Childhood risk factors for alcohol abuse and psychological distress among adult lesbians

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationships between childhood and family background variables, including sexual and physical abuse, and subsequent alcohol abuse and psychological distress in adult lesbians. METHODOLOGY: Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate relationships between childhood sexual and physical abuse and parenting variables and latent measures of lifetime alcohol abuse and psychological distress in a large community-based sample of lesbians. RESULTS: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) directly predicted lifetime alcohol abuse, and childhood physical abuse (CPA) directly predicted lifetime psychological distress. In addition, CSA indirectly increased the risk of lifetime alcohol abuse through its negative effect on age at first heterosexual intercourse. Childhood physical abuse had only indirect effects on lifetime alcohol abuse through its strong relationship to lifetime psychological distress. Parental drinking problems and parental strictness directly predicted lifetime psychological distress; parental drinking problems indirectly predicted lifetime alcohol abuse through the mediators of age of drinking onset and lifetime psychological distress. White lesbians, younger lesbians, and those with lower levels of education were at greatest risk of psychological distress. CONCLUSION: While the cross-sectional design precludes causal conclusions, study findings--especially those related to CSA--are consistent with previous research on predominantly heterosexual women in the general population. Lesbians who experienced CSA were at heightened risk of lifetime alcohol abuse and those who experienced CPA were at heightened risk of lifetime psychological distress relative to lesbians without abuse histories. Given the dearth of research on childhood abuse and sexual orientation, studies are needed that examine the similarities and differences between lesbians' and heterosexual women's experiences of, and responses to, childhood abuse.     

Operation Diplomat and Other Smuggling Stories

During the early years after the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, a number of smuggling operations from behind the Wall were executed, and the reports of them spread through the Western media. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the popular Swedish men’s magazines Lektyr and Fib Aktuellt published several exclusive photo reportages about such operations, providing Swedish readers with information about the East Germans’ desire to escape their country, and the West Germans’ willingness to assist. This article discusses the Swedish escape reports as examples of border crossing through their form as well as their content. It is analysed, how the escape reports published in Sweden both represented and generated border-crossing activity. The smuggling stories also illustrate the entangled character of popular print media: the travels of texts and pictures beyond national, cultural and lingual borders as well as travels between apposite publications. The material of the article consists of a total of ten reportages published in Lektyr and Fib Aktuellt between 1965–1966 and 1973.     

Hear Their Voices: A Qualitative Study of Women Leaders in Public Media

This paper reports on in-depth interviews with seven women leaders working in U.S. public radio, conducted from November 2017 - March 2018. Through the frame of organizational culture, respondents noted a gap between public radio’s egalitarian ideals and the structure to support those values. Respondents indicated an overall historical inclusion of women in the industry, yet shared personal stories of gender discrimination while working in public radio. They expressed feelings of shock and grief at allegations of sexual misconduct by prominent men in public broadcasting. The findings reveal that masculine values remain embedded in public radio’s culture.     

Influence of surface roughness on the color of dental-resin composites

This study deals with the influence of surface roughness on the color of resin composites. Ten resin composites (microfilled, hybrid, and microhybrid) were each polished with 500-grit, 1 200-grit, 2 000-grit, and 4 000-grit SiC papers. The roughness parameter (R _a) was measured using a Plμ confocal microscope, and field-emission scanning electron microscope (Fe-SEM) images were used to investigate filler morphology. Color was measured using a spectroradiometer and a D65 standard illuminant (geometry diffuse/0° specular component excluded (SCE) mode). Surface roughness decreased with grit number and was not influenced by filler size or size distribution. A significant influence of R _a on lightness (L*) was found. Lightness increased with decreases in roughness, except for specimens that underwent polishing procedure 4 (PP4; 500-grit, 1 200-grit, 2 000-grit, and 4 000-grit SiC papers consecutively). Generally, it was found that surface roughness influenced the color of resin composites. The composites that underwent PP1 (500-grit SiC paper) exhibited significant differences in chroma (C*), hue (h°), and lightness (L*) compared to composites that underwent PP3 (500-grit, 1 200-grit, and 2 000-grit SiC papers consecutively) and PP4. Color difference (ΔE*) between the polishing procedures was within acceptability thresholds in dentistry.     

