Graduate Research Assistant Research Articles

Effect of Music on a Mindfulness Experience: An Online Study

Mindfulness has become increasingly common in therapeutic and non-therapeutic venues as a way to address stress, change, and uncertainty, such as in the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of music in mindfulness is apparent in several traditional and Western practices but has little research regarding its effect in novice practitioners. In an online course-based research experience, a group of student researchers, a graduate research assistant and two faculty members recruited 54 healthy participants within their social networks, to investigate the effect of a music stimulus on one mindfulness exercise and the feasibility of implementing this intervention in virtual sessions. Participants attended two virtual group sessions where student researchers and a faculty member/research assistant provided online questionnaires and links to a 20-minute meditation recording, either with or without music, as the two conditions. Potential moderators of the intervention included stress in the previous month and absorption in music. A repeated-measures ANCOVA indicated no significant differences among conditions, and no interaction with stress or absorption in music. Although contrary to our expectations, the lack of significant differences between conditions indicate that music did not distract from a mindfulness meditation, and that the music and guided mindfulness stimulus was as efficacious as the guided mindfulness alone. Given the potential for music to become a distractor for novice practitioners, this finding is important and in line with our theoretical framework. Online delivery of this intervention was feasible and apparently effective. Suggestions for implementation of online research and intervention delivery are included.

First person – Juri Luis Habicht, Ashley Mooneyham and Asumi Hoshino

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Juri Luis Habicht, Ashley Mooneyham and Asumi Hoshino are co-first authors ‘UNC-45a breaks the microtubule lattice independently of its effect on non-muscle myosin II’, published in JCS. Juri Luis conducted the research described in this article while a research assistant in the lab of Martina Bazzaro at the University of Minnesota, USA. He is now a medical student in the lab of Prof. Dr Martin Heinze at Brandenburg Medical School Theodor Fontane, Neuruppin, Germany, investigating neuronal functioning and mental health. Ashley conducted the research described in this article while a graduate research assistant and PhD candidate with Martina Bazzaro. She is now a Director of Grants in the lab of Superior Medical Experts at St Paul, MN, USA and works on small business healthcare innovation. Asumi is a full-time researcher in the lab of Martina Bazzaro investigating the molecular basis of drug resistance in cancer.

The Relationship of William Henry Perkin, Jr. and Sir Robert Robinson: Teacher and Student, then Student and Teacher.

William Henry Perkin, Jr. FRS, the son of the inventor of mauve and other commercial dyes and credited for initiating the industrialization of chemistry, was himself a notable chemist. He was the Professor of Organic Chemistry at Manchester from 1892-1912 and then was the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Oxford and the first Head of the Dyson Perrins Laboratory from 1912-1929. One of Perkin's graduate students and research assistants at Manchester was Robert Robinson, subsequently Sir Robert Robinson, FRS and recipient of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Perkin and Robinson had perhaps the most productive and broad collaboration between a professor and one's student. Together, during and after Robinson's student days, they had 71 joint publications, 25 of which involved just the two of them, 17 of which involved the structure determination of strychnine, and eight of which were published after Perkin's death in 1929. Upon Perkin's early death, Robinson succeeded him as the fourth Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, Oxford University. This Essay will examine the professional relationship of Perkin, Jr. and Robinson as revealed in their joint publications on the structure of strychnine.

From the Editor's Gable

From the Editor's Gable

On Pursuing Scholarship That Makes Me Whole: Reflections of an Asian Woman Critical Feminist Scholar of Education

Research Article| October 01 2020 On Pursuing Scholarship That Makes Me Whole: Reflections of an Asian Woman Critical Feminist Scholar of Education Yoon Ha Choi Yoon Ha Choi YOON HA CHOI is a PhD candidate in science education and a graduate research assistant at Oregon State University. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Women, Gender, and Families of Color (2020) 8 (2): 147–152. https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.8.2.0147 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Yoon Ha Choi; On Pursuing Scholarship That Makes Me Whole: Reflections of an Asian Woman Critical Feminist Scholar of Education. Women, Gender, and Families of Color 1 January 2020; 8 (2): 147–152. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/womgenfamcol.8.2.0147 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressWomen, Gender, and Families of Color Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Effects of a Court-Ordered Service Dog Training Program with U.S. Veterans: A Qualitative Study

