Alternative Therapies for People with Special Needs: An Emphasis on Animal-Assisted Therapies

This paper contains research examining the effectiveness of alternative therapies - play therapy, art therapy, music therapy, horticulture therapy, and animal-assisted therapies – in helping various special needs populations. The focus of this research was on animal-assisted therapies that utilized therapy dogs or horses. These therapies provide a plethora of benefits physically, mentally, and psychologically. 11 interviews were conducted with counselors, psychologists, therapy dog owners, and an equine therapy director to further examine the effectiveness of these alternative therapy programs. Each interview presented unique evidence of the positive impact these therapies are having on various populations. All research into these therapy programs indicated confidence as a major benefit for their participants. These alternative therapy programs are demonstrating evidence of their effectiveness through the achievements of the therapeutic goals and confidence gained by their participants

The Zika Virus Threat: How Concerns About Scientists May Undermine Efforts to Combat the Pandemic

Using data from the University of New Hampshire’s October 2016 Granite State Poll, authors Thomas Safford, Lawrence Hamilton, and Emily Whitmore investigate how New Hampshire residents view the Zika crisis. They report that most New Hampshire residents believe Zika is only a minor threat to public health in the United States, and they generally trust the CDC as a source of information about the virus. The data also show that, while there is doubt about the government’s ability to control the spread of the virus, the public feels that emergency federal funding to combat Zika should be a priority. They discuss that many Granite Staters have real concerns about the practice of science, believing scientists change their findings to get the answers they want. More importantly, individuals who questioned the integrity of scientists are less likely to believe Zika is a threat, have confidence in the government’s ability to combat the virus, trust the CDC, and to prioritize emergency funding. They conclude that these results suggest that health officials working to engage the public in efforts to control the spread of Zika must not only discuss risks associated with the virus and mechanisms of transmission, but also confront science skepticism and potential concerns about the integrity of the scientists gathering data related to Zika and other infectious diseases

Substrate-Borne Communication in Chameleons: Do Vibrations Induce Behavioral Changes?

Understanding the modes of communication used by a species is essential to understanding their ecology, behavior, and evolution. Substrate-borne vibrations have been reported to be produced by the veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), possibly implemented by use of a gular pouch. We found that veiled chameleons produced vibrations under dominance and mating behavioral contexts. We tested the sensitivity of veiled chameleons to vibrations by placing chameleons, one at a time, on a wooden dowel attached to a permanent magnetic shaker and recording each chameleon’s behavior before, during, and after a three-pulse vibrational stimulus of 25, 50, 150, 300, or 600 Hz. Vibrations were measured via an accelerometer attached to the dowel. The chameleons exhibited a stop-behavioral response (i.e., lack of movement) when exposed to stimulus of 50 and 150 Hz. Further experiments testing behavioral responses at lower (25 Hz) and higher (300 and 600 Hz) frequencies showed little to no reduction in movement. For induced sounds produced by chameleons, there was no significant correlation between size of the chameleon and average dominant vibrational frequency or duration of a vibrational pulse and dominant frequency. Chameleon vibrational response was also studied under various behavioral contexts by pairing chameleons on a dowel and recording the natural vibrational responses of chameleons under these conditions via an accelerometer. The pairing of chameleons in various behavioral contexts, including male-male, male-female, and interspecific interactions resulted in natural vibrational responses that were much shorter in duration and more pulse-like than the induced low-frequency tonal vibrations previously studied in C. calyptratus, suggesting the possibility of different types of vibrational responses. These findings improve the understanding of vi behavioral responses between chameleons, and can be utilized as a basis for further research into the morphology and physiology of chameleons

