A Different Take on the Big Bang Theory: Examining the Influence of Asperger Traits on the Perception and Attributional Confidence of a Fictional TV Character Portraying Characteristics of Asperger Syndrome

Research shows that media figures can influence the construction of one’s personal and social identity. However, there are few studies that examine representations of stigmatized groups with developmental disorders, such as those with autism spectrum disorders. This research examines the effect of a viewer’s scores on the autism quotient (AQ) and their relationship with homophily and attributional confidence towards Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, who is suspected of having Asperger’s syndrome (AS). Guided by uncertainty reduction theory the results indicated a positive relationship between the dimensions of the AQ and homophily with Sheldon, and a positive relationship between higher scores on the AQ and attributional confidence towards Sheldon. The implications of identification with fictional television characters for individuals with AS, and the application of the AQ in future research are discussed relative to the current findings.     

Photographs from the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum,South Africa, 1890–1907

This essay investigates photographs taken at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum during the superintendence of Dr Thomas Duncan Greenlees, from 1890 to 1907. It examines two specific sets of photographs: first, the photographs taken for public consumption, and, second, the casebook photographs of the patients. I argue that the photographs produced for public consumption ascribe to the broader public image of the asylum. Greenlees constructed a public image of the asylum being committed to the curative regime of moral therapy while catering to the tastes, proclivities and activities of white private patients. The photographs for public consumption also include images of black patients. Yet, in this time of British colonial rule in South Africa, there was differential treatment for black patients. Under Greenlees’s superintendence, they were assigned supervised physical labour tasks under the pretext of them being occupational treatment. The discourses of cure and recovery in such a “treatment” regimen become signalled by the black patient’s ability to work. Thus, the curative ideal of the asylum for black patients, disseminated as its public image, is primarily concerned with domesticating black bodies into a docile and cooperative labour force. However, the public image of black patients as being passive before the asylum’s regimen is problematised through an analysis of the second set of images – the casebook photographs. These photographs depict patients confronting, refusing and resisting the asylum administration. Thus, the casebook photographs are valuable in recuperating active resistance and hold the potential to undermine the public image of the asylum.     

Body dissatisfaction,neuroticism, and female sex as predictors of calorie-tracking app use amongst college students

ABSTRACT

Objective: This study investigated body dissatisfaction, neuroticism, and sex as potential predictors of calorie-tracking app usage amongst undergraduate college students. Participants: College students (N = 491) were recruited from a large northeastern university in October 2015. Methods: Participants completed an online survey asking about their sex, body dissatisfaction, neuroticism, and use of apps that track calories. Results: Analyses revealed that female sex and body dissatisfaction—but not neuroticism—were direct predictors of calorie-tracking app usage. Analyses also provided support for a causal sequence wherein neuroticism and body dissatisfaction mediate, in serial, the relationship between female sex and calorie-tracking app usage. Conclusions: The results from this study suggest that female college students are more likely to use calorie-tracking apps—a phenomenon which may be attributable to their higher levels of neuroticism and subsequent increased body dissatisfaction.     

Benchmark Dose Risk Assessment for Formaldehyde Using Airflow Modeling and a Single-Compartment, DNA-Protein Cross-Link Dosimetry Model to Estimate Human Equivalent Doses

Formaldehyde induced squamous-cell carcinomas in the nasal passages of F344 rats in two inhalation bioassays at exposure levels of 6 ppm and above. Increases in rates of cell proliferation were measured by T. M. Monticello and colleagues at exposure levels of 0.7 ppm and above in the same tissues from which tumors arose. A risk assessment for formaldehyde was conducted at the CIIT Centers for Health Research, in collaboration with investigators from Toxicological Excellence in Risk Assessment (TERA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) in 1999. Two methods for dose-response assessment were used: a full biologically based modeling approach and a statistically oriented analysis by benchmark dose (BMD) method. This article presents the later approach, the purpose of which is to combine BMD and pharmacokinetic modeling to estimate human cancer risks from formaldehyde exposure. BMD analysis was used to identify points of departure (exposure levels) for low-dose extrapolation in rats for both tumor and the cell proliferation endpoints. The benchmark concentrations for induced cell proliferation were lower than for tumors. These concentrations were extrapolated to humans using two mechanistic models. One model used computational fluid dynamics (CFD) alone to determine rates of delivery of inhaled formaldehyde to the nasal lining. The second model combined the CFD method with a pharmacokinetic model to predict tissue dose with formaldehyde-induced DNA-protein cross-links (DPX) as a dose metric. Both extrapolation methods gave similar results, and the predicted cancer risk in humans at low exposure levels was found to be similar to that from a risk assessment conducted by the U.S. EPA in 1991. Use of the mechanistically based extrapolation models lends greater certainty to these risk estimates than previous approaches and also identifies the uncertainty in the measured dose-response relationship for cell proliferation at low exposure levels, the dose-response relationship for DPX in monkeys, and the choice between linear and nonlinear methods of extrapolation as key remaining sources of uncertainty.     

Organized Racism and the Stranger

To attract members and adherents, contemporary racist organizations construct interpretive frames that address a wide variety of social issues and problems. We draw on Simmel's insights on the social position of “the stranger,” arguing that racist framing should have greater resonance in communities with a large non-White population that is not fully integrated into the community. We examine county-level variation in the presence or absence of an active racist group in 2001. Results show that the combination of a large non-White population and White isolation from non-Whites provides a favorable context for racist activism.     

Power Devaluation,the Ku Klux Klan,and the Democratic National Convention of 1924

In the early 1920s, millions of American men and women joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. As the movement expanded, it became heavily involved in local, state, and national politics. The Klan became the center of controversy at the Democratic National Convention of 1924. An anti-Klan faction proposed a plank to the party platform that, if accepted, would have condemned the Ku Klux Klan by name. After a raucous debate, the plank was defeated by a narrow margin. In this paper I analyze state-level variation in support for the Klan at the convention. Klan support is predicted by delegates' support for prohibition, by party competitiveness in non-Southern states, and by a three-way interaction between increasing numbers of voters, increasing numbers of manufacturing workers, and decreasing farm population within the states. The findings support predictions generated by the status politics model, political mediation theory, and the power devaluation model. I conclude the paper by discussing ways in which the central insights of the status politics model and of political mediation theory can be incorporated into the general framework of the power devaluation model.     

Bayesian Estimation of Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Parameters in a Mode-of-Action-Based Cancer Risk Assessment for Chloroform

Chloroform is a carcinogen in rodents and its carcinogenicity is secondary to events associated with cytotoxicity and regenerative cell proliferation. In this study, a physiologically based pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PBPK/PD) model that links the processes of chloroform metabolism, reparable cell damage, cell death, and regenerative cellular proliferation was developed to support a new cancer dose-response assessment for chloroform. Model parameters were estimated using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis in a two-step approach: (1) metabolism parameters for male and female mice and rats were estimated against available closed chamber gas uptake data; and (2) PD parameters for each of the four rodent groups were estimated from hepatic and renal labeling index data following inhalation exposures. Subsequently, the resulting rodent PD parameters together with literature values for human age-dependent physiological and metabolism parameters were used to scale up the rodent model to a human model. The human model was used to predict exposure conditions under which chloroform-mediated cytolethality is expected to occur in liver and kidney of adults and children. Using the human model, inhalation Reference Concentrations (RfCs) and oral Reference Doses (RfDs) were derived using an uncertainty factor of 10. Based on liver and kidney dose metrics, the respective RfCs were 0.9 and 0.09 ppm; and the respective RfDs were 0.4 and 3 mg/kg/day.