bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Availability of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Services for Adolescents in New York State Community Health Centers
Authors: Haley Sean J. , Moscou Susan , Murray Sharifa , Rieckmann Traci , Wells Kameron
Published: September 2017

Adolescent experimentation with alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs is commonplace, and limited access to screening and treatment services poses a significant public health risk. This study identified alcohol, tobacco, and other drug services available for adolescents at community health center sites in New York. A survey was distributed to medical and behavioral health directors across 54 community health center organizations serving 255 primary care adolescent sites. One third of sites required adolescent screening for substance use disorders (SUDs). Twenty-eight percent of sites said all/nearly all (80%-100%) and 12% said most (60%-79%) adolescents actually were screened. On-site tobacco cessation treatment and substance abuse counseling were offered at 53% and 14% of sites, respectively. Multilevel models suggested that community health center organizations positively influenced sites’ adolescent SUD screening and tobacco treatment. Additional investment in adolescent behavioral health screening and treatment is needed to reduce alcohol, illicit drug, or tobacco use among the underserved.
A Synthesis of Spelling Interventions for Secondary Students With Disabilities
Authors: Williams Kelly J. , Austin Christy R. , Vaughn Sharon
Published: September 2017

This synthesis examined the effects of spelling interventions on spelling outcomes for students with disabilities in Grades 6 through 12. Thirteen single-case design studies were identified for inclusion in the review. No studies used a treatment/comparison design. The most common types of interventions involved systematic study strategies, such as cover-copy-compare, as well as technological assistance. Most of the spelling interventions increased spelling outcomes for words directly taught or studied in the intervention or increased the percentage of words spelled correctly in written compositions. For students with learning disabilities (LD) or emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), spelling interventions usually emphasized study strategies, while interventions for students with other disabilities (orthopedic impairment, intellectual disability, and autism) emphasized the use of technology. Noticeably absent from these interventions were the direct teaching of phoneme to grapheme correspondences and morphemic approaches, which are often used with students in the elementary grades.
“A Mixed Blessing”: Social Support as a Coping Resource for Parents Who Lost a Child in Terrorist Attacks in Israel
Authors: Saka Yael
Published: September 2017

This article deals with the issue of perceived social support among 40 bereaved parents who have lost a child in a terrorist attack in Israel. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the nature and quality of the formal and informal support that the parents received. The parents were interviewed using semistructured in-depth interviews. The content analysis revealed that alongside the positive aspects, the parents also emphasized the negative side of the encounter with the social environment. The positive aspects included feeling of appreciation for the assistance in the coping process. The negative aspects included a sense of abandonment and distress. The dialectic nature of the domain, together with a recognition of its importance, points to the need to reconcile between the desire on the part of the social environment to assist the bereaved parent on one hand and ways to implement it on the other hand.
The distracted student mind — enhancing its focus and attention
Authors: Rosen Larry D.
Published: September 2017

As young people are buffeted by one new communications technology after another, their ability to focus on the present and to learn has been eroding. But taking away their phones only makes them anxious which also impedes their learning. The author suggests a series of strategies that educators can employ to deepen their focus and improve their attention — helping students reset their brains, building stamina for studying, understanding the relationship between sleep and learning, teaching them how to minimize alerts and notifications, and creating specific screen-free zones for studying.
Reading in a digital age
Authors: Baron Naomi S.
Published: September 2017

The many advantages of reading digitally also bring with them implications for how we learn differently when we read differently. The author suggests that new contemporary technologies are changing the very notion of what it means to read. Even millennials acknowledge that their attention is more focused when they read print rather than online. But they also perceive print as boring. If print is increasingly seen as more boring than digital text, will our ability to read print generally diminish? Since online technology is tailor-made for searching for information rather than analyzing complex ideas, might the meaning of “reading” become finding information rather than contemplating and understanding?
Going outdoors
Authors: Merritt Eileen G.
Published: September 2017

An emerging line of research suggests that a short walk in a natural setting may be the best way to restore students’ flagging attention. To help students recover from the inevitable fatigue that accompanies the deep attention expected in schools, educators have always built some breaks into the schedule. Now, researchers are suggesting that students may benefit most when those breaks include being allowed to take walks in natural settings, play in nature, study outdoors, and often by simply being close to vegetation during the school day. Around the world, educators are experimenting with new school designs that put natural features in the foreground.
To engage students, give them meaningful choices in the classroom
Authors: Parker Frieda , Novak Jodie , Bartell Tonya
Published: September 2017

Providing students with choice can be a powerful means of supporting student engagement. However, not all choice opportunities lead to improved student engagement. Teachers can increase the likelihood that students will value choice by analyzing how students associate feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness with the choice provided them. To illustrate, the authors present three cases of teachers providing their students with choices and explain the resultant student engagement in terms of these key student feelings.
The big picture
Authors: Marshall Kim
Published: September 2017