Adapting the community sector for climate extremes

Abstract People experiencing poverty and inequality will be affected first and worst by the impacts of climate change to infrastructure and human settlements, including those caused by increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events and natural disasters. They have the least capacity to cope, to adapt, to move and to recover. Community service organisations (CSOs) play a critical role in supporting individuals, families and communities experiencing poverty and inequality to build resilience and respond to adverse changes in circumstances. As such, the services they provide comprise a critical component of social infrastructure in human settlements. However, very little is understood about CSOs own vulnerability to – or their role in managing and mitigating risks to their clients and the community from – climate change impacts to physical infrastructure. The Extreme Weather, Climate Change and the Community Sector – Risks and Adaptations project examined the relationship between physical and social infrastructure (in the form of CSO service provision). Specifically, the ways in which the climate-driven failure of CSO service delivery worsens risks to the individuals and communities they serve and, on the other hand, how preparedness may reduce vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather impacts to human settlements and infrastructure.The research comprised a comprehensive and critical scoping, examination and review of existing research findings and an audit, examination and judgment-based evaluation of the current vulnerabilities and capacities of CSOs under projected climate change scenarios. It employed three key methods of consultation and data collection. A literature review examined research conducted to date in Australia and comparative countries internationally on the vulnerability and climate change adaptation needs of CSOs. A program of 10 Community Sector Professional Climate Workshops consulted over 150 CSO representatives to develop a qualitative record of extreme event and climate change risks and corresponding adaptation strategies specific to CSOs. A national survey of CSOs, which resulted in the participation of approximately 500 organisations, produced a quantitative data set about the nature of CSO vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather impacts to infrastructure, whether and how CSOs are approaching the adaptation task and key barriers to adaptation.While the methods employed and the absence of empirical data sets quantifying CSO vulnerability to climate change impacts create limitations to the evidence-base produced, findings from the research suggest that CSOs are highly vulnerable and not well prepared to respond to climate change and extreme weather impacts to physical infrastructure and that this underlying organisational vulnerability worsens the vulnerability of people experiencing poverty and inequality to climate change. However, the project results indicate that if well adapted, CSOs have the willingness, specialist skills, assets and capacity to make a major contribution to the resilience and adaptive capacity of their clients and the community more broadly (sections of which will be plunged into adversity by extreme events). Despite this willingness, the evidence presented shows that few CSOs have undertaken significant action to prepare for climate change and worsening extreme weather events. Key barriers to adaptation identified through the research are inadequate financial resources, lack of institutionalised knowledge and skills for adaptation and the belief that climate change adaptation is beyond the scope of CSOs core business. On the other hand, key indicators of organisational resilience to climate change and extreme weather impacts include: level of knowledge about extreme weather risks, past experience of an extreme weather event and organisational size.Given its size, scope and the critical role the Australian community sector plays in building client and community resilience and in assisting communities to respond to and recover from the devastating impacts of extreme weather events and natural disasters, the research identifies serious gaps in both the policy frameworks and the research base required to ensure the sector’s resilience and adaptive capacity – gaps which appear to have already had serious consequences. To address these gaps, a series of recommendations has been prepared to enable the development and implementation of a comprehensive, sector-specific adaptation and preparedness program, which includes mechanisms to institutionalise knowledge and skills, streamlined tools appropriate to the needs and capacity of a diverse range of organisations and a benchmarking system to allow progress towards resilience and preparedness to be monitored. Future research priorities for adaptation in this sector have also been identified

Magazines targeting young men : men's objectification of and attitudes toward women

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on July 27, 2009)Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2008.The purpose of this study was to expand knowledge regarding the effects of viewing Lad magazines on men. Specifically, this study was the first to examine men's reactions to Lad magazines, a relatively new and popular genre of lifestyle magazines targeted at eighteen to twenty-six year old men, including the U.S. titles Maxim, FHM (For Him Magazine), and Stuff. This study examined whether Maxim magazine had an effect on men's attitudes toward women, attitudes about dating and relationships, objectification of women, and dating norms and expectations. This study also examined whether conformity to a traditional male gender role norm predicted these attitudinal changes. One hundred and one college males enrolled at the University of Missouri were exposed to either Maxim magazine or National Geographic Adventure magazine. Attitudes toward women, attitudes about dating and relationships, objectification of women, and dating norms and expectations were assessed, along with conformity to masculine gender role norms. Repeated measures ANOVAs and repeated measures ANCOVAs did not demonstrate significant effects of viewing the magazines. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.Includes bibliographical reference

