Networking and Revolution: How Social Media Has Shaped the Arab Spring

In the Spring of 2011, a tremor swept through North Africa and the Middle East. What began in Tunisia as one man\u27s self-immolation in protest of the government sparked demonstrations throughout the region. Shouting and demonstrating soon escalated into full out revolution. While countries involved have had varying experiences and levels of success, one thing is clear: social media was a powerful tool in this historic moment. Facebook currently has one billion users -- or one in seven people. Twitter has 400 million users, Instagram is home to 100 million users, and YouTube has one billion unique visitors per month. Twenty-five percent of views are via mobile devices. A staggering 70 percent of YouTube traffic is from outside the United States. In 2011, the year that marked the beginning of the Arab Spring, YouTube traffic from mobile devices tripled and the site had one trillion views -- or 140 views per every human on earth. In considering these statistics, this study tracks the use and importance of the Social Media and information and communication technology (ICT) in aiding revolutions. Whether citizen journalism in Tunisia, Facebook pages in Egypt and Yemen, or Social Media attention toward Libya -- Arab Spring countries have seen a drastic impact in the speed, success, and spreading throughout the region of revolutions. After analyzing Social Media\u27s presence in the Arab Spring, it is hard to imagine the uprisings without this tool

State of Obesity 2023: Better Policies for a Healthier America

This 2023 version is the 20th annual report on the antecedents and rates of obesity in the U.S. as well as policy solutions. Since TFAH first published the State of Obesity report in 2004, rates of adult and child and adolescent obesity are up sharply, particularly in communities experiencing barriers to healthy eating and few opportunities for physical activity

The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Better America (2022) - Special Feature: Food and Nutrition Insecurity Among Youth and Families

Obesity rates have been rising for decades across states, ages, sexes, and racial/ethnic groups, with continued increases during the COVID-19 pandemic. These long-term, cross-population trends underscore the nature of the crisis as a population-level problem tied to social, economic, and environmental factors in the United States, most of which are outside of an individual's control. Some of these factors affect available choices and habits directly related to diet, nutrition, and physical activity—for example, the availability, cost, marketing, taste, and accessibility of nutrient-rich foods like fruits and vegetables versus calorie-rich foods like junk food and soda, and the availability, safety, and convenience of active transportation, parks, playgrounds, and facilities for exercise and physical activity. It is also important to consider the role other factors—like stress, discrimination, poverty, economic opportunity, and food insecurity— play in determining the health and well-being of every AmericanThis is the 19th annual report by Trust for America's Health on the obesity crisis in the United States. This year, our special feature highlights food and nutrition insecurity among youth and families. This report, as in previous years, also includes a section that reviews the latest data available on adult and childhood obesity rates, a section that examines key current and emerging policies, and, finally, a section that outlines recommended policy actions

Correlation Study: Student Success in Biochemistry as a Prerequisite for Integrated Pharmacology and Medicinal Chemistry

Background A rise in new schools of pharmacy has led to implementation of new curriculums. Pharmacy schools must adhere to standards set by the Accreditation Council of Pharmacy Education in order to provide knowledge of foundational sciences and prepare pharmacy students for the future. Prerequisites are typically foundational science courses taken early in the program so that students have the knowledge necessary to be excellent pharmacists. Within the Cedarville University School of Pharmacy, Biochemistry is a prerequisite course for Integrated Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology (PCoMedChem). Objectives The goal of this study is to determine if Biochemistry should remain a prerequisite course for Integrated Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology at Cedarville University under a TBL setting based on if student success in Biochemistry influences student success in PcoMedChem. Methodology The study will evaluate student individual and overall course grades for both Biochemistry and PcoMedChem. The data will include grades from the 2018-2021 cohorts of pharmacy students. Inclusion criteria consists of completion of Biochemistry and Integrated Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology. No exclusion of students exist because all student data will be evaluated. Students will complete a survey through Qualtrics regarding extracurricular commitments as well as perceptions towards the courses to supplement the findings and explain discrepancies. Analysis The demographics and students’ perceptions will be compared in SPSS by analyzing frequency of responses. Using SPSS, the Wilcoxon test and Levene’s test will be conducted followed by a Pearson or Spearman correlation, depending on distribution, in order to determine correlation between grades in Biochemistry and PcoMedChem. Additionally, an ANCOVA test will be used to analyze the data gathered from our survey. A p-value of 0.05 will be indicative of statistical significance

