SoCal Minds

Campus Seeks Ways to Assist Troubled Minds

From Caltech

Grad students hope to mentor undergrads and to participate more in efforts to provide support and encouragement to younger students on campus, this after the school was rocked by the suicides of two popular young men that occurred in May and June, within a month of each other. The school also has stepped up efforts to let students know about counseling and suicide prevention programs for them -- the institutional "safety net" -- and to remove any stigma they might feel about stress, depression, anxiety and other mental health issues they may experience at a campus, which, for good and ill, students say, is an intense place of extraordinary high-achievers and independent personalities.

Campus Mulls How to Strengthen 'Safety Net' After 2 Suicides

What's 'Excellent!' in Pashto, Persian, Turkish?

From UCSB

As the United States finds itself with increasing involvement in lands from Morocco to Kashmir, there's also been a continuing and deserved criticism of this nation's spare knowledge, understanding and even language abilities when it comes to dealing with distant cultures. Now, though, the university can teach students the tongues of the people from the Levant to South Asia, it says. With the help of the Fulbright Commission, the State Dept. and the Institute for International Education, young scholars who are from overseas and fluent in English will help students in Santa Barbara learn three new languages: Pashto, Persian and Turkish; the university already offers study in Arabic, Hindi and Punjabi. Pashto, a principle language in Afghanistan, isn't taught much in the U.S., despite this nation's military presence there. In Santa Barbara, officials say the many language offerings are a boon to students of religion, regional studies, history, political science and, yes, ethnomusicology; training in tongues uncommon in the U.S. -- including Arabic and Pashto -- could be invaluable to aspiring diplomats or international business people. Because of the university's high profile religious studies programs, an array of languages from around the globe already were in the curriculum, including Aramaic, Coptic, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and ancient and modern Israeli Hebrew.   

New Teaching in Pashto, Persian, Turkish

A School Program to Help Kids Cope With Violence

From RAND

In a 2005 national study, researchers found that more than half the children asked had been physically assaulted in the recent year; more than 1 in 8 had suffered child mistreatment; 1 in 12 had been sexually victimized. What to do, not only about such ferocious harm to young people but also to try to ease their fear, anxiety, depression and even post-traumatic stress syndrome? That once might have been the sole province of therapists or other mental health professionals. But with school budgets in free fall and violence against and around children all too common, researchers have tried to provide teachers and counselors with tools to address the pressing needs and concerns of traumatized kids. They worked for a decade with UCLA and LAUSD and pilot-tested their program in real-life settings with poor minority kids, mostly inner city Los Angeles Latino youths. The therapeutic approach shows promise and is now getting wider exposure.

A Cognitive Behavorial Approach to Helping Traumatized Kids

Click Here to Get the Full RAND Materials 

  

This Summer, Step Back From BBQ, Out of Sun

From UCI & UCLA

Yup, the recent heat spell reaffirms that summer, later arriving in the Southland, is really here. So a little common sense but expert advice also is on tap, especially with the Fourth of July weekend coming up: Be careful basking in that beautiful sunshine and watch what you grab at those barbecues, the experts say.

A Dermatologist's Summer Sunshine Cautions

Just Say 'No' to Excess Summer Calories

In Memory Loss, a Lesser Focus Detected, Too

From UCLA

Fuggehdaboutit: Paying attention matters to what gets remembered. Want to forget something? Ignore it. Want to impress something in the mind? Concentrate on it. That's part of the findings of some new research on Alzheimer's that shows that those with this affliction, even in its early stages, have trouble controlling their attention and focusing on what they need to remember. In recall tests, when given lists of words with varying value, younger test subjects remembered both more of them and more of those with higher value; older adults recalled fewer words, though they did well on remembering high value ones. Researchers say that memory may decline in age, forcing individuals to pick carefully what they recall, and, to be successful at this, to focus on the most important matters for focus and retention. Almost 200 individuals were tested in this experiment, including healthy seniors and youngsters, as well as a group of older folks with mild Alzheimer's.