Do stories need critics? Environmental storyism and the ends of ecocriticism

Story, storytelling, and storying are exceptionally privileged concepts in contemporary environmental arts, humanities and social sciences research. This provocation does not set out to exhaustively describe the function of story across so large and diverse a scholarly array. It aims instead to characterise the particular, widespread tendency to posit the making of new stories, or the transforming of extant stories, or the ‘storying’ of a particular issue, place, or dilemma as the ultimate ends of environmental humanities work. We call this tendency ‘storyism’. In its broadest sense, our project attempts to construct a transdisciplinary genealogy of ‘storyism’ in relation to environmental concerns, as well as to comprehend its institutional and disciplinary orientations. For the limited purposes of this paper, we explore how ecocriticism, a field primarily interested in reading, interpreting and critiquing story, relates to the methodological innovation we describe. We hypothesise that ecocritical discourses have ironically undermined their critical values by producing and reproducing a storyist teleology which understands the generation of more, new narratives as ultimately, if not singularly, useful. We conclude by suggesting some ways in which literary ecocriticism can break out of this habit while still participating in the wider interdisciplinary field

Separability of double cosets and conjugacy classes in 3-manifold groups

Let M = H^3 / \Gamma be a hyperbolic 3-manifold of finite volume. We show that if H and K are abelian subgroups of \Gamma and g is in \Gamma, then the double coset HgK is separable in \Gamma. As a consequence we prove that if M is a closed, orientable, Haken 3-manifold and the fundamental group of every hyperbolic piece of the torus decomposition of M is conjugacy separable then so is the fundamental group of M. Invoking recent work of Agol and Wise, it follows that if M is a compact, orientable 3-manifold then \pi_1(M) is conjugacy separable.Comment: 25 pages; incorporates Agol's solution to the Virtually Haken Conjecture to prove conjugacy separability for all 3-manifold groups; to appear in the Journal of the LM

Infinitely many virtual geometric triangulations

We prove that every cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold has a finite cover admitting infinitely many geometric ideal triangulations. Furthermore, every long Dehn filling of one cusp in this cover admits infinitely many geometric ideal triangulations. This cover is constructed in several stages, using results about separability of peripheral subgroups and their double cosets, in addition to a new conjugacy separability theorem that may be of independent interest. The infinite sequence of geometric triangulations is supported in a geometric submanifold associated to one cusp, and can be organized into an infinite trivalent tree of Pachner moves.Comment: 31 pages 4 figures, version 2 removes some typos and has minor changes in exposition. This paper has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Topolog

Infinitely many virtual geometric triangulations

We prove that every cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold has a finite cover admitting infinitely many geometric ideal triangulations. Furthermore, every long Dehn filling of one cusp in this cover admits infinitely many geometric ideal triangulations. This cover is constructed in several stages, using results about separability of peripheral subgroups and their double cosets, in addition to a new conjugacy separability theorem that may be of independent interest. The infinite sequence of geometric triangulations is supported in a geometric submanifold associated to one cusp, and can be organized into an infinite trivalent tree of Pachner moves.Mathematic

Can we better understand the experience and outcome of complex neurodevelopmental assessment by considering the perspectives of both parents and clinicians?

This study aims to examine the lived experiences of four parents accompanying their child in a complex neurodevelopmental assessment. It attempts to understand what the parents experienced in the assessment particularly in relation to the clinicians and why, and how this might contribute to the outcome of the assessment. Free Association Narrative Interview (FANI) method and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used. FANI is designed to work with defended subjects, and IPA aids the researcher to identify themes that may not be apparent at first. As well as interviewing parents, the staff group of assessing clinicians were interviewed within a focus group. This aimed at understanding their counter-transferential responses to the parents in the assessment situation. This had the goal of understanding the parents' unconscious communications and motivations within assessment to further inform on the parent’s experience. It is hoped that this additional data will inform on the outcome and feedback aspects of the assessment by enlightening why clinicians might make decisions or process the assessment in particular ways. The following themes are described, with the first three belonging to the parents and a further three belonging to the clinicians: 1. Parental trauma and the role in the child’s difficulties. 2. Difficulty, uncertainty and the development of epistemic trust. 3. A persecuted state of mind: how assessment effects parental sense of self and clinician. 1. The clinicians’ experience of knowledge and power. 2. The presence and management of parental trauma in the assessment framework. 3. The need for time in processing conflict and coming to a conclusion. These themes are examined in relation to current research as well as psychoanalytic literature of internal processes. There are conclusive remarks around the presence of defensive states in parents as well as in clinicians which hinder the understanding of the child’s difficulties and there is discussion around why this may be. Recommendations for coping with the increasing demand for neurodevelopmental assessment are made by way of linking what parents want to what it appears they might need