Exploratory Factor Analysis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptom Clusters

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a distressing condition that involves a preoccupation with a perceived defect(s) in appearance. Despite the importance of early identification, it is often misdiagnosed. The literature suggests that issues with diagnosis may be because BDD is typically defined by the single symptom of dysmorphic concern (i.e., over concern with an imagined or slight defect in physical appearance). Dysmorphic concern is insufficient to fully characterize the disturbance. This study used exploratory factor analysis to identify symptom clusters from four well-known BDD measures completed by 457 undergraduate students. The extracted content suggested the following symptoms: (a) Dysmorphic Concern, (b) Social Anxiety and Avoidance, and (c) Appearance Investment which differ slightly from the hypothesized factors of Dysmorphic Obsessions, Compulsions, and Avoidance. Likely explanations for the results and suggestions for future research are presented

Exploratory Factor Analysis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptom Clusters

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a distressing condition that involves a preoccupation with a perceived defect(s) in appearance. Despite the importance of early identification, it is often misdiagnosed. The literature suggests that issues with diagnosis may be because BDD is typically defined by the single symptom of dysmorphic concern (i.e., over concern with an imagined or slight defect in physical appearance). Dysmorphic concern is insufficient to fully characterize the disturbance. This study used exploratory factor analysis to identify symptom clusters from four well-known BDD measures completed by 457 undergraduate students. The extracted content suggested the following symptoms: (a) Dysmorphic Concern, (b) Social Anxiety and Avoidance, and (c) Appearance Investment which differ slightly from the hypothesized factors of Dysmorphic Obsessions, Compulsions, and Avoidance. Likely explanations for the results and suggestions for future research are presented

Improving student retention through enhanced academic and pastoral support: A Case Study

This case study presents an innovative approach to student retention. The Integrated Learner Support model brings together professional support services and programme-focused academic support to deliver ‘the team around the student’. A redesign of the University of Northampton’s Personal Tutoring system has sought to foster a sense of care and belonging; embedding this support within curricula with triage to the wider team. These developments have been informed by best practice from the University’s Faculty of Health and Society where two senior nursing lecturers have developed an additional level of student support. Initiated originally by the Subject Lead for Nursing, these roles provide emotional and pragmatic interventions to the needs of individual nursing students as they progress through their programme. Informal feedback and retention statistics suggest that in the face of rising mental health issues in the national student population, this kind of face-to-face, caring and timely support is of clear value

Designing for online learning

During a time of change in HE we need to make sure we are broadening access to knowledge, enabling global mobility, being competitive and embracing new technologies - how do we do this

Key lessons learned on international engagement

This briefing paper summarises shifts in international engagement in South Sudan from humanitarian aid to development and institution-building, and then back again to crisis response. The findings emerge from the recent report, Trajectories of international engagement with state and local actors: Evidence from South Sudan [^] , as well as other SLRC South Sudan research over the life of the programme. In the wake of South Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, optimism abounded that investment in state-building would produce numerous benefits including peace, stability, growth and economic opportunities. But such optimism proved to be unfounded. This paper analyses why current aid frameworks have been mostly unsuccessful in their efforts to promote sustainable institutions and peace in South Sudan. The central argument is that aid actors largely failed because they applied technical solutions to political problems. What is needed is a rethink in approaches, modalities, and time frames, and better use of contextual and political analysis, in order to avoid similar failures in the future

Livelihoods and conflict in South Sudan

More than five million people in South Sudan are currently in urgent need of humanitarian aid, with nearly one-and-a-half million displaced and another one million refugees. These figures indicate large-scale loss of lives and extreme disruption to livelihoods, which will take decades or generations to recover from. Yet livelihoods are often just expected to recover in a post-conflict environment. Findings from six years of research by SLRC do not support this argument; in some areas of South Sudan, support for livelihoods may have even been better during conflict. This briefing paper recommends a rethink in the way that aid actors approach questions of recovery and livelihood. Rather than a simplistic either/ or approach, what is needed is a much more localised and deeper analysis of conflict, inter-communal grievances and inter-communal relations

Exploring Active Blended Learning Through the Lens of Team-Based Learning

This chapter showcases how the collaborative learning and teaching strategy known as Team-Based Learning™ (TBL) can deliver against the conceptual components within active blended learning (ABL), through exploration of different case studies from the authors' university. It begins by detailing the core concepts and theories underpinning each pedagogic approach before considering how adoption of TBL is consistent with the wider implementation of ABL. Case histories are used to highlight how these approaches enhance the student learning experience and how learning technologies can enable staff to do more of what they value within the classroom. The value of different learning spaces to facilitate TBL and augment the learning experience for both staff and students is considered. Finally, the chapter explores some of the more difficult questions around the lack of broader uptake of TBL within an institution committed to ABL as its standard approach to learning and teaching

Enzyme Treatments to Enhance Oil Recovery

During ethanol production in a dry-grind plant, the whole kernel is ground and corn oil can be extracted as a co-product

Applications of High-Resolution Gigapan Imagery in Mapping Fracture Systems: An Example from the Adirondack Basement Massif, New York

The Precambrian basement and overlying rocks that comprise the Adirondack massif have experienced significant brittle deformation with uplift over time. This has produced an extensive system of faults and fractures, which trends generally North-Northeast (N-NE) throughout the massif. The fault and fracture system is well-exposed at numerous outcrops, which has proven advantageous to characterizing it. In this study, fault density analysis was conducted on 12 well-exposed outcrops within the Piseco Lake shear zone in the southern Adirondacks. A combination of orientation measurements and high-resolution GigaPan panoramic imagery were collected at each outcrop, and together these data were used to generate fault density contour maps of the outcrops. The fault density and orientation data has been integrated into a new Google Earth-based interactive structural field map of the Adirondacks, which can be further built upon by the authors (and others) as additional field campaigns are completed. This study has successfully served as a proof-of-concept for the imaging and contouring method, and has demonstrated its efficacy to geological research. Characterizing the quantity and spatial distribution of bedrock joints and fractures has important implications in geological fields such as hydrogeology, resource exploration, geo-hazard assessment, and geo-engineering