This study is centered around the association between child abuse victimization and food addiction. According to the research child abuse is  somehow connected to the increase in obesity risk in adulthood. The Nurses’ Health Study II is a survey that was used to measure physical and sexual child abuse histories in the year 2001 along with the food addiction in 2009.

The study found that 8% of the participants in the sample reported physical abuse during childhood while 5.3% reported sexual abuse. Additionally, the study found that 8% of the sample met the criteria for food addiction. Severe physical and sexual abuse during childhood were associated with 90% of increases in food addiction risk.

The study concluded that a history of child abuse is strongly associated with food addiction in the sample studied. While this study reports numeric results, it lacks in-depth interviews. There is a hole in the explanation and analysis of the data. Food addiction could be a symptom of childhood abuse or something completely independent. Whether food is used as a cope mechanism for the childhood abuse and or post traumatic distress, remains unknown in this particular study. This study does not pursue this information fully. What we find is that the specific sample that was dissected and studied happens to have a portion that has a food addiction and were victims to childhood abuse. This does not mean that because of one factor, the other factor will increase, necessarily.

“Abuse Victimization in Childhood or Adolescence and Risk of Food Addiction in Adult Women.” Wiley Online Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2016. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20500/full>.

Previous studies on hummingbirds have attempted to predict the preferred percentage of sucrose in solution for optimal energy uptake. These values range from 22% to 40%. This study compared the Archilochus alexanderi (black-chinned hummingbird) behavioral response to nectars based on sucrose receptors, sweetness receptors, and by a physical measure of viscosity (thickness/stickiness). The study was conducted in Santa Cruz county, Arizona, and data was collected from ten feeders each with three red, plastic flowers with small “corolla tubes” allowing hummingbird access to the nectar inside. A 20% sucrose solution (average natural flower sucrose concentration) was used as the control nectar, and test nectars were introduced periodically. Test nectar variables included varying levels of sucrose in solution, artificial sweeteners (saccharin, Equal, and aspartame) and carboxy methyl cellulose (used to increase viscosity). The study found that the black-chinned hummingbird did not consume significantly different amounts of 30% sucrose solutions than 20% but that they showed a significant preference for 40% sucrose solution (almost four times that of the control). The study also found that both artificial sweeteners and increased viscosity neither increased nor deterred visitation. In addition, the researchers observed that hummingbirds responded to decreased sucrose concentrations by increasing their sampling behavior at feeders. It was concluded that chemosensory mechanisms, as opposed to physical measures of viscosity, are used by hummingbirds when evaluating and selecting sucrose nectars. The results also support an existing model that predicts that even with added feeding costs associated with higher nectar viscosities, higher sucrose concentrations are preferred by hummingbirds.

Stromberg, M. R., and P. B. Johnsen. 1990. Hummingbird sweetness preferences: taste or viscosity? The Cooper Ornithological Society 92: 606-612.

In the article “Pathways to embodiment of HIV risk: Black men who have sex with transgender partners, Boston, Massachusetts. By: Sari Reisner, Matthew Mimiaga, Sean E. Bland, Maura A. Driscoll, Kevin Cranston, and Kenneth H. Mayer. In this article they talk about the risk of contracting HIV and how black men that have sex with transgender partners. In previous studies done about this it was said that Men who have sex with transgender persons may be at elevated risk for HIV infection due to a host of individual, community and structural level factors. In a recent meta-analysis in 29 different studies of male and female transgender populations found rates of HIV between 12% and 28% with even higher rates observed in Black transgender women (31%-56%). In their study they took 197 black men in the months between January and July in 2008 who reported having sex with a man and who reported residing in Massachusetts were recruited by a modified respondent driven sampling (RDS) method, and completed a quantitative assessment with a trained interviewer and were offered voluntary HIV counseling and testing. In order for them to be apart of the study they had to be black, and identified as a male and were 18 years of age they also had to live in Massachusetts and have reported of having oral or anal intercourse with a man in the preceding 12 month. They were given compensation for participating in the study and could earn up to $100 depending on how many things they participated in. There were many results in this study: Overall 8% of men reported having a transgender sex partner in the past 12-month. In Socioeconomics found that a significant higher portion of men who reported sex with a transgender partner reported being recently unstably housed and having public health insurance. In Sex Identity it show no man reported having sex with a transgender partner in the past 12 months self identified as gay, they reported as bisexual. In Sexual Risk Behavior more than half (56%) of man with a transgender partner had unprotected sex in last encounter. In Substance Use during sex the MSM said transgender partners use more cocaine when having sex. In HIV Prevention Services said that men with transgender partners are less likely to report being exposed to an HIV.

