Stetson University

The use of mindfulness skill promises a bevy of positive outcomes at work, increasing organizational interest in designing interventions for boosting it. To create these interventions, organizations need more information on key elements that support mindfulness and deeper understanding about how each element mechanizes deployment of mindfulness skill. This manuscript addresses these needs. We articulate how the micro mindfulness skills of self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence (identified as the “S-ART framework” by neuropsychologists) emerge and combine to create a state of mindfulness. We then provide an example to demonstrate how including each of these elements in a mindfulness intervention provides employees with a stepwise self-management technique for better interacting with distressing or uncomfortable cognition. In all, we demonstrate how mindfulness interventions that incorporate self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-transcendence create a more robust state of mindfulness.

Kee H.L.

What You Will Learn in This Chapter In this book chapter, you will learn how painted lady butterflies are used for CRISPR gene targeting experiments in an undergraduate biology course. We describe the advantages to using butterflies for undergraduate lab classroom, and the specific reasons that make them an undergraduate-accessible organism for gene targeting with CRISPR. Readers will learn about the benefits of the life cycle and husbandry of the butterflies and caterpillars. We discuss the overall CRISPR strategy and tools needed to deliver CRISPR components into butterfly eggs. We explain how CRISPR is used for loss-of-function gene studies, where CRISPR is used to disrupt the proper expression of genes involved in wing color and patterning. We show how a simple microinjection system and stereoscope is used to deliver CRISPR components into the eggs. Furthermore, we describe the molecular biology techniques used to determine nucleotide changes made by CRISPR and DNA repair mechanisms. We discuss how CRISPR of genes regulating wing color and patterning can show a visually drastic change that students find extremely fascinating, and thus enables students to make connections between genotype and phenotype.

ABSTRACTHow does context shapes religious practices and religious expression of immigrants? Existing work has focussed on changes over the long term and across generations. We argue that context can shape religious practice shortly after arrival. Using a nationally representative survey of Syrian refugees with children who arrived between late 2015 and 2018, we examine how often parents talk to their children about religion, a central mechanism in religious socialization. We compare Quebec, which has become increasingly restrictive about public religious expression to other Canadian provinces, which are often upheld as exemplars of multicultural accommodation. Syrian refugees in Quebec, especially mothers, report significantly less frequent religious discussions with their children than those in other provinces, regardless of whether they are Christian or Muslim. This pattern is not explained by pre‐migration religiosity or settlement selection, suggesting that Quebec's distinct socio‐political environment shapes religious expression soon after arrival.

ABSTRACT Because discussion of dialect in the speech of Aleyn and John in the Reeve’s Tale has always focused on its Northern character, attention to other dialect forms in the tale has unfortunately also sought to locate them geographically, namely in the Reeve’s Norfolk home. But examples of the first-person pronoun ik, the <e> reflex of Old English /y/, and the uninflected genitive resist that tendency in two ways: both their appearances in the complete textual record and their frequent, unexplained absences from it argue against any hypothesis of a consistent geographical significance, and their surprisingly widespread diffusion in the language of both narration and various characters requires understanding their significance in other terms. An editorial approach much more open to readings outside the Hengwrt-Ellesmere nexus allows for a fuller appreciation of the tale.

Brevetoxins are a type of neurotoxin produced in red tide blooms. Northern quahogs (M. mercenaria) are extensively used in commercial aquaculture farming, and early-stage metabolomics studies can provide early warnings...

ABSTRACTWe examine whether fair value (FV) deficiencies highlighted in Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) inspection reports improve perceptions of the reporting quality of FV investment assets. Qualitative studies illustrate that subjective and complex estimates pose unique challenges to audit improvement. Using a market‐based measure of financial reporting quality (i.e., implied asset‐specific betas), we find a positive association between the intensity of FV‐deficient reports and perceived reporting quality of level 2 (but not level 3) FV investment assets and show that the association is stronger when audit office FV expertise is high. Consistent with improvements in disclosures, after a FV‐deficient report, we find FV footnotes become relatively more readable and include less cautionary language as level 2 holdings increase. Overall, our evidence suggests investors value PCAOB inspections regarding level 2 FV assets.

Biomedicine today is experiencing a shift towards decentralized data collection, which promises enhanced reproducibility and collaboration across diverse laboratory environments. This inter-laboratory study evaluates the performance of biocytometry, a method utilizing engineered bioparticles for enumerating cells based on their surface antigen patterns. In centralized and aggregated inter-lab studies, biocytometry demonstrated significant statistical power in discriminating numbers of target cells at varying concentrations as low as 1 cell per 100,000 background cells. User skill levels varied from expert to beginner capturing a range of proficiencies. Measurement was performed in a decentralized environment without any instrument cross-calibration or advanced user training outside of a basic instruction manual. The results affirm biocytometry to be a viable solution for immunophenotyping applications demanding sensitivity as well as scalability and reproducibility and paves the way for decentralized analysis of rare cells in heterogeneous samples.

