Urgent engagement in 9/11 pregnant widows and their infants: Transmission of trauma

The potential effects of maternal trauma on mother–infant interaction remain insufficiently studied empirically. This study examined the effects of the September 11, 2001, trauma on mother–infant interaction in mothers who were pregnant and widowed on 9/11, and their infants aged 4–6 months. Split‐screen videotaped interaction was coded on a one‐second basis for infant gaze, facial affect, and vocal affect; and mother gaze, facial affect, and touch. We examined the temporal dynamics of communication: self‐contingency and interactive contingency of behavior by time‐series methods. We documented heightened maternal and infant efforts at engagement in the 9/11 (vs. control) dyads. Both partners had difficulty tolerating moments of looking away as well as moments of negative behavior patterns. Heightened efforts to maintain a positive visual engagement may be adaptive and a potential source of resilience, but these patterns may also carry risk: working too hard to make it work. A vigilant, hyper‐contingent, high‐arousal engagement was the central mode of the interpersonal transmission of the trauma to these infants, with implications for intervention.     

Architectural and built environment discourses in an educational context: the Gottscho and Schleisner Collection

This essay examines architectural photographs of schools produced for consumer magazines like House Beautiful, which helped create aspirations for the rising American middle class during the period 1935–1959. It reveals the way that schools for the upper-middle classes were promulgated as ‘role models’ for the boom in school construction that accompanied the post-war baby boom. We examined images of exterior and interior school architecture and built environments in the Gottscho and Schleisner photography collection at the Library of Congress. Through Allan Sekula's process of archivisation and the use of constant comparative analysis, we re-organised the images in this collection and identified the prominent middle-class, architectural discourse inscribed on, in and surrounding the schools. We further discuss the maintenance of middle-class ideology through the guiding force of ‘conspicuous consumption’ patterns – the power behind the prominence of the archive and its accumulation process.     

Becoming Close: Intimate Relations Among College Students

Abstract

Creating intimate relationships is an emotional necessity and a significant developmental task for late adolescents. Acknowledging these needs and acquiring those skills is uniquely risky and stressful for students who often are trying to achieve greater independence, particularly with their parents, while simultaneously wanting intimacy and its concomitant dependency and vulnerability. Identified is the intimacy stress associated with various stages of college relationship: A) becoming interested, b) ending the hometown relationship, c) staying free, d) being sexual, and e) breaking up. Counseling strategies are suggested for counselors who, however skilled at working with the communication, sexual, and identity problems of relationships, may need to comprehend the developmental context in which intimacy is framed for students.     

Breaking ground on the virtual frontier: Surveying civic life on the internet

The Internet provides a virtual frontier to expand our access to information and to increase our knowledge and understanding of public opinion, political behavior, social trends and lifestyles through survey research. Comparable to other technological advancements, such as the telephone and the computer, the Internet presents opportunities that will impact significantly on the process and quality of survey research now and in the twenty-first century. Cyberspace permits us to move beyond traditional face-to-face, mail and telephone surveys, yet still to examine basic issues regarding the quality of data collection: sampling, questionnaire design, survey distribution, means of response, and database creation. This surveys include those posted on LISTERV mailing lists, USENET newsgroups, and the World Wide Web. A survey on politics and civic life, conducted by the authors, is used as a case study. She is currently pursuing interests in methodological issues concerning surveying using the Internet, and in policy issues concerning student victimization on college and university campuses. His publications includeViable Democracy (1979);Manipulating Public Opinion (1989);Free Expression, Public Support and Censorship: Examining Government’s Role in the Arts in Canada and the United States (1994); and numerous articles in scholarly and popular journals. His current research interests are contemporary democratic theory and political participation, as well as the political thought of John Locke.     

Greenhouse gases and green roofs: carbon dioxide and methane fluxes in relation to substrate characteristics

Green roof systems have been increasingly implemented to enhance vegetation cover and associated ecosystem services in urban spaces, with primary goals being the reduction of peak surface runoff, enhanced water quality, and mitigation of urban heat island effects. Recently, green roofs have also received attention as a means to enhance carbon sequestration, but direct measurements of greenhouse gas fluxes from established green roof systems are largely lacking. Here we present observations of CO₂ and CH₄ fluxes from substrates of experimental extensive green roof units that varied in vegetation type (Sedum spp., and a native meadow species mix), substrate depth, substrate type (high vs. low organic matter content), and irrigation. We predicted that substrate CO₂ effluxes would be higher in high-organic-matter substrates and that systems with high organic matter would potentially act as CH₄ sources. Substrate fluxes were low compared to natural soils, with seasonal means ranging from an efflux of 0.1–0.4 µmol CO₂ m^-2.s^-1 and uptake of ~0.00–0.04 nmol CH₄ m^-2.s^-1, with higher fluxes late in the growing season. CO₂ fluxes showed large increases in response to irrigation and were higher from the high-organic-matter substrate and with increased substrate depth. The strength of the CH₄ sink increased in response to prior irrigation treatments, and CH₄ emissions were detected only on low-organic-matter substrates early in the growing season. No effects of vegetation type were detected for either CO₂ or CH₄ flux. Our results indicate that high levels of organic matter in green roof substrates may enhance aerobic soil respiration but are not associated with CH₄ emissions, which instead were only detected in low-organic-matter substrates.