Depression and Self-Concept: Personality Traits or Coping Styles in Reaction to School Retention of Hispanic Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether depression and self-concept could be construed as personality characteristics and/or coping styles in reaction to school retention or being held back a grade. The participants in this study were 156 urban Hispanic adolescents, ages 12–18, and of these, 51 or 33% had been retained in school. Students who had been retained reported a lower self-concept score, higher GPA, and higher rates of depression, and they were more likely to be male than students who had not been retained. The findings of this study indicated that self-concept was a personality characteristic that, due to its malleability, is also a coping style in regards to retention with this Hispanic adolescent population

Nanoclustering as a dominant feature of plasma membrane organization

Early studies have revealed that some mammalian plasma membrane proteins exist in small nanoclusters. The advent of super-resolution microscopy has corroborated and extended this picture, and led to the suggestion that many, if not most, membrane proteins are clustered at the plasma membrane at nanoscale lengths. In this Commentary, we present selected examples of glycosylphosphatidyl-anchored proteins, Ras family members and several immune receptors that provide evidence for nanoclustering. We advocate the view that nanoclustering is an important part of the hierarchical organization of proteins in the plasma membrane. According to this emerging picture, nanoclusters can be organized on the mesoscale to form microdomains that are capable of supporting cell adhesion, pathogen binding and immune cell-cell recognition amongst other functions. Yet, a number of outstanding issues concerning nanoclusters remain open, including the details of their molecular composition, biogenesis, size, stability, function and regulation. Notions about these details are put forth and suggestions are made about nanocluster function and why this general feature of protein nanoclustering appears to be so prevalent.Postprint (published version

Voluntary Environmental Regulation in Developing Countries: Mexico's Clean Industry Program

Because conventional command-and-control environmental regulation often performs poorly in developing countries, policymakers are increasingly experimenting with alternatives, including voluntary regulatory programs. Research in industrialized countries suggests that such programs are sometimes ineffective because they mainly attract relatively clean participants free-riding on unrelated pollution control investments. We use plant-level data on more than 100,000 facilities to analyze the Clean Industry Program, Mexico’s flagship voluntary regulatory initiative. We seek to identify the drivers of participation and to determine whether the program improves participants’ environmental performance. Using data from the program’s first decade, we find that plants recently fined by environmental regulators were more likely to participate, but that after graduating from the program, participants were not fined at a substantially lower rate than nonparticipants. These results suggest that although the Clean Industry Program attracted dirty plants under pressure from regulators, it did not have a large, lasting impact on their environmental performance.voluntary environmental regulation, duration analysis, propensity score matching, Mexico

Building Resiliency and Creating Innovation in the Digital Age Through Leadership and Human-Connection

A soft skills gap is evident in all business sectors. The future of competition and innovation in America is dependent upon a strong workforce rooted in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to facilitate and connect technology with humanity. The study conducted 27 interviews with STEM employers in the top-growing healthcare industry to identify emerging skills and strategies needed for innovative growth in the future of the healthcare industry. Hearing their voices through semi-constructive interviews, all participants (100%) indicated the demand would only increase for future STEM college graduates. Most respondents (93%) identified leadership starting with self-leadership and the ability to connect with others (89%) on top of their emerging soft skills. They indicated that the key to innovation in the digital age resides in our competencies to unite humanity and technology to facilitate decision-making and effectively deliver results

Failure to Recover from Proactive Semantic Interference Differentiates Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment and PreMCI from Normal Aging after Adjusting for Initial Learning Ability

Background: There is increasing evidence that the failure to recover from proactive semantic interference (frPSI) may be an early cognitive marker of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, it is unclear whether frPSI effects reflect deficiencies in an individual’s initial learning capacity versus the actual inability to learn new semantically related targets. Objective: The current study was designed to adjust for learning capacity and then to examine the extent to which frPSI, proactive semantic interference (PSI) and retroactive semantic interference (RSI) effects could differentiate between older adults who were cognitively normal (CN), and those diagnosed with either Pre-Mild Cognitive Impairment (PreMCI) or amnestic MCI (aMCI). Methods: We employed the LASSI-L cognitive stress test to examine frPSI, PSI and RSI effects while simultaneously controlling for the participant’s initial learning capacity among 50 CN, 35 aMCI, and 16 PreMCI participants who received an extensive diagnostic work-up. Results: aMCI and PreMCI participants showed greater frPSI deficits (50% and 43.8% respectively) compared to only 14% of CNparticipants. PSI effects were observed for aMCI but not PreMCI participants relative to their CN counterparts. RSI failed to differentiate between any of the study groups. Conclusion: By using participants as their own controls and adjusting for overall learning and memory, it is clear that frPSI deficits occur with much greater frequency in individuals at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and likely reflect a failure of brain compensatory mechanisms.Fil: Curiel, Rosie E.. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Crocco, Elizabeth A.. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Raffo, Arlene. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Guinjoan, Salvador Martín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay; Argentina. Fundación para la Lucha contra las Enfermedades Neurológicas de la Infancia; ArgentinaFil: Nemeroff, Charles B.. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Penate, Ailyn. Mount Sinai Medical Center; Estados Unidos. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Piña, Daema. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Loewenstein, David A.. Mount Sinai Medical Center; Estados Unidos. University of Miami; Estados Unido

Bullying: An Adult Perspective from Educators Who Work Predominately with African American Students

A survey of 31 teachers and counselors who work predominantly with African American students about bullying revealed these findings: Analyses by individual questions indicated that participants (a) disagreed that bullies and victims were of any particular ethnic group, (b) were unsure about whether gender impacted bullying and whether bullying had decreased (c) agreed that pairing loners with other students was a good intervention and that victims tended to be students with special needs, and (d) strongly agreed that bullies have feelings of power and control. Analyses by categories and demographic characteristics indicated no statistically significant differences for gender and job position. There were statistically significant differences found for frequency and intensity of bullying for (a) age, with younger respondents perceiving fewer rates, (b) ethnicity, with Hispanic participants perceiving higher rates, and (c) years of experience, with those with fewer years of working experience perceiving fewer rates

Toxic Social Media: Affective Polarization After Feminist Protests

The objective of this article is to conceptualize affective polarization beyond partisan politics to instead analyze the ways in which women’s affective political participation is subject to toxic discipline. While a lot of focus has been placed on affective politics as mechanisms for governance, little has been done regarding affective polarization after feminist protest. In this article, we bridge two bodies of literature—affective politics and political polarization—by proposing the notion of affective polarization. We focused on the case of a series of feminist mobilizations that took place to fight back against the impunity of police violence in Mexico. We conducted a mixed-method approach that combines, on one hand, quantitative analysis of data strand tweets encompassing #EllasNoMeRepresentan (TheyDoNotRepresentMe) (N = 17,698) and #EllasSiMeRepresentan (TheyDoRepresentMe) (N = 6700) and, on the other hand, a qualitative analysis of 500 tweets of each hashtag. The results of the study revealed the existence of polarization that aims at disciplining the affective political participation of women. Almost half of our data contain negative sentiments. The toxic tweets include corrective threats, such as incitation to sexual violence, murder, hate against feminism, and patronizing discourses about how women should protest. We thus conclude that while it is true that social media has amplified feminist mobilization, it has also led to an increase of digital violence. With these findings, the article contributes to a better understanding of both feminist affective politics and its disciplining governing mechanisms in a patriarchal social media