Digital Commons Network^™

Female Prisoners, Mental Health, And Contact With Family And Friends, Katarzyna Celinska, Irina Fanarraga

Publications and Research

The present study explores the psychological symptoms of 194 female inmates housed in a northeast state prison. Imprisoned women completed Derogatis’ (2001) Brief Symptom Inventory-18 and responded to questions on the frequency of contact with family and friends via phone calls, letters, and visitations. The results showed significant correlations between psychological symptoms and modes of contact. Multiple regression models revealed that certain types of contact with family and friends had a statistically significant impact on the self-reported psychological symptoms of female inmates. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed.

An Oer / Coil Project On "Society And Cross-Cultural Interaction: Verbal And Non-Verbal Communication Across Cultures", Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Publications and Research

The presenter’s goal is to discuss the research she has developed: an OER [open educational resources] course content and how she co-designed a COIL [collaborative online international learning] partnership course that was used by students in diversity and multicultural education courses which focused on race and ethnicity, how we see things based on several factors, how it influences the choices and decisions we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working /living situations with people of diverse cultures.

This course was structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students’ social skills in dealing with racial and …

Acknowledging The Relevance Of Elephant Sensory Perception To Human–Elephant Conflict Mitigation, Robbie Ball, Sarah L. Jacobson, Matthew S. Rudolph, Miranda Trapani, Joshua M. Plotnik

Publications and Research

Elephants are well known for their socio-cognitive abilities and capacity for multi-modal sensory perception and communication. Their highly developed olfactory and acoustic senses provide them with a unique non-visual perspective of their physical and social worlds. The use of these complex sensory signals is important not only for communication between conspecifics, but also for decisions about foraging and navigation. These decisions have grown increasingly risky given the exponential increase in unpredictable anthropogenic change in elephants’ natural habitats. Risk taking often develops from the overlap of human and elephant habitat in Asian and African range countries, where elephants forage for food …

Managing Illegality On Campus: Undocumented Mismatch Between Students And Staff, Holly E. Reed, Sofya Aptekar, Amy Hsin

Publications and Research

Contributing to the literature on the institutional experiences of undocumented youth, this essay by Holly E. Reed, Sofya Aptekar, and Amy Hsin explores undocumented and “DACAmented” students’ experiences managing their illegality on campus and how college staff and faculty manage that illegality while organizing programs and support. Their analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with more than a hundred undocumented college students and former students and thirty-five faculty and staff members at the City University of New York identifies multiple points of tension. The “undocumented mismatch” between campus management of illegality and student experiences was evident in the exclusion and …

Occupational Depression In A Spanish-Speaking Sample: Associations With Cognitive Performance And Work-Life Characteristics, Bianchi Renzo, Guadalupe Manzano García, Maria Pilar Montanes, Emily A. Schonfeld, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

This 386-participant study investigated the structural and psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Occupational Depression Inventory (ODI). Exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis revealed that the ODI meets the requirements for essential unidimensionality. Measurement invariance held across our sample and the English- and French-speaking samples used in the ODI’s initial validation study. Mokken scale analysis indicated that (a) the scalability of the instrument was strong, (b) no violations of monotonicity or local independence were present, and (c) invariant item ordering was sufficiently accurate. The ODI’s reliability was optimal. The ODI exhibited both convergent validity and discriminant validity vis-à-vis …

Clcd (Children's Literature Comprehensive Database) Enterprise, Sonali Sugrim

Publications and Research

CLCD Enterprise is one of three products offered by CLCD (Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database), LLC. CLCD Enterprise is an online database that provides access to book reviews, thematic lists, award winning content and curriculum tools of disparate collections for grade pre-K through 12 media of all types. The database allows for power search, advanced search, and award search options for browsing and locating content. CLCD Enterprise is available through a subscription and valuable for those in education, library and information science and literature fields looking for a tool to expand on collection and curriculum development, and reader advisory suggestions for …

