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A Study of Unmet Needs Among Highly Intelligent Individuals
No full textThis report describes the findings of a study requested by the Mensa Foundation and conducted in a partnership between the Foundation and researchers at the William & Mary Center for Gifted Education. The purpose of the research is to identify the unique challenges and needs of gifted individuals and provide better support and resources. To address the research questions, the study collected information from American Mensa members and other highly intelligent individuals around the world through an online questionnaire. Interviews were conducted with Mensa members. The final dataset included 3,443 participants. These were diverse in terms of age, gender, geographic region, occupation, and disability status. The large majority of participants (87%) were White or European. Ten Mensa members representing five age groups participated in the interviews. In the academic domain at both the K-12 and college levels, the highest level of need was for mentors in participants’ areas of interest. Lessons in academic skill development, such as time management and study skills, were the next highest rated unmet need. An adequate education, offering choice in pacing and subjects at an appropriate level of challenge was the next greatest area of academic need. In the career development domain, participants reported most needing access to information about careers and lessons in career planning. They also need support and positive social connections with others in the workplace. The highest levels of need in the social and emotional domain were in the areas of social and emotional learning (e.g., lessons in self-regulation, goal setting, etc.) and opportunity for interaction. The greatest need areas in mental health as young, middle-aged, and over 55 were for a trusted other who could help them with mental health concerns and effective strategies for dealing with failure, upset, anxiety, and frustration. Open-ended comments allowed for rich expressions of participants’ needs in the four domains. Not all participants reported having high levels of need. Based on their responses, they could be classified as having Low (1/4 of the sample), Moderate (1/2 of the sample), or High (1/4 of the sample) levels of need. Recommendations for possible Mensa Foundation actions to address these unmet needs are in six areas: Improve Societal Attitudes toward High Intelligence Support Academic Skill Development Support Academic and Career Planning Provide Financial Supports for Academic and Career Opportunities Foster Social Connectedness Provide Mental Health SupportsEducatio
"Act as a strong advocate...": An anthropological analysis of human rights commissions in the United States
No full textHuman rights commissions are bodies appointed by local governments across the United States who are tasked with reducing discrimination in their communities. While they share the same goals, they vary widely in terms of labels, strategies, and capacities. An anthropological lens allows for a deeper analysis into these institutions’ purposes and ways in which their structure influences the practice of an idea like human rights. I use research methods that include ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation, and sociolinguistic interviews with commission-affiliated participants to examine how local human rights commissions apply international conceptions of human rights to the local level. I anchor this research in my experiences with the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights and Human Rights Commission. I argue that differing interpretations of human rights create difficulties for putting them into practice, structure can limit the capability of human rights commissions to live up to their communities’ expectations, and burnout in a unique form of activism can further exacerbate these complications. Through this analysis, I seek to offer context and potential solutions to the issues of impact that some United States local human rights bodies experience. This research has future implications on how we could, and should, address human rights on a local level.AnthropologyBachelors of Arts (BA
We're All Connected
No full textGrades: 11-12/Advanced High School (AP/IB). Subjects: AP/IB Earth Science | Environmental Science | Oceanography Students will learn about community and ecosystem structure, trophic levels, species diversity, and food webs by participating in a mock-research activity to investigate the impact of human activity.Virginia Institute of Marine Scienc
Defining Greekness: The Effect of Ethnic Identity on Foreign Policy Opinions
No full textMany scholars agree: identity plays a significant role in shaping political opinion. What about foreign policy opinions, though? The literature on ethnic identity focuses on how ethnic identity affects domestic political opinion and political activism, paying little attention to its effect on foreign policy opinions. However, in a nation like the United States, where ethnic interest groups hold much power to influence US foreign policy, it is important to understand how people’s ethnic identity affects their foreign policy opinions about homeland politics. The Greek diaspora is widely considered one of the most politically involved diasporas in the US. By conducting a nationally representative survey, oversampling members of the Greek diaspora, this project investigates whether and to what extent one’s Greek ethnic identity affects one’s opinions about EU-Greece relations. Developing an ethnic identity index to define respondents’ “Greekness,” this project seeks to illuminate how strength of ethnic identity differentially affects foreign policy opinions about homeland politics. The results suggest that the higher one’s strength of Greek ethnic identity, the more likely one is to hold foreign policy opinions that prioritize Greek national interests.International RelationsBachelors of Arts (BA
Dimensionlessly Comparing Hydrogen and Helium Plasmas at LAPD
No full textThis project compares the hydrogen and helium gas puff plasmas created at the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) using dimensionless numbers to determine the extent to which the turbulence pattern can be explained by plasma physics. Since turbu- lence tends to dissipate energy and particles in a plasma, it can cause problems for fusion reactors by reducing their efficiency. With a better understanding of turbu- lence’s causes and behavior, some of this energy loss could potentially be avoided. In recent experiments at LAPD, an unexpectedly high amount of turbulence was de- tected when helium was used to create the plasma, which sparked interest in further research. LAPD is a linear plasma device that creates short bursts of plasma us- ing pulsed discharges and uses probes such as Langmuir probes and Mach probes to measure the properties of the plasma. The hydrogen and helium plasmas were dimen- sionlessly matched using data from these probes and modified versions of Kadomt- sev’s dimensionless plasma parameters. At least one solid dimensionless match was found between the hydrogen and helium plasmas, and the two plasmas displayed the expected relationships between density and temperature.PhysicsBachelors of Science (BS
Do Invasive Hogs Alter Species Relationships in Salt Marshes?