The sum of a K-12 education derives from the combined efforts of about 66 teachers and thousands of lessons during about 15,000 hours of class time. How schools orchestrate to connect all of those pieces to ensure some consistency will determine whether each student grows into a well-educated, decent human being.
Educating students for an outdated world
Authors: Wolk Steven
Published: September 2017

Ten years ago, in Kappan, the author published a detailed account of the old-fashioned and unengaging instruction used at his son Max’s Chicago elementary school. Now he updates readers with a reflection on Max’s high school years, describing a curriculum and teaching practices that desperately need an overhaul. Thanks to its competitive entrance requirements, Max’s high school attracts students with stellar test scores, which has given it a reputation as one of best public high schools in the country. But when the author looked carefully to see what actually goes on there, he found scant evidence that the school is preparing students to think critically, read deeply, participate in civic life, or meet the many challenges of the 21st century.
Teachers are designers
Authors: Henriksen Danah , Richardson Carmen
Published: September 2017

Teachers may be confused or put off by buzzwords like “design thinking,” but the concept is a useful one: To solve stubborn, everyday problems of practice in schools, they should approach those problems strategically and systematically. Specifically, explain the authors, teachers gain new insights into challenges they face when they take steps to empathize with students, come to terms with the uncertainties of school change, and learn to think of themselves as designers.
Leadership
Authors: Starr Joshua P.
Published: September 2017

Encouraging and allowing students to enroll in rigorous courses, such as Advanced Placement courses, is a critical first step in providing more equity in high schools. Leaders must deliberately and intentionally change the conditions that restrict access by rewriting the rules, examining the data, supporting students, teachers, and leaders and establishing accountability based on the idea that all students must have access to the highest academic levels a school offers. The author shares his experience as a superintendent in Stamford, Conn., and Montgomery County (Md.) Public Schools to show how these changes can occur and the differences they can make.
Under the Law
Authors: Underwood Julie
Published: September 2017

School personnel must often balance a student’s right to privacy with a school’s interest in protecting all students. A recent decision by the Ohio Supreme Court — Ohio vs. Polk (2017) — brings to light the complexity of these competing concerns and the high-stakes decisions that must be made in the fast pace of a public school. Does a student have a reasonable expectation of privacy when he leaves a backpack behind? Is the school behaving appropriately when personnel open an unattended backpack? In this case, the Ohio Supreme Court gave the benefit of the doubt to the school in concluding that the more thorough search of the first bag was reasonable. In doing so, they focused on the threat of violence in the schools and the incidents of school shootings in the U.S., stating that schools have a “compelling interest [to ensure] that unattended book bags do not contain dangerous items.” The author concludes that it seems reasonable to expect that bags that are left unattended will be opened not just to identify the owner but to determine if they represent a threat to the general safety. Extending that rationale to the schools which may experience many unattended bags throughout the day seems reasonable.
Backtalk
Authors: Porosoff Lauren
Published: September 2017

When doing schoolwork is framed as a precondition for achieving a particular outcome, students only feel satisfaction if and when they achieve the outcome. They might be less likely to do their work when no specific outcome is guaranteed. However, if doing schoolwork is framed as a component of living a meaningful life, students can find satisfaction in the work itself and feel motivated to keep working. Teachers can help students clarify what a meaningful life is for each of them and how their assignments contribute to meaningful lives.
The Normative Value of Partisanship: When and Why Partisanship Matters
Authors: Efthymiou Dimitrios E
Published: September 2017

Recent work on partisanship has highlighted the role of political parties in rendering democracy and justice widely accessible to citizens. In these recent works, a distinction is drawn between a contemporary conception of partisanship that focuses on fidelity to political parties and a classic conception that emphasises the importance of a civic ethos of active political engagement. I argue that these two conceptions of partisanship are not so disparate if we focus on the role of political parties in promoting civic commitment and contestation. More specifically, I show how a normative account of partisanship can contribute to a defence of a civic ethos of political commitment. I then argue that commitment leads to contestation among both partisans and non-partisans, and that polities lacking active contestation of political commitments are in one significant respect less well off than those societies where there is such contestation.
Minimally Deliberative Deliberative Systems? Problematisation and the Deliberative Democratic Effects of Poorly Deliberative Communication
Authors: Engelken-Jorge Marcos
Published: September 2017

