Unusual Children: Queerishness and Strange Growth in A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver

This project examines two different pieces of modern children’s literature, Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and Lois Lowry’s The Giver, in terms of their protagonists’ respective strange identities. I begin with Katherine Stockton’s theory of sideways growth, which outlines the unusualness often found in child protagonist. I use Stockton’s work as a jumping off point to examine the queerishness of two protagonists, L’Engle’s Meg Murray and Lowry’s Jonas. Meg is unfeminine, and her experiences with language and definitions defy gender binaries and easy definitions; throughout the course of the novel, she learns to embrace her “flaws” (her unfeminine, difficult to define traits) and use them to save her family. Jonas lives in a dystopian society that has embraced Sameness and which reflects Foucault’s hypothetical Panopticon. It uses surveillance to make sure its citizens and the language they use are easy to categorize. When he is chosen as the Receiver and charged with the burden of all the memories his community has forbidden, he is symbolically reborn. Through his connection with his mentor, The Giver, and an infant named Gabe who is physically growing the “wrong” way, Jonas uses his strange individuality to build his own queerish family and challenge his community’s oppressive power structures

A perceptual load theory framework of eating behaviour

A wealth of perceptual load theory research has suggested that different types of attentional demand can have opposite effects on perceptual processing: high perceptual demand reduces such processing whereas high cognitive demand increases it. However, this distinction has not been made within the eating behaviour literature. This thesis applied perceptual load theory to multiple aspects of eating behaviour. A series of behavioural studies tested whether processing of food-related cues and information related to consumption would also be reduced by manipulating the perceptual demand in a central task. Papers one and two used established perceptual load paradigms to investigate external and internal processing of food-related cues. Paper one established that both attentional processing and recognition accuracy of external food stimuli were reduced by high perceptual load. There was tentative evidence that some individual differences (uncontrolled eating, hunger and body mass index) in the recognition accuracy of food stimuli persisted even under high perceptual load. Paper two found that high perceptual load also reduced appetitive-related thoughts. This effect was found across individuals, regardless of the number of appetitive-related thoughts reported under low perceptual load. Papers three and four adapted the perceptual load task to allow simultaneous food consumption. Paper three found no evidence that high perceptual load reduced flavour awareness or influenced intake. Paper four found that participants were unable to respond to internal satiety signals when engaged in the high perceptual load task. This was reflected by failure to reduce intake and experienced satiety in response to consuming a high energy preload. Overall, these studies have suggested that perceptual load theory is a valid framework for understanding eating behaviour. This has implications for both the eating behaviour and attention literatures. Most importantly, perceptual load theory could be used to predict the situations in which attention can be a help or a hindrance to appetite control

The dynamics of working at intersections: Reflections from exploring inequalities

This commentary provides a first-hand account of a year-long collaborative academic–policy synthesis project – Exploring Inequalities: Igniting Research to Better Inform UK Policy – between University College London (UCL) and the Resolution Foundation. We brought together leading experts from over fifty organizations, convened six roundtables and conducted additional in-depth interviews. This collaboration resulted in a series of action notes and a final report, Structurally Unsound (Morris et al., 2019). By reflecting on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of doing this type of project, we reveal the hidden realities of knowledge exchange and open up new possibilities for understanding successes and failures for future projects of this kind

A Website Content Analysis of Corporate Animal Welfare Messaging

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the nature of corporate positions on animal welfare available on the websites of five meat producing companies in the U.S. The results of the content analysis illustrated that there were common topics among the dialogs the companies were willing to open related to their animal welfare positions. The companies typically took a general approach to animal welfare topics, commonly focusing on their corporate policy and their commitment to animal welfare. While each company focused on a unique combination of topics, companies commonly avoided mentioning more specific and possibly controversial topics and instead chose to focus on big-picture topics such as a commitment to sound animal welfarepractices. Each company used a particular set of frames to couch individual animal welfare messages for consumers. The most common frame led was that the company is an industry leader in animal welfare. Eighteen thematic terms related to livestock production and handling emerged through the content analysis. Of those, animal handling and humane were clearly the most commonly used terms. Future research should include matching these content analysis results with the existing communication strategies of each company, conducting more content analyses on animal protein companies’ other media outlets, as well as further exploring the presence of frames, topics, and terminology in news coverage in comparison to the online messages of animal protein companies

Metro: Strategic Planning & Positioning

(Methodist Effort to Reach Out) is an outreach agency of the United Methodist Church (UMC) which provides direct social services and supports community development. This strategic plan was developed by students of EDLD 511.https://digital.sandiego.edu/npi-bpl-strategicplanning/1002/thumbnail.jp

Environmental Graphic Design: Creating a Visual Identity for the School of Communication and the Arts

Graduate Creative and Artisti

The Value of Health Technology Assessment: a mixed methods framework

Whilst much research has been undertaken on establishing what factors influence improved decision-making including good governance structures, expertise, political and institutional factors, resources and participation, how such influences on decision-making interact with local context and health systems, leading to impact on health outcomes, is less understood. The focus of our research is on the impact of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as a tool for priority-setting with its explicit consideration of costs and benefits. Where evaluations have been undertaken, they mainly focus on processes or outcomes at the decision-making level, with impact on health outcomes rarely measured. Even in countries where HTA programmes are well established, evidence which identifies their outcomes and impact in terms of health gains is limited. For countries with greater capacity constraints, how decision-making interacts with ‘context’ leading to health outcomes is even less explored and arguably of critical importance. This research aims to provide a methodological framework and evidence base to: quantify the returns on investment in HTA; and produce explanatory programme theory that considers individual, interpersonal, institutional and systems-level components and their interactions on the mechanisms by which HTA impact can be optimised