A Design Program and Solution for a Multi-media Instructional Center on the Central Campus of the University of New Mexico

The new core will hold and disseminate information even as the traditional library center did in the past. It can be imagined that such a core would contain facilities so students will hear and see poetry presented by the authors, open-heart surgery, drama performances, governmental debates, scientific experiments, etc. In short, with closed circuit TV, tapes, information recall systems, multi-media presentation systems, etc., it is possible to extend and expand many times over the immediate availability of information and material. Such a center will not replace the traditional library but will supplement it

Frame Analysis of the Living Wage Campaign and Social Work Implications

The general aim of this study was to examine the living age movement and how frame alignment fits into social work practice. This research was developed from a limited empirical and theoretical base surrounding the living wage as a social movement. Frame alignment is becoming a tool that more and more people should know how to use. Frame alignment has been a key component in propelling social movements into society in order to effect change. This research is an examination of frame alignment, specifically the living wage movement and how it fits into effective social work practice. The data were obtained from a convenience sample of 487 students from a public university in middle Tennessee. Three different frames were developed and distributed to 500 college students with a 94.7 response rate. The data were collected from November 2003 to November 2004 through the use of a survey via an experimental design. Three different frameworks were distributed in order to gain insight on framing issues surrounding the living wage. Frame A was an economic justice frame, frame B was a social justice frame and frame C was a control frame. Finding from this study indicate a strong support for the social justice frame. ANOVA and t-tests have shown a statistical significance between Frame B and support for a living wage [F (2,482) =5.301, p≤.006]. In addition it was discovered that women were not only more likely to support a living wage but they were also more likely to help organize a living wage. The implications for social work practice and policy indicate social justice as a strong value for change. Frame B was a social justice frame, which ties in appropriately with effective social work practice and the ideal that social workers must fight for oppressed populations in order to seek change and end social justice. Frame alignment has been in the forefront of all successful social movements including the civil rights movement, which also identified with people’s values and beliefs as a part of frame alignment

Commentary I am your Smartphone and I Know you are about to Smoke: the application of mobile Sensing and Computing approaches to Smoking research and treatment

abStraCt Much is known about the immediate and predictive antecedents of smoking lapse, which include situations (e.g., presence of other smokers), activities (e.g., alcohol consumption), and contexts (e.g., outside). This commentary suggests smartphone-based systems could be used to infer these predictive antecedents in real time and provide the smoker with just-in-time intervention. The smartphone of today is equipped with an array of sensors, including GPS, cameras, light sensors, barometers, accelerometers, and so forth, that provide information regarding physical location, human movement, ambient sounds, and visual imagery. We propose that libraries of algorithms to infer these antecedents can be developed and then incorporated into diverse mobile research and personalized treatment applications. While a number of challenges to the development and implementation of such applications are recognized, our field benefits from a database of known antecedents to a problem behavior, and further research and development in this exciting area are warranted

Brain activation patterns associated with cue reactivity and craving in abstinent problem gamblers, heavy smokers and healthy controls: an fMRI study

Abnormal cue reactivity is a central characteristic of addiction, associated with increased activity in motivation, attention and memory related brain circuits. In this neuroimaging study, cue reactivity in problem gamblers (PRG) was compared with cue reactivity in heavy smokers (HSM) and healthy controls (HC). A functional magnetic resonance imaging event-related cue reactivity paradigm, consisting of gambling, smoking-related and neutral pictures, was employed in 17 treatment-seeking non-smoking PRG, 18 non-gambling HSM, and 17 non-gambling and non-smoking HC. Watching gambling pictures (relative to neutral pictures) was associated with higher brain activation in occipitotemporal areas, posterior cingulate cortex, parahippocampal gyrus and amygdala in PRG compared with HC and HSM. Subjective craving in PRG correlated positively with brain activation in left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and left insula. When comparing the HSM group with the two other groups, no significant differences in brain activity induced by smoking cues were found. In a stratified analysis, the HSM subgroup with higher Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence scores (FTND M = 5.4) showed higher brain activation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, insula and middle/superior temporal gyrus while watching smoking-related pictures (relative to neutral pictures) than the HSM subgroup with lower FTND scores (FTND M = 2.9) and than non-smoking HC. Nicotine craving correlated with activation in left prefrontal and left amygdala when viewing smoking-related pictures in HSM. Increased regional responsiveness to gambling pictures in brain regions linked to motivation and visual processing is present in PRG, similar to neural mechanisms underlying cue reactivity in substance dependence. Increased brain activation in related fronto-limbic brain areas was present in HSM with higher FTND scores compared with HSM with lower FTND scores

