Understanding Children\u27s Art Making Preferences: Implications for Art Therapy

This study employed a phenomenological, qualitative approach to investigate children’s art making preferences. The researcher was curious about the meaning that creating two-dimensional and three-dimensional art forms held for children. Influences and contributions to children’s art making preferences were explored. Lastly the study questioned what children’s artistic preferences mean for the field of art therapy. Theories of art therapy, artistic development, and child development informed the study. Thirteen children ages 5 to 11, four boys and nine girls participated. The researcher requested the children choose a subject and create the subject in both two and three dimensions. A range of art materials were offered to the children. Children were interviewed about past and present art making experiences. Parents and guardians completed two questionnaires which collected demographic information as well as information related to the children’s early experiences with art making, children’s feelings about art making, available art supplies, and home and family influences that might impact children’s art making. The researcher’s field notes and photographs of the children while engaged in the study provided additional data. Data analysis of the interviews resulted in four main findings: (a) the children experienced support for art making in the home and by family members, (b) the children expressed preference for creating in three dimensions and identified the sensory and kinesthetic experience as preferential, (c) the children experienced choice in art making as meaningful, and (d) the children’s two-dimensional mixed media artwork was informed by experiential knowledge of material qualities. Results from the parent and guardian questionnaires showed that the children preferred open-ended and unstructured art experiences that encouraged creativity and expression. Findings indicated that children preferred to have choice in subject as well as materials. Contributions to children’s art making preferences included art experiences at home with a range of materials as well as early life experiences with art making and encouragement from family members

Effects of Brief Dry Cupping on Muscle Soreness in the Gastrocnemius Muscle and Flexibility of the Ankle

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of brief dry cupping on muscle soreness of the gastrocnemius muscle and range of motion (ROM) in the ankle. METHODS Thirty-six participants (age=29±10 yrs, ht=173.8±10.3 cm, wt=75.3±15.9 kg) were randomly assigned to three groups: A (no exercise), B (bilateral heel drops to exhaustion), and C (right unilateral heel drops to exhaustion). Dorsiflexion ROM was assessed bilaterally for all groups. All participants received the cupping protocol on the right gastrocnemius, but C also received it on the left. Dry cupping was applied using four two-inch cups in four quadrants on the calf for 90 seconds. Soreness was reported using a 10-point VAS scale at 24- and 48-hours. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to examine the effects of cupping on soreness and range of motion, respectively. Alpha was set at 0.05 for all tests. RESULTS A significant difference in muscle soreness existed between right (3.58±1.31 VAS) and left (2.83±1.02 VAS) calves for group B at 24 hours (p = 0.029). No other significant differences existed between calves that were and were not cupped (p \u3e 0.05). No significant differences in ROM occurred between any conditions (p \u3e 0.05). CONCLUSION Ninety seconds of dry cupping on the calf may reduce 24-hr muscle soreness after performing heel drops to exhaustion, but has no effect on ROM

Prioritizing Library Instruction: Challenges and Opportunities Moving into the Digital Age

The role of librarian as teacher is shifting as we experience changes in our institutions, in technology, and in our communities. We must identify opportunities to address these issues and shape the future of our profession. Drawing upon the experience of moving from traditional library sessions to offering credit courses integrated into the curriculum of college programs, the four facilitators will lead participants in a collaborative session to identify the challenges and opportunities of integrating librarians as teachers into the student experience. Participants should bring questions, challenges, and opportunities they are facing at their own institutions. Through group discussion and smaller facilitated breakout sessions, attendees will work towards a new collaborative vision of the librarian/teacher in the digital age

The space of conflict: Aboriginal/European interactions and frontier violence on the western Central Murray, South Australia, 1830-41

Colonialism was a violent endeavour. Bound up with the construction of a market-driven, capitalist system via the tendrils of Empire, it was intimately associated with the processes of colonisation and the experiences of exploiting the land, labour and resources of the New World. All too often this led to conflict, particularly between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Overt violence (the euphemistic 'skirmishes', 'affrays' and 'collisions' of the documentary record), clandestine violence (poisonings, forced removals, sexual exploitation and disease) and structural violence (the compartmentalisation of Aboriginal people through processes of race, governance and labour) became routinised aspects of colonialism, buttressed by structures of power, inequality, dispossession and racism. Conflict at the geographical margins of this system was made possible by the general anxieties of life at, or beyond, the boundaries of settlement, closely associated with the normalised violence attached to ideals of 'manliness' on the frontier

Using adult mosquitoes to transfer insecticides to Aedes aegypti larval habitats.

