Using Dance/ Body Movement Therapy with a Trauma Population

This literature review reveals how the inclusion of a body based, dance/movement therapy treatment to a trauma exposed population can unveil and help integrate underlying patterns of dysregulation, dissociation, attachment, and stored body sensations. It describes highlights of a clinical application combining movement observation and therapy with knowledge of neurological and somatic symptomology within the individual with post-traumatic symptoms. Methods addressed included, traditional cognitive based therapies (top-down), and body-based therapies (bottom-up) focusing on dance/movement therapy. It is concluded that further implementation, research, and knowledge in the field of Dance/Movement therapy is needed

Barriers to Food Security Experienced by Families Living in Extended Stay Motels

Families who are food insecure do not have regular access to food, access to enough food to satisfy their hunger, or have to resort to extraordinary measures to access food such as traveling to food pantries and other emergency food sources. This article focuses on low-income families with children who live in extended stay motels and experienced food insecurity. Families reported several indicators of food insecurity and discussed the barriers to food security they experienced as a result of living in a motel. Families reported that the locations of the motels, lack of transportation, the lack of storage space and kitchen appliances in the rooms presented barriers for them to regularly access and store enough food for their families. Despite receiving government assistance in the form of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, most families depended on food pantries or charities to supplement their food supply each month. The interviews revealed that economic resources are not the only barriers to food security and these barriers need to be taken into account when attempting to address food insecurity among disadvantaged populations such as families living in motels. Several strategies to alleviate food insecurity among this population are discussed

Trait-Based Community Assembly in a Changing Climate: Dispersal Dynamics and Ecological Filtering In a Grassland Metacommunity

Research on plant community assembly often focuses on single life stages, or transitions between two life stages, and rarely integrates multiple life stage transitions into a more complete picture of the community assembly process. This is unfortunate because it limits our ability to assess the relative influence of each life stage transition on community assembly outcomes, and hence, predict community response to perturbations such as climate change. In this dissertation, I use observational and experimental evidence at different points in the plant life cycle to improve short- and long-term predictions of community response to climate change. I work in twelve grassland sites in southern Norway that fall along orthogonal gradients of temperature and precipitation, allowing me to disentangle the influence of these climate drivers. I first combine seed, seedling, and adult plant survey data at the twelve sites to infer regional patterns of seed dispersal and immigration among climate zones. On average, 5 to 10 percent of seeds at a site putatively originated from different climates, suggesting significant connectivity among climate zones. However, immigrant seedlings were less likely to emerge and establish in experimental gaps than seedlings with locally-present conspecific adults, suggesting that a climate-based filters are in part responsible for maintaining regional vegetation patterns at the seedling stage. Despite the evidence for site connectivity, 66 of the 163 species in our system were not observed as immigrants at any point in the study, highlighting the potential for dispersal to limit species ability to track rapid changes in climate. Second, I examine changes in species diversity and community-weighted mean trait values over plant life stages to characterize the strength and nature of ecological filtering at each life stage transition. Each surveyed life stage had fewer species than expected by chance, indicating that species sorting processes restricted community membership at multiple points of plant community regeneration. Furthermore, shifts in community weighted trait means suggest that different life stage transitions are influenced by qualitatively different mechanisms. The strength of filtering varied little with temperature and precipitation, suggesting that these stage-specific assembly processes are of broad relevance. Third, I evaluate whether traits associated with regional temperature and precipitation patterns can predict community responses to rapid experimental climate change. To avoid the artifacts of in situ climate manipulation, 25 x 25 cm turfs of standing vegetation were transplanted to warmer and wetter sites. Changes in transplanted turf community composition were monitored over five years and compared to a field-parameterized null model. Three of the six traits with spatial associations to temperature predicted species success following transplantation. My results underscore the importance of using ecologically relevant traits when making predictions of community response, and suggest that in our grassland system, architectural traits may exert more influence on initial species response to rapid warming than the more commonly used growth-related traits. This dissertation offers a much-needed empirical exploration of how regional dispersal dynamics, seed and seedling performance, and adult community response interactively shape patterns of plant community diversity. In addition, it demonstrates how species traits, when chosen for their potential mechanistic relevance to community assembly processes, can be valuable hypothesis generators. Future work on plant community assembly should consider plant life stages and relevant traits to refine predictions of community response to climate change.PHDEcology and Evolutionary BiologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136991/1/guittarj_1.pd

