Digital Commons Network^™

Human Sexuality As A Critical Subfield In Social Work, Emily Mccave, Benjamin C. Shepard, Virginia Ramseyer Winter

Publications and Research

Human sexuality is of vital importance to social work practitioners, educators, and scholars. Yet historically, the profession’s leadership around it has waxed and waned, impacting practice. This article discusses the importance of human sexuality as a critical subfield within social work. It suggests that the mechanisms, namely textbooks, journals, and national conferences, for stimulating human sexuality social work scholarship are limited. The authors assert that the taboo of human sexuality limits the advancement of a cohesive professional discourse and contributes to the continued oppression of marginalized populations. Recommendations for providing better support for those who study, teach, and practice in …

The Ideological And Organizational Origins Of The United Federation Of Teachers' Opposition To The Community Control Movement In The New York City Public Schools, 1960-1968, Stephen Brier

Publications and Research

This article explores the origins and ideological practice of public school teacher unionism as it was articulated and revealed in New York City before and during the epochal strike against an experiment in community control of neighborhood schools undertaken by the United Federation of Teachers in the fall of 1968 that closed down the city’s massive public school system for weeks and put almost 1 million school children in the street. How and why did unionized New York City public school teachers support the particular kind of trade unionism that the UFT and its president, Albert Shanker, embodied and practiced …

Utopias Misplaced: The Cost Of Outsourcing Dystopian Poetics To North Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

This is a slightly revised version of the text of a talk that I (Seo-Young Chu) gave as part of the Fall 2014 Franke Lectures in the Humanities at Yale University. I'm sharing the text here to make the lecture more accessible. Topics include: North Korea/the DPRK, the "uncanny body politic," the uncanny valley, "dystopian poetics," what it means to outsource dystopian poetics, the intersection of aesthetics and politics. Authors/artists mentioned include: Thomas Hobbes, Mary Shelley, David Mitchell, Marjane Satrapi, Song Byeok, Sun Mu, Masahiro Mori, Andy Warhol. The talk also discusses the James Bond film Die Another Day.

Testimony Of University Dean Curtis L. Kendrick To The New York City Council Higher Education Committee On Textbook Affordability, Curtis Kendrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Menu Labeling With Calories And Exercise Equivalents On Food Selection And Consumption, Charles Platkin, Ming-Chin Yeh, Kimberly Hirsch, Ellen Weiss Wiewel, Chang-Yun Lin, Ho-Jui Tung, Victoria H. Castellanos

Publications and Research

Background Better techniques are needed to help consumers make lower calorie food choices. This pilot study examined the effect of menu labeling with caloric information and exercise equivalents (EE) on food selection. Participants, 62 females, ages 18-34, recruited for this study, ordered a fast food meal with menus that contained the names of the food (Lunch 1 (L1), control meal). One week later (Lunch 2 (L2), experiment meal), participants ordered a meal from one of three menus with the same items as the previous week: no calorie information, calorie information only, or calorie information and EE. Results There were no …

Sticking Your Neck Out And Burying The Hatchet: What Idioms Reveal About Embodied Simulation, Natalie A. Kacinik

Publications and Research

Idioms are used in conventional language twice as frequently as metaphors, but most research, particularly recent work on embodiment has focused on the latter. However, idioms have the potential to significantly deepen our understanding of embodiment because their meanings cannot be derived from their component words. To determine whether sensorimotor states could activate idiomatic meaning, participants were instructed to engage in postures/actions reflecting various idioms (e.g.,sticking your neck out) relative to non-idiomatic control postures/actions while reading and responding to statements designed to assess idiomatic meaning. The results showed that statements were generally more strongly endorsed after idiom embodiment than control …

Hemispheric Asymmetry In New Neurons In Adulthood Is Associated With Vocal Learning And Auditory Memory, Shuk C. Tsoi, Utsav V. Aiya, Kobi D. Wasner, Mimi L. Phan, Carolyn L. Pytte, David S. Vicario