Medical Norm Of Psychiatric Misdiagnoses In Rare Disease Patients, Rachel Han

Publications and Research

Spring 2022 ENG 120 Student Final Research Paper on the medical norm of psychiatric misdiagnosis throughout the diagnostic journeys of rare disease patients. The idea of a norm was taken from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Tedx Talk "The Danger of a Single Story". Paper discusses prevalence, harmful effects, and origin of this medical norm. Includes discussion of statistical data quoted relating to prevalence of rare diseases as well as anecdotal evidence of the severe ramifications of this norm. Discussion of how medically unexplained symptoms such as mysterious chronic pain often lead to the phenomenon of the psychogenic inference. Origins of this …

Parent Perspectives On Early Childhood Education Integration, Maria S. Mavrides Calderon, Gregory Brender

Publications and Research

Former Mayor De Blasio made the expansion of 3-K for All and Pre-K for All a top priority of his administration. In its re-procurement of contracts for community-based early childhood education providers, the De Blasio administration’s Department of Education made it a priority for programs to “foster socio-economic integration at the classroom level.” Mayor Eric L. Adams has spoken of his own experience being educated in segregated schools and has called for students to be exposed to more diverse environments (Shapiro, 2021). It is up to his administration to implement the changes that will foster desegregation in New York City’s …

“The Amount Of Labor We Do For Free” And Other Contradictions: A Collective Inquiry Into The Pedagogical Choices Of Cuny Adjunct And Graduate Student Instructors Who Taught With Free Of Charge Materials During The Year 2020, Sami Disu, Joanna Dressel, Jamila Hammami, Marianne Madoré, Conor Tomás Reed

Publications and Research

A collective of five CUNY researchers developed and conducted a survey-based study of how CUNY adjunct and graduate student faculty taught with free of charge materials during the year 2020. A total of 152 respondents filled out the survey. Four themes emerged from the analysis of their responses:

1. Adjunct and graduate student faculty who taught with free of charge materials at CUNY in 2020 were motivated by economic, logistical, and pedagogical benefits. They invested considerable amounts of time in both creating and selecting material.
2. Their pedagogical choices about learning materials were formed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the …

Home Sweet Home? Examining Residential Instability And Preschoolers’ Early Mathematics Development, Marisha Kashyap

Publications and Research

In 2020, approximately 13% of all children under five experienced residential instability. Residential instability, also known as housing instability, is known to compromise the socio-emotional and behavioral development of young children. However, there is limited evidence documenting the effect of housing instability on preschoolers' cognitive and academic abilities, in particular the development of mathematics skills. The present literature review argues that unstable residential conditions have important implications for preschoolers’ early mathematics development. First, the current literature review explores the implications of residential instability for the early childhood developmental period. Then this review examines current studies on promotive and risk factors …

The Contemporary American Juvenile Justice System: Revisiting Parens Patriae, Katarzyna Celinska, Amina Cheboubi

Publications and Research

The American juvenile justice system has undergone significant transformations since its inception in the late 19th century. In this paper, the authors seek to analyze the historical context of and subsequent reforms to the juvenile system and process in order to determine whether they remain true to their origins of the legal doctrine of parens patriae. Specifically, the authors contrast rehabilitative notions of parens patriae with the “tough on crime” perspective that developed in the 1990s in response to rising crime rates. This debate is illustrated by landmark Supreme Court cases, waivers to the adult system, increases in the use …

“I Can Math, Too!”: Reducing Math Anxiety In Stem-Related Courses Using A Combined Mindfulness And Growth Mindset Approach (Magma) In The Classroom, Tashana S. Samuel, Sebastien Buttet, Jared Warner

Publications and Research

Math anxiety has become an alarming social justice concern, as it results in negative academic consequences, contributes to disinterest and lack of persistence in STEM programs for underrepresented students, and limits their opportunities in STEM careers. According to research, this fear of math occurs long before students begin working on math problems. When high-math anxious students encounter math situations, anticipation anxiety consumes working memory capacity, inhibits learning, and causes them to severely underperform on mathematical tasks. However, very few studies have been conducted to embed psychological interventions in the classroom in an effort to mitigate both anticipation and execution anxiety. …

Linking Authentic Leadership With Employee Initiative Behavior And Task Performance: The Mediating Role Of Emotional Sharing And Communication Satisfaction, Jeong Sik Kim, Jong Gyu Park, Hyun Jung Park