Vector control is a key means of combating mosquito-borne diseases and the only tool available for tackling the transmission of dengue, a disease for which no vaccine, prophylaxis, or therapeutant currently exists. The most effective mosquito control methods include a variety of insecticidal tools that target adults or juveniles. Their successful implementation depends on impacting the largest proportion of the vector population possible. We demonstrate a control strategy that dramatically improves the efficiency with which high coverage of aquatic mosquito habitats can be achieved. The method exploits adult mosquitoes as vehicles of insecticide transfer by harnessing their fundamental behaviors to disseminate a juvenile hormone analogue (JHA) between resting and oviposition sites. A series of field trials undertaken in an Amazon city (Iquitos, Peru) showed that the placement of JHA dissemination stations in just 3-5% of the available resting area resulted in almost complete coverage of sentinel aquatic habitats. More than control mortality occurred in 95-100% of the larval cohorts of Aedes aegypti developing at those sites. Overall reductions in adult emergence of 42-98% were achieved during the trials. A deterministic simulation model predicts amplifications in coverage consistent with our observations and highlights the importance of the residual activity of the insecticide for this technique

Biased efficacy estimates in phase-III dengue vaccine trials due to heterogeneous exposure and differential detectability of primary infections across trial arms.

Vaccine efficacy (VE) estimates are crucial for assessing the suitability of dengue vaccine candidates for public health implementation, but efficacy trials are subject to a known bias to estimate VE toward the null if heterogeneous exposure is not accounted for in the analysis of trial data. In light of many well-characterized sources of heterogeneity in dengue virus (DENV) transmission, our goal was to estimate the potential magnitude of this bias in VE estimates for a hypothetical dengue vaccine. To ensure that we realistically modeled heterogeneous exposure, we simulated city-wide DENV transmission and vaccine trial protocols using an agent-based model calibrated with entomological and epidemiological data from long-term field studies in Iquitos, Peru. By simulating a vaccine with a true VE of 0.8 in 1,000 replicate trials each designed to attain 90% power, we found that conventional methods underestimated VE by as much as 21% due to heterogeneous exposure. Accounting for the number of exposures in the vaccine and placebo arms eliminated this bias completely, and the more realistic option of including a frailty term to model exposure as a random effect reduced this bias partially. We also discovered a distinct bias in VE estimates away from the null due to lower detectability of primary DENV infections among seronegative individuals in the vaccinated group. This difference in detectability resulted from our assumption that primary infections in vaccinees who are seronegative at baseline resemble secondary infections, which experience a shorter window of detectable viremia due to a quicker immune response. This resulted in an artefactual finding that VE estimates for the seronegative group were approximately 1% greater than for the seropositive group. Simulation models of vaccine trials that account for these factors can be used to anticipate the extent of bias in field trials and to aid in their interpretation

Structural and dielectric studies of the phase behaviour of the topological ferroelectric La1-xNdxTaO4

We thank the University of St Andrews and EPSRC (via DTG studentships to CALD and JG) for funding,The layered perovskite LaTaO4 has been prepared in its polar orthorhombic polymorphic form at ambient temperature. Although no structural phase transition is observed in the temperature interval 25° C < T < 500 °C, a very large axial thermal contraction effect is seen, which can be ascribed to an anomalous buckling of the perovskite octahedral layer. The non-polar monoclinic polymorph can be stabilised at ambient temperature by Nd-doping. A composition La0.90Nd0.10TaO4 shows a first-order monoclinic-orthorhombic (non-polar to polar) transition in the region 250° C < T < 350 °C. Dielectric responses are observed at both the above structural events but, despite the ‘topological ferroelectric’ nature of orthorhombic LaTaO4, we have not succeeded in obtaining ferroelectric P–E hysteresis behaviour. Structural relationships in the wider family of AnBnX3n+2 layered perovskites are discussed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe