Victoria Park

I had walked past Victoria Park several times, seen it through the window from the bus on City Road, and sat on the grass at its edge just opposite Glebe Point Road, but never actually walked around it until the Aboriginal Political History Introductory Week excursion

Metabolic, endocrine and appetite-related responses to acute and daily milk snack consumption in healthy, adolescent males

Comprising of two experiments, this study assessed the metabolic, endocrine and appetite-related responses to acute and chronic milk consumption in adolescent males (15-18 y). Eleven adolescents [mean ± SD age: 16.5 ± 0.9 y; BMI: 23.3 ± 3.3 kg/m2] participated in the acute experiment and completed two laboratory visits (milk vs. fruit-juice) in a randomized crossover design, separated by 7-d. Seventeen adolescents [age: 16.1 ± 0.9 y; BMI: 21.8 ± 3.7 kg/m2] completed the chronic experiment. For the chronic experiment, a parallel design with two groups was used. Participants were randomly allocated and consumed milk (n = 9) or fruit-juice (n = 8) for 28-d, completing laboratory visits on the first (baseline, day-0) and last day (follow-up, day-28) of the intervention phase. On laboratory visits (for both experiments), measures of appetite, metabolism and endocrine responses were assessed at regular intervals. In addition, eating behavior was quantified by ad libitum assessment under laboratory conditions and in the free-living environment by weighed food record. Acute milk intake stimulated glucagon (P = .027 [16.8 pg·mL; 95% CI: 2.4, 31.3]) and reduced ad libitum energy intake relative to fruit-juice (P = .048 [-651.3 kJ; 95% CI: -1294.1, -8.6]), but was comparable in the free-living environment. Chronic milk intake reduced free-living energy intake at the follow-up visit compared to baseline (P = .013 [-1910.9 kJ; 95% CI: -554.6, -3267.2]), whereas the opposite was apparent for fruit-juice. Relative to baseline, chronic milk intake increased the insulin response to both breakfast (P = .031) and mid-morning milk consumption (P = .050) whilst attenuating blood glucose (P = .025). Together, these findings suggest milk consumption impacts favorably on eating behavior in adolescent males, potentially through integrated endocrine responses

Spatial and seasonal relationships between Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii) and their prey, at multiple scales

Knowing where pinnipeds forage is vital to managing and protecting their populations, and for assessing potential interactions with fisheries. We assessed the spatial relationship between the seasonal distribution of Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardii) outfitted with satellite transmitters and the seasonal distributions of potential harbor seal prey species in San Francisco Bay, California. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated between the number of harbor seal locations in an area of the San Francisco Bay and the abundance of specific prey species in the same area. The influence of scale on the analyses was assessed by varying the scale of analysis from 1 to 10 km. There was consistency in the prey species targeted by harbor seals year-round, although there were seasonal differences between the most important prey species. The highest correlations between harbor seals and their prey were found for seasonally abundant benthic species, located within about 10 km of the primary haul-out site. Probable foraging habitat for harbor seals was identified, based on areas with high abundances of prey species that were strongly correlated with harbor seal distribution. With comparable local data inputs, this approach has potential application to pinniped management in other areas, and to decisions about the location of marine reserves designed to protect these species

Evaluation of Graduated Driving Licence in the UK - Baseline Qualitative Study

Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) schemes aim to reduce crash rates among young drivers by helping them to gradually build experience within a supportive environment. The introduction of a proposed GDL scheme in one country of the UK (Northern Ireland) provides an opportunity to determine the impact that these schemes have upon wellbeing outcomes by comparing crash rates and other outcomes before and after the intervention in the exposed population (Northern Ireland) and non-exposed population (other countries of the UK). This collection contains baseline qualitative data captured prior to the introduction of the proposed GDL scheme in Northern Ireland. It contains transcripts of 21 focus (natural) group interviews conducted with young adults aged 16-22 or their parents from Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Topics covered include the role of driving, giving and taking lifts, the local transport system and alternatives to driving

What do you think? Associations between social anxiety, mentalizing, and social competence in middle childhood.

Every individual brings a unique perspective and understanding to the social world that they inhabit. This is particularly true of socially anxious children, who view their social environments as a place of potential evaluation and rejection. This fearful and negative outlook not only impacts their internal processing of information, but their day-to-day social behaviours and long-term socio-emotional wellbeing. Across three studies, the findings of this dissertation demonstrate that children’s self-reported social anxiety is associated with the ways they perceive (emotion identification) and reason about (mentalizing) others’ emotions, and that styles of mentalizing are associated with children’s real-world styles of interacting with new peers. Chapter Two examined the longitudinal associations between social anxiety and two aspects of social information processing in middle childhood: identification of and mentalization about others’ emotional expressions. At 7 years of age, social anxiety was associated with greater accuracy in identifying others’ dynamic emotion displays and a tendency to over mentalize regarding the reasons for others’ emotions. Importantly, 8-year social anxiety was predicted by a combination of higher social anxiety at 7 and both under or over mentalizing biases at 7. The findings of this chapter demonstrate that (a) social anxiety is associated with children’s ability to identify socially relevant information in others’ dynamic emotional expressions and (b) both over- and under-mentalizing biases can exacerbate already heightened levels of social anxiety in middle childhood. Chapter Three extended the work in Chapter Two by examining children’s mentalizing about others’ evaluations of themselves in social contexts, investigating whether children’s expectations of others’ social evaluations mediate the link between social anxiety and self-esteem. The results of this study demonstrated that there was a direct association between social anxiety at 7 and later self-esteem; however, there was also an indirect effect such that higher social anxiety at age 7 was associated with a negative bias in expectations of others’ social evaluations at age 8 and this negative bias was in turn related to lower self-esteem. The results of this chapter suggest that negative expectations about others’ evaluations are a critical mechanism linking children’s social anxiety and their socio-emotional functioning. Chapter Four extended the findings of Chapter Three to examine the relations between social anxiety, mentalizing, and children’s real-world social engagement, via detailed observations of children’s behaviour during an unstructured interaction with an unfamiliar peer in the lab. This study extended prior research by examining the implications of within-child factors for not only their own social behaviour, but those of their peer as well. The results of the study demonstrated that, while there was no association between social anxiety and either mentalizing or social engagement, children’s expectations of negative evaluations by peers were associated with lower levels of social engagement with an unfamiliar peer. This finding demonstrates that children’s expectations about others’ evaluations impact their moment-to-moment responses in real-world social contexts. Taken as a whole, this dissertation provides evidence that children’s social anxiety tendencies affect the way they process social information which impacts real-world social behaviour and broader emotional functioning in middle childhood

The therapist's experience of working with the anorexic client

The anorexic client is often seen as difficult to engage and as evoking intense negative feelings, including anger, frustration, helplessness and hopelessness, in those trying to help (Satir et al, 2009). This can interfere with care provision and treatment, because of the impact on the therapist in the therapy relationship (Stewart et al, 2006) but also on other helping professionals and family members. The writer?s experience of working with anorexic clients is one of being kept out, and often feeling hopeless and useless. Using a hermeneutic methodology, this dissertation seeks to understand the therapist?s experience with the anorexic client, particularly the difficulties encountered in engaging the client and in developing a working alliance. This is done through a hermeneutic review of the literature. If psychopathology can be thought of as the crystallization of culture (Bordo, 1997) and if we can read the body as inscribed surface or text (Malson and Burns, 2009) then the therapeutic engagement with the anorexic client is potentially a rich source of information in terms of female developmental ?norms? in a patriarchal system and the Western context in which this writer dwells