Improving Satisfaction, Engagement and Clinical Outcomes among Traditionally Underserved Children through Cultural Formulation

Economically disadvantaged and ethnic/racial minority children are more likely to suffer from disruptive behavior problems than their middle-to-upper-income Caucasian counterparts, yet they are less likely to receive quality care and are more likely to drop out of treatment services. Disparities in the reception of and engagement with mental health services suggests that standard mental health practices may not properly consider the unique cultural context of child mental health problems in traditionally underserved families. Initial research focused on adult populations has suggested that incorporating the brief Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) as part of baseline assessment can promote improved medical communication, leading to stronger rapport with the therapist, and overall patient satisfaction. To date, research on the benefits of augmenting usual mental health assessment with the CFI has mainly been conducted in the context of adult patients, and has yet to examine the potential for the CFI to improve treatment engagement in the context of children’s mental health services. Further, studies on the CFI have only examined its impact on initial engagement and satisfaction with assessment services; research has yet to consider the effects of the CFI on prolonged engagement and/or ultimate clinical response. The current study is the first to assess the effects of the CFI on satisfaction, engagement, and treatment outcomes. Families (N=89) receiving behavior parent training for early child externalizing problems within a large South Florida mental health network serving predominately low-income minority families were randomized at baseline to receive either Assessment as Usual (AAU) or CFI+AAU. Results found that therapists and caregivers were more satisfied with the intake interview when they received the CFI. Specifically, caregivers participating in CFI+AAU reported greater satisfaction with their assessment, and reported higher levels of trust in their therapists, than did caregivers receiving AAU. Additionally, therapists reported greater satisfaction with CFI+AAU than AAU, particularly when working with higher stress families. After controlling for interview length, there was trending significance to suggest CFI+AAU families may have been more likely than AAU families to attend their first post-intake treatment session, and CFI+AAU families were significantly more likely to complete treatment than AAU families. Moreover, those in the CFI+AAU group were associated with significantly better treatment outcomes among families reporting high stigma-related concerns about mental health; in contrast families who received AAU reported significantly better outcomes when families reported low stigma-related concerns at baseline. These promising results underscore how a brief cultural assessment can meaningfully aid in improving engagement in, and clinical response to, mental health services. Further research is needed to determine how and when to best leverage the CFI to improve mental health practices for traditionally underserved populations

Families, Families, Families!

Students will write a personal narrative about their families using a logical sequence of events, transitions, and an ending. ● Students will improve their writing as needed by planning, revising and editing. ● Students will present their writing about their families using complete sentences, appropriate volume, and clear pronunciation

La influencia de la Innovación Tecnológica en la Competitividad de las pequeñas y medianas empresas en la ciudad de Matagalpa durante el año 2010

El tema sobre el cual se desarrolló este trabajo de seminario es La competitividad en las pequeñas y medianas empresas de Matagalpa, abordándose como subtema La influencia de la innovación tecnológica en la competitividad de las pequeñas y medianas empresa de Matagalpa en el año 2010. En esta investigación es de tipo aplicada con enfoque cualicuantitativo porque se implementaron técnicas de comprensión personal y conceptual, también se abordan diferentes temas, como conceptos de innovación y tecnología con enfoques de diferentes autores, encontrando tipos de innovación y tecnología y las más significativas que más implementan las pequeñas y medianas empresas de Matagalpa. Este trabajo habla de la importancia de las pequeñas y medianas empresas en el país, porque la mayor parte de ingreso de la economía nacional se debe a este tipo de empresa, la forma en que están estructurada , las perspectivas que tienen para crecimiento como empresas su limitaciones que poseen y a pesar de estas han procurado desarrollar innovación tecnológica para satisfacer la demanda de sus clientes procurando de esta manera las pequeñas y medianas empresas de Matagalpa mantenerse en el mercado. También se encuentra la información de competitividad como conceptos, tipos de competitividad, principios de los cuales calidad es el más utilizado porque, estas son pautas para que una empresa alcance el éxito ya sea en producto o procesos, con respecto a las etapas de competitividad en su mayoría los propietarios de PYMES se ubicaron en la etapa aceptable porque el logro del éxito, les obliga a mantenerse en constante adaptación frente a las variaciones del medio, convirtiéndose, la competitividad empresarial y profesional, en los criterios económicos por excelencia que deben orientar y evaluar el desempeño. De esta manera desarrollándose para maximizar sus ganancias y minimizar sus costos de operaciones y permanecer en este mercado globalizad

