The Effects of the Tomatis Method on the Artistic Voice

In the theory of the French Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) doctor Alfred Tomatis, the voice emits the frequencies the ear can perceive. The auditory stimulation, through the treatment elaborated by Tomatis, can determine the stabilization or the improvement of some vocal parameters, as well as the effect on the formants of voice. A group of N = 19 subjects, singers and actors, were assessed by complete clinical ENT evaluations including fibrolaryngoscopy, otoscopy, and clinical audiometry. The voice analysis was carried out with the Multi-Dimensional Voice Program (MDVP) and with the Praat software. The results demonstrate that after the treatment entails an increase in the mean of energy density on the third formant of voice (F3). An improvement in the ability to maintain a constant intensity of the vocal emission resulted from MDVP analysis with a reduction on the standard deviation of the voice amplitude. The improvement in the auditory perception, particularly for 3 kHz, determines a better intelligibility and articulation of the words. The better auditory perception in the zone of 3 kHz reduces the phenomenon of nasalization and gives expressive power to the artistic voice. The decrease of Peak-Amplitude Variation (vAm) lead to a stable voice emission with a better control.     

Why are Depressive Symptoms More Prevalent Among The Less Educated? The Relevance of Low Cultural Capital and Cultural Entitlement

Analyzing nationally representative survey data collected in the United States in 2014 (n?=?1,932), we formulate and test a novel explanation for the educational gradient in depressive symptoms. We theorize that status as cultural capital drives this gradient in addition to well-established economic and social factors, via the feelings of cultural entitlement it inspires. Therefore, we use structural equation modeling to decompose the education effect. We demonstrate that in addition to economic (job security and income) and social factors (embeddedness in the neighborhood), cultural capital indeed accounts for the educational gradient in depressive symptoms via cultural entitlement. We conclude that for understanding social gradients in mental health it is vital to be sensitive for the cultural mechanisms that status as cultural capital can inspire. Based on our findings we propose suggestions for further research.     

Precarious beauty: migrant Chinese women,beauty work,and precarity

This study focuses on precarious labor, in particular, the experiences of a group of internal migrant women working in a beauty shop in South China. The study aim is to elucidate the ways in which migrant Chinese women negotiate the demands of work and life that help to shape the imaginations and aspirations of modern city dwellers. Women factory workers, it is argued, leave other employment for work in the aspiring Chinese beauty industry, which promises significant facets of modern identity such as urban status, cosmopolitanism, and upward mobility. Their work, nevertheless, remains fundamentally precarious because of not only low wages and limited job security but also the construction and circulation of femininity and assumptions about gender normality in both work and family. The precarious work also indexes the ambivalent relationship between the national affect of hope and the fragility of individual potentiality under neoliberal ethos.     

Determinants of Seeking and Avoiding Risk‐Related Information in Times of Crisis

This research is designed to provide insight into the psychological (e.g., threat appraisal or coping appraisal) and other determinants (e.g., information quality judgments or demographics) of risk information seeking or avoidance in times of an acute risk, as part of the process of increasing public resilience through adherence to risk mitigating advice. Data were collected via telephone interviews. A specialized agency interviewed 1,000 Dutch citizens, randomly confronted with one of eight fictitious, but realistic, acute risk and emergency situations. Results indicate that information seeking in an acute situation is anticipated by a less elaborate set of predictors (age and risk perception) than information seeking in a nonacute situation (age and risk perception, as well as educational level and social norm). Although risk perception is a predictor for risk information seeking, its predictive value for acute‐risk‐related behavior, as one might have assumed based on theories such as protection motivation theory (PMT) or the extended parallel process model (EPPM), appears to be limited. Implications for risk communication are discussed.     

Seasonal dynamics of bird communities in urban forests of a Mediterranean city (Montpellier,Southern France)

We evaluated the richness, composition and abundance of bird communities in three urban forests of Mediterranean France during winter and spring. The urban forests differed in size, composition, structure, age of vegetation, and location relative to the city centre. Estimated species richness across all three urban forest parks was 45 species. Twenty six (26) species were recorded in both winter and spring, whereas ten species were recorded only in spring, and six were recorded only in winter. Distribution, turnover, and type of bird foraging guild were related to characteristics of each urban forest and season. During spring migration, more species were recorded in sampling units (250?×?250 m) within the largest and most natural urban forest located in the outskirts of Montpellier, whereas during winter, more species were recorded in the most urbanized park (i.e., a botanical garden dominated by exotic vegetation), which was located in the city centre. Insectivorous birds were more abundant in winter, whereas seedeaters associated with wooded habitats were recorded more frequently in spring. Our results suggested that different kinds of urban forests are important modulators of urban bird communities and they are necessary to maintain the diversity of migratory and resident birds as well as increasing the environmental quality of urban areas.     

