Educating English as a New Language Students Using a Multimedia Based Approach: How Educators Can Assist ENL Students in the Mainstream Classroom

This project will delve into the realm of English as a New Language (ENL) in the mainstream classroom. The main research will be conducted in a secondary school setting, specifically a freshman level English class. This research will be based on observation and interaction with both students and educators. The main topic being explored will be the theory that ENL learners can be educated successfully right alongside their peers through the use of multimedia platforms such as images to accompany lessons, and iPad apps. The research will investigate how students are currently learning in mainstream classrooms and how this can be changed to benefit them in an ideal, different, more media friendly environment. Too often ENL learners are expected to perform using the same tools as their peers, when there is a great need for a different way for them to learn. This research project will culminate in a presentation of an action research based approach to the subject, presented at the Undergraduate Research Conference at Butler University

Maladaptive rumination moderates the effects of written emotional disclosure on ambulatory blood pressure levels in females.

Written emotional disclosure (WED) has beneficial effects on health outcomes. However, its effectiveness is influenced by a number of variables. This exploratory study tested whether trait rumination, which comprises brooding, a maladaptive component, and reflection, an adaptive component, moderated the effects of WED on ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) in female participants. Fifty-two participants were randomized to write about their most stressful/traumatic life experience(s) or non-emotive topics, for 20 minutes, on 3 consecutive days. Two weeks and 14 weeks later, ABP was recorded over a single day. Using hierarchical linear modelling, an effect of condition was found at 2 weeks but not at 14 weeks indicating that higher levels of ABP were observed following WED. There was also a significant condition by brooding interaction at two weeks such that higher ABP was observed in low brooders in the WED condition compared with low brooders in the control condition. However, within the WED condition, the lowest ABP was exhibited by participants high in brooding. The findings indicated that WED led to short-lived increases in ABP which disappeared in the medium term. Researchers ought to build upon this exploratory study and investigate further the potential moderating role of brooding within WED. Individual differences in brooding may account for (some of) the mixed and inconsistent findings in past WED research

Can I Touch Your Hair?: Business Diversity, Slavery, Disparate Outcomes, and the Crown Act

This comment will begin by looking at why hair in the United States is related to issues of race. This comment will then look at how businesses’ rules for appearance and hair disproportionately affect Black employees. Next, this paper will look at Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to point out how the vague language has created loopholes, which allow businesses to lawfully discriminate against people with natural hair. We will then move to explore what role some city and state governments have had in creating natural hair-safe workspaces for employees in their respective boundaries. Lastly, we will consider what businesses themselves can do to create diverse and inclusive environments that encourage all hair types and styles by looking at both Starbucks’s diversity program and Dove’s CROWN Act mission

Perinatal smoking and its related factors

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)The smoking rate of low-income pregnant women is almost 4 times the rate for higher-income women. A better understanding of smoking within the low-income population is needed. The purpose of this dissertation was to study smoking and related factors for pregnant and postpartum women living in poverty. The first component used Rodger’s evolutionary concept analysis method and uncovered three attributes, four antecedents, and three consequences for smoking cessation. The second (N = 1,554) and third (N = 71,944) components were a secondary data analysis of first-pregnancy Medicaid-eligible women enrolled in the Nurse-Family Partnership program from 2011-2016. The second component explored patterns of smoking and depression and their associations. Eight distinct patterns of smoking and depression were found. Smokers were more likely than nonsmokers to have depressive symptoms at the end of pregnancy (OR = 1.37 [1.04, 1.81] and 12 months post-delivery (OR = 1.93 [1.47, 2.51]. The third component investigated covariates present during early pregnancy and their relationships with smoking status and sought to find best fitting predictive models. Multivariable logistic regression showed cigarette use in the 3 months prior to pregnancy and at program intake were significant predictors for smoking status at the end of pregnancy and 12 months post-delivery. Interactive Matrix Language, Structured Query Language, and iterations of logistic regression identified 5 covariates (high school education, cigarette use prior to pregnancy, smoking status at pregnancy baseline, depression, and self-mastery) for the best fitting model at the end of pregnancy and three additional covariates (post-secondary education, marital status, and race) for the 12 months post-delivery model. The area under the receiver operator characteristic curve was 0.9681 for the end of pregnancy model and 0.9269 for 12 months post-delivery model, indicating excellent prediction ability of the models. Results can be integrated in smoking prevention education, screening, and cessation intervention programs

Does Convenience Come with a Price? The Impact of Remote Testimony on Expert Credibility and Decision-Making

Legal cases involving expert testimony, especially by forensic mental health professionals, is increasingly relying on remote testimony to reduce associated costs and increase availability of such services. There is some evidence to show that expert testimony delivered via videoconference (VC) is comparable to expert testimony delivered in person; however, the most compelling evidence for this claim is unpublished. Other evidence across disciplines showed relative comparability between VC and in-person modalities across various types of outcomes. Based on both unpublished and published findings, this study tested the hypothesis that minimal differences in measures of expert credibility, efficacy, and weight assigned to testimony evidence would be found when testimony was delivered in person and via VC, with significant differences when testimony was delivered by telephone. To test this hypothesis, jury-eligible M-Turk workers provided their perceptions about a forensic psychological expert witness after viewing a videotaped mock court scenario. The videotaped scenario showed the witness testifying either physically in the courtroom, by telephone (audio-only), or using a two-way video conference system. MANOVA and ordinal regression tests demonstrated negligible differences in perceptions of the expert as well as decisions made based on their testimony. These findings provide clearer support for the implementation of remote testimony in courts. Recommendations for psychological expert witnesses are made based on these findings to better serve justice-involved persons and incorporate research-supported techniques into practice

