To look at the effect of using guilt as a parenting tool, a University researcher and her former PhD student asked children to evaluate hypothetical stories depicting how mothers reacted to their children’s misdeeds.

The children, the study found, were most accepting of guilt when:

• the child’s actions affected the welfare and rights of others, and
• the guilt focused on the harm to the actual victim, without criticizing the perpetrating child as a person.

However, if children thought the hypothetical mom focused on how the child’s action hurt her or her feelings, if the mom brought issues into the equation that the child considered personal or private, or if she criticized her child instead of the actual behavior, guilt and shame increased, thus rendering the practice harmful and ineffective.

But it’s not just the context that matters, according to Judith Smetana, professor of psychology, and Wendy Rote, her former PhD student and now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. The age of the child does, too. The older the child, the less likely the child was to respond positively to the hypothetical mother’s attempt at guilting her child, the researchers found in their study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology.

The concept of guilt remains controversial among researchers, explains Smetana. Basically, there are two diametrically different research literatures on guilt. The parenting literature generally describes it as a negative practice. “Guilt is seen as psychologically controlling, intrusive, and negative for children’s development,” says Smetana. However, the moral development literature sees guilt “as a positive parenting practice and a good way to help children internalize their parents’ moral values.”

So, what’s a parent to do: to guilt or not to guilt?

It depends, says Rote, the study’s lead author. “Save your guilt induction for situations in which the child’s behavior really hurts other people. And when and if you do induce guilt, do it mainly in ways that only criticize the child’s behavior, not the child as a person.”

The study raises a broader question: What fosters a positive relationship between parents and their teens? Read more here.

Left to right: Brad Mahon, Frank Garcea, and Edward Vates

On a warm day in July 2005, Frank Garcea’s soccer playing days came to an abrupt end when he suffered what could have been a deadly stroke during a practice with his high school teammates. Instead, the events of that day and his subsequent treatment at Strong Memorial Hospital – which serve as the basis for a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) – set him on a career path that would ultimately lead to a Ph.D. studying how the brain recovers from injury.

Garcea was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage and underwent surgery the next morning under the clinical care of UR Medicine neurosurgeon Edward Vates.

Garcea ultimately made a full recovery from his stroke and although he returned to school a little more than a month after the incident, his physicians recommended that he forego playing soccer his senior year at Aquinas.

Garcea’s reflections on his brush with death — and why he made a quick recovery while so many others suffer a lifetime of disability — began to shape his decisions about his studies and career.

“I was fascinated about what had happened and began to become interested in learning more about the brain and what happens to people’s cognition and function after an injury,” says Garcea.

He attended St. John Fisher College and began studying cognitive psychology and biology.  During his sophomore year in college, he contacted Vates and spent the next year and a half as a research assistant in his lab at the Medical Center.

Around this time, Brad Mahon, joined the University as an assistant professor in the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and of Neurosurgery, and the Center for Visual Science. Mahon’s research focus was on how the brain recovers its function after injuries like a stroke or after surgery to remove a tumor.

Garcea began working with Mahon in the summer of 2009 and, after finishing his undergraduate studies in May 2010, was hired as a full-time research assistant in Mahon’s lab. This experience propelled Garcea to apply for a Ph.D. position in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Garcea completed his Ph.D. degree in July and will do his post-doctoral fellowship at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.

“Looking back, the stroke that could have very easily killed me or robbed me of my health instead ended up shaping my life in a very profound way,” says Garcea. “My goal is to study cognitive function in individuals with brain injury to develop a deeper scientific understanding of brain function, with a clinical goal of identifying novel therapeutic techniques for patients as they recover from stroke or a tumor.”

“For me, there is indescribable pride in knowing that the critically ill boy I treated years ago has taken the cards dealt to him by fate and matured into a great young scientist with such incredible potential,” says Vates.

Read more here.

Imagine your new home theater features a screen that serves as an extended loudspeaker, able to radiate sound linked to moving video images. Then picture your walls and ceiling lined with flat-panel loudspeakers that double as wall-art, light panels, or ceiling tiles.

What if you were able to create this totally immersive sonic space for a modest price – say a couple of thousand dollars?

