They’re Crying in the All-Gender Bathroom: Navigating Belonging in Higher Education While First Generation and Nonbinary

Maintaining the sociocultural and interpersonal supports needed to succeed in higher education as a first-generation student can be very difficult due to a lack of familiarity with what brings success. When this identity intersects with a nonbinary gender identity, it further complicates higher education’s challenges and may make solutions impossible to come by. My experience sits at the intersection of these two identities and their gradual collision and connection with success in higher education. Through this narrative, I seek to unpack potential difficulties and nuances for the increasingly diverse body of first generation students and bring attention to the barriers in our social systems which may be blocking current and future students from achieving their full potential

Palaeoclimate Change

Level 3 (BSc) module with lectures and practical

Promoting Mental Well-being and Social Inclusion through Art: Six Month Follow-up Results from Open Arts Essex

Previous evaluations have demonstrated improvements in well-being and social inclusion for people with mental health difficulties after participating in Open Arts’ introductory participatory arts courses. This evaluation aimed to ascertain whether improvements are maintained long-term. Course participants completed measures of well-being and social inclusion at the beginning and end of their course and after three and six months. At initial follow-up participants rated their experience of their course, and at three and six months they reported activities taken up after attending. Scores significantly increased from baseline to first follow-up and remained significantly higher than at baseline at three and six months. End-of-course ratings were positive and most participants continued their art work. Other activities included education/training and voluntary/paid work. Further studies are needed to examine whether improvements can be attributed with confidence to arts participation, but these results add to a growing weight of evidence pointing to that conclusion

Intergenerational mobility in the United States and Great Britain: a comparative study of parent-child pathways

We build on cross-national research to examine the relationships underlying estimates of relative intergenerational mobility in the United States and Great Britain using harmonized longitudinal data and focusing on men. We examine several pathways by which parental status is related to offspring status, including education, labor market attachment, occupation, marital status, and health, and perform several sensitivity analyses to test the robustness of our results. We decompose differences between the two nations into that part attributable to the strength of the relationship between parental income and the child's characteristics and the labor market return to those child characteristics. We find that the relationships underlying these intergenerational linkages differ in systematic ways between the two nations. In the United States, primarily because of the higher returns to education and skills, the pathway through offspring education is relatively more important than it is in Great Britain; by contrast, in Great Britain the occupation pathway forms the primary channel of intergenerational persistenc

Fish swimming kinematics in a turbulent wake: to spill or not to spill?

Due to the complex nature of fish-environment interactions, the effects of altered flow conditions on fish habitats and behaviour, particularly near obstructions, are not yet fully understood. Many hydro-engineering structures generate three-dimensional turbulent structures that differ in properties from naturally occurring ones, and are challenging to fish movement. Here, swimming stability and habitat usage of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) were examined in the turbulent wake of a horizontally oriented cylinder (50 mm diameter, D) for a series of increasing cylinder Reynolds numbers (Red). Velocity statistics showed that the near wake downstream of the cylinder within a 2D distance had higher magnitudes of longitudinal, vertical and lateral velocity components as well as Reynolds stresses, turbulence intensity and turbulent kinetic energy than the remaining wake flow field. Flow accelerating over the cylinder top and underside generated two shear horizontal layers, where two coherent structures were formed due to the shear layer breakdown off the cylinder’s walls and alternating von Karman-type vortex shedding occurred in the wake of the cylinder. The eddy symmetry and vorticity off the cylinder’s edges was dependent on Red. The recorded total number of spills, defined as loss of balance, was inversely proportional to fish length and weight, and depended on proximity to the cylinder and the flume bed. Furthermore, the frequency of spills was closely linked to the orientation of vortices and magnitude of Reynolds stresses, suggesting that these parameters may govern the swimming stability of fishes. This information may be used to inform the design of fish-friendly obstacles including hydraulic structures and hydro turbines in riverine and estuarine systems

An analysis on the convergence of equal-time commutators and the closure of the BRST algebra in Yang-Mills theories