Publications and Research

Our study aims to explore the process through which authentic leadership leads to employees’ initiative behavior and task performance. In particular, we focused on the mediating roles of emotional sharing and communication satisfaction. Based on data collected from 242 employee-supervisor dyads, we found that authentic leadership was significantly related to emotional sharing, which was sequentially significantly related to communication satisfaction. Communication satisfaction was significantly associated with initiative behavior and task performance. In addition, emotional sharing and communication satisfaction played significant mediating roles not only in the relationship between authentic leadership and initiative behavior, but also in the relationship between authentic …

Sensing Brownness: On Racialization, Perception, And Method, Amber Jamilla Musser

Publications and Research

Maureen Catbagan’s Dark Matter (2020) photography series invites us into sensing brownness. In these images of museum passages and stairwells, silhouettes of museum guards, and evocative shadows, Catbagan presents the landscape of the museum. However, this may not be immediately recognizable because the photographs draw focus to the parts of museums to which we rarely pay attention. In particular, Catbagan’s attention to the presence of guards allows us to perceive dynamics of racialized and gendered labor and laborers who, in an echo of their architectural focus on minor, peripheral spaces and shadows, hover between the underrecognized and oft-neglected, thereby allowing …

Library Wayfinding And Esol Students: Communication Challenges And Empathy-Based Intervention, Nora Almeida, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

This article describes a wayfinding study conducted in an urban, academic library to better understand the experiences of multilingual student populations. The study, which incorporated traditional user experience methods and video ethnography, exposed communication obstacles and spatial challenges encountered by students of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) when attempting information retrieval tasks. After outlining the methodology and examining qualitative findings, the authors discuss how study findings prompted a reevaluation of local practices, service models, and staff training protocols. Finally, the authors explore the potential for qualitative, empathy-based wayfinding studies to transform library practices and spaces.

Designing Respectful Tech: What Is Your Relationship With Technology?, Noreen Y. Whysel

Publications and Research

According to research at the Me2B Alliance, people feel they have a relationship with technology. It’s emotional. It’s embodied. And it’s very personal. We are studying digital relationships to answer questions like “Do people have a relationship with technology?” “What does that relationship feel like?” And “Do people understand the commitments that they are making when they explore, enter into and dissolve these relationships?” There are parallels between messy human relationships and the kinds of relationships that people develop with technology. As with human relationships, we move through states of discovery, commitment and breakup with digital applications as well. Technology …

Sleep And Economic Status Are Linked To Daily Life Stress In African-Born Blacks Living In America., Zoe C. Waldman, Blayne R. Schenk, Marie Grace Duhuze Karera, Arielle C. Patterson, Thomas Hormenu, Lilian S. Mabundo, Christopher W. Dubose, Ram Jagannathan, Peter L. Whitesell, Annemarie Wentzel, Margrethe F. Horlyck-Romanovsky, Anne E. Sumner

Publications and Research

To identify determinants of daily life stress in Africans in America, 156 African-born Blacks (Age: 40 ± 10 years (mean ± SD), range 22-65 years) who came to the United States as adults (age ≥ 18 years) were asked about stress, sleep, behavior and socioeconomic status. Daily life stress and sleep quality were assessed with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), respectively. High-stress was defined by the threshold of the upper quartile of population distribution of PSS (≥16) and low-stress as PSS < 16. Poor sleep quality required PSQI > 5. Low income was defined as groups, PSS were: 21 ± 4 versus …

Pathological Human Tau Induces Alterations In The Brain Insulin Signaling Cascade, Abdeslem El Idrissi, Alejandra Del Carmen Alonso

Publications and Research

The process of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease has been associated with a disruption of insulin signaling cascade in neurons, and to insulin resistance. T2DM correlates with Alzheimer’s disease, but mechanisms of interaction are unknown. We have developed a mouse model of tau induced neurodegeneration expressing pseudo-phosphorylated tau [Pathological Human Tau (PH-Tau)] in neurons. This model (PH-Tau-Tg) recapitulated cognitive decline and neurodegeneration observed in AD. In this study we examined if expression of PH-Tau could affect neuronal excitability and insulin receptor signaling. Neuronal excitability was investigated using intracerebral recordings of extracellular field potentials from prefrontal cortex after insulin and kainic acid …

