two-week test-retest reliability. A previous Latinx sample’s BTMI scores were similar to the current S-BTMI scores, except for greater endorsement of incurability beliefs for the Spanish version. Average stigma levels were fairly low in the current sample. Use of the BTMI-S can improve our understanding of stigma, and its relationships to language, culture, acculturation, and treatment-seeking in Latinx communities

The Shadows of Immobility: Low-Wage Work, Single Mothers' Lives and Workplace Culture.

Contemporary American public policies targeted towards low-income single mothers reflect a presumption that steady employment in and of itself, even in the low-wage labor market, is the key to mobility. The experiences recounted in this dissertation challenge that presumption. Based on fifteen months of ethnographic research among single mothers working as nursing assistants at a care facility in southeastern Michigan, this dissertation reveals lives characterized by considerable economic hardships and social strains. Even long-term job tenure does little to diminish these struggles as the job’s structure (a structure typical of less-skilled service-sector jobs), combined with conditions in single mothers’ home lives, militates against significant wage or occupational mobility. This immobility creates economic and social tensions that permeate these mothers’ home and work lives. In this ethnography of the social experience of immobility, I explore how the immobility of these nursing assistant jobs joins together the economic and social world of the workplace with the economic and social worlds of the single mothers in both predictable and unexpected ways. I document, for example, the quandaries the wages pose for women’s home lives and how women handle these. But, uniquely, I also show how tensions engendered by low wages and immobility feedback into and are managed within the workplace. I demonstrate that workers’ economic and social struggles are not only recognized by management but are incorporated into workplace practices in ways that help contain and depoliticize their disruptive potential. I also highlight ways in which neo-liberalism and speculative capitalism (and the market-based, individualized orientations they promote) encourage both the mothers and management to embrace remedies to the immobility of these jobs that depend on individual effort and market opportunities. Within the workplace this can be seen in management’s endorsement of extra-work, postsecondary educational endeavors. The improbability of such endeavors for most mothers, however, leads some to devise “alternative” strategies for transforming their circumstances involving on-line dating, membership in a multi-level marketing sales organization, and participation in the subprime mortgage market; strategies that can expose mothers to significant risk. This dissertation suggests the limits of individualized, market-based remedies in ameliorating larger inequalities.Ph.D.Social Work and AnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60819/1/kimclum_1.pd

Attentional bias towards threat in sexually victimized Hispanic women: A dot probe study

Objective: The current study examined attention bias toward threat in Hispanic college women exposed to lifetime sexual victimization in childhood, adulthood, and both childhood and adulthood. Response latencies and attention bias scores were compared between victimized and non-victimized individuals. Design: Participants were 20 women exposed to adulthood sexual victimization (AS group), 15 exposed to childhood sexual victimization (CS group), 8 exposed to both childhood and adulthood sexual assault (revictimization: RV group), and 20 not endorsing sexual victimization (NS group). They were asked to complete the dot-probe task. Results: The CS group and RV group were combined to create the CS-RV group. Among the AS and CS-RV groups, response latencies were faster when attention was engaged to threat than when attention was engaged to non-threat. The NS group did not demonstrate such differences. When response latencies were compared among the three groups, the CS-RV group had slower response latencies than the NS group. The CS-RV and AS groups revealed similarly significantly elevated bias scores towards threat words than the NS group. Conclusion: Hispanic college women exposed to lifetime sexual victimization display elevated levels of attention bias compared to non-victimized women. Further, the current findings align with an integrative cognitive model for explaining maladaptive informational processing in trauma victims

Strategies and outcomes of HIV status disclosure in HIV-positive young women with abuse histories

Young women with HIV and histories of physical and/or sexual abuse in childhood may be vulnerable to difficulties with disclosure to sexual partners. Abuse in childhood is highly prevalent in HIV-positive women, and has been associated with poorer communication, low assertiveness, low self worth, and increased risk for sexual and other risk behaviors that increase the risk of secondary transmission of HIV. HIV disclosure may be an important link between abuse and sexual risk behaviors. Qualitative interviews with 40 HIV-positive young women with childhood physical and/or sexual abuse were conducted; some women had also experienced adult victimization. Results suggest that HIV-positive women with abuse histories use a host of strategies to deal with disclosure of HIV status, including delaying disclosure, assessing hypothetical responses of partners, and determining appropriate stages in a relationship to disclose. Stigma was an important theme related to disclosure. We discuss how these disclosure processes impact sexual behavior and relationships and discuss intervention opportunities based on our findings

One Complete and Seven Draft Genome Sequences of Subdivision 1 and 3 Acidobacteria Isolated from Soil.

We report eight genomes from representatives of the phylum Acidobacteria subdivisions 1 and 3, isolated from soils. The genome sizes range from 4.9 to 6.7 Mb. Genomic analysis reveals putative genes for low- and high-affinity respiratory oxygen reductases, high-affinity hydrogenases, and the capacity to use a diverse collection of carbohydrates

Metatranscriptomic Sequencing of a Cyanobacterial Soil-Surface Consortium with and without a Diverse Underlying Soil Microbiome.

Soil surface consortia are easily observed and sampled, allowing examination of their interactions with soil microbiomes. Here, we present metatranscriptomic sequences from Dark Green 1 (DG1), a cyanobacterium-based soil surface consortium, in the presence and absence of an underlying soil microbiome and/or urea