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Menorah Review (No. 79, Summer/Fall, 2013)

Menorah Review

Authorities Without Power: The Jewish Council of Vienna During the Holocaust -- Books in Brief: New and Notable -- Cry and Wail: Jewish Suffering in Documents From Ukraine, 1918-1921 -- Moreshet: From the Sources -- Speaking of the Law -- The Jewish "Success" Story? -- The Power of the Word -- Two Poems by Richard Sherwin -- Unearthing Buried Treasures: Reading Leah Goldberg in Translation

Virginia Commonwealth University Undergraduate Bulletin Courses [2013], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Listing of undergraduate courses for 2013-2014.

Virginia Commonwealth University Fall Commencement Program [2013], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Suicidal Risk Factors Of Recurrent Major Depression In Han Chinese Women, Yuzhang Zhu, Hongni Zhang, Shenxun Shi, Jingfang Gao, Youhui Li, Ming Tao, Kerang Zhang, Xumei Wang, Chengge Gao, Lijun Yang, Kan Li, Jiangguo Shi, Gang Wang, Lanfen Liu, Jinbei Zhang, Bo Du, Guoqing Jiang, Jianhua Shen, Zhen Zhang, Wei Liang, Jing Sun, Jian Hu, Tiebang Liu, Xueyi Wang, Guodong Miao, Huaqing Meng, Yi Li, Chunmei Hu, Yi Li, Guoping Huang, Gongying Li, Baowei Ha, Hong Deng, Qiyi Mei, Hui Zhong, Shugui Gao, Hong Sang, Yutang Zhang, Xiang Fang, Fengyu Yu, Donglin Yang, Tieqiao Liu, Yunchun Chen, Xiaohong Hong, Wenyuan Wu, Guibing Chen, Min Cai, Yan Song, Jiyang Pan, Jicheng Dong, Runde Pan, Wei Zhang, Zhenming Shen, Zhengrong Liu, Danhua Gu, Xiaoping Wang, Xiaojuan Liu, Qiwen Zhang, Yihan Li, Yiping Chen, Kenneth S. Kendler, Jonathan Flint, Ying Liu

Psychiatry Publications

The relationship between suicidality and major depression is complex. Socio- demography, clinical features, comorbidity, clinical symptoms, and stressful life events are important factors influencing suicide in major depression, but these are not well defined. Thus, the aim of the present study was to assess the associations between the above-mentioned factors and suicide ideation, suicide plan, and suicide attempt in 6008 Han Chinese women with recurrent major depression (MD). Patients with any suicidality had significantly more MD symptoms, a significantly greater number of stressful life events, a positive family history of MD, a greater number of episodes, a significant experience of …

Clinical Features Of Patients With Dysthymia In A Large Cohort Of Han Chinese Women With Recurrent Major Depression, Wenqing Wu, Zhoubing Wang, Yan Wei, Guanghua Zhang, Shenxun Shi, Jingfang Gao, Youhui Li, Ming Tao, Kerang Zhang, Xumei Wang, Chengge Gao, Lijun Yang, Kan Li, Jianguo Shi, Gang Wang, Lanfen Liu, Jinbei Zhang, Bo Du, Guoqing Jiang, Jianhua Shen, Ying Liu, Wei Liang, Jing Sun, Jian Hu, Tiebang Liu, Xueyi Wang, Guodong Miao, Huaqing Meng, Yi Li, Guoping Huang, Gongying Li, Baowei Ha, Hong Deng, Qiyi Mei, Hui Zhong, Shugui Gao, Hong Sang, Yutang Zhang, Xiang Fang, Fengyu Yu, Donglin Yang, Tieqiao Liu, Yunchun Chen, Xiaohong Hong, Wenyuan Wu, Guibing Chen, Min Cai, Yan Song, Jiyang Pan, Jicheng Dong, Runde Pan, Wei Zhang, Zhenming Shen, Zhengrong Liu, Danhua Gu, Xiaoping Wang, Xiaojuan Liu, Qiwen Zhang, Yihan Li, Yiping Chen, Kenneth S. Kendler, Jonathan Flint, Zhen Zhang

Psychiatry Publications

Background

Dysthymia is a form of chronic mild depression that has a complex relationship with major depressive disorder (MDD). Here we investigate the role of environmental risk factors, including stressful life events and parenting style, in patients with both MDD and dysthymia. We ask whether these risk factors act in the same way in MDD with and without dysthymia.