Of Memory, Alzheimer's and Paying Attention  

A New Aid for Kids to Reduce a Post-Surgery Woe

From UCI

More than 3 million children undergo surgery each year in the U.S. and roughly 20% of them have a rough go when they come out from the effects of anesthesia, a condition known as emergence delirium, researchers say. This post-op affliction -- with crying, thrashing and anxiety so great it may require restraint -- may be responsive, they note, to melatonin, a commonly available hormone; physicians now usually administer a drug, midazolam. Earlier studies had shown melatonin helps ease post-op anesthesia-related anxiety in adults. In a study of 148 kids undergoing surgery with general anesthesia, patients randomly were given either melatonin or midazolam and they were studied with well-accepted behavioral methods for their anxiety levels and treatment responses. Melatonin seemed to help with emergence delirium but less so for anxiety. Emergence delirium, experts say, also can lead to further behavioral changes including nightmares, bed-wetting and separation anxiety.

Melatonin Found Helpful in Kids to Ease Anesthesia Woe   

A Touch of Alchemy in a History of Lab Science

From Cal State Fullerton

Picture this: A thousand years ago, in a distant land, a physician and chemist takes pen in hand and meticulously describes chemicals, equipment and processes from his lab for what would be considered "magical" doings in his day. But what's different about this author and his alchemical scribblings in Persian in his "Book of Secrets" is the absence of mumbo-jumbo, digressions or high hooey. In fact, a much-lauded researcher traces cornerstones in the work of science to the Persian writer Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al Razi. His 10th Century book, which was available a bit in Arabic but also in a 1937 scholarly German translation, the researcher says, is straight-forward and demonstrates such key concerns as the capacity of his lab work to be reproduced by others -- a key aspect of modern scientific experimentation. The researcher, with linguistic skill that has reaped praise, has traced forward from the Perisan alchemist to track the evolution and development of science laboratories through history for her graduate study, which continues at UCI.

Making Magic from the History of the Scientific Lab    

Will Summer Law Associates Donate a Day's Pay?

From USC

On Wednesday, some of those amply compensated Trojan summer law associates may be able to think better of themselves if they participate in a program that lets them donate a day's pay to help support classmates doing public interest law. Sure, the law firms, big and small -- many of which also donate for this Samaritan effort -- have cut back on the pay and perks for first- and second-year summer associates. Still, they're going home with more money than classmates who are picking up different kinds of rewards from summers offering legal aid to refugees from the conflict in southern Sudan and Darfur or counsel in Los Angeles to witnesses and victims who might otherwise be further threatened and traumatized by gang bangers. Second-year associates are urged to give $500 for the program. The Public Interest Law Foundation's Pledge-a-Day program raised $13,000 from Trojans last year.

Summer Associates Asked to Give Day's Pay to Aid Public Interest Practice  

 

Trojan Economic Impact Estimated at $4.9 Billion

From USC

The university generates $4.9 billion annually in economic activity in Los Angeles and beyond, reports a Trojan-funded but independent economic analysis. In fiscal 2008, the school employed 26,990 folks directly and "stimulated another 19,100 jobs with its spending; the average pay of a nonstudent employe: $61,000. While the university produced $2.1 billion in total, direct spending -- on wages, capital projects and purchases -- students threw off another $503 million for goods and services and visitors spent $12 million in the region. The university estimates that 1 million folks visited in 2008 -- 75% of them sports fans, the rest for various reasons; half of the visits were, of course, for Trojan football. Most nonstudent employes live in Los Angeles and the numbers in Orange, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego counties is small. Almost half of nonstudent employes live in four Los Angeles council districts -- 11, 8, 5 and 4; toss in the nonstudent employes in District 13 to those four and that accounts for $198 million wages paid. The highest aggregate wages for nonstudent employes, of course, was in District 11, which covers the Westside. The university is the largest private sector employer in LA.

A Measure of Trojan Economic Clout in LA

Click Here to See Economics Research Associates Report on USC 

Iran Insights: on Women, U.S., Hamas, Hezbollah

From UCLA

As the world waits and watches to see what the tyrannical rulers in Iran do next, there's an almost unquenchable thirst for information and insight into the happenings in the Islamic republic. Here's some expertise on the role of women in the current uprising, what to watch for next and a view on reactions from some other key regional players: