The pads were created using varying amounts of LM and matrix materials ranging from copper microspheres to diamond powder mixed into PDMS using a high-speed mixer. The material was then cast into molds and cured to create the pads. Once the pads were created, the difficulty came in quantifying their thermal properties. A stepped bar apparatus (SBA) following ASTM D5470 was created to measure the thermal resistance of the pads but it was determined that thermal conductivity was a more usable metric of the pads’ performance. This meant that the pad’s in-situ thickness was needed during testing, prompting the installation of a linear encoder to measure the thickness. The design and analysis of the necessary modification and proposed future design is further detailed in the following paper.
Cultural and ethnic identities influence the relationships individuals seek out and how they feel and behave in these relationships, which can strongly affect mental and physical health through their impacts on emotions, physiology, and behavior. We proposed and tested a model in which ethnocultural identifications and ingroup affiliations were hypothesized explicitly to enhance social connectedness, which would in turn promote expectancy for effective regulation of negative emotions and reduce self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. Our sample comprised women aged 18–30 currently attending college in the Southwestern US, who self-identified as Hispanic of Mexican descent (MAs; n = 82) or as non-Hispanic White/European American (EAs; n = 234) and who completed an online survey. In the full sample and in each subgroup, stronger ethnocultural group identity and greater comfort with mainstream American culture were associated with higher social connectedness, which in turn was associated with expectancy for more effective regulation of negative emotions, fewer depressive symptoms, and less anxiety. Unexpectedly, preference for ingroup affiliation predicted lower social connectedness in both groups. In addition to indirect effects through social connection, direct paths from mainstream comfort and preference for ingroup affiliation to emotion regulation expectancy were found for EAs. Models of our data underscore that social connection is a central mechanism through which ethnocultural identities—including with one's own group and the mainstream cultural group—relate to mental health, and that emotion regulation may be a key aspect of this linkage. We use the term ethnocultural social connection to make explicit a process that, we believe, has been implied in the ethnic identity literature for many years, and that may have consequential implications for mental health and conceptualizations of processes underlying mental disorders.
This essay outlines a recent assignment I designed for an upper-division cross-listed women and gender studies/social justice and human rights course I teach called, “Trash, Freaks, and SCUM.” In the context of the students reading Edward Humes’ (2012) Garbology, the trash bag assignment asked that students carry around their trash for two 48-hour periods and that they present it to the class. While the first two day period assesses their actual trash output, students are asked to produce as little trash as possible for the second two day period. This assignment aims to make trash visible and to help students learn about climate change, sustainability, conspicuous consumption, and how their individual carbon footprint contributes to the “big picture” of environmental strain. I describe this assignment and its goals in this essay, followed by an assessment of its role in teaching about social justice, in order to underscore the importance of experiential learning with trash and to highlight how this assignment fits the mission of my courses on feminism and social justice.
Resource-poor social environments predict poor health, but the mechanisms and processes linking the social environment to psychological health and well-being remain unclear. This study explored psychosocial mediators of the association between the social environment and mental health in African American adults. African American men and women (n = 1467) completed questionnaires on the social environment, psychosocial factors (stress, depressive symptoms, and racial discrimination), and mental health. Multiple-mediator models were used to assess direct and indirect effects of the social environment on mental health. Low social status in the community (p < .001) and U.S. (p < .001) and low social support (p < .001) were associated with poor mental health. Psychosocial factors significantly jointly mediated the relationship between the social environment and mental health in multiple-mediator models. Low social status and social support were associated with greater perceived stress, depressive symptoms, and perceived racial discrimination, which were associated with poor mental health. Results suggest the relationship between the social environment and mental health is mediated by psychosocial factors and revealed potential mechanisms through which social status and social support influence the mental health of African American men and women. Findings from this study provide insight into the differential effects of stress, depression and discrimination on mental health. Ecological approaches that aim to improve the social environment and psychosocial mediators may enhance health-related quality of life and reduce health disparities in African Americans.