“This is the new audio experience that we want to give people,” says Mark Bocko, professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences.

Bocko is working on the project with his PhD student, Michael Heilemann, and former PhD student David Anderson, now an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. It’s an example of cutting edge audio technology being developed at Rochester that could also be commercialized here, helping establish the city as a key player in sound.

The researchers have other potential applications on their radar as well.

Flat-panel loudspeakers could do double duty as signs for advertising and tradeshows, and for other commercial applications, such as fast-food drive-thru menus. They could also make airport and subway public address systems easier to understand. Overhead LED lighting panels doubling as loudspeakers could be spaced throughout airports and subways, Bocko says. They wouldn’t need to be turned up as loudly as the more widely spaced PA loudspeakers now used. This would cut down on the echoes and reverberations that make airport and subway messages almost impossible to discern at any distance.

Read more here.

Ranga Dias has joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant professor after serving a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Physics at Harvard University. His research focuses on materials at extreme pressure and temperature conditions, a field that explores new materials, novel phenomena, and exotic states of matter. His main interests are high temperature superconductivity, magnetism, and superfluidity in the vicinity of quantum phase transitions. His research efforts are also directed toward using high pressure and temperature conditions to understand chemical processes and interactions to synthesize novel advanced materials, such as high energy density materials, super hard solids, and quantum materials. During his three-year postdoctoral appointment, Dias helped lead a team that discovered solid metallic hydrogen, a state of hydrogen that’s predicted to have exotic properties, such as room temperature superconductivity and superconducting super fluidity. He received his PhD from Washington State University.

The first CTSI Analytics Colloquium will examine the historical roots of machine learning from noon to 1 p.m., November 7 at Lower Adolph Auditorium. The event, sponsored by the Informatics Analytics Cluster, is open to all and might be of particular interest to faculty and students in the Departments of Biostatistics, of Computer Science, and of Public Health, as well as the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Goergen Institute for Data Science.

Featured speakers will be:

• Anthony Almudevar, associate professor of biostatistics and computational biology, “The Historical Foundations of Machine Learning.”
• Wenyao Xu, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, SUNY Buffalo, “Algorithm and Hardware Evolution in Machine Learning.”

A light lunch will be served.

Eric Chan, Geosciences, “Investigations of the Biogeochemical and Stable Isotope Kinetics of Aerobic Methane Oxidation.” 1 p.m. October 16, 2017. Hutchison Hall Room 229. Advisor: John Kessler.

Justin Winkler, Physics, “Weak-value Slow-light Interferometry.” 2 p.m., October 9, 2017. Bausch and Lomb 372. Advisor: John Howell.

Oct. 9: 5 p.m. deadline to apply to Center for AIDS Research for pilot funding. Click here to find full pilot announcement.

Oct. 18: Science, Technology, and Culture book club discusses A Crack in Creation, by Jennifer Doudna. 5 to 6 p.m. Humanities Center lobby (Rush Rhees Library). Email Emma_Grygotis@urmc.rochester.edu for more information.

Oct. 23: 5 p.m. deadline to apply to Center for AIDS Research for joint funding through SMD, SON and Program of Excellence. Click here to find full pilot announcement.

Nov. 4: Immune Imaging Symposium hosted by the Program for Advanced Immune Bioimaging.  International speakers, poster session, and oral presentations from students and postdoctoral fellows. 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.  Saunders Research Building. Submit poster abstracts here by October 16. Lunch and refreshments will be served. For more information, click here. Registration is free.

Nov. 7: The Historical Roots of Machine Learning. CTSI Analytics Colloquium. Noon to 1 p.m. Lower Adolph Auditorium, Medical Center.

Nov. 8: Science, Technology, and Culture book club discusses The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi. 5 to 6 p.m. Humanities Center lobby (Rush Rhees Library). Email Emma_Grygotis@urmc.rochester.edu for more information.

November 8: “Figures and Forms: Thoughts on the ‘Inside’ and the ‘Outside’ of Music.” Oliver Schneller, professor of composition and director of the Eastman Audio Research Studio (EARS) at the Eastman School of Music.  Phelps Colloquium. 4 to 5:30 p.m. Max of Eastman Place. Click here to register.

