Digital Commons Network^™

What We Mean When We Talk About Reading: Rethinking The Purposes And Contexts Of College Reading, Rachel Ihara, Ann Del Principe

Publications and Research

This study illuminates faculty beliefs about reading by closely examining their attitudes toward assigned readings and faculty professional reading practice. Drawing upon interview data from instructors teaching in a range of disciplines at a two-year college, we suggest that conversations about reading would benefit from greater awareness of the various contexts and purposes for reading. Rather than talk about reading as something students either "do" or "don’t do", or do well or poorly, we draw attention to the ways that different purposes for reading shape reading behaviors for students and faculty alike.

The Influence Of Religion And Spirituality On Hiv Prevention Among Black And Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men, New York City, Kathryn Drumhiller, Jose Nanín, Zaneta Gaul, Madeline Y. Sutton

Publications and Research

The influence of religion and spirituality (R/S) on HIV prevention has been understudied, especially for Black and/or Latino men who have sex with men (BLMSM), who bear a disproportionate burden of HIV, and who are part of racial/ethnic communities with high engagement in R/S. The specific aim of this study was to explore perspectives about R/S among BLMSM to inform HIV prevention strategies and reduce HIV-related health disparities. Data from 105 qualitative interviews with BLMSM were analyzed; 58 (55%) stated that R/S had no personal influence on HIV prevention. For those reporting any R/S influence, main themes were: (1) R/S …

It Wasn’T Us: Reply To Michael Brent, Rick Repetti

Publications and Research

In “Confessions of a Deluded Westerner,” Michael Brent insists no contributions to Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will (Repetti) even address free will because none deploy the criteria for free will that Western (incompatibilist) philosophers identify: the ability to do otherwise under identical conditions, and the ability to have one’s choices be up to oneself. Brent claims the criteria and abilities in that anthology are criteria for intentional action, but not all intentional actions are free. He also insists that Buddhism, ironically, cannot even accept intentional action, because, on his analysis, intentionality requires an agent, which Buddhism rejects. …

It Wasn’T Me: Reply To Karin Meyers, Rick Repetti

Publications and Research

This is my reply to Karin Meyers, “False Friends: Dependent Origination and the Perils of Analogy in Cross-Cultural Philosophy,” in this Symposium. Meyers generally focuses on exegesis of what Early Buddhists said, which reasonably constrains what we may think about them if we are Buddhists. I agree with and find much value in most of her astute analyses, here and elsewhere, so I restrict my reply here to where we disagree, or otherwise seem to be speaking past, or misunderstanding, each other. In this regard, I focus on three of her claims. Meyers argues that (1) Buddhist dependent origination …

Conceptualizations Of Catalogers’ Judgment Through Content Analysis: A Preliminary Investigation, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

Catalogers’ judgment is frequently mentioned, but rarely researched in formal studies. The purpose of this article is to investigate catalogers’ judgment through an exploration of the texts collected in the database of Library and Information Science Source. Verbs, adjectives and nouns intimately associated with catalogers’ judgment were extracted, analyzed and grouped into 16 categories, which give birth to five conceptual descriptions. The results of this study provide cataloging professionals with an overview picture on aspects of catalogers’ judgment. They may help library school students and graduates and novice catalogers to become independent and confident decision makers relating to cataloging work.

Ministerial Leadership: The Servant Leader As A Transformational Leader, Remi Alapo

Publications and Research

This paper provides a different meaning on the role of the Pastor or Ministry Leader as a “servant leader” referencing the text—“Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry” by William H. Willimon (2002),1 where the author describes the ordained ministry as “a is a gift of God to the church” which usually does not mean that it is an easy task but rather, more complex and challenging as ministry leaders or pastors feel a call to transforming societies beyond their calling. In post-modern society, the pastors’ role has differed and extended to form in line with creating a just …

Lab Manual Design With Engineering Learning Style And Flipped Learning Model In Computer Engineering Technology Education, Yu Wang, Sunghoon Jang

