Effects of a Wilderness Orientation Program on Student Expectations of Adjustment to College

Wilderness orientation programs are being used at some colleges and universities in the United States to supplement traditional orientation programs for incoming first-year students. Over the past twenty years, the use of wilderness orientation programs has increased significantly; however, little empirical evidence exists to evaluate the benefits of wilderness orientation programs. This study was designed to examine how one wilderness orientation program affects expectations for adjustment to college among first-year student participants. An adaptation of Baker and Siryk\u27s (1989) Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire was used to evaluate adjustment expectations. This questionnaire includes four dimensions of student adjustment: academic adjustment, social adjustment, personal/emotional adjustment, and institutional attachment. The questionnaires were electronically mailed to the entire first-year population at a small private college in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The pre-test was sent before students arrived on campus in August and the post-test was sent five weeks later. Students rated their expectations for adapting to college in both the pre-test and the post-test. Results from students who participated in the wilderness orientation program were compared with results from students who participated only in the traditional orientation to college using various t-test analyses. Comparisons based on gender variables were also made. The results indicated that students who participated in the wilderness orientation program did not exhibit a significant change in expectations for adjustment to college from pre-test to the post-test. In contrast, students who participated in only the traditional orientation program demonstrated a significant decrease in expectations for both academic adjustment and institutional attachment. No significant differences based on gender were observed. The findings suggest that exposure to a wilderness orientation program may affect expectations for adjustment to college for incoming first-year students. Nevertheless, due to limitations associated with this study, results must be interpreted with caution. Implications of the results are discussed, a description of limitations is outlined, and recommendations for future research are presented

TheInfluence of Race, Gender, and Body Socialization on the Self-Perceptions and Relationships of Black/White Multiracial Emerging Adult Women:

Thesis advisor: Usha Tummala-NarraThesis advisor: Belle LiangIn 2015, one-in-seven U.S. infants was Multiracial, nearly triple the amount in 1980, and one of the fastest growing subgroups of this population is Black/White Multiracial people (Pew Research Center, 2015). Black/White Multiracial emerging adult women have not received adequate attention in research, despite the growing population. Black/White Multiracial women receive implicit and explicit messages about their racialized physical features including skin color, hair, and body size from family members and peers (Root, 1998; Kelch-Oliver & Leslie, 2007; Buckley & Carter, 2008). Additionally, remnants of racist and sexist stereotypes of Black women such as the Jezebel, a hypersexualized archetype of a light-skinned Black woman, still permeate U.S. culture and impact Black women (Watson et al., 2012). However, there is no research that explores how such interactions with family members, peers, and the larger social context impact Black/White women’s perceptions of themselves and relationships with others. The present study conducted semi-structured interviews of 10 Black/White Multiracial emerging adult women to explore the socialization messages that they receive around race, gender, and body, and how those messages influence their self-perceptions and relationships. Through conventional content analysis, the findings of the present study revealed themes including a lack of discussion about race within families, gendered, racialized messages, often rooted in anti-Blackness, about the bodies of Black/White Multiracial women within families and peer groups, intrapsychic conflict to make meaning of conflicting messages, authentic relationships, and the expression of identity. Implications for clinical practice, community level interventions and research are discussed.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

A study of in cis versus in trans viral RNA replication: RNA molecules competing to be replicated by an RNA replicase protein

A virus has one main goal: to replicate itself. To achieve this goal, many kinds of viruses must encode their own replication machinery to amplify their genomes in the host cell. This study focuses on a simple, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus, Nodamura, which has a genome consisting of two mRNA molecules. The translation product of RNA1 is an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), while its RNA2 codes for the capsid protein (CP); the RdRp binds to and replicates each of these molecules, and the CP packages the two of them into a single capsid. The focus of the current study is to assess the relative levels at which these two viral RNA molecules compete to be bound and replicated by the RdRp. Understanding replication phenomena such as this has important implications in numerous other many-molecule-mRNA-genome virus infection scenarios, in addition to potential translational medicine applications where it is useful to amplify therapeutic mRNAs using an RdRp. In vitro transcribed Nodamura RNA constructs were created in which a fluorescent reporter gene is added to RNA1, and the CP gene in RNA2 is replaced entirely by a different fluorescent reporter. These two constructs were then transfected into mammalian (BHK-21) cells. Fluorescence intensity assays and quantitative PCR experiments were performed at various time points post-transfection to study the replication competition between Nodamura’s RNA1 and RNA2 in the absence and presence of one another. These assays showed that Nodamura RNA1 replication decreases by as much as a factor of two when in the presence of RNA2, while RNA2 is not amplified at all in the presence of the RdRp encoded by RNA1. These results indicate how in cis and in trans replication dynamics determine the differential expression of the viral genomic RNAs