Attributions and Attitudes of Mothers and Fathers in Colombia

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined mean level similarities and differences as well as correlations between mothers' and fathers' attributions regarding successes and failures in caregiving situations and progressive versus authoritarian attitudes. DESIGN: Interviews were conducted with both mothers and fathers in 108 Colombian families. RESULTS: Fathers reported higher uncontrollable success attributions and higher authoritarian attitudes than did mothers, whereas mothers reported higher modernity of attitudes than did fathers; only the gender differences related to parental attitudes remained significant after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. Medium effect sizes were found for concordance between parents in the same family for attributions regarding uncontrollable success and progressive attitudes after controlling for parents' age, education, and possible social desirability bias. CONCLUSIONS: This work elucidates ways that parent gender relates to attributions regarding parents' success and failure in caregiving and to progressive versus authoritarian parenting attitudes in Colombia.     

Sound Archive Access: Revealing Emergent Cultures

This article contends that researchers can and should be active participants in making sound archives more accessible. In fact, such advocacy can be consequential in setting up possibilities for creative research on race within radio history and sound studies. Using the example of NPR’s All Things Considered archive spanning from 1971–1983, I demonstrate how academics and archivists can work together to make possible the preservation and accessibility of sound archives. This particular collaboration offers an opportunity to take a cultural approach to understanding newsroom diversity, more specifically: the cultural constraints of linguistic norms and the emergent cultures that arise as aberrations from such norms. The article reflects on this project’s implications for other scholars who work with archives that wish to invest in sound archive preservation and use.     

Managing Serials in a Large Digital Library: Case Study of the UNT Libraries Digital Collections

The Portal to Texas History (http://texashistory.unt.edu) and the University of North Texas (UNT) Digital Library (http://digital.library.unt.edu) contain more than 445,000 items collectively, hosted by the UNT Libraries. These collections include a variety of serial publications such as newsletters, magazines, scholarly journals, annual reports, and yearbooks. Many of these serials are key resources for the user groups of both repositories. In this article, we discuss the importance of serials within our collections, some of the challenges, the standards we use, and how we leverage metadata to facilitate access to serials for diverse global users.     

Modeling of musculoskeletal structure and function using a modular bond graph approach

The dynamic effects of muscle strength, timing of muscle activations, and body geometry have been modeled for a wide variety of human activities. These types of models require the development of complex system equations that account for the effects of rigid-body dynamics, musculotendon actuators, passive and active resistance to motion, and other physiological structures. One way in which model refinement can be expedited is through the use of bond graph modeling techniques. While bond graph techniques have been used extensively in a broad variety of applications, they have been used only sparingly in the field of biomechanics, despite the potential suitability of a modular, multidomain approach to the modeling of musculoskeletal function. In the current paper, bond graph modules representing muscle function and rigid-body motions of underlying bone structures are introduced. The system equations generated with the use of these models are equivalent to those developed with more traditional techniques, but the modules can be more easily used in conjunction with control models of neuromuscular function for the simulation of overall dynamic motor performance.     

The influence of task and gender on search and evaluation behavior using Google

To improve search engine effectiveness, we have observed an increased interest in gathering additional feedback about users’ information needs that goes beyond the queries they type in. Adaptive search engines use explicit and implicit feedback indicators to model users or search tasks. In order to create appropriate models, it is essential to understand how users interact with search engines, including the determining factors of their actions. Using eye tracking, we extend this understanding by analyzing the sequences and patterns with which users evaluate query result returned to them when using Google. We find that the query result abstracts are viewed in the order of their ranking in only about one fifth of the cases, and only an average of about three abstracts per result page are viewed at all. We also compare search behavior variability with respect to different classes of users and different classes of search tasks to reveal whether user models or task models may be greater predictors of behavior. We discover that gender and task significantly influence different kinds of search behaviors discussed here. The results are suggestive of improvements to query-based search interface designs with respect to both their use of space and workflow.