Reducing Recidivism in At-Risk Urban Youth Through Lyrical Expression Therapy: A Qualitative Program Evaluation

This presentation examines a hip-hop-based lyrical expression intervention program as a mechanism of recidivism reduction, particularly for minority youth offenders. Analyses of qualitative data indicate that the program empowers at-risk minority youth to make positive life changes while using the familiarity of hip-hop subculture to establish a comfortable learning environment. Attendees interested in juvenile justice will benefit from this presentation

Space and Place in Rural Program Implementation

Access has been an ongoing issue for rural students. In this study, I examined factors that have been proven barriers and supports for rural students. Rural college students who were part of the TRiO program at a flagship university shared barriers and supports to access higher education. Students talked about their college journeys by telling digital stories, using computer-based tools to create narratives. On-campus resources, family support, finding a place to belong in college, and self-efficacy proved to be important access and persistence factors for students

A Test for Penicillins on Chromatograms and in Spot Tests

Author Institution: Department of Chemistry, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 4522

Freeing Los Angeles: Un/forgotten Spaces and Abolitionist Education in the Carceral-Education Landscape

This dissertation examines the relationships between schooling and carceral systems, and the ways system-impacted youth build abolitionist alternatives to punitive education, and criminalization more broadly. I conduct a two and a half-year ethnography of Fighting for the Revolution that will Educate and Empower Los Angeles (FREE LA) High School. FREE LA is a police-free, punishment-free alternative school in South LA, created for and by Black and Brown young people who were excluded from, or chose to leave, traditional schooling. FREE LA is rooted in abolition and transformative justice, each of which encompass a broad framework and set of everyday praxes for transforming the conditions, ideologies, and power relationships that make State and interpersonal violence continuous and inevitable. I also taught, substituted, and tutored at FREE LA for the past four years. Through a critical geographic frame, I use FREE LA’s model and students’ insights as a lens to explore the deeper entanglements between schooling and carceral regimes, beyond the focus on harsh “zero tolerance” discipline (e.g., suspension and expulsion) used in much current literature on schools and prisons. Likewise, by examining the numerous processes, praxes, and relationships through which FREE LA participants build an educational space where punishment is nowhere on the spectrum, I explore the possibilities for abolitionist alternatives beyond the “alternatives to discipline” (e.g., behavioral interventions and restorative practices) frequently proposed as solutions to the school-prison link. By viewing schools and prisons not as static ‘things’ linked through isolated policies, but dynamic sets of relationships, I analyze how carceral ideologies, modes of relationality, and forms of social organization flow into, out of, and across “school” in ways that entrench and normalize carceral regimes. I demonstrate how schooling and carceral systems are constitutively produced across numerous scales, to create a complex carceral-education landscape in which young people are repeatedly partitioned into gendered-racial hierarchies of humanness, worth, and belonging. However, through ethnographic observations of FREE LA’s departures from this landscape, I consider the possibilities for forms of education and socio-spatial transformation that contend with the numerous entangled roots of the school-prison link. For example, FREE LA’s refusal to allow police in the space; their abolitionist legal clinic, which provides court support for students who get arrested; and their maintenance of safety and accountability through TJ, all radically disrupt the mundane terms and conditions of both schooling and carceral regimes. Rooted in the experiential insights of FREE LA students, I contribute to critical criminological and abolitionist studies by theorizing models of education and forms of social organization that render criminalization obsolete; and by extending methodological critiques of carceral systems to argue that abolitionist transformation must be epistemological and ontological in scale and scope

Novel Applications in Wetland Soils Mapping on the Delmarva Coastal Plain

On the Delmarva Peninsula, depressional wetlands provide a range of ecosystem services, including water purification, groundwater recharge, provision of critical habitat, and carbon storage. Concern for the health of the Chesapeake Bay and the establishment of the Bay Total Maximum Daily Load have led to growing interest in restoring depressional and other wetland types to mitigate agricultural nitrogen inputs. The ability of natural resource managers to implement wetland restoration to address nonpoint source pollution is constrained by limited spatial information on hydrogeologic and soil conditions favoring nitrogen removal. The goal of this study was to explore the potential of new digital soil mapping techniques to improve identification of wetland soils and map soil properties to improve assessment of wetland ecosystem services, including removing excess nitrogen, and inform natural resource decision making. Previous research on digital soil mapping has focused largely on the development of medium to low-resolution general purpose soil maps in areas of heterogeneous topography and geomorphology. This study was unique in its focus on mapping wetland soils to support wetland restoration decisions in a low relief landscape. A digital soil mapping approach involving the spatial disaggregation of soil data map units was used to create maps of natural soil drainage and texture class. The study was conducted in the upper part of the Choptank River Watershed on central Delmarva, where depressional wetlands occur in high densities and historical loss of wetlands is estimated to be high compared to similar Maryland watersheds. The soil disaggregation techniques developed in this study were successful in creating a more refined representation of natural soil drainage and texture class in forested depressional wetlands. Comparison of the disaggregated soils map with recently developed time-series inundation maps of the region demonstrate the need for further research to understand how indicators of historic and current hydrologic conditions can guide operational soils and wetland mapping and inform wetland restoration decisions

