Northampton Community College

About: Northampton Community College is a education organization based out in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3410 authors who have published 4582 publications receiving 130398 citations. The organization is also known as: Northampton County Area Community College.

The lesbian family life cycle

Abstract: Despite the rapidly growing number of lesbian families in this country, until now little discussion has emerged of the particular developmental stages and common stresses that face lesbian couples. In this book, psychotherapist Suzanne Slater looks at the wide spectrum of lesbian families - one or two lesbian parents with children, newly lesbian mothers of adult children, the extended family of lesbian friends and ex-lovers. The book provides a five-stage model of the development of lesbian couple relationships, describing the tasks, challenges, and accomplishments particular to each developmental stage.

Television advertising and children: lessons from policy development.

Abstract: Aim: To conduct a policy review of the regulations related to food advertising on television aimed at children. Design: The study consisted of documentary analysis of relevant legislation and policy documents related to children’s advertising from both industry and nongovernmental organisations at a global level and in 20 countries. This was supported with semi-structured telephone interviews with individuals from 11 countries. Results: The initial findings resulted in a listing of regulatory impacts from which we developed a taxonomy of regulatory schemes. There was a tension between the development of legislation to cover this area and the use of voluntary agreements and codes. This tension represents a food industry/civic society split. The food and advertising industries are still engaged in a process of denying the impact of advertising on food choice and children as well as commissioning their own research. Outright bans are unusual, with most countries addressing the situation through voluntary agreements and self-regulation. We found a deep division over the way forward and the role and place of legislation. Policy-makers expressed concerns that national legislation was increasingly less relevant in dealing with broadcast media transmitted from outside national boundaries and therefore not subject to the receiving countries’ laws but to the laws of the country from which they were transmitted. Conclusions: The options for the regulation of advertising targeted at children range from (1) a complete ban on advertising as in the case of Sweden, through (2) partial restrictions on advertising by type of food, target group or limits on the amount of advertisements or times shown, to (3) continuation of self-regulation by the advertising and food industries. There is a global dimension to regulation that needs to be built in, as national frontiers are no barriers to broadcast media and public health nutrition needs to ensure that its concerns are heard and addressed.

Airflow and roughness characteristics over partially vegetated linear dunes in the southwest Kalahari Desert

Abstract: There is little understanding of the flow-field surrounding semi-vegetated linear dunes, and predictions of dune mobility are hampered by a lack of empirical data concerning windflow. In an attempt to characterize the near-surface airflow upwind of and over partially vegetated linear dunes in the southwest Kalahari Desert, this study presents measurements of vertical and horizontal wind velocity profiles across cross-sectional transects of seven partially vegetated linear dunes. Vegetation surveys combined with velocity measurements from vertical arrays of cup-anemometers, placed up to 2·3 m above the ground surface, were used to gain information concerning the modification of airflow structure caused by the intrusion of the dunes into the atmospheric boundary layer and to predict the variability of aerodynamic roughness (z0) from interdune to crest. The results suggest an acceleration of flow up the windward slopes of the dunes and, as such, the data correspond to classical theory concerning flow over low hills (essentially Jackson and Hunt (1975) principles). Where the theory is incapable of explaining the airflow structure and acceleration characteristics, this is explained, in part, by the presence of a spatially variable vegetation cover over the dunes. The vegetation is important both in terms of the varying aerodynamic roughness (z0) and problems concerning the definition of a zero-plane displacement (d). It is considered that any attempts to characterize surface shear stress over the Kalahari linear dunes, in order to predict sand transport and dune mobility, will be hampered by two problems. These are the progressively non-log-linear nature of the velocity profiles over the dunes caused by flow acceleration, and the production of thin near-surface boundary layers caused by areally variable aerodynamic roughness as a result of the partially vegetated nature of the dunes.

Retrieval volition and memorial awareness in stem completion: An empirical analysis

Abstract: Facilitation in an incidental test of stem completion shows little influence of depth of processing at study, whereas facilitation in an opposition test (in which subjects give the first word coming to mind, but omit studied words) occurs following graphemic processing, but not following semantic processing. We argue that completions come to mind involuntarily in both tests. Involuntary conscious memory causes studied words to be omitted in an opposition test, but not in an incidental test, so that the difference in priming between tests is a measure of involuntary conscious memory. We obtained data consistent with this hypothesis by making overt the mental activities that occur covertly in an opposition test: (1) an on-line recognition measure in an incidental test showed a strong advantage of semantic over graphemic processing, even though depth of processing exerted little influence on priming; (2) conditionalizing on recognition failure resulted in accurate estimates of opposition performance; and (3) stems were completed much more rapidly in incidental and opposition tests than in an intentional test, in which voluntary retrieval was engaged. The data provide further evidence that retrieval volition (voluntary vs. involuntary) is dissociable from memorial state of awareness (conscious vs. unconscious). We contrast our approach with the process-dissociation approach, which confounds conscious awareness of the past with voluntary retrieval, overlooking involuntary conscious memory.

Pre-school phonological awareness and subsequent literacy development

Abstract: There is an unresolved debate in the developmental literature regarding whether phonemic awareness is acquired naturally as part of phonological awareness, or whether it is instead an artefact of reading tuition. This ambiguity affects the interpretation of studies which show that pre‐literate phonemic awareness is a powerful predictor of literacy attainment in school. There is also evidence to suggest that spoken word recognition might contribute to literacy development. The present study therefore initially assessed 30 preschool, pre‐literate children on a battery of tests designed to provide a profile of pre‐literate phonological awareness. The reading and spelling ability of these children was then monitored at the end of each school term for five terms. Results suggest that young children can develop phonemic awareness before beginning reading or attending school, and that children's pre‐literate rhyme detection ability is the best predictor of initial reading development. Spoken word recogn...