This article deals with the role of public communication in democratic decision-making, with a view to identifying communicative practices that can be expected to meet deliberative democratic standards. On the basis of two case studies, a mechanism is reconstructed through which public communication, although being poorly deliberative, can influence decision-making and achieve some of deliberative democracy’s most fundamental goals, namely, to attain mutually justified decisions, to secure the free and reasoned consent of citizens and to promote substantively correct decisions. This mechanism consists in the recurrent problematisation of a situation and the concomitant generation of political demands and proposals. This argument can at least be formulated if one adopts an institutional system perspective coupled with a concept of mutual justification understood along the lines of the ‘reasonable rejection test’.
Machiavelli and the Double Politics of Ambition
Authors: Hoipkemier Mark
Published: September 2017

This article explores the early modern political science of vice by setting out Machiavelli’s treatment of ambition, which can be harnessed but never finally tamed. Even though ambition always aspires to tyranny, Machiavelli argues that it can serve the common goods of freedom and prosperity if it is reined in at home and unleashed abroad. This solution requires a combination of sound political orders and civic prudence. To grasp all of his two-part account of managing ambition, this study mines Machiavelli’s poetry and his Florentine Histories. Machiavelli not only agrees with his liberal heirs that political institutions defuse the threat and capture the energies of ambition in the short run but also adds that the most stable solution needs a dynamic of reinforcement between orders and civic character.
Why Even Misleading Identity Claims Matter: The Evolution of the English Defence League
Authors: Busher Joel
Published: September 2017

When activists in radical, far or extreme right groups claim identities that set them apart from such analytical categories, they are usually given short shrift by commentators and academics, a function of the presumed strategic nature of such claims and the evidential inaccuracies that scrutiny of such claims often reveals. Such responses help ensure critical readings of these groups. However, they also risk overlooking the fact that even where such identifications appear misleading, they may still be causally significant, shaping the groups’ evolution in important ways. I develop this argument using the case of the English Defence League, a group whose activists have tended to claim they are a ‘single-issue group’ protesting only about the supposed threats of ‘Islamification’. I demonstrate how their enactment of this identity, while uneven and erratic, shaped the emergent movement culture, tactical repertoires, intra-movement relations and, ultimately, the ebb and flow of movement viability.
Impartiality and the Definition of Corruption
Authors: Sparling Robert Alan
Published: September 2017

The study of political corruption has been beset by disagreements concerning the exact definition of the term. One definition that has grown increasingly popular in the social-scientific literature in recent years is that proposed by Oskar Kurer and developed by Bo Rothstein: political corruption should be understood as a breach of the norm of impartiality. This article argues that while this definition has intuitive plausibility and while its relative parsimony makes it attractive for cross-cultural social-scientific research, it suffers from a number of the ills attending all attempts to depoliticize inherently political concepts. Not only is the definition insufficient to capture numerous instances of the abuse of the public office for private gain, but it is dangerous insofar as it papers over fundamental disagreements about the nature of the good regime. To insist upon this parsimonious definition of corruption is to foreclose a number of essential questions of political philosophy.
An elicited imitation test for measuring preschoolers’ language development
Authors: Mehrani Mehdi B.
Published: September 2017

The present article describes a new Persian elicited imitation test (EIT) developed for assessing the overall language proficiency of Persian-speaking preschoolers. It reports a study that investigated the power of the EIT in discriminating children’s linguistic abilities through having them repeat sentences of varying lengths and morphosyntactic complexity. The study also explored the relationship between children’s performance on the EIT and their free speech. A total of 119 three- to- six-year-old Iranian monolingual children participated in the study by completing the EIT and an oral narrative task. Results showed that the new EIT can discriminate children with different levels of language abilities. Moreover, positive correlations were found between children’s scores on the EIT and their performance on the oral narrative task. Results suggest that the EIT provides a reliable measure of overall language development, and it can be effectively used to evaluate children’s language proficiency in various contexts.
Curiosity doesn’t kill cats: Passion and pragmatism for adventurous life-long learning
Authors: Levens Laura Rodgers
Published: September 2017

Life-long learning should be full of love of discovery, passion for adventure, and pragmatic self-formation. This article is a conversation between author and reader about continuing education as a life-giving and challenging journey. It analyzes the self-critical narratives people tell to propel themselves forward in learning, and invites the reader to take up narratives that are self-aware, non-judgmental, and willing to be stretched anew. It describes the balancing act between passion for adventure and pragmatic self-formation at work in the life of the adult learner, and invites the reader to step forward in curious, creative, and reflective learning.
Public theology and preaching in Korean Protestant churches
Authors: Park Sangyil Sam
Published: September 2017

This article surveys the positive roles and challenges Korean Protestant churches have had in history from a perspective of public theology and its relation to preaching. It argues that preaching is inherently related to public theology as it shapes Christians’ actions to fulfill the message of the kingdom of God in public space.
Saving paradise: Could Detroit be the New Jerusalem?
Authors: Phillips Tim
Published: September 2017

