How Important is being Liked ? The Relation between Facebook Use and Well-being

Facebook is used by approximately 1.06 billion(Craig,2013) to keep in touch with family and friends. However, the question remains whether Facebook is helpful or harmful to people’s well being. According to a research study conducted by Gonzales and Hancock (2010), Facebook use enhances self-esteem by providing multiple opportunities for selective self-presentation through photos and personal details. Another research study by Twenge, Freeman and Campbell (2012) found that participants who spent time on social network sites endorsed more positive self-views. While some research indicates that Facebook has a positive effect on the user other studies suggest that Facebook use is detrimental. A study conducted by Tazghini and Siedlecki (2013) found a negative association between self-esteem and Facebook activity. This association was related to actions like untagging “undesirable” pictures or adding others as friends who they are not familiar with. Similarly, Sheppard Pratt’s (2012) research indicated that Facebook has a negative impact on self-esteem and body image . “Facebook is making it easier for people to spend more time and energy criticizing their own bodies and wishing they looked like someone else” (Dr. Harry Brandt, director of The Center for Eating Disorders at Sheppard Pratt). Given the discrepancies in the research, a worthwhile next step involves examining personal characteristics that may influence the relationship between Facebook use and well-being. The present research will examine whether certain factors influence the relationship between Facebook use and overall well-being.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1033/thumbnail.jp

Advancing Transdisciplinary and Translational Research Practice: Issues and Models of Doctoral Education in Public Health

Finding solutions to complex health problems, such as obesity, violence, and climate change, will require radical changes in cross-disciplinary education, research, and practice. The fundamental determinants of health include many interrelated factors such as poverty, culture, education, environment, and government policies. However, traditional public health training has tended to focus more narrowly on diseases and risk factors, and has not adequately leveraged the rich contributions of sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, communication, political science, and other disciplines. Further, students are often not sufficiently trained to work across sectors to translate research findings into effective, large-scale sustainable actions. During the past 2 decades, national and international organizations have called for more effective interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and translational approaches to graduate education. Although it has been difficult to work across traditional academic boundaries, some promising models draw on pedagogical theory and feature cross-disciplinary training focused on real-world problems, linkage between research, professional practice, community action, and cultivation of leadership skills. We describe the development the Doctor of Public Health program at the University of California, Berkeley, USA and its efforts to improve transdisciplinary and translational research education. We stress the need for international collaboration to improve educational approaches and better evaluate their impact

Role of the thermodynamic regime in ecosystem self-organization and its response to human perturbations

As the rate and scale of human activities increase throughout the world, the structure and function of Earth systems are consequently altered. Human-induced direct and indirect perturbations, such as changes in atmospheric temperature or the burning or logging of vegetation, alter the thermodynamic environment in which ecosystems operate. Yet, the ecosystem-level vegetation response is coupled to its thermodynamic regime, and changes therein are still relatively unknown. Thus, a framework for characterizing and understanding the self-organization of ecosystem vegetation from the thermodynamic perspective is needed to understand its emergent response to natural and human-induced perturbations. The goals of this thesis are to (i) develop a thermodynamic framework to characterize the existence of emergent vegetation structure at any given location, and (ii) utilize this framework to gain insight into the thermodynamic response of ecosystem behavior to direct alteration of vegetation structure through human activities. Vegetation structure, which refers to the number and type of plant functional groups comprising an ecosystem, is the result of self-organization, or the spontaneous emergence of order from random fluctuations. By treating ecosystems as open thermodynamic systems, we use a multi-layer canopy-root-soil model to calculate their thermodynamic properties -- such as energy, entropy, and work -- for field sites across various climates, vegetation structures, and disturbance regimes. We first ask the question: Why do ecosystems exhibit a prevalence of vegetation structure consisting of multiple functional groups? In other words, does the coexistence of multiple functional groups provide a thermodynamic advantage over the individual functional groups that each ecosystem comprises. From this work, we conclude that ecosystems self-organize towards the multiple functional group vegetation structure due to greater fluxes of entropy, work, and work efficiency. Together, these characteristics comprise the concept of thermodynamic advantage. Since multiple functional groups do not exist everywhere in nature, we study and analyze the thermodynamic basis for the existence of ecosystems with a single functional group vegetation structure -- in particular, the region beyond the treeline in alpine and Arctic ecosystems. We therefore ask the question: Since the existence of multiple vegetation groups provides a thermodynamic advantage, is the existence of only a single functional group a result of a thermodynamic limitation? This analysis using counterfactual scenarios comprising of hypothetical trees existing beyond the treeline identifies two conditions of thermodynamic infeasibility. We find that the existence of trees beyond the treeline would result in negative work, and in some cases, net leaf carbon loss from the ecosystem, both comprising a thermodynamic infeasibility condition. Based on these two components, we conclude that an ecosystem will self-organize towards the most advantageous vegetation structure made possible by thermodynamic feasibility. These concepts of thermodynamic feasibility and thermodynamic advantage are then applied to study ecosystems perturbed by human activities through logging and fire. Findings indicate that a forest that is consistently logged is held in a sub-optimal state with lower fluxes of entropy and work efficiency than an undisturbed forest, meaning that human activities prevent the ecosystem from reaching its most thermodynamically advantageous vegetation structure. However, for controlled burns on a tallgrass prairie the advantageous vegetation structure is dependent on the frequency of the burn. Overall, logging events force forests into a disadvantageous vegetation structure while the frequency of burn events determines and reinforces the resulting vegetation structure. This thesis develops a novel framework for analyzing ecosystems as thermodynamic systems driven by thermodynamic feasibility and thermodynamic advantage. Further, by characterizing the behavior of vegetation upon direct alterations to its structure, this work provides a foundation for understanding and predicting the thermodynamic response of vegetation structure to emergent climate scenarios that could impact the thermodynamic environment in which ecosystems operate

Valuing critical zone services in intensively managed landscapes

The critical zone (CZ) includes the range of biophysical processes occurring from the top of the vegetation canopy to the weathering zone below the groundwater table. CZ services provide a measure to value processes that support the goods and services from landscapes. In intensively managed landscapes (IML), the provisioning, supporting, and regulating services are altered through anthropogenic energy inputs so as to derive more agricultural productivity from these landscapes. Land use change and other alterations to the environment result in positive and/or negative net CZ services. Through studies in the Critical Zone Observatory for Intensively Managed Landscapes (IML-CZO), this research seeks to answer questions such as: Which production system provides the least negative environmental impacts - corn for feed or corn for fuel? How much extra products and services are obtained from the land for the energy and resources put in? Before the economic valuation of CZ services, these questions seemed abstract. However, with developments such as CZ services and Life Cycle Assessments (LCA's), they are becoming more concrete. To evaluate the trade-offs between positive and negative impacts, LCA's are used to create an inventory of all the energy inputs and outputs in a landscape management system. Total energy is computed by summing the mechanical energy used to construct tile drains, fertilizer, and other processes involved in IML and the chemical energy gained by the production of ethanol from corn. Multi-layer soil, canopy, and nutrient models are coupled to compute water, carbon, and nitrogen fluxes, which can be translated into CZ services. These values are then viewed alongside the energy inputs into the system to show the relationship between agricultural practices and their corresponding ecosystem and environmental impacts. The LCA and resulting CZ services for corn feed and corn-based ethanol developed in this study conclude that feed production systems are more energy efficient and less environmentally costly than ethanol production systems

Reducing the number and impact of outbreaks of nosocomial viral gastroenteritis: Time-series analysis of a multidimensional quality improvement initiative

Background Nosocomial norovirus infections and their control measures disrupt patient care, increase staff workload and raise healthcare costs. Objective To determine the impact on outbreaks of nosocomial viral gastroenteritis, staff and patients affected, and bed closures of a multidimensional quality improvement (QI) initiative focused on education; improved patient surveillance; early automated recognition and notification of infection of index patients; and proactive care and control measures. Methods In a pragmatic, retrospective, observational study, we compared numbers of suspected/confirmed norovirus outbreaks at Portsmouth Hospitals National Health Service Trust (PHT) with regional and national data, before and after a multidimensional QI initiative. We also compared mean daily bed closures due to norovirus-like symptoms. At PHT only we recorded patient and staff numbers with norovirus-like symptoms, and days of disruption due to outbreaks. Results Annual outbreak numbers fell between 2009-2010 and 2010-2014 by 91% at PHT compared with 15% and 28% for Wessex and England, respectively. After April 2010, recorded outbreaks were 8 (PHT), 383 (Wessex) and 5063 (England). For the winter periods from 2010/ 2011 to 2013/2014, total bed closures due to norovirus were 38 (PHT; mean 0.5 per week), 3565 (Wessex hospitals; mean 48.8 per hospital per week) and 2730 (England; mean 37.4 per hospital per week). At PHT, patients affected by norovirus-like symptoms fell by 92%, affected staff by 81% and days of disruption by 88%. Conclusions A multiyear QI programme, including use of real-time electronic identification of patients with norovirus-like symptoms, and an early robust response to suspected infection, resulted in virtual elimination of outbreaks. The ability to identify index cases of infection early facilitates prompt action to prevent ongoing transmission and appears to be a crucial intervention

SB 909/HB 1408 Virginia Fair Housing Law; unlawful discriminatory housing practices

This report provides a legislative racial impact analysis of Senate Bill (SB) 909, a proposed bill in the Virginia General Assembly, to expand the Virginia Fair Housing Law to include lawful sources of income. Specifically, this report examines state and county source of income laws and their variances by race and ethnicity

How Good a Deal Was the Tobacco Settlement?: Assessing Payments to Massachusetts

We estimate the increment in Massachusetts Medicaid program costs attributable to smoking from December 20, 1991, to 1998. We describe how our methods improve upon earlier estimates of analogous costs at the national level. Current costs to the Massachusetts Medicaid program approximate the payments to Massachusetts under the tobacco settlement of November 1998. Whether these payments are viewed as appropriate compensation for Medicaid costs over time depends upon the rate of increase in future health care costs, the rate of decline in smoking, the proportion of smoking that should be attributed to the actions of the tobacco companies and the liklihood that state would have prevailed at trial. The costs to the Medicaid program are dwarfed by the internal costs to smokers themselves.

Opinion: Focus on preclinical sex differences will not address women’s and men’s health disparities

Histor

Defining and characterizing team resilience in elite sport

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to develop a definition of team resilience and to identify the resilient characteristics of elite sport teams. Design and Method: Focus groups consisting of a total of 31 participants were conducted with five elite teams from a range of sports. An interpretive thematic analysis using inductive and deductive reasoning was employed to analyze the data. Results and Conclusions: Team resilience was defined as a dynamic, psychosocial process which protects a group of individuals from the potential negative effect of the stressors they collectively encounter. It comprises of processes whereby team members use their individual and combined resources to positively adapt when experiencing adversity. Findings revealed four main resilient characteristics of elite sport teams: group structure, mastery approaches, social capital, and collective efficacy. This study extends resilience research in sport psychology by providing greater conceptual clarity of resilience at a team level. The implications of the findings for those conducting research in this area and for those consulting with elite sport teams are discussed