In renormalizable theories, we define equal-time commutators (ETC'S) in terms of the equal-time limit and investigate its convergence in perturbation theory. We find that the equal-time limit vanishes for amplitudes with the effective dimension d_{\em eff} \leq -2 and is finite for those with d_{\em eff} =-1 but without nontrivial discontinuity. Otherwise we expect divergent equal-time limits. We also find that, if the ETC's involved in verifying an Jacobi identity exist, the identity is satisfied. Under these circumstances, we show in the Yang-Mills theory that the ETC of the $0$ component of the BRST current with each other vanishes to all orders in perturbation theory if the theory is free from the chiral anomaly, from which we conclude that $[\, Q\,,\,Q\,]=0$, where $Q$ is the BRST charge. For the case that the chiral anomaly is not canceled, we use various broken Ward identities to show that $[\, Q\,,\,Q\,]$ is finite and $[\,Q\,,\,[\, Q\,,\,Q]\,]$ vanishes at the one-loop level and that they start to diverge at the two-loop level unless there is some unexpected cancellation mechanism that improves the degree of convergence.Comment: 35 page

What causes breast cancer? A systematic review of causal attributions among breast cancer survivors and how these compare to expert endorsed risks.

This item is under embargo for a period of 12 months from the date of publication, in accordance with the publisher's policy. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10552-014-0377-3.Purpose. The aim of this paper was to review published research that analyzed causal attributions for breast cancer among women previously diagnosed with breast cancer. These attributions were compared with risk factors identified by published scientific evidence in order to determine the level of agreement between cancer survivors’ attributions and expert opinion. Methods. A comprehensive search for articles, published between 1982 and 2012, reporting studies on causal attributions for breast cancer among patients and survivors was undertaken. Of 5,135 potentially relevant articles, 22 studies met the inclusion criteria. Two additional articles were sourced from reference lists of included studies. Results. Results indicated a consistent belief among survivors that their own breast cancer could be attributed to family history, environmental factors, stress, fate or chance. Lifestyle factors were less frequently identified, despite expert health information highlighting the importance of these factors in controlling and modifying cancer risk. This review demonstrated that misperceptions about the contribution of modifiable lifestyle factors to the risk of breast cancer have remained largely unchanged over the past 30 years. Conclusions. The findings of this review indicate that beliefs about the causes of breast cancer among affected women are not always consistent with the judgment of experts. Breast cancer survivors did not regularly identify causal factors supported by expert consensus such as age, physical inactivity, breast density, alcohol consumption and reproductive history. Further research examining psychological predictors of attributions and the impact of cancer prevention messages on adjustment and well-being of cancer survivors is warranted

Medical student wellbeing - a consensus statement from Australia and New Zealand

Abstract Background Medical student wellbeing – a consensus statement from Australia and New Zealand outlines recommendations for optimising medical student wellbeing within medical schools in our region. Worldwide, medical schools have responsibilities to respond to concerns about student psychological, social and physical wellbeing, but guidance for medical schools is limited. To address this gap, this statement clarifies key concepts and issues related to wellbeing and provides recommendations for educational program design to promote both learning and student wellbeing. The recommendations focus on student selection; learning, teaching and assessment; learning environment; and staff development. Examples of educational initiatives from the evidence-base are provided, emphasising proactive and preventive approaches to student wellbeing. Main recommendations The consensus statement provides specific recommendations for medical schools to consider at all stages of program design and implementation. These are:Design curricula that promote peer support and progressive levels of challenge to students.Employ strategies to promote positive outcomes from stress and to help others in need.Design assessment tasks to foster wellbeing as well as learning.Provide mental health promotion and suicide prevention initiatives.Provide physical health promotion initiatives.Ensure safe and health-promoting cultures for learning in on-campus and clinical settings.Train staff on student wellbeing and how to manage wellbeing concerns. Conclusion A broad integrated approach to improving student wellbeing within medical school programs is recommended. Medical schools should work cooperatively with student and trainee groups, and partner with clinical services and other training bodies to foster safe practices and cultures. Initiatives should aim to assist students to develop adaptive responses to stressful situations so that graduates are prepared for the realities of the workplace. Multi-institutional, longitudinal collaborative research in Australia and New Zealand is needed to close critical gaps in the evidence needed by medical schools in our region