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If It Rained Color
No full textThis work is based on the paintings of Jessica Joy London I imagined if it rained color, the landscape would look like my paintings. Shades of blue would flow from leaf to fallen leaf, picking them up and repositioning them on bright green blades of grass and grey concrete in harmonious compositions. -Jessica Joy Londo
Effectiveness of Online Altruistic Viral Videos on Altruistic Attitudes and Behaviors
Get PDFWith the ubiquitous nature of the internet, people are exposed to and influenced by a wide range of media and messages. In June of 2014, Facebook revealed manipulating user’s news feeds with either negative or positive messages, thus impacting the kind of subsequent posts of the users. Users mirrored the emotional valence in their newsfeeds with their own posts (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). Similarly, in fall 2014 the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge went viral via social media raising millions for ALS funding. Will people be moved enough by a viral video to perform altruistic acts without a personal challenge from a friend? An information processing model combined with a media effects theory predict the following hypotheses. H1: Online exposure to altruistic acts increases altruistic attitudes. H2: Online exposure to altruistic acts increases altruistic behaviors. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a treatment group, exposed to an altruistic video with a general call to action of spreading kindness, and a control group, exposed to a control video of a puppy. Both groups were tested on altruistic attitudes (Nickell, 1998) and likelihood of future altruistic behavior (Rushton, 1981). Within two weeks of original exposure, a second round of data collection assessed altruistic attitudes, likelihood of future altruistic behavior, and altruistic behavior performed since initial participation. Results support that exposure to altruistic videos increases altruistic attitudes, likelihood of altruistic behavior, and actual acts of altruism. Results also reveal attitudes and likelihood of behavior increase over time. The uses of viral altruistic videos that contain a general call to action without a personal challenge are effective in increasing altruistic attitudes and behaviors
Performance Anxiety in Athletes
Get PDFThis is a rapid evidence assessment on the topic of anxiety in athletes, also known as performance anxiety. Anxiety is defined as a negative emotional reaction that results from experiencing a demanding situation and appraising it as a threat. The physiology behind anxiety is complex. The amygdala and bed nucleus of the striaterminals, located in the frontal lobe, send signals to the locus ceruleus, located in the parietal lobe, and combined they are responsible for the emotions behind the fear response or the “fight or flight” response. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland cause the adrenal gland to produce cortisol and adrenaline, boosting the sympathetic nervous system. Anxiety plagues many athletes through cognitive thought and somatic bodily functions. Cognitive anxiety is disruptive in athletics because mental resources are being used inefficiently. Somatic arousal is necessary in athletics because it enhances reaction speed of decision making as well as physical reactions. Types of anxiety include state anxiety, which is caused by external sources, and trait anxiety caused by internal sources. Some athletes suffer from state anxiety, which can be deemed moment-to-moment or situational, or trait anxiety, which is innate and psychologically driven. An athlete’s ego can positively or negatively affect the outcome or degree of their anxiety. Methods to alleviate and accommodate for anxiety are also reviewed
Theatre and Psychology: Bringing Dissociative Identity Disorder to Life Onstage
Get PDFResearch can be used to inform art in unique ways. In Incomplete, an original play by Hope College senior, Austen Boer, the central character of Alice suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID). To explore the best ways to bring DID to life onstage, I served as the dramaturg for this student-produced show. My work focused first on researching DID, and then on collaborating with the cast and crew to incorporate my findings into the production. My research gave me the knowledge I needed to assist the actress playing Alice, helping her understand what it means to live with DID. Together, we discovered ways to portray DID that were both realistic and recognizable to the audience. My research contributed to the playwright’s creative process as well. As both the playwright and the director, Austen was able to make changes to the script based on my findings. The research also informed certain directorial choices that were made. Through our collaboration, he gained a deeper understanding of DID, which was beneficial for both the premiere of the play and the script’s future development. By adding this research component to the play’s production, the cast, crew, and audience all came away with an enriched understanding of DID, Alice, and the play as a whole
Holland\u27s Centennial Park and the Greater Movement for Public Greenspaces
No full textThis project is based upon archival and database research and culminates in the construction of a short documentary on Holland’s Centennial Park and its place in the wider urban greenspace movement. Centennial Park, founded in 1876 in celebration of the United States’ centennial anniversary, formed during an era of urban planning and improvement across both the United States and Europe. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a variety of purposes, including combating the debilitating effects of urbanization and creating an environment for sociopolitical conversation, motivated the development of urban greenspaces. It was in this context that the land in central Holland, originally set aside as a European-style marketplace, instead grew into a landscaped park. While Centennial Park held a place in the larger urban greenspace movement, Holland’s status as a small but budding Dutch-American town also caused it to develop its own unique dynamic. Centennial Park engendered both civic and national pride in its use as a gathering place and a pocket of natural beauty, a treasured part of Holland’s culture in the decades following its birth. By studying the historical role of Centennial Park in a broader context, this project contributes a deeper understanding of the park to those who visit it today
Transracial Adoption: Faith, Race, and Home in Multiethnic Countries
No full textMore than ever before, the question, “Where am I from?” becomes harder and harder to answer. Globalization has deeply affected the field of transracial adoption (or TRA), in which a child of one culture is adopted by parents of another. Transracially-adopting families worldwide are raising important, very human questions in their communities: Where’s home? Can I call two homes home? Are we perpetuating or challenging racism? What can we learn from history? We would like to invite our community to listen, learn, and even challenge its assumptions of what home, adoption, and community really mean in an ever-diversifying world. Ultimately, communities need to realize that race and ethnicity are very different constructs, and that transracial navigation— negotiating the often bewildering boundaries of human diversity— is vital to truly understanding the complexities of TRA youth and their families
Computational Chemistry Infrastructure, Interfaces, and Resources
No full textComputational chemistry is a fast-growing sub-discipline of chemistry with broad applications. Students and researchers can perform calculations using WebMO, a web-based interface to state-of-the-art computational chemistry programs. High-performance computer clusters are used for computationally intensive jobs. Less demanding calculations may be run with lower cost infrastructure, such as a server on a USB stick or the free WebMO iOS app. In addition, instructional resources are distributed with WebMO that fully describe its usage, including advanced and lesser-known features
Single-molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy Using a Home-built Microscope
No full textThis research involves the design and construction of a confocal microscope for single-molecule fluorescence-detected resonance energy transfer (FRET) experiments. Many biological systems exhibit multiple conformations, and those of most interest may be very rare, such that typical spectroscopic techniques that average over many molecules are unable to resolve them. Single-molecule FRET avoids this averaging and allows structural variation as well as millisecond and slower timescale dynamics to be resolved. Donor and acceptor dyes will be attached to small biologically important molecules such as RNA, DNA, or protein. These samples will be used at low (femtomolar) concentrations, such that either zero or one molecule will be in the focal volume of the microscope at any given time. As the system passes through the focal volume it will be excited by the laser light. Detection of the corresponding fluorescence, originating from either the donor or acceptor, will allow calculation of the FRET efficiency. In this poster the design of a home-built single-molecule fluorescence microscope is presented along with early FRET data on multiple systems
Correlation of Historical and Sedimentological Records from Goshorn Lake, a Small Lake in a Coastal Dune Complex of Lake Michigan
No full textSand in lakes near coastal dunes has been used as a proxy for aeolian activity. It is important to use a sampling strategy maximizing the probability of encountering aeolian sand and minimizing the probability of encountering sand transported by fluvial processes or washed/slumped into the lake from the shores. To test this, lake sediments were collected from Goshorn Lake in Allegan County, Michigan. This lake abuts a Lake Michigan dune complex at one end, has a stream entering at the opposite end, and is subject to anthropogenic disturbances along its banks. Aerial photographs, building records, and a published oral history of the lake were used to reconstruct aeolian activity and anthropogenic disturbance over the last 76 years. This history was compared to sand concentration as a function of depth obtained by textural analysis of 12 Glew cores collected across the lake basin. 137Cs analyses were used to identify the 1963 bomb peak as a temporal reference point. The least amount of sand occurs in the cores furthest from the dunes, closest to the stream. A few sand peaks, \u3c20%, are present. Cores collected closer to the dunes are characterized by multiple sand peaks, between 20–80% sand in the lower to middle portion of the core. In the upper core portions, the upward decrease in sand begins before 1963, consistent with aerial photographs showing a decrease in dune activity after 1938. One Glew core recorded a spike in sand after 1963. Historical records suggest this can be correlated with major construction at that location and time period. Small sand peaks near the stream inlet may reflect fluvial flux increases while sand peaks near the lake margins can reflect increases in sand resulting from shoreline disturbances. Therefore, the majority of the sand in the lake sediments appears to be aeolian