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This paper reports a cross-case analysis of three summer writing programs for youth in the northeast United States, each a longitudinal study in the tradition of design research. Initially, all thr...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Individuals with elevated social anxiety are thought to be at high risk for developing cannabis-related problems because they use cannabis to cope with anxiety-provoking social situations. Social anxiety is unique among the anxiety conditions in that it is characterized by both elevated negative affect (NA) and lower positive affect (PA). Yet it is unclear whether persons with elevated social anxiety use cannabis to decrease their NA or to increase their PA. METHODS: Thus, the current study examined the role of PA and NA (including cannabis use to increase PA and to decrease NA in social situations) on cannabis use frequency and related problems among current (past three-month) cannabis users (N = 278). RESULTS: Social anxiety was significantly correlated with NA, PA, cannabis use to decrease NA, and use to increase PA. Serial mediation analyses tested the paths between social anxiety, affect, use to manage affect, typical cannabis use frequency, and cannabis use-related problems. Contrary to prediction, social anxiety was not indirectly related to use frequency or related problems via NA or PA generally. Rather, social anxiety was indirectly related to cannabis problems via the serial effect of use to cope with NA and typical use frequency and via the serial effect of use to increase PA and typical use frequency. CONCLUSIONS/IMPORTANCE: Social anxiety may be associated with using cannabis to decrease NA and increase PA specifically in social situations, which increases cannabis use frequency and thus, problem risk.

BACKGROUND: Socially anxious individuals seem to be at a high risk for alcohol-related problems because they drink to cope. Yet social anxiety is unique among the anxiety conditions in that it is characterized by lower positive affect (PA). It is unclear whether drinking to cope is related to drinking to decrease negative affect (NA) or increase PA. OBJECTIVES: We tested whether social anxiety was related to more drinking problems via the sequential relations between affect (NA or PA), drinking to change affect (decrease NA or increase PA), and drinking quantity. We also tested whether the indirect effect of drinking to increase PA was significantly less than that of drinking to decrease NA. METHODS: Past-month drinkers with clinically elevated social anxiety (n = 174) and those with more normative or lower social anxiety (n = 362) completed an online survey. RESULTS: Social anxiety was indirectly related to drinking problems via the sequential effect of NA, drinking to decrease NA, and drinking quantity. Social anxiety was indirectly related to drinking problems via the sequential relations of PA and drinking quantity and of drinking to increase PA and drinking quantity. The indirect effect of drinking to increase PA did not significantly differ from drinking to decrease NA. CONCLUSIONS/IMPORTANCE: Socially anxious drinkers may drink not only to decrease NA but to increase PA in social situations. Both of these drinking motives appear to play important roles in socially anxious drinkers’ experience of drinking-related problems.

OBJECTIVE: Acute Suicidal Affective Disturbance (ASAD) is a suicide-specific, episodic clinical entity that is theorized to characterize acute suicide risk. Little work has examined the role of ASAD in mental health conditions linked to suicide risk. Thus, the current study examined whether depression, social anxiety, panic, and alcohol-related problems were related to suicide risk via ASAD history. METHODS: 527 undergraduates completed an online survey. RESULTS: Depression, social anxiety, and alcohol problem risk (but not panic) were robustly, significantly related to suicide risk, but only social anxiety and depression were robustly related to ASAD history. Depression and social anxiety symptoms were indirectly related to suicide risk via ASAD. CONCLUSION: ASAD may serve as potential explanatory pathway through which some mental health conditions may lead to greater suicide risk.

Although U.S. high school students' access to Earth and space science (ESS) varies widely from state to state, nationally, ESS content is the most neglected area of science education and scientific literacy. States have been considering whether they will formally adopt, or less formally adapt, the new national science education standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which have been carefully developed and articulated in conjunction with state education leaders. However, there are many challenges with which states, school districts, and teachers must grapple to enact standards-aligned ESS science lessons. This study of one Great Plains state investigated how school districts provide ESS education at the high school level and to what degree is ESS being taught by qualified teachers. We found that 76% of districts added ESS topics to existing physical science and/or biology courses rather than offer a stand-alone ESS course. During the eight-year period investigated, the state awar...

Individual differences in the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies may play a critical role in understanding psychological and biological stress reactivity and recovery in depression and anxiety. This study investigated the relation between the habitual use of different emotion regulation strategies and cortisol reactivity and recovery in healthy control individuals (CTL; n = 33) and in individuals diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD; n = 41). The tendency to worry was associated with increased cortisol reactivity to a stressor across the full sample. Rumination was not associated with cortisol reactivity, despite its oft-reported similarities to worry. Worry and rumination, however, were associated with increased cortisol during recovery from the stressor. The only difference between CTL and SAD participants was observed for reappraisal. In the CTL but not in the SAD group, reappraisal predicted recovery, such that an increased tendency to reappraise was associated with greater cortisol recovery. These results suggest an important role of the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies in understanding biological stress reactivity and recovery.