Results

We examined the clinical features in 5,950 Han Chinese women with MDD between 30–60 years of age across China. We confirmed earlier results by replicating prior analyses in 3,950 new MDD cases. There were no significant differences between the two …

Genotype-Based Ancestral Background Consistently Predicts Efficacy And Side Effects Across Treatments In Catie And Star*D, Daniel E. Adkins, Renan P. Souza, Karolina A. Aberg, Shaunna L. Clark, Joseph L. Mcclay, Patrick F. Sullivan, Edwin J. C. G. Van Den Oord

Biomarker Research and Personalized Medicine Publications

Only a subset of patients will typically respond to any given prescribed drug. The time it takes clinicians to declare a treatment ineffective leaves the patient in an impaired state and at unnecessary risk for adverse drug effects. Thus, diagnostic tests robustly predicting the most effective and safe medication for each patient prior to starting pharmacotherapy would have tremendous clinical value. In this article, we evaluated the use of genetic markers to estimate ancestry as a predictive component of such diagnostic tests. We first estimated each patient’s unique mosaic of ancestral backgrounds using genome-wide SNP data collected in the Clinical …

Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate And Professional Programs Bulletin Courses [2013], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Listing of professional and graduate courses for 2013-2014.

Virginia Commonwealth University Undergraduate Bulletin [2013], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Undergraduate bulletin for Virginia Commonwealth University for the academic year 2013-2014. It includes information on academic regulations, degree requirements, course offerings, faculty, academic calendar, and tuition and expenses for undergraduate programs.

Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate And Professional Programs Bulletin [2013], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Graduate and professional programs bulletin for Virginia Commonwealth University for the academic year 2013-2014. It includes information on academic regulations, degree requirements, course offerings, faculty, academic calendar, and tuition and expenses for graduate programs.

Make It Real - Undergraduate Research Opportunities, Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University, Lisa Abrams, Maria Carlton, Preetam Ghosh, Joseph Kuttenkuler, Juanita Sharpe

L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Publications

Theme one in the Quest for Distinction is for VCU to become a leader among national research universities in providing all students with high quality learning/living experiences focused on inquiry, discovery, and innovation in a global environment. Quest is grounded in a commitment to providing students with a diversity of experiences which are available at a premiere public research university. The goal of this project is to take advantage of the wealth of research resources at the Medical College of Virginia Campus, coordinate cross campus efforts to facilitate the use of these resources and increase faculty participation in mentoring undergraduate …

Virginia Commonwealth University Commencement Program [2013], Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Enhancing The Benefits Of Written Emotional Disclosure Through Response Training, Andrea Konig, Alison Eonta, Stephanie R. Dyal, Scott R. Vrana

Psychology Publications

Writing about a personal stressful event has been found to have psychological and physical health benefits, especially when physiological response increases during writing. Response training was developed to amplify appropriate physiological reactivity in imagery exposure. The present study examined whether response training enhances the benefits of written emotional disclosure. Participants were assigned to either a written emotional disclosure condition (n = 113) or a neutral writing condition (n = 133). Participants in each condition wrote for 20 minutes on three occasions and received response training (n = 79), stimulus training (n = 84) or no training (n = 83). Heart …

Association Study Of 167 Candidate Genes For Schizophrenia Selected By A Multi-Domain Evidence-Based Prioritization Algorithm And Neurodevelopmental Hypothesis, Zhongming Zhao, Bradley T. Webb, Peilin Jia, T. Bernard Bigdeli, Brion S. Maher, Edwin Van Den Oord, Sarah Bergen, Richard L. Amdur, Francis A. O'Neill, Dermot Walsh, Dawn L. Thiselton, Xianging Chen, Carlos N. Pato, The International Schizophrenia Consortium, Brien P. Riley, Kenneth S. Kendler, Ayman H. Fanous

Psychiatry Publications

Integrating evidence from multiple domains is useful in prioritizing disease candidate genes for subsequent testing. We ranked all known human genes (n = 3819) under linkage peaks in the Irish Study of High-Density Schizophrenia Families using three different evidence domains: 1) a meta-analysis of microarray gene expression results using the Stanley Brain collection, 2) a schizophrenia protein-protein interaction network, and 3) a systematic literature search. Each gene was assigned a domain-specific p-value and ranked after evaluating the evidence within each domain. For comparison to this ranking process, a large-scale candidate gene hypothesis was also tested by including genes with Gene …

Association Testing Strategy For Data From Dense Marker Panels, Donghyung Lee, Silviu-Alin Bacanu

Psychiatry Publications

Genome wide association studies have been usually analyzed in a univariate manner. The commonly used univariate tests have one degree of freedom and assume an additive mode of inheritance. The experiment-wise significance of these univariate statistics is obtained by adjusting for multiple testing. Next generation sequencing studies, which assay 10-20 million variants, are beginning to come online. For these studies, the strategy of additive univariate testing and multiple testing adjustment is likely to result in a loss of power due to (1) the substantial multiple testing burden and (2) the possibility of a non-additive causal mode of inheritance. To reduce …

Pilot Inventory Of Community Partnerships, Valerie Holton

Division of Community Engagement Resources

Partnerships with community organizations create increased opportunities for universities to promote community-engaged research, teaching, and service. Virginia Commonwealth University’s (VCU) mission states that the university is committed to "sustainable, university-community partnerships that enhance the educational, economic, and cultural vitality of the communities VCU serves." In recognition of its efforts, VCU is among a small number of institutions to be designated as very high research activity and community-engaged by the Carnegie Foundation. It is also a recipient of a NIH-funded Center for Translational and Sciences Award, which promotes community-engaged research.

