Canonical Poses and The Gaze

My work deals with the nude female form and the various depictions that it has taken on. From the early oil paintings from masters like Ingres and Titian, through Playboy centerfolds of the 50s-70s, and continuing all the way up to the contemporary nude iPhone selfie, I explore questions of the gaze, ownership, and commodification of the female form. Starting with my painted Selfie Series and ending with my embroidered pillows, I touch on a variety of framing devices for the female nude and its representation of sexuality in modern culture

The Virginia Values Act: A Landmark Civil Rights Legislation Leapfrogs Virginia into a Leader on Equality

After more than 25 years of Republican political control, Virginia passed thirteen pieces of pro-equality legislation in 2020, the most sweeping of which was the Virginia Values Act. That legislation modernized Virginia civil rights law, bringing the state into line with the overwhelming majority of other states in addressing discrimination. In addition to adding nondiscrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in existing law - which included housing, public employment, and credit it created all-new protections from discrimination in employment and places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, or status as a veteran. The legacy of the Virginia Values Act represents tremendous progress for the Commonwealth of Virginia not only on LGBTQ equality, but also in grappling with racism and sexism. It is a manifestation of the transformation of Virginia over time, and it is a reflection of the power of an elected body to make transformative change when the representatives are free to vote in alignment with not only their conscience, but in accord with the will of their constituents. To continue making such progress across the South, it will be imperative that other legislatures undergo similar transformations

Association between breastfeeding support and breastfeeding rates in the UK: a comparison of late preterm and term infants.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the association between breastfeeding support and breastfeeding among late preterm (gestation 34-36 weeks) and term (gestation ≥37 weeks) infants. METHODS: Secondary analysis of the UK 2010 Infant Feeding Survey. Logistic regression was used to determine the association of breastfeeding support with breastfeeding at 10 days and 6 weeks in late preterm and term infants. RESULTS: The study included 14,525 term and 579 late preterm infants. A total of 11,729 infants initiated breastfeeding (11,292 (81.1%) term, 437 (79.4%) late preterm infants, p=0.425). Of these, 9230 (84.3%) term and 365 (85.6%) late preterm infants were breastfeeding at 10 days (p=0.586); of these 7547 (82.0%) term and 281 (75.4%) late preterm infants were still breastfeeding at 6 weeks (p=0.012). Mothers who reported receiving contact details for breastfeeding support groups had a higher likelihood of breastfeeding late preterm (adjusted ORs, aOR 3.14, 95% CI 1.40 to 7.04) and term infants (aOR 2.24, 95% CI 1.86 to 2.68) at 10 days and term infants at 6 weeks (aOR 1.83, 95% CI 1.51 to 2.22). Those who reported that they did not receive enough help with breastfeeding in hospital had a lower likelihood of breastfeeding late preterm at 10 days and term infants at 10 days and 6 weeks, compared to those who reported having enough help. CONCLUSIONS: Receiving sufficient help with breastfeeding in hospital and the contact details for breastfeeding support groups is associated with breastfeeding term infants up to 6 weeks and late preterm infants at 10 days

Vibration Isolation Design for the Micro-X Rocket Payload

Micro-X is a NASA-funded, sounding rocket-borne X-ray imaging spectrometer that will allow high precision measurements of velocity structure, ionization state and elemental composition of extended astrophysical systems. One of the biggest challenges in payload design is to maintain the temperature of the detectors during launch. There are several vibration damping stages to prevent energy transmission from the rocket skin to the detector stage, which causes heating during launch. Each stage should be more rigid than the outer stages to achieve vibrational isolation. We describe a major design effort to tune the resonance frequencies of these vibration isolation stages to reduce heating problems prior to the projected launch in the summer of 2014.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, LTD15 Conference Proceeding

Social determinants of psychological wellness for children and adolescents in rural NSW

Background: The mental wellness of children and adolescents in rural Australia is under researched and key to understanding the long-term mental health outcomes for rural communities. This analysis used data from the Australian Rural Mental Health Study (ARMHS), particularly the parent report Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) measure for children under 18 years old and their reporting parent's demographic information to compare this sample's mental wellness scores to the Australian norms and to identify what personal, family, community and rurality factors contribute to child mental wellness as pertaining to the SDQ total and subdomain scores. Method: Five hundred thirty-nine children from 294 families from rural NSW were included. SDQ scores for each child as well as personal factors (sex and age), family factors (employment status, household income and sense of community of responding parent), community SES (IRSAD) and rurality (ASCG) were examined. Results: Children and adolescents from rural areas had poorer mental wellness when compared to a normative Australian sample. Further, personal and family factors were significant predictors of the psychological wellness of children and adolescents, while after controlling for other factors, community SES and level of rurality did not contribute significantly. Conclusions: Early intervention for children and families living in rural and remote communities is warranted particularly for low income families. There is a growing need for affordable, universal and accessible services provided in a timely way to balance the discrepancy of mental wellness scores between rural and urban communities

Anticipation dialogs in Vermont’s system of mental healthcare: Sustaining the growth of a dialogic practice culture

