Rumination, Negative Life Events, and Depressive Symptoms in a Sample of College Students

Major Depression is a significant public health challenge because it affects over 6% of U.S. adults annually and has a highly recurrent course (NIMH, 2014). This study aims to examine the main and interactive effects of a cognitive vulnerability to depression (i.e., rumination) and the experience of stressful life events in potential pathways to major depression. Initially non-dysphoric college students (N = 290) completed a measure of dispositional rumination, the Response Styles Questionnaire (RSQ), at the start of the semester (Time 1). They reported on negative life events on the Life Experiences Survey (LES) at the start and end of the semester (Time 2). Mood was assessed at both time points using the Beck Depression Inventory-Second Edition (BDI-II), the Diagnostic Inventory of Depression (DID), and the Altman Self-Rating Mania Scale (ASRMS). Contrary to the hypothesis that rumination interacts with stressful life events to predict growth in depressive symptoms over time, hierarchical regressions indicated a pattern of main effects of rumination and stressful life events in predicting depressive symptoms on the BDI-II and DID at Time 2 after controlling for symptoms at Time 1, but no significant interaction between the two variables. In secondary analyses considering sex, age, ethnicity, semester, and history of major depression as potential covariates, only history of major depression diagnosis emerged as a significant covariate and only in predicting Time 2 BDI-II symptoms. An exploratory analysis of hypomania/mania symptoms at Time 2 indicated that only Time 1 ASRMS scores significantly predicted ASRMS scores at Time 2, not rumination, stressful life events, or their interaction. Limitations of this study include a short longitudinal time period, a lack of generalizability, and reliance on self-report measures

Factors that Affect Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Students’ Efforts toward Self-Actualization at a Private, Religious College: A Phenomenological Study

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) college students to understand the relationship, if any, between sexual orientation and self-actualization at a private, religious college. Four recent graduates and 14 current students volunteered for semi-structured interviews about their academic and extracurricular experiences at a Roman Catholic college in the greater New York City area. They shared their perceptions of campus climate for GLB students, including homophobia and bias among faculty, staff, and students at the college. Interview data, viewed through the framework of Maslow’s theory of self-actualization and Astin’s student involvement theory, identified factors that support GLB self-actualization and others that discourage it. Such factors included students’ family life before and during college, their levels of outness, and their involvement on campus with an LGBT club and other activities. Findings suggest that GLB students perceive growing support from faculty, including those who belong to religious orders, but more resources and more awareness of GLB issues are needed. Further research on GLB experiences with self-actualization is needed. Studies set in different geographic regions, at schools with other religious affiliations, and in non-educational areas of life (such as youth organizations or sports) would be beneficial

Identification Using Russell 1000/2000 Index Assignments: A Discussion of Methodologies

This paper discusses tradeoffs of various empirical methods used in recent papers that rely on Russell 1000/2000 index assignments for identification. The paper also addresses why different approaches to this identification appear to reach different conclusions about the effect of index assignment on firm’s ownership structure and corporate policies

Passive Investors, Not Passive Owners

Passive institutional investors are an increasingly important component of U.S. stock ownership. To examine whether and by which mechanisms passive investors influence firms\u27 governance, we exploit variation in ownership by passive mutual funds associated with stock assignments to the Russell 1000 and 2000 indexes. Our findings suggest that passive mutual funds influence firms\u27 governance choices, resulting in more independent directors, removal of takeover defenses, and more equal voting rights. Passive investors appear to exert influence through their large voting blocs, and consistent with the observed governance differences increasing firm value, passive ownership is associated with improvements in firms’ longer-term performance

eta, eta-prime -> pi^+ pi^- gamma with coupled channels

The decays eta, eta-prime -> pi^+ pi^- gamma are investigated within an approach that combines one-loop chiral perturbation theory with a coupled channel Bethe-Salpeter equation which satisfies unitarity constraints and generates vector mesons dynamically from composite states of two pseudoscalar mesons. It is furthermore shown that the inclusion of the eta-prime as a dynamical degree of freedom does not renormalize the Wess-Zumino-Witten term.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure

An evaluation of alternative techniques for automatic detection of shot boundaries in digital video

The application of image processing techniques to achieve substantial compression in digital video is one of the reasons why computer-supported video processing and digital TV are now becoming commonplace. The encoding formats used for video, such as the MPEG family of standards, have been developed primarily to achieve high compression rates, but now that this has been achieved, effort is being concentrated on other, content-based activities. MPEG-7, for example is a standard intended to support such developments. In the work described here, we are developing and deploying techniques to support content-based navigation and browsing through digital video (broadcast TV) archives. Fundamental to this is being able to automatically structure video into shots and scenes. In this paper we report our progress on developing a variety of approaches to automatic shot boundary detection in MPEG-1 video, and their evaluation on a large test suite of 8 hours of broadcast TV. Our work to date indicates that different techniques work well for different shot transition types and that a combination of techniques may yield the most accurate segmentation

The Uses of Chiral Anomaly for Determination of the Number of Colors

The $N_c$-dependence of the vertices $PPP\gamma$, where $P$ is a pseudoscalar meson and $N_c$ is the number of colors, is analyzed with regard for the $N_c$-dependence of the quark charges. It is shown that the best processes for the determination of $N_c$ are the reactions $K\gamma \to K\pi$ and $\pi^pm\gamma\to\pi^\pm\eta$ as well as the decay \eta\ra\pi^+\pi^-\gamma. The measurement of the cross section \sigma(\pi^-\gamma\ra\pi^-\eta) at the VES facility at the IHEP agrees with the value $N_c=3$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure; accepted to Phys. Atom. Nucl., references adde

Reduced elastogenesis: a clue to the arteriosclerosis and emphysematous changes in Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia?

BACKGROUND: Arteriosclerosis and emphysema develop in individuals with Schimke immuno-osseous dysplasia (SIOD), a multisystem disorder caused by biallelic mutations in SMARCAL1 (SWI/SNF-related, matrix-associated, actin-dependent regulator of chromatin, subfamily a-like 1). However, the mechanism by which the vascular and pulmonary disease arises in SIOD remains unknown. METHODS: We reviewed the records of 65 patients with SMARCAL1 mutations. Molecular and immunohistochemical analyses were conducted on autopsy tissue from 4 SIOD patients. RESULTS: Thirty-two of 63 patients had signs of arteriosclerosis and 3 of 51 had signs of emphysema. The arteriosclerosis was characterized by intimal and medial hyperplasia, smooth muscle cell hyperplasia and fragmented and disorganized elastin fibers, and the pulmonary disease was characterized by panlobular enlargement of air spaces. Consistent with a cell autonomous disorder, SMARCAL1 was expressed in arterial and lung tissue, and both the aorta and lung of SIOD patients had reduced expression of elastin and alterations in the expression of regulators of elastin gene expression. CONCLUSIONS: This first comprehensive study of the vascular and pulmonary complications of SIOD shows that these commonly cause morbidity and mortality and might arise from impaired elastogenesis. Additionally, the effect of SMARCAL1 deficiency on elastin expression provides a model for understanding other features of SIOD