Ethnicity and Impressions of Personality Using the Five-Factor Model: Stereotyping or Cultural Sensitivity?

The current research investigates whether communities use ethnicity as a cue when forming personality impressions of others. Past research has shown that dress, smiling, hairstyle, and even facial symmetry of targets produce systematic differences in personality impressions across the domains of the Five Factor model of personality. We investigated whether the stated or apparent ethnicity of groups and individuals also produce stereotypic impressions of personality. This study compared impressions across members and non-members of the target groups and examined cue utility i.e. whether impressions of the groups agreed with aggregated self-impressions by group members. In all, the results clearly suggest that people utilize ethnicity as a cue when forming impressions of the personalities of groups and individuals, and although those impressions are exaggerated consistent with stereotype theory, they confer some utility in interpersonal perceptions across cultures. Stereotypes are a strategy used to interpret the complex social environment in the absence of more specific information. When that information is available, perceptions of others become more refined and accurate. Keywords: stereotyping, ethnicity, Five Factor model, Native Americans, cultural sensitivity, personalit

Fragmentation And Evolution Of Molecular Clouds. III. The Effect Of Dust And Gas Energetics

Dust and gas energetics are incorporated into a cluster-scale simulation of star formation in order to study the effect of heating and cooling on the star formation process. We build on our previous work by calculating separately the dust and gas temperatures. The dust temperature is set by radiative equilibrium between heating by embedded stars and radiation from dust. The gas temperature is determined using an energy-rate balance algorithm which includes molecular cooling, dust-gas collisional energy transfer, and cosmic-ray ionization. The fragmentation proceeds roughly similarly to simulations in which the gas temperature is set to the dust temperature, but there are differences. The structure of regions around sink particles has properties similar to those of Class 0 objects, but the infall speeds and mass accretion rates are, on average, higher than those seen for regions forming only low-mass stars. The gas and dust temperature have complex distributions not well modeled by approximations that ignore the detailed thermal physics. There is no simple relationship between density and kinetic temperature. In particular, high-density regions have a large range of temperatures, determined by their location relative to heating sources. The total luminosity underestimates the star formation rate at these early stages, before ionizing sources are included, by an order of magnitude. As predicted in our previous work, a larger number of intermediate-mass objects form when improved thermal physics is included, but the resulting initial mass function (IMF) still has too few low-mass stars. However, if we consider recent evidence on core-to-star efficiencies, the match to the IMF is improved.NASA NAG5-10826, NAG5-13271Canada Research Chair programNSERCNSF AST-0607793, AST-1109116NASA GSRP Fellowship ProgramAstronom

A New Zealand Electricity Market Model: Assessment of the Effect of Climate Change on Electricity Production and Consumption.

In this paper, we introduce an electricity market model and use it to explore the effect of climate change on electricity output and prices. It is calibrated to the New Zealand Electricity Market, and includes multiple generation fuels, uncertain fuel availability, and storage options. The model is formulated in continuous time, which mimics the many short trading periods that are common to electricity spot markets, while properly incorporating forward-looking generation decision making. Specifically, it is used to estimate the effects of changes that may arise in characteristics of fuels -water and gas- as a consequence of climate change and climate change policies. The model does this under the polar cases of a competitive market structure and monopoly. There are three key findings from the results. First, the results illustrate the importance of allowing for volatility and including management of storage in electricity market models. Second, they suggest that reductions in average hydro fuel availability will reduce welfare significantly. Increases in the volatility of hydro fuel availability will also affect welfare, but to a very small extent. Third, the value of reservoir expansion is sensitive to the distribution of hydro fuel availability. Finally, the effects of a carbon tax are also reported.dynamic optimisation, electricity spot market performance, stochastic fuel availability, storage options, climate change

Quasi-School Leaders: The Lived Experiences of High School Counseling Directors and Their Role In Schools

The aim of this study is to explore the lived experiences of high school counseling director’s and how their principal and district school counseling supervisor shape their experiences as leaders. The role of high school counseling director’s is increasingly complex, unique, and oftentimes misunderstood. They are often viewed as leaders and change agents in student’s overall success due to their unique skill levels in advocacy and collaboration (Kaffenberger, Murphy, & Bemak, 2006; McMahon, Mason, Daluga-Guenther, & Ruiz, 2014; Young, Millard, & Kneale, 2013). However, principal’s and district school counseling supervisors are key players in defining the role and responsibilities of a high school counseling director (Perusse, Goodnough, Donegan, & Jones, 2004). Therefore, this study examined the experiences of high school counselors as directors to understand how their leadership role is actualized within schools by their two supervisors: the principal and district school counseling supervisor. Utilizing two rounds of semi-structured interview questions, the study revealed high school counseling director’s experiences as leaders guided by the subsystems where they work and by the people they interact with in the subsystems. These findings add to a growing body of literature on school counselor leadership in education as well the development of leaders within schools