Publications and Research

Many brain regions exhibit lateral differences in structure and function, and also incorporate new neurons in adulthood, thought to function in learning and in the formation of new memories. However, the contribution of new neurons to hemispheric differences in processing is unknown. The present study combines cellular, behavioral, and physiological methods to address whether 1) new neuron incorporation differs between the brain hemispheres, and 2) the degree to which hemispheric lateralization of new neurons correlates with behavioral and physiological measures of learning and memory. The songbird provides a model system for assessing the contribution of new neurons to hemispheric specialization …

Atypical Multisensory Integration In Niemann-Pick Type C Disease – Towards Potential Biomarkers, Gizely N. Andrade, Sophie Molholm, John S. Butler, Alice Brown Brandwein, Steven U. Walkley, John J. Foxe

Publications and Research

Background: Niemann-Pick type C (NPC) is an autosomal recessive disease in which cholesterol and glycosphingolipids accumulate in lysosomes due to aberrant cell-transport mechanisms. It is characterized by progressive and ultimately terminal neurological disease, but both pre-clinical studies and direct human trials are underway to test the safety and efficacy of cholesterol clearing compounds, with good success already observed in animal models. Key to assessing the effectiveness of interventions in patients, however, is the development of objective neurobiological outcome measures. Multisensory integration mechanisms present as an excellent candidate since they necessarily rely on the fidelity of long-range neural connections between the …

Nesting Behaviour Influences Species-Specific Gas Exchange Across Avian Eggshells, Steven J. Portugal, Golo Maurer, Gavin H. Thomas, Mark E. Hauber, Tomáš Grim, Phillip Cassey

Publications and Research

Carefully controlled gas exchange across the eggshell is essential for the development of the avian embryo. Water vapour conductance (GH2O) across the shell, typically measured as mass loss during incubation, has been demonstrated to optimally ensure the healthy development of the embryo while avoiding desiccation. Accordingly, eggs exposed to sub-optimal gas exchange have reduced hatching success. We tested the association between eggshell GH2O and putative life-history correlates of adult birds, ecological nest parameters and physical characteristics of the egg itself to investigate how variation in GH2O has evolved to maintain optimal water loss across a diverse set of nest environments. …

Dog Movie Stars And Dog Breed Popularity: A Case Study In Media Influence On Choice, Stefano Ghirlanda, Alberto Acerbi, Harold Herzog

Publications and Research

Fashions and fads are important phenomena that influence many individual choices. They are ubiquitous in human societies, and have recently been used as a source of data to test models of cultural dynamics. Although a few statistical regularities have been observed in fashion cycles, their empirical characterization is still incomplete. Here we consider the impact of mass media on popular culture, showing that the release of movies featuring dogs is often associated with an increase in the popularity of featured breeds, for up to 10 years after movie release. We also find that a movie's impact on breed popularity correlates …

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Facilitates Cognitive Multi-Task Performance Differentially Depending On Anode Location And Subtask, Melissa Scheldrup, Pamela M. Greenwood, Ryan Mckendrick, Jon Strohl, Marom Bikson, Mahtab Alam, R. Andy Mckinley, Raja Parasuraman

Publications and Research

There is a need to facilitate acquisition of real world cognitive multi-tasks that require long periods of training (e.g., air traffic control, intelligence analysis, medicine). Non-invasive brain stimulation—specifically transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)—has promise as a method to speed multi-task training. We hypothesized that during acquisition of the complex multi-task Space Fortress, subtasks that require focused attention on ship control would benefit from tDCS aimed at the dorsal attention network while subtasks that require redirection of attention would benefit from tDCS aimed at the right hemisphere ventral attention network. We compared effects of 30 min prefrontal and parietal stimulation to …

Perceived Health Status Of Women With Knee Osteoarthritis: A Cross-Sectional Study Of The Relationships Of Age, Body Mass, Pain And Walking Limitations, Ray Marks

Publications and Research

Persons with knee osteoarthritis (OA) often experience considerable physical disability. Although some studies suggest women with this condition suffer more than men, few have attempted to characterize the magnitude and that impact of this condition specifically among women with moderate knee osteoarthritis as well as the relationships that exist between their perceived health status and well established physical, emotional and perceptual factors found in this disease. This exploratory study strove to better understand factors that underpin the perceived impact of the condition, and to describe the extent of pain and function among women with mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis, and …