Effects of Nicotine on Emotional Reactivity in PTSD and Non-PTSD Smokers: Results of a Pilot fMRI Study

There is evidence that individuals with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may smoke in part to regulate negative affect. This pilot fMRI study examined the effects of nicotine on emotional information processing in smokers with and without PTSD. Across groups, nicotine increased brain activation in response to fearful/angry faces (compared to neutral faces) in ventral caudate. Patch x Group interactions were observed in brain regions involved in emotional and facial feature processing. These preliminary findings suggest that nicotine differentially modulates negative information processing in PTSD and non-PTSD smokers

Yoga Meditation Practitioners Exhibit Greater Gray Matter Volume and Fewer Reported Cognitive Failures: Results of a Preliminary Voxel-Based Morphometric Analysis

Hatha yoga techniques, including physical postures (asanas), breathing exercises (pranayama), and meditation, involve the practice of mindfulness. In turn, yoga meditation practices may induce the state of mindfulness, which, when evoked recurrently through repeated practice, may accrue into trait or dispositional mindfulness. Putatively, these changes may be mediated by experience-dependent neuroplastic changes. Though prior studies have identified differences in gray matter volume (GMV) between long-term mindfulness practitioners and controls, no studies to date have reported on whether yoga meditation is associated with GMV differences. The present study investigated GMV differences between yoga meditation practitioners (YMP) and a matched control group (CG). The YMP group exhibited greater GM volume in frontal, limbic, temporal, occipital, and cerebellar regions; whereas the CG had no greater regional greater GMV. In addition, the YMP group reported significantly fewer cognitive failures on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), the magnitude of which was positively correlated with GMV in numerous regions identified in the primary analysis. Lastly, GMV was positively correlated with the duration of yoga practice. Results from this preliminary study suggest that hatha yoga practice may be associated with the promotion of neuroplastic changes in executive brain systems, which may confer therapeutic benefits that accrue with repeated practice

Monitoring and improving performance in human-computer interaction

Monitoring an individual's performance in a task, especially in the workplace context, is becoming an increasingly interesting and controversial topic in a time in which workers are expected to produce more, better and faster. The tension caused by this competitiveness, together with the pressure of monitoring, may not work in favour of the organization's objectives. In this paper, we present an innovative approach on the problem of performance management. We build on the fact that computers are nowadays used as major work tools in many workplaces to devise a non-invasive method for distributed performance monitoring based on the observation of the worker's interaction with the computer. We then look at musical selection both as a pleasant and as an effective method for improving performance in the workplace. The proposed approach will allow team coordinators to assess and manage their co-workers' performance continuously and in real-time, using a distributed service-based architecture. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.This work is part-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the COMPETE Programme (operational programme for competitiveness) and by the national funds through the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT; Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) within projects FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012) and project PEst-OE/EEI/UI0752/2014.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Neural Mechanisms of Subclinical Depressive Symptoms in Women: a Pilot Functional Brain Imaging Study

Background Studies of individuals who do not meet criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD) but with subclinical levels of depressive symptoms may aid in the identification of neurofunctional abnormalities that possibly precede and predict the development of MDD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate relations between subclinical levels of depressive symptoms and neural activation patterns during tasks previously shown to differentiate individuals with and without MDD. Methods Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess neural activations during active emotion regulation, a resting state scan, and reward processing. Participants were twelve females with a range of depressive symptoms who did not meet criteria for MDD. Results Increased depressive symptom severity predicted (1) decreased left midfrontal gyrus activation during reappraisal of sad stimuli; (2) increased right midfrontal gyrus activation during distraction from sad stimuli; (3) increased functional connectivity between a precuneus seed region and left orbitofrontal cortex during a resting state scan; and (4) increased paracingulate activation during non-win outcomes during a reward-processing task. Conclusions These pilot data shed light on relations between subclinical levels of depressive symptoms in the absence of a formal MDD diagnosis and neural activation patterns. Future studies will be needed to test the utility of these activation patterns for predicting MDD onset in at-risk samples