In pursuit of the university’s goal to become a national model …

2013 Service-Learning Faculty Survey Results Report, Office Of Service-Learning, Division Of Community Engagement, Virginia Commonwealth University

Division of Community Engagement Resources

Service-learning is an important teaching pedagogy that has been proven effective in enhancing student learning and promoting both academic and civic engagement. As civic engagement continues to gain prominence as an integral aspect of higher education, it is increasingly important that engagement metrics are consistently measured to demonstrate outcomes. This is especially true of service-learning as it strongly correlates with student learning, academic performance, and retention rates. Feedback and suggestions from service-learning faculty members are useful for gaining insights into how service-learning quality can be enhanced at the classroom level and understanding the resource needs of faculty members.

The purpose …

Physician Trainees’ Decision Making And Information Processing: Choice Size And Medicare Part D, Andrew J. Barnes, Yaniv Hanoch, Melissa Martynenko, Stacey Wood, Thomas Rice, Alex D. Federman

Health Policy Publications

Many patients expect their doctor to help them choose a Medicare prescription drug plan. Whether the size of the choice set affects clinicians’ decision processes and strategy selection, and the quality of their choice, as it does their older patients, is an important question with serious financial consequences. Seventy medical students and internal medicine residents completed a within-subject design using Mouselab, a computer program that allows the information-acquisition process to be examined. We examined highly numerate physician trainees’ decision processes, strategy, and their ability to pick the cheapest drug plan—as price was deemed the most important factor in Medicare beneficiaries’ …

Associations Of Occupational Attributes And Excessive Drinking, Andrew J. Barnes, Frederick J. Zimmerman

Health Policy Publications

Numerous work-related drinking mechanisms have been posited and, oftentimes, examined in isolation. We combined data from over 100 occupational attributes into several factors and tested the association of these factors with measures of alcohol use. We used the NLSY79 2006 wave, a U.S. representative sample of 6,426 workers ages 41 to 49 and the 2006 Occupational Information Network database (O*NET), a nationally representative sample of nearly 1,000 occupations. We conducted exploratory factor analysis on 119 occupational attributes and found three independent workplace characteristics – physical demands, job autonomy, and social engagement - explained the majority of the variation. We then …

Mexican Health Paradox, Merit George

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Despite the broad array of research that exists on the Hispanic health paradox, no single explanation has been marked as the dominant reason for the disparities in life expectancy that exist between Mexican Americans and other Hispanic and non-Hispanic ethnic groups. This indicates that researchers must adopt a more open perspective that examines the influence of multidimensional factors that integrate culture, religious tradition, and lifestyle. The purpose of the current study is to 1) readily define the paradox and provide a thorough review of existing literature on the topic; 2) suggest a transition from exploring statistical explanations of the paradox …

Methods In Visual Mathematics: Reductionism In Researching Mathematical Principles In Art, Lauren N. Colie

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

People traditionally rely on visual arts as an effective communication tool and medium of self-expression for when words fail to convey abstract concepts. Thera Mjaaland, anthropologist and professional photographer, writes, “Art is capable of negotiating conceptual gaps caused by a dichotomized epistemology” (393). In essence, Mjaaland asserts that art helps relate different modes of thinking by illustrating the abstract and difficult to grasp—privileging the communicative value of an image over that of text. Within this method of communication is a collection of works acknowledged by public consensus to be of an elevated status or value. The art world is deeply …

The Fundi Effect: Activism Through Empowerment, Tony Jamal Lee

Ethnic Studies Review

The participatory democracy strategy of organization used by Ella Baker was greatly productive in grassroots activism, and has the potential to strengthen the political struggles of the present to the height of the movements in times past. Ella Baker was a prominent figure in the black freedom struggle. She was active in fighting for equal rights for Afrikans in America for over five decades. Her approach was characterized by an ability to mobilize and influence youth to action. In this work, there will be an analytical examination of how this methodology is equipped to stand the tests of time through …

Enacting "Smoke, Lilies, And Jade" As Black Gay Print Culture, Shawn Anthony Christian

