The impact of systemic family processes and structures on mental illness and family violence

The relationship of both family structure and process variables to both mental illness and family violence are examined in this study. A non-clinical sample of 100 university student families and a clinical sample of 100 in-patient families at a psychiatric hospital are utilized. Both non-clinical and clinical samples are utilized with subjects of similar age. Within the broader context of General Systems Theory and family systems theory in particular, the inter-systemic variable of bounding and the intra-systemic variable of linking are tested in their relationships to both mental illness and family violence. Open, random, and closed family system types are also tested in relationships to family violence and mental illness. These systems variables are measured through a new family assessment instrument, the Family Process and Structures Questionnaire . Reliability and construct validity are discussed. The hypothesis was supported that bounding and linking would show significant effects on family violence and mental illness. A positive relationship trend was found between bounding and family violence and a significant positive relationship was found between bounding and mental illness. A significant negative relationship was found between linking and both mental illness and family violence. Partial support was found for a curvilinear relationship between linking and family violence. A significant interaction effect was found between bounding and linking on family violence. The important impacts of family system type variables were supported in the study. Open family type showed a significant, negative relationship to family violence and mental illness, while closed family system type showed a significant, positive relationship to both family violence and mental illness. Both random family system and closed family system type showed significant positive relationships to mental illness. The relationship between random family systems and mental illness was found to be particularly strong. Both full and partial predictive models were developed for family violence and mental illness. Both clinical and non-clinical predictor models are also presented. Results clearly suggest the importance of the inclusion of both intra-systemic and inter-systemic variables in family systems research. Clinical implications of findings are discussed for both family violence and mental illness

A Note On Effects of Wounds On Heartwood Formation in White Oak (Quercus ALBA L.)

Heartwood formation was retarded by wounds on white oaks in Maine and Missouri. Maine samples with fire wounds had 22-23 rings of sapwood near the wound whereas control trees had 9. Missouri samples subjected to frill and herbicide treatments averaged 16-17 rings of sapwood near the wound, whereas control trees averaged 12. The effects of wounding on Missouri trees were pronounced at heights of 1, 2.5, and 6 m

Potential Failure of A Decayed Tree Under Wind Loading

Trees with decayed wood that are subject to moderate winds often collapse and cause property damage or injury and death to people. The purpose of this paper is to describe a decision-making aid to help identify a tree that may fail in the forest or be a potential hazard in the city. A tree may fail when the probability of radial shear cracks developing for a given wind load is sufficiently high.Mathematical models are used to estimate the constant wind force on trees and to evaluate the cracking and collapse mechanisms under this loading. The physical dimensions are used to determine the wind force or drag on the tree, and the amount of decay in the tree is used to determine its ability to resist this load. Owing to uncertainties associated with accurately measuring and modeling a decayed tree, estimating the wind load, and specifying the wood strength of a tree species, reliability analysis is used to assess the potential risk of failure. Coupling this information with meteorological data for the largest wind speed value expected at the tree site and the topography of the tree site completes the analysis of potential failure. Case studies of balsam fir trees with the same exterior diameters but with different dimensions of decay columns, tree weights, tree heights, and wind speed conditions are analyzed and compared

Transformative Teaching: The Stories Aspiring Teachers Tell of the Teachers Who Made a Difference

Transformative teaching (teaching to make a difference) is education for growth in students, through intentional, creative action and purposeful engagement in identity formation. The desire to make a difference in students’ lives is at the heart of all curriculum theory and practice and is especially relevant as a purpose for teaching in teacher education programs with students who are working to create personal teacher identities. It is the primary reason teacher education students give, every year, for choosing to become a teacher. A commitment to the pursuit of excellence, expressed in a language of hope, with the purpose of creating a good life, within a relationship of care between teacher and students, is necessary to teaching to make a difference in students’ lives. Transformative teaching is a significant alternative to the test-driven status quo of American educational theory because, although it is a practical and theoretic struggle, it allows for a renewed emphasis on personal excellence for students through the guiding relationship of care with a teacher committed to making a difference in students’ lives. This narrative research project investigated the impact of transformative teaching on the teacher identity formation of undergraduates pursuing certification in the School of Education. The foundational question that drove this research was: How do School of Education undergraduates and the teachers they identify as transformative narrate the relationship of transformative teaching and how that relationship has informed the undergraduates’ identity formation as aspiring teachers and their decision to pursue a teaching career? This question was explored by collecting the stories students told of teachers who made a difference in their lives and comparing their stories to the stories told by those teachers identified as transformative, to learn what it is about teaching to transform that influenced aspiring teachers to choose education as a profession, as well as how teaching to make a difference might help transformative teachers have a rewarding career in which they may endure. Narrative research is an appropriate methodology for an investigation of identity formation through transformative teaching because it “assumes that storytelling is integral to understanding lives and that all people construct narratives as a process in constructing and reconstructing identity” (Marshall & Rossman, 2011, p. 23)