Psychosocial Problems of Homeless Sexual Minority Youths and Their Heterosexual Counterparts

Abstract The purpose of this dissertation was to better understand the psychosocial problems: mental health problems, substance use problems, and sexual risk behaviors) and the associated contextual risk factors by comparing homeless sexual minority youths with their heterosexual counterparts. This study used an ecological perspective: Bronfenbrenner, 1989) and a risk and protective factors framework: Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992) to identify contextual risk factors at the microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem levels that are associated with the psychosocial problems of homeless sexual minority and homeless heterosexual youths. Individuals aged 16-24 were recruited from three drop-in programs serving homeless youths in downtown Toronto: N=147). Structured interviews were conducted with each participant. Bivariate analyses indicated statistically significant differences between homeless sexual minorities: n=66) and their heterosexual counterparts: n=81) regarding mental health, substance use and sexual risk behaviors, as well as contextual factors such as peers, family communication, stigma, and discrimination with sexual minority youths faring more poorly. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that sexual identity moderated the relationship between negative peers and three psychosocial behaviors: sexual risk behaviors, condom use and substance use. Among sexual minorities, having peers who engaged in negative behaviors was associated with increased risky behaviors, but for homeless heterosexual youths, there was no effect between negative peers and their sexual risk behaviors and substance use. Results also indicated that sexual identity did not moderate the relationship between other contextual factors: i.e., family communication, stigma, or discrimination) and psychosocial outcomes such as mental health, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors. Understanding the nature and direction of the differences between homeless sexual minority youths and their heterosexual counterparts is an important first step in reducing disparities regarding negative outcomes of this population of youths

Psychosocial Problems of Homeless Sexual Minority Youths and Their Heterosexual Counterparts

Abstract The purpose of this dissertation was to better understand the psychosocial problems: mental health problems, substance use problems, and sexual risk behaviors) and the associated contextual risk factors by comparing homeless sexual minority youths with their heterosexual counterparts. This study used an ecological perspective: Bronfenbrenner, 1989) and a risk and protective factors framework: Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992) to identify contextual risk factors at the microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem levels that are associated with the psychosocial problems of homeless sexual minority and homeless heterosexual youths. Individuals aged 16-24 were recruited from three drop-in programs serving homeless youths in downtown Toronto: N=147). Structured interviews were conducted with each participant. Bivariate analyses indicated statistically significant differences between homeless sexual minorities: n=66) and their heterosexual counterparts: n=81) regarding mental health, substance use and sexual risk behaviors, as well as contextual factors such as peers, family communication, stigma, and discrimination with sexual minority youths faring more poorly. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that sexual identity moderated the relationship between negative peers and three psychosocial behaviors: sexual risk behaviors, condom use and substance use. Among sexual minorities, having peers who engaged in negative behaviors was associated with increased risky behaviors, but for homeless heterosexual youths, there was no effect between negative peers and their sexual risk behaviors and substance use. Results also indicated that sexual identity did not moderate the relationship between other contextual factors: i.e., family communication, stigma, or discrimination) and psychosocial outcomes such as mental health, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors. Understanding the nature and direction of the differences between homeless sexual minority youths and their heterosexual counterparts is an important first step in reducing disparities regarding negative outcomes of this population of youths

The Importance of Art in Elementary Education

Art is an important component of elementary education. Including art in the elementary classroom has shown to have many positive benefits including helping students develop intellectually, creating better understanding of different perspectives and cultures and improving test score. Even though there is evidence supporting the importance of art in the elementary class room, time spent of art has been decreasing. The decrease in time has been contributed to focusing on high-stakes testing, lack of funding and a lack of teacher preparation focusing on art. This project examined the different obstacles which prohibit students from receiving art at the elementary level and focused on the use of art integrated lessons as a means of including art in the classroom. For this project, the author worked with a local fifth grade class, implemented a lesson plan and evaluated the student’s engagement

How Graphs Mediate Analog and Symbolic Representation

Three experiments are reported that examine the impact of people's goals and conceptual understanding on graph interpretation, in order to determine how people use graphical representations to evaluate functional dependencies between continuous variables. Subjects made inferences about the relative rate of two continuous linear variables (altitude and temperature). We varied the assignments of variables to axes, the perceived cause effect relation between the variables, and the causal status of the variable being queried. The most striking finding was that accuracy was greater when the Slope-Mapping Constraint was honored, which requires that the variable being queried - usually the effect or dependent variable, but potentially the cause instead — is assigned to the vertical axis, so that steeper lines map to faster changes in the queried variable. This constraint dominates when it conflicts with others, such as preserving the low-level mapping of altitude onto the vertical axis. Our findings emphasize the basic conclusion that graphs are not pictures, but rather symbolic systems for representing higher-order relations. We propose that graphs provide external instantiations of intermediate mental representations, which enable people to move from pictorial representations to abstractions through the use of natural mappings between perceptual properties and conceptual relations

