Exploring the Effects of Mindful Nature Walks on College Student Anxiety

Individuals pursuing a degree in higher education face challenges that lead to greater levels of anxiety than that of the general U.S. adult population. This disparity, further heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, presents a need for higher education institutions to search for ways to address this spike in student anxiety and other mental health concerns. This mixed-methods study explored mindful nature walks as a low-cost and easily accessible way for college students to reduce levels of experienced anxiety. Using validated quantitative measures, this study examined the impact of three weekly, consecutive 30-minute mindful nature walks on state and general anxiety levels experienced by a sample of 11 students at the University of Arkansas. Follow-up interviews with five of these participants qualitatively investigated participants’ experiences with the intervention and their feedback for future integration. Quantitative results reveal a statistically significant reduction in state anxiety and a non-significant reduction in general anxiety. Qualitative results further strengthen these findings with participants’ positive experiences with this intervention and present their desire for future integration of mindful nature walks into university programs, educational efforts, and mental health services

Chronic adolescent stress as a predictive factor for the risk of developing PTSD-like symptoms in adulthood

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a stress and trauma based psychological disorder that is defined by the DSM-IV as an anxiety disorder that affects approximately 7.8% of people in the United States. PTSD is when those who suffer a traumatic event have intense and distressing feelings, emotions, and memories for a prolonged period of time after the event. A prominent feature of PTSD is the impaired ability to properly extinguish a fear response after a dangerous trigger or stressor is no longer present, also known as safety learning. Stressors are threats perceived within the environment that activate a response within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis as well as the autonomic nervous system (ANS). During adolescence, the brain is within a critically sensitive period that is susceptible to damage or alterations in cognition or morphology due to stressors. Chronic stress during adolescence alters brain morphology and cognitive function into adulthood, as seen in studies involving laboratory animals. In addition to the effects of chronic adolescent stress, there are also morphological and cognitive differences due to sex caused by differences in sex hormones. Women are disproportionately affected by PTSD and are twice as likely to develop PTSD after a traumatic event. Combining these factors, we hypothesize that the ability to safety learn will be impaired by chronic adolescent stress and further hindered within female wistar rats. A mixed-modality chronic adolescent stress paradigm was used to create social stress, which simulates negative social interaction and aggression, and chronic restraint stress, which simulates a stressful situation that forces immobility. Safety learning ability was assessed using a startle paradigm created based on fear conditioning that has been used previously in multiple studies testing for behavior that is indicative of PTSD-like behavior. In contradiction to the hypothesis, the females who underwent chronic adolescent stress did extinguish the fear and safety learn successfully better than the nonstress counterparts. In order to look at the predictability of the startle response due to the effects of chronic adolescent stress, multiple linear regression analyses were run. It was found that for the baseline, fear conditioning, and extinction days within the startle response paradigm were able to be predicted significantly, however, the days that were testing the actual fear potentiated startle response and safety learning had no significant predictability. The results of this study found that CAS increased the ability to safety learn as well as sex did not influence the ability to safety learn, which were both not supportive of the hypothesis. In addition, the regression analysis was not a reliable model of predicting startle response within CAS data. This study can be a useful steppingstone in determining the ways that chronic adolescent stress can predict how a stressor can cause an increase in the risk of psychological disorders later in adulthood

A critical review of cross-retaliation as a justiciable countermeasure with reference to the EC– bananas III (article 22.6 – EC) case

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the international legal personality which regulates the World Trading System. It is governed by a set of six covered Agreements which are divided into sectors and subsectors. A dispute is said to have arisen in the WTO when the industry of a member-state is affected by measures taken by another member-state. A complaint lies before the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the WTO which upon conclusive hearing of a matter comes up with recommendations which the defaulting party has to implement. In the face of non-compliance the erring party may be subjected to countermeasures which may be within the sector where violation occurred. But the aggrieved party has the discretion to suspend concessions or obligation in another sector but under the same agreement where violation occurred or even to suspend under another covered agreement. Cross-retaliation is basically about the ability of a party to counter adverse measures by suspending obligations or other concessions in another sector or under another covered agreement, different from where the nullification and impairment occurred. The thrust of this article is to unravel the truth behind the wide discretions afforded the aggrieved party in relation to cross-retaliation as a countermeasure and to critique the extent of its justiciability. These aims are achieved through an appraisal of the provisions of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) and a critique of the EC Bananas III case2 which is a locus classicus case in this regard. It further critiques the position of the law and how relevant it is to reality and then makes recommendations for further improvements.Keywords: Cross-Retaliation, Justiciability, EC-Bananas III, Countermeasur

