Does Mindful Meditation Enhance Eyewitness Memory and Prevent the Misinformation Effect?

Engaging in a brief mindful meditation task prior to witnessing an event may enhance event encoding and reduce susceptibility to post-event misinformation. Participants in this study completed either a 3-minute mindful meditation exercise or an unrelated filler task (Sudoku). Half of the participants in each group were first told their task was beneficial to memory, while the other half were told nothing. After completing the task, all participants viewed a video of a fictitious crime. After viewing the video, they listened to a narrative that introduced misleading information about the video. Finally, they took a memory test on the video. Despite data indicating that the mindful meditation task was effective, there was no difference between the two groups on memory performance. However, regardless of the task completed prior to the video, participants who were told they were doing something beneficial to memory reported fewer false memories. Finally, a correlation analysis found that for participants who engaged in the meditation task, greater states of mindfulness were associated with fewer reports of misinformation and a decrease in their ability to recollect discrepancies between the video and narrative. The same correlations were not significant in the control group. These findings have interesting implications for the relationship between mindfulness and memory. It appears that mindful meditation decreases a participant\u27s ability to evaluate incoming information

Researching, Writing, and Illustrating a Children's Book

In the world of education and children’s literature, there are many different types of books. Having diverse literature available for students in one’s classroom is arguably one of the most impactful things an educator can do for their students. When children are young it is important for them to be able to see themselves in the materials they are reading in school. There has been an increasingly diverse collection of children's books published each year, and educators have more options than ever to diversify their classroom libraries. For my Senior Honors Project, my goal was to add to this diverse body of literature. Through extensive research I was able to learn about what it means to be colorblind and the experiences and struggles that go along with this disability. Colorblindness is quite common, yet it is rarely written about or talked about in the classroom. I wrote and illustrated a fictional story about a child, Johnny Drew, who is colorblind. Johnny is new in school and the other children don’t know what to think about him. When the class is tasked with creating a mural for the school, Johnny is bullied by some of his peers, but through perseverance and encouragement from his teacher and a friend, Johnny shows everyone just how special he really is. My 30-page book also includes “lightbulb� facts throughout to provide more information to readers about what it means to be colorblind. Bringing light to a group of underrepresented people allows more students to be able to see themselves in a book as well as learn about others

Bupivacaine vs. Ropivacaine: Looking at the chondrotoxic effects of intraarticular anesthetics in osteoarthritic joints

Objectives: Intraarticular injections of corticosteroids used in combination with local anesthetics are commonly used in orthopedic practice for osteoarthritic pain relief. Many orthopedists question whether these anesthetics have chondrotoxic effects on human articular cartilage. The purpose of this meta- analysis is to examine the chondrotoxic effects of local anesthetics on osteoarthritic human articular cartilage and to determine whether ropivacaine has fewer chondrotoxic effects than bupivacaine. Methods: Studies were found using PubMed with the search terms, “Ropivacaine,” “Bupivacaine,” and “Chondrocytes.” Initially 20 studies were found. Several studies were eliminated using the following excluding factors: human studies, published in last 10 years, English language and inclusion of ropivacaine and bupivacaine. The final studies were chosen based on their relation to our clinical question. Results: Studies show that concentrations less than 0.75% ropivacaine and concentrations of 0.25% bupivacaine or less have fewer chondrotoxic effects on osteoarthritic cartilage. Studies show that chondrotoxicity increases with time after exposure and increases from ropivacaine to bupivacaine. Conclusion: Both ropivacaine and bupivacaine are chondrotoxic to human cartilage in a time-dependent, drug-dependent, and concentration-dependent manner. Future studies are needed to observe results for longer durations and investigate whether chondrotoxicity is potency-dependent in order to conclude that ropivacaine is a safer option than bupivacaine

Is there a correlation between Water Potential and Mechanical Strength of stems of Malosma laurina?

The purpose of this experiment was to see if there was a correlation between water potential and the stem mechanical strength of the Malosma laurina. This experiment was conducted with the use of a Scholander-Hammel pressure chamber to find water potential and the Instron 5500 to test the mechanical strength of the stems. After analysis of the data, there was no direct correlation between water potential and the mechanical strength of stems of Malosma laurina

Characterization of cellular viability drop during media and platform development

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Implementation of a class-wide intervention to teach behavioral expectations in Head Start

Children and teachers were recruited from two Head Start programs in a Midwestern city to participate in this study focused on behavioral expectations. Using a multiple probe design across four classrooms, the impact of scripted stories, role play, and prompts was examined. Teachers were trained on how to implement effective strategies to teach behavioral expectations to young children. Although a functional relation was not established, teachers implemented the evidence-based strategies with high fidelity which resulted in adherence to behavioral expectations for two child participants