Home Management in Practice

Hospitality is a great part of making a home. Entertaining guests is the homemaker\u27s opportunity to dramatize her chosen career, and to share the fine qualities of this home she has created with others

The popular ballad and oral tradition

I begin with a representative quotation from volume 2 of the Papers of Francis James Child because it offers an ideal avenue into the study of the popular ballad and some of the premises of that study: "These two ballads and a fragment of a third were repeated from memory by my grandmother, who is over ninety years old. She learned them orally and has no recollection of their being printed" (II:229). Such a formulation suggests that popular ballads to be authentic and true are held in memory, are unpublished, are learned orally; they are possessions of the past and we get glimpses of that past largely through the memories of the old. It is an easy move from these assertions to suggest that the ballads belong, certainly originated, in the past, in an oral society, homogeneous and small; what we now have is but a pale reflection of their original glory; their time is past.Not

Investing in the Civic Economy: Social Capital and Choice Neighborhoods

Concentrated poverty in inner-city neighborhoods in the United States generates social disorganization and isolation, limiting residents’ access to opportunities for upward mobility. Place-based concentration effects can be detrimental to individual health outcomes and overall community health. Communities require assets and resources across multiple types of capital, and in particular social capital, in order to foster a thriving civic economy. The purpose of this research was to provide a foundation through the study of social capital for pursuing strategic actions to foster a thriving civic economy for residents in a low-wealth neighborhood in Shreveport, Louisiana, that was also the focus of a Choice Neighborhoods planning initiative. A community-engaged research approach was used to examine relationships between neighborhood revitalization planning, resident engagement, social capital, collaboration and openness to transformation in this mixed-methods study. This examination included cognitive and structured social capital constructs on the following five dimensions: trust, reciprocal relationships, social cohesion, social ties and civic engagement. Results of this research suggest empowerment, collaboration and civic engagement are critical building blocks for trust, social capital and community transformation. Additionally, relative social class effects in low wealth communities may exist, whereas people with the fewest resources may be more likely to experience a sense of institutional disengagement and a higher degree of powerlessness, which should be further examined. Further, it is recommended that policymakers and practitioners continue to improve processes to develop social capital and build trust, foster collaborative conditions, and invest in strategies to facilitate meaningful resident engagement in community change efforts in order to build healthy communities

The mechanism of the ancient ballad : William Motherwell's explanation

William Motherwell came to an interest in balladry and song for nationalistic and antiquarian reasons: they represented to him inherited capital, symbolic capital that Scotland was in danger of losing as she was losing her language, her laws, her history. Change was rampant and it was not good. As poet he wrote of ancient times, appropriating characters and topics from the Eddas; as editor of one of Glasgow's leading Tory newspapers, the Courier, he spoke out against the Reform Bill of l832 that would enfranchise members of the middle class and thus alter the class structure and the status quo; as citizen he joined the Orange Society to lobby against Irish and thus Catholic immigration to Scotland; as Sheriff Clerk Depute, essentially a clerical activity, he lavished attention on routine legal records by embellishing them with manuscript capitals and flourishes that gave them an "antique" flavor; and as ballad and song editor and collector, he was particularly interested in the earliest, oldest songs, songs that had certain characteristics indicating their antiquity, songs rich in formulae, structured in predictable ways, sung. And in l827 a book that had begun as a collaborative project with several friends was published in book form, having been issued sequentially in fascicles beginning in l824. In l827 an introduction, musical examples, and an appendix were added to the texts and the whole was published as Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern.Not

Social Work Advocacy: Professional Self-Interest and Social Justice

This study employed an analysis of the advocacy-related resources and materials available through the 50 NASW state chapter websites. Results revealed that a large number of states had no information about advocacy on their websites (42%). One third of the mission statements reviewed contained language indicating that advocacy was part of the chapter mission, while nearly as many included no content related to advocacy or social justice on their homepages. Nearly two thirds of the websites contained no resources, tools or links to help with advocacy practice, promotion or education. Thirteen advocacy themes emerged, which represented policy issues within the state advocacy agendas. Professional Self-Interest was the issue with the highest frequency (17%) across the 2010 state chapter agendas, but the 12 other social justice issues combined dominated the legislative agendas (83%). Professional selfinterest issues accounted for the highest rate of prevalence on state agendas, as it appeared on 86% of the chapter agendas analyzed