The church has inherited a conflicted understanding of “city” both from its biblical roots and from its experience in modern America. John’s vision in Revelation could be a window for both resisting a retreat from the city and imagining “city” in new spiritual terms. Much depends on what we think we are looking for. Using reports about the present state of affairs in Detroit as a living commentary on John’s vision of a New Jerusalem, what are the “former things” that have “passed away?” What needs to pass away for imagining a new city—a New Jerusalem? What glimpses are there of that new reality? Adapted from a sermon in 2010, this article attempts to name the questions and to kindle some imagination about a new spirituality for the city.
A word about …: Claiming our equality: Equal pay for women ministers
Authors: Durso Pamela R.
Published: September 2017

The current reality for women ministers is that they are paid significantly less than their male counterparts. Women of color in ministry encounter an even more bleak outlook with regard to salaries and benefits. Working for equality requires something of us all. Women ministers need to advocate for themselves by participating in the process of negotiating and asking for fair and equitable salary packages. Women must also advocate for one another and stand with their sisters in this work toward pay equality. But for true change to happen, male ministers will need to take the lead. Equality in the church requires us to change the way we have always related to one another as women and men and to work together to make that equality a reality.
Restorative justice as a public theology imperative
Authors: Miles-Tribble Valerie
Published: September 2017

The divine instructions in Jeremiah 29 to seek the welfare of the city followed a directive to rebuild, plant, and multiply familial bonds. It was a restorative charge to pursue living justly in the midst of demonic realities under exilic conditions. Jeremiah voiced the public charge particularly to civic and faith leaders to seek the welfare of the city, centered first on the divine will for prayerful obedience and on genuine concern for those marginalized and suffering under the yoke of displacement and continued oppression. In this article, I discuss that the circumstances of Judah’s recurrent apostasy reveal some troubling characteristics that are not unlike the divisive factors within the public ideological landscape of America’s present civic tensions. I comparatively examine the prophetic restorative charge issued with the professed authority of a divine God of created order and deliverance. I use a womanist theoethical lens to investigate restorative justice as a public-square ethos warranting further deliberation. I posit that similar restorative justice principles are expandable currently from an initial criminal justice context. I align the principles useful in a theoethical communitarian approach of public praxis. Finally, I propose a contextual placement of the Jeremiah charge in today’s prophetic resistance by framing restorative justice as a public theology imperative for us to become spiritual change agents. The divine directive to seek the welfare of the city still resonates with relevance to present intersectional crises that I refer to as Black Lives Matter times in America.
A word from a seminarian
Authors: Bowling-Dyer Leslie
Published: September 2017

Philippians 2 calls us to become imitators of Christ by eschewing a brute quest for power and dominance. The model set forth by Christ reminds us that the acquisition, maintenance, and exercise of power cannot be its own end. This “Seminarian’s Word” contemplates what the church can offer a world troubled by self-service, selfishness, and self-aggrandizement if the church truly pursues the Beloved Community.
Solidarity of #BlackLivesMatter in Trump America: How a constructive theology classroom can speak to our world’s need for meaning and connection
Authors: Davidson Jennifer Wilkins
Published: September 2017

In an opinion piece published online in the Sunday Review of the New York Times about ten days after the 2016 presidential election, Columbia University Professor Mark Lilla argues that “the age of identity liberalism must be brought to an end.” The election results were due to what he calls “the rhetoric of diversity” which inevitably excludes because in “calling out” or naming specific groups of people, one risks leaving out others. This article counters Lilla’s claim and suggests that a theological commitment to “solidarity of others” as introduced by Anselm Kyongsuk Min provides us with a model for embracing diversity and particularlity in service to liberation. A theology concerned only with the liberation of its particular people devolves into a particularism that contributes to the atomization of a global society into disconnected parts. This article argues that our stories, while particular, are also profoundly interconnected and intertwined. Therefore, our liberation is interconnected and intertwined.
Constructing liberating identities: Power, resistance, and dignity in the Latino diaspora
Authors: Da Valle Horacio R.
Published: September 2017