Replication of an Intensive Educational Intervention for Youth Pregnancy and STI Prevention: The GIG

The article reports the results of two years of program replication to determine the effectiveness of an innovative intervention which is one component of a program aimed at the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection (STI). The GIG is a 6 h intervention which presents prevention information in an entertainment venue employing non-conventional and youth culture oriented educational activities. Statistically significant improvement in knowledge and attitudes with regard to pregnancy and STI was found in both replication samples, demonstrating consistency in the effectiveness of the intervention. Item by item analyses of measure items offer information regarding specific knowledge and attitudes. Implications for further implementation of the intervention and broader applications are offered. STI has replaced STD in medical parlance.     

Imagined communities, contested watersheds: Challenges to integrated water resources management in agricultural areas

Integrated water resources management is one of the major bottom-up alternatives that emerged during the 1980s in North America as part of the trend towards more holistic and participatory styles of environmental governance. It aims to protect surface and groundwater resources by focusing on the integrated and collaborative management of land and water resources and interests on a watershed basis. In this paper, we draw on the policy network perspective on governance to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of watershed-based processes of collaboration and integration for water quality protection in agricultural areas. The policy network perspective focuses on the interaction of actors, institutions and ideas within and among policy sectors to capture the intricacies of the policy process in increasingly complex and fragmented societies. Empirically, this study is based on the analysis of agro-environmental strategies for water quality protection in the Province of Ontario over the last 15 years. The contamination of a rural municipal well in Ontario in 2000, with its tragic consequences, translated into an ongoing pluralistic debate and strong attempts to fundamentally change the provincial policy style for addressing drinking water threats, especially agricultural pollution. Based on our analysis, we suggest that meaningful scales for collaboration and integration of land and water resources and interests at the local level, from the point of view of Ontario's agricultural policy network, do not currently include the watershed. We conclude that, instead of forcing watershed-based governance structures, the exploration and examination of more creative and flexible ways of linking watershed imperatives to existing socially and politically meaningful scales in agricultural areas of Ontario and elsewhere is warranted.     

How different are their experiences and outcomes? Comparing aged out and other child welfare involved youth

This paper adds to the growing body of research examining the experiences of youth aging out of the child welfare system. Through a comparison of youth aging out with two other groups of child welfare-involved youth—those whose families received child welfare services but were never placed out of home and those who were in out-of-home placement but did not age out—it presents a profile of their care careers and other system involvement (e.g., mental health, justice system). Analyses indicate that young people aging out of care have experienced significant amounts of time in out-of-home placement, a great deal of placement instability, and high levels of other system involvement. In general, their involvement is more extensive than that of the two comparison groups. However, the justice system involvement of youth who experienced out-of-home placement but did not age out is just as high as that of youth who have aged out. This finding highlights the importance of devoting resources not only to youth aging out of care but also to similarly-aged young people with prior child welfare involvement.     

Predicting Children's Asthma Hospitalizations: Rural and Urban Differences in Texas*

Abstract Asthma is the number one chronic health condition facing children today; however, little is known about rural‐urban inequalities in asthma. This “area effects on health” study examines rural‐urban differences in childhood asthma hospitalizations within the state of Texas using negative binomial regression models. Effects associated with residence on the Texas‐Mexico border, where the majority of rural Texas children live, are also considered. Neighborhood‐level social class and proportion of the population that was native‐born Hispanic were significant predictors of asthma hospitalizations, independent of rural‐urban location. Conversely, proportion African American, Native American, and foreign‐born Hispanic, not a citizen; median year of home construction; and neighborhood location on the Texas‐Mexico border were conditional on urban‐rural location, and the strength of these predictors was stronger in rural areas. This suggests that locational and social factors intersect in marginalized spaces (like the rural and border regions of Texas) to create vulnerability to asthma hospitalizations.