An Information Theory Account Of Cognitive Control, Jin Fan

Publications and Research

Our ability to efficiently process information and generate appropriate responses depends on the processes collectively called cognitive control. Despite a considerable focus in the literature on the cognitive control of information processing, neural mechanisms underlying control are still unclear, and have not been characterized by considering the quantity of information to be processed. A novel and comprehensive account of cognitive control is proposed using concepts from information theory, which is concerned with communication system analysis and the quantification of information. This account treats the brain as an information-processing entity where cognitive control and its underlying brain networks play a pivotal …

Mapping The Methods Of Composition/Rhetoric Dissertations: A “Landscape Plotted And Pieced”, Benjamin M. Miller

Publications and Research

What methods do graduate students take up for their dissertation projects? This article shares findings from distant reading of 2,711 abstracts, suggesting that humanist approaches predominate within the Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition, but not without some methodological pluralism. A large number of studies outside the consortium are also considered.

Statistical Signs Of Social Influence On Suicides, Hygor Piaget M. Melo, André A. Moreira, Élcio Batista, Hernán A. Makse, José S. Andrade

Publications and Research

By treating the suicide as a social fact, Durkheim envisaged that suicide rates should be determined by the connections between people and society. Under the same framework, he considered that crime is bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life. The social effect on the occurrence of homicides has been previously substantiated, and confirmed here, in terms of a superlinear scaling relation: by doubling the population of a Brazilian city results in an average increment of 135% in the number of homicides, rather than the expected isometric increase of 100%, as found, for example, for the mortality due …

The Longitudinal Effect Of Drug Use On Productivity Status Of Nonmetropolitan African American Young Adults, María Isabel Roldós

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate the longitudinal effect of marijuana and heavy alcohol use on the productivity status of nonmetropolitan African American young adults. This analysis was based on secondary data from the Family and Community Health Study. For alcohol, the study evaluated the effects on productivity status for individuals with heavy alcohol use trajectories from adolescence into young adulthood while marijuana effects were evaluated during the period when adolescents are more likely to have initiated usage (14-16 years of age). Productivity status was measured when study participants were between 18 and 21 years, for both alcohol …

Student Reading Practices In Print And Electronic Media, Nancy M. Foasberg

Publications and Research

This paper reports a diary-based qualitative study on college students’ reading habits with regard to print and electronic media. Students used a form to record information about their reading practices for twelve days, including length of reading event, location, format used, and the purpose of reading. Students tended to use print for academic and long-form reading and to engage with it more deeply. Although electronic resources were sometimes used for academic purposes, students often used them for shorter and nonacademic reading. Students found electronic media convenient, but most of them did not wish to switch to electronic media for their …

The Debt Penalty: Exposing The Financial Barriers To Offender Reintegration, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Financial debt associated with legal system involvement is a pressing issue that affects the criminal justice system, offenders, and taxpayers. Mere contact with the criminal justice system often results in fees and fines that increase with progression through the system. Criminal justice fines and fees punish offenders and are designed to generate revenue for legal systems operating on limited budgets. However, fines and fees often fail to accomplish this second goal because many offenders are too poor to pay them. If they do not pay their financial obligations, they may be subject to late fees and interest requirements, all of …

Facile Synthesis Of 1-Alkoxy-1h-Benzo- And 7-Azabenzotriazoles From Peptide Coupling Agents, Mechanistic Studies, And Synthetic Applications, Mahesh K. Lakshman, Manish K. Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Raghu Ram Chamala, Vijayender R. Yedulla, Domenick Wagner, Evan Leung, Lijia Yang, Asha Matin, Sadia Ahmad

