Negotiating agency and personal narrative in clinical social work practice : a qualitative study investigating how clinicians\u27 experiences of multiple narratives influence their clinical work

This exploratory qualitative research study investigated clinical social workers\u27 experiences negotiating agency and personal narrative in their clinical work in community mental health centers (CMHCs). Through three broad research questions, the researcher gathered narrative data which explored the influence of organizational context on clinical work. The study was informed theoretically by organizational systems literature and psychodynamic literature regarding functioning in organizations, and methodologically by narrative theory concepts. Open-ended, naturalistic interviews were conducted with twelve clinical social workers who worked in CMHCs. Three broad themes emerged in the findings: 1) participants\u27 perceptions of agency narrative; 2) participants\u27 narratives about themselves, their clients, and their work; and 3) participants\u27 negotiations of the interplay between agency and personal narratives, and the influence of this negotiation on clinical work. The findings generally support the notion that social workers\u27 experiences in CMHCs are complex and evocative, due in part to ideological and sociopolitical shifts in the mental health service context and wide splits between organizational subsystems. Generally, participants articulated that organizational context influences the way in which social work services are delivered in CMHCs, although factors such as experience level, the strength of the worker\u27s personal narrative, and awareness of conflicting narratives mediated this influence to some extent

Authentic and Play-Acted Vocal Emotion Expressions Reveal Acoustic Differences

Play-acted emotional expressions are a frequent aspect in our life, ranging from deception to theater, film, and radio drama, to emotion research. To date, however, it remained unclear whether play-acted emotions correspond to spontaneous emotion expressions. To test whether acting influences the vocal expression of emotion, we compared radio sequences of naturally occurring emotions to actors’ portrayals. It was hypothesized that play-acted expressions were performed in a more stereotyped and aroused fashion. Our results demonstrate that speech segments extracted from play-acted and authentic expressions differ in their voice quality. Additionally, the play-acted speech tokens revealed a more variable F0-contour. Despite these differences, the results did not support the hypothesis that the variation was due to changes in arousal. This analysis revealed that differences in perception of play-acted and authentic emotional stimuli reported previously cannot simply be attributed to differences in arousal, but by slight and implicitly perceptible differences in encoding

Renovations and how ADA updates were addressed at an academic institution

After a three-year renovation of the Chester Fritz Library, the presenters were tasked with reviewing the building for updates done and how they addressed needs within the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This presentation covers pre-renovation concerns, what changes were made, the process used to determine the criteria if an issue had been resolved, and what their next steps are going forward.https://commons.und.edu/cfl-lpp/1017/thumbnail.jp

High calcium chemically defined culture medium

A high calcium chemically defined animal cell culture medium including vitamins A and D and a fatty acid or its ester. The medium is particularly adapted for the primary or secondary culture of epithelial cells. However, the medium may be utilized for establishing and maintaining cell lines, in particular myelomae and hybridomae.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Unraveling the influence of trial-based motivational changes on performance monitoring stages in a flanker task

Performance monitoring (PM) is a vital component of adaptive behavior and known to be influenced by motivation. We examined effects of potential gain (PG) and loss avoidance (LA) on neural correlates of PM at different processing stages, using a task with trial-based changes in these motivational contexts. Findings suggest more attention is allocated to the PG context, with higher amplitudes for respective correlates of stimulus and feedback processing. The PG context favored rapid responses, while the LA context emphasized accurate responses. Lower response thresholds in the PG context after correct responses derived from a drift–diffusion model also indicate a more approach-oriented response style in the PG context. This cognitive shift is mirrored in neural correlates: negative feedback in the PG context elicited a higher feedback-related negativity (FRN) and higher theta power, whereas positive feedback in the LA context elicited higher P3a and P3b amplitudes, as well as higher theta power. There was no effect of motivational context on response-locked brain activity. Given the similar frequency of negative feedback in both contexts, the elevated FRN and theta power in PG trials cannot be attributed to variations in reward prediction error. The observed variations in the FRN indicate that the effect of outcome valence is modulated by motivational salience