Integrating Natural Language Processing And Interpretive Thematic Analyses To Gain Human-Centered Design Insights On Hiv Mobile Health: Proof-Of-Concept Analysis, Simone J. Skeen, Stephen Scott Jones, Carolyn Marie Cruse, Keith J. Horvath

Publications and Research

Background: HIV mobile health (mHealth) interventions often incorporate interactive peer-to-peer features. The user-generated content (UGC) created by these features can offer valuable design insights by revealing what topics and life events are most salient for participants, which can serve as targets for subsequent interventions. However, unstructured, textual UGC can be difficult to analyze. Interpretive thematic analyses can preserve rich narratives and latent themes but are labor-intensive and therefore scale poorly. Natural language processing (NLP) methods scale more readily but often produce only coarse descriptive results. Recent calls to advance the field have emphasized the untapped potential of combined NLP …

Spontaneous Eye Blink Rate During The Working Memory Delay Period Predicts Task Accuracy, Jefferson Ortega, Chelsea Reichert Plaska, Bernard Gomes, Timothy M. Ellmore

Publications and Research

Spontaneous eye blink rate (sEBR) has been linked to attention and memory, specifically working memory (WM). sEBR is also related to striatal dopamine (DA) activity with schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease showing increases and decreases, respectively, in sEBR. A weakness of past studies of sEBR and WM is that correlations have been reported using blink rates taken at baseline either before or after performance of the tasks used to assess WM. The goal of the present study was to understand how fluctuations in sEBR during different phases of a visual WM task predict task accuracy. In two experiments, with recordings of …

Factors Associated With Hepatitis B Medication Adherence And Persistence Among Underserved Chinese And Vietnamese Americans, Aisha Bhimla, Lin Zhu, Wenyue Lu, Sarit Golub, Chibuzo Enemchukwu, Elizabeth Handorf, Yin Tan, Ming-Chin Yeh, Minhhuyen T. Nguyen, Min Qi Wang, Grace X. Ma

Publications and Research

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection disproportionately affects Asian Amer- icans in the United States, while this population faces low adherence to HBV treatment. Using the information–motivation–behavioral skills model (IMB), the study aims to examine medication adherence and persistence among Chinese and Vietnamese people with HBV. Methodology: Study participants were recruited between March 2019 and March 2020 and were enrolled through multiple recruitment approaches in the Greater Philadelphia Area and New York City. The study is an assess- ment of the baseline data on medication adherence, HBV-related knowledge, motivation of HBV med- ication treatment, self-efficacy about HBV medication treatment, and …

Possibilities For Using Visual Drawing With Student-Teachers: Linking Childhood Memories To Future Teaching Selves, Debbie Sonu

Publications and Research

Drawing from memory-work, this study examines the relationship between childhood and the peda- gogical perspectives and practices of 16 pre-service student-teachers enrolled at one large university in the United States. In an analysis of their visual drawings and written narratives of childhood memories, student-teachers link childhood pasts with teaching futures in three distinct ways: 1) intimate con- nections with former teachers, 2) difficult life circumstances involving loss or trauma, and 3) the primacy of family and culture. Each set of memories is tied to a range of responsibilities that student-teachers vow to uphold, leading towards more re!exive practices in teacher …

Attitudes Towards Wearing Masks Among Young Adults, Diana Saiki, Alyssa Dana Adomaitis, Jay Kandiah

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate attitudes about mask characteristics among young adults. Research questions included the following: (1) How do attitudes about: Do practical characteristics of masks influence mask-wearing? and (2) Does mask style and extrinsic characteristics influence mask-wearing? A mixed-methods approach was used. In December 2020, a survey was distributed online to fashion classes in the Midwest(rural) and Northeast (urban). The questionnaire contained a demographics section, open-ended questions about participants’ attitudes about masks, questions on mask-wearing behaviour, and a list of garment characteristics. The open-ended questions were analyzed for themes. The Likert scale questions were analyzed …

Linking Critical Consciousness And Health: The Utility Of The Critical Reflection About Social Determinants Of Health Scale (Cr_Sdh), Liliane Cambraia Windsor, Alexis Jemal, Jacob Goffnett, Douglas Cary Smith, Jesus Sarol Jr.

