Growing Up Lesbian in the Rural Deep South: I Only Knew I was Different

Lesbians have historically lived in obscurity and isolation because living outwardly as a lesbian carried with it the almost certain loss of social standing, family, and friends (Blando, 2001). For lesbians who grew up in the Deep South, isolation and the pressure to conform was greater than anywhere in the United States (Barton, 2010). Most Deep Southerners were homophobic, especially in rural areas where people were deeply religious and had little exposure to sexual minorities. The researcher used a qualitative phenomenological approach to explore the meaning and significance of growing up lesbian in the rural Deep South. The sample included 12 Caucasian lesbians, ages 45 to 62. Four clusters of themes emerged from the interviews. Those clusters were: (1) emerging sexuality, (2) the mark of fatal difference, (3) denial of lesbian identity, and (4) conforming to Deep Southern social mores. Themes within those clusters described how delays in both lesbian identity development (Cass, 1984) and psychosocial development (Erikson, 1975) occurred in each of the participants because of the intensely religious and homophobic environments in which they were raised. Denunciation of participants\u27 personal identities began with the first expressions of their sexual identities in elementary school. Ridiculed at a young age because of attractions to girls, participants cycled back through developmental crises involving shame, doubt, and inferiority. They entered adolescence disturbed about their developing sexualities, to discover that parents and faith-based communities were homophobic. Therefore, at the time when participants faced the most critical developmental crises of their lives (Erikson, 1975), they feared rejection by their parents, communities, and God. Participants sought to suppress or deny their lesbianism. Suppression of lesbian identity came with emotional and developmental costs, including substance abuse, unwanted marriages, and role confusion. Unable to find needed resources and role models, participants conformed to the social mores of the rural community for periods ranging from five to twenty years. Eventually, each participant in this study left her rural origins to begin claiming her lesbian identity. Retrospectively, each woman recognized that in the era in which they grew up, communities in the rural Deep South demanded conformity and resisted allowing members to individuate. Thus, participants in this study entered adulthood, and sometimes middle age, with a number of unresolved developmental crises, particularly as those crises related to sexual orientation

Building an Academic Community SmallSat Program

The US Coast Guard Academy (CGA), which educates future officers for service in the US Coast Guard, is developing a multifaceted program in SmallSats. The CGA space initiative includes undergraduate courses, such as a recently-created Remote Sensing course. It incorporates Virginia Space\u27s ThinSat Educational Program, providing hands-on experience in designing, building, and testing miniature satellites through space mission engineering; this involves collaboration between Science and Engineering and is extended to local high schools through their participation in SmallSat projects with CGA faculty and students. An important addition to the CGA space initiative is an MC3 ground station atop the Science Department building at CGA. It will be used to train cadets in satellite operations and ground station hardware, and to acquire data from satellites, allowing for training in cyber security and data analysis, and for use in student and faculty research projects. Sequential year-long senior student capstone projects in the Engineering Department to design, build, and test CubeSats, including new components and innovations, have already begun and will continue. Additional capstone projects involving CubeSats sensors, the use of UAVs, and remote sensing data analysis, including data from the CGA ground station, are planned in the Science Department with the 2020 implementation of a revised Science major

Using the Cluster Support Team and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support to Provide Wraparound Services in a Large Urban School District

In this presentation, participants will learn how a large, urban school district utilizes the Cluster Support Team model and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support to provide wraparound services to include school counselors, social workers, behavior analysts, restorative practitioners, and mental health specialists. Participants will receive an overview of support services, and review data from the district

SmallSat Platform Development for Coast Guard Academy Collaborative Space-Based Research

Collaborations utilizing small spacecraft in near earth orbit between the U. S. Coast Guard Academy (CGA), Naval Research Lab (NRL), the U. S. Naval Academy (USNA), and the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) have initiated scientific and engineering space-based experiments. Sourced opportunities like the VaSpace ThinSat missions have provided a platform for payload, sensor, and experiment development that would have otherwise been resource prohibitive. We have constructed an impedance probe payload for launch in Fall 2020 derived from the existing ‘Space PlasmA Diagnostic suitE’ (SPADE) mission operating from NASA’s International Space Station. Currently both space and laboratory plasmas are investigated with AC impedance measurements using a radio frequency antenna. Plasma electron density data collected from the ThinSat will however use an innovative surface-mounted dipole antenna to gather the required sheath-plasma and plasma resonance information. On that same launch, a compact multispectral ‘Pixel Sensor’ with a 450 nm – 1000 nm spectral range will add to the existing Inertial Motion Unit, Temperature Sensor, Infrared Sensor, and Energetic Particle Detector baselined in previous launches. Our engineering team has begun to design, build, and test a solar panel deployment and de-orbiting mechanism for a CubeSat with the USNA’s Aerospace Engineering Department that utilizes a miniature motor for deployment actuation. For the motor to produce the required torque, a gear ratio of 20:1 is necessary. Impedance probe optimization, de-orbiting mechanism automation, and data collection obstacles, solutions, and procedures will be reported

Evolution of an Interactive Online Magazine for Students, Academics and Expert Practitioners to Engage Students in ESD