Publications and Research

We have designed a lab manual based on Felder-Silverman learning style model (FSLSM) and the flipped classroom model for engineering education. This lab manual is developed for early junior year course of “Microcomputer Systems Technology” and emphasizes student-centered active learning experiences with more practical exercises and open-ended questions. Instead of taking traditional assembly language to study computer architecture, we are looking for a different approach to teach students to learn the assembly language by embedding an inline assembly language module into a C program. Our lab guide consists of online videos and practical exercises on various platforms including Microsoft Windows …

Proceedings Of The Cuny Games Conference 4.0: The Interactive Course, Robert O. Duncan, Joe Bisz, Julie Cassidy, Kathleen Offenholley, Maura A. Smale, Carolyn Stallard, Deborah Sturm, Anders A. Wallace, Cuny Games Network

Publications and Research

Proceedings of the CUNY Games Conference, held from January 22-23, 2018, at the CUNY Graduate Center and Borough of Manhattan Community College.

Critical Play with History (Panel) - Composition & Storytelling - Health & Cognitive Sciences - Gaming Anthropology: Teaching Culture and Power Through Games and Design (Panel) - Twine & Writing Games - Easy Ideas II - STEM Games - Global Games for Change Catalog (Panel) - Comics & Active Learning - Fact Checking & Research - Computer Science & Game Design - SimGlobal: Building a Serious Roleplay Course for the Social Sciences (Panel) - Role Playing Games, Narrative, …

Is A Meta-Analytic Approach To Burnout’S Prevalence Timely?, Eric Laurent, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

Cañadas‐De la Fuente et al. performed a meta‐analysis of the prevalence of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished personal accomplishment—the three definitional components of the burnout syndrome—among nursing professionals working in oncology units. All in all, their meta‐analysis was inconclusive because of the very state of burnout research. Because there is mounting evidence that burnout is a depressive condition, we recommend that investigators focus on depression, rather than burnout, in occupational health research and practice.

Burnout-Depression Overlap: Nomological Network Examination And Factor-Analytic Approach, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Burnout has been defined as a condition in which individuals are left exhausted by a long-term confrontation with unmanageable job stressors. The question of whether burnout reflects anything other than depressive responses to unresolvable stress remains an object of debate. In this 911-participant study (83% female; mean age: 42.36), we further addressed the issue of burnout-depression overlap. Burnout was assessed with the exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and depression with the PHQ-8. The relationships of burnout and depression with three jobrelated variables – illegitimate work tasks, work-nonwork interference, and job satisfaction – and three “context-free” variables …

Interpretation Bias Toward Ambiguous Information In Burnout And Depression, Renzo Bianchi, Eric Laurent, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Jay Verkuilen, Chantal Berna

Publications and Research

Burnout has been defined as a job-related syndrome combining pervasive fatigue and loss of motivation. In recent years, evidence has mounted that burnout may reflect a depressive condition. In this study, we expanded on past investigations of burnout-depression overlap by focusing on interpretation biases toward ambiguous information among the two entities. We conducted a web-based study involving 1056 participants (83% female; mean age: 42.87). Burnout symptoms were assessed with the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure and depressive symptoms with the PHQ-9. The Ambiguous Scenarios Test (AST), a measure of interpretation bias validated among dysphoric individuals, was the outcome of interest. The AST …

Adolescent Medicine Trials Network For Hiv/Aids Interventions Data Harmonization: Rationale And Development Of Guidelines, Micah Mccumber, Demetria Cain, Sara Legrand, Kenneth H. Mayer, Debra A. Murphy, Matthew A. Psioda, Arlene C. Seña, Tyrel J. Starks, Michael Hudgens

Publications and Research

Background: The Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN) research program aims to defeat the rising HIV epidemic among adolescents and young adults in the United States.

Objective: This study aims to optimize cross-study analyses and comparisons of standardized measures (variables) collected in the ATN. Methods: Guidelines were developed for harmonizing measures to be collected across ATN studies.

Results: Eight domains were identified for harmonization—Demographics and Socioeconomic Characteristics, Sexual Behavior and Risk, Substance Use and Abuse, HIV-Positive Cascade, HIV-Negative Cascade, Mental Health, Social Support and Isolation, and Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Cascade.

