A study of an intervention designed to increase awareness of the effects of sex role socialization on the attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors of black high school girls

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of sixteen structured group sessions on black high school girls\u27 attitudes toward the rights and sex roles of women, cognitions about the ideal woman, and expressed interests in careers in science and engineering.;The literature indicates that individuals select and enter career fields based partly upon their perceptions that certain career areas are more appropriate for one sex than for another. The resulting phenomenon is known as occupational sex-typing or segregation of the sexes by occupation.;The research design for this study was a pretest-posttest control group design. The samples consisted of black girls in grades 10, 11, and 12 whose mathematics and/or science SRA Achievement scores were between the 50th and 94th percentile. Twenty subjects were assigned randomly to the experimental group and twenty to the control group.;The independent variable consisted of sixteen one-hour, weekly structured group sessions adapted from the BORN FREE training material. The dependent measures were attitudes toward the rights and roles of women, cognitions about the ideal woman, and expressed interests in nontraditional careers in science and engineering. Three self-report instruments, the Attitudes Toward Women Scale, the Adjective Check List, and the California Occupational Preference System were used to assess changes in the dependent variables. Behavioral changes were measured by unobtrusive observations of registration for advanced courses in mathematics and science for the 1983-1984 school year.;The results of the research revealed that the intervention had a significant impact on the following scales: ATWS, three (ACH, END, and AGG) of the seven primary scales of the ACL, and three (SIPR, SISK, and TEPR) of the four scales of the COPS. No significant impact was measured on the remaining four (SCFD, PERADJ, DOM, and AUT) scales of the ACL, on the TESK scale of the COPS, nor on the ACL scales analyzed for additional information. No behavioral change was revealed by the number of mathematics and science courses selected by the experimental group

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 15, No. 02

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1034/thumbnail.jp

Evolution of drainage system morphology at a land-terminating Greenland outlet glacier

This work was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (through grants to Nienow, Mair, and Wadham, and a studentship to Bartholomew), the Edinburgh University Moss Centenary Scholarship (Cowton and Bartholomew), and a Carnegie Research Grant (Nienow). We thank Ian Willis, Tim Bartholomaus and an anonymous referee for valuable comments which significantly improved the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Interior structure models of GJ 436b

GJ 436b is the first extrasolar planet discovered that resembles Neptune in mass and radius. The particularly interesting property of Neptune-sized planets is that their mass Mp and radius Rp are close to theoretical M-R relations of water planets. Given Mp, Rp, and equilibrium temperature, however, various internal compositions are possible. A broad set of interior structure models is presented here that illustrates the dependence of internal composition and possible phases of water occurring in presumably water-rich planets, such as GJ 436b on the uncertainty in atmospheric temperature profile and mean density. We show how the set of solutions can be narrowed down if theoretical constraints from formation and model atmospheres are applied or potentially observational constraints for the atmospheric metallicity Z1 and the tidal Love number k2. We model the interior by assuming either three layers (hydrogen-helium envelope, water layer, rock core) or two layers (H/He/H2O envelope, rocky core). For water, we use the equation of state H2O-REOS based on FT-DFT-MD simulations. Some admixture of H/He appears mandatory for explaining the measured radius. For the warmest considered models, the H/He mass fraction can reduce to 10^-3, still extending over ~0.7 REarth. If water occurs, it will be essentially in the plasma phase or in the superionic phase, but not in an ice phase. Metal-free envelope models have 0.02<k2<0.2, and the core mass cannot be determined from a measurement of k2. In contrast, models with 0.3<k2<0.82 require high metallicities Z1<0.89 in the outer envelope. The uncertainty in core mass decreases to 0.4 Mp, if k2>0.3, and further to 0.2 Mp, if k2>0.5, and core mass and Z1 become sensitive functions of k2. To further narrow the set of solutions, a proper treatment of the atmosphere and the evolution is necessary.Comment: 9 pages, accepted to A&

Genome-Wide Survey of MicroRNA - Transcription Factor Feed-Forward Regulatory Circuits in Human

