8413 research outputs found
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after/image/light/search
No full textafter/image/light/search includes a painting-poem consisting of fifty acrylic paintings on loose canvas, a letterpress work, a book created using letterpress and shown in a custom lightbox, a projected video artist statement, and an acrylic painting on panel. The letterpress works were created using a custom-cut spiral jig with hand set metal type and ornaments from the Black Rock Press.after/image/light/search combines painting, poetry, and letterpress printing as an imperfectly unified system of symbolic communication. This body of work is concerned with the changing state of artist identity in the information age, exploring my everyday experience of an effable ocean of imagery and echoing the complexity of political, social, and personal change. Reflecting upon the way that mass image consumption complicates our understanding and attention to meaning, after/image/light/search translates small observations and ideas through paint, print, and projection. This visual miasma becomes a stand-in for ever-present political, cultural, and environmental issues that is true-to-life: without clarity, certainty or conclusions. The resulting thesis utilizes material experimentation and formal tools of layering, enjambment, and rendering to search for new insights and understandings of the visual culture in which we live
Repeated Annual Seeding and Higher Seeding Rates Improve Recruitment Outcomes in a Post-Fire Dryland Ecosystem
No full textUnderstanding, predicting, and directing the trajectories of plant communities following disturbances is a major focus of ecological research. Seeding is a widely used approach to influence trajectories with the goal of restoring native plant communities. However, dryland climates are highly variable and ideal conditions for seedling establishment rarely coincide with the time of seeding. One suggestion to overcome this hurdle is higher seeding rates, which can increase the likelihood of successful recruitment against establishment barriers. In addition, repeating seeding over multiple years has been suggested to increase the chance of “hitting” a high precipitation year and reducing water-limiting barriers to seed germination and seedling establishment. By combining seeding rate and repeated seeding over multiple years, we can ask how at how variable annual precipitation interacts with these two treatments. Here, we examined how plant recruitment responds to a low and high seeding rate that were repeated across two years in a fire that occurred in dryland semi-arid Great Basin (USA) sagebrush steppe. Following the 2020 Poeville fire near Reno, Nevada, we seeded a nine-species seed mix of native perennial grasses, forbs, and shrubs at a low (typical land management seeding rate) or high (10 times the low rate) seeding rate at six sites across an elevation gradient. Seeding at each rate was applied in a replicated fully factorial design with three seeding time treatments: the fall of 2021, the fall of 2022, or both years; unseeded plots were included as controls. We hypothesized that applying both repeated seeding across the two years and the high seeding rate would lead to the highest recruit density by increasing the number of possible recruits and by reducing water-limiting barriers to seed germination and seedling establishment. Winter/spring precipitation was below average while temperatures were above average following the first year (2021) seeding in contrast to winter/spring above average precipitation and below average temperatures following the second year (2022) seeding. We measured counts of seeded species recruits in the summer after seeding was applied. Results showed that recruit counts were highest in response to the interactive effect of seeding both before a high precipitation year and at the high seeding rate by matching seeding with a year with favorable precipitation and temperatures. Additionally, recruit counts in response to the high seeding rate was no different to the control during the low precipitation and high temperatures year. These results show strong support for the combined use of repeated annual seeding and higher seeding rates, which together increase the likelihood of “hitting” favorable weather conditions and increasing recruitment success during a high precipitation year
Activist Burnout in the Anti-Capitalist Left
No full textBurnout has traditionally been understood as an accumulative condition broughton by chronic workplace stress and characterized by emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and
reduced personal accomplishment. This loss of efficacy and well-being in highly
committed individuals has been extensively studied in occupational contexts. However,
little research has examined the effects of burnout on social justice activists who work
toward equitable resource distribution. Within the slim scholarship that has begun
exploring activist burnout, there has been no investigation into how it impacts anti-capitalist social movements. This study seeks to address that gap by exploring the
burnout phenomenon in anti-capitalist activists and investigating whether conceptual
frameworks in the literature align with their lived experiences. This study incorporates mixed methods with a primarily qualitative emphasis.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 self-identified anti-capitalist activists
in Northern Nevada. A survey was also deployed to collect demographic information and
deliver a modified version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Data analysis followed an
abductive orientation utilizing flexible coding and descriptive statistics. Findings revealed
several key themes that characterized activists’ experiences with burnout, including a