Abstract This qualitative study investigated the impacts of a court-ordered service dog training program on justice-involved U.S. veterans. An experienced qualitative research team conducted three focus groups with nine veterans to explore how training service dogs influenced their daily lives. Focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed, and manually coded. Two graduate research assistants developed preliminary themes; the full team generated final themes. Themes illustrated how participation in the program: 1) decreased physical and emotional isolation; 2) assisted veterans with reintegrating into civilian life; 3) improved emotional self-regulation; and 4) helped veterans discover potential; 5) find camaraderie; 6) reconnect with community; and 7) create a sanctuary. In a follow-up session, several participants confirmed that the results accurately captured their experiences. The overall finding suggests the service dog training program served as a rehabilitative process for justice-involved veterans to rediscover their abilities and talents that existed before their experiences in the justice system.

Түркиядағы Каздаги Ұлттық паркi (Ида тауы) негiзiнде экологиялық бiлiм беру

Aim of this study is to examine and evaluate the ecology - based environmental education program which was applied in years between 2003-2006 Kazdagi National Parks in the WesternTurkey. Ecology - based environmental education aims at using natural and cultural resources ofKazda ð ı National Park to teach graduate research assistants and scout teachers about the nature.The expectation is to increase the environmental awareness of participants in general. At the end ofthe education program, it is expected that the participants will develop a better understanding oflocal, regional, national as well as international environmental problems; will be able to discuss andprovide alternative solution to global ecological crises; and will take action in their individual livestowards creating a more sustainable environment for future. The main or purpose of the projectwill be to teach natural interactions in an ecosystem. Emphasis will be given to human action thathas been interrupted that interaction and made natural environments less sustainable. Therefore,particular emphasis will be given to cultural ecology of the protected area and the participants areexpected to develop a thorough understanding of human and environmental interaction.

Graduate students lose right to unionize

The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees unionization efforts, has proposed that graduate teaching and research assistants employed at private universities and colleges no longer have the right to form labor unions. The board has changed its view three times over the past 20 years on whether paid graduate teaching and research assistants are primarily students or if they are also employees with the right to form labor unions and collectively negotiate employment contracts. The NLRB proposal defines teaching and research assistants as students and exempts them from coverage and protections under the federal National Labor Relations Act. “Students who perform services at a private college or university related to their studies will be held to be primarily students with a primarily educational, not economic, relationship with their university,” the proposal says. It calls for comments over the next 60 days. The NLRB’s previous decisions on graduate student

The art of academic negotiation.

I was meeting my new colleagues at a wine and cheese reception. Some of us early-career academics—all members of underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups—started to talk about salaries. I shared how, after years of feeling undervalued, I had doubled my salary in my new job as assistant professor compared with what I was earning as a lecturer a year prior. Jaws dropped. There were lots of questions. We all agreed that we were ill-prepared to negotiate. No classes had taught us that skill, and people didn't really talk about it. This is probably a challenge for many, but it particularly affects underrepresented minorities who may be first-generation college students and are less likely to have academic mentors with similar experiences. We often find ourselves navigating academia blindly. ![][1] ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER > “I thought I deserved more, but … I had no idea how to negotiate.” I didn't enter public health research to make millions of dollars, but I hoped not to struggle. I grew up in a single-parent household, with my amazing mother working multiple jobs to make ends meet. I thought academia was my ticket to financial stability. But when I started my postdoc, I was surprised at how low the salary was after so many years of education. Then it came time to apply for faculty jobs. I got an offer—for less than I had earned as a postdoc. I thought I deserved more, but my internal impostor syndrome voice told me I was lucky to be offered any job in academia. I had no idea how to negotiate. I didn't know that negotiation was even possible. When I voiced concern about the salary, I received a handshake and a verbal promise that it would increase in a year. I trusted this promise and signed on the dotted line. I jumped into gear, creating teaching materials for eight courses, taking on administrative roles, starting a new campus global health center, conducting research, supervising staff, and mentoring students. My energy was boundless, but not my time. I began to understand the invisible labor of mentoring students from underrepresented groups who came to me for support—requests that would probably be even more frequent if I were a woman or sexual or gender minority. I was also asked to join several committees that wanted to diversify their makeup. I believed all my efforts would be rewarded in line with the original handshake agreement, and I waited. After 2 years, I finally got the nerve to ask for a raise. I went in prepared with documentation of strong teaching, administrative work, research grants, staff supervised, students mentored, and other faculty members' salaries—which I had recently learned were available online because I worked at a public university. But my efforts were for naught. I was told that if I wanted a higher salary, I needed to go out and get an offer from another school. I felt betrayed. I thought I brought enough value to warrant an increase. Did they not care if I left? And what about that handshake? Once I was on the job market, I realized my true value. I learned from mentors that I could negotiate for much more than salary, including startup funds, moving expenses, parking, laboratory space, graduate research assistants, administrative support, teaching load, and more. I took my best offer back to my institution and they matched it. However, other problems persisted. Six months later I accepted an offer—which I had negotiated well, resulting in that doubling of my salary from a year prior—for a tenure-track job at my current institution. I now frequently lecture about academic negotiation—and share my mistakes. I try to emphasize a few key points. Salary is negotiable, and it's not the only part of an academic contract that you can negotiate. Verbal agreements are easily forgotten; if something is not in writing, it doesn't exist. Offer letters set your market worth in academia. And committing time and energy to service such as committee work and indispensable mentoring—even if substantially above and beyond the norm—doesn't usually pay off in terms of salary. To help one another grow and prosper, we need to talk about these things and share our stories. [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

Project honeybee: Clinical applications for wearable biosensors.

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references. The Project Honeybee Observational Clinical Trials were 12-month studies designed to validate the use of commercially available ambulatory medical devices costing $50-$300 for clinical applications. Each trial had a patient population of about 15-30 subjects with a broad range of disease types including heart failure, diabetes, sepsis, and Parkinson's disease. Over 30 supported proposals were funded in the 4-year period, as well as the creation of a database of all commercially available devices. Each year a call for proposals was published within ASU and Mayo Clinic Arizona. Proposals were selected for funding by a committee of ASU faculty from engineering, nursing, and exercise physiology departments. The progress of each research trial was monitored through monthly colloquia with the nursing, biomedical engineering, computer science, and nutrition graduate research assistants, to discuss the challenges and opportunities arising with each research trial. PIs were required to report on study progress 6months into the trial period and 3months following the conclusion of the 12-month project. The project was very successful in meeting our goals of testing consumer wearable devices on patients for a variety of conditions across a variety of clinical settings in the greater Phoenix community. The following clinical sites participated in one or more of these clinical trials: Adelante Healthcare, Arizona Arrhythmia Consultants, Arizona Cardiology Group, Banner University Medical Center, Barrow Neurological Institute, Honor Health, Mayo Clinic, and St Joseph's Hospital. A total of 12 ASU faculty and 39 clinicians participated.

Developing an Open Social Scholarship Collaboration: Lessons from INKE

Many academic teams and granting agencies undergo a process of reflection at the completion of research projects to understand lessons learned and develop best practice guidelines. Generally completed at the project’s end, these reviews focus on the actual research work accomplished with little discussion of the work relationships and process involved. As a result, some hard-earned lessons are forgotten or minimized through the passage of time. Additional learning about the nature of collaboration may be gained if this type of reflection occurs during the project’s life. Building on earlier examinations of INKE, this paper contributes to that discussion with an exploration of seventh and final year of a large-scale research project.Implementing New Knowledge Environment (INKE) serves as a case study for this research. Members of the administrative team, researchers, postdoctoral fellows, graduate research assistants, and others are asked about their experiences collaborating within INKE on an annual basis in order to understand the nature of collaboration and ways that it may change over the life of a long-term grant. Interviewees continue to outline benefits for collaboration within INKE while admitting that there continue to be challenges. They also outline several lessons learned which will be applied to the next project.

DANTE

The data management group at the Nanyang Technological University (dante) was founded in 2009 by the first author when the School of Computer Science and Engineering hired two young faculty members in this area. The group currently consists of three faculty members and more than twenty graduate students, research assistants, and postdocs. Our alumni include faculty members at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, and several researchers and engineers at Facebook, Google, eBay, Huawei, and other technology companies. The group's major funding is from the Ministry of Education in Singapore, National Research Foundation, and companies such as Huawei.

Exercising Research Skills: An Information Literacy Boot Camp for Religious Studies Graduate Assistants

ABSTRACTInstructional librarians at the University of Dayton collaborated with a religious studies graduate program to offer a three-day information literacy workshop, or “boot camp,” to the program's graduate research assistants. The graduate program had found that the assistants' research skills did not meet the expectations of their faculty mentors, and the workshop sought to address these deficiencies. With input from the religious studies faculty, the workshop focused on catalog and database searching, Boolean logic, primary sources, and the Chicago citation style. The librarians incorporated active learning exercises into each workshop session. Assessment of the workshop suggested that the assistants gained confidence in these information literacy skills. Feedback from faculty also indicated that the assistants' research skills had improved.