Walls of a monumental building, apparently Roman in date, were found in the south-eastern section of the old city of Damascus in the basement of an Ottoman house during its conversion into a hotel in 2004–2011. The wall appears to be oriented to the Roman grid. The discovery of walls of a possible Roman monumental structure raises several important questions about the topography of this poorly understood part of ancient Damascus. This paper discusses the nature of the ashlars, notable for their size, their possible date and whether they were a part of a gymnasium constructed by Herod the Great.

This new volume in Springer’s series on Innovations in Science Education and Technology, edited by Tong, provides a window into geoscience education outreach projects and programmes developed and i...

This study describes the effect of embedding content in the Communication in Inquiry Science Project professional development model for science and language arts teachers. The model uses four components of successful professional development (content focus, active learning, extended duration, participation by teams of teachers from the same school or grade level) and instructional strategies for inquiry, academic language development, written and oral discourse, and learning principles as components of science activities. Teachers were given a pre/post‐institute genetics assessment. There was a statistically significant increase in scores for the entire sample and a statistically significant difference between science and language arts pre and post scores, with science teachers scoring higher in both cases.

This study focuses on elementary teachers' comprehension of flooding before and after inquiry‐based professional development (PD). There was an improvement in teachers' understanding toward a normative view from pre‐ to post‐test (n = 17, mean gain = 4.3, SD = 3.27). Several misunderstandings and a general lack of knowledge about flooding emerged from the geoscience content two‐tier pre‐test, some of which persisted throughout the PD seminar while other responses provided evidence of teachers' improved understanding. The concepts that teachers struggled with were also apparent upon examining teachers' reflections upon their learning and teaching practices throughout the seminar. Teachers were challenged as they attempted to add new academic language, such as storm surge and discharge, to their prior understandings. Flooding concepts that teachers showed the least improvement on included analyzing a topographic region, reading a map image, and hydrograph interpretation. Teachers' greatest areas of improved...

Secondary geoscience education has its roots in geography and physiographic education from the turn of the 20th century. High school Earth science reached a peak during the late 1960s and 1970s, after plate tectonic theory revolutionized geology. The production of Earth science teachers, unlike biology teachers, has never reached full capacity, which has likely contributed to the lesser presence and status of Earth and space science in U.S. high schools today. Historically, the geoscience community has focused on enriching teachers' geoscience content knowledge, but modern Earth and space science teachers need more than just content knowledge. Based on current science education research, today's Earth and space science teacher education programs should also include: a) science methods that embrace authentic inquiry and state-of-the-art technology and visualization resources, b) an exploration of formative assessment and how to modify instruction to meet students' learning needs, c) awareness of common mis...

A retrospective cohort study of mortality among 6,405 female farm residents who were New York Farm Bureau members, or spouses or relatives of members, was conducted from 1980 through 1993. Similar to previous findings for male farmers, the cohort experienced significantly lower mortality rates for all causes combined (including malignant neoplasms and cardiovascular disease), compared with rural nonfarm female residents. These findings suggest that farmers and farm residents of both genders have favorable habits with respect to several lifestyle factors. The results of this study were consistent with those from other studies of farm populations worldwide.

A new graminicolous species of Clavicipitaceae, Balansia brunnans sp. nov., has been found to infect Panicum xalapense. Staining of living host tissues indicates the presence of intercellular endophytic mycelium. Stromata develop just below the nodes on the culms. Balansia brunnans is comparable to Balansia aristidae, B. discoidea, B. gaduae, B. nigricans, and B. strangulans in development of stromata on culms and possession of an endophytic mycelial stage. Among the differences between Balansia brunnans and other comparable species is that it possesses a brown perithecial stroma, whereas comparable species have black perithecial stromata. A key is provided to distinguish B. brunnans from similar species.

Summary Morphometric and relative growth analyses of Bathynectes superbus reveal simple allometric relationships between short carapace width, the reference measurement, and other carapace dimensions. There are apparently no puberty-related changes in growth of the carapace or chelipeds of B. superbus, but a change in growth rate of abdominal segment 6 width suggests a pubertal moult in females. Plots of abdominal segment 6 width on short carapace width of females reveal an inflection at approximately 30 mm short carapace width. This is the size at which sperm is first found in the seminal receptacle of females and increased pleopod setation occurs.