Interventions for prevention of type 2 diabetes in relatives:A systematic review

The relatives and partners of people with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. This systematic review examines randomized controlled trials, written in English that tested an intervention, which aimed to modify behaviors known to delay or prevent type 2 diabetes, among the relatives or partners of people with type 2 diabetes. Study quality was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for assessing risk of bias. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria. The majority of studies were at low risk of bias. Six studies tested an intervention in first-degree relatives of people with type 2 diabetes and one in partners. Intervention components and intervention intensity across studies varied, with those targeting diet and physical activity reporting the most significant changes in primary outcomes. Only one study did not observe significant changes in primary outcomes. There were three main recruitment approaches: advertising in the community, recruiting people through their relatives with diabetes, or identifying people as high risk by screening of their own health care contacts. Some evidence was found for potentially successful interventions to prevent type 2 diabetes among the relatives and partners of people with type 2 diabetes, although finding simple and effective methods to identify and recruit them remains a challenge. Future studies should explore the effect of patients’ perceptions on their family members’ behavior and capitalize on family relationships in order to increase intervention effectiveness

Fragmentation and Evolution of Molecular Clouds. II: The Effect of Dust Heating

We investigate the effect of heating by luminosity sources in a simulation of clustered star formation. Our heating method involves a simplified continuum radiative transfer method that calculates the dust temperature. The gas temperature is set by the dust temperature. We present the results of four simulations, two simulations assume an isothermal equation of state and the two other simulations include dust heating. We investigate two mass regimes, i.e., 84 Msun and 671 Msun, using these two different energetics algorithms. The mass functions for the isothermal simulations and simulations which include dust heating are drastically different. In the isothermal simulation, we do not form any objects with masses above 1 Msun. However, the simulation with dust heating, while missing some of the low-mass objects, forms high-mass objects (~20 Msun) which have a distribution similar to the Salpeter IMF. The envelope density profiles around the stars formed in our simulation match observed values around isolated, low-mass star-forming cores. We find the accretion rates to be highly variable and, on average, increasing with final stellar mass. By including radiative feedback from stars in a cluster-scale simulation, we have determined that it is a very important effect which drastically affects the mass function and yields important insights into the formation of massive stars.Comment: 19 pages, 28 figures. See http://www.astro.phy.ulaval.ca/staff/hugo/dust/ms_dust.big.pdf for high resolution version of documen

Utilizing Counseling Skills in the Classroom to Promote Student Well-Being and Success

The success of institutions of higher education is dependent upon student academic success. Current research with students in higher education links academic success with student well-being. Members of the faculty are in critical positions to ensure student success and thus, the institution, but may be unsure how to promote well-being in the classroom setting. This article examines challenges professors face and shares a professional performance review process. Strategies and skills used by professional counselors that university faculty can implement to foster a sense of student well-being and establish supportive relationships through an integration of Miller’s Relational Cultural Theory and Social Cognitive Theory from Bandura are provided. Some of these counseling skills include rapport building, validation, empathy, grounding techniques, and mindfulness

A New Zealand Electricity Market Model: Assessment of the effect of climate change on electricity production and consumption

In this paper we introduce a model of an electricity market and use it to explore the effect of climate change on electricity prices and output. It has multiple generation fuels uncertain fuel availability and storage options. The model is formulated in continuous time which mimics the many short trading periods common to electricity spot markets. It properly incorporates forward-looking generation decision making. It is calibrated to the New Zealand Electricity Market and is used to estimate the effects of changes that may arise in characteristics of fuels - water and gas - as a consequence of climate change and climate change policies. It does so under the polar cases of a competitive market structure and monopoly. The results illustrate the importance of allowing for volatility and including management of storage in electricity market models. They suggest that reductions in average hydro fuel availability will reduce welfare significantly that increases in the volatility of hydro fuel availability will also affect welfare but to a very small extent and that the value of reservoir expansion is sensitive to the distribution of hydro fuel availability. The effects of a carbon tax are reported

The van Hove distribution function for Brownian hard spheres: dynamical test particle theory and computer simulations for bulk dynamics

We describe a test particle approach based on dynamical density functional theory (DDFT) for studying the correlated time evolution of the particles that constitute a fluid. Our theory provides a means of calculating the van Hove distribution function by treating its self and distinct parts as the two components of a binary fluid mixture, with the `self' component having only one particle, the `distinct' component consisting of all the other particles, and using DDFT to calculate the time evolution of the density profiles for the two components. We apply this approach to a bulk fluid of Brownian hard spheres and compare to results for the van Hove function and the intermediate scattering function from Brownian dynamics computer simulations. We find good agreement at low and intermediate densities using the very simple Ramakrishnan-Yussouff [Phys. Rev. B 19, 2775 (1979)] approximation for the excess free energy functional. Since the DDFT is based on the equilibrium Helmholtz free energy functional, we can probe a free energy landscape that underlies the dynamics. Within the mean-field approximation we find that as the particle density increases, this landscape develops a minimum, while an exact treatment of a model confined situation shows that for an ergodic fluid this landscape should be monotonic. We discuss possible implications for slow, glassy and arrested dynamics at high densities.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Chemical Physic