Evaluation of a free-viewing task to measure distinct negative and positive biases in depression

Attentional bias has traditionally been inferred through the measurement of reaction-time-based tasks. Eye-tracking offers a way to measure attention bias directly, and free-viewing tasks with intricate stimuli presentations may capture the complexities and dynamics of attention bias in ways previous modalities have not. The present study developed a free-viewing task using a data-driven stimuli selection process. Two free-viewing tasks were created using sad and neutral stimuli, and happy and neutral stimuli to tease apart the distinct effects of negative and positive bias. In this study, eye tracking data was collected and analyzed from n = 130 participants using mixed-effect and generalized linear models. Results revealed the interaction term (depression severity and stimuli valence) influenced dwell time on emotional stimuli, such that with an increase of 1 SD in depression severity (7.87 points on the Beck Depression Inventory-II), participants spent less 60 ms less time viewing sad stimuli and 25 ms less viewing happy stimuli. A significant interaction of depression severity and valence also influenced participant’s latency to first fixation. Increased depression severity (1 SD) was associated with increased odds of being slower to fixate on stimuli when it was sad (OR = 1.10) and when it was happy (OR = 1.03). There was no effect of depression severity or stimuli valence on latency to first fixation, nor an effect of depression severity on the proportion of trials where the first fixation was emotional or proportion of trials where dwell time for emotional areas of interest (AOIs) exceeded neutral. Internal consistency for emotional dwell time was high for both tasks (omega = .95 and .94 for the sad and happy versions, respectively), and split-half reliability for the outcomes was overall strong. Findings suggest depressed individuals may interact with stimuli differently at various levels of depression severity. Implications for future research are discussed.Psycholog

News Fit for Teens?: A Content Analysis of Channel One

The purpose of this study was to analyze the content and style of the 12-minute Channel One broadcasts seen by 8 million teenagers in their classrooms each day. Following a review of relevant literature concerning Channel One, the researcher recorded 163 shows aired during the 2000-2001 school year. From these shows, the researcher chose a sample of 46 Channel One broadcasts from which 150 stories were analyzed according to type of story, topic of story, source occupation, the ethnicity and gender of the anchor and reporter, location of the report and the use of file tape and/or photos or maps. The analysis revealed that almost one third of the stories aired by Channel One could be categorized as hard news stories that occupied 37 percent of the airtime studied. The twenty-seven feature stories studied occupied almost 30 percent of the airtime. Analysis of the broadcasts suggests that Channel One strives to provide hard news and feature information for teenagers comparable to national news programming but with a definite youth-orientated production style. This study serves to motivate more administration teachers to use Channel One to enhance student knowledge and understanding of international and domestic current events in the worked in which they live

Interview with Mary Schlariet

Mary Schlariet talks about her role in the county fair.https://digital.kenyon.edu/elfs_interviews/1064/thumbnail.jp

A Survey of Athenian Block Grants of Citizenship

During the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, the Athenians awarded block grants of citizenship to several groups of allies who had served to protect and defend Athenian democracy. This paper examines some examples of these block grants and the degree to which foreigners were afforded the same protections and privileges awarded to native-born Athenian citizens

Foundations in Wisconsin: A Directory [34th ed. 2015]

The 2015 release of Foundations in Wisconsin marks the 34th production of the print directory and the 15th year of the online version. The directory is designed as a research tool for grantseekers interested in locating information on private, corporate, and community foundations registered in Wisconsin. Each entry in this new edition has been updated or reviewed to provide the most current information available. Most of the data was drawn from IRS 990-PF tax returns filed by the foundations. Additional information was obtained from surveys, foundation websites, annual reports, and newsletters. Wisconsin foundations have shown significant growth in two key areas. Grant and asset totals have risen to to their highest recorded levels. Total grants increased by 5% to $579 million and assets by 17$9.5 billion. Additionally, 58 new foundations have been identified this edition. (See page 271 for the complete list.)https://epublications.marquette.edu/lib_fiw/1013/thumbnail.jp

The Focas Institute at DIT : Origins and Development of a Research Institute

The book outlines the roots and development of a new scientific research institute called the Focas ( facility for Optical Characterisation and Spectroscopy) within the Dublin Institute of Technology

Should We "Redshirt" in Kindergarten? A Study of the Effect of Age on Kindergarteners' Reading Readiness

This study examined the effect of chronological age on kindergarten children's reading readiness skills. Specifically, we ask whether chronological age should be considered when making decisions about academic redshirting: the practice of delaying younger children's entrance into kindergarten. We were concerned particularly with reading readiness because research has shown consistently that kindergarten children who demonstrate strong prereading skills such as phonological awareness and letter-sound understanding are more likely to become strong readers in later grades (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The participants in this study were 625 kindergarten children who were measured for age, phonological awareness, and letter-sound understanding. Results of analysis indicate that younger children were no different from their older peers in their phonological awareness skills whereas significant between-group differences did occur for letter-sound understanding. These results give strength to the notion that younger children in kindergarten were comparable to older children in their phonological awareness skills. However, younger children were less skilled in understanding letter-sound relationships.Cette étude porte sur l'effet de l'âge chronologique sur les habiletés relatives à la capacité de lecture d'enfants à la maternelle. Plus précisément, nous considérons s'il faudrait tenir compte de l'âge chronologique lors de la prise de décision impliquant la pratique académique de "redshirting" qui consiste à retarder l'entrée à la maternelle d'enfants plus jeunes. Nous nous sommes penchés sur la préparation à la lecture, les recherches démontrant, de façon persistante, que les enfants de la maternelle qui font preuve d'habiletés de prélecture - telles la conscience phonologique et le sens de la relation grapho-phonémique - très développées sont plus aptes à devenir de bons lecteurs plus tard (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Les enfants qui ont participé à cette étude, 625 jeunes de la maternelle, ont été évalués en fonction de leur âge, leur conscience phonologique et leur sens de la relation grapho-phonémique. L'analyse des données a révélé qu'il n'y avait pas de différences dans les habiletés liées à la conscience phonologique entre les enfants plus jeunes et leurs pairs plus âgés. Pour le sens de la relation grapho-phonémique toutefois, les différences entre les groupes d'âge étaient importantes. Ces résultats viennent appuyer la notion selon laquelle les habiletés liées à la conscience phonologique chez les enfants plus jeunes sont comparables à celles des enfants plus âgés. Les plus jeunes, par contre, comprenaient moins bien la relation grapho-phonémique