Assessing the Risk of Intimate Partner Violence: Expert Evaluations Versus the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment

ABSTRACTIn the forensic field, a reliable and valid assessment of domestic perpetrators who pose a high risk of reassaulting an intimate partner is needed to implement effective risk management strategies. The purpose of the present study was to examine the accuracy of two violence risk assessment methods in identifying high-risk perpetrators of IPV, comparing forensic experts with psychology students. For a cohort (n = 30) of domestic violent cases that required an expert evaluation in the Canton of Zurich in Switzerland, violence risk was assessed by certified forensic psychiatrists using unstructured clinical judgment (UCJ) and by undergraduate and graduate research assistants scoring the actuarial Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) instrument. After a mean follow-up period of 8.0 years, the base rate of violent recidivism was 20.0%. Students were significantly more accurate than clinical experts in assessing long-term violent recidivism (AUC = 0.78 vs. 0.44). Raters without extensive clinical training could differentiate those spouses who carried on assaulting their intimate partner from those who desisted from violent behavior. Potential explanations are clinical assessment biases and the mediating effect of interventions. Further research should address the lack of use of mechanical instruments in clinical forensic practice.

The Matriculation of the Micro-Unit on the College Campus

To the extent the world of higher education was following the National Labor Relations Board there was probably limited focus on the Board’s Specialty Healthcare case allowing for the so-called “micro-unit”. Board decisions as to the employee status of tenure track faculty or football players or graduate teaching or research assistants were likely to be of greater interest. Yet the recent holding in Columbia University that students providing instructional services were also employees subject to the Act’s coverage put the micro-unit in play on the college campus. Almost immediately after this decision petitions were filed at Yale seeking representation of graduate students on a department-by-department basis with as few as six employees in a proposed bargaining unit. This paper examines the legal context at the intersection of Columbia and Specialty Healthcare.

Learning with fun in the Mason instructional design special interest group (MID-SIG)

We propose to introduce participants to the Mason Instructional Design Special Interest Group (MID-SIG). Mason faculty members, staff, and graduate research and teaching assistants with an interest or involvement in instructional design are invited to join.This poster session intends to demonstrate a small scale version of a Technology Speed Dating Event. During this event, we will share ideas on the topic of 3D print design in a fun and engaging way. We will demonstrate how a 3D print design activity can challenge students to embrace learning as a creative and reflective process. This session offers instructors an engaging way to cultivate creative and intentional learners through 3D print design using 3D capture mobile technology and 3D printers.Participants who attend this poster session will walk away with an understanding of 1) how 3D print design activities are used in education, 2) how to capture and print a 3D image using a mobile device, and 3) how joining the MID-SIG is aligned with the Mason value “We thrive together.”

Cultivating successful undergraduate research by cognitive apprenticeship: A case study

A common challenge in academic research is finding a meaningful and productive way to involve undergraduate students in substantive research activities. The Department of Engineering at East Carolina University offers a general Engineering undergraduate degree, and matriculated its first small group of graduate students into a Master’s program in Biomedical Engineering in Fall of 2014. With few master’s students and no doctoral program, our undergraduate students are often given the opportunity to play a role in research that is more typically expected of a traditional graduate research assistant. This fact presents both great opportunity and unique challenges. This work presents the framework for a case study in cognitive apprenticeship that will take place over the next four years. The group of students includes all class levels, from freshmen to seniors. In addition, implementation of a hive or collaborative approach for introducing undergraduate students to advanced technical literature is described.