Micropanics: A Theoretical Explanation for Anti-Gay Hate Crime Perpetration

Lesbians and gay men continue to be framed as a threat to traditional American social institutions, particular the family. Recent research in the social sciences has identified attitudes toward homosexuality, belief in homosexuality as a moral choice, and heterosexism as significant predictors of hate crime victimization (Alden and Parker 2005). Unfortunately, prior research has failed to explain how certain individuals who maintain platforms of sexual prejudice make the leap to committing hate crimes against lesbians and gay men. By incorporating elements of Cohen’s (1972) moral panics, Tajfel and Turner’s (1986) social identity theory and Sykes and Matza’s (1957) techniques of neutralization this paper proposes that anti-gay hate crimes serve as isolated incidents of moral panic referred to herein as micropanics

Stressors and Coping Mechanisms among Extended-Stay Motel Residents in Central Florida

Not having a permanent home means living in a constant state of stress. Though much has been written about homelessness and its stressors, very little research has focused on the experiences of those living in liminal housing, such as extended-stay motels. As affordable housing units dwindle in the US, more individuals and families with children have moved into extended-stay motels. In this study, I explore stressors that low-income families living in extended-stay motels experience, as well as their coping mechanisms. Through semi-structured interviews with 18 families with children living in extended-stay motels in the Central Florida region, consistent financial and emotional stressors were identified among all families. Additionally, gender and the community feel of a motel impacts the magnitude of the stress, as well as the ability to cope. Findings from this study suggest that, although families in motels experience constant environmental stressors, community building among precariously housed families may create an informal safety net for the families and thus, alleviate the financial and emotional crisis

Disciplining the Ethical Couponer: A Foucauldian Analysis of Online Interactions

As the internet becomes increasingly important in establishing identities and social networks, it becomes a mechanism for social control.  We apply the components of Foucault’s means of corrective training—hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination—to the comments section of a popular couponing blog to analyze tactics participants use to discipline each other’s couponing behaviors.  We find Foucault’s framework applicable with some modification.  Participants use discursive techniques to establish hierarchical surveillance however hierarchies are not upheld throughout the interactions, making lateral surveillance more applicable.  Participants engage in normalizing judgment by critiquing and correcting “deviant” behavior and positively reinforcing “good” behavior.  The blog itself mirrors the examination; as the blog master describes activities, participants try them, and return to the site to report their results, which can then be compared to others.  These findings illustrate online interactions as a mechanism of informal social surveillance and control

Counting niches: Abundance- by- trait patterns reveal niche partitioning in a Neotropical forest

Tropical forests challenge us to understand biodiversity, as numerous seemingly similar species persist on only a handful of shared resources. Recent ecological theory posits that biodiversity is sustained by a combination of species differences reducing interspecific competition and species similarities increasing time to competitive exclusion. Together, these mechanisms counterintuitively predict that competing species should cluster by traits, in contrast with traditional expectations of trait overdispersion. Here, we show for the first time that trees in a tropical forest exhibit a clustering pattern. In a 50- ha plot on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, species abundances exhibit clusters in two traits connected to light capture strategy, suggesting that competition for light structures community composition. Notably, we find four clusters by maximum height, quantitatively supporting the classical grouping of Neotropical woody plants into shrubs, understory, midstory, and canopy layers.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155460/1/ecy3019.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155460/2/ecy3019-sup-0001-AppendixS1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155460/3/ecy3019_am.pd

A synthesis of bacterial and archaeal phenotypic trait data

A synthesis of phenotypic and quantitative genomic traits is provided for bacteria and archaea, in the form of a scripted, reproducible workflow that standardizes and merges 26 sources. The resulting unified dataset covers 14 phenotypic traits, 5 quantitative genomic traits, and 4 environmental characteristics for approximately 170,000 strain-level and 15,000 species-aggregated records. It spans all habitats including soils, marine and fresh waters and sediments, host-associated and thermal. Trait data can find use in clarifying major dimensions of ecological strategy variation across species. They can also be used in conjunction with species and abundance sampling to characterize trait mixtures in communities and responses of traits along environmental gradients

The Meaning Of Coming Out: From Self-Affirmation To Full Disclosure

Qualitative researchers have begun to analyze narratives of individuals\u27 experiences with coming out in order to explore the social influences that affect these processes. However, most studies on coming out are based on the assumption that coming out has a singular shared meaning. The present study is centered on challenging this very assumption by taking a constructivist grounded theory approach to exploring the meaning of coming out for 30 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) individuals via open-ended interviews. Coming out does not have a universal meaning among LGBQ persons; rather, it varies on the basis of individuals\u27 experiences, social environment, and personal beliefs and values. All 30 participants in the current study agree that coming out is a transformative process and an important element in identity formation and maintenance, thus challenging the notion that coming out is no longer a relevant concept. For some participants coming out is more of a personal journey of self-affirmation, while for others it is about the sharing of their sexuality with others - and oftentimes a combination of these two characteristics. Implications for future research on coming out are included. © 2013 QSR