ON-THE-SPOT MINDFULNESS BASED PRACTICES FOR ADDRESSING BEHAVIOR CHALLENGES AMONG 3rd GRADERS

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to introduce and implement a mindfulness based tool that will empower students to manage their stress which contributes to their classroom behavior and allow teachers to minimize the amount of classroom time spent addressing behavior challenges. Methods: Observations of third grade classrooms, key informant interviews with third grade teachers and community observations were conducted at the Achieve Academy School while throughout the school day. Results: Findings showed that students would benefit from the implementation of On-The-Spot Mindfulness Based Techniques and Practices by minimizing stress, increasing academic success and improving the overall behavior, social, emotion and attention regulation skills of each student. Recommendations: Implementing mindfulness practices that are immediate and brief, taking anywhere from 3-5 minutes, would be most beneficial to the students as well as increase the likelihood of implementation by the teachers and Seneca staff. There are 5 activities that teachers will be able to choose from that consist of breathing exercises, mindful emotion, mindful role play, mindfulness yoga, and meditation. When implemented correctly, each activity will allow for the students to enhance their behavior, social, emotion and attention skills. Conclusions: The future implementation of On-The-Spot Mindfulness Techniques would allow for teachers to maximize their time teaching their students and for students to manage their behavior when in a crisis situation using a proactive approach instead of a reactive approach

Λ\LambdaCDM or self-interacting neutrinos? - how CMB data can tell the two models apart

Of the many proposed extensions to the $\Lambda$CDM paradigm, a model in which neutrinos self-interact until close to the epoch of matter-radiation equality has been shown to provide a good fit to current cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, while at the same time alleviating tensions with late-time measurements of the expansion rate and matter fluctuation amplitude. Interestingly, CMB fits to this model either pick out a specific large value of the neutrino interaction strength, or are consistent with the extremely weak neutrino interaction found in $\Lambda$CDM, resulting in a bimodal posterior distribution for the neutrino self-interaction cross section. In this paper, we explore why current cosmological data select this particular large neutrino self-interaction strength, and by consequence, disfavor intermediate values of the self-interaction cross section. We show how it is the $\ell \gtrsim 1000$ CMB temperature anisotropies, most recently measured by the Planck satellite, that produce this bimodality. We also establish that smaller scale temperature data, and improved polarization data measuring the temperature-polarization cross-correlation, will best constrain the neutrino self-interaction strength. We forecast that the upcoming Simons Observatory should be capable of distinguishing between the models.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, comments welcome, references added, version submitted to PR

Ancestra - Part of the Intersections Project

The vision of The Department of Theatre and Dance’s Intersection Project was to provide points of intersection between artists and community with experiences that all creative artists share, focusing especially on inter-generational exchanges. One element of the Intersections Project was the collaborative creation of an original performance entitled Ancestra. Four student researcher/performers joined twelve Cleveland performance artists, ages 18-73, to create and present the docu-performance, Ancestra. Research for this project focused on the transcript of the 1853 National Women’s Rights Convention held in Cleveland, OH as well as other primary sources from the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The group also examined epigenetic scientific discoveries, which hypothesize that humans are genetically linked to the experiences of ancestors as well as their physical traits. These two lines of research provided the basis for a rich conversation between past and present which was integrated into the performance. Women in the project also researched their personal histories and wrote poetry, prose, and dialogue based on themes, memories, and experiences. These writings, together with the research discoveries were montaged into the final script which was rehearsed and performed in a “work in progress” showing at CSU on August 2nd, followed by a discussion about the work and process.https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/u_poster_2013/1021/thumbnail.jp

Sugary Drink FACTS 2014: Some Progress but Much Room for Improvement in Marketing to Youth

This report updates a 2011 report on the same topic. Using the same methods as the last report, researchers examined changes in the nutritional content of sugar-sweetened drinks including sodas, fruit drinks, flavored waters, sports drinks, iced teas, as well as zero-calorie energy drinks and shots. They also analyzed marketing tactics for 23 companies that advertised these products, including amount spent to advertise in all media; child and teen exposure to advertising and brand appearances on TV and visits to beverage company websites, including differences for black and Hispanic youth; advertising on websites popular with children and teens; and marketing in newer media like mobile apps and social media. Researchers also examined changes in advertising of diet beverages, 100% juice, and water

