Children as the Symptom Bearers: Supporting South Asian Families through School Interventions

This paper will focus on the interface of school, children, families and mental health support for South Asian immigrant children and adolescents in a Quebec context. South Asian students have often been considered a model minority with strong educational achievement. South Asian culture inherently has both protective factors and dissonances with mainstream culture, which often places a burden of cultural negotiation on children and youth. A few clinical vignettes will outline some of the complexities of the ethical, identity, social and mental health agendas that are vital to a discourse on the school as a factor in these negotiations of children and adolescents. While the rates of self referral by South Asian families seeking child mental health services remain low, the school as well as social services are often the social institutions promoting mental health intervention. In this context, school staff and counselors may need to build on cultural competencies to deal with increasing culturally diverse school populations. In addition, current South Asian immigrant and refugee populations in schools may have significant pre-immigrant trauma whether from circumstances of poverty, social, domestic or war related causes as demographics of migration are changing. The social realities of Quebec (Bouchard G. et Taylor, C 2008) have also changed as the priorities of language assimilation are promoted to create a cohesive society while the social space seeks to balance an equitable place for minority cultures and influences. Schools are implicated in this socio-psychological dynamic of dealing with increasing immigrant populations from origins outside Europe or North America while they promote both academics and student resilience. Cet article visera sur l’interface de l’appui scolaire, infantile, familial et santé mentale disponible pour les enfants et adolescents d’immigrants d’Asie du Sud, dans le contexte québécois. Les étudiants Sud-Asiatique sont souvent considérés comme un modèle de minorité ayant de forts résultats scolaires. La culture sud-asiatique possède et des facteurs conservateurs et des dissonances par rapport à la culture dominante, ce qui souvent pèse lourd sur les enfants et les jeunes dans leur négociation culturelle. Quelques vignettes cliniques souligneront quelques-unes des complexités des programmes d’éthique, d’identité, de société et de santé mentale, qui sont vitaux pour tout discours sur l’école comme facteur dans ces négociations d’enfants et d’adolescents. Quoique le taux de familles sud-asiatiques ayant, d’eux-mêmes, recours aux services de santé mentale pour enfant, reste bas, l’école ainsi que les services sociaux sont souvent les institutions sociales qui encouragent les interventions en santé mentale. Dans ce contexte, le personnel scolaire et les conseillers devraient développer des compétences culturelles afin de gérer la croissante d’une population scolaire culturellement diversifiée. De plus, les actuels immigrants Sud-Asiatiques et la population de réfugiés peuvent très bien souffrir de significatifs traumatismes pré-migration, quelque soit les circonstances dues à la pauvreté, aux effets sociaux, domestiques ou liés à la guerre étant donné que les démographies migratoires changent. Les réalités sociales de Québec (Bouchard, G. et Taylor, C., 2008) changent aussi, autant que les priorités accordées à l’assimilation langagière sont promues afin de créer une société unie pendant que le milieu sociale cherche à équilibrer un espace équitable pour les cultures et les influences des minorités. Les écoles sont impliquées dans cette dynamique socio-psychologique qui gère un nombre croissant d’immigrants venant de pays autres que l’Europe et l’Amérique du Nord, tout en encourageant, et le travail scolaire, et l’ajustement personnel de l’élève

The Effect of Frozen Storage on The Microflora of Raw Milk

The proper handling of milk samples prior to bacterial analysis has been somewhat of a problem to dairy processors of South Dakota. There have been, and still are, many queries by these people about the treatment of o milk sample prior to the determination of a bacterial count. Should the milk samples be frozen prior to determining the number of bacteria? If it is feasible, what effect will the freezing have on the number of bacteria found? No tangible information about this problem has been found in the literature. Standard procedure emphasize mainly the icing of milk sample before analyzing for number of bacteria. In this study a comparison has been made of the iced and frozen samples from the bacteriological viewpoint. The objective of this study is to determine the effect of frozen storage of milk samples on the number of bacteria

Aerodynamic Analysis of Compliant Thrust Foil Bearings

In turbo-expanders, the shaft rotates at a very high speed (i.e. 100000 RPM). At this high speeds, normal bearings cannot be used as it results in high friction and wear of the bearings. That is the reason; we are going to use gas foil bearings as a recent and advanced alternative. Here, in this project we are going to design bearings required to support the shaft which runs at a very high speed. Current project concentrate to analyse the load bearing capacity of the thrust bearings. In the analysis Reynolds’ Equation is used to know the pressure distribution of these bearings. The Reynolds’ Equation is solved by using FINITE DIFFERENCE METHOD and using many assumptions to know the pressure distribution of the thrust bearings. Finite Difference Method is a numerical technique by the principle of discretization to find the approximate solutions of engineering problems. The result comes after a many number of iterations based on a convergence condition. We are using MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory) software to implement Finite Difference Method to solve Reynolds’ Equation. A MATLAB program is written which contains multiple loops that solves the Reynolds’ Equation and gives Pressure plots. After the pressure distribution is known, load carrying capacity of the bearing is calculated and their variations with different parametes are presented. The results of this foil thrust bearings are compared with the load carrying capacity of rigid bearings. The analysis was also done for different types for foil bearings by taking different materials of the bump foil

How Do the Attitudes and Beliefs Towards Mental Health- Seeking Behaviour Differ Between Racialized and Non-Racialized Students in a University Environment?

