Senior Recital:Michelle Warber, Violin

Kemp Recital Hall Saturday Afternoon November 16, 2002 5:45p.m

Does perceived restorativeness mediate the effects of perceived biodiversity and perceived naturalness on emotional well-being following group walks in nature?

Natural environments are associated with positive health and well-being. However, little is known about the influence of environmental qualities on well-being and the mechanisms underlying this association. This study explored whether perceived restorativeness and it subscales would mediate the effects of perceived biodiversity, perceived naturalness, walk duration and perceived intensity on emotional well-being. Participants (n = 127) of a national walking program in England completed pre- and post-walk questionnaires (n = 1009) for each group walk attended within a 13-week period. Multilevel mediation examined the hypothesised indirect effects. Perceived restorativeness mediated the effects of perceived bird biodiversity, perceived naturalness, and perceived walk intensity on positive affect, happiness and negative affect. The effect of walk duration on happiness was also mediated by perceived restorativeness. Perceived walk intensity had a direct effect on positive affect and happiness. Findings have implications for theory development, future biodiversity-health research and practitioners interested in designing restorative environments

Social Identity Theory as a Framework for Understanding the Effects of Exposure to Positive Media Images of Self and Other on Intergroup Outcomes

Based on the tenets of social identity theory, a two-study experimental design was conducted which examined the influence of exposure to positive Latino media exemplars on ingroup (Latino) and outgroup (white) consumers. Specifically, the impact of exposure on interethnic evaluations as well as perceptions of self and other was evaluated. Results from Study 1 and Study 2 suggest that although exposure to positive media depictions of Latinos can prompt more favorable evaluations of ingroup and self among Latinos, the same cannot necessarily be said for the effects of exposure to affirmative messages on judgments about Latinos among outgroup members (i.e., whites). Instead, these data indicate that for whites, ingroup (racial/ethnic) identification is a potent factor in media-related interethnic evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR

The Online Dissemination of Nature–Health Concepts: Lessons from Sentiment Analysis of Social Media Relating to “Nature-Deficit Disorder”

Evidence continues to grow supporting the idea that restorative environments, green exercise, and nature-based activities positively impact human health. Nature-deficit disorder, a journalistic term proposed to describe the ill effects of people's alienation from nature, is not yet formally recognized as a medical diagnosis. However, over the past decade, the phrase has been enthusiastically taken up by some segments of the lay public. Social media, such as Twitter, with its opportunities to gather "big data" related to public opinions, offers a medium for exploring the discourse and dissemination around nature-deficit disorder and other nature-health concepts. In this paper, we report our experience of collecting more than 175,000 tweets, applying sentiment analysis to measure positive, neutral or negative feelings, and preliminarily mapping the impact on dissemination. Sentiment analysis is currently used to investigate the repercussions of events in social networks, scrutinize opinions about products and services, and understand various aspects of the communication in Web-based communities. Based on a comparison of nature-deficit-disorder "hashtags" and more generic nature hashtags, we make recommendations for the better dissemination of public health messages through changes to the framing of messages. We show the potential of Twitter to aid in better understanding the impact of the natural environment on human health and wellbeing.Tim Taylor and Marco Palomino acknowledge funding from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, part of the University of Exeter Medical School, which was partially financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2007 to 2013 and European Social Fund Convergence Programme for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly during the course of this study. Funding for Sara Warber was provided in part through a UK-US Fulbright Commission Scholarship that supported her studies at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School

A Social Identity Approach to Intergroup Contact Between Fraternity and Sorority Members and Non-Members

This study examined group salience (i.e., prominence, relevance) as a moderating variable in intergroup contact between fraternity/sorority members and non-members. Specifically, it examined how salience moderates the relationship between non-member perceptions of intergroup contact and stereotypical behavior of fraternity and sorority members. Results revealed little support for membership salience as a moderator of non-member perceptions of contact quality with members and non-member perceptions of stereotypical member behavior. Main effects were found regarding non-member levels of trust and self-disclosure and perceptions of fraternity/sorority members as deviant

Metabolic profiling of rhizobacteria Serratia plymuthica and Bacillus subtilis revealed intra- and interspecific differences and elicitation of plipastatins and short peptides due to co-cultivation

Rhizobacteria live in diverse and dynamic communities having a high impact on plant growth and development. Due to the complexity of the microbial communities and the difficult accessibility of the rhizosphere, investigations of interactive processes within this bacterial network are challenging. In order to better understand causal relationships between individual members of the microbial community of plants, we started to investigate the inter- and intraspecific interaction potential of three rhizobacteria, the S. plymuthica isolates 4Rx13 and AS9 and B. subtilis B2g, using high resolution mass spectrometry based metabolic profiling of structured, low-diversity model communities. We found that by metabolic profiling we are able to detect metabolite changes during cultivation of all three isolates. The metabolic profile of S. plymuthica 4Rx13 differs interspecifically to B. subtilis B2g and surprisingly intraspecifically to S. plymuthica AS9. Thereby, the release of different secondary metabolites represents one contributing factor of inter- and intraspecific variations in metabolite profiles. Interspecific co-cultivation of S. plymuthica 4Rx13 and B. subtilis B2g showed consistently distinct metabolic profiles compared to mono-cultivated species. Thereby, putative known and new variants of the plipastatin family are increased in the co-cultivation of S. plymuthica 4Rx13 and B. subtilis B2g. Interestingly, intraspecific co-cultivation of S. plymuthica 4Rx13 and S. plymuthica AS9 revealed a distinct interaction zone and showed distinct metabolic profiles compared to mono-cultures. Thereby, several putative short proline-containing peptides are increased in co-cultivation of S. plymuthica 4Rx13 with S. plymuthica AS9 compared to mono-cultivated strains. Our results demonstrate that the release of metabolites by rhizobacteria alters due to growth and induced by social interactions between single members of the microbial community. These results form a basis to elucidate the functional role of such interaction-triggered compounds in establishment and maintenance of microbial communities and can be applied under natural and more realistic conditions, since rhizobacteria also interact with the plant itself and many other members of plant and soil microbiota

Continuity Trumps Change: The First Year of Trump\u27s Administrative Presidency

From campaign rhetoric to tweets, President Trump has positioned himself as disrupter in chief, often pointing to administrative action as the avenue by which he is leaving a lasting mark. However, research on the administrative presidency begins with the premise that all presidents face incentives to use administrative tools to gain substantive or political traction. If, as this article suggests, Trump\u27s institutional standing differs little from his recent predecessors, then how much of the Trump presidency represents a change from past norms and practices\u27 How much represents continuity, or the perennial dynamics of a far-from-omnipotent executive in an ongoing world of separate institutions sharing powers (Neustadt 1990, 29)\u27 To answer this, we tracked presidential directives and regulatory policy during Trump\u27s first year in office. We found evidence of continuity, indicating that in its use of administrative tactics to shape policy, the Trump White House largely falls in line with recent presidencies