Analysis Code

R code for analyses used in the current wor

Analysis Code

R code for analyses used in the current wor

Knowledge and practice of induction of lactation in trans women among professionals working in trans health

Abstract Background Breastfeeding is emerging as an important reproductive rights issue in the care of trans and gender nonconforming people. This study sought to understand the tools available to professionals working in the field of trans health to help trans women induce lactation and explore the concept of unmet need. Methods In November 2018, we conducted a cross-sectional study which surveyed attendees at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) symposium in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Eligible participants were 18 + years old, had professional experience with transgender populations, were able to complete a survey in English, and were conference attendees. Descriptive data were collected using a 14-item written survey encompassing demographic characteristics, experience in transgender health, and lactation induction in trans women. Results We surveyed 82 respondents (response rate 10.5%), the majority of whom were healthcare professionals (84%). Average age of respondents was 42.3 years old. They represented 11 countries and averaged 8.8 years of work at 21.3 h/week with trans populations. Healthcare professionals in this sample primarily specialized in general/internal medicine, psychology, endocrinology, and obstetrics/gynecology. One-third of respondents (34%) stated that they have met trans women who expressed interest in inducing lactation. Seventeen respondents (21%) knew of providers, clinics, or programs that facilitated the induction of lactation through medication or other means. Seven respondents (9%) have helped trans women induce lactation with an average of 1.9 trans women in the previous year. Two protocols for lactation induction were mentioned in free text responses and 91% believe there is a need for specialized protocols for trans women. Conclusion This exploratory study demonstrates healthcare professionals’ interest in breastfeeding protocols for lactation induction in trans women. Additional studies are needed to capture insights from breastfeeding specialists, e.g. lactation consultants and peripartum nurses, and to understand patients’ perspectives on this service. </jats:sec

Hierarchical Phenotyping of Psychopathology: Implications and Opportunities for Precision Psychiatry when Biology Could be Associated with both Symptoms and Syndromes

As psychiatry increasingly embraces precision medicine principles, there has been increasing efforts to characterize the specificity of biology–psychopathology associations (e.g., is biology associated with syndromes or symptoms?). Unfortunately, the vast majority of research selects to test syndromes (e.g., case-control, symptom total/average scores) or individual symptoms a priori based on untested assumptions. Alternatively, most studies that attempt to empirically compare these options test biology as a predictor of a) syndromes and b) symptoms in separate models that are unable to directly falsify the specificity of observed associations because these options are not directly competing for the same variance. In this review, we will (i) discuss the historical tension between symptom- and syndrome-focused psychiatry; (ii) introduce hierarchical phenotyping as an approach to determining the specificity of biology–psychopathology associations; (iii) highlight how hierarchical phenotyping approaches are complementary to leading nosological movements in psychopathology research; (iv) illustrate how a hierarchical phenotyping lens can generate promising future directions for precision psychiatry using immunopsychiatric, genetic, and neurophysiological examples (1); (v) highlight clinical implications of hierarchical phenotyping approaches to psychiatry; (vi) discuss methodological implications of hierarchical phenotyping for best practices in measuring and modeling psychopathology; and (vii) introduce methodological resources for readers interested in investigating hierarchical phenotyping in their own work. In doing so, this review seeks to build the case for hierarchical phenotyping approaches while simultaneously preparing motivated readers to use these methods in their own work to advance precision psychopathology research