An Elixir for Veteran Teachers: The Power of Social Connections in Keeping These Teachers Passionate and Enthusiastic in Their Work

This article is based upon the premise that there are many veteran teachers who maintain positive attitudes towards teaching throughout their careers. According to The Grant Study (Waldinger, 2015), positive attitudes towards life and work stem from close relationships and adaptive behaviours that people engage in throughout adult life. This article describes a study undertaken in Australia which revealed that, in line with Grant Study findings, positive veteran teachers (aged 40-70+ years) build and maintain supportive social connections among colleagues in their school and others outside school, plus spouse (or long-term partner) and close family, that contribute to their sense of emotional and physical wellbeing. In a highly relational career such as teaching, our article highlights the credibility positive veteran teachers ascribe to their social connections, including the derived benefits in terms of their teaching and their own wellbeing. We then discuss the implications of the findings, including the role of school leadership in acknowledging the importance of, and fostering healthy social connections within their schools, as a way of sustaining engagement for all teachers

Comparison of the performances of survival analysis regression models for analysis of conception modes and risk of type-1 diabetes among 1985–2015 Swedish birth cohort

The goal is to examine the risk of conception mode-type-1 diabetes using different survival analysis modelling approaches and examine if there are differentials in the risk of type-1 diabetes between children from fresh and frozen-thawed embryo transfers. We aimed to compare the performances and fitness of different survival analysis regression models with the Cox proportional hazard (CPH) model used in an earlier study. The effect of conception modes and other prognostic factors on type-1 diabetes among children conceived either spontaneously or by assisted reproductive technology (ART) and its sub-groups was modelled in the earlier study. We used the information on all singleton children from the Swedish Medical Birth Register hosted by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, 1985 to 2015. The main explanatory variable was the mode of conception. We applied the CPH, parametric and flexible parametric survival regression (FPSR) models to the data at 5% significance level. Loglikelihood, Akaike and Bayesian information criteria were used to assess model fit. Among the 3,138,540 singletons, 47,938 (1.5%) were conceived through ART (11,211 frozen-thawed transfer and 36,727 fresh embryo transfer). In total, 18,118 (0.58%) of the children had type-1 diabetes, higher among (0.58%) those conceived spontaneously than the ART-conceived (0.42%). The median (Interquartile range (IQR)) age at onset of type-1 diabetes among spontaneously conceived children was 10 (14–6) years, 8(5–12) for ART, 6 (4–10) years for frozen-thawed embryo transfer and 9 (5–12) years for fresh embryo transfer. The estimates from the CPH, FPSR and parametric PH models are similar. There was no significant difference in the risk of type-1 diabetes among ART- and spontaneously conceived children; FPSR: (adjusted Hazard Ratio (aHR) = 1.070; 95% Confidence Interval (CI):0.929–1.232, p = 0.346) vs CPH: (aHR = 1.068; 95%CI: 0.927–1.230, p = 0.361). A sub-analysis showed that the adjusted hazard of type-1 diabetes was 37% (aHR = 1.368; 95%CI: 1.013–1.847, p = 0.041) higher among children from frozen-thawed embryo transfer than among children from spontaneous conception. The hazard of type-1 diabetes was higher among children whose mothers do not smoke (aHR = 1.296; 95%CI:1.240–1.354, p<0.001) and of diabetic mothers (aHR = 6.419; 95%CI:5.852–7.041, p<0.001) and fathers (aHR = 8.808; 95%CI:8.221–9.437, p<0.001). The estimates from the CPH, parametric models and the FPSR model were close. This is an indication that the models performed similarly and any of them can be used to model the data. We couldn’t establish that ART increases the risk of type-1 diabetes except when it is subdivided into its two subtypes. There is evidence of a greater risk of type-1 diabetes when conception is through frozen-thawed transfer.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe