Increasing Coping Skills to Reduce First-Generation College Students’ Stressors

First-generation, college students may face challenges balancing family and social life. They may experience pressure from their family to do well in their studies. Thus, many students\u27 mental health may be impacted by the multiple pressures, experiencing stress-depression, having the desire to drop-out, and may experience burn out. When college students learn ways to manage multiple stressors, it will help improve their mental health which allows for them to focus on their studies. In order to increase their coping skills, I have created a workshop to help first generation students in the CAMP at California State University, Monterey Bay

Investigating Changes in Lake Ice Breakup Under Current and Future Climate Change

Changes in climate profoundly influence the timing of lake ice breakup. We assessed: 1) potential future changes in lake ice breakup date in the Great Lakes Region and 2) historical linear changes and shifts in ice breakup across the Northern Hemisphere. We found that at the regional and global scales, warming air temperatures contributed to earlier ice breakup. In the Great Lakes region, ice breakup was forecasted to occur 13 days earlier on average by 2070. Across the Northern Hemisphere, we detected abrupt changes in ice breakup dates in the 1970s to the 2000s, coinciding with shifts in air temperature, precipitation and phase switches of climate oscillations. The structure and function of many lakes in the mid- and high latitudes are influenced by seasonal ice cover, and these ecosystems will likely undergo a variety of changes with earlier ice breakup and a shorter ice season

Displacement, Urban Populations, and the Right to Space and Place: Syrians in Istanbul and Colombians in Medellín

The internal displacement of rural Colombians and displacement of Syrians in and out of Syria constitute some of the largest conflict-induced migrations in the world today. Rural Colombians have been driven from mountainous areas of the country by conflict between the government, rebels of the the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and paramilitaries and have entered urban spaces like Medellín in search of assistance allocated to internally displaced persons. The majority of Syrian refugees fleeing the civil war in their country reside in Turkey, and many have made their way to Istanbul for the greater economic opportunities that the largest urban center in Turkey can provide, as well as proximity to migration opportunities to Europe. Although internally displaced Colombians and Syrian refugees have different patterns of migration and rights of legal citizenship, their experiences of space and the right to belong are similar in many key ways. Both groups experience heavy state surveillance and barriers to recognition and the right to exist in their physical and sociopolitical space as legitimate members of the space. These issues represent barriers to the political and economic incorporation of displaced Colombians and Syrians. While not being denied the right of movement, the treatment of these displaced peoples constitutes a human rights violation by excluding them from social and economic membership in the state. The similarities across their experiences, despite one group having political citizenship while the other group does not, point to the challenges of displaced populations to exercise human rights

Beyond the DSM-IV: Assumptions, Alternatives, and Alterations

Current diagnostic processes reflect the limitations and utility of the framework of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Clinical information in the DSM-IV\u27s 5-axis system almost exclusively focuses on weaknesses and pathology and is summarized in a flawed categorical system. Hence, the authors describe 3 adjunctive, or alternative, means of conceptualizing behavior; several means of altering the current DSM-IV system; and 2 future directions in the diagnosis of strengths

Empowering Citizen-Centric Innovation for Effective Smart City Initiatives: A Location Intelligence Perspective

The world population continues to inhabit and move toward urban areas. This global population shift has dramatically changed the notion of a modern city even from a few decades ago. Many cities have turned to digital technologies in response to rapid growth and demographic changes. Such technologies rely on sophisticated sensor networks (van Zoonen, 2016; El-Haddadeh et al., 2019), infrastructure modernization (Khatoun & Zeadally, 2016), and advances in efficiency and sustainability (Sakurai & Kokuryo, 2018) to ensure outcomes related to a higher quality of life (Gascó-Hernandez, 2018). Researchers have examined participatory government and location intelligence in the context of smart cities. We expand on this work by exploring a) how citizen sensing methods can provide dynamic location-based data collection, b) how interactive location analytics can foster citizen engagement and participation, and c) how geo-visualization can improve citizen awareness. Citizen sensing is a method of deploying citizens and mobile devices to collect essential data for smart cities. Citizen engagement and participation determine how to include citizens in smart city decision-making. Citizen awareness addresses how smart cities can impart essential information to their citizens. Smart governance, such as public participation in decision making, policies and regulation, and urban digitization, can empower citizen-centric innovation. Similarly, citizen-driven initiatives, including participation in public life and an affinity to contribute to their social fabric, also lead to innovation. Therefore, our work will utilize a case approach by capturing the perspectives of official representatives and citizen groups. Moreover, our study will rely on semi-structured interviews with individuals representing municipalities in various countries (e.g., Brazil, Columbia, Germany, and the United States)