Urgency to embed awareness of sustainability principles and practice across society, and need for digital literacy and advocacy for sustainability are reshaping ESD. These, together with developments in learning and teaching, demand new tools to support implementation of project-based learning and more interactive approaches. This investigation explores the evolution of susthingsout.com, an online magazine for students, academics and expert practitioners, developed by the University of Worcester. This comprises two parts; the first, a private site specifically for students involved in sustainability learning on-campus; the second, an open-access site developed to deliver sustainability information and good practice across campus, community and not-for-profit and commercial organisations. This paper involves only the private site i.e. the equivalent of an in-house VLE specifically designed to support the teaching of sustainability to multi-disciplinary first and second year undergraduate students. It reports on the progress of the VLE, following three years of use and initial improvements, in terms of the student support and engagement, as well as considering the practical issues affecting these. The results fall into four categories of pedagogical, operational, cultural and external factors, which are synthesised to capture and share emerging knowledge of good practice offering insights to other developers of online sustainability materials

F.A.R.O.G. FORUM, Vol. 2 No. 9

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/francoamericain_forum/1008/thumbnail.jp

The development and validation of the Virtual Tissue Matrix, a software application that facilitates the review of tissue microarrays on line

BACKGROUND: The Tissue Microarray (TMA) facilitates high-throughput analysis of hundreds of tissue specimens simultaneously. However, bottlenecks in the storage and manipulation of the data generated from TMA reviews have become apparent. A number of software applications have been developed to assist in image and data management; however no solution currently facilitates the easy online review, scoring and subsequent storage of images and data associated with TMA experimentation. RESULTS: This paper describes the design, development and validation of the Virtual Tissue Matrix (VTM). Through an intuitive HTML driven user interface, the VTM provides digital/virtual slide based images of each TMA core and a means to record observations on each TMA spot. Data generated from a TMA review is stored in an associated relational database, which facilitates the use of flexible scoring forms. The system allows multiple users to record their interpretation of each TMA spot for any parameters assessed. Images generated for the VTM were captured using a standard background lighting intensity and corrective algorithms were applied to each image to eliminate any background lighting hue inconsistencies or vignetting. Validation of the VTM involved examination of inter-and intra-observer variability between microscope and digital TMA reviews. Six bladder TMAs were immunohistochemically stained for E-Cadherin, β-Catenin and PhosphoMet and were assessed by two reviewers for the amount of core and tumour present, the amount and intensity of membrane, cytoplasmic and nuclear staining. CONCLUSION: Results show that digital VTM images are representative of the original tissue viewed with a microscope. There were equivalent levels of inter-and intra-observer agreement for five out of the eight parameters assessed. Results also suggest that digital reviews may correct potential problems experienced when reviewing TMAs using a microscope, for example, removal of background lighting variance and tint, and potential disorientation of the reviewer, which may have resulted in the discrepancies evident in the remaining three parameters

Ethnic Differences in Quality of Life in Persons with Heart Failure

Background Chronic illness burdens some groups more than others. In studies of ethnic/racial groups with chronic illness, some investigators have found differences in health-related quality of life (HRQL), whereas others have not. Few such comparisons have been performed in persons with heart failure. The purpose of this study was to compare HRQL in non-Hispanic white, black, and Hispanic adults with heart failure. Methods Data for this longitudinal comparative study were obtained from eight sites in the Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, Northeast, and Midwest United States. Enrollment and 3- and 6-month data on 1212 patients were used in this analysis. Propensity scores were used to adjust for sociodemographic and clinical differences among the ethnic/racial groups. Health-related quality of life was measured using the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire. Results Significant ethnic/racial effects were demonstrated, with more favorable Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire total scores post-baseline for Hispanic patients compared with both black and white patients, even after adjusting for baseline scores, age, gender, education, severity of illness, and care setting (acute vs. chronic), and estimating the treatment effect (intervention vs. usual care). The models based on the physical and emotional subscale scores were similar, with post hoc comparisons indicating more positive outcomes for Hispanic patients than non-Hispanic white patients. Conclusion Cultural differences in the interpretation of and response to chronic illness may explain why HRQL improves more over time in Hispanic patients with heart failure compared with white and black patients

The Iowa Homemaker vol.25, no.8

Poem, Lorraine Midlang, page 2 Letter to the Readers, New Talent Staff, page 3 Keeping Up With Today, New Talent Staff, page 4 Coeducational China, Marjorie Clampitt, page 5 Vacations Will Pay, Kay Williams, Sheron Hieronymus, page 6 Iowa State Students Prepare for Life, Breta Gath Soldat, page 8 Home Economics Builds for the Future, Mary Johnston, page 9 She Served in Navy Blue, Joyce Edgar, page 10 Trade Rollbooks for Hobbies, Mary Ellen Watt, page 11 What’s New in Home Economics, New Talent Staff, page 12 Welch Hall Weaves its History, June Welch, page 14 Coeds Share Treats From Home, Janet Ogilvie, page 15 Recommend Variety in Electives, Maryann Jones, page 16 Springtime Vicky Vamps and Revamps, Darlene Philip, page 18 Foresees Spring Fashion, Barbara Phillips, page 18 Alums in the News, Joyce Mongerson, page 19 Loan Funds Commemorative Friends of Students, Barbara Artus, page 21 Coeds Turn Camera Fans, Natalie Benda, page 22 Committee Achieves Needed Revisions, Goldie Rouse, page 23 Raccoon Meat is Delicious, Elizabeth Adams, page 2