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Does Mortality Salience Priming Influence an Individual\u27s Perceptions of Healthy Behaviors as Important?
Get PDFDeath awareness, or mortality salience, has the potential to motivate people to engage in healthy behavior, such as diet/exercise, sleep, and religious/spiritual importance, especially when the behaviors are perceived as reducing the connection between a particular health risk and death. One-hundred-and-eighty-three participants completed a survey to assess whether mortality salience priming, compared to a dental pain control, influences an individual\u27s perceptions of healthy behaviors as important after priming compared to before priming, and if certain behaviors are ranked preferentially in importance to others. Self-esteem levels and age were also measured to determine if condition-induced anxiety and perceptions of behavioral importance varied with these factors. Overall, while mortality salience priming did significantly increase participant anxiety levels compared to the control, this death awareness did not translate into increased perceptions on the importance of healthy behaviors. Across both conditions, however, participants perceived healthy behaviors as more important after priming compared to before priming, with certain behaviors viewed as more important than others after priming. Lower self-esteem was found to result in increased anxiety as well as result in a greater difference in perceived behavioral importance post-priming compared to before priming in mortality salience participants. Further, older participants were found to score healthy behaviors as more important. This study suggests that death awareness can influence an individual\u27s anxiety levels, but other factors such as age and self-esteem may serve as stronger predictors of perceived behavioral importance than condition alone
Strategic Gatekeeping: Geopolitical Objectives and Turkey\u27s Syrian Refugee Policy
Get PDFSince the war in Syria began, Turkey has become home to the largest refugee population in the world, hosting over 3.7 million displaced Syrians. While Turkey initially welcomed them through an open-door refugee program, its policy has since become more restrictive and securitized, including threats of forced repatriation. This puzzling shift has been the subject of some limited scholarship, but there has been no comprehensive analysis of Turkey’s policies, particularly from a foreign relations perspective. This study attempts to address this paucity by examining the nexus between foreign and refugee policy, using two case studies. First, because Turkey had failed to project itself as a regional power in years prior, from 2015-2016 it shifted its emphasis to relations with the E.U., negotiating a deal with the latter in 2016. Turkey agreed to adopt an arrangement of restricting refugee movement towards Europe, gaining leverage in its relations with the E.U. In the second case, from 2016-2021, Turkey has found itself weakened and defensive in the Syria conflict, which refocused its security goals inward, though it continued to seek concessions from the E.U. As a result, the country adopted a more securitized policy with goals of resettlement and repatriation of refugees back to Syria. Both case studies thus demonstrate the influence of Turkey’s foreign policy on its refugee program, and the latter period also illustrates how refugee policy might influence foreign affairs
Resources for Supporting Mathematics and Data Science Instructors During COVID-19
Get PDFIn late May of 2020, a few months after the raging COVID-19 pandemic forced university faculty to quickly switch to online teaching, the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) released a call for grant applications to support working groups to help faculty within our consortium who will be teaching during the pandemic (e.g., from hybrid courses with some remote/online components to fully remote/online courses; socially distanced face-to-face courses). We replied to this call and the ACS awarded the six of us (from four ACS schools) a Summer Rapid Response Grant in early June. The grant funded our efforts to create and provide to other faculty Mathematics and Data Science Resources to Support Socially Relevant Teaching in the Time of COVID-19. This paper summarizes our efforts and includes the resources that we developed
How Often Were You Traumatized? Reconceptualizing Adverse Childhood Experiences for Sexual and Gender Minorities
No full textIntroduction:: The manifold consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are well-documented. Recent research has demonstrated that sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) typically encounter ACEs more often than cisgender heterosexual individuals. Given the higher exposure rate, the measurement of frequency of exposure to traumatic events may be relevant for SGMs. Methods:: We changed the response options of the ACEs index from dichotomous to a five-point Likert scale that described frequency of exposure. As part of a larger community-based participatory research study, the Likert ACEs measure was distributed to a large and diverse sample of SGM participants in San Antonio. Results:: A cross-validation design demonstrated that the Likert ACEs scores outperformed the traditional ACEs index in predicting self-reported anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Half of the SGMs in this sample experienced 3 or more ACEs, compared to only 10% of Americans in a nationally representative sample. Limitations:: These analyses were based on retrospective self-report data instead of structured clinical interviews. Since only the Likert ACEs was administered, we had to assume that any response other than “never” on Likert ACEs corresponded to “yes” on the ACEs Index. Conclusions:: Future research may assess the utility of the Likert ACEs approach with other minoritized or intersectional populations. For clinical practitioners, these results suggest that a better way to measure ACEs for SGMs is to ask them how often they were exposed, rather than asking whether they were exposed
