Digital Commons Network^™

Teaching The Process Of Molecular Phylogeny And Systematics: A Multi-Part Inquiry-Based Exercise, Nathan H. Lents, Oscar E. Cifuentes, Anthony Carpi

Publications and Research

Three approaches to molecular phylogenetics are demonstrated to biology students as they explore molecular data from Homo sapiens and four related primates. By analyzing DNA sequences, protein sequences, and chromosomal maps, students are repeatedly challenged to develop hypotheses regarding the ancestry of the five species. Although these exercises were designed to supplement and enhance classroom instruction on phylogeny, cladistics, and systematics in the context of a postsecondary majors-level introductory biology course, the activities themselves require very little prior student exposure to these topics. Thus, they are well suited for students in a wide range of educational levels, including a biology …

Survivalism And Public Opinion On Criminality: A Cross-National Analysis Of Prostitution, Steven Stack, Amy Adamczyk, Liqun Cao

Publications and Research

Explanations of variability in public opinion on crime have drawn disproportionately from the literature on specific symbolic orientations including religious fundamentalism and racial prejudice. In contrast, this article hypothesizes that public opinion is linked to the strength of a general cultural axis of nations: survivalism vs. self-expressionism. Data are from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey. Hierarchical modeling techniques are used to sort out the bi-level effects of survivalist culture on the approval of prostitution. Controlling for all other predictors, the personal survivalism index was the most powerful predictor of prostitution acceptability, followed by the country-level survivalism index. …

The Mds Mortality Risk Index: The Evolution Of A Method For Predicting 6-Month Mortality In Nursing Home Residents, Davina Porock, Debra Parker-Oliver, Gregory F. Petroski, Marilyn Rantz

Publications and Research

Background: Accurate prognosis is vital to the initiation of advance care planning particularly in a vulnerable, at risk population such as care home residents. The aim of this paper is to report on the revision and simplification of the MDS Mortality Rating Index (MMRI) for use in clinical practice to predict the probability of death in six months for care home residents.

Methods: The design was a secondary analysis of a US Minimum Data Set (MDS) for long term care residents using regression analysis to identify predictors of mortality within six months.

Results: Using twelve easy to collect …

Gloria E. Anzaldúa’S Decolonizing Ritual De Conocimiento, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s work makes up one of the many Chican@ works that contribute another history, a history repressed by the national discourses on both sides of the border. Influenced by antecedents of U.S. Hispanic Literature who superposed “official” history with another history, Chicano activists had already enacted a retrieval of pre-conquest histories to revive their people’s historical consciousness. As Saldívar-Hull states in “Mestiza Consciousness and Politics: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/ La frontera,” the publication of Borderlands/ La Frontera distinguished itself from the Chicano movement’s as it unveiled the curtain that hid the Aztec goddesses and kept aspects of pre-conquest history …

Addressing And Overcoming Barriers To Youth Civic Engagement, Maria J. D'Agostino, Anne Visser

Publications and Research

Youth civic engagement—and particularly youth participation in properly designed youth programs—has indisputably favorable outcomes for the young people involved (Saito, 2006; Pancer et al., 2002; Flanagan et al., 2002). This research reviews the wide-ranging literature available on youth civic engagement in urban communities. Using content analysis, we identify organizations involved in youth engagement as well as barriers faced by organizations engaged in this policy arena. Our research also identifies 15 broad types of barriers that organizations seeking to encourage youth civic engagement encounter in building and delivering successful youth engagement programs. In addition, we discuss the emergent social and political …

Se7en: Medieval Justice, Modern Justice, Valerie Allen

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Internalized Stigma As A Barrier To Improvement In Vocational Functioning Among People With Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders, Philip T. Yanos, Paul Lysaker, David Roe

Publications and Research

We examined the relationship between internalized stigma and changes in vocational function. Persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (n=78) were assessed at baseline and 5 months after vocational rehabilitation. Internalized stigma and cognitive–behavioral treatment predicted change in vocational functioning, supporting the view that internalized stigma compromises vocational outcomes.

Photograph: Poet On Dust Jacket, Richmond, Virginia 1996, Alexander Long

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

High-Cost Religion, Religious Switching, And Health, Christopher P. Scheitle, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

Previous research has devoted significant attention to understanding the link between health and personal religious beliefs and practices, typically finding that more religious people tend to have better health. However, almost no attention has been given to how switching religious groups or leaving religion altogether is related to self-reported health. Due to selection and causation mechanisms, switching from high-cost groups that are theologically and culturally exclusive could be associated with poor health more than switching from other religious groups. Using data from the 1972 through 2006 General Social Surveys, we examine the relationship between health and religious switching as moderated …

Prospero’S Muccs: The Meaning Of Martin Scorsese’S Italian American Dialect, George Guida

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Planteamientos Colaborativos En La Didáctica De La Composición Desde Modelos Procesuales, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El presente artículo parte de una revisión del modelo tradicional de la enseñanza de la escritura en la clase de LE entendida como producto. Desde este punto de partida, se evidencian las ventajas de adoptar una escritura colaborativa basada en la consideración del texto como un proceso en construcción que pasa por diferentes fases creativas y en un modelo pedagógico que centra su atención en el alumno dentro de la práctica escrita.

