From farm to fraternity

In this study I present my examination of young men from rural backgrounds and family farms who joined agricultural-based fraternities in college and the experiences they have at a large Midwestern university. I utilized Terenzini and Reason's (2005) conceptual framework of influences and outcomes on student's college experience. Through a qualitative research study, I applied this framework to explore the perception of the rural and farm family background on the student's college experience, and how the students saw the fraternity influence their persistence through college. Students interviewed felt their rural background gave them a strong work ethic and family connection. They were unimpressed with the University of Missouri recruiting efforts in their rural areas. Students interviewed also expressed that their rural high schools did not prepare them for the rigor of college. In this study, I recommend rural centric recruiting that starts with utilizing college recruiters familiar with the issues of rural students. I further recommend rural-centered student programming, including a rural student orientation and developing rural student-centered career programming

How Students use Mathematical Resources in an Electrostatics Context

We present evidence that although students’ mathematical skills in introductory calculus-based physics classes may not be readily applied in physics contexts, these students have strong mathematical resources on which to build effective instruction. Our evidence is based on clinical interviews of problem solving in electrostatics, which are analyzed using the framework of Sherin’s symbolic forms. We find that students use notions of “dependence” and “parts-of-a-whole” to successfully guide their work, even in novel situations. We also present evidence that students’ naive conceptions of the limit may prevent them from viewing integrals as sums

Discursive Struggles in Families Formed through Visible Adoption: An Exploration of Dialectical Unity

Grounded in the interpretive paradigm and framed by relational dialectics theory, the present study addressed the question: What discourses interpenetrate to reflect dialectical unity as parents communicate about their child’s adoption? Interviews with 40 parents across 31 visibly adoptive families—families with an obvious lack of biological connection—highlighted four instances of dialectical unity resulting from the following discursive struggles: (a) pride and imperfection; (b) love, constraint, and sacrifice; (c) difference, pride, and enrichment; and (d) legitimacy, expansion, similarity, and difference. Each struggle contains seemingly disparate discourses that, in combination, contribute to how parents discursively make sense of adoption. Practical implications of these findings are discussed to provide insight to researchers, educators, and members of visibly adoptive families

Discursive Struggles in Families Formed through Visible Adoption: An Exploration of Dialectical Unity

Grounded in the interpretive paradigm and framed by relational dialectics theory, the present study addressed the question: What discourses interpenetrate to reflect dialectical unity as parents communicate about their child’s adoption? Interviews with 40 parents across 31 visibly adoptive families—families with an obvious lack of biological connection—highlighted four instances of dialectical unity resulting from the following discursive struggles: (a) pride and imperfection; (b) love, constraint, and sacrifice; (c) difference, pride, and enrichment; and (d) legitimacy, expansion, similarity, and difference. Each struggle contains seemingly disparate discourses that, in combination, contribute to how parents discursively make sense of adoption. Practical implications of these findings are discussed to provide insight to researchers, educators, and members of visibly adoptive families

Quantum Chaos: Spectral Fluctuations and Overlap Distributions of the Three Level Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick Model

We test the prediction that quantum systems with chaotic classical analogs have spectral fluctuations and overlap distributions equal to those of the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE). The subject of our study is the three level Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model of nuclear physics. This model differs from previously investigated systems because the quantum basis and classical phase space are compact, and the classical Hamiltonian has quartic momentum dependence. We investigate the dynamics of the classical analog to identify values of coupling strength and energy ranges for which the motion is chaotic, quasi-chaotic, and quasi-integrable. We then analyze the fluctuation properties of the eigenvalues for those same energy ranges and coupling strength, and we find that the chaotic eigenvalues are in good agreement with GOE fluctuations, while the quasi-integrable and quasichaotic levels fluctuations are closer to the Poisson fluctuations that are predicted for integrable systems. We also study the distribution of the overlap of a chaotic eigenvector with a basis vector, and find that in some cases it is a Gaussian random variable as predicted by GOE. This result, however, is not universal. </p

Advancing Transdisciplinary and Translational Research Practice: Issues and Models of Doctoral Education in Public Health

Finding solutions to complex health problems, such as obesity, violence, and climate change, will require radical changes in cross-disciplinary education, research, and practice. The fundamental determinants of health include many interrelated factors such as poverty, culture, education, environment, and government policies. However, traditional public health training has tended to focus more narrowly on diseases and risk factors, and has not adequately leveraged the rich contributions of sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, communication, political science, and other disciplines. Further, students are often not sufficiently trained to work across sectors to translate research findings into effective, large-scale sustainable actions. During the past 2 decades, national and international organizations have called for more effective interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and translational approaches to graduate education. Although it has been difficult to work across traditional academic boundaries, some promising models draw on pedagogical theory and feature cross-disciplinary training focused on real-world problems, linkage between research, professional practice, community action, and cultivation of leadership skills. We describe the development the Doctor of Public Health program at the University of California, Berkeley, USA and its efforts to improve transdisciplinary and translational research education. We stress the need for international collaboration to improve educational approaches and better evaluate their impact

Do the Benefits of Family-to-Work Transitions Come at Too Great a Cost?

This research examines the impact of role boundary management on the work-family interface, as well as on organizational (job embeddedness) and family (relationship tension) outcomes. First, we integrate conservation of resources theory with crossover theory, to build a theoretical model of work-family boundary management. Second, we extend prior work by exploring positive and negative paths through which boundary management affects work and family outcomes. Third, we incorporate spouse perceptions to create a dynamic, systems-perspective explanation of the work-family interface. Using a matched sample of 639 job incumbents and their spouses, we found that family-to-work boundary transitions was related to the job incumbents\u27 work-to-family conflict, work-to-family enrichment, and job embeddedness as well as the boundary management strain transmitted to the spouse. We also found that the boundary management strain transmitted to the spouse mediated the relationship between family-to-work boundary transitions and both work-to-family conflict and work-to-family enrichment. Finally, we found significant indirect effects between family-to-work boundary transitions and job embeddedness and relationship tension through both the boundary management strain transmitted to the spouse and the incumbent\u27s work-family conflict, but not through work-family enrichment. Thus, family-to-work boundary transitions offer some benefits to the organization by contributing to job embeddedness, but they also come at a cost in that they are associated with work-family conflict and relationship tension. We discuss the study\u27s implications for theory, research, and practice while suggesting new research directions

The Role of Habit, Childhood Consumption, Familiarity and Attitudes Across Seafood Consumption Segments in Australia

Australian consumers hold very favorable attitudes toward seafood, with key drivers to consumption being taste, convenience, diet variety, and health benefits. Nevertheless, despite these positive attitudes, seafood consumption remains below many other countries. In this article, we investigate the influence of habit including regular childhood consumption, familiarity with seafood, and attitudes toward seafood on seafood consumption and consumption occasions. Habit and lack of familiarity with seafood were found to lead to lower levels of seafood consumption, whereas positive attitudes toward seafood were associated with more regular seafood consumption. People who consumed seafood on a regular basis as a child were more likely to be more familiar with seafood and be in the habit of consuming seafood in adulthood. Patterns of childhood consumption occasions were found to be associated with adult consumption occasions. Based on these findings, we discuss possible strategies and behavioral interventions for further investigation, which are grounded in habit theory and are aimed at changing seafood eating habits, increasing childhood consumption, and reducing the lack of familiarity with seafood