Publications and Research

(1H-Benzo[d][1,2,3]triazol-1-yloxy)tris(dimethylamino)phosphonium hexafluorophosphate (BOP), 1H-benzo[d][1,2,3]triazol-1-yl 4-methylbenzenesulfonate (Bt-OTs), and 3H-[1,2,3]triazolo[4,5-b]pyridine-3-yl 4-methylbenzenesulfonate (At-OTs) are classically utilized in peptide synthesis for amide-bond formation. However, a previously undescribed reaction of these compounds with alcohols in the presence of a base, leads to 1-alkoxy-1H-benzo- (Bt-OR) and 7-azabenzotriazoles (At-OR). Although BOP undergoes reactions with alcohols to furnish 1-alkoxy-1H-benzotriazoles, Bt-OTs proved to be superior. Both, primary and secondary alcohols undergo reaction under generally mild reaction conditions. Correspondingly, 1-alkoxy-1H-7-azabenzotriazoles were synthesized from At-OTs. Mechanistically, there are three pathways by which these peptide-coupling agents can react with alcohols. From 31P{1H}, [18O]-labeling, and other chemical experiments, phosphonium and tosylate derivatives of …

Rejection Positivity Predicts Trial-To-Trial Reaction Times In An Auditory Selective Attention Task: A Computational Analysis Of Inhibitory Control, Sufen Chen, Robert D. Melara

Publications and Research

A series of computer simulations using variants of a formal model of attention (Melara and Algom, 2003) probed the role of rejection positivity (RP), a slow-wave electroencephalographic (EEG) component, in the inhibitory control of distraction. Behavioral and EEG data were recorded as participants performed auditory selective attention tasks. Simulations that modulated processes of distractor inhibition accounted well for reaction-time (RT) performance, whereas those that modulated target excitation did not. A model that incorporated RP from actual EEG recordings in estimating distractor inhibition was superior in predicting changes in RT as a function of distractor salience across conditions. A …

Rejection Positivity Predicts Trial-To-Trial Reaction Times In An Auditory Selective Attention Task: A Computational Analysis Of Inhibitory Control, Sufen Chen, Robert D. Melara

Publications and Research

A series of computer simulations using variants of a formal model of attention (Melara and Algom, 2003) probed the role of rejection positivity (RP), a slow-wave electroencephalographic (EEG) component, in the inhibitory control of distraction. Behavioral and EEG data were recorded as participants performed auditory selective attention tasks. Simulations that modulated processes of distractor inhibition accounted well for reaction-time (RT) performance, whereas those that modulated target excitation did not. A model that incorporated RP from actual EEG recordings in estimating distractor inhibition was superior in predicting changes in RT as a function of distractor salience across conditions. A model that …

Inferring The Provenance Of An Alien Species With Dna Barcodes: The Neotropical Butterfly Dryas Iulia In Thailand, Noah A. Burg, Ashman Pradhan, Rebecca M. Gonzalez, Emely Z. Morban, Erica W. Zhen, Watana Sakchoowong, David J. Lohman

Publications and Research

The Neotropical butterfly Dryas iulia has been collected from several locations in Thailand and Malaysia since 2007, and has been observed breeding in the wild, using introduced Passiflora foetida as a larval host plant. The butterfly is bred by a butterfly house in Phuket, Thailand, for release at weddings and Buddhist ceremonies, and we hypothesized that this butterfly house was the source of wild, Thai individuals. We compared wing patterns and COI barcodes from two, wild Thai populations with individuals obtained from this butterfly house. All Thai individuals resemble the subspecies D. iulia modesta, and barcodes from wild and captive …

Utilizing Emotionally Responsive Virtual Human Role-Play Simulations To Train Users To Identify, Talk To And Refer Students In Psychological Distress Including Those At-Risk For Suicide: A Meta-Analysis, Glenn Albright, Jesse Davidson, Ron Goldman, Kristen Shockley, Sue Eastgard, Joy Himmel

Publications and Research

Background: The American College Health Association found that over 30% of students reported difficulty in functioning due to feeling depressed, overwhelming anxiety (50%) and anger (36%). Suicide is the second leading cause of death among US adolescents and over half of mental illnesses emerge prior to adulthood. A similar study found that nearly half of student veterans met criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and 46% had suicidal ideation. Left untreated, mental illness can lead to increased absenteeism, lower academic performance, disrupted classroom behaviors and compromises school safety. Educators and students are well positioned to identify and refer students in …

Revisiting The Feminine Mystique, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Audience Preferences Are Predicted By Temporal Reliability Of Neural Processing, Jacek P. Dmochowski, Matthew A. Bezdek, Brian P. Abelson, John S. Johnson, Eric H. Schumacher, Lucas C. Parra