Publications and Research

Introduction: Critical consciousness (CC) theory has been proposed as a framework to inform health interventions targeting a wide variety of health conditions. Unfortunately, methodological limitations have made it difficult to test CC as a mediator of health outcomes. Specifically, standardized and widely accepted measures of health- related CC are needed. The goal of this study was to develop and test a measure of critical reflection on social determinants of health (SDH). This measure focused on critical reflection, an essential dimension of CC.

Methods: Community-based participatory research principles and a mixed methods design were used with three samples: (1) experts in …

Does Breastfeeding Account For The Association Between Maternal Sensitivity And Infant Cognitive Development In A Large, Nationally Representative Cohort?, P. Nina Banerjee, Karen E. Mcfadden, Jacqueline D. Shannon, Leslie L. Davidson

Publications and Research

Background: Previous research has established that exposure to high maternal sensitivity is positively associated with advances in infant cognitive development. However, there are many fixed and modifiable factors that influence this association. This study investigates whether the association between maternal sensitivity and infant cognitive development in the first year of life is accounted for by other factors, such as breastfeeding, maternal depressive symptoms, maternal alcohol use, infant birth weight or demographic covariates.

Methods: Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth (ECLS-B) Cohort, a nationally representative sample of U.S. born children, multi-variable regression analyses was used to examine whether breastfeeding, …

Emotion Recognition With Audio, Video, Eeg, And Emg: A Dataset And Baseline Approaches, Jin Chen, Tony Ro, Zhigang Zhu

Publications and Research

This paper describes a new posed multimodal emotional dataset and compares human emotion classification based on four different modalities - audio, video, electromyography (EMG), and electroencephalography (EEG). The results are reported with several baseline approaches using various feature extraction techniques and machine-learning algorithms. First, we collected a dataset from 11 human subjects expressing six basic emotions and one neutral emotion. We then extracted features from each modality using principal component analysis, autoencoder, convolution network, and mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC), some unique to individual modalities. A number of baseline models have been applied to compare the classification performance in emotion recognition, …

The Rise And Fall Of Dopamine: A Two-Stage Model Of The Development And Entrenchment Of Anorexia Nervosa, Jeff A. Beeler, Nesha S. Burghardt

Publications and Research

Dopamine has long been implicated as a critical neural substrate mediating anorexia nervosa (AN). Despite nearly 50 years of research, the putative direction of change in dopamine function remains unclear and no consensus on the mechanistic role of dopamine in AN has been achieved. We hypothesize two stages i n AN– corresponding to initial development and entrenchment– characterized by opposite changes in dopamine. First, caloric restriction, particularly when combined with exercise, triggers an escalating spiral of increasing dopamine that facilitates the behavioral plasticity necessary to establish and reinforce weight-loss behaviors. Second, chronic self-starvation reverses this escalation to reduce or impair …

Toward A Multimodal Computer-Aided Diagnostic Tool For Alzheimer’S Disease Conversion, Danilo Pena, Jessika Suescun, Mya Schiess, Timothy M. Ellmore, Luca Giancardo, Alzheimer’S Disease Neuroimaging Initiative

Publications and Research

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder. It is one of the leading sources of morbidity and mortality in the aging population AD cardinal symptoms include memory and executive function impairment that profoundly alters a patient’s ability to perform activities of daily living. People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) exhibit many of the early clinical symptoms of patients with AD and have a high chance of converting to AD in their lifetime. Diagnostic criteria rely on clinical assessment and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Many groups are working to help automate this process to improve the clinical workflow. Current …

The Imaginal Lexicon Of Aging Studies, William Ebenstein

Publications and Research

Aging Studies focuses on the cultural, humanistic and experiential aspects of aging insofar as these are already embedded in literature, art, language and everyday life. The lexicon of this multi-disciplinary field has evolved in response to shifts in cultural attitudes, social roles, and conceptual frameworks. At the same time, many age-related words have links to poetic imagery and ancient myths, and to evocative etymologies that conjure an historical context. The article looks at the ongoing and surprisingly difficult effort to find the right word to call an older person. It reviews the language and literary genres associated with longevity. And, …

What Faith Teaches Us: An Essay On Faith Adiele, Rochelle Spencer

Publications and Research

Essay on the writer Faith Adiele and women's bodies.