Understanding the legal fundamentals of project finance contracts

Project finance is an alternative finance mechanism for structural development whereby the funding of a project is dependent on the project itself and not on the sponsors or credit providers. It is an international transaction involving long-term, nonrecourse loans for the financing of heavy, cost intensive projects. Because of this peculiar nature, the risk involvement is higher than what is obtainable in other international transactions. Even more risk-laden is project finance in developing countries. Therefore, it takes a proactive legal draftsman who is well grounded on issues of project finance contracts to pre-emptively circumvent some of these issues which may frustrate the contract by making provisions for foreseeable and other reasonable risks even before they arise. This paper seeks to arm the legal draftsman with the fundamental knowledge of project financing contracts and by extension arm him with the basic tools for a productive career in the drafting and implementation of project finance contracts. To achieve this objective, this article engages in a comprehensive appraisal of the concept of project finance contracts; exploring its nature, merits, demerits and structures. Conclusively, it guides the legal draftsman on the effective requirements for the drafting of a practical, proactive project finance contract.Key words: Project Finance, Legal Fundamentals, Contract

Food Acceptability, Menu Fatigue, and Aversion on ISS Missions

The acceptability of the spaceflight food system has been linked to caloric intake and associated nutritional benefits. The diets of the United States Operating Segment crewmembers during a mission are restricted to 200 processed and prepackaged standard menu items supplemented with personal preference foods. ISS crew members have noted in debriefs that they would prefer more food variety for the length of the missions and they tire of certain foods over six months. It is possible that menu fatigue leads to decreases in acceptability and increased aversion to available foods, potentially contributing to the body mass loss often experienced by ISS crew. However, the impact of repeat food consumption on acceptability within the current spaceflight food system has not yet been systematically investigated. Limited variety and crew preferences within food categories may have more severe physical and behavioral health and performance consequences as mission duration increases. Characterizing the relationship between food acceptability and mission duration will contribute to defining requirements for an acceptable food system that will support crew health and performance on long duration missions

Support Structures and Their Impacts on Work Outcomes of Online Workers in Developing Countries

Online labor platforms (OLPs) are transforming how firms operate and how people work. While much attention has been paid to understand how OLPs use algorithms to match workers with consumers and how OLPs are different from traditional firms, little is known about how this new form of firm impacts marginalized populations. Likewise, little is known about what factors lead to online workers’ work success. This short paper aims to explore the support structures for online laborers in developing countries. Drawing on the literature, we distill two types of support structure, namely, formal support from the platform firm, and informal support from peers. The current study seeks to develop in-depth understanding of support structures for online workers in developing countries and how support structures impact their work outcomes

Expanding the Direct and Indirect Effects Model of Writing (DIEW) : Reading–writing relations, and dynamic relations as a function of measurement/dimensions of written composition

Within the context of the Direct and Indirect Effects Model of Writing (Kim & Park, 2019), we examined a dynamic relations hypothesis, which contends that the relations of component skills, including reading comprehension, to written composition vary as a function of dimensions of written composition. Specifically, we investigated (a) whether higher-order cognitive skills (i.e., inference, perspective taking, and monitoring) are differentially related to three dimensions of written composition—writing quality, writing productivity, and correctness in writing; (b) whether reading comprehension is differentially related to the three dimensions of written composition after accounting for oral language, cognition, and transcription skills, and whether reading comprehension mediates the relations of discourse oral language and lexical literacy to the three dimensions of written composition; and (c) whether total effects of oral language, cognition, transcription, and reading comprehension vary for the three dimensions of written composition. Structural equation model results from 350 English-speaking second graders showed that higher-order cognitive skills were differentially related to the three dimensions of written composition. Reading comprehension was related only to writing quality, but not to writing productivity or correctness in writing, and reading comprehension differentially mediated the relations of discourse oral language and lexical literacy to writing quality. Total effects of language, cognition, transcription, and reading comprehension varied largely for the three dimensions of written composition. These results support the dynamic relation hypothesis, role of reading in writing, and the importance of accounting for dimensions of written composition in a theoretical model of writing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved