Drug use in the year after prison

With poor health and widespread drug problems in the U.S. prison population, post-prison drug use provides an important measure of both public health and social integration following incarceration. We study the correlates of drug use with data from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), a survey of men and women interviewed four times over the year after prison release. The BRS data allow an analysis of legal and illegal drug use, and the correlation between them. We find that illegal drug use is associated with histories of drug problems and childhood trauma. Use of medications is associated with poor physical health and a history of mental illness. Legal and illegal drug use are not strongly correlated. Results suggest that in a Medicaid expansion state where health coverage is widely provided to people leaving prison, formerly-incarcerated men and women use medications, not illegal drugs, to address their health needs.Accepted manuscrip

Playing hard to get: attraction, uncertainty, and tinder

Does ‘playing hard to get’ really work in our favor in encounters with potential romantic partners? Research on uncertainty in social interactions may support this adage and help explain why it works. Whitchurch, Wilson, and Gilbert (2011) showed that women were more attracted to a male target when they were uncertain about feelings of the male stimulus towards them than when they knew the male stimulus was attracted to them. The current research intends to replicate the Whitchurch et al (2011) findings to an extent but to also tease out any gender differences and potential sexual concordance implications. Using a platform similar to the popular match making application Tinder, along with the Tobii eye tracker to measure pupil dilation as an indicator of physiological arousal, male and female subjects (N = 63) were asked to rate attractiveness of a target with either already known attraction (certainty) or with unknown target opinion (uncertainty). Based on previous research (ie Whitchurch et al, 2011; Wilson et al, 2005), we predict that those in the uncertainty condition will self-report the stimuli as more attractive than those in the certainty condition. Also, given previous research on sexual concordance (Suschinsky & Lalumiere, 2011), we predict that subjects will show more physiological arousal (greater pupil dilation) in the uncertainty condition than in the certainty condition. Various analyses of variance (ANOVA) on self-report attraction and pupil dilation revealed no significant effect of uncertainty on attraction, physiologically or psychologically as well as an absence of any gender differences on these dimensions

Editing Project: Josephina Niggli

I had the honor of transcribing a letter from Josephina Niggli written on a Sunday while she is attending Graduate School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The letter is a recap of her week in classes and is addressed to her family. The tone is conversational and warm, with Niggli inserting humor or anecdotes along with a few short dialogue rich ‘scenes’ that must have helped her loved ones more easily imagine her life in North Carolina. Niggli briefly discusses her classes and in some cases mentions the type of work she is doing and the subject matter she is studying. Born in July of 1910, birth name Josephine, Niggli was 24 years old at the time. She’d previously studied in San Antonio, Texas and received her undergraduate degree from Incarnate Word College there

A new way forward or the old way back? counterinsurgency in the Iraq surge

This work will consist of three chapters and a conclusion. The goal is to explain the need for the Surge, its image, and its relative success. Many of the histories written about the Surge appear within the first three years of the operation. Over a decade has passed since the start of the Surge in early 2007, and sources have come to light that did not exist in the immediate aftermath. Using these sources involves looking at the events that made the Surge a viable option, the political policy used in Iraq, and the tactical strategy employed by the US military and coalition forces. Also, new evidence allows for previous claims of success to be analyzed in a nuanced way and draw conclusions about the long-term strengths and weaknesses of the Surge

Re-inhabiting the islands : senses of place in the poetry of Gary Snyder and Derek Walcott

Building on the castaway narratives in both Gary Snyder‘s and Derek Walcott‘s poetry, I use Yann Martel‘s novel Life of Pi as a contemporary analogue for reading Snyder‘s Pacific journeys, in Regarding Wave and Turtle Island, and the quests of Omeros’ fisherman protagonist, Achille. In chapter one, I read Snyder‘s Regarding Wave, analyzing how he revised place archetypes from rocks to waves in order to initiate a more balanced culture in harmony with natural rhythms. Regarding Wave demonstrates the poet‘s biocentric and historiographical critique of linearity and towers, and it embodies his thematic and poetic identification with ?flows and spirals? (Snyder, Regarding Wave 24) because these symbols express a coherent sense of place in an archipelago, on Suwanose-Jima and Turtle Island. I argue that he fused the knowledge of a balanced animal-human household on Suwanose-Jima in the Ryukyu archipelago with Mahayana Buddhism for a vision of life as a bioregional member of the ?great / earth / sangha? (Turtle Island 73), providing a spiritual context for environmentalism and an environmental context for American Buddhism. In chapter two, I read Derek Walcott‘s Omeros as a poetic fusion of the creole present of St. Lucia within the ?official? (Walcott ?Muse? 49) archetypes of Western literature, mainly but not limited to Graeco-Roman mythology. Rather than assimilate St. Lucian culture into European literary forms, the long poem transposes and fuses the region‘s cultures and traditions for something new. I compare the two poets in chapter three through the New World poetic lens that Walcott develops in ?The Muse of History,? arguing that Walcott and Snyder negotiate the challenges of postcolonial and environmental poetry by writing intensely self-reflexive works that evoke the search for a healed sense of place. They draw their energy from the bitterness of a broken contract with nature to attempt to name the world again for everyone, and the way that they construe everyone is through the concept of a bioregion emanating in concentric ecological circles from their home ranges. Since they deal with ocean currents and watersheds, these communities are consequently transnational and hybrid