Conclusions: The collection of selected key measures in a …

Quantification Of Hiv-1 Rna Among Men Who Have Sex With Men Using An At-Home Self-Collected Dried Blood Spot Specimen: Feasibility Study, Sabina Hirshfield, Richard A. Teran, Martin J. Downing Jr., Mary Ann Chiasson, Hong-Van Tieu, Laura Dize, Charlotte A. Gaydos

Publications and Research

Background: Suboptimal antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence and disengagement in care present significant public health challenges because of the increased probability of HIV transmission. In the United States, men who have sex with men (MSM) continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, highlighting a critical need to engage high-risk MSM living with HIV who are not engaged or retained in care.

Objective: The aim of the study was to assess the feasibility of at-home blood self-collection and laboratory quantification of HIV-1 RNA viral load (VL) to report laboratory-based VL outcomes and compare self-reported and laboratory-reported VL

Methods: Between 2016 and 2017, …

Jenyffer Nascimento’S Epic Poetry Of Black Female Empowerment Jenyffer Nascimento: A Poesia Épica De Empoderamento Da Mulher Negra, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

This article presents results of auto-ethnography, literary analysis, and fieldwork research to answer an underlying, perhaps unresolved, concern, relevant to this dossier: how can we produce an ethical dialogue as transnational Black Feminists, among Black Brazilian women, and North American Black women, in an ethical manner, while realizing that one may (not ever) be a part of the “carnival without you in it.” Fertile Earth/ Terra Fertil tells a long overdue epic story to an audience within the poetry: Black women, family members, other times a Black man, Brazil, white women, or “you,” undefined. Joy to pain to chaos, sensuality, …

Depressive Symptoms Are Associated With Cognitive Function In The Elderly With Type 2 Diabetes, Elizabeth Guerrero-Berroa, Ramit Ravona-Springer, James Schmeidler, Anthony Heymann, Laili Soleimani, Mary Sano, Derek Leroith, Rachel Preiss, Ruth Zukran, Jeremy M. Silverman, Michal Schnaider Beeri

Publications and Research

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a metabolic condition associated with poor clinical and cognitive outcomes including vascular disease, depressive symptoms, cognitive impairment, and dementia. In the general elderly population, depression has been consistently identified as a risk factor for cognitive impairment/decline. However, the association between depression and cognitive function in T2D has been understudied.

Objective: We investigated the association between depression and cognitive function in a large sample of cognitively normal elderly with T2D.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we examined 738 participants, aged 65–88 years old, enrolled in the Israel Diabetes and Cognitive Decline study. For each …

Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is a cross-disciplinary subspecialty within psychology. OHP derives from two disciplines within applied psychology, health psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. OHP is also linked to disciplines outside of psychology, such as occupational medicine and public health. The discipline has roots in eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century thinkers, including Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. These thinkers were concerned with the impact of the organization of work and the business cycle on human life. Later research by Elton Mayo, Marie Jahoda, Walter B. Cannon, Hans Selye, and investigators at the University of Michigan’s …

Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

Occupational health psychology (OHP) is a cross-disciplinary subspecialty within psychology. OHP derives from two disciplines within applied psychology, health psychology and industrial/organizational psychology. OHP is also linked to disciplines outside of psychology, such as occupational medicine and public health. The discipline has roots in 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century thinkers, including Adam Smith, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Max Weber. These thinkers were concerned with the impact of the organization of work and the business cycle on human life. Later research by Elton Mayo, Marie Jahoda, Walter B. Cannon, Hans Selye, and investigators at the University of Michigan’s Institute …

Functional Dissociation Of The Posterior And Anterior Insula In Moral Disgust, Xiaoping Ying, Jing Luo, Chi-Yue Chiu, Yanhong Wu, Yan Xu, Jin Fan

Publications and Research

The insula is thought to be involved in disgust. However, the roles of the posterior insula (PI) and anterior insula (AI) in moral disgust have not been clearly dissociated in previous studies. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, the participants evaluated the degree of disgust using sentences related to mild moral violations with different types of behavioral agents (mother and stranger). The activation of the PI in response to the stranger agent was significantly higher than that in response to the mother agent. In contrast, the activation of the AI in response to the mother agent was significantly higher …

