"Do it All by Myself": A Salutogenic Approach of Masculine Health Practice Among Farming Men Coping With Stress.

Farming is often considered one of the most stressful occupations. At the same time, farming men symbolically represent a strong, traditional or hegemonic form of masculinity based on stoicism, resourcefulness and resilience to adversity. A contrast is observed between this social representation and their health status, marked by higher levels of stress, social isolation, psychological distress and suicide than many other subgroups of men. A salutogenic approach was taken in this study to enable the investigation of the social contexts in which farming men positively engage in health-promoting behaviors that may prevent or ameliorate mental health problems. A focus was placed on how farming men cope with stress on their own, and the relationship of this to their popular image of being resourceful and resilient. Thirty-two individual in-depth interviews with farming men and a focus group with five key informants working in rural areas within the Province of Quebec, Canada were carried out. Self-distraction and cognitive strategies emerged as the most relevant for participants. Notably, taking work breaks conflicted with the discourse of the ‘relentless worker’ that farmers are expected to be. Pathways to positive coping and recovery implied an ambivalence between contemplation of strategies aligned with negative aspects of traditional masculinity norms in North America and strategies aligned with more positive, progressive aspects of these norms based on the importance of family and work life balance. Health promotion and future research should investigate how various positive masculine practices can be aligned with farmers’ health and wellbeing and that of their family

The 2008 Terrestrial Vegetation of Biscayne National Park FL, USA Derived From Aerial Photography, NDVI, and LiDAR

Established as a National Park in 1980, Biscayne National Park (BISC) comprises an area of nearly 700 km2 , of which most is under water. The terrestrial portions of BISC include a coastal strip on the south Florida mainland and a set of Key Largo limestone barrier islands which parallel the mainland several kilometers offshore and define the eastern rim of Biscayne Bay. The upland vegetation component of BISC is embedded within an extensive coastal wetland network, including an archipelago of 42 mangrove-dominated islands with extensive areas of tropical hardwood forests or hammocks. Several databases and vegetation maps describe these terrestrial communities. However, these sources are, for the most part, outdated, incomplete, incompatible, or/and inaccurate. For example, the current, Welch et al. (1999), vegetation map of BISC is nearly 10 years old and represents the conditions of Biscayne National Park shortly after Hurricane Andrew (August 24, 1992). As a result, a new terrestrial vegetation map was commissioned by The National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program South Florida / Caribbean Network

Inter-Model Diagnostics for Two Snow Models and Implications for Management

Water supply in the western United States is dominated by snowmelt, and as a result water management is increasingly reliant on numerical modeling of snowmelt processes, including snow accumulation and ablation. We seek to advance a framework for providing model diagnostics for such systems by combining an improved understanding of model structural differences (i.e., conceptual vs. physically based) and parameter sensitivities. The two snow models used in this study are SNOW-17, a conceptual degree-day model, and the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) snow model, which is physically based and solves the full water and energy balances. To better understand the performance of these models, global sensitivity analysis and multi-objective calibration methods were applied to identify important parameters and show calibrated parameter values. For the physically based model, we contribute a novel exploration of some parameters that can be adjusted within the model, including the liquid water holding capacity, the density of newly fallen snow, snow roughness, and snow albedo decay parameters. For each model run, snow sensitivities and errors (i.e., snow water equivalent validation) are visualized to better understand the effect of changing parameters on model outputs. The sensitivity analyses and multi-objective calibrations resulted in model parameterizations that produced Nash-Sutcilffe Efficiency values up to 0.88 through 0.95 across all site locations. Additionally, a temperature change analysis was conducted for each model to explore how model parameterizations affect portrayals of climate change. Accurately predicting water yield from snowpack is essential for water management, and it is used here as a practical measure to determine the importance of model parameter sensitivity and calibration. The analysis was conducted across a range of snow-dominated locations representing a variety of climates across the western United States (e.g. continental, maritime, intermountain)

The phase plane of moving discrete breathers

We study anharmonic localization in a periodic five atom chain with quadratic-quartic spring potential. We use discrete symmetries to eliminate the degeneracies of the harmonic chain and easily find periodic orbits. We apply linear stability analysis to measure the frequency of phonon-like disturbances in the presence of breathers and to analyze the instabilities of breathers. We visualize the phase plane of breather motion directly and develop a technique for exciting pinned and moving breathers. We observe long-lived breathers that move chaotically and a global transition to chaos that prevents forming moving breathers at high energies.Comment: 8 pages text, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters. See http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~houle/localization

Comparative Analysis of Program Development Processes in Six Professions

This study was designed to examine and describe planning strategies used by persons developing continuing professional edu cation (CPE) programs for six professional fields. From the descrip tion of practice in the six professions, a general model portraying the program development process was developed. The research methods used to guide the inquiry were those of grounded theory. Results indicate planners attend to at least six clusters of activities in their program development processes in a fairly con sistent sequence. Results also indicate that there is limited use of knowledge resources available in the literature. Planners did, however, use a wide variety of resources available inside the uni versity and outside the university to plan programs. Differences in strategies of program development in various professional fields did exist, most often in the order of activities and the emphasis given to specific activities in the program devel opment clusters.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66957/2/10.1177_074171367602700102.pd

Thoughts of self-harm in early and late pregnancy in urban South Africa: Investigating prevalence, predictors and screening options

Background. Thoughts of self-harm (TSH) are an important marker of mental health risk, and risk for attempted and completed suicide. While there is increasing attention being paid to mental health problems in pregnancy in South Africa (SA), TSH have received less attention despite some cross-sectional studies suggesting that prevalence may be high (12 - 39%). There is a dearth of longitudinal research to inform prevention and treatment.Objectives. To examine the rates of TSH across pregnancy in a longitudinal SA cohort and to investigate factors associated with the onset and persistence of TSH, as well as the relationship between TSH, depression and/or anxiety.Methods. Women were enrolled in a prospective pregnancy cohort (S1000) in Soweto, SA between 2014 and 2016, and assessed using validated screening measures (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and State Trait Anxiety Index short form) in early and later pregnancy. Data were available for 649 women. TSH were determined using EPDS item 10. Logistic regression and bifactor models were used to determine factors associated with TSH across pregnancy.Results. Of the 649 women, 18% reported TSH at some stage during their pregnancy. Prevalence of TSH was slightly higher in early pregnancy (12.5%) than later in pregnancy (11.6%). TSH were associated with a history of mental illness (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 4.17; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3 - 13.7; p=0.020), concurrent depression (aOR 4.8; 95%CI 2.7 - 8.6; p<0.001); marital stress (aOR 1.74; 95% CI 1.0 - 3.0; p=0.040); and practical support (aOR 0.43; 95% CI 0.2 - 1.0; p=0.040) using a multivariate logistic regression. Bifactor analysis examining depression and anxiety scales showed that TSH contributed the highest variance to a shared depression and anxiety factor in early pregnancy. Logistic regressions showed that early depression was a strong predictor of later reports of TSH.Conclusions. The present study shows that the risk of TSH during pregnancy is relatively common, and starts early during pregnancy. Screening approaches could be simplified to encourage healthcare practitioners working in busy and over-burdened public healthcare settings to engage in identifying at-risk women. Efforts in improving early identification of mental health risk in pregnancy should be matched with strengthening of current treatment and referral options. Since practical support and a good marital relationship reduce the risk of TSH, these may be important avenues of focus for designing interventions