Leveraging Components of MBSR to Minimize Stress and Maximize Performance

Mindfulness, a fairly new concept, is considered enhanced awareness and attention. This state of mind can result in decentering or reperceiving, a notion where an individual reframes how he or she evaluates experiences to view them as an external witness from an objective stance. A large branch of mindfulness research studies how mindfulness can be fostered and used to engender positive outcomes. Perhaps the most well-known mindfulness intervention is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), an eight-week program comprised of three parts. This study aims to examine the effectiveness of each of these components, as well as identify the most effective component, in reducing stress and increasing performance within an academic setting. Since academic settings are, in some ways, similar to organizational settings, it is believed the results of this study could be utilized to develop a concise version of MBSR, able to be used by those who are generally limited in time and resources—employees and students alike. Additionally, companies and universities may be more willing to implement an abridged version of MBSR if it is shown to maximize performance and minimize stress without costing too much time and too many resources

What about the Supervisor? The Role of Supervisor Implicit Person Theory and Behaviors in Appraisal Interviews

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Supervisors are the primary drivers of performance management; however, little is known about factors that influence their implementation of these systems. The purpose of this study was to investigate how a supervisor individual difference—implicit person theory (IPT)—differentially predicts supervisor behaviors during, as well as both supervisor and employee reactions to appraisal interviews. In Study 1, MBA students reported their supervisors’ behaviors during their most recent performance appraisal interview (Time 1) as well as their subsequent reactions (i.e., perceived satisfaction, utility, success, supervisor support; Time 2). Their supervisors completed a measure assessing their own IPT (Time 3). Findings suggest that supervisors’ task-oriented behaviors predicted perceived satisfaction, utility, and success of the appraisal interviews, while supervisor’ relational-oriented behaviors predicted perceived supervisor support. In Study 2, supervisors recruited via MTurk completed all measures from Study 1 except perceived success. Results suggest that IPT was positively related to task-oriented behaviors and perceived utility, task-oriented behaviors mediated the relationship between IPT and all three reaction measures (i.e., perceived satisfaction, utility, and supervisor support), and relational-oriented behaviors significantly predicted supervisors’ perceived support. Overall, findings suggest that supervisors who believe people can change (hold a more incremental IPT) display more task-oriented behaviors during and see more utility in appraisal interviews. Additionally, task-oriented behaviors emerged as the key mechanism linking supervisors’ IPT and reactions to appraisal interviews. These findings demonstrate that supervisor individual differences, such as IPT, can influence performance appraisal and management outcomes

Quiz Games as a model for Information Hiding

We present a general computation model inspired in the notion of information hiding in software engineering. This model has the form of a game which we call quiz game. It allows in a uniform way to prove exponential lower bounds for several complexity problems of elimination theory.Comment: 46 pages, to appear in Journal of Complexit

The health of the poor: Women living in informal settlements

Objectives: A large share of the urban population in developing countries lives in informal settlements or “slums” today. This study investigates the association between slum residence and health among adult Ghanaian women residing in the Accra Metropolitan Area.Methods: Health data collected as part of the Women’s Health Study of Accra round II (WHSA-II) was combined with data from the Household and Welfare Study of Accra (HAWS) to compare the health of female slum dwellers to the health of female non-slum dwellers living in the Accra Metropolitan Area. Group means were calculated and multivariate linear regression models were estimated to compare eight domains ofhealth as measured by the short-form 36 (SF-36) questionnaire.Results: Women living in informal settlements were found to display consistently better health. Conditional on all observable characteristics, women living in informal settlements scored higher on all self-reportedhealth outcomes than women living in non-slum areas. The differences appear largest for general health as well as for the physical role functioning domains, and appear smallest for the social role functioning and bodily pain domains.Conclusions: The results presented suggest that slum residence does not have a negative effect on self-reported health among women in Accra. Three factors may contribute to the generally positive association betweenslum residence and observed outcomes: i) selfselection of individuals with strong health into informal settlements and an accordingly small impact ofenvironmental factors on health ii) self-selection of more driven and ambitious individuals into slum neighborhoods who may have a generally more positive view of their health and iii) the geographic placement ofslum neighborhoods in central neighborhoods with relatively easy access to health facilities

