Prison higher education in Massachusetts : an exploratory cultural analysis.

The focus of this inquiry is upon higher education programs that offer post-secondary educational opportunities to men and women incarcerated in correctional facilities operated by the Massachusetts Department of Correction. The inquiry is exploratory, and both descriptive and theoretical. Its purpose was to generate a preliminary social facts description of prison higher education and a theoretical lens capable of guiding an examination of higher education as a mechanism for status reformation among prisoners. Because cultural analyses seek to make explicit social structures that make meaning possible, the inquiry design incorporates both deductive and empirical methods. Prison higher education was defined as a special case in the more general expansion of higher education. Higher education was viewed as a system of contexts that reproduce a stratified society by regulating the social value of participation. The efficacy of prison higher education as a status transformation mechanism was seen to be delimited its location within this system of contexts. The directors of six (6) prison higher education programs in Massachusetts participated in the empirical component of this inquiry by completing a questionnaire that sought information about personal backgrounds, program characteristics, and perceptions regarding the intersection of higher education and incarceration. The empirical findings were reported in Appendix A and comprise a preliminary description of prison higher education in Massachusetts. That description facilitated continuation of the theoretical discussion regarding the concept of prison higher education. It was concluded that higher education\u27s historical pattern of expansion through the creation of educational forms and contexts that roughly mirror social expectations about participants lends strong support to the proposition that it became possible to educate prisoners precisely because some of those forms and contexts are no longer wholly in conflict with social expectations of what it means to be a prisoner. Support was also gained for the tentative propositions that prison higher education in Massachusetts is an element of mass education, that it may be evolving into an educational specialized context within mass education, that participation in programs of prison higher education is not likely to result in credible status transformations within or beyond the structure of confinement

Business Psychology: Building an Interdisciplinary Bridge From the Ground Up

This paper describes the building of an innovative multi-disciplinary, outcomes-based, master’s degree program that integrates the fields of Business and Psychology. Historically, Business and Psychology have ranked among the top five majors chosen by undergraduate students. The program is theory-to-practice oriented and teaches the traditional disciplines of business including: economics, finance, marketing, human resources, strategy, and management from a human perspective. The Business Psychology program primarily emphasizes qualitative versus quantitative-oriented teaching methods. Students of the program analyze individual, group, and organizational level business issues through the application of both traditional and new brain-based tools. Individual and professional developments are also hallmarks of the 14 month program. Additionally, the program incorporates some of the latest findings in neuroscience as they relate to the individual business disciplines. The paper will be presented from three viewpoints; those of the developer and program chair, a participating student, and an adjunct professor teaching in the program. Beginning with a rationale for program development, the paper will proceed through research into potential competitive programs, considerations in the initial design of courses, inclusion of imbedded assessment, the selection of teaching faculty, a description of the internal and external steps that led to its approval by state and regional accrediting bodies, problems in initial delivery, and the program’s incorporation into the sponsoring university’s learning management system. Current status as well as initial student and faculty reactions will be presented along with complicating factors relating to its delivery in both face-to-face and online formats. The paper will conclude with lessons learned from this point in its early history

Characterization of the CBC2 readout ASIC for the CMS strip-tracker high-luminosity upgrade

The CMS Binary Chip 2 (CBC2) is a full-scale prototype ASIC developed for the front-end readout of the high-luminosity upgrade of the CMS silicon strip tracker. The 254-channel, 130 nm CMOS ASIC is designed for the binary readout of double-layer modules, and features cluster-width discrimination and coincidence logic for detecting high-PT track candidates. The chip was delivered in January 2013 and has since been bump-bonded to a dual-chip hybrid and extensively tested. The CBC2 is fully functional and working to specification: we present the result of electrical characterization of the chip, including gain, noise, threshold scan and power consumption, together with the performance of the stub finding logic. Finally we will outline the plan for future developments towards the production version

The pre-shock gas of SN1006 from HST/ACS observations

We derive the pre-shock density and scale length along the line of sight for the collisionless shock from a deep HST image that resolves the H alpha filament in SN1006 and updated model calculations. The very deep ACS high-resolution image of the Balmer line filament in the northwest (NW) quadrant shows that 0.25 < n_0 < le$ 0.4 cm-3 and that the scale along the line of sight is about 2 x 10^{18} cm, while bright features within the filament correspond to ripples with radii of curvature less than 1/10 that size. The derived densities are within the broad range of earlier density estimates, and they agree well with the ionization time scale derived from the Chandra X-ray spectrum of a region just behind the optical filament. This provides a test for widely used models of the X-ray emission from SNR shocks. The scale and amplitude of the ripples are consistent with expectations for a shock propagating though interstellar gas with ~ 20% density fluctuations on parsec scales as expected from studies of interstellar turbulence. One bulge in the filament corresponds to a knot of ejecta overtaking the blast wave, however. The interaction results from the rapid deceleration of the blast wave as it encounters an interstellar cloud.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Ap

Gender differences in medication management capacity in HIV infection: the role of health literacy and numeracy.

