Touching Scenes: The Politics of Female Touch in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

Victorian literature is crowded with scenes of women reaching out and touching one another. Women regularly show their affection through physical manifestations such as hugging, kissing, walking arm-in-arm, and with hands clasped warmly around one another’s waists. Physical manifestations of female affection recur in the great majority of Victorian fiction, from the early to the late period, in a variety of genres, in literature by both male and female authors, and often recur in chapter after chapter. My study recognizes that in any society, the tacit rules of who touches whom, when, why, where, and how, are complex and deeply-engrained social issues, and close analysis thereof may thus yield much information about a society’s most deeply held values. In addition, nineteenth-century England, with its popular reputation for extreme prudery and restraint, is an enticing place to find such myriad description of physical touch. Why, then, are they there, and why so prevalent? What functions do they serve in the texts? How were these women, and their bodies, read by onlookers? And what meaning and values were ascribed to such depictions by Victorian readers? This work begins to answer these questions, codify the implicit politics of social touching between women in Victorian England, provide a justification for the analysis of such scenes in literature, and develop an initial framework for these analyses. My research has determined that touching behaviors function as markers of various identity constructs including gender, (chapter one of this work), and nationality and social standing (chapter two). In addition, some women were able to manipulate expectations surrounding their physical behavior to accomplish their own ends (chapter three), while the physicality of others results in significant or lasting consequences for the individuals who are touched (chapter four)

How Hospital Social Service Directors Perceive the Current and Future Role of the Medical Social Worker

This research explored the current roles and attempts to understand the future roles of medical social workers in hospital settings. The subjects of this study were members of the Minnesota Chapter of the Society of Social Work Administrators in Health Care who completed a 16 question mailed survey. The findings illustrated the necessity to expand social work services beyond the hospital walls into such areas as emergency rooms, community settings, and physician clinics. The information gathered and compiled for this study will be used by directors of hospital social work service departments, along with medical social workers, to examine and be proactive about their roles and future service delivery iii hospital settings

Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Development Increased Income for Rural Pennsylvania Families, but Youth Obesity Rates Remained High

A new study finds that despite increased income due to MarcellusShale, childhood obesity in rural PA remain unchanged

Contrasts in Oxygen Variability of SE Pacific Oxygen Deficient Zone and Subtropical Gyre

Two decades of observations in the eastern South Pacific show changes in oxygen concentrations and apparent oxygen utilizations (AOUs) in the lower thermocline 26.5-27.0 sigma-theta. The 2013 GEOTRACES O2 and AOU data along ~12°S from the oxygen deficient zone (ODZ; O2 \u3c 50 umol/kg) are compared with repeat hydrography data from the 1990s to the 2010s; the recent data add detail and process information to earlier work. In 2013, transient tracer ratio ages suggest renewal times of over two decades at the core of the ODZ as compared with being at least 7 years younger at the same densities in the subtropical gyre. Related to the age differences in the two regions, we observe oxygen parameters changing in different directions over the two decades, also different processes and forcing dominate. Similar to earlier studies, we found subtropical gyre oxygen concentrations increase and AOUs decrease due to increases in ventilation between 1990s and 2013, coupled to changes in southern hemisphere westerlies. In the core of the ODZ, oxygen concentrations decrease at an annual rate of 0.2 umol/kg/yr, AOUs increase between 1990s and 2013, and the 5 umol/kg contour reaches ~300 m deeper in the water column. ODZ changes are estimated to be due to increased biological consumption, consistent with increased upwelling corresponding to increased trade winds during that period. Thus, the difference in oxygen between the 1990s and 2013 is due to - proximity of the ODZ to coastal upwelling and longer ventilation time scales in the ODZ than gyre. In the gyre, water masses are closer to their sources and ages are younger. Whereas, the ODZ is more isolated from water mass source regions, and it takes more than two decades for the ventilated gyre waters to reach the ODZ. We have shown that in the South Pacific changes in oxygen parameters in the ODZ and subtropical gyre – to date – appear to be due to independent processes and forcing acting in each region. Continuing ocean observations are needed to monitor changes in gases such as oxygen that are critical to life

Pseudodeterminants and perfect square spanning tree counts

The pseudodeterminant $\textrm{pdet}(M)$ of a square matrix is the last nonzero coefficient in its characteristic polynomial; for a nonsingular matrix, this is just the determinant. If $\partial$ is a symmetric or skew-symmetric matrix then $\textrm{pdet}(\partial\partial^t)=\textrm{pdet}(\partial)^2$. Whenever $\partial$ is the $k^{th}$ boundary map of a self-dual CW-complex $X$, this linear-algebraic identity implies that the torsion-weighted generating function for cellular $k$-trees in $X$ is a perfect square. In the case that $X$ is an \emph{antipodally} self-dual CW-sphere of odd dimension, the pseudodeterminant of its $k$th cellular boundary map can be interpreted directly as a torsion-weighted generating function both for $k$-trees and for $(k-1)$-trees, complementing the analogous result for even-dimensional spheres given by the second author. The argument relies on the topological fact that any self-dual even-dimensional CW-ball can be oriented so that its middle boundary map is skew-symmetric.Comment: Final version; minor revisions. To appear in Journal of Combinatoric

Does Native Plant Density Matter for Coastal/shrub Habitat Restoration in the Presence of Non-native Invasive Species?