Evaluating and Securing Text-Based Java Code through Static Code Analysis

As the cyber security landscape dynamically evolves and security professionals work to keep apace, modern-day educators face the issue of equipping a new generation for this dynamic landscape. With cyber-attacks and vulnerabilities substantially increased over the past years in frequency and severity, it is important to design and build secure software applications from the group up. Therefore, defensive secure coding techniques covering security concepts must be taught from beginning computer science programming courses to exercise building secure applications. Using static analysis, this study thoroughly analyzed Java source code in two textbooks used at a collegiate level, with the goal of guiding educators to make a reference of the resources in teaching programming concepts from a security perspective. The resources include the methods of source code analysis and relevant tools, categorized bugs detected in the code, and compliant code examples with fixing the bugs. Overall, the first text revealed a relatively moderate bug rate of approximately 44% of files analyzed contained either regular or security bugs. About 13% of the total bugs found were security bugs and the most common security bug was related to the Pseudo Random security vulnerability. The second text produced a slightly larger bug rate of 53.80% with approximately 8% of security bugs. After combining the texts for an average rate, the total number of security bugs that were likely to appear was roughly 10% percent. This encompasses security bugs such as malicious code vulnerabilities and security vulnerabilities related to exposing or manipulating data in these programs

Relación entre la regulación emocional y la autoestima

Introducción: Autoestima y regulación emocional son constructos psicológicos relacionadoscon la salud mental. El presente estudio pretende explorar la relación existenteentre estos dos constructos. Objetivo: Analizar la relación entre la autoestima ydistintas dimensiones de la regulación emocional y conocer cuáles tienen más relacióncon la autoestima. Método: Cien personas, entre 20 y 30 años, de la población generalparticiparon en el estudio (51 mujeres y 49 hombres). Fueron evaluadas a travésdel Cuestionario de Autoestima de Rosenberg (Rosenberg, 1965) y la Escala de Dificultadesen la Regulación Emocional (DERS, Gratz y Roemer, 2004). Resultados: Losresultados muestran una correlación significativa entre la autoestima y las subescalasdel DERS: Atención, Claridad, Aceptación, Funcionamiento y Regulación. El análisisde regresión reveló que las dimensiones más relacionadas con la autoestima fueron laAceptación y la Atención. Conclusión: Es esperable encontrar una relación entre lacapacidad de regular las emociones y un constructo que supone una valoración positivade uno mismo, la autoestima. En concreto, la capacidad de prestar atención a lasemociones y aceptarlas podrían ser aspectos fundamentales en la construcción de unautoconcepto y una valoración de sí mismo positivos. En investigaciones futuras sepropone estudiar en profundidad estas relaciones con el fin de poder realizar recomendacionessobre qué aspectos de la regulación emocional trabajar con el fin de potenciarautoestima y bienestar.Introduction: Self-esteem and emotional regulation are psychological constructs relateto mental health. The current research pretends to explore the relation betweenthese two constructs. Objective: Analyze the relation between self-esteem and differentsdimensions of emotional regulation, and knowing which have more relation withthe self-esteem. Method: one hundred people from the general population participatedin this study (51 women and 49 men), with ages between 20-30 years were evaluatedthrough the Rosenberg self-esteem questionnaire (Rosenberg, 1965) and Scale of difficulty in emotional regulation (DERS, Gratz & Roemer, 2004). Results: The resultsshow a significant correlation between self-esteem and the subscales of the DERS: attention,clarity, acceptance, operation and regulation. Regression analysis revealedthat most related to self-esteem dimensions were acceptance and attention. Conclusion:It is expected to find a relationship between the ability to regulate emotions anda construct that implies a positive evaluation of one’s own, the self-esteem. In particular,the ability to pay attention to emotions and accept could be key aspects in constructinga positive self-concept and self-assessment. In future research it is proposedto study in depth these relationships in order to be able to make recommendationsabout which aspects work in emotional regulation in order to enhance self-esteem andwell-being

Assessment of culture and environment in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Rationale, description of measures, and early data.