The Latino/a presence is increasingly visible in the United States, yet their rich cultural diversity is mostly ignored, and their identities are homogenized under names that are mostly not of their choosing. US Hispanics often suffer marginalization, discrimination, and oppression and, as the ultimate insult, the obliteration of their personal and collective identities. Latino/a theologians, in their contextual approach to the theological task, employ different theoretical tools to critically engage the context of the Latino/a experience and seek commonalities amid many differences to establish an identity. In this article, I argue that the conjunction of the notions of diaspora, empire, and praxis offers a valid portrayal of the lived experiences of Latino/a Christians in the United States. Using a Foucauldian approach to address the pervasive presence of power in that context, I suggest that Foucault’s notion of care of the self articulates a way of resistance that is liberating. Then, the Latino/a praxis of resistance and care of the self, analogous to that of Jesus, offers a theological construction of human beings, with concrete, historical, and personal lives of utmost value to God, and freedom to name who they are in the walk of those lives. In that process, identities are always provisional.
When choosing death is an affirmation of life: A public remembrance of our family’s journey
Authors: Hopkins H. James , Hopkins Karen D.
Published: September 2017

This article is a theological reflection written four months after the death, at age 80, of Nedra Faye Hathaway, mother to co-author Karen and mother-in-law to co-author Jim. Nedra chose to end her life on October 24, 2016, over a year after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, almost eleven months after major surgery to remove her pancreas and four months after learning the cancer was still present even after eighteen chemotherapy treatments.

For many years Nedra, an Oregonian, had been a proponent of the right to die with dignity. She had supported Oregon’s approval of “Death with Dignity” law. Different states refer to this as physician-assisted suicide, right to die, or euthanasia. After moving to California to reside with her daughter and son-in-law, Nedra was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a diagnosis that eventually led to the conclusion that she had only months to live.

After choosing to participate in California’s newly approved End of Life Option Act, Nedra agreed to contribute as part of an educational panel to support the Act. She wowed the participants of the Program. She expressed her strong belief in her right to make end-of-life decisions, appreciation for programs such as the one in which she was participating, her desire to see more states adopt Death with Dignity legislation, and her personal gratitude to each of the professionals who volunteer to support patients who make choices like hers. She also said, “I recognize there is a difference in supporting me in this process and agreeing with me at every turn in the road.” Following her participation on this panel nothing more was said to her by family members, initially uncomfortable with her decision, about taking her end-of-life medication.

In the end, on a legal level, the family found that, with Nedra, they supported the adoption of “right-to-die” legislation by additional states. While they do not think that the choice she made will be the best choice for every person and every family, they acknowledge that simply having the right to choose the time and place of her death brought Nedra comfort; simultaneously, the family found themselves hoping they would have the same right regardless of which state they lived in.
Job as dispossessed
Authors: Flesher LeAnn Snow
Published: September 2017

This article is a reworking of a paper that was originally presented at the Society of Biblical Literature meetings held in New Orleans in fall 2009, four years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. To this day, twelve years later, portions of the city have not been restored, and numerous homes have not been rebuilt. Exactly ten years after Katrina, J. David Rogers, lead author of a new report in the official journal of the World Water Council, concluded that the flooding during Katrina “could have been prevented had the corps retained an external review board to double-check its flood-wall designs.”1 The book of Job struggles with the question, “Why do the innocent suffer?” This article explores a new reading of Job that points to our unrealized participation in evil systems that oppress the disenfranchised.
Repairers of the breach
Authors: Cowden Margaret Ann
Published: September 2017

The following article is taken from the 2016 Graduation Ceremonies of the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley, CA. In this graduation speech, Dr. Cowden highlights the schism the nation was experiencing as the then presidential candidates were doing their work on the campaign trail—a schism that we are still experiencing today. In this speech Dr. Cowden calls the graduates to be about the work of repairing the breach.
Nothing
Authors: Ovalle Rogelio
Published: September 2017

This article highlights 1 Cor 1:25–29 and the criteria that God uses to qualify a call to serve. The passage wonderfully reveals the desire of God to use our weakness as the criterion for a call to ministry. Paul’s specific language affirms God’s inclination to use the humble, the weak, the oppressed, the broken, the things that are not, and the disqualified, to realize His redemptive plan to transform lives and communities. Many North American Evangelicals live amidst historically unprecedented levels of affluence and enjoy a level of comfort and ease. Affluence demands “more” and the church often heeds to it. Antithetical to the Corinthian passage is the “prosperity gospel” promoted in many Evangelical churches today. Prosperity gospel claims prosperity and financial success as the direct result of one’s faith. Principles of the prosperity gospel are trivial pursuits of consumerism, acquisition of things, the perennial effort to attain success, in order to qualify in ministry. Still those principles are not the criteria God would use to qualify a call. He uses the foolish, the weak, the disqualified; He uses the things that are not.
The Black Lives Matter movement: A call to action: Acts 10:11–16, 25–28, 34–35
Authors: Smith J. Alfred
Published: September 2017