Ethnic Studies Review

This essay offers a comparative analysis of the ways that Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston (1989) and Rodney Evans's Brother to Brother (2005) inscribe Richard Bruce Nugent's landmark short story "Smoke, Lilies, and Jade" (1926). Both films are examples of how "Smoke," which was first published in the short-lived but infamous journal FIRE!!, now functions as much more than an artifact from the Harlem Renaissance's dynamic print culture. As I contend through this analysis, "Smoke" is a central diegetic element in both films. It enables Looking's visual depiction of the sojourn that Nugent's protagonist Alex has with his male lover …

Challenging Pre-Service Students' Teaching Perspectives In An Inquiry-Focused Program, J. L. Pecore, A. Shelton

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

Inquiry teaching based on constructivist learning theory has been an emphasis in pre-service education for over a decade. In general, a developmental teaching perspective supports inquiry-based instruction where teachers view learners as constructors of knowledge and teaching as providing questions, problems, and challenges that form a bridge from the learners' prior knowledge to a new, more sophisticated form of reasoning. Since teaching perspectives influence student learning, teacher effectiveness, and teacher attrition, challenging pre-service teachers to overcome experience-based convictions of a transmission perspective is necessary in teacher education. In this study, we examined the teaching perspectives of secondary, pre-service methods students …

Understanding Mathematics And Science Advice Networks Of Middle School Teachers, D. White, A. Ruff

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

We report findings from a research project designed to examine the mathematics and science advice networks of teachers who participated in professional development under the auspices of the NSF-funded Rocky Mountain-Middle School Math and Science Partnership. We provide descriptive statistics of results. Additionally, we reflect on the research process and discuss some of the practical challenges involved.

Discovering Protein Functions And Career Goals: The Suppressor Sike, Rebekah Rifareal

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Discovering IMSD was accidental. I was having a routine advising appointment and discussing future careers when the topic surfaced. At the time, I had no clue about what I wanted to do, so my advisor suggested that I explore research and encouraged me to apply for the program.

Inquiry Teaching: It Is Easier Than You Think!, S. Key, D. Owens

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

This article is a survey of the literature on inquiry teaching. Many teachers do not participate in inquiry teaching for various reasons. The following are the main reasons: it takes too much time; students do not learn what they need for the state test; and, the teachers do not know how to grade projects and presentations. These reasons sound like rhetoric from long ago, but it is very current. In this article, research is used to show that students who participate in inquiry learning or any type of problem-based education do much better than students who do not have that …

How Does Leadership Matter? Developing And Teaching A Definition Of Hands-On Science, A Prerequisite For Effective Inquiry Teaching, D. R. Sterling

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

This descriptive case study describes leadership skills and planning for setting clear directions by program leaders for a statewide professional development initiative to extend improvement in science teaching and learning. For science teachers and leaders in Virginia, a critical part of setting clear goals that everyone can understand is defining key science terms. One of the four key terms, "hands-on science," is defined here. Materials to develop teachers' understanding of the term for effective implementation of classroom inquiry activities are shared, along with a rubric for evaluation by and for teachers. Understanding of the term "hands-on science" is necessary before …

Abstracts

Ethnic Studies Review

Abstracts for Ethnic Studies Review, Vol. 36, No. 1&2, 2013.

Understanding The Nature And Effects Of Police-Citizen Encounters In Social Context: The Road Less Traveled, Anca Alfred D' R.

Ethnic Studies Review

Aggressive policing tactics have been identified as contributors to declining crime rate trends in urban, culturally diverse neighborhoods. They encompass stop and frisk practices which have spawned negative public opinion that contrasts with its justification by criminal justice officials as an effective means for the control and prevention of crime. The issue, however, begs deeper questions not readily addressed: how does the nature of police-citizen suspicion-based encounters influence the attitudes and behavior of both stakeholders; and does it contribute to effective crime control and prevention? Based on an analysis of theoretical and empirical research in the field, this article argues …

Closing The Gap: A Research Agenda For The Study Of Health Needs Among American Indian/Native Hawaiian Transgender Individuals, Irene S. Vernon, Trudie Jackson

Ethnic Studies Review

Objectives: To explore health research needs of American Indian and Native Hawaiian (AIINH) transgender individuals. Methods: This qualitative study is composed of four focus groups and one informal meeting, totaling 42 AIINH transgender individuals in four major cities. The theoretical and methodological approaches combined grounded theory with the principles of community based participatory research. Results: Healthcare and resiliency are two main themes that emerged as research needs with important subcategories within them. Access to quality care from medical professionals and access to care that is unique to their trans gender status were subcategories within healthcare. Lived experiences, culture, and history …