Health literacy is emerging as a key element for successful medication management and empirical support for the efficacy of numeracy in the health context is rising as well. Little is known, however, about their unique effects among women and men. Given the importance of accurate medication management for effective treatment of HIV, the relation of these variables to medication management needs to be assessed. We therefore tested the relation of health literacy (reading comprehension) and numeracy to one\u27s ability to manage a mock HIV regimen and whether men and women differed in these abilities. Results showed that women were less able than men to follow medication instructions and answer questions about the mock regimen. Numeracy mediated the relationship between gender and medication management. These findings highlight skills used in managing medication regimens and suggest avenues to target for identification and intervention in medication management among women and men with HIV

Using Latent Profile Regression to Explore the Relationship between Religiosity and Work-related Ethical Judgments

Utilizing social structural symbolic interactionist theorizing about self-identity as presented by Weaver and Agle (2002) we obtained data related to five key measures of religiosity believed to be critical for understanding religiosity’s influence on ethical judgments. Using our five key religiosity measures we then fit a latent profile regression model to explore whether and how these constructs related to one another and to work-related ethical judgments. Results revealed that both our analytic and theoretical frameworks (latent profile regression and symbolic interactionism) were helpful in identifying religious profiles which are helpful for understanding the relationship between religiosity and work-related ethical judgments. More specifically, results indicated that extrinsic religious motivation orientation (RMO) may represent a ‘dark side’ to religiosity given higher levels of extrinsic RMO were found in a subgroup who judged unethical situations more favorably than those with lower levels of extrinsic RMO

Neurocognition, health-related reading literacy, and numeracy in medication management for HIV infection.

Successful medication management is an essential ingredient for effective treatment for HIV. Risk factors for poor medication adherence, including neurocognitive impairment and low health literacy, are common in HIV patients. To better understand the most salient risks for poor management of HIV medications, we tested the interrelation of neurocognitive functioning, reading literacy for health related information, and numeracy and their effect on self-management of a simulated HIV medication regimen. Cross-sectional data on 191 HIV-positive men and women recruited from HIV outpatient clinics in South Florida were collected. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted with literacy, numeracy, and neurocognitive scores and suggested that four factors were present representing executive skill, verbal memory, planning, and motor speed. Both the literacy and numeracy scores loaded on the executive factor. Adjusted analyses showed that executive and planning skills were significantly related to medication management. Findings suggest that patients must rely on higher order cognitive skills to successfully navigate medication self-management, and that efforts to simplify health information that merely lowers readability are likely to meet with limited success

Growth of Lactobacillus reuteri NCIMB 30242 during yogurt fermentation and bile salt hydrolysis activity in the product

International audienceAbstractThe synthesis of bile salt hydrolase has been linked to the health benefit of Lactobacillus reuteri toward lowering blood cholesterol. The aim of this study was to examine the growth and bile salt hydrolysis activity (BSHA) of L. reuteri NCIMB 30242 during milk fermentation with a yogurt starter. There was little growth of L. reuteri during a 4-h co-fermentation with a yogurt culture, and an inoculation of 4.5 × 107 CFU.mL−1 was needed to obtain the 108 CFU.mL−1 target in the product. Enrichment of milk with sugars, minerals, or peptone-based ingredients did not improve growth of L. reuteri. Viable counts of L. reuteri above 1.5 × 108 CFU.mL−1 generated texture defects. Free and microencapsulated (ME) cultures were tested for BSHA in the yogurt drinks. L. reuteri cells which grew during the 4-h lactic fermentation had 40% less BSHA than L. reuteri added directly via the commercial culture. The BSHA of free cells was apparently three times higher than in the ME culture. This study adds data showing that the yogurt production process could affect the functionality of probiotic bacteria