The Black Lives Matter movement is one of the most dynamic social justice movements currently emerging in the USA. This movement led by young Blacks unapologetically calls out the shameful, historical legacy of American racism and White supremacy while asserting the humanity and sacredness of Black lives, particularly those of unarmed persons senselessly murdered by police officers. While Black Lives Matter is a new movement, it is also an extension of the 400-year struggle of Black people in America to affirm Black dignity, equality, and human rights, even while the major institutions of American society have propagated doctrines and enforced unjust rules/laws to denigrate Black life. Black Christians have found hope and inspiration from the Gospel to claim their humanity and to struggle to gain justice for Black lives and for the lives of all oppressed people. In addition, the Black Lives Matter movement provides a helpful critique of many Black churches, challenging them to confront their biases, which label young Black males as “thugs” (the new N-word) and which cruelly demonize the LGBTQ community. The story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 provides a scriptural basis for Christian introspection and responses to God’s vision for beloved community, and for the call to action from the Black Lives Matter movement.
Eroded Life-worlds and Emergent Assemblages: Rethinking the Sociologies/Social Anthropologies of the ‘Contemporary’
Authors: Vasavi A. R.
Published: September 2017

At the turn of the 20th century, Radhakamal Mukerjee wrote about a range of issues that reflected the trends of his times. A century later, new definitions and understanding of our ‘contemporary’ times suggest the need for new theoretical and methodological approaches which are to chart sociology and anthropology’s course. Interrogating these propositions is to assert the coeval presence of both ‘emergent assemblages’ and a range of emergent and ‘eroded life-worlds’. Attention to these life-worlds and their trajectories will broaden the anthropological definition of the ‘contemporary’ and enable anthropology to engage with a plurality of approaches and methods.
A study on the thermal and physical properties of nylon fabric treated by metal sputtering (Al, Cu, Ni)
Authors: Han Hye Ree , Kim Jong Jun
Published: September 2017

This research was conducted for an in-depth analysis of changes in thermal properties and in comfortability as well as physical properties before and after sputtering on fabrics. It was found that the sputtering treatment could give significant effects on the heat transfer of nylon without much loss in its shear property, water vapor transmission, and bending property, which suggested that sputtering treatment with metals on the surface of fabric helped reduce the surface temperature by releasing body heat. When the metal coating layers of the sputtered fabrics were pointed toward the cold air (15℃), the surface temperature was lowered drastically from 35℃ to 22.07℃ by depending on metals. Also, the computed surface temperatures based on the heat transfer theory displayed a high level of consistency with the measured values. The conductive fabric, which was used for comparison, showed an increased bending rigidity after sputtering, making the fabric stiffer. In the future, a metal-sputtered fabric is expected to be used as a special material by utilizing its surface temperature-controlling function in the high-functional clothing material field.
A visco-hyperelastic model for short fiber reinforced polymer composites: reinforcement and fracture mechanisms
Authors: Chang Mengzhou , Wang Zhenqing , Liang Wenyan
Published: September 2017

In this paper, we present a mechanical model describing the visco-hyperelastic properties of short fiber reinforced polymer composites, with the purpose to study the reinforcement and fracture mechanisms. On the basis of the Kelvin–Voigt model and deformation behavior of material, the visco-hyperelastic model is developed. The micro-structure of fibers with different distributions in polymers is taken into account. The position and orientation of the fibers are evaluated by numerical analysis, and the demonstration shows that they have a dramatic effect on the reinforcement mechanisms even for the same volume fraction. Given that the interfacial property is influenced by the interfacial region and mold flow direction, a modified function is introduced to characterize the interfacial bonding strength. Furthermore, the model provides reasonable prediction of the fracture toughness.
Training to reduce behavioral health disparities
Authors: Robohm Jennifer S
Published: September 2017

Family physicians are a critical part of the healthcare system in rural areas, but little is known about the training they need to more effectively address behavioral health disparities. Practicing family physicians in Montana were surveyed about the behavioral health needs of their patients, the behavioral resources at their disposal, their prioritization of a number of behavioral skills and interventions in the training of family physicians, factors that limit their own use of behavioral skills, and the extent of their behavioral science training. Respondents across the state reported high rates of mental/emotional health issues and high need for health behavior change in their patients. Surprisingly, although rural family physicians reported access to significantly fewer behavioral health resources, they did not rate any of the behavioral skills as higher training priorities than their urban counterparts and they were more likely to identify limitations (lack of patient interest, lack of confidence or competence, and inadequate knowledge or training) on their own use of such skills in practice. Family physicians, both rural and urban, whose residency programs had a higher emphasis on behavioral science felt better prepared to use behavioral skills in practice. Consequently, rural training programs are encouraged to emphasize behavioral science training for their family medicine residents, particularly training that focuses on mental health stigma reduction, emphasizes time savings and practicality, covers more severe psychiatric presentations, promotes cultural sensitivity to rural values of autonomy and self-sufficiency, and teaches skills to advocate for individual and community health with regard to behavioral health disparities.
Analysis of Two Quantitative Ultrasound Approaches
Authors: Muleki-Seya Pauline , Han Aiguo , Andre Michael P. , Erdman John W. , O’Brien William D.
Published: September 2017