Open dialog is both a therapeutic approach and a way of organizing the system of mental healthcare that has been evolving in Finland since the 1980s. In Vermont, over the last decade, there has been an organic statewide effort to begin to integrate dialogic principles into the public system of mental healthcare. Because of the organic nature of these initiatives, there have not been coordinated systemic changes to support dialogic practices. To learn what visions participants in dialogically informed practice contexts have for the future as well as what structural innovations would support these visions anticipation dialogs were offered at three dialogically informed community mental health centers and one public psychiatric. The anticipation dialog was developed in Finland during the late 1980s to aid stuck professional and social networks in finding ways to move forward looking back from an imagined positive future. Twenty-seven multidisciplinary staff members and one service recipient participated in the dialogs. The authors conducted a multi-step process of thematic discourse analysis of all 4 anticipation dialogs. Findings underscore dilemmas entailed in growing a dialogic practice system, including the toll systemic uncertainty takes on workers in the system and the simultaneous pull to offer some amount of open-endedness to the system change process in the spirit of inclusiveness, mutual trust, democracy, and reducing hierarchy. Other key findings influencing sustainability of dialogic practices in community mental health include integrating dialogic work into roles rather than adding them to existing responsibilities. Our experiences indicate that anticipation dialogs may be a way of conducting systemic research that contributes to the forward momentum of system innovation. Offering a greater length of time for organizational anticipation dialogs would be valuable, as would centering the voices of clients and their networks

Oxytocin impedes the effect of the word blindness post-hypnotic suggestion on Stroop task performance.

The ability to enhance sensitivity to relevant (post)hypnotic suggestions has implications for creating clinically informed analogues of psychological and neuropsychological conditions and for the use of hypnotic interventions in psychological and medical conditions. The aim of this study was to test the effect of oxytocin inhalation on a post-hypnotic suggestion that previously has been shown to improve the selectivity of attention in the Stroop task. In a double-blind placebo-controlled between-subjects study, medium hypnotizable individuals performed the Stroop task under normal conditions and when they had been given a post-hypnotic suggestion that they would perceive words as meaningless symbols. In line with previous research, Stroop interference was substantially reduced by the suggestion in the placebo condition. However, contrary to expectations, oxytocin impeded the effect of the word blindness suggestion on performance. The results are explained in terms of the requirement for the re-implementation of the word blindness suggestion on a trial-by-trial basis and the need to sustain activation of the suggestion between trials. The findings contrast with a recent study showing a beneficial effect of oxytocin on sensitivity to (post)hypnotic suggestions but are consistent with findings showing a detrimental effect of oxytocin on memory processes

Being a quantitative interviewer: qualitatively exploring interviewers' experiences in a longitudinal cohort study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many studies of health outcomes rely on data collected by interviewers administering highly-structured (quantitative) questionnaires to participants. Little appears to be known about the experiences of such interviewers. This paper explores interviewer experiences of working on a longitudinal study in New Zealand (the Prospective Outcomes of injury Study - POIS). Interviewers administer highly-structured questionnaires to participants, usually by telephone, and enter data into a secure computer program. The research team had expectations of interviewers including: consistent questionnaire administration, timeliness, proportions of potential participants recruited and an empathetic communication style. This paper presents results of a focus group to qualitatively explore with the team of interviewers their experiences, problems encountered, strategies, support systems used and training.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A focus group with interviewers involved in the POIS interviews was held; it was audio-recorded and transcribed. The analytical method was thematic, with output intended to be descriptive and interpretive.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Nine interviewers participated in the focus group (average time in interviewer role was 31 months). Key themes were: 1) the positive aspects of the quantitative interviewer role (i.e. relationships and resilience, insights gained, and participants' feedback), 2) difficulties interviewers encountered and solutions identified (i.e. stories lost or incomplete, forgotten appointments, telling the stories, acknowledging distress, stories reflected and debriefing and support), and 3) meeting POIS researcher expectations (i.e. performance standards, time-keeping, dealing exclusively with the participant and maintaining privacy).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Interviewers demonstrated great skill in the way they negotiated research team expectations whilst managing the relationships with participants. Interviewers found it helpful to have a research protocol in place in the event of sensitive situations - this appeared to alleviate the pressure on interviewers to carry the burden of responsibility. Interviewers are employed to scientifically gather quantitative data, yet their effectiveness relies largely on their humanity. We propose that the personal connection generated between the interviewers and participants was important, and enabled successful follow-up rates for the study. The enjoyment of these relationships was crucial to interviewers and helped balance the negative aspects of their role. Our results suggest that experienced quantitative interviewers endeavour, as do many qualitative researchers, to carefully and respectfully negotiate the requirements of the interview within a relationship they form with participants: being sensitive to the needs of participants and respectful of their wishes - and establishing an ethical relationship.</p

Traumatic brain injury in young children with isolated scalp haematoma

Objective Despite high-quality paediatric head trauma clinical prediction rules, the management of otherwise asymptomatic young children with scalp haematomas (SH) can be difficult. We determined the risk of intracranial injury when SH is the only predictor variable using definitions from the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) and Children’s Head Injury Algorithm for the Prediction of Important Clinical Events (CHALICE) head trauma rules.Design Planned secondary analysis of a multicentre prospective observational study.Setting Ten emergency departments in Australia and New Zealand.Patients Children 5 cm haematoma in any region of the head) rule-based definition of isolated SH in both childre