No full textGrades: 7. Subjects: Life Science Build a salt marsh relationship web and determine the impacts of invasive hogsVirginia Institute of Marine Scienc
See Yourself and Do Something About It: The Impacts of Synanon’s Therapeutic Philosophy on Contemporary Practices in the Troubled-Teen Industry
No full textThis thesis seeks to understand the multiplicitous and insidious connections between the drug rehabilitation facility of Synanon and the contemporary troubled-teen industry. Synanon was founded in 1958 by Charles E. Dederich, a recovered alcoholic living in Santa Monica, California. Between 1958 and the late 1970s, Synanon was a major player in drug rehabilitation in the United States, despite its unorthodox methodology. Therapeutic strategies pioneered by Synanon form the basis for the contemporary treatment of troubled youth at residential programs, a connection that stretches back to as early as the mid-1960s. By analyzing Synanon's therapeutic philosophy and constant reformulation, conducted in order to avoid regulatory oversight, the paper addresses key concerns with the use of 'attack therapy,' or 'encounter group therapy,' as a supposedly valid form of therapy for drug addiction and mental health issues. The lens of 'high weirdness,' as coined by Erik Davis, is used to bolster the understanding of changes within and outside of Synanon that allowed Synanon's therapeutic philosophy to enter mainstream therapeutic though. It also focuses primarily on CEDU, an 'emotional growth boarding school' founded in 1967 by former Synanon member Mel Wasserman in San Bernardino. To this point, no fully-developed chronicling of CEDU's history exists -- this paper uses newspaper archives and recently uncovered documents to understand how and why CEDU developed as a major drug rehabilitation facility for children and teens. I argue that the connections between Synanon and the TTI are not only in their methodologies in terms of therapeutic methods, but also bound up in the consistent and systematic reincorporation to avoid legal and regulatory authority.American StudiesBachelors of Arts (BA
The Effect Of Acetylation On The Stability And Ubiquitin-Mediated Degradation Of Trɑ1
No full textThyroid hormone receptor (TRɑ1) is a nuclear receptor involved in the transcriptional regulation of thyroid hormone-responsive genes. Its mechanism of action is characterized by post-translational modifications. Lysine acetylation of TRɑ1 plays a central role in activating target genes. It is hypothesized that acetylation also modulates the nucleocytoplasmic shuttling of TRɑ1, as key acetylation sites occur in its nuclear localization signal (Mavinakere et al., 2012; Sánchez-Pacheco et al., 2009). Additionally, localization studies demonstrated that acetylated TRɑ1 has a higher cytoplasmic population, while nonacetylated TRɑ1 has higher nuclear retention (Anyetei-Anum et al., 2019). As a transcription factor, the nuclear function of TRɑ1 is clear, however, its role in the cytoplasm is not well established (Anyetei-Anum et al., 2018). Considering that TRɑ1 is both acetylated and ubiquitinated (Bondzi et al., 2011; Dace et al., 2000; Kenessey & Ojamaa, 2005; Subramanian et al., 2015), it may be deacetylated in the cytoplasm or polyubiquitinated and targeted to the proteasome for degradation. To further characterize the role of acetylation and uncover the cytoplasmic role of TR, this thesis aimed to qualitatively assess the impact of acetylation on the stability and ubiquitin-mediated degradation of TRɑ1. The relative impact of acetylation on TRɑ1 stability was evaluated by performing a cycloheximide chase assay using HeLa cells transfected with wildtype TRɑ1, and its acetylation and nonacetylation mimics. After a 10-hour chase, we found no statistically significant difference in expression levels at select time points between all TR variants. Next, we investigated the effect of acetylation on the ubiquitination of TRɑ1 by utilizing immunoprecipitation and western blot analysis, in the absence of proteasome inhibitors. We showed that TRɑ1 and its acetylation mimic exhibit a polyubiquitin signal, while the nonacetylation mimic was monoubiquitinated in low amounts. Proteins targeted for proteasome-mediated degradation are tagged with a polyubiquitin chain due to their reduced stability, but polyubiquitination may also be attributed to proteasome-mediated transcriptional regulation. Since we found that acetylation did not reduce TRɑ1 stability, the polyubiquitin signal detected may have a non-proteolytic function. These results suggest that acetylation and ubiquitination may work in tandem to modulate proteasomal-mediated transcriptional regulation. However, further studies must be carried out to confidently attribute the polyubiquitination of acetylated TRɑ1 to transcriptional regulation or degradation. This research has implications for understanding how post-translational modifications contribute to the functionality of TRɑ1 and mutant variants that cause Resistance to Thyroid Hormone Syndrome.BiologyMaster of Science (M.Sc.
