Expanding Medicaid in the Postpartum Period

This Comment will discuss how the current Medicaid law is insufficient to address the issue of disappointing maternal health outcomes in the United States and how the federal government should begin to remedy the problem. First, I will shed light on the maternal health crisis in the United States, before discussing the history of pregnancy and postpartum Medicaid coverage. Then, I will outline the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the subsequent court battle over its constitutionality, and the effects of that decision on the current landscape of pregnancy and postpartum Medicaid coverage. Finally, I will detail my proposal for Congress to mandate one year of postpartum coverage and discuss the relevant reasons supporting the necessity of such coverage before demonstrating the legality of the proposal under current law

Soulfulness as an Orientation to Contemplative Practice: Culture, Liberation, and Mindful Awareness

Soulfulness is introduced here as an orientation to contemplative practice that centers a synergistic integration of the psychological, spiritual, and cultural dimensions of soul (deepness, aliveness, authenticity, and a healing/transformative resource) to inform the design and implementation of culturally attuned methods. Soulfulness is characterized by themes emerging from diasporic African cultural influences and inspired by an African American cultural sensibility. These themes include an ethos of interconnectedness, a relational/communal sensibility, the centrality of spirituality, creativity and improvisation, a holistic orientation to human experience, emotional expressiveness, resilience and overcoming adversity, and struggles for liberation in the context of historical and ongoing dehumanization and oppression. The “SOUL” (Soulfulness-Oriented, Unitive, and Liberatory) approach is offered as an example of innovation and adaptation that meaningfully considers cultural and contextual factors in order to maximize the effectiveness of contemplative practices with culturally diverse groups. The SOUL-Centered Practice (SCP) framework describes foundational elements to guide the development of practices grounded in mindful awareness processes and infused with qualities of soulfulness. The SOUL approach is hypothesized to be particularly resonant with historically oppressed and marginalized people of color who experience the transgenerational impact of collective traumas such as genocide, slavery, and colonization as well as the dehumanizing soul-assaults of ongoing racism and intersectional oppression. The ultimate goal of the emerging practice is to contribute to the utilization of contemplative practice for the elevation our collective well-being as an interconnected human community in the context of ongoing struggles for liberation and social justice. Implications for research, further conceptual development, and the design of culturally syntonic contemplative practices are discussed

Culture, Wellness, and World “PEaCE”: An Introduction to Person-Environment-and-Culture-Emergence Theory

Human experience cannot be separated from culture. Yet, distance remains between psychology’s acknowledgement of the importance of culture, and its consistent integration into psychological theory, research, and practice. Person-Environment-and-Culture-Emergence (PEaCE) Theory, an integrative, complex systems approach, is introduced to facilitate conceptualization of individual and collective wellness outcomes. It draws primarily upon cultural and community psychologies in the context of a broad humanistic orientation that holds the dignity, humanity, and interconnectedness of all persons of the world as its core value. The “Being-in-Culture-in-the-World” Transactional Field represents the infinite and complex interrelationships between multidimensional biopsychorelational (person), socioecological (environment), and cultural systems that are in ongoing and dynamic transaction. Positive (e.g., thriving, well-being) and negative (e.g., dysfunction, disease) wellness outcomes are conceptualized as emergent properties of the activity of the transactional field. PEaCE Theory is informed by a large and diverse body of conceptual and empirical literature, both within and outside of psychology (e.g., public health, cultural studies), that converge in their insistence on the critical role of culture and context for understanding human experience and improving the health of persons, relationships, communities, and nations. PEaCE Theory will require ongoing testing and refinement towards its aim of transdisciplinary and global relevance

Rising Up Rooted: Black Wisdom as Emancipatory Contemplative Practice for Resilience, Healing, and Liberation

Black wisdom is offered as a transformative, liberatory, and healing resource with particular applications for disrupting the five dynamics of oppression—dehumanization, disconnection, destruction, delusion, and disempowerment. Cultural wisdom is a key element of emancipatory contemplative practice which intentionally centers strategies for decolonizing inner life. The integration of Black wisdom into contemplative practices can provide an ancestral and experiential connection to a sense of belonging and “home,” as well as establish an empowering foundation from which personal and collective liberation can flourish. Black wisdom can be incorporated into contemplative practice through cultural expressions (music, African proverbs and symbols), applications that utilize embodied practice as communal ritual, and practices that emerge from concepts based on African-centered systems of wisdom and spirituality (e.g., ubuntu, sawubona, àse). The 3-part Rising Up Rooted process is offered as a soulfulness-oriented methodology that provides opportunities for planting, cultivating, and manifesting Black wisdom

Inequalities for means of chords, with application to isoperimetric problems

We consider a pair of isoperimetric problems arising in physics. The first concerns a Schr\"odinger operator in $L^2(\mathbb{R}^2)$ with an attractive interaction supported on a closed curve $\Gamma$, formally given by $-\Delta-\alpha \delta(x-\Gamma)$; we ask which curve of a given length maximizes the ground state energy. In the second problem we have a loop-shaped thread $\Gamma$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$, homogeneously charged but not conducting, and we ask about the (renormalized) potential-energy minimizer. Both problems reduce to purely geometric questions about inequalities for mean values of chords of $\Gamma$. We prove an isoperimetric theorem for $p$-means of chords of curves when $p \leq 2$, which implies in particular that the global extrema for the physical problems are always attained when $\Gamma$ is a circle. The article finishes with a discussion of the $p$--means of chords when $p > 2$.Comment: LaTeX2e, 11 page

G96-1277 Pine Moths

Pine moths can seriously damage pine trees. This NebGuide helps you recognize damage and symptoms, identify the pest, and choose a control. Pine moths are serious pests of pines in Nebraska. Larvae (caterpillars) damage trees by tunneling just beneath the bark of the trunk and branches (Figure 1), most commonly on the trunk just below a branch. The tunnels they make can girdle the trunk or branches or physically weaken them so they are easily broken by wind or snow (Figure 2). Heavily infested trees are often deformed and are sometimes killed