Publications and Research

Naturalistic stimuli evoke highly reliable brain activity across viewers. Here we record neural activity from a group of naive individuals while viewing popular, previously-broadcast television content for which the broad audience response is characterized by social media activity and audience ratings. We find that the level of inter-subject correlation in the evoked encephalographic responses predicts the expressions of interest and preference among thousands. Surprisingly, ratings of the larger audience are predicted with greater accuracy than those of the individuals from whom the neural data is obtained. An additional functional magnetic resonance imaging study employing a separate sample of subjects shows …

Inter- And Intralimb Adaptations To A Sensory Perturbation During Activation Of The Serotonin System After A Low Spinal Cord Transection In Neonatal Rats, Misty M. Strain, Sierra D. Kauer, Tina Kao, Michele R. Brumley

Publications and Research

Activation of the serotonin system has been shown to induce locomotor activity following a spinal cord transection. This study examines how the isolated spinal cord adapts to a sensory perturbation during activation of the serotonergic system. Real-time and persistent effects of a perturbation were examined in intact and spinal transected newborn rats. Rats received a spinal surgery (sham or low thoracic transection) on postnatal day 1 and were tested 9 days later. At test, subjects were treated with the serotonergic receptor agonist quipazine (3.0 mg/kg) to induce stepping behavior. Half of the subjects experienced range of motion (ROM) restriction during …

Comorbidity Of Infectious Diseases And Anxiety Disorders In Adults And Its Association With Quality Of Life: A Community Study, Cornelia Witthauer, Andrew T. Gloster, Andrea Hans Meyer, Renee D. Goodwin, Roselind Lieb

Publications and Research

Objective: Infectious diseases and anxiety disorders are common and both are associated with substantial burden to individual, families, and society. A better understanding of their association may be helpful in explicating possible etiological mechanisms related to both. The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationship between specific infectious diseases and anxiety disorders among adults in the community, and to examine whether the co-occurrence of the two is associated with poorer quality of life compared to subjects with one or neither condition.

Methods: We used data from the 1998 German Mental Health survey with 4181 subjects aged 18–65. …

Increasing Maternal Or Post-Weaning Folic Acid Alters Gene Expression And Moderately Changes Behavior In The Offspring, Subit Barua, Kathryn K. Chadman, Salomon Kuizon, Diego Buenaventura, Nathan W. Stapley, Felicia Ruocco, Umme Begum, Sara R. Guariglia, W. Ted Brown, Mohamad Junaid

Publications and Research

Background: Studies have indicated that altered maternal micronutrients and vitamins influence the development of newborns and altered nutrient exposure throughout the lifetime may have potential health effects and increased susceptibility to chronic diseases. In recent years, folic acid (FA) exposure has significantly increased as a result of mandatory FA fortification and supplementation during pregnancy. Since FA modulates DNA methylation and affects gene expression, we investigated whether the amount of FA ingested during gestation alters gene expression in the newborn cerebral hemisphere, and if the increased exposure to FA during gestation and throughout the lifetime alters behavior in C57BL/6J mice.

Methods …

Punishment Without End, Douglas N. Evans

Publications and Research

Criminal justice punishments are an investment that societies make to protect the safety and order of communities. Following decades of rising prison populations, however, U.S. policymakers are beginning to wonder if they have invested too much in punishment. Policies adopted in previous decades now incarcerate large numbers of Americans and impose considerable costs on states. Mass incarceration policies are costly and potentially iatrogenic—i.e., they may transform offenders into repeat offenders. Public officials and citizens alike often assume that known offenders pose a permanent risk of future offending. This belief entangles millions of offenders in the justice system for life, with …

Beyond A Common Approach: Teaching Students The Ethical Practice Of Reference, Lisa A. Ellis

Publications and Research

This article describes the creation and use of case studies to help teach the ethical practice of reference. There are considerations for applying the case study method in reference which require cumulative preparation through the study and reinforcement of reference values, functions, behaviors, and ethical codes. The strategies for writing ethical case studies in reference are detailed. Overall, case studies on the ethical practice of reference are valued for promoting reflection and active learning in library science students through analysis and discussion.