How Self-Esteem Affects Eye Fixation When Viewing Images of Strangers Compared to Images of Self

Self-esteem has been shown to play a role in overall health. A previous study explained that humans are self-motivated to protect and enhance self-esteem and when self-esteem is enhanced, psychological wellbeing shows improvements. With that, another study evaluated depression and facial fixation and found that those who had depression looked at the mouth region more so than the eye region. By keeping prior research in mind, we aimed to evaluate how self-esteem plays a role in how one views themselves compared to a stranger. Thus, we hypothesized that those who exhibit lower self-esteem will demonstrate fixations on the mouth more so than the eyes. We also expect that those who show lower self-esteem will have more specific fixation on their own face, compared to the faces of others. This study is a within-group experimental design with the independent variable being a photo of each participant placed into a mix of other faces pulled from the Chicago Face Database. This allowed us to compare the visual attention on strangers compared to their own face by drawing areas of interest on specific facial features such as the eyes, nose, and mouth. Our participants were Belmont students aged 18 years or older and excluded anyone who depend on glasses to see

The Politics of Population : A Transnational Feminist Analysis of India’s National Population Policy of 2000

The purpose of this study is to critically analyze whether India’s National Population Policy of 2000 represents a paradigm shift in terms of how the nation-state conceptualizes and address population growth through formal population policy. Analyzed through transnational feminist theory, this study employed political discourse analysis as the research method. Composed of the three levels of analysis, PDA focuses on the political and historical contexts in which political discourse is constructed, how these contexts impact the formal linguistic and discursive features of policy, and the impact of political discourse on social practice. The findings from this study found that the NPP does represent a paradigm shift, specifically in terms of the policy framework upon which India’s National Population Policy is premised. However, discourse and social analysis demonstrate that the focus of this policy continues to be economic development, meaning that while a paradigm shift has occurred, this shift has not necessary been for the betterment of India’s women and marginalized populations.Keywords: population policy, transnational feminist theory, feminist policy analysis, family plannin

Mentally Healthy and Happy Exercise Your Mind

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Influence of invasive quagga mussels, phosphorus loads, and climate on spatial and temporal patterns of productivity in Lake Michigan: A biophysical modeling study

We applied a three‐dimensional biophysical model to Lake Michigan for the years 2000, 2005, and 2010 to consider the mechanisms controlling spatial and temporal patterns of phytoplankton abundance (chlorophyll a) and lake‐wide productivity. Model skill was assessed by comparison to satellite‐derived Chl a and field‐measured water quality variables. We evaluated model sensitivity to scenarios of varying mussel filter feeding intensity, tributary phosphorus loads, and warm vs. cool winter‐spring climate scenarios. During the winter‐spring phytoplankton bloom, spatial patterns of Chl a were controlled by variables that influenced surface mixed layer depth: deep mixing reduced net phytoplankton growth through light limitation and by exposing the full water column to mussel filter feeding. Onset of summer and winter stratification promoted higher surface Chl a initially by increasing mean light exposure and by separating the euphotic zone from mussels. During the summer stratified period, areas of relatively high Chl a were associated with coastal plumes influenced by tributary‐derived nutrients and coastal upwelling‐downwelling. While mussels influenced spatial and temporal distribution of Chl a, lake‐wide, annual mean primary production was more sensitive to phosphorus and warm/cool meteorology scenarios than to mussel filter feeding scenarios. Although Chl a and primary production declined over the quagga mussel invasion, our results suggest that increased nutrient loads would increase lake‐wide productivity even in the presence of mussels; however, altered spatial and temporal patterns of productivity caused by mussel filter feeding would likely persist.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139984/1/lno10595-sup-0001-suppinfo.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139984/2/lno10595.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/139984/3/lno10595_am.pd

Evaluation of the Burma Art Therapy Project for Adolescent Refugees from Burma in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools

Background: North Carolina has a growing refugee population from Burma, with an estimated 400 Burmese families living in Orange County alone. For refugee youth, coping with past hardship, immigration, and acculturation often leads to excessive stress and increased risk of mental health disorders. The Art Therapy Institute (ATI) implements an innovative, school-based art therapy program for refugee youth from Burma in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. This program, known as the Burma Art Therapy Project (BATP), uses art therapy to facilitate self-expression and alleviate mental health symptoms through non-verbal communication methods. During the 2013-2014 academic year, a team of students from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health worked with ATI to evaluate BATP and increase organizational capacity through the creation of a user guide, submission of a grant proposal, and subsequent dissemination of evaluation results. Through this work, the Capstone team aimed to fill gaps in the literature regarding art therapy, to improve ATI's capacity to attract funding, and to ensure sustainability of the BATP program. Methods: To scale-up the evaluation, we modified and added to the data collection protocol created by the previous Capstone team. We created an evaluation user guide and data management system and trained clinicians on data collection protocols. BATP clients were assessed at baseline and follow up after four months of art therapy sessions to measure impact of art therapy on mental health indicators. During the evaluation, assessments were collected, entered into the data management system, and analyzed. Findings were used to show impact and need and incorporated into a grant proposal, evaluation report, and presentation of findings. We wrote a manuscript to share lessons learned from the evaluation with broader academic community. Results: The evaluation demonstrated that refugee clients needed access to mental health services. ATI clients experienced many traumatic events in Burma, and had higher symptoms of anxiety and depression as compared to age-matched US populations. Following 12-16 weeks of art therapy, ATI client showed significant decreases in symptoms of anxiety. Throughout the evaluation process, we noticed that the assessments were not fully capturing the strengths and difficulties of ATI clients. These findings resulted in a manuscript that we intend to submit to the Journal of Health Promotion Practice. In addition, the grant proposal strengthened ATI's business model and created relationships with funders. Discussion: The results from the outcome evaluation are the first step toward building ATI's evidence base for the effectiveness of BATP and art therapy. The five deliverables produced each contribute uniquely to the sustainability of BATP and ATI. The user guide and data management system improved ATI's capacity to conduct program evaluation in years to come. The evaluation report documented need among ATI clients, and the grant proposal contributed to the financial sustainability of BATP. Lastly, the presentation of findings and manuscript contribute to the art therapy field as a whole by demonstrating the effectiveness of this therapy for refugee populations. In the future, we recommend that ATI utilize a mixed methods approach to fully capture the benefits of art therapy and further build evidence for the positive impacts of BATP.Master of Public Healt

History Department 2020 Summer Reading Suggestions

This list of readings was collected by USM History Department faculty at the University of Southern Maine. From the guide: An important part of the anti-racist work of dismantling racial inequities is self-education, doing the work of learning about the hundreds of years of oppression and injustice that provide the context to our contemporary struggles. For historians, context is key to all that we do. Faculty members in the Department of History at USM have come together to suggest a series of texts that we find both personally significant and think will be helpful in coming to a greater understanding of the events, actions, and inactions that have led us to this current moment in the United States and globally. This list reflects our diverse geographical areas of expertise and research, and is by no means exhaustive. We continue to learn from one another, and from our students. We welcome student suggestions on books and pieces you think we should read; this is a conversation. We encourage you to cast a wide net in your anti-racist reading and learning. Here is a place to start

Secondary Transition Predictors of Postschool Success: An Update to the Research Base

Research suggests youth with disabilities are less likely to experience positive outcomes compared to peers without disabilities. Identification of in-school predictors of postschool success can provide teachers (e.g., special education, general education, career technical education), administrators, district-level personnel, and vocational rehabilitation counselors with information to design, evaluate, and improve transition programs. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to examine secondary transition correlational literature to identify additional evidence to support existing predictors and identify new predictors of postschool success. Results provided additional evidence for 14 existing predictors and identified three new predictors. Limitations and implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed

Measuring quality of general reasoning

Machine learning models that automatically assess reasoning quality are trained on human-annotated written products. These “gold-standard” corpora are typically created by prompting annotators to choose, using a forced choice design, which of two products presented side by side is the most convincing, contains the strongest evidence or would be adopted by more people. Despite the increase in popularity of using a forced choice design for assessing quality of reasoning (QoR), no study to date has established the validity and reliability of such a method. In two studies, we simultaneously presented two products of reasoning to participants and asked them to identify which product was ‘better justified’ through a forced choice design. We investigated the criterion validity and inter-rater reliability of the forced choice protocol by assessing the relationship between QoR, measured using the forced choice protocol, and accuracy in objectively answerable problems using naive raters sampled from MTurk (Study 1) and experts (Study 2), respectively. In both studies products that were closer to the correct answer and products generated by larger teams were consistently preferred. Experts were substantially better at picking the reasoning products that corresponded to accurate answers. Perhaps the most surprising finding was just how rapidly raters made judgements regarding reasoning: On average, both novices and experts made reliable decisions in under 15 seconds. We conclude that forced choice is a valid and reliable method of assessing QoR

Comment: On the consequences of sexual selection for fisheries-induced evolution

It is becoming increasingly recognized that fishing (and other forms of nonrandom harvesting) can have profound evolutionary consequences for life history traits. A recent and welcome publication provided the first description of how sexual selection might influence the outcome of fisheries-induced evolution (FIE). One of the main conclusions was that if sexual selection generates a positive relationship between body size and reproductive success, increased fishing pressure on large individuals causes stronger selection for smaller body size. Here, we re-evaluate the sexual selection interpretation of the relationship between body size and reproductive success, and suggest it may in fact be representative of a more general case of pure natural selection. The consequences of sexual selection on FIE are likely to be complicated and dynamic, and we provide additional perspectives to these new and exciting results. Selection differentials and trait variance are considered, with density-dependent and genetic effects on the strength and the direction of sexual selection given particular attention. We hope that our additional views on the role of sexual selection in FIE will encourage more theoretical and empirical work into this important application of evolutionary biology

Alpha- and beta- adrenergic receptors regulate inflammatory responses to acute and chronic sleep fragmentation in mice

Sleep is a recuperative process, and its dysregulation has cognitive, metabolic, and immunological effects that are largely deleterious to human health. Epidemiological and empirical studies have suggested that sleep fragmentation (SF) as result of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and other sleep abnormalities leads to pronounced inflammatory responses, which are influenced by the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). However, the underlying molecular mechanisms contributing to SNS regulation of SF-induced inflammation are not fully understood. To assess the effects of the SNS upon inflammatory responses to SF, C57BL/6j female mice were placed in automated SF chambers with horizontally moving bars across the bottom of each cage at specified intervals to disrupt sleep. Mice were first subjected to either control (no bar movement), acute sleep fragmentation (ASF), or chronic sleep fragmentation (CSF) on a 12:12-h light/dark schedule. ASF involved a bar sweep every 120 s for 24 h, whereas CSF involved a bar sweep every 120 s for 12 h (during 12 L; resting period) over a period of 4 weeks. After exposure to these conditions, mice received an intraperitoneal injection of either phentolamine (5 mg/kg BW; an α-adrenergic receptor blocker), propranolol (5 mg/kg BW; a β-adrenergic receptor blocker), or vehicle (saline). Serum corticosterone concentration, brain and peripheral cytokine (IL1β, TNFα, and TGFβ) mRNA expression, and body mass were assessed. ASF and CSF significantly elevated serum corticosterone concentrations as well as cytokine mRNA expression levels compared with controls, and mice subjected to CSF had decreased body mass relative to controls. Mice subjected to CSF and treated with phentolamine or propranolol had a greater propensity for a decrease in cytokine gene expression compared with ASF, but effects were tissue-specific. Taken together, these results suggest that both α- and β-adrenergic receptors contribute to the SNS mediation of inflammatory responses, and adrenergic antagonists may effectively mitigate tissue-specific SF-mediated inflammation