Neurodevelopmental maturation takes place in a social environment in addition to a neurobiological one. Characterization of social environmental factors that influence this process is therefore an essential component in developing an accurate model of adolescent brain and neurocognitive development, as well as susceptibility to change with the use of marijuana and other drugs. The creation of the Culture and Environment (CE) measurement component of the ABCD protocol was guided by this understanding. Three areas were identified by the CE Work Group as central to this process: influences relating to CE Group membership, influences created by the proximal social environment, influences stemming from social interactions. Eleven measures assess these influences, and by time of publication, will have been administered to well over 7,000 9-10 year-old children and one of their parents. Our report presents baseline data on psychometric characteristics (mean, standard deviation, range, skewness, coefficient alpha) of all measures within the battery. Effectiveness of the battery in differentiating 9-10 year olds who were classified as at higher and lower risk for marijuana use in adolescence was also evaluated. Psychometric characteristics on all measures were good to excellent; higher vs. lower risk contrasts were significant in areas where risk differentiation would be anticipated

Creating an Organization to Support SFA’s Women Employees

The purpose of this session is two-fold. First, we wish to introduce the SFA OWLE (Organization for Women’s Leadership and Equity), the newly created professional women’s organization, to interested members of our campus community. Second, we wish to share experiences that we believe are relevant to others on our campus, in our community, and at other institutions, who might seek to create organizations through which to advocate for the unique needs of their marginalized or underrepresented group. To that end, this session will include a panel of female employees at SFA who have worked for more than a year to plan for, create, and implement a professional women’s organization for our campus. The panel will begin the session by sharing the reasons why a professional women’s organization is needed on our campus (as well as many similar institutions nationwide) and will describe the steps taken to create the organization. The committees constituted in the organization’s by-laws reflect the challenges faced by women in academia. We will share challenges we faced as we sought to create an organization that would provide support to women of differing types of employment (e.g., both staff and faculty), from different academic disciplines and areas of the university, in different stages of their personal and professional lives, and from diverse positionalities (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, parenthood status, etc.). We will also identify some of the successes our organization has achieved in its early stages

A fully-coupled two-phase flow and rock deformation model for reservoir rock.

In the application of most of the reservoir rock models to real engineering problems, the role of reservoir rock is frequently limited to its storage and delivery capabilities; the interaction of fluid flow with rock deformation has been ignored. However, coupling of fluid flow and rock or soil matrix deformation has recently become of interest in many problems in petroleum, civil, environmental, geological and mining engineering. In the oil industry, problems such as ground subsidence, reservoir compaction, borehole stability, sanding and hydraulic fracturing need to be addressed with a coupled approach to make more accurate predictions than when each process is considered independently.Examples of coupled fluid flow and rock deformation for a simple one-dimensional scenario, as well as for more complex cases such as a layered oil reservoir compaction are presented. The code is able to successfully handle nonlinearities in fluid flow properties and a work-softening constitutive equation for the solid matrix. The mutual relationship among variables such as saturation, pore pressure and displacements is shown. It is also demonstrated that coupling is an important issue to be considered in compaction problems. Actually, the commonly used staggered procedure of transferring information from a fluid flow code to a stress-strain module can never reproduce the essential physics involved in reservoir compaction.Coupling the mechanical response with fluid flow is done through monitoring changes in pore pressure. The mechanical part considers undrained pore pressure and saturation changes occurring due to volumetric strain in the solid. Once mechanical equilibrium is reached fluid flow is allowed for a real time step putting the system out of equilibrium and a new set of mechanical steps is required.Here a two-dimensional explicit Lagrangian finite-difference code, fully-coupled with a two-fluid flow system in porous media, is developed. The solid deformation is considered using the dynamic relaxation procedure which allows the model to go into post-peak behavior of the material without creating instability. This method is particularly powerful when deformation is by nonlinear/failure systems (i.e., work softening plasticity).The code consists of two parts: one mechanical and one fluid flow. The mechanical calculations essentially solve motion equations with a damping factor by using several pseudo time steps until equilibrium is reached. Strains are determined from displacements and the corresponding stress field calculated through a constitutive equation