Reading this article I didn’t know what to expect really I just thought it was going to talk about transgender people and how they act in society. I really didn’t expect it to really talk about how black people have more of a chance of receiving HIV than an white person. I sort of took affiance to this article by using race as another way of separating society. I wan you to read this article and tell me why you think they only used black people and am it fair that they put this connotation on them and how they are likely to contract HIV.

http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/sociology/docview/921580036/83449286A2164D32PQ/1?accountid=14729

In the article “Marijuana use and depression”, by: Brian E. Green and Christian Ritter they wanted to look and see if the use of marijuana has anything to do with depression and mental health. In previous studies they looked at three different things on how to measure marijuana and depression. The first thing was the age in which people used marijuana and several studies have showed the early marijuana users achieve less in high school than non-users. Another studied showed that early marijuana use maybe associated with coping problems in adult hood, and also showed that marijuana users are less likely to be married than non-users. In this study that they did and conducted they measured the use of marijuana in three ways: one measure was age and marijuana initiation, second was the use of marijuana use in the past 30 days, and lastly they measured the reason for marijuana use. They broke the results down into models; the first model looked at the main effect of early marijuana use on depression, the second and third assess the indirect effect of early marijuana use on depression through educational attainment, employment status and marital status, the fourth model assess current marijuana use and its relationship on depression, lastly the fifth and sixth model looks at how other illicit and licit drugs with marijuana effect depression. Model 1 shoes that the early marijuana users are slightly more likely depressed than never users. In model 2 looks at educational attainment and shows that marijuana has no relationship between the two, in Model 3 it adds employment status and marital status it shows that married and employed are less stressed than unmarried and unemployed. In Model 4 shows that marijuana use is not significantly associated with depression. In the 5^th model they found that the number of drugs besides marijuana is positively associated with depression. In the 6^th model looked at all the drugs combined and shows that there is a significant association on depression also in the last model it shows that there is a significant association between using marijuana to cope and depression.

After reading this article it made me think about how marijuana can be good and bad for you and how people can take advantage of it and use it thinking that it is good for them when really in some cases it is actually hurting them in the long run. I know that before even reading this article that the more marijuana you smoke and use that it is actually replacing the dopamine in your brain which is the chemical balance in you that makes you happy and controls your emotions, so I can also see how marijuana can make you depressed and what not. I have one question to ask based on this article what if you use marijuana at the bare minimum and aren’t an avid user will it still affect your depression and cause problems as if someone were to smoke marijuana all the time?

This study focuses on the ratings college students give for their teachers. In order to understand the ratings given for teachers, the study sought characteristics that were “associated” with the ratings. Due to existing research, the study focused on five specific characteristics: “class size, course level, the ‘electivity’ of the course, the particular subject matter of the course, and the time of day that the course is held.”

The associations draw from the study are reported to be moderate or not very strong. The teacher ratings were often higher for upper division courses and elective courses. Additionally, professors in the areas of humanities, fine arts, and languages also tended to receive higher ratings than others.

According to the study, there are many explanations for the relationships made between ratings and professors. Studies in which controlled studies are relevant are fewer  than those that only have “zero-order” relationships between characteristics and ratings. This means that the relationships aren’t dependent on one variable or another.

In my evaluation of the study, classes that offer more freedom tend to receive higher ratings. Electives are more likely to receive better ratings because the students are able to choose the course as opposed to it being required. Upper division courses I would assume have older students with more knowledge about what they are learning. Therefore, a respectable rating for a course would not be strange.

Citation:

Feldman, Kenneth A. “Course Characteristics and College Students’ Ratings of Their Teachers: What We Know and What We Don’t.” Link.springer.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2016. <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00976997>.

Terlizzi, A., Scuderi, D., Fraschetti, S., & Anderson, M. J. (2005). Quantifying effects of pollution on biodiversity: A case study of highly diverse molluscan assemblages in the mediterranean. Marine Biology, 148(2), 293-305. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-005-0080-8

This research example was worked on by A. Terlizzi, D. Scuderi, S. Fraschetti, and M. J. Anderson.  Their research paper was titled, “Quantifying effects of pollution on biodiversity: a case study of highly diverse mollusks assemblages in the Mediterranean.”  They wanted to know the potential effects of sewage discharge on spatial patterns of highly diverse mollusks assemblages in a Mediterranean rocky sub-tidal habitat.  They used an experiment with two control sites.  They needed reports from the mollusks.  All three sites were chosen at random.  Scuba divers went down and took samples by scraping organisms off of rocky surfaces.  The mollusks were sorted and put into solution.  The analysis was mostly ordinal and involved a lot of math.  Univariate asymmetrical analyses of variance were used to calculate all of the variables. They put all of their data into bar graphs to show the number of individuals and the variable that was tested.  Their results concluded that there were a higher number of species at the locations that were further away from the sewage pipes.  There was more variability.  This experiment used scuba divers which is extremely helpful.  However, this experiment used destructive techniques that ruined the sites.  This is not the way that scientists should work.  They were all extremely intelligent, but I do not approve on the harm that they caused.