Efficacy of Osteoporosis Prevention Smartphone App

Background The Striving to be Strong study tested the efficacy of a multifaceted, theory-based, complex osteoporosis prevention smartphone application (app). We hypothesized use of the app would improve bone mineral density and trabecular bone scores. Methods The study was a three-group, prospective, repeated-measure, longitudinal randomized trial. Baseline sample consisted of 290 healthy women between 40 and 60 years of age. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: “Striving,” a dynamically tailored, person-centered app; “Boning Up,” a standardized osteoporosis-education e-book; and “Wait List,” a participant’s choice of intervention in the final 3 months of the 12-month study. Participants had or were provided a smart phone. Bone mineral density and trabecular bone scores were measured using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at baseline and 12 months. To assess engagement in health behavior change processes, ecological momentary assessments were administered via text messaging during the 12 months participants actively used the app. Results The final sample reflects an 89.6% retention rate. There were decreases in bone mineral density over time but not among the three groups. The percentage of bone density lost over 12 months was lower than expected. Trabecular bone scores were not different over time or by group but improved across all three groups. Discussion Small but positive results were observed across all groups, suggesting one or more aspects of participation might have affected outcomes, including dissemination of the intervention across groups, retention without participation, ecological momentary assessments functioning as both an intervention and measure, and selective engagement in research-based recommendations

Non-invasive evaluation of pulmonary glutathione in the exhaled breath condensate of otherwise healthy alcoholics

SummaryBackgroundChronic alcoholism is associated with an elevated risk for pulmonary infection and a 3-fold chance for incidence and mortality of acute respiratory distress syndrome with critical injury. Limited sampling of the alveolar lining fluid has restricted clinical studies of the role of glutathione (GSH) redox balance in pulmonary function and diseased states. Non-invasive sampling in the exhaled breath condensate (EBC) to monitor alveolar GSH would facilitate research in pulmonary oxidative stress.MethodsEBC was collected from otherwise healthy subjects with and without a history of alcohol abuse. Reduced and oxidized EBC glutathione (GSH and GSSG, respectively), pH, and hydrogen peroxide were measured.ResultsGSH was statistically decreased in alcohol abusers only when normalized to protein (4.7nmol/mg protein [0.75, 11.4] vs. 13.4 [7.8, 26.4], p=0.03). In contrast, GSSG was significantly elevated in the EBC from alcohol abusers when compared to controls, 5.62 [0.45, 8.94] vs. 0.50nM [0.38, 0.80], p=0.03. Thus, a greater percentage was in the oxidized GSSG form when subjects abused alcohol (35.3% [11.8, 58.1] vs. 5.2 [3.6, 6.1], p<0.001). These concentrations represented a 40mV shift in GSH redox state towards a more oxidized state.ConclusionsProper sample preparation was essential to prevent GSH loss and artificial oxidation. The shift in redox potential or %GSSG, which were not affected by dilution, may serve as better markers of pulmonary oxidative stress. Furthermore, these data suggested that the oxidant stress observed in the lavage fluid of otherwise healthy alcoholics could be measured non-invasively in the EBC

Escitalopram restores reversal learning impairments in rats with lesions of orbital frontal cortex

This study was funded by H. Lundbeck A/S.The term ‘cognitive structures’ is used to describe the fact that mental models underlie thinking, reasoning and representing. Cognitive structures generally improve the efficiency of information processing by providing a situational framework within which there are parameters governing the nature and timing of information and appropriate responses can be anticipated. Unanticipated events that violate the parameters of the cognitive structure require the cognitive model to be updated, but this comes at an efficiency cost. In reversal learning a response that had been reinforced is no longer reinforced, while an alternative is now reinforced, having previously not been (A+/B− becomes A−/B+). Unanticipated changes of contingencies require that cognitive structures are updated. In this study, we examined the effect of lesions of the orbital frontal cortex (OFC) and the effects of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), escitalopram, on discrimination and reversal learning. Escitalopram was without effect in intact rats. Rats with OFC lesions had selective impairment of reversal learning, which was ameliorated by escitalopram. We conclude that reversal learning in OFC-lesioned rats is an easily administered and sensitive test that can detect effects of serotonergic modulation on cognitive structures that are involved in behavioural flexibility.Publisher PD

Using facial feedback to enhance turn-taking in a multimodal dialogue system

We describe the results of an experiment investigating whether an avatar’s facial feedback can enhance turn-taking, undertaken as part of a usability study of a preliminary version of the COMIC multimodal dialogue system. The study focused on the phase of the interaction where the avatar embodies a virtual sales agent that guides the user through a range of possible tiling options for his or her newly redesigned bathroom. Our experiment employed a between-subjects design, where subjects used the system in one of two face conditions: (1) the “expressive” condition, where lip sync, blinking, facial expressions, gaze shifting and head turning were enabled; or (2) the “zombie ” condition, where only lip sync was enabled. The results of the study were mixed, with some positive results on improving the interaction quality, but some unexpected negative results on task success and ease. On the positive side, the responses to our questionnaire indicated that the avatar’s thinking expression helped to convey that the system was busy processing input—confirming Edlund and Nordstrand’s (2002) finding—and that the facial expressions mitigated the system’s perceived sluggishness in responding verbally. However, after examining the videos of the interactions, we concluded that the avatar’s facial feedback—though helpful with some users—was unlikely to make up for the unnaturalness of the system’s half-duplex interaction on its own, and thus should be used together with explicit signals such as busy cursors. We did also find that the subjects in the expressive conditio