Chris Brown: Out of control mess or grossly misunderstood Artist?

In today’s pop culture world, celebrities are seen as perfect individuals with grand houses, cars, and entourages. When Chris Brown came on the scene in the mid-2000s, he was a teenage heartthrob who could do no wrong. That all changed when he brutally beat fellow music superstar and then girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. Brown’s media persona came crashing down, along with seemingly everything else in his life. However, in a situation where many artists would normally descend and never return, Brown has surged back almost to the heights he reached prior to 2009. How did this happen? What does the role of the music industry play in this? The norms and tendencies of the popular music industry are examined to determine the external factors that both hindered and helped Brown’s changes in reputation (and by extension, record sales) over time

A Study into the Continuation of Work Life Balance

Within the field of Human Resource Management, the topic of work-life balance has been of interest as a way to maintain satisfied employees by companies and reduce burnout for individuals. This study aims to develop a deeper understanding in the area of work-life balance. The current research shows gaps in the relationship between the actions of college students and the work-life balance they achieve in their future career. This study shows how a college student’s propensity to work-life balance can affect their future balance between work and home and if college students have the propensity to think about their future work-life balance. It also fills this gap by looking at the relationship between the work-play balance (i.e., time spent on school versus time spent for leisure) a person has during their time in college and the work-life balance (i.e., time spent on work versus time spent at home) during their career. Finally, this study found that the Big Five personality inventory can be used to predict a person’s work-life balance, with the areas of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism being the best predictors

Opioid Use Disorder and Infant Health Outcomes: A Literature Review

Introduction and background Opioid use disorder (OUD) is an epidemic in the U.S. OUD affects both the mother’s and infant’s health. Substance-exposed infants suffer from decreased health outcomes relative to non-exposed infants. Purpose The aim is to identify infant health outcomes when pregnant women are prescribed medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for OUD. Among pregnant women with OUD in the U.S., is medication-assisted therapy as compared to no therapy associated with decreased negative infant health outcomes? Literature review Five studies on OUD and infant outcomes in the U.S. were reviewed. CINAHL and PubMed were searched using terms opioid use disorder, pregnancy, and neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). The search was limited to the last five years and full text only. Of the 815 results, five articles were selected that focused on infant outcomes and prevention of NAS. Articles were excluded if the focus was solely on the maternal outcomes, cost, or unoriginal research. One meta-analysis was included that compared two types of MAT for pregnant women with OUD. Findings MAT is correlated with a shorter hospital stay and less severe NAS symptoms in infants. Conclusion and implications Rates of NAS and OUD have increased significantly in the US. Some of the increase may be attributed to the transition to ICD-10 codes. MAT for pregnant women with OUD is associated with better health outcomes for infants. Patient-centered care could help decrease negative health outcomes for both infants and women with OUD. Future study should focus on degrees of opioid exposure and related outcomes

Culture on the prairie: celebrating Oklahoma's art museums and their contributions in the twentieth century

The purpose of this project is to compile a brief history of Oklahoma art museums, while specifically honoring individual contributors that have made the existence of these museums possible. The emphasis on individual contributors is a result of my employment at the Oklahoma Hall of Fame at the Gaylord-Pickens Museum. With an institutional mission of "[preserving] Oklahoma's unique history while promoting pride in our great state...by telling Oklahoma's story through its people," it was necessary to highlight individuals that helped create Oklahoma's extensive museum network. In addition to the institutional constraints highlighted by the mission statement above, there were several factors that contributed to the selection process for inclusion in the project. The most restrictive of these factors was using Hall of Fame inductees whose portraits were already on hand at the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. When a portrait was not on hand, a loan agreements were met with a number of other institutions to borrow objects. Following the historical and institutional lens described above, this project follows the guidelines typically used in academic historical works. As such, this project is a combination of primary and secondary sources. The secondary sources are heavily utilized in the first chapter to provide a historiographical background of Oklahoma history. The state's history is important because it provides context to the state's art museum history. Additionally, secondary sources are utilized to help fill in gaps in the historical information. Throughout the rest of the work, primary sources including journals, letters, notes, newspapers or legislation are utilized to demonstrate one of ten individuals' contributions to an Oklahoma museum. Although this project focuses on the individual, this project argues that these persons are responsible for the art museum community that exists today. The third chapter employs the archival information presented in the second chapter to craft two different configurations of a museum exhibit. One configuration is an exhibit physically in the museum, while the other one is a virtual exhibit developed for the post-Covid world. Although there are several publications that focus their attention on the history of museums in general, there is very little work celebrating the history of museums with a commemorative exhibit. With that in mind, the aim of this project is to establish a model other states can follow to honor their state's own museum tradition. At the very least, the aim of this project is to establish a written discourse on the unique history of Oklahoma art museums so more work can be done on the unique history of the state's museums in general

Teaching as a Political Act: Critical Pedagogy in Library Instruction

This article establishes a theoretical framework for critical library instruction (and thereby critical information literacy) that is built upon critical feminist theory, critical race theory, and engaged pedagogy, among others. Using the ideas and work of theorists to create a path linking the ideas of critical analyses together, the author demonstrates the importance and need for critical information literacy within library instruction to empower students, creating opportunities for lifelong learning. Noted within the article are the obstacles for librarians who focus on feminist engaged pedagogy in their teaching; however, the author shares with readers that the challenge is in fact worth the struggle. Overall, the article presents a theoretical foundation for the author’s call to action – it’s time for librarians to move forward as teachers-as-activists roles and use library instruction as a transformation into a lifelong learning experience for students

Examining the Role of Shame in Somatic Pain and Symptoms

Shame has been linked to several types of psychopathology, however its role in health and wellness is less understood. This study sought to answer the following questions to bring further theoretical understanding to the unique features that shame plays in somatic pain and symptoms. First, does internalized shame predict somatic pain and symptoms? Second, does externalized shame predict somatic pain and symptoms? Third, does internalized shame predict a greater influence over somatic pain and symptoms than externalized shame? Lastly, does externalized shame moderate the relationship between internalized shame and somatic pain and symptoms? This study revealed that internalized and externalized shame demonstrated a correlational relationship in the role in somatic pain and symptoms, however when added into the regression model externalize shame accounted for the variance of internalized shame, revealing that when compared to externalized shame, internalized shame did not have a stronger relationship to somatic pain and symptoms. Lastly results found no moderation affect between internalized shame externalized shame and somatic pain and symptoms. Limitations and future research recommendations are discussed