There are two well-known ultrasonic approaches to extract sets of quantitative parameters: Lizzi–Feleppa (LF) parameters: slope, intercept, and midband; and quantitative ultrasound (QUS)–derived parameters: effective scatterer diameter (ESD) and effective acoustic concentration (EAC). In this study, the relation between the LF and QUS-derived parameters is studied theoretically and experimentally on ex vivo mouse livers. As expected from the theory, LF slope is correlated to ESD ([Formula: see text]), and from experimental data, LF midband is correlated to EAC ([Formula: see text]). However, LF intercept is not correlated to ESD ([Formula: see text]) nor EAC ([Formula: see text]). The unexpected correlation observed between LF slope and EAC ([Formula: see text]) results likely from the high correlation between ESD and EAC due to the inversion process. For a liver fat percentage estimation, an important potential medical application, the parameters presenting the better correlation are EAC ([Formula: see text]) and LF midband ([Formula: see text]).
An overview of assessment methodology for obesity-related variables in infants at risk
Authors: Dinkel Danae , Hanson Corrine , Koehler Karsten , Berry Ann Anderson , Kyvelidou Anastasia , Bice Matthew , Wallen Jill , Bagenda Danstan , Jana Laura , Pressler Jana
Published: September 2017

Background:

The first 2 years of a child’s life are a particularly critical time period for obesity prevention.

Aim:

An increasing amount of research across the world is aimed at understanding factors that impact early childhood obesity and developing interventions that target these factors effectively. With this growing interest, new and interdisciplinary research teams are developing to meet this research need. Due to rapid growth velocity during this phase of the lifespan, typical assessments used in older populations may not be valid or applicable in infants, and investigators need to be aware of the pros and cons of specific methodological strategies.

Methods:

This paper provides an overview of methodology available to assess obesity-related factors in the areas of anthropometry and body composition, nutrient intake, and energy expenditure in infants aged 0–2 years.

Results:

Gold standard measures for body composition, such as dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) or other imaging techniques, are costly, require highly trained personnel, and are limited for research application. Nutrient intake methodology primarily includes surveys and questionnaires completed via parent proxy report. In terms of energy expenditure, methods of calorimetry are expensive and may not differentiate between different activities. Questionnaires or physical activity sensors offer another way of energy expenditure assessment. However, questionnaires have a certain recall bias, while the sensors require further validation.

Conclusions:

Overall, in addition to understanding the pros and cons of each assessment tool, researchers should take into consideration the experience of the interdisciplinary team of investigators, as well as the cost and availability of measures at their institution.
Forest Rights Act Implementation in Odisha
Authors: Satpathy Bijayashree
Published: September 2017

The Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006 claims to devolve ownership to local forest dwellers in India, to provide local communities with better tenurial security and allow increased rights over forest resources. One argument for this is the redressal of historical injustices, particularly to tribal people. Offering a reality check, this article scrutinises the interface of informal and formal institutions with respect to livelihood of forest-dependent communities and forest conservation to identify ongoing implementation challenges. Empirical data from two villages of Mayurbhanj district in Odisha use oral history, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with different actors in FRA implementation as evidence. Asymmetric information flow, deficient coordination, undemocratic participation, dearth of transparency and lack of accountability at various levels hinder FRA implementation, which claims to safeguard the basic rights of disempowered local people, but does not appear to deliver ‘complete justice’.
State Sovereignty and International Relations in Pakistan
Authors: Waheed Ahmed Waqas
Published: September 2017

In Pakistan, the field of international relations (IR) theory remains firmly embedded in the ‘realist’ tradition, to the detriment of a wider range of considerations. This stranglehold, strengthened by the particular evolutionary trajectory of the Pakistani state as well as a complacent academia, seems to have created a vicious circle of knowledge reproduction, reinforced by various bids for power, or proximity to it. This article scrutinises specifically the dominant understandings in Pakistan of state sovereignty and security in a broadly historical perspective, showing how the rise of the military, combined with security paranoia, has prevented academic creativity in this field, including scrutiny of recent concerns over rather close China–Pakistan links.
Public Interest and Private Gain in Pakistan
Authors: Ranjan Amit
Published: September 2017

Despite labels like ‘failed state’ or ‘hub of terror’, Pakistan remains a somehow ‘normal’ postcolonial country. While many problems are shared by such nations, Pakistan’s complex journey into the future needs to be better understood. Among specific problems, militancy and terrorism have been mainly presented as resulting from interventions by external actors, blaming others. However, failures in internal management and (mis)-adventurous foreign policies have also led to turmoil, disrupting domestic economic development and slowing the pace of democratisation.

