In Their Own Words: Student Mental Health in Rural, Low Socioeconomic High Schools

The purpose of this research paper was to highlight the factors students and school staff identify as contributors to mental health issues students attending rural, low socioeconomic high schools experience and the specific mental health issues they witness most. A collective case study was conducted in four rural high schools, two in Kansas and two in West Virginia. Field work at each school involved observations, document collection, and semi-structured focus group interviews with students and school staff. The factors identified as contributors to poor student mental health were pressure, technology, home life, bullying, and stigma. Anxiety, stress, depression, lack of health coping, and suicidal comments emerged as the specific mental health struggles students deal with the most. Recommendations for practice include practical ways to address the identified contributors of poor student mental health in rural schools and strategies to normalize mental health in the rural school environment

Fourier phase and pitch-class sum

Music theorists have proposed two very different geometric models of musical objects, one based on voice leading and the other based on the Fourier transform. On the surface these models are completely different, but they converge in special cases, including many geometries that are of particular analytical interest.Accepted manuscrip

Processing of invisible social cues.

AbstractSuccessful interactions between people are dependent on rapid recognition of social cues. We investigated whether head direction – a powerful social signal – is processed in the absence of conscious awareness. We used continuous flash interocular suppression to render stimuli invisible and compared the reaction time for face detection when faces were turned towards the viewer and turned slightly away. We found that faces turned towards the viewer break through suppression faster than faces that are turned away, regardless of eye direction. Our results suggest that detection of a face with attention directed at the viewer occurs even in the absence of awareness of that face. While previous work has demonstrated that stimuli that signal threat are processed without awareness, our data suggest that the social relevance of a face, defined more broadly, is evaluated in the absence of awareness

Interactive Voice Response-An Innovative Approach to Post-Stroke Depression Self-Management Support

Automated interactive voice response (IVR) call systems can provide systematic monitoring and self-management support to depressed patients, but it is unknown if stroke patients are able and willing to engage in IVR interactions. We sought to assess the feasibility and acceptability of IVR as an adjunct to post-stroke depression follow-up care. The CarePartner program is a mobile health program designed to optimize depression self-management, facilitate social support from a caregiver, and strengthen connections between stroke survivors and primary care providers (PCPs). Ischemic stroke patients and an informal caregiver, if available, were recruited during the patient's acute stroke hospitalization or follow-up appointment. The CarePartner program was activated in patients with depressive symptoms during their stroke hospitalization or follow-up. The 3-month intervention consisted of weekly IVR calls monitoring both depressive symptoms and medication adherence along with tailored suggestions for depressive symptom self-management. After each completed IVR call, informal caregivers were automatically updated, and, if needed, the subject's PCP was notified. Of the 56 stroke patients who enrolled, depressive symptoms were identified in 13 (23 %) subjects. Subjects completed 74 % of the weekly IVR assessments. A total of six subjects did not complete the outcome assessment, including two non-study-related deaths. PCPs were notified five times, including two times for suicidal ideation and three times for medication non-adherence. Stroke patients with depressive symptoms were able to engage in an IVR call system. Future studies are needed to explore the efficacy of an IVR approach for post-stroke self-management and monitoring of stroke-related outcomes

Age and growth of Pomatomus saltatrix in the south-western Pacific Ocean (eastern Australia), with a global comparison

Context: Pomatomus saltatrix is one of few globally distributed pelagic mesopredators that is exploited heavily throughout its range. Despite the implementation of management strategies, the south-western Pacific Ocean (eastern Australian) population has few published estimates of the key life-history parameters including growth. Aims: To estimate the age and growth of P. saltatrix in the south-western Pacific and compare these with the age and growth in other populations. Methods: Age estimates were made using whole otolith readings and an age–length key was used with a length frequency distribution to estimate the age structure of the population. Eight different growth models were compared within a Bayesian framework for both juvenile and overall growth. Key results: The Schnute growth equation provided the best fit for overall growth and yielded parameter values of a = −0.15, b = 2.56, Size-at-age 1 = 24.38-cm fork length (FL) and Size-at-age 4 = 47.36 cm FL. Conclusions: P. saltatrix in the south-western Pacific has a growth rate similar to that in other populations of P. saltatrix. Implications: Despite its geographically and genetically distinct populations, P. saltatrix demonstrates a generally consistent life-history strategy of fast growth and high mortality, except for the north-western Atlantic population, which has lower mortality

Prioritized Detection of Personally Familiar Faces

We investigated whether personally familiar faces are preferentially processed in conditions of reduced attentional resources and in the absence of conscious awareness. In the first experiment, we used Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) to test the susceptibility of familiar faces and faces of strangers to the attentional blink. In the second experiment, we used continuous flash interocular suppression to render stimuli invisible and measured face detection time for personally familiar faces as compared to faces of strangers. In both experiments we found an advantage for detection of personally familiar faces as compared to faces of strangers. Our data suggest that the identity of faces is processed with reduced attentional resources and even in the absence of awareness. Our results show that this facilitated processing of familiar faces cannot be attributed to detection of low-level visual features and that a learned unique configuration of facial features can influence preconscious perceptual processing

PFRED: A computational platform for siRNA and antisense oligonucleotides design [preprint]

PFRED a software application for the design, analysis, and visualization of antisense oligonucleotides and siRNA is described. The software provides an intuitive user-interface for scientists to design a library of siRNA or antisense oligonucleotides that target a specific gene of interest. Moreover, the tool facilitates the incorporation of various design criteria that have been shown to be important for stability and potency. PFRED has been made available as an open-source project so the code can be easily modified to address the future needs of the oligonucleotide research community. A compiled version is available for downloading at https://github.com/pfred/pfred-gui/releases as a java Jar file. The source code and the links for downloading the precompiled version can be found at https://github.com/pfred

PFRED: A computational platform for siRNA and antisense oligonucleotides design

PFRED a software application for the design, analysis, and visualization of antisense oligonucleotides and siRNA is described. The software provides an intuitive user-interface for scientists to design a library of siRNA or antisense oligonucleotides that target a specific gene of interest. Moreover, the tool facilitates the incorporation of various design criteria that have been shown to be important for stability and potency. PFRED has been made available as an open-source project so the code can be easily modified to address the future needs of the oligonucleotide research community. A compiled version is available for downloading at https://github.com/pfred/pfred-gui/releases/tag/v1.0 as a java Jar file. The source code and the links for downloading the precompiled version can be found at https://github.com/pfred

Banner News

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/banner_news/1252/thumbnail.jp