Sticky Gecko Feet: the Role of Temperature and Humidity

Gecko adhesion is expected to be temperature insensitive over the range of temperatures typically experienced by geckos. Previous work is limited and equivocal on whether this expectation holds. We tested the temperature dependence of adhesion in Tokay and Day geckos and found that clinging ability at 12 degrees C was nearly double the clinging ability at 32 degrees C. However, rather than confirming a simple temperature effect, our data reveal a complex interaction between temperature and humidity that can drive differences in adhesion by as much as two-fold. Our findings have important implications for inferences about the mechanisms underlying the exceptional clinging capabilities of geckos, including whether performance of free-ranging animals is based solely on a dry adhesive model. An understanding of the relative contributions of van der Waals interactions and how humidity and temperature variation affects clinging capacities will be required to test hypotheses about the evolution of gecko toepads and is relevant to the design and manufacture of synthetic mimics

Automatic food intake detection based on swallowing sounds

This paper presents a novel fully automatic food intake detection methodology, an important step toward objective monitoring of ingestive behavior. The aim of such monitoring is to improve our understanding of eating behaviors associated with obesity and eating disorders. The proposed methodology consists of two stages. First, acoustic detection of swallowing instances based on mel-scale Fourier spectrum features and classification using support vector machines is performed. Principal component analysis and a smoothing algorithm are used to improve swallowing detection accuracy. Second, the frequency of swallowing is used as a predictor for detection of food intake episodes. The proposed methodology was tested on data collected from 12 subjects with various degrees of adiposity. Average accuracies of \u3e80% and \u3e75% were obtained for intra-subject and inter-subject models correspondingly with a temporal resolution of 30 s. Results obtained on 44.1 h of data with a total of 7305 swallows show that detection accuracies are comparable for obese and lean subjects. They also suggest feasibility of food intake detection based on swallowing sounds and potential of the proposed methodology for automatic monitoring of ingestive behavior. Based on a wearable non-invasive acoustic sensor the proposed methodology may potentially be used in free-living conditions

Automatic identification of the number of food items in a meal using clustering techniques based on the monitoring of swallowing and chewing

The number of distinct foods consumed in a meal is of significant clinical concern in the study of obesity and other eating disorders. This paper proposes the use of information contained in chewing and swallowing sequences for meal segmentation by food types. Data collected from experiments of 17 volunteers were analyzed using two different clustering techniques. First, an unsupervised clustering technique, Affinity Propagation (AP), was used to automatically identify the number of segments within a meal. Second, performance of the unsupervised AP method was compared to a supervised learning approach based on Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC). While the AP method was able to obtain 90% accuracy in predicting the number of food items, the AHC achieved an accuracy \u3e95%. Experimental results suggest that the proposed models of automatic meal segmentation may be utilized as part of an integral application for objective Monitoring of Ingestive Behavior in free living conditions

Trauma Prevalence and Desire for Trauma-Informed Coaching in Collegiate Sports: A Mixed Methods Study

This study investigated trauma prevalence amongst collegiate student-athletes and openness towards trauma-informed coaching practices among athletes and coaches at two small Division III colleges. Surveys gathered quantitative data from athletes (n = 91) and coaches (n =18) and qualitative data from athletes (n = 33). Quantitative results indicated that 52.7% of athletes experienced at least one potentially traumatic event during their lifetime. The most prevalent trauma was unwanted sexual contact. Additionally, 50.5% of athletes experienced sport-based harassment or abuse during their lifetime, with 21.7% of affected athletes experiencing said abuse in college sports. Athletes reported that 8 out of 10 trauma-informed coaching techniques included in the study were already implemented or desired for implementation at rates between 73.2–93.1% on their teams. Coaches also showed support for trauma-informed coaching, with 88.2% indicating they believed the practice was necessary in college athletics and a large majority of coaches agreeing or strongly agreeing with 8 out of 10 techniques. Qualitative results highlighted the variety of impacts that traumatic experiences have on athletes. The most reported themes were negative psychological and performance effects. Findings support the idea that trauma-informed coaching is necessary and desired in collegiate athletics