Influence of observation of true stuttering and self-disclosure on college professors' perception of students who stutter

textResearch has demonstrated that college professors rate hypothetical students who stutter more negatively than college students who do not stutter. To date, no studies have explored perceptions when observing actual students who stutter. Furthermore, self-disclosure has been proven to influence listener perception. The primary purpose of the present study is to investigate the role self-disclosure has on the perception of college professors.Communication Sciences and Disorder

Admission to psychiatric hospital for mental illnesses 2 years prechildbirth and postchildbirth in Scotland: a health informatics approach to assessing mother and child outcomes

Objective: To identify factors associated with: admission to a specialist mother and baby unit (MBU) and the impact of perinatal mental illness on early childhood development using a data linkage approach in the 2 years prechildbirth and postchildbirth. Methods: Scottish maternity records (SMR02) were linked to psychiatric hospital admissions (SMR04). 3290 pregnancy-related psychiatric admissions for 1730 women were assessed. To investigate factors associated with MBU admission, the group of mothers admitted to an MBU were compared with those admitted to general psychiatric wards. To assess the impact of perinatal mental illness on early child development, a pragmatic indicator for ‘at potential risk of adversity’, defined as a child who was recorded as requiring intensive treatment at any time under the health plan indicators (HPI) and/or who had no record of completing three doses of the 5-in-1 vaccine by 12 months was generated. Logistic regression models were used to describe the association between each variable and the risk of admission between those with a history of prior psychiatric admission and those without. Results Women admitted to an MBU were significantly more likely to be admitted with non-affective psychosis (OR=1.97, 95% CI 1.22 to 3.18), affective psychosis (OR=2.44, 95% CI 1.37 to 4.33) and non-psychotic depressive episodes (OR=1.93, 95% CI 1.42 to 2.63). They were less likely to come from deprived areas (OR=0.68 95% CI 0.49 to 0.93). Women with a previous history of psychiatric admission were significantly more likely to be located in the two most deprived quintiles. Almost one-third (29%) of children born to mothers with a pregnancy-related psychiatric admission were assessed as ‘at potential risk of adversity.’ Conclusions: A health informatics approach has potential for improving understanding of social and clinical factors, which contribute to the outcomes of perinatal mental illness, as well as potential adverse developmental outcomes for offspring

Towards a CC-function in 4D quantum gravity

We develop a generally applicable method for constructing functions, $C$, which have properties similar to Zamolodchikov's $C$-function, and are geometrically natural objects related to the theory space explored by non-perturbative functional renormalization group (RG) equations. Employing the Euclidean framework of the Effective Average Action (EAA), we propose a $C$-function which can be defined for arbitrary systems of gravitational, Yang-Mills, ghost, and bosonic matter fields, and in any number of spacetime dimensions. It becomes stationary both at critical points and in classical regimes, and decreases monotonically along RG trajectories provided the breaking of the split-symmetry which relates background and quantum fields is sufficiently weak. Within the Asymptotic Safety approach we test the proposal for Quantum Einstein Gravity in $d>2$ dimensions, performing detailed numerical investigations in $d=4$. We find that the bi-metric Einstein-Hilbert truncation of theory space introduced recently is general enough to yield perfect monotonicity along the RG trajectories, while its more familiar single-metric analog fails to achieve this behavior which we expect on general grounds. Investigating generalized crossover trajectories connecting a fixed point in the ultraviolet to a classical regime with positive cosmological constant in the infrared, the $C$-function is shown to depend on the choice of the gravitational instanton which constitutes the background spacetime. For de Sitter space in 4 dimensions, the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is found to play a role analogous to the central charge in conformal field theory. We also comment on the idea of a `$\Lambda$-$N$ connection' and the `$N$-bound' discussed earlier.Comment: 15 figures; additional comment

From the Ground Up. Assessing the Record of Anticorruption Assistance in Southeastern Europe

In this policy paper, based on research findings from twenty case studies of donor-supported projects in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Macedonia, we assess the effects of five years of anticorruption projects and high-profile public awareness campaigns in the Southeastern European region. As a starting point, the paper posits that while projects seem to have succeeded in raising demand for reform, solutions to match that demand have yet to be found. The authors question both what reforms or change in particular the projects raised demand for, and what success the solutions applied thus far may claim. The donor community’s failure to meet the high public expectations that their projects fostered comes against a disturbing backdrop of falling trust in democratic institutions in the region. The paper underlines the urgency to respond to citizens’ needs. The authors argue that the impact of reviewed projects was mostly of short duration, if at all. Projects generally failed to create a self-sustaining constituency to further their work, and when success was achieved it often depended heavily on contingent factors such as the presence of a “champion” or an exceptional level of donor resources targeted for a single, receptive client. The most successful projects provided direct benefits to a well-defined constituency. In all cases, the projects listed reducing corruption as one of their core objectives; yet based on interview material and project reports, none of the donors claimed that their projects had effectively reduced corruption. In conclusion, the paper argues that donors should seek to build sustained public demand for a realistic, long-term anticorruption reform agenda. 6 Th is can be achieved by moving away from the fight against corruption per se—characterized by large-scale awareness raising and broad NGO coalitions—and towards mobilizing well-defined constituencies behind focused governance reforms that have a clear impact and benefits for those involved; and by encouraging citizens to fight corruption through the democratic, political mechanisms of representation by supporting, among others, political party reform. If anticorruption reforms are layered within the political process and meet public needs, the long awaited mobilizational potential of the anticorruption agenda might yet be realized.Published versio

Spontaneous emission from a two--level atom tunneling in a double--well potential

We study a two-level atom in a double--well potential coupled to a continuum of electromagnetic modes (black body radiation in three dimensions at zero absolute temperature). Internal and external degrees of the atom couple due to recoil during emission of a photon. We provide a full analysis of the problem in the long wavelengths limit up to the border of the Lamb-Dicke regime, including a study of the internal dynamics of the atom (spontaneous emission), the tunneling motion, and the electric field of the emitted photon. The tunneling process itself may or may not decohere depending on the wavelength corresponding to the internal transition compared to the distance between the two wells of the external potential, as well as on the spontaneous emission rate compared to the tunneling frequency. Interference fringes appear in the emitted light from a tunneling atom, or an atom in a stationary coherent superposition of its center--of--mass motion, if the wavelength is comparable to the well separation, but only if the external state of the atom is post-selected.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures; improved discussion on the limitations of the theor