Notes For Notes

Notes For Notes Lisa Hooper, Marianne Kordas, David Hunter, Beth J. Thompson, William M. Nelson, and Deborah Campana The Music & Media Center of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University is pleased to announce the launch this past fall of the New Orleans Independent Music Digital Collection. This new collection makes available for the first time full streaming audio from selected tracks of independently released albums by New Orleans artists. With the incorporation of a rich set of linked data through which users can explore genres, bands, and individual artistic output, this collection seeks to expose the deeply interconnected musical culture of New Orleans. Users of the digital collection can listen to selected tracks, view album cover art, link to band Web sites, and explore the complex relationships and collaborations across the local indie music landscape. New tracks are continually being added to the collection and, as it grows, the New Orleans Independent Music Digital Collection will become an entry-level research platform for anyone studying local musical culture. All tracks included in the collection are digitized from albums already owned by Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and with the permission of rights holders. This and many other exciting collections may be found at http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu. Lisa Hooper Tulane University In the summer of 2015, our staff at the Music Materials Center of the James White Library, Andrews University, embarked on an extensive project to ensure our locally assigned call-number list for sound recordings matched the online catalog and the physical shelves. Still known as the “Blackbook” (although it migrated to computer sometime in the 1980s), the call-number list was started by Elaine Waller during the 1970s. Considering how long this shelflist has been in existence and the dozens of student workers who have worked on it over the years, we were happy to discover in the course of our project that the Blackbook was mostly accurate. This speaks to the dedication and quality of the Music Materials Center’s student workers through the decades. During the course of the project, we also found several LPs in our collection that had not been cataloged, fixed misshelved sections and oddly labeled items, reclassified several recordings, and generally aligned the shelflist and the online catalog. We originally imagined this would be a quick project for late spring, but instead finished in late July, just in time [End Page 509] for students to use a better-organized sound collection at the start of a new school year. Marianne Kordas Andrews University The Historical Music Recordings Collection (HMRC) of the Fine Arts Library, University of Texas at Austin, recently added a massive infusion of pristine and rare punk vinyl in the form of 700 LPs and 400 singles (45s) from a collection amassed by the late Justin Gibran (Freud) Reia. Freud was an avid music collector and musician. His mother, Flora Salyers, and wife, Tamara Schatz, generously donated his collection, which fills a significant genre gap the HMRC’s overall corpus. “The collection is great, just absolutely great,” says Benjamin Houtman, outgoing HMRC graduate research assistant. “Very, very authentic, widely varied—you can tell he loved this stuff. I’ve just barely scratched the surface but I’ve already seen Sham69, Flipper, the Jim Carroll Band, Iggy, Stiv Bators, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blondie, The Clash, Black Flag—all legends—along with tons of completely obscure stuff. . . . I wish my record collection was one-tenth as good as this. I’m envious of the GRA who really gets to dig into this collection. I hope they appreciate it. Every record I’ve looked at appears to be in good shape too. Wow.” David Hunter University of Texas at Austin The William Madison Randall Library and the University of North Carolina Wilmington Music Department received an inhouse grant from The Friends of UNCW, a group that provides funding for a variety of projects throughout the university. In consideration of the summer of 2014 premiere of Opera Wilmington, the city’s first live opera company, and increased interest in opera, the library sought funding to update current opera holdings, specifically a video collection in VHS format...

The New Focus of Academic Organizing: Private Institutions Now Face Academic Collective Bargaining

Academic labor unions will likely become a growing presence on the campuses of private colleges and universities in the years ahead due to three main factors. First, the NLRB has agreed to hear a case involving a petition by the United Auto Workers to represent graduate teaching assistants at The New School, and it is quite likely that the NLRB will reverse past precedent and find that graduate teaching and research assistants will have the right to unionize at private institutions. Second, the Board also issued a highly consequential decision in December of 2014 which will make it exceedingly difficult for colleges and universities to establish that their faculty are collectively managerial employees and therefore without the right to unionize. This decision will open the door to the unionization of many full time contingent faculty and possibly tenure track/tenured faculty themselves. Finally, and perhaps of greatest immediacy, a growing and sprawling movement to organize adjunct and part-time faculty throughout the country has already brought academic collective bargaining to numerous institutions that heretofore only had to deal with the occasional staff union.

Mentoring Hispanic undergraduate and graduate research assistants: building research capacity in nursing.

This article discusses and describes the experiences of five Hispanic bilingual (English and Spanish) research assistants (RAs) who were undergraduate and graduate nursing students and who were part of a research team. A capacity-building framework was used, which has six guiding principles: a whole-system approach; accommodating diversity; reducing barriers to participation; enabling collaboration; mentoring; and facilitating networking. In addition, mentorship and peer learning were essential components of building research capacity. Reflections of the five RAs highlighting how these principles were applied are described. The experiences of the five Hispanic RAs and the outcomes of the projects are also described. These experiences demonstrate the importance of involving undergraduate and graduate nursing students in research, which can build research capacity and increase the number of Hispanic nurses in the workforce.