Infant temperament contributes to early infant growth: A prospective cohort of African American infants

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prospective studies linking infant temperament, or behavioral style, to infant body composition are lacking. In this longitudinal study (3 to 18 months), we seek to examine the associations between two dimensions of infant temperament (<it>distress to limitations </it>and <it>activity level</it>) and two anthropometric indicators (weight-for-length z-scores (WLZ) and skin fold (SF) measures) in a population at high risk of overweight.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data are from the Infant Care and Risk of Obesity Project, a longitudinal study of North Carolina low income African American mother-infant dyads (n = 206). Two temperament dimensions were assessed using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised. A high <it>distress to limitations </it>score denotes an infant whose mother perceives that s/he often cries or fusses, and a high <it>activity level </it>score one who moves his/her limbs and squirms frequently. Cross-sectional analyses were conducted using ordinary least squares regression. Fixed effects longitudinal models were used to estimate anthropometric outcomes as a function of time varying infant temperament.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In longitudinal models, increased <it>activity levels </it>were associated with later decreased fatness and WLZ. In contrast, high levels of <it>distress to limitations </it>were associated with later increased fatness at all time points and later increased WLZ at 12 months.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Infant temperament dimensions contribute to our understanding of the role of behavior in the development of the risk of overweight in the formative months of life. Identification of modifiable risk factors early in life may help target strategies for establishing healthy lifestyles prior to the onset of overweight.</p

Competitiveness a Masculinity-Femininity Cultural Dimension and Multinational Corporations’ Performance in Uganda

This study conducted under strategy management sought to examine the influence of competitiveness within masculinity-femininity cultural dimension on performance of multinational corporations (MNCs) in Uganda. Specifically, it focused on aspects of competitiveness within the masculinity-femininity cultural dimension that included aggressiveness and materialism. The interest in this study was aroused because of MNCs performance challenges such as struggling to maintain businesses acumen, market share, growth and closure of businesses. This study adopted a cross-sectional research design using a quantitative approach and it involved 50 participants who responded to statements in a questionnaire. A simple regression analysis and a multiple-regression analysis were conducted to assess the influence investigated in this study. Results revealed that competitiveness within masculinity-femininity cultural dimension that included both aggressiveness and materialism had a significant positive influence on performance of MNCs in Uganda. In particular, low levels work aggressiveness and work materialism among MNCs’ employees contributed to the low levels of performance of MNCs in Uganda. The study recommends MNCs to align their strategic vision and mission towards competitiveness to instilling employee work aggressiveness and materialism toward achieving the objectives of the MNCs. Keywords: Masculinity-femininity, competitiveness, aggressiveness, materialism and performance DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-12-03 Publication date:June 30th 202

Vibrio fischeri -derived outer membrane vesicles trigger host development: OMV deliver signals in the squid/vibrio symbiosis

Outer membrane vesicles (OMV) are critical elements in many host-cell/microbe interactions. Previous studies of the symbiotic association between Euprymna scolopes and Vibrio fischeri had shown that, within 12 h of colonizing crypts deep within the squid’s light organ, the symbionts trigger an irreversible program of tissue development in the host. Here, we report that OMV produced by V. fischeri are powerful contributors to this process. The first detectable host response to the OMV is an increased trafficking of macrophage-like cells called hemocytes into surface epithelial tissues. We showed that exposing the squid to other Vibrio species fails to induce this trafficking; however, addition of a high concentration of their OMV, which can diffuse into the crypts, does. We also provide evidence that tracheal cytotoxin (TCT) release by the symbionts, which can induce hemocyte trafficking, is not part of the OMV cargo, suggesting two distinct mechanisms to induce the same morphogenesis event. By manipulating the timing and localization of OMV signal delivery, we showed that hemocyte trafficking is fully induced only when V. fischeri, the sole species able to reach and grow in the crypts, succeeds in establishing a sustained colonization. Further, our data suggest that the host detection of OMV serves as a symbiotic checkpoint prior to inducing irreversible morphogenesis