The Red Blood Cell Acetylcholinesterase Levels of Depressive Patients with Suicidal Behavior in an Agricultural Area

Long-term exposure to organophosphate pesticides (OPs) without acute poisoning can lead to various OPs. Environmental exposure to organophosphate pesticides may be associated with depression and suicide attempts in a population living in a rural agricultural area. Patients (n = 149) suffering from major depressive disorder (with and without attempted suicide) and a control group of healthy individuals (n = 64) who had been living in the same rural district for at least 1 year were selected. Red blood cell acetylcholine esterase (RBC-AChE) activity was examined as the basis of evaluating the degree of chronic environmental exposure to OPs residues. There were negative association between RBC-AChE activity levels and suicide attempts, the number of past suicide attempts and hopelessness levels in the depressive patients. The results of the study may support the idea that environmental exposure to OPs may be associated with mental health in individuals living in agricultural districts who are not farmers or working in occupations with access to OPs.     

Increasing Access for Economically Disadvantaged Students: The NSF/CSEM & S-STEM Programs at Louisiana State University

Increasing college degree attainment for students from disadvantaged backgrounds is a prominent component of numerous state and federal legislation focused on higher education. In 1999, the National Science Foundation (NSF) instituted the ??Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarships?? (CSEMS) program; this initiative was designed to provide greater access and support to academically talented students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Originally intended to provide financial support to lower income students, this NSF program also advocated that additional professional development and advising would be strategies to increase undergraduate persistence to graduation. This innovative program for economically disadvantaged students was extended in 2004 to include students from other disciplines including the physical and life sciences as well as the technology fields, and the new name of the program was Scholarships for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM). The implementation of these two programs in Louisiana State University (LSU) has shown significant and measurable success since 2000, making LSU a Model University in providing support to economically disadvantaged students within the STEM disciplines. The achievement of these programs is evidenced by the graduation rates of its participants. This report provides details on the educational model employed through the CSEMS/S-STEM projects at LSU and provides a path to success for increasing student retention rates in STEM disciplines. While the LSU??s experience is presented as a case study, the potential relevance of this innovative mentoring program in conjunction with the financial support system is discussed in detail.     

Which ingroup,when? Effects of gender,partisanship, veteran status,and evaluator identities on candidate evaluations

Military service is acknowledged as one of many elements voters use to evaluate candidates, but it has primarily been studied as a univariate element of a candidate’s biography. This project experimentally manipulates veteran status, gender, and partisanship as potentially interactive heuristics for evaluation of a hypothetical candidate specifically regarding military issues. We found an almost universal benefit enjoyed by veterans over civilians regardless of whether the candidate was a member of the participant’s partisan ingroup or outgroup. We also found little evidence of a gender penalty, and even a benefit for women candidates who were veterans, though this benefit was restricted to evaluations from Republican women. We also found that Democratic respondents assigned a penalty to outgroup veteran men candidates. We explain these nuanced findings in the context of moderation by gender mis/alignment between participant and candidate. Implications of the study are offered.