SUMMARY: In the initial part of this article, we begin with a review of the traditional model of teaching composition in a foreign language class in which writing …

Qualitative Methods Can Enrich Quantitative Research On Occupational Stress: An Example From One Occupational Group, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Edwin Farrell

Publications and Research

The chapter examines the ways in which qualitative and quantitative methods support each other in research on occupational stress. Qualitative methods include eliciting from workers unconstrained descriptions of work experiences, careful first-hand observations of the workplace, and participant-observers describing ‘‘from the inside’’ a particular work experience. The chapter shows how qualitative research plays a role in (a) stimulating theory development, (b) generating hypotheses, (c) identifying heretofore researcher-neglected job stressors and coping responses, (d) explaining difficult-to-interpret quantitative findings, and (e) providing rich descriptions of stressful transactions. Extensive examples from research on job stress in teachers are used. The limitations of qualitative …

My Name And My Face, Stuart Ewen

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Blood/Lust: Freud And The Trauma Of Killing In War, Nolen Gertz

Publications and Research

During World War I, Sigmund Freud and his followers held a special symposium in Budapest entitled "Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses." Their contributions centered on the importance of trying to understand what can cause a soldier to become traumatized in war by investigating the individual factors of each case as opposed to merely the situational factors. Thus by redefining such ambiguous illnesses as shell shock and war strain into the Freudian framework of the traumatic neuroses, they were able to do what the neurologists could not — explain the meaning behind the soldiers' symptoms and treat them with successful results. …

Beyond The Youth Gap In Understanding Political Violence, Colette Daiute

Publications and Research

"Youth are never taken seriously, and we sometimes have ideas that would be good for all people." ~ Alex, Croatia

"... Some things do depend on us; war, consequences of the war, poverty; the influence of the church interfering with the state affairs, which must not be so. " ~ Ljubicia, Serbia

As we hear in these comments by two teenagers who have grown up in the shadow of political violence, their generation is aware of the past and its legacies. These brief quotes mention many details that young people in easier situations may not notice: "consequences of the war," …

Review Of Contempt, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2010/03/contempt-bluray.html

Review Of Forbidden Planet, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Fred McLeod Wilcox's Forbidden Planet: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2010/09/forbidden-planet-blu-ray.html

Real Time Imaging Of Biomarkers In The Parkinson's Brain Using Mini-Implantable Biosensors. Ii. Pharmaceutical Therapy With Bromocriptine, Patricia A. Broderick, Edwin H. Kolodny

Publications and Research

We used Neuromolecular Imaging (NMI) and trademarked BRODERICK PROBE® mini-implantable biosensors, to selectively and separately detect neuro-transmitters in vivo, on line, within seconds in the dorsal striatal brain of the Parkinson’s Disease (PD) animal model. We directly compared our results derived from PD to the normal striatal brain of the non-Parkinson’s Disease (non-PD) animal. This advanced biotechnology enabled the imaging of dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), homovanillic acid (HVA) a metabolite of DA, L-tryptophan (L-TP) a precursor to 5-HT and peptides, dynorphin A 1-17 (Dyn A) and somatostatin (somatostatin releasing inhibitory factor) (SRIF). Each neurotransmitter and neurochemical was imaged at a …

Release From Cross-Orientation Suppression Facilitates 3d Shape Perception, Andrea Li, Qasim Zaidi

Publications and Research

Cross-orientation suppression (COS) in striate cortex has been implicated in the efficient encoding of visual stimuli. We show that release from COS facilitates the decoding of 3-D shape. In planar surfaces overlaid with textures, slanting the surface can increase the visibility of the component parallel to the slant. Since this component provides the orientation flows that signify 3-D shape, the enhancement of visibility facilitates 3-D slant perception. Contrast thresholds reveal that this enhancement results from a decrease in COS when 3-D slant creates a frequency mismatch between texture components. We show that coupling compressive nonlinearities in LGN neurons with expansive …

Nonknowledge: The Bibliographical Organization Of Ignorance, Stupidity, Error, And Unreason: Part Two, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Starting with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom paradigm in information science it is possible to derive a model of the opposite of knowledge having hierarchical qualities. A range of counterpoints to concepts in the knowledge hierarchy can be identified and ascribed the overall term “nonknowledge.” This model creates a conceptual framework for understanding the connections between topics such as error, ignorance, stupidity, folly, popular misconceptions, and unreason by locating them as levels or phases of nonknowledge. The concept of nonknowledge links heretofore disconnected discourses on these individual topics by philosophers, psychologists, historians, sociologists, satirists, and others. Subject headings provide access to the categories …