Associations Of Lifestyle And Vascular Risk Factors With Alzheimer's Brain Biomarker Changes During Middle Age: A 3 Year Longitudinal Study In The Broader New York City Area, Michelle J. Walters, Joanna Sterling, Crystal Quinn, Christine Ganzer, Ricardo S. Osorio, Randolph D. Andrews, Dawn C. Matthews, Shankar Vallabhajosula, Mony J. De Leon, Richard S. Isaacson, Lisa Mosconi

Publications and Research

Objective To investigate the associations between lifestyle and vascular risk factors and changes in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarkers (beta-amyloid load via ¹¹C-PiB PET, glucose metabolism via ¹⁸F-FDG PET and neurodegeneration via structural MRI) and global cognition in middle-aged asymptomatic participants at risk for AD.

Design Prospective, longitudinal.

Setting The study was conducted at New York University Langone/Weill Cornell Medical Centres in New York City.

Participants Seventy cognitively normal participants from multiple community sources, aged 30–60 years with lifestyle measures (diet, intellectual activity and physical activity), vascular risk measures and two imaging biomarkers visits over at least 2 years, …

On The “Bubble” Of Burnout's Prevalence Estimates, Eric Laurent, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi, Laura Hawryluck, Peter G. Brindley

Publications and Research

Hawryluck and Brindley (2018) addressed the issue of burnout—a syndrome thought to be induced by job stress—among critical care medicine (CCM) practitioners. Although we agree that the practice of CCM can be stressful, relying on burnout as an indicator of the practitioners’ response to occupational adversity is unwarranted. Despite its popularity, burnout remains poorly defined. Disconcertingly, investigators have widely relied on the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) for “diagnosing” burnout in spite of the fact that the MBI is not a diagnostic instrument.Experiencing fatigue or distancing oneself from one’ work—what burnout is about—is not necessarily a sign of ill-being in itself. …

Using Multiple Instructional Mediums To Foster Critical Literacy Skills With The Adult Lingusitic Diverse Learner, Kaemanje Thomas

Publications and Research

Critical reading is the apex of tertiary education and the chief focus in higher education courses as they prepare adults for the workforce. Without significant improvements in academic preparation and support, many linguistically diverse [LD] students will have higher dropout rates in their first year of college. Developmental reading instruction practices are designed to emphasize moving the first-year LD students from sub-par reading levels towards the application and development of critical reading skills, as demanded by their college courses. Many community colleges across the United States, prepare assessments tests in reading and mathematics for most, if not all, newly admitted …

Spooky Grammatical Effects, Joseph C. M. Davis

Publications and Research

Linguistic constructs often correspond to nothing concrete: Descriptivists’ zero morpheme, generativists’ trace, variationists’ null instantiation, and Columbia School’s null signal. These represent structural relations with no phonetic substance. Columbia School has posited, moreover, three types of relatively insubstantial semantic structure: The residual member and the including member are semantic value oppositions within a grammatical system, each defined by the system’s other members. In the opposition of substance, in my own work, two signals share a value from one semantic substance but only one of them bears a meaning from an additional semantic substance. All of these …

An Expanded View Of Translanguaging: Leveraging The Dynamic Interactions Between A Young Multilingual Writer And Machine Translation Software, Sara Vogel, Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Ofelia García

Publications and Research

Two central forces re-shaping education in the 21st century in the United States are the increasingly diverse and rich multilingual practices of students, as well as our growing use of digital technologies to communicate and make meaning (Deumert, 2014; García, Bartlett & Kleifgen, 2007; Jewitt, 2008; New London Group, 1996). Even if much scholarship has focused on the trends of multilingualism and multimodalities as separate entities, there are many intersections. Digital tools like machine translation software are being used in schools by multilingual students, and their often-monolingual teachers. Frameworks for multilingual teaching and learning involving intentional use of machine translation …

The Modulatory Effect Of Expectations On Memory Retrieval During Sentence Comprehension, Luca Campanelli, Julie A. Van Dyke, Klara Marton