The Effects of SNAP’s ABAWD Work Requirement on Food Security and Work Outcomes
No full textThe Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the leading anti-hunger government assistance program in the United States. Included in SNAP is an 80 hour per month work requirement on Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs), designed to counteract the work disincentives that are inherent to the program’s means-tested nature. In this paper, I leverage a two-way fixed effects triple differences model and ample variation in the policy’s implementation from temporary waivers in high-unemployment areas to estimate the ABAWD work requirement’s effects on low-income ABAWDs’ food security and work outcomes. I find that the work requirement is associated with substantial increases in work indicators like job searching, employment, and full-time work in the short and long run, but at the cost of modestly higher incidences of food insecurity in the short run.EconomicsBachelors of Arts (BA
Characterizing The Effects Of Environmental Stressors On The Physiology And Behavior Of Commercially Important Marine Invertebrates
No full textI examined the effects of acidification – both alone and in combination with other environmental changes – on two commercially, ecologically, and culturally important marine invertebrates, the American lobster Homarus americanus and the Eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica. Both H. americanus and C. virginica reside in coastal ecosystems where ocean and coastal acidification are expected to affect the normal variability of carbonate chemistry. The effects of acidification are expected to act in concert with other changing environmental parameters to alter the condition of individual organisms, with eventual impacts on marine populations and communities. My objective was to understand how the American lobster and Eastern oyster respond to acidification from a holistic perspective by examining a variety of response metrics, life stages, stressor combinations, exposure durations, and exposure intensities. With this goal in mind, in Chapter II I describe the physiological responses of American lobster embryos to acute exposure to conditions of acidification. Short-term exposure to acidification conditions were associated with hypercapnia-induced oxidative stress and disrupted acid-base status in lobster embryos. In Chapter III, I explore whether this sensitivity to acidification is shaped by environmental history. Specifically, I examined physiological responses of American lobster embryos to acute acidification exposure were examined following long-term rearing under one of two thermal conditions. I also measured the responses of stage I larvae to acute acidification exposure were measured following brooding under one of two thermal and two carbonate chemistry treatments. Environmental history, and particularly thermal history, shaped both embryo and larval sensitivity to acute acidification exposure. In Chapter IV, I describe parental behavior as an additional mechanism by which the sensitivity of American lobster embryos to acidification exposure may be modulated. Specifically, I examined brood-grooming behavior in ovigerous H. americanus females was examined over embryogenesis during exposure to one of two thermal and carbonate chemistry treatments. While brood-grooming behavior was sensitive to embryo developmental stage, it did not differ significantly among treatment groups, suggesting that the effects of chronic exposure to warming and acidification may not be moderated by parental behavior. In Chapters II-IV, I identify a number of metrics that are sensitive to acidification in the American lobster, including enzyme activity rates and damage from oxidative stress. In Chapter IV, I evaluated existing indicators of condition of the Eastern oyster in a variety of laboratory and field conditions to identify their future utility as ocean acidification progresses. Although metrics of oyster size and health were generally well correlated, indices of condition differed in their sensitivity to carbonate chemistry. These observations do not support the utility of a single condition index for monitoring individuals from different carbonate chemistry environments. For the American lobster and Eastern oyster, understanding the potential effects of future climate change conditions is important for maintaining their commercial sustainability and ecological value. In aggregate, my work reflects the range of environmental conditions that coastal invertebrates will experience in future decades, including a range of exposure intensity and duration, supporting the need for experimental designs that utilize location specific data and projections for treatments. My dissertation highlights the importance of integrating multiple indicators of organismal performance to capture responses to acidification by demonstrating that physiology, behavior, and condition can all respond differently to environmental stressors.Virginia Institute of Marine ScienceDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.