wide range of causes, symptoms, and solutions. Participants collectively described
themes such as fatigue, the negative impact of a lack of tangible progress, and the
importance of building communities of care. This study contributes to a nascent area of
research, offering new perspectives on the individual and social factors that lead to
activist burnout and informing strategies to promote sustainability in movement spaces
A Comparison of the Efficacy of Teaching Tacting Emotional Expressions by Face-Part vs. Whole Face to Autistic Children
No full textAs an individual within the verbal community, it is important to be able to accurately identify the emotional expressions of others. Without the ability to correctly identify these emotional expressions, some individuals may respond inappropriately in a social situation. Impairment in social communication is one of the DSM’s defining characteristics within autism spectrum disorder (ASD). According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013), autistic individuals may demonstrate difficulties in each of three areas of social communication and interaction. However, in 1971, Lovaas et al. coined the term “stimulus overselectivity,” which refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in overly selective attention to a limited portion (i.e., subset) of a complex stimulus. Emotional expressions can be characterized as a complex stimulus; the face consists of different parts (e.g., eye-region, mouth-region). Therefore, it may be beneficial to teach autistic individuals emotional expressions by face part rather than only utilizing the whole face. For the first two participants, we used a parallel treatments design (Delfs et al., 2014; Gast & Wolery, 1988) and for the second two participants, we utilized an adapted alternating treatments design (Sindelar et al., 1985) to evaluate the relative effects of two different instructional methods (i.e., teaching emotional expressions by whole face vs. part face) on the acquisition of tacting emotional expressions in young autistic children. Our data indicate that the kind of teaching paradigm utilized for generating faster skill acquisition of correctly tacting emotional expressions is idiosyncratic to each learner. Additionally, our data indicate that teaching emotional expressions by part-face stimuli may generalize better to correctly tacting untaught whole face emotional expressions compared to teaching by whole face stimuli alone
Bad Excuses or Difficult Life Situations? A Mixed Methods Analysis of Interactions Within a Mental Health Court
No full textThis study examines interactions within one mental health court (MHC) in the western region of the United States in order to determine if there is differential treatment of the MHC’s male and female participants by the courtroom workgroup (CRWG), and what variables, if any, play into that treatment. The sample (n= 49) consists of two groups: males (34) and females (15) observed through court hearings online for a fifteen-month period. These interactions have been measured through attitude, appearance, compliance, status of incarceration, program phase, social service involvement, criminal record, familial relationships, substances, and employment and an Observed Interaction Measure (OIM) for each measure for each group has been calculated. The OIM consists of the measure of participants who experience any interaction with the CRWG regarding the various measures on a 1 (positive interaction), 0 (neutral interaction), or -1 (negative interaction) scale for each time interaction occurs where the lower the score, the more negative the interactions are with the CRWG. The OIM for each measure for males, females, and the sample as a whole in combination with qualitative examinations utilizing an attribution theory and focal concerns theory context informs the results of the study. In general, the results suggest the presence of differences in such treatment for male and female participants. The possible policy and future research implications of the study are also discussed
The Internal World of Classroom Teachers: Understanding the social and emotional experiences of middle school teachers working with students with histories of reading difficulty.
No full textAbstractTeachers face a variety of challenges in their profession: designing lessons, managing student behaviors, and teaching students with a wide range of skills and abilities. Recently, teachers have been asked to teach social and emotional skills in addition to academic skills. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of middle school teachers who support students with histories of reading difficulty. In addition, the study explores teacher experiences within the modern context of policies aimed at increasing student social and emotional well-being and current research on teacher social and emotional competence. The multiple case study design included five middle school teachers in a semi-rural resort area in the Western US. Individual and cross- case analysis yielded three themes. Teachers experience their role supporting students with histories of reading difficulty emotionally. The most common emotions fell under the category of doubt: doubt that the teachers had the skills to meet the needs of the students, doubt of the appropriateness of teaching standards, materials, schedules, and models, and doubt that students were learning. In addition, the theme of I emerged; the act of hiding inner experiences to demonstrate an acceptable outward appearance. Lastly, the tension between the ideals of programs and policies versus the realities of implementation in school settings was highlighted. Implications include a call for research to assess teacher SEC and the need for teacher experiential learning of social and emotional skills