El Concepto De Audiencia Y La Colaboración Entre Iguales En La Revisión De Textos Escritos, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Egg Eviction Imposes A Recoverable Cost Of Virulence In Chicks Of A Brood Parasite, Michael G. Anderson, Csaba Moskát, Miklós Bán, Tomáš Grim, Phillip Cassey, Mark E. Hauber

Publications and Research

Background Chicks of virulent brood parasitic birds eliminate their nestmates and avoid costly competition for foster parental care. Yet, efforts to evict nest contents by the blind and naked common cuckoo Cuculus canorus hatchling are counterintuitive as both adult parasites and large older cuckoo chicks appear to be better suited to tossing the eggs and young of the foster parents. Methodology/Principal Findings Here we show experimentally that egg tossing imposed a recoverable growth cost of mass gain in common cuckoo chicks during the nestling period in nests of great reed warbler Acrocephalus arundinaceus hosts. Growth rates of skeletal traits and …

Oldest Evidence Of Toolmaking Hominins In A Grassland-Dominated Ecosystem, Thomas W. Plummer, Peter W. Ditchfield, Laura C. Bishop, John D. Kingston, Joseph V. Ferraro, David R. Braun, Fritz Hertel, Richard Potts

Publications and Research

Background Major biological and cultural innovations in late Pliocene hominin evolution are frequently linked to the spread or fluctuating presence of C4 grass in African ecosystems. Whereas the deep sea record of global climatic change provides indirect evidence for an increase in C4 vegetation with a shift towards a cooler, drier and more variable global climatic regime beginning approximately 3 million years ago (Ma), evidence for grassland-dominated ecosystems in continental Africa and hominin activities within such ecosystems have been lacking. Methodology/Principal Findings We report stable isotopic analyses of pedogenic carbonates and ungulate enamel, as well as faunal data from ∼2.0 …

Extra, Extra, Read All About It!, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Identifying Publication Outlets In Occupational Health Psychology: An Opinion Survey, Maria Karanika-Murray, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Leigh Schmitt

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Ron’S Right Arm: Tactility, Visualization, And The Synesthesia Of Audio Engineering, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Most scholarship on audio engineering analyzes practices and practitioners in terms of musical and technical knowledges. The few references to sensory perception typically center on critical listening practices (“golden ears” engineers), audiophilia, and technologies of audition. However, particularly in light of computer-based workflows, the practice of audio engineering features carefully developed synesthesias of critical listening, visualization of digital audio, and tactile manipulations of interfaces, which can’t adequately be explained as cognitive processes or as conscious knowledge.

I draw on literature in the emerging field of sensory scholarship, in particular Brian Massumi’s theorization of synesthesia and affect and Charles Hirschkind’s analyses …

The Impact Of Socioeconomic Status On The Neural Substrates Associated With Pleasure, Michael E. Silverman, Peter Muennig, Xun Liu, Zohn Rosen, Martin A. Goldstein

Publications and Research

Low socio-economic status (SES) is associated with increased morbidity and premature mortality. Because tonic adversity relates to a diminished ability to experience pleasure, we hypothesized that subjects living in poverty would show diminished neural responsivity to positive stimuli in regions associated with positive experience and reward. Visual images were presented to twenty-two subjects in the context of a EPI-BOLD fMRI paradigm. Significant differences in neural responses between SES groups to poverty vs. neutral images were assessed, examining group, condition, and interaction effects. The data suggest that persons living in low-SES have neural experiences consistent with diminished interest in things generally …

Cloaked Websites: Propaganda, Cyber-Racism And Epistemology In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This article analyzes cloaked websites, which are sites published by individuals or groups who conceal authorship in order to disguise deliberately a hidden political agenda. Drawing on the insights of critical theory and the Frankfurt School, this article examines the way in which cloaked websites conceal a variety of political agendas from a range of perspectives. Of particular interest here are cloaked white supremacist sites that disguise cyber-racism. The use of cloaked websites to further political ends raises important questions about knowledge production and epistemology in the digital era. These cloaked sites emerge within a social and political context in …

Review Of "The Globalisation Of Addiction: A Study In Poverty Of The Spirit" By Bruce K. Alexander, Harry G. Levine

Publications and Research

Book review of "The Globalisation Of Addiction: A Study In Poverty Of The Spirit" by Bruce K. Alexander

The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy And Its Antithesis, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

The now taken-for-granted notion that data lead to information, which leads to knowledge, which in turnleads to wisdom was first specified in detail by R. L. Ackoff in 1988. The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy is based on filtration, reduction, and transformation. Besides being causal and hierarchical,the scheme is pyramidal, in that data are plentiful while wisdom is almost nonexistent. Ackoff’s formulalinking these terms together this way permits us to ask what the opposite of knowledge is and whether analogous principles of hierarchy, process, and pyramiding apply to it. The inversion of the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom hierarchy produces a series of opposing terms (including misinformation,error, …