Movement and habitat ecology of protected species in North Carolina

Reptiles and amphibians are declining worldwide, especially from global climate change and habitat loss and fragmentation. Conservation efforts for imperiled species usually involve habitat protection, but are only effective if biologists and land managers have a thorough understanding of a species’ habitat requirements. This prerequisite knowledge is complicated for many herpetofauna because they utilize different habitats throughout their lifetime, such as separate breeding and non breeding habitats. Thus, multiple habitats must be studied and protected for conservation to be successful. This research aimed to better understand the habitat ecology of two protected herpetofaunal species in North Carolina to enhance future conservation. The first species, mountain chorus frogs (Pseudacris brachyphona), are small, terrestrial frogs, and a state species of special concern. Like many amphibians their breeding habitat has been studied, but little is known about their post breeding habitat. Nineteen individuals from two breeding sites were tracked by radio telemetry for approximately 25 days as they left their breeding site to examine their post breeding habitat. Breeding pools were surrounded closely by field and orchard habitats, and more distantly by forest. Frogs traveled 11.4 475.6 m from their breeding site, and no macrohabitat selection was detected among available habitats. However, the majority of individuals from the breeding site nearest the forest entered the forest, and the farthest traveling individuals from the other breeding site did as well. Mountain chorus frogs likely continued moving after 25 days, and were selecting forest habitat. I measured percent cover of vegetation within 1 m2 plots in all habitats, and forest had significantly greater leaf litter and canopy cover than did field and orchard. Likewise, there were significantly more burrows available in the forest than in other habitats. These habitat characteristics would provide greater protection from predators and desiccation in the forest, which could explain preference for forest. The second species studied, the bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii), is a small freshwater species, that is both federally- and state threatened. The majority of its habitat in the southeastern United States is small wetlands in livestock pastures, dominated by emergent vegetation (rushes and sedges) and with little shrub and canopy cover. I followed the movements of six turtles using radio telemetry from May October 2015 in a unique bog turtle wetland. This site is in Nantahala National Forest, has likely had little human disturbance for 80 years, and approximately half of the wetland is shrub/scrub habitat. Resident turtles significantly preferred shrub/scrub habitat with 68% of locations within this habitat type. I located two nests, both in emergent habitat. Shrub/scrub had significantly greater abundance of deep mud, which could explain turtles’ preference for this habitat. Bog turtles frequently burrow down into mud, and deeper mud might be easier to move through. Females had greater mean daily movement rates and home ranges (8.3 m/day, 0.6064 ha) than males (5.0 m/day, 0.4458 ha), which might be due to nesting migrations to emergent habitat. Thus, bog turtles will utilize shrub/scrub habitat where available, but nest in emergent habitat, likely due to its better thermal environment for offspring development

The Planet, 1992, Volume 22, Issue 01

https://cedar.wwu.edu/planet/1009/thumbnail.jp

Groundwater surface mapping informs sources of catchment baseflow

This work is funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project scheme through project DP120100253. We greatly appreciate the provision of groundwater chemistry data and introduction to the Gellibrand catchment by Alex Atkinson and Ian Cartwright from Monash University. We thank two anonymous reviewers and Ian Cartwright for their insightful and constructive reviews that helped improve this paper.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Buffalo

Front Text: Buffalo; This Ain\u27t Kansas Back Text: This Ain\u27t Kansas Description: White shirt with black and rainbow lettering; image of a box rainbowhttps://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/lgbtq_shirts/1099/thumbnail.jp

Frustration, Secrecy, Anger

Front Text: Pride Buffalo Back Text: n/a Description: Image of an eye and hand; pupil is a rainbow with words like confusion and fear surroundinghttps://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/lgbtq_shirts/1116/thumbnail.jp