In 2010 Paul M. Klenowski, Keith J. Bell, and Kimberly D. Dodson published “An Empirical Evaluation of Juvenile Awareness Programs in the United States: Can Juveniles be ‘Scared Straight’?” in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. This study assessed twelve evaluations of ten juvenile awareness programs. They used the Maryland Scientific Scale for assessing the scholarly evolutions of the programs, which is widely accepted in the criminal justice field. The SMS (Maryland Scientific Methods Scale) is a five-point scale that measures the methodological rigor of the evaluations of the juvenile awareness programs. The SMS ranges from 1 (the least rigorous) to 5 (the most rigorous). If the evaluations of the juvenile awareness programs in which the researchers are looking at have a high enough rigor, they “can classify the effectiveness of a program into one of four categories: ‘what works, what does not work, what is promising, and what is unknown’” (258). A program that can be classified as working has to have at least two evaluations that are 3 to 5 rankings on the SMS scale.
In the end, this meta-analysis is yet another study showing the lack of effectiveness of juvenile prevention programs on recidivism. However, while this study shows that youth are likely continue or even increase their delinquent behavior after attending these programs; Klenowski, Bell, and Dodson suggest that certain aspects of these juvenile awareness programs, like non-confrontational programs in conjunction with other promising crime prevention strategies, should be taken into consideration. While this study is another study pointing to the lack of effectiveness of juvenile awareness programs, like scared straight, it is one of the few that suggests that non-confrontational programs in conjunction with other crime prevention strategies should be looked into.

http://0-search.ebscohost.com.books.redlands.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=50038747&site=ehost-live

This article mostly pertains to the United States, but I feel that it can apply to aspects on border control now in Europe as countries are tightening security at the border. The idea of borders in itself promotes the idea of keeping undesirable people and goods out of a country. Border control has the goal of selectively denying access to a territory. As immigration becomes the forefront of political discussions around the world, border control is becoming stricter. Even in Europe where the borders are “open”, more restrictions are being set. These days, it is easier to trade goods across borders than cross as a human. Our society is so focused on the economic benefit of open borders that we neglect freedom of border crossing for people.

The article argues that scholars are leaning towards the idea of a “world without borders”. In many ways, I agree with this as ideas, goods, and culture can flow between territories without (many) restrictions. However, I feel that the article is neglecting the fact that when ever there is a foreseen “security threat” there will always be enforced borders. As a society, we are almost there in terms of a borderless world when it comes to ideas. Globalization and technology have increasingly made the lines blurry between territories, as there is no physical border for the Internet to cross in most cases. However, when it comes to people, and more specifically asylum seekers or refugees, the borders between countries can become impenetrable. An example of this is the Schengen territories in the European Union have “open borders”, but when it comes to allowing refugees, many of these countries have closed their doors. The study of the refugees and asylum seekers also requires a study on borders and how and why they are formed and reinforced. If we can understand the societal and physical borders that are hindering refugees from asylum, then we can better understand there plight altogether.

Citation:

Andreas, Peter. Redrawing the Line: Borders and Security in the Twenty -First Century. 2003

As I’ve been exploring the media surrounding research connecting violence to video games, I was interested to find a mainstream article from a well-known media source. I found this article on CBS news’ website from 2015, following the wake of the several different mass shootings in 2015. I found it very interesting the way that the article was structured. While the article did admit right away in the first couple paragraphs that there has been very little correlating research between video games and violence in the past couple decades, the short article went on to point out that the shooter involved in the Sandy Hook shooting was highly interested in violent video games. Of course, the fact that millions of other Americans are also interested in these same games was left out.

At this point in my research from reading various articles, it is very interesting that even though there is very little research backing up this claim, articles are quick to jump to the common scapegoat of blaming video games for violence.

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/do-violent-video-games-lead-to-criminal-behavior/

According to the study, adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are representative of the “legal” targets for tobacco industry marketing. It is also highlighted that a large portion of these young adults being targeted are college students. While actually cigarette smoking is more common, this study seeks to find research on the usage of tobaccos products that are not cigarettes by college students or cigar use by adults regardless of their age.

The objective of this study is “to assess the prevalence of all forms of tobacco use (cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and smokeless tobacco) among US college students and to identify student- and college-level factors associated with use of each product.”

To gather data, the Harvard College Alcohol Survey, was utilized. This is a self-administered survey that was conducted in 1999. The sites for this study were one-hundred nineteen “nationally representative US 4-year colleges.” From these colleges, a total of 14,138 students were randomly selected, which indicated a sixty-percent response rate.

The variables tested consisted of self-reported use of any and all tobacco products within the past 30 days, past-year, and lifetime.

The study concludes that the use of tobacco products is not limited to cigarettes. For this particular study, it is important to note the percentage of survey response. For the class study, we must keep in mind the types of questions that we ask in order to receive the most responses possible while conducting a research with accurate, genuine results. In this survey, maybe some students were not comfortable admitting their use of tobacco due to social repercussions or whatever the reasonings may be.

Citation:

“US College Students’ Use of Tobacco Products.” JAMA Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016. <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=192969&resultclick=1>.