The following creative project defends that, whether intentionally or not, mental illness and substance abuse are inevitably romanticized in young adult media and discusses the dangers of this romanticization. This project is divided into three parts. The first part consists of psychological evaluations of the main characters of two popular, contemporary forms of young adult media, Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger and Euphoria by Sam Levinson. These evaluations use textual evidence and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) to determine what symptoms of psychopathology the characters appear to display. The second part consists of a self-written short story that is meant to accurately depict the life of a young adult struggling with mental illness and substance abuse. This story contains various aesthetic techniques borrowed from the two young adult media forms. The final part consists of an aesthetic statement which discusses in depth the aesthetic techniques employed within the short story, Quicksand by Anisha Mehra.
There is surprisingly little scientific literature describing whether a hockey slap shot positively or negatively transfers to a driving golf swing. Golf and hockey use a similar kinematic sequence to send the ball / puck towards a target, but does that directly translate to positive skill transfer between the two sports, or are there other important factors that could result in a negative skill transfer? The aim of this study is to look further into the two kinematic sequences and determine their intertask skill transfer type. A field experiment was conducted, following a specific research design, in order to compare performance between two groups, one being familiar with the skill that may transfer (hockey slapshot) and the other group being unfamiliar. Both groups had no experience in the skill being tested (driving golf swing) and various data was collected as all of the subjects performed 10 golf swings. The results of the data analysis showed that the group with experience in hockey had a higher variability of ball distance and ball speed. There are many factors of a hockey slapshot that are likely to develop a negative intertask skill transfer, resulting in this group's high inconsistency when performing a golf swing. On the other hand, the group with hockey experience also had higher mean club speed, showing that some aspects of the hockey slapshot resulted in a positive skill transfer, aiding their ability to perform a golf swing.
Oscillatory perturbations with varying amplitudes and frequencies have been found to significantly affect human standing balance. However, previous studies have only applied perturbation in either the anterior-posterior (AP) or the medio-lateral (ML) directions. Little is currently known about the impacts of 2D oscillatory perturbations on postural stability, which are more commonly seen in daily life (i.e., while traveling on trains, ships, etc.). This study investigated the effects of applying 2D perturbations vs 1D perturbations on standing stability, and how increasing the frequency and amplitude of perturbation impacts postural stability. A dual-axis robotic platform was utilized to simulate various oscillatory perturbations and evaluate standing postural stability. Fifteen young healthy subjects were recruited to perform quiet stance on the platform. Impacts of perturbation direction (i.e., 1D versus 2D), amplitude, and frequency on postural stability were investigated by analyzing different stability measures, specifically AP/ML/2D Center-of-Pressure (COP) path length, AP/ML/2D Time-to-Boundary (TtB), and sway area. Standing postural stability was compromised more by 2D perturbations than 1D perturbations, evidenced by a significant increase in COP path length and sway area and decrease in TtB. Further, the stability decreased as 2D perturbation amplitude and frequency increased. A significant increase in COP path length and decrease in TtB were consistently observed as the 2D perturbation amplitude and frequency increased. However, sway area showed a considerable increase only with increasing perturbation amplitude but not with increasing frequency.
People with multiple sclerosis (MS) exhibit pronounced changes in brain structure, activity, and connectivity. While considerable work has begun to elucidate how these neural changes contribute to behavior, the heterogeneity of symptoms and diagnoses makes interpretation of findings and application to clinical practice challenging. In particular, whether MS related changes in brain activity or brain connectivity protect against or contribute to worsening motor symptoms is unclear. With the recent emergence of neuromodulatory techniques that can alter neural activity in specific brain regions, it is critical to establish whether localized brain activation patterns are contributing to (i.e. maladaptive) or protecting against (i.e. adaptive) progression of motor symptoms. In this manuscript, we consolidate recent findings regarding changes in supraspinal structure and activity in people with MS and how these changes may contribute to motor performance. Furthermore, we discuss a hypothesis suggesting that increased neural activity during movement may be either adaptive or maladaptive depending on where in the brain this increase is observed. Specifically, we outline preliminary evidence suggesting sensorimotor cortex activity in the ipsilateral cortices may be maladaptive in people with MS. We also discuss future work that could supply data to support or refute this hypothesis, thus improving our understanding of this important topic.