The Effect of Epstein Barr Virus on Myocarditis

Viral myocarditis is an inflammatory state of the heart muscle that is often a result of a viral infection. As of now, current research has linked Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), COVID-19, influenza, coxsackievirus B3 and rhinovirus to causing viral myocarditis. This proposed work examines EBV and its linkage to viral myocarditis. Due to its lytic and latent activation periods, EBV has the potential to infect cardiomyocytes and persist within different regions of the heart wall. In this experiment, the presence of EBV was tested in 72 total heart tissue samples, 36 from non-cardiomyopathy deaths and the other 36 from cardiomyopathy-related deaths. Results showed presence of EBV in both the control and the experimental samples. However, a comparative analysis revealed a greater presence of EBV in cardiomyopathy-related samples as compared to non-cardiomyopathy samples. Further analysis on a larger scale can draw conclusive results as to the connection between EBV persistence and heart disease

Computer-based Sex Education for High School Students

Adolescents are four times more likely than other age groups to contract chlamydia or gonorrhea. In the USA, young people between 15 to 24 years of age acquire almost half of all newly diagnosed sexually transmitted infections (STI) a year. The purpose of this computer-based sex education EBP project was to increase student knowledge regarding transmission, disease process, and treatment for STIs, as well as to reduce high risk sexual behaviors. The evidence-based practice model for change and the Modeling, Role-Modeling nursing theory guided this project. Computer-based sex education is supported in research. Articles critiqued, utilizing Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt (2011) levels of evidence, were at a level six or higher. The setting for this project, a rural high school (HS) in Michigan, does not have a sex education curriculum. Yet, Michigan requires a student to have STI and HIV/AIDS education at least once during HS. In this EBP project, freshmen biology students received one 50 minute class that provided computer-based sex education modules. Students viewed the educational modules on their individual laptop computers with headphones. Prior to receiving the computer-based sex education, freshmen and senior students received a survey with pretest through zoomerang.com. Two months after implementation of the computer-based sex education, the same survey with post-test were administered to freshmen and senior students, also through zoomerang.com. Data from the survey were analyzed utilizing descriptive statistics. Freshmen students increased knowledge of sexual health after computer-based sex education and reduced sexual activity in the two months after implementation. However, the computer-based sex education did not increase condom use among those who were sexually active. Providing students with a demonstration of proper condom use in future educational modules may assist with improving condom use among those that are sexually active

Magic City Gospel

Magic City Gospel is a collection of poems that explores themes of race and identity with a special focus on racism in the American South. Many of the poems deal directly with the author’s upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama, the Magic City, and the ways in which the history of that geographical place informs the present. Magic City Gospel confronts race and identity through pop culture, history, and the author’s personal experiences as a black, Alabama-born woman. Magic City Gospel is, in part, influenced by the biting, but softly rendered truth and historical commentary of Lucille Clifton, the laid-back and inventive poetry of Terrance Hayes, the biting and unapologetically feminist poetry of Audre Lorde, and the syncopated, exact, musical poetry of Kevin Young. These and other authors like Tim Siebles, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Major Jackson influence poems as they approach the complicated racial and national identity of the author

An Ipswich case study: how does local broadcast media value, esteem and provide voice to a rapidly changing urban centre?

Radio is part of our everyday life experience in various rooms around the home, in the car and as a portable device. Its impact and connection with the local community was immediate since its inception in Australia in 1923. Radio became directly part of the City of Ipswich in 1935 with the birth of 4IP (Ipswich). Local people were avid consumers of broadcast media and recognised that, in particular, 4IP was something that they could both participate in and consume. It gave people a voice; historically 4IP broadcast local choirs, soloists, produced youth programs and generally reflected the community in which it existed. The radio station moved out of Ipswich and established itself in Brisbane during 1970s. This move resulted in a loss of a voice in the local area through broadcast radio. Similarly, the place, Ipswich City changed dramatically and is confronted with significant population growth and the emergence of an old and new Ipswich that is potentially problematic for the local council to manage. The aim is to provide a sense of localism that was strongly present in the early decades of Ipswich as evidenced by the interactions with 4IP; the identity of the two is remarkable because of their parallel flux. My thesis will provide a unique insight into the relationship between a community, that community’s membership and local radio services. My research is carried out in an applied approach using aspects of critical ethnography, grounded theory and case study. The analysis features a triangulation model of place, people and conduit (radio) developed from the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu where I overlay place and field, people and habitus and conduit (Radio) with practice. The body of knowledge discovered and recovered in this research identifies a socio-cultural practice in Ipswich and reveals the fundamental human interactions between broadcaster, people and place. This has far reaching implications to inform the radio industry, community development and cities undergoing major growth and transformation