Publications and Research

Memory retrieval and probabilistic expectations are recognized factors in sentence comprehension that capture two different critical aspects of processing difficulty: the cost of retrieving and integrating previously processed elements with the new input words and the cost of incorrect predictions about upcoming words or structures in a sentence. Although these two factors have independently received substantial support from the extant literature, how they interact remains poorly understood. The present study investigated memory retrieval and expectation in a single experiment, pitting these factors against each other. Results showed a significant interference effect in both response time to the comprehension questions and …

When Fatigue Symptoms Are Associated With . . . Fatigue Symptoms, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

The study by Gül et al. (2017) is problematic in its conceptualization. We note that while "sluggish cognitive tempo” (SCT) remains an ill-defined entity, the same is true of burnout (e.g., there are no binding or consensual diagnostic criteria for either SCT or burnout). The concomitant use of such constructs is thus unlikely to promote clarity in research. Rather, it tends to escalate confusion.

Burnout Syndrome And Depression, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In this chapter, we proposed an overview of burnout, from the introduction of the construct in the mid-1970s to the growing realization that the syndrome was better conceived of as a depressive condition. Recent studies have shown that the distinction between burnout and depression is problematic, both theoretically and empirically. The history of burnout research suggests that transdisciplinary communication and methodological standards should be strengthened to avoid the proliferation of constructs that, in fact, refer to the same phenomena. Construct proliferation, a transgression of the scientific canon of parsimony, is considered a major problem today because it undermines theory building …

Burnout Research: Eyes Wide Shut, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent, Renzo Bianchi

Publications and Research

In a study published in a recent issue of Critical Care Medicine, Colville and Smith (2017) found modest overlap between burnout and depression and assumed that burnout and depression are distinct entities. For four reasons, we think that the study is seriously flawed. First, Colville and Smith assessed burnout symptoms with an abbreviated version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the psychometric properties of which are unclear. Second, they used clinically and theoretically arbitrary cutoff scores for categorizing burnout, a modus operandi that, unfortunately, has become commonplace in studies of medical professionals. Third, participants could be categorized as “burned out” …

A Neglected Problem In Burnout Research, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Although we share with Eckleberry-Hunt et al. (2018) some of their criticisms regarding the problematic conceptualization of burnout, we are perplexed by the authors’ silence regarding burnout–depression overlap, which is arguably the most troubling problem attached to the burnout construct. The extensive research suggests that burnout reflects a combination of depressive responses. The emotional exhaustion component of burnout involves fatigue and depressed mood, two diagnostic criteria for depressive disorders. Maslach et al. (2001) wrote that there is “a predominance of dysphoric symptoms” in burnout. Depersonalization symptoms are commonly found in depressed individuals. Diminished personal accomplishment reflects well-known depressive manifestations of …

When We Say 'Physician Burnout,' We Really Mean Depression, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

There has been controversy regarding the extent to which burnout overlaps depression. I enumerate eight reasons explaining to why depression is at the heart of burnout. Some of these reasons pertain to the highly similar work-related causes of burnout and depression, burnout adherents' faulty categorical and dimensional conceptualizations of burnout and depression, problematically high correlations between emotional exhaustion (the core of burnout) and depressive symptoms, research on physicians and dentists that underline burnout-depression overlap, and the problem of alexithymia being similarly related to burnout and depression. Suggestions for addressing the problem of burnout-depression among physicians are presented.

What Is The Difference Between Depression And Burnout? An Ongoing Debate, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Renzo Bianchi, Stefano Palazzi

Publications and Research

Il burnout è concepito come una sindrome che si sviluppa in risposta a condizioni di lavoro cronicamente avverse. Si ritiene che il burnout comporti esaurimento emotivo, depersonalizzazione e riduzione della realizzazione personale. Storicamente, tuttavia, il burnout è stato difficile da separare dalla depressione. In effetti, i sintomi del burnout coincidono con i sintomi della depressione. L'evidenza della validità discriminante del burnout nei confronti della depressione è debole, sia a livello empirico sia a livello teorico. L'esaurimento emotivo, il nucleo del burnout, riflette una combinazione di umore depresso e affaticamento / perdita di energia e si correla molto bene con altri …