The purpose of this research study was to explore the perceptions of racialized and non-racialized students at York Universitys Keele campus towards seeking help for mental health problems. A convenience sample consisting of 491 students participated in the cross-sectional survey. The majority (n = 413, 84.1%) were identified as Canadian racialized, mainly Asian, South Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and African students. The remainder (n = 78, 15.9%) were Canadian non-racialized, (English, French, Italian and Portuguese) students identifying with dominant Canadian culture. Most of the students (n = 77.4%) were female. All of the participants completed the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Help Scale; Beliefs About Psychological Services Scale; Vancouver Index of Acculturation; Race-Related Events Scale; Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Attitudes and intentions toward seeking help were more negative among the racialized students. A higher level of stigma was also a predictor of negative attitudes and lower intentions towards seeking mental health counseling amongst the racialized group. Stigmatization among the racialized and non-racialized male students was higher than among the female students. The older racialized students tended to have higher positive scores for attitudes toward seeking help than younger students. Attitudes toward seeking help were more positive among the students who lived with their families. Previous mental diagnosis was also a significant predictor of attitudes toward seeking help. Very few racialized and non-racialized students used the counselling services or the online information system at York university to obtain information on mental health issues. The findings of this research study advocate university governance, healthcare professionals, and counsellors need to improve their services to address the specific needs and concerns of racialized students. Future research should focus on how findings can be translated into practice by designing culturally adaptive treatment modalities, including electronic media, that focus on resolving mental health problems among racialized and non-racialized students

A Study of the Soft Skills that Contribute to the Success of Newly Graduated Business Students in the Workplace

This quantitative study is focused on assessing the soft skills that newly graduated business students possess. Using the first and only skills inventory in the United States that has been endorsed by Department of Labor, the study seeks to determine what sets employees apart based on their level of performance on the job. The main purpose was to assess and interpret the soft skills that employees bring to the workplace soon after graduating. The population for the current study was human resources professionals from a variety of industry sectors in the state of Minnesota. The businesses represented a range of sizes from small and medium businesses to large, global corporations. Results of the survey could benefit not just the businesses that hire graduates but also those in higher education and current and future students

Formation rates of Dark Matter Haloes

We derive an estimate of the rate of formation of dark matter halos per unit volume as a function of the halo mass and redshift of formation. Analytical estimates of the number density of dark matter halos are useful in modeling several cosmological phenomena. We use the excursion set formalism for computing the formation rate of dark matter halos. We use an approach that allows us to differentiate between major and minor mergers, as this is a pertinent issue for semi-analytic models of galaxy formation. We compute the formation rate for the Press-Schechter and the Sheth-Tormen mass function. We show that the formation rate computed in this manner is positive at all scales. We comment on the Sasaki formalism where negative halo formation rates are obtained. Our estimates compare very well with N-Body simulations for a variety of models. We also discuss the halo survival probability and the formation redshift distributions using our method.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figure

Use of upper-arm anthropometry as measure of body-composition and nutritional assessment in children and adolescents (6-20 years) of Assam, northeast India

BACKGROUND: Upper-arm muscle area (UMA), upper-arm fat area (UFA), arm-fat index (AFI), upper-arm fat estimate (UFE) and upper-arm muscle estimate (UME) was introduced for the assessment of body-composition. This cross-sectional study assessed age-sex specific upper-arm  composition and nutritional status among children and adolescents.METHODS: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among 1545 (770 boys; 775 girls) Sonowal Kacharis of Dibrugarh District, Assam, Northeast-India, using multi-stage stratified random sampling method. The anthropometric measurements of height, weight, triceps and  mid-upper-arm circumference were recorded. The upper-arm composition was assessed using standard equations. Nutritional status was assessed using standard classification of upper-arm muscle-area by height (UAMAH) and thinness (low BMI-for-age).RESULTS: Age and sex-specific muscularity were found significantly greater among boys than girls (p<0.01), while adiposity was significantly greater among girls (p<0.01), particularly when they approached to puberty. The overall prevalence of low and below-average UAMAH was found to be 16.38% and 22.65% respectively. The overall prevalence of thinness was 23.69% (26.36% boys, 21.03% girls) (p>0.05).CONCLUSION: Body-composition and nutritional status of these children and adolescents were found markedly unsatisfactory using upper-arm composition, UAMAH and thinness. The combination of upper-arm  composition and conventional anthropometric measures appear to be useful for bodycomposition and nutritional status assessment.KEY WORDS: Upper-arm Muscle Area, Upper-arm Fat Area, Upper-arm anthropometry, Upper-arm muscle-area by Height, Northeast-India, Malnutrition, Child Healt