Structure Property Relationships in Organic Conjugated Systems

A series of π conjugated oligomers were studied by absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy. A linear relationship between the positioning of the absorption and photoluminescence maxima plotted against inverse conjugation length is observed. The relationships are in good agreement with the simple particle in a box method, one of the earliest descriptions of the properties of one-dimensional organic molecules. In addition to the electronic transition energies, it was observed that the Stokes shift also exhibited a well-defined relationship with increasing conjugation length, implying a correlation between the electron-vibrational coupling and chain length. This correlation is further examined using Raman spectroscopy, whereby the integrated Raman scattering is seen to behave superlinearly with chain length. There is a clear indication that the vibrational activity and thus nonradiative decay processes are controllable through molecular structure. The correlations between the Stokes energies and the vibrational structure are also observed in a selection of PPV based polymers and a clear trend of increasing luminescence efficiency with decreasing vibrational activity and Stokes shift is observable. The implications of such structure property relationships in terms of materials design are discussed

Dissociation of C-Reactive Protein Levels from Long-Chain Omega-3 Fatty Acid Status and Antidepressant Response in Adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder: An Open-Label Dose-Ranging Trial

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with long-chain omega-3 (LCn-3) fatty acid deficits and indices of chronic sustained inflammation including elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. The present study combined a case-control analysis and a prospective 10-week open-label fish oil (FO) supplementation trial to investigate the relationships among plasma phospholipid LCn-3 fatty acid levels, plasma CRP concentrations, and depressive symptoms in adolescent MDD patients. Compared with healthy controls (n=20), MDD patients (n=20) exhibited significantly lower EPA+DHA levels (-62%, p£0.0001) and a higher ratio of arachidonic acid (AA) to EPA+DHA (+78%, p=0.0002). CRP concentrations did not differ between controls and MDD patients (0.16 vs. 0.17 mg/dL, p=0.96), and were positively correlated with depression symptom severity scores in MDD patients (r = +0.55, p=0.01). CRP concentrations were positively correlated with BMI in MDD patients (r = +0.63, p=0.005) and controls (r = +0.69, p=0.002). Low-dose (2.4 g/d) and high-dose (15 g/d) FO supplementation significantly increased EPA+DHA levels in MDD patients, but did not significantly alter CRP concentrations. Baseline and baseline-endpoint change in CRP levels were not correlated with baseline-endpoint reductions in depression severity. Together, these data demonstrate that the lower plasma phospholipid LCn-3 fatty acid composition exhibited by adolescent MDD patients is not associated with higher CRP levels, and that increasing LCn-3 fatty acid status reduces depression symptom severity independent of changes in CRP concentrations. Collectively, these data suggest that CRP concentrations are dissociable from LCn-3 fatty acid status and antidepressant response in adolescent MDD patients

Should We "Redshirt" in Kindergarten? A Study of the Effect of Age on Kindergarteners' Reading Readiness

This study examined the effect of chronological age on kindergarten children's reading readiness skills. Specifically, we ask whether chronological age should be considered when making decisions about academic redshirting: the practice of delaying younger children's entrance into kindergarten. We were concerned particularly with reading readiness because research has shown consistently that kindergarten children who demonstrate strong prereading skills such as phonological awareness and letter-sound understanding are more likely to become strong readers in later grades (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The participants in this study were 625 kindergarten children who were measured for age, phonological awareness, and letter-sound understanding. Results of analysis indicate that younger children were no different from their older peers in their phonological awareness skills whereas significant between-group differences did occur for letter-sound understanding. These results give strength to the notion that younger children in kindergarten were comparable to older children in their phonological awareness skills. However, younger children were less skilled in understanding letter-sound relationships.Cette étude porte sur l'effet de l'âge chronologique sur les habiletés relatives à la capacité de lecture d'enfants à la maternelle. Plus précisément, nous considérons s'il faudrait tenir compte de l'âge chronologique lors de la prise de décision impliquant la pratique académique de "redshirting" qui consiste à retarder l'entrée à la maternelle d'enfants plus jeunes. Nous nous sommes penchés sur la préparation à la lecture, les recherches démontrant, de façon persistante, que les enfants de la maternelle qui font preuve d'habiletés de prélecture - telles la conscience phonologique et le sens de la relation grapho-phonémique - très développées sont plus aptes à devenir de bons lecteurs plus tard (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Les enfants qui ont participé à cette étude, 625 jeunes de la maternelle, ont été évalués en fonction de leur âge, leur conscience phonologique et leur sens de la relation grapho-phonémique. L'analyse des données a révélé qu'il n'y avait pas de différences dans les habiletés liées à la conscience phonologique entre les enfants plus jeunes et leurs pairs plus âgés. Pour le sens de la relation grapho-phonémique toutefois, les différences entre les groupes d'âge étaient importantes. Ces résultats viennent appuyer la notion selon laquelle les habiletés liées à la conscience phonologique chez les enfants plus jeunes sont comparables à celles des enfants plus âgés. Les plus jeunes, par contre, comprenaient moins bien la relation grapho-phonémique