In this work, we describe a computational framework for the genome-wide identification and characterization of mixed transcriptional/post-transcriptional regulatory circuits in humans. We concentrated in particular on feed-forward loops (FFL), in which a master transcription factor regulates a microRNA, and together with it, a set of joint target protein coding genes. The circuits were assembled with a two step procedure. We first constructed separately the transcriptional and post-transcriptional components of the human regulatory network by looking for conserved over-represented motifs in human and mouse promoters, and 3'-UTRs. Then, we combined the two subnetworks looking for mixed feed-forward regulatory interactions, finding a total of 638 putative (merged) FFLs. In order to investigate their biological relevance, we filtered these circuits using three selection criteria: (I) GeneOntology enrichment among the joint targets of the FFL, (II) independent computational evidence for the regulatory interactions of the FFL, extracted from external databases, and (III) relevance of the FFL in cancer. Most of the selected FFLs seem to be involved in various aspects of organism development and differentiation. We finally discuss a few of the most interesting cases in detail.Comment: 51 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Supporting information included. Accepted for publication in Molecular BioSystem

The incidence, prevalence and mortality of granulomatosis with polyangiitis in the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink

Objectives: To estimate the incidence, prevalence and mortality of Granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) in the United Kingdom. Methods: We conducted a historical cohort study using data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and Hospital Episode Statistics (CPRD-HES). We calculated incidence rate ratios, adjusted for age, gender and ethnicity, using Poisson regression. Results: We identified 462 cases diagnosed between 1997 and 2013. Our overall estimate of incidence was 11.8 (95% CI 10.7-12.9)/million person-years. Incidence in children (aged <16 years) was 0.88 (95% CI 0.40-1.96), and adults 14.0 (95% CI 12.8-15.4). The incidence was lower in females (adjusted IRR 0.68; 95% CI 0.56-0.81) and highest in the 55-69 year age-group (adjusted IRR 9.5, 95% CI 6.9-13.0; reference group 0-39 years). Incidence was not significantly different in the Black / Minority Ethnic population compared to the white population (adjusted odds ratio 0.78, 95% CI 0.53-1.13, p=0.13). The prevalence in 2013 was 134.9 (121.3-149.6) /million. Mortality was 13.6% at 1-year, and higher in HES than CPRD-identified cases (Hazard ratio 3.16, 95% CI 2.19-4.56, p<0.001). Conclusions: By combining primary and secondary care datasets we have found the incidence and mortality of granulomatosis with polyangiitis to be higher than previously reported. We predict that at present each year in the UK there will be approximately 700 new cases of whom 95 will die within 12 months

Three-Dimensional Stochastic Estimation of Porosity Distribution: Benefits of Using Ground-Penetrating Radar Velocity Tomograms in Simulated-Annealing-Based or Bayesian Sequential Simulation Approaches

Estimation of the three-dimensional (3-D) distribution of hydrologic properties and related uncertainty is a key for improved predictions of hydrologic processes in the subsurface. However it is difficult to gain high-quality and high-density hydrologic information from the subsurface. In this regard a promising strategy is to use high-resolution geophysical data (that are relatively sensitive to variations of a hydrologic parameter of interest) to supplement direct hydrologic information from measurements in wells (e.g., logs, vertical profiles) and then generate stochastic simulations of the distribution of the hydrologic property conditioned on the hydrologic and geophysical data. In this study we develop and apply this strategy for a 3-D field experiment in the heterogeneous aquifer at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site and we evaluate how much benefit the geophysical data provide. We run high-resolution 3-D conditional simulations of porosity with both simulated-annealing-based and Bayesian sequential approaches using information from multiple intersecting crosshole gound-penetrating radar (GPR) velocity tomograms and neutron porosity logs. The benefit of using GPR data is assessed by investigating their ability, when included in conditional simulation, to predict porosity log data withheld from the simulation. Results show that the use of crosshole GPR data can significantly improve the estimation of porosity spatial distribution and reduce associated uncertainty compared to using only well log measurements for the estimation. The amount of benefit depends primarily on the strength of the petrophysical relation between the GPR and porosity data, the variability of this relation throughout the investigated site, and lateral structural continuity at the site

Empirical research into white racialized identities in Britain

The intellectual project of using whiteness as an explicit tool of analysis is not one that has taken root in Britain. However, there are a number of empirical studies that investigate the racialization of white identities. In this article, I look at some empirical sociological fieldwork carried out on white identities in Britain since the early 1990s and identify the key themes arising. These themes are (in)visibility, norms and values, cultural capital and integration, contingent hierarchies and Empire in the present. In Britain, a pertinent distinction is between rural and urban settings for the enactment of white identities vis-à-vis those of minorities, and there is an exploration of some of the contingency that draws the boundary between ‘white’ and ‘Other’ in different places. Areas of commonality and distinctiveness are noted in terms of the American work. In the last section, I argue that there are a number of issues to resolve around continuing such studies, including linking the micro-level to the macro-level analysis, and expanding to international comparative work