Brucellosis is a bacterial disease caused by brucella; mainly spread by direct contact transmission through the brucella carriers, or indirect contact transmission by the environment containing large quantities of bacteria discharged by the infected individuals. At the beginning of 21st century, the epidemic among dairy cows in Zhejiang province, began to come back and has become a localized prevalent epidemic. Combining the pathology of brucellosis, the reported positive data characteristics, and the feeding method in Zhejiang province, this paper establishes an SEIV dynamic model to excavate the internal transmission dynamics, fit the real disease situation, predict brucellosis tendency and assess control measures in dairy cows. By careful analysis, we give some quantitative results as follows. (1) The external input of dairy cows from northern areas may lead to high fluctuation of the number of the infectious cows in Zhejiang province that can reach several hundreds. In this case, the disease cannot be controlled and the infection situation cannot easily be predicted. Thus, this paper encourages cows farms to insist on self-supplying production of the dairy cows. (2) The effect of transmission rate of brucella in environment to dairy cattle on brucellosis spreading is greater than transmission rate of the infectious dairy cattle to susceptible cattle. The prevalence of the epidemic is mainly aroused by environment transmission. (3) Under certain circumstances, the epidemic will become a periodic phenomenon. (4) For Zhejiang province, besides measures that have already been adopted, sterilization times of the infected regions is suggested as twice a week, and should be combined with management of the birth rate of dairy cows to control brucellosis spread.
More has changed in journal publishing in the past twenty years than the previous four centuries. Digital technologies have transformed the submission, review, production and distribution of scholarly materials, with the result that there has been exponential growth in the number of papers published in an expanding roster of journals—some are mainstream, some highly specialized, some are produced by publishers who have existed since printing began and others are produced by small groups with niche interests.
This paper aims to contribute to the evolving literature on the new landscape of scholarly journals. It builds on a series of experiences as a journal editor which span the print and digital eras, and focuses on two current activities with new journals. One was designed as a synoptic journal in a broad multidisciplinary field, supported by a commercial publisher; the other a non-revenue journal which aims to showcase the work of undergraduates in the author’s institution. Despite the uniqueness of goals and delivery, some of the experiences—and challenges—have proved remarkably similar.
Restoration projects can have varying goals, depending on the specific focus, rationale, and aims for restoration. When restoration projects use project-specific goals to define activities and gauge success without considering broader ecological context, determination of project implications and success can be confounding. We used case studies from the Middle Rio Grande (MRG), southwest USA, to demonstrate how restoration outcomes can rank inconsistently when narrowly-based goals are used. Resource managers have chosen MRG for restoration due to impacts to the natural flood regime, reduced native tree recruitment, and establishment of non-native plants. We show restoration “success” ranks differently based upon three goals: increasing biodiversity, increasing specific ecosystem functions, or restoring native communities. We monitored 12 restored and control sites for seven years. Treatments ranked higher in reducing exotic woody populations, and increasing proportions of native plants and groundwater salvage, but generally worse at removing fuels, and increasing species and habitat structural diversity. Managers cannot rely on the term “restoration” to sufficiently describe a project’s aim. Specific desired outcomes must be defined and monitored. Long-term planning should include flexibility to incorporate provisions for adaptive management to refine treatments to avoid unintended ecological consequences.
Visual perceptual learning (VPL) is defined as visual performance improvement after visual experiences. VPL is often highly specific for a visual feature presented during training. Such specificity is observed in behavioral tuning function changes with the highest improvement centered on the trained feature and was originally thought to be evidence for changes in the early visual system associated with VPL. However, results of neurophysiological studies have been highly controversial concerning whether the plasticity underlying VPL occurs within the visual cortex. The controversy may be partially due to the lack of observation of neural tuning function changes in multiple visual areas in association with VPL. Here using human subjects we systematically compared behavioral tuning function changes after global motion detection training with decoded tuning function changes for 8 visual areas using pattern classification analysis on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals. We found that the behavioral tuning function changes were extremely highly correlated to decoded tuning function changes only in V3A, which is known to be highly responsive to global motion with human subjects. We conclude that VPL of a global motion detection task involves plasticity in a specific visual cortical area.