Coastal forests play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity and providing habitats for many species of migratory birds and pollinators. We tested if a closed canopy provided by a restored coastal forest will provide enough shade to reduce the invasive population of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). Mugwort has little value to wildlife as it’s pollen and tiny seeds are wind dispersed. It grows densely and frequently out competes native plant species. Native tree and shrub species were planted close together (~1m apart) in 2017 and 2019 on a remediated site in Stratford, Connecticut. The 0.52 ha area was covered with mugwort in 2017 and mowed; the native trees and shrubs came in 3-gallon containers from a local nursery. By 2022, approximately 0.39 ha is covered with tree and shrub canopy. Thus, 75% of the forest area is populated with native species instead of mugwort. This restoration has significantly decreased the population of mugwort to only 25% of the area. We also observed an increase in pollinating insects and this small patch of coastal forest serves as a stopover site for migrating passerines. Restoration of coastal forests and reduction of invasive plants can be accomplished in four years with highly dense plantings

Analysis of the Gut-Brain Axis in Aging: Implications in Alzheimer Disease

The gut microbiome is comprised of the shared genome of the trillions of microorganisms residing in the gastrointestinal ecosystem. The interaction between the host and its gut microbiome, the Gut-Bran Axis (GBA), is a complex relationship whose management could prove critical to preventing or treating not only various gut disorders, like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or behavioral health disorders such as general depression and anxiety, but also central nervous system (CNS) disorders, such as Alzheimer\u27s (AD) and Parkinson\u27s (PD) diseases. The purpose of this review is to summarize what is currently known about the gut microbiome, how it is connected to the development of disease pathology and to identify the bacterial and biochemical targets/pathways that should be the focus of future research. In identifying, exploring, and understanding the mechanisms behind the activity and propagation of the gut microbiome, this will provide us new insights that are likely to pave the way for increased novel therapeutic strategies

Perceptions of stress: a gendered comparison of undergraduates in STEM

Students enrolled in undergraduate universities face numerous stressors every day. Outside of stress from their academic studies (i.e., homework, studying for exams, writing papers), they also encounter daily life stressors relating to self-sufficiency, career choices, families, housing, and many other areas. While every student deals with stress coming from multiple areas of their life, women tend to place more stress on themselves than men due to social pressure to perform well and the feeling of societal expectation to have a high stress load from which to derive personal value. Within the field of Science, Technology and Math (STEM), —a field dominated by men until relatively recently—the same findings of women reporting higher stress levels holds true. Since there is relatively limited research on these broader perceptions of stress between men and women and the worth one derives from perceived stress loads, this study aimed to look at gender differences in such perceptions among STEM students. Survey data were gathered from 151 STEM undergraduate students. This study examined proposed differences in perceptions of stress using four subscales from viewing stress as a badge of honor: stress as achievement, relaxation remorse, stress-related social comparison, and stress-related impression management. Based on previous research finding women to report higher perceived stress levels, we hypothesized that women in STEM will report higher perceptions of stress as compared to men in STEM; and they will also report higher levels of stress as a badge of honor than men. Our findings indicated that women indeed perceived more stress than men in STEM as well as less “stress-is-enhancing mindsets. However, we found that men reported slightly but not significantly higher levels of stress as achievement, relaxation remorse, stress-related social comparison, and stress-related impression management than women

Foster Care In The U.S.: Why Children Are Removed From The Home

There are around 443,000 children in foster care in the United States as of 2018. These children are typically in foster care due to some kind mistreatment or because they have no living guardian. The purpose of this study was to investigate the primary reason for the removal of a child ages three and under from the home nationally, in North Carolina, and in my home area of Catawba County. My parents have fostered children since 2008, and in our experience most children under the age of three were brought into foster care because of parental drug or substance abuse. Thus, my initial hypothesis was that nationwide and in North Carolina, most children ages three and under were removed because the parents or guardians were abusing drugs or other substances. Using graphical and statistical analysis, I found that the primary reason for removal in a case was neglect for all three data sets. In addition, many cases involve two or three reasons. For instance, a child might be removed because of abuse and neglect. Overall, I found that most removal cases involve some form of neglect. With further research, we could help determine what factors influence neglect and help prevent mistreatment of children before they become victims