Metabolomics has been widely applied in human diseases and environmental science to study the systematic changes of metabolites over diverse types of stimuli. NMR-based metabolomics has been widely used, but the peak overlap problems in the one-dimensional (1D) NMR spectrum could limit the accuracy of quantitative analysis for metabolomics applications. Two-dimensional (2D) NMR has been applied to solve the 1D NMR overlap problem, but the data processing is still challenging. In this study, we built an automatic approach to process the 2D NMR data for quantitative applications using machine learning approaches. Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), artificial neural network classification (ANN-DA), gradient boosted trees classification (XGBoost-DA), and artificial deep learning neural network classification (ANNDL-DA) were applied in combination with an automatic peak selection approach. Standard mixtures, sea anemone extracts, and mouse fecal samples were tested to demonstrate the approach. Our results showed that ANN-DA and ANNDL-DA have high accuracy in selecting 2D NMR peaks (around 90 %), which have a high potential application in 2D NMR-based metabolomics quantitively study, while PLS-DA and XGBoost-DA showed limitations in either data variation or overfitting. Our study built an automatic approach to applying 2D NMR data to routine quantitative analysis in metabolomics.

Zhang R., Mercado T., Chen Y., Bi N.C.

Abstract Purpose Building on Social Comparison Theory and Parasocial Relationship Theory, this study is designed to investigate how followers’ wishful identification with YouTube influencers is associated with their psychological well-being and how parasocial relationships with influencers moderate this association. Design/methodology/approach Influencer-fan data (N = 504) is collected through a Qualtrics survey in collaboration with a real-life influencer on YouTube. Hayes Process Modeling was used to conduct mediation and moderation analyses. Findings Results indicate that enjoyment of influencers’ videos positively leads to followers’ wishful identification, which negatively impacts their well-being. The parasocial relationship with the influencer was found to be a significant moderator on the negative relationship between wishful identification and follower well-being in the models with vlog-oriented videos and skincare videos as independent variables. Practical implications This study provides guidance for influencers regarding the behaviors to lower the negative psychological impact of their videos on viewers. While influencer content creation is a thriving business, the association between influencer-following and viewer’ mental health issues should not be overlooked. Social implications From the viewers’ perspectives, awareness of social media comparison with influencers and the filtered effects of social media communication are also discussed. Originality/value As influencers continue to gain prominence on social media, their influence on followers extends beyond providing information, entertainment, companionship, and product endorsements. This study examines the negative effects of influencer content on viewers’ psychological well-being, particularly through mechanisms of social comparison and parasocial relationships.

ABSTRACT Disease may be both a cause and a consequence of stress, and physiological responses to infectious disease may involve stress coping mechanisms that have important fitness consequences. For example, glucocorticoid and glycemic responses may affect host fitness by altering resource allocation and use in hosts, and these responses may be affected by competing stressors. To better understand the factors that affect host responses to infection, we challenged the immune system of field-acclimatized pygmy rattlesnakes, Sistrurus miliarius, with a sterile antigen, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and measured the glucocorticoid and glycemic response in healthy non-reproductive snakes, snakes afflicted with an emerging mycosis (ophidiomycosis) and pregnant snakes. We hypothesized that LPS challenge would result in a glucocorticoid and glycemic response typical of the vertebrate acute phase response (APR), and therefore predicted that LPS challenge would result in an acute increase in plasma corticosterone (CORT) and a decline in plasma glucose in all individuals. Additionally, we hypothesized that the APR would be attenuated in individuals simultaneously coping with additional challenges to homeostasis (i.e. disease or reproduction). As predicted, the immune challenge elicited an acute increase in plasma CORT and a decrease in plasma glucose. Snakes coping with ophidiomycosis and pregnant snakes were able to mount a robust glucocorticoid and hypoglycemic response to LPS challenge, which was contrary to our hypothesis. Our findings clarify directions of causality linking infection, glucocorticoids and glucose, and emphasize the importance of future research examining the fitness consequences of interactions between stress and disease in wildlife threatened by emerging pathogens.

What are the political, gender, and theological implications at stake when associating Jesus with modern combat and righteous violence? Jesus is rendered in combative form across media—i.e., live-action films and shorts, animated television, sketch comedy, graphic novels, and video games. This rendition occurs at a confluence of meaning, most immediately for the sake of generating comedy through juxtaposition (in this case, rendering the meek with a sword) and/or reaffirming Jesus’ prominent cultural value through an association with other popularly mediatized entities. Beyond these initial layers of significance, however, I argue that Jesus becomes associated with violence and brutality for the sake of de/legitimizing politically conservative ideologies with respect to Christianity and American exceptionalism, redeeming the crisis of “domesticated masculinity” and fortifying traditional masculine norms, and theologically reinstituting popular paradigms of low Christology. Ideological “manhood” remains traced to one’s ability to perform traditional gender roles (i.e., family provider, community protector, and father/procreator). To capture the discrepancy that Jesus of Nazareth, as presented in canonical gospels, largely concerns none of these roles, I analyze the hypermasculine Christ, and the various weapons he employs, as part of a popular genealogy of Western value systems and discourse. Though in this article I reference some examples of non-American media, I reserve my analysis and commentary for the stakes and implications of what it means for U.S. Americans to produce and consume such content. In short, I submit that popular America idolizes itself in the form—one amidst many—of a naïve, combative, and boorish Christ: an arrogant and, at times, narcissistic man with delusional views of the world made dangerous through invasive power and authority. Western entertainment has deemed the United States (through its fictional stand-ins) as morally failing yet still chosen. Within this logic, American Christians need not reform their ways as long as they cultivate evidence of their exceptionalism.