Anemia as a risk factor and therapeutic target in heart failure

Anemia has recently been recognized as an important comorbid condition and potentially novel therapeutic target in patients with heart failure (HF). Anemia is common in HF patients, with a prevalence ranging from 4% to 55% depending on the population studied. Multiple potential mechanisms of interaction exist between anemia and the clinical syndrome of HF, including hemodilution, inflammatory activation, renal insufficiency, and malnutrition. A growing body of literature from observational databases and clinical trials suggests that anemia is an independent risk factor for adverse outcomes in patients with HF. Although preliminary data suggest that treatment of anemia may result in significant symptomatic improvement in HF, aggressive treatment of anemia may also be associated with increased risk of hypertension or thrombosis. Multiple ongoing studies will provide definitive data on the balance of risks and benefits of anemia treatment in chronic HF

Evaluation of aircraft microwave data for locating zones for well stimulation and enhanced gas recovery

Imaging radar was evaluated as an adjunct to conventional petroleum exploration techniques, especially linear mapping. Linear features were mapped from several remote sensor data sources including stereo photography, enhanced LANDSAT imagery, SLAR radar imagery, enhanced SAR radar imagery, and SAR radar/LANDSAT combinations. Linear feature maps were compared with surface joint data, subsurface and geophysical data, and gas production in the Arkansas part of the Arkoma basin. The best LANDSAT enhanced product for linear detection was found to be a winter scene, band 7, uniform distribution stretch. Of the individual SAR data products, the VH (cross polarized) SAR radar mosaic provides for detection of most linears; however, none of the SAR enhancements is significantly better than the others. Radar/LANDSAT merges may provide better linear detection than a single sensor mapping mode, but because of operator variability, the results are inconclusive. Radar/LANDSAT combinations appear promising as an optimum linear mapping technique, if the advantages and disadvantages of each remote sensor are considered

Influence of composing strategy on the comprehensibility of technical documents in English

Scope and Method of Study: This study investigated whether readers comprehend English single-sourced texts with cohesive devices differently from single-sourced texts without cohesive devices, and whether native and non-native English readers also comprehend the texts differently. Participants in the study were graduate students at Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, including 40 native readers and 19 East Asian readers. Test instruments were two authentic single-sourced English texts, adjusted to emphasize or minimize between-paragraph cohesive ties. Each participant read a cohesive version of one text and a non-cohesive version of the other text. For each text, participants answered global Likert-scale questions on the text's comprehensibility, used information from the text to solve small tasks, and identified the cohesive devices they had used to connect pieces of information. Likert-scale ratings and task scores were analyzed with a series of Kruskal-Wallis tests, followed by Mann Whitney U tests on significant results, corrected with the Bonferroni method. Cohesive devices named by participants were tallied and categorized.Findings and Conclusions: On one Likert-scale item, non-native readers reported relationships among ideas in one of the cohesive texts to be significantly clearer than did native readers. On one task item, two groups of cohesive readers completed the task with significantly greater accuracy than did the corresponding two groups of non-cohesive readers. Of the semantic cohesive devices named, participants named more lexical cues than any other type; of the structural devices named, participants named bolded heading and subheadings most frequently. Within-paragraph lexical repetition may reinforce the effectiveness of between-paragraph cohesive devices. For readers of English single-sourced technical documents, textual cohesiveness may contribute more to reader comprehension than do adjustments for different linguistic backgrounds

CUE: The continuous unified electronic diary method

In the present article, we introduce the continuous unified electronic (CUE) diary method, a longitudinal, event-based, electronic parent report method that allows real-time recording of infant and child behavior in natural contexts. Thirty-nine expectant mothers were trained to identify and record target behaviors into programmed handheld computers. From birth to 18 months, maternal reporters recorded the initial, second, and third occurrences of seven target motor behaviors: palmar grasp, rolls from side to back, reaching when sitting, pincer grip, crawling, walking, and climbing stairs. Compliance was assessed as two valid entries per behavior: 97 % of maternal reporters met compliance criteria. Reliability was assessed by comparing diary entries with researcher assessments for three of the motor behaviors: palmar grasp, pincer grip and walking. A total of 81 % of maternal reporters met reliability criteria. For those three target behaviors, age of emergence was compared across data from the CUE diary method and researcher assessments. The CUE diary method was found to detect behaviors earlier and with greater sensitivity to individual differences. The CUE diary method is shown to be a reliable methodological tool for studying processes of change in human development