Comparison of HIV prevalence estimates from antenatal care surveillance and population-based surveys in sub-Saharan Africa

\ud In countries with generalized epidemics, national estimates of HIV prevalence levels and trends in the adult population are generally derived indirectly from surveillance of pregnant women attending selected antenatal care (ANC) clinics. ANC data however, come from a subset of the population and may not represent the true population prevalence. To compare HIV seroprevalence estimates obtained from ANC sentinel surveillance surveys in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda with those from population-based Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and AIDS Indicator Surveys (AIS). Geographic information system (GIS) methods were used to map sentinel surveillance sites and DHS/AIS survey clusters within a 15 km radius of the ANC\ud surveillance sites. National DHS/AIS HIV prevalence estimates for women were compared with national prevalence estimates from ANC surveillance. DHS/AIS HIV prevalence estimates for women residing within 15 km of ANC sites were compared to those from ANC surveillance. These comparisons were also stratified by current pregnancy status, experience of recent child birth, and receiving ANC for the last birth. In four of the five countries, national DHS/AIS estimates of HIV prevalence were lower than the ANC surveillance estimates. Comparing women in the catchment areas of the ANC sites, the DHS/AIS estimates were similar to ANC surveillance estimates. ANC estimates were higher for younger women than DHS/AIS estimates for women in ANC catchment areas, but lower at older ages. In all cases, urban prevalence was higher than rural prevalence, but there were no consistent patterns by education. ANC surveillance surveys tend to overestimate HIV prevalence compared to prevalence among women in the general population in DHS/AIS surveys. However, the ANC and DHS/AIS estimates are similar when restricted to women residing in catchment areas of ANC sites. Patterns by age and urban/rural residence suggest possible bias in the ANC estimates.\u

THE MOSAIC OF THE FRIGIDARIUM OF “VILLA BONANNO” IN PALERMO: MINERALOGICAL AND PETROGRAPHIC ANALYSES FOR IN SITU CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION INTERVENTIONS

The topic of this study was the mineralogical and petrographic characterization of bedding mortars (made of different layers) and tesserae of Roman age (3rd century A.D.), taken from the mosaic of the Frigidarium of “Villa Bonanno”, brought to light by archaeological excavations conducted in the historical centre of Palermo. The collected samples have been analysed by thin-section optical microscopy (PLM), and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDS). The study was aimed to define the “recipe” (composition of aggregate and binder, aggregate size distribution, aggregate/binder ratio), in order to assess the provenance of raw materials (supply site/area) and to acquire useful information in order to formulate "restoration mortars" that should be most comparable with the original ones, for replacements and/or integration. Rock types constituting the coloured tesserae were also characterized by thin-section optical microscopy. The mineralogical and petrographic investigations allowed establishing two different recipes used for the formulation of the studied mortars in terms of both compositional and textural features. The aggregate is composed by diverse proportions of detritic calcareous granules (both bioclasts and limestone fragments deriving from the local outcropping biocalcarenites and limestones), siliceous sand (monocrystalline quartz, chert and quartzarenite fragments), volcanic ash (pozzolana) and sometimes cocciopesto. The resulting hydraulic binder was the product of the „pozzolanic reaction‟ between volcanic ash and the aerial lime (specifically made by the calcination of locally available magnesian limestone or dolostone). The coloured tesserae can be all classified as compact limestones of Mesozoic or Cenozoic age, likely of local provenance

MuseU.M. News, No. 24

Recent Accessions -- Museum Hosts Bird Preparation Workshop -- Exhibits Updat

MuseU.M. News, No. 23

Museum Receives Gene Miller Collection -- Museum Reaches Milestones -- Recent Accession

MuseU.M. News, No. 15

Recent Accessions by the Museum -- Zooarchaeology Course Uses Museum Collection -- How Big is the Museum\u27s Collection