Sexed up: theorizing the sexualization of culture

This paper reviews and examines emerging academic approaches to the study of ‘sexualized culture’; an examination made necessary by contemporary preoccupations with sexual values, practices and identities, the emergence of new forms of sexual experience and the apparent breakdown of rules, categories and regulations designed to keep the obscene at bay. The paper maps out some key themes and preoccupations in recent academic writing on sex and sexuality, especially those relating to the contemporary or emerging characteristics of sexual discourse. The key issues of pornographication and democratization, taste formations, postmodern sex and intimacy, and sexual citizenship are explored in detail. </p

Challenges of Population-based Measurement of Suicide Prevention Activities Across Multiple Health Systems

Suicide is a preventable public health problem. Zero Suicide (ZS) is a suicide prevention framework currently being evaluated by Mental Health Research Network investigators embedded in six Health Care Systems Research Network (HCSRN) member health systems implementing ZS. This paper describes ongoing collaboration to develop population-based process improvement metrics for use in, and comparison across, these and other health systems. Robust process improvement metrics are sorely needed by the hundreds of health systems across the country preparing to implement their own best practices in suicide care. Here we articulate three examples of challenges in using health system data to assess suicide prevention activities, each in ascending order of complexity: 1) Mapping and reconciling different versions of suicide risk assessment instruments across health systems; 2) Deciding what should count as adequate suicide prevention follow-up care and how to count it in different health systems with different care processes; and 3) Trying to determine whether a safety planning discussion took place between a clinician and a patient, and if so, what actually happened. To develop broadly applicable metrics, we have advocated for standardization of care processes and their documentation, encouraged standardized screening tools and urged they be recorded as discrete electronic health record (EHR) variables, and engaged with our clinical partners and health system data architects to identify all relevant care processes and the ways they are recorded in the EHR so we are not systematically missing important data. Serving as embedded research partners in our local ZS implementation teams has facilitated this work

Alcohol-Related Context Modulates Performance of Social Drinkers in a Visual Go/No-Go Task: A Preliminary Assessment of Event-Related Potentials

Background Increased alcohol cue-reactivity and altered inhibitory processing have been reported in heavy social drinkers and alcohol-dependent patients, and are associated with relapse. In social drinkers, these two processes have been usually studied separately by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) during rapid picture presentation. The aim of our study was to confront social drinkers to a task triggering high alcohol cue-reactivity, to verify whether it specifically altered inhibitory performance, by using long-lasting background picture presentation. Methods ERP were recorded during visual Go/No-Go tasks performed by social drinkers, in which a frequent Go signal (letter “M”), and a rare No-Go signal (letter “W”) were superimposed on three different types of background pictures: neutral (black background), alcohol-related and non alcohol-related. Results Our data suggested that heavy social drinkers made more commission errors than light drinkers, but only in the alcohol-related context. Neurophysiologically, this was reflected by a delayed No-Go P3 component. Conclusions Elevated alcohol cue-reactivity may lead to poorer inhibitory performance in heavy social drinkers, and may be considered as an important vulnerability factor in developing alcohol misuse. Prevention programs should be designed to decrease the high arousal of alcohol stimuli and strengthen cognitive control in young, at-risk individuals.This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The First Stars

The first stars to form in the Universe -- the so-called Population III stars -- bring an end to the cosmological Dark Ages, and exert an important influence on the formation of subsequent generations of stars and on the assembly of the first galaxies. Developing an understanding of how and when the first Population III stars formed and what their properties were is an important goal of modern astrophysical research. In this review, I discuss our current understanding of the physical processes involved in the formation of Population III stars. I show how we can identify the mass scale of the first dark matter halos to host Population III star formation, and discuss how gas undergoes gravitational collapse within these halos, eventually reaching protostellar densities. I highlight some of the most important physical processes occurring during this collapse, and indicate the areas where our current understanding remains incomplete. Finally, I discuss in some detail the behaviour of the gas after the formation of the first Population III protostar. I discuss both the conventional picture, where the gas does not undergo further fragmentation and the final stellar mass is set by the interplay between protostellar accretion and protostellar feedback, and also the recently advanced picture in which the gas does fragment and where dynamical interactions between fragments have an important influence on the final distribution of stellar masses.Comment: 72 pages, 4 figures. Book chapter to appear in "The First Galaxies - Theoretical Predictions and Observational Clues", 2012 by Springer, eds. V. Bromm, B. Mobasher, T. Wiklin