Tailoring a Dissonance-Based Body Image Intervention for Adult Women in a Proof of Concept Trial: The Women\u27s Body Initiative
No full textAlthough historically conceptualized as problems of youth, recent research indicates that women of all ages experience body dissatisfaction and eating disorder (ED) pathology. Despite this, existing body image interventions predominantly target youth. The Body Project (BP) has extensive support for reducing ED risk factors in younger women and girls. The current proof-of-concept study investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and estimates of intervention effect sizes of a modified BP for adult women, the Women’s Body Initiative (WBI). Conducted in the Southwestern United States, adult women (N = 13) aged 29–70 (M = 49.1) participated in 4, 1-h weekly sessions, completing measures at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up. Participants rated the program as highly feasible and acceptable. Within-subjects effects sizes were medium to large for primary outcomes (body dissatisfaction, ED pathology) and secondary outcomes (psychosocial impairment, negative affect, quality of life, nutritious food consumption, and sleep) through 3-months. Results suggest preliminary feasibility and acceptability of WBI for adult women, and support proceeding with a larger trial to investigate intervention efficacy
A Consistent Estimator of Nontrivial Stationary Solutions of Dynamic Neural Fields
Get PDFDynamics of neural fields are tools used in neurosciences to understand the activities generated by large ensembles of neurons. They are also used in networks analysis and neuroinformatics in particular to model a continuum of neural networks. They are mathematical models that describe the average behavior of these congregations of neurons, which are often in large numbers, even in small cortexes of the brain. Therefore, change of average activity (potential, connectivity, firing rate, etc.) are described using systems of partial different equations. In their continuous or discrete forms, these systems have a rich array of properties, among which is the existence of nontrivial stationary solutions. In this paper, we propose an estimator for nontrivial solutions of dynamical neural fields with a single layer. The estimator is shown to be consistent and a computational algorithm is proposed to help carry out implementation. An illustrations of this consistency is given based on different inputs functions, different kernels, and different pulse emission rate functions
Our Language is the Forest : Landscapes of the Mother Tongue in David Greig\u27s \u3cem\u3eDunsinane\u3c/em\u3e
Get PDFTracing early visits to and excavations of Dunsinane Hill in Perthshire, Scotland, this essay argues that Shakespeare and the overpowering legacy of his Scottish play have left an imprint that is both ecological and ideological. Situated within broader conversations about cultural heritage, literary tourism, colonialism, and nationalism, my analysis of Shakespeare\u27s indelible mark on Dunsinane Hill—as a place and an idea—provides a theoretical and literal groundwork for understanding how Scottish playwright David Greig activates the territorial lexicon of appropriation in his 2010 play Dunsinane. For Greig, the act of appropriation is not just about speaking back to Shakespeare but about doing so on land that was never his and in a language that he never understood in the first place. I show how Greig concentrates the power of his speculative sequel in and around the figure of Gruach (the historical Lady Macbeth), who not only embodies the deeply gendered relationship between language and landscape but also reclaims that relationship in order to critique the longstanding and devastating colonial conflation of women\u27s bodies, mother tongues, and the land itself
Wearing Pink in Fairy Town: The Heterosexualization of the Spanish Town Neighborhood and Carnival Parade in Baton Rouge
Get PDFThe Spanish Town parade is currently the largest Carnival parade in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with hundreds of thousands of attendees dressed in pink costuming, cross-dressing, and wearing pink flamingo paraphernalia. This chapter traces the queer origins of the Spanish Town parade to the racially integrated bohemian gayborhood of Spanish Town in the 1980s. Using interviews, archival research, and participant observation, I argue that current LGBTQ residents of Baton Rouge, even those who have never lived in Spanish Town, claim a vicarious citizenship to the neighborhood and parade through an understanding of the queer origins of the parade in the 1980s and the parade’s beginning in a gayborhood. This vicarious citizenship is tempered by the heterosexualization of the contemporary Spanish Town parade. Although LGBTQ residents still attend the parade in large numbers, there is more ambivalence about the homophobic imagery in the parade and the consumption of gay culture by heterosexual parade participants
Investigating the Design, Construction, and Performance of a π\u3csup\u3e0\u3c/sup\u3e Spectrometer
Get PDFA π0 spectrometer constructed at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility in 1977 by H. W. Baer is investigated using a historical and physical approach. A history is given of the spectrometer, including the circumstances which gave rise to its construction and its eventually decommissioning. This is supported by a theoretical description of the spectrometer operation, as well as current Monte Carlo simulations which aimed to reproduce the behavior of the original π0 spectrometer