Assessing the scope for future developments in Pakistan, this article argues that presently Pakistan’s power elites are still not fully ready to admit having learnt from the country’s past mistakes, repeating the same to secure proclaimed public interests, at the cost of killing many of their own citizens. Yet, while the overall picture remains one of precarity, there is also considerable progress. The final analysis explores how this precarious re-balancing has been achieved and is being maintained, and what this means for the future of Pakistan and South Asia.
Community and Neighbourhood in a Colonial City
Authors: Sengupta Kaustubh Mani
Published: September 2017

This article on the history of neighbourhoods ( para) of colonial Calcutta considers the processes through which this peculiar spatial unit emerged in the colonial city, where community identities were fostered as well as contested. Seen as a place, a secured, stable location which helped in forming the community in an alien atmosphere, the para was a liminal space, neither a purely affective unit nor an administrative category, and neither a purely public or private domain. Borrowing liberally from each register to generate a unique spatial experience, paras were at the same time deeply exclusionary and also starkly patriarchal zones. The article brings forth these various strands in the history of the neighbourhood to enrich the understanding of colonial urbanism, Bengali society and culture.
Gymnemic acids lozenge reduces short-term consumption of high-sugar food: A placebo controlled experiment
Authors: Stice Eric , Yokum Sonja , Gau Jeff M
Published: September 2017

Gymnemic acids (GA) suppress sweet taste and reduce consumption of high-sugar foods (HSF) which has been attributed to the reduction in pleasure. Herein we tested whether GA reduces the desire to eat HSF, before any HSF is tasted post GA dosing, which would implicate another mechanism of action not previously examined. In this double-blind experiment, 67 adults selected a favourite candy, consumed one standardized serving, rated candy pleasantness along with desire for more candy, and were randomly assigned to consume a GA or placebo lozenge. They subsequently completed candy desire ratings and were offered additional candy servings, one at a time. If an offering was accepted, it was consumed, pleasantness and desire ratings were reported, and another serving was offered. The GA lozenge versus the placebo produced a 31% reduction in participants who chose to eat the first candy offering after GA dosing and produced a 44% reduction in total candy intake. GA versus placebo participants who ate at least one optional serving reported reduced candy pleasantness, though reductions in reported desire did not reach significance. The GA lozenge reduced candy consumption and desire for candy, providing novel evidence that blockade of sweet taste receptors reduces desire for sweet food, even before the food is tasted after GA dosing.

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02744885
Correlations Between Hysteretic Categorical and Continuous Judgments of Perceptual Stimuli Supporting a Unified Dynamical Systems Approach to Perception
Authors: Kim S. , Frank T. D.
Published: September 2017

We report from two variants of a figure-ground experiment that is known in the literature to involve a bistable perceptual domain. The first variant was conducted as a two-alternative forced-choice experiment and in doing so tested participants on a categorical measurement scale. The second variant involved a Likert scale measure that was considered to represent a continuous measurement scale. The two variants were conducted as a single within-subjects experiment. Measures of bistability operationalized in terms of hysteresis size scores showed significant positive correlations across the two response conditions. The experimental findings are consistent with a dualistic interpretation of self-organizing perceptual systems when they are described on a macrolevel by means of so-called amplitude equations. This is explicitly demonstrated for a Lotka–Volterra–Haken amplitude equation model of task-related brain activity. As a by-product, the proposed dynamical systems perspective also sheds new light on the anchoring problem of producing numerical, continuous judgments.
‘Neighbourhood effects’ on children's educational achievement in Chile: The effects of inequality and polarization
Authors: Otero Gabriel , Carranza Rafael , Contreras Dante
Published: September 2017

This article studies the effects of the neighborhood in which a school is located on children's mathematics achievement in Chile. It uses data taken from a sample of 127,020 sixth grade students measured by the National Education Quality Measurement System [Sistema Nacional de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación]. The incorporation of a measurement of socio-economic polarization of the geographic environment, which is innovative in urban studies, allows us to qualify some critical aspects suggested in the academic discussion. A lagged dependent variable model is used, controlling for the score obtained by the same students in fourth grade. Using multilevel linear regressions, the results show positive effects related to participation in neighborhood organizations. One critical finding is that socio-economic polarization has a negative and significant impact on the educational achievement of sixth graders. The conclusions highlight the repercussions associated with acute inequalities in the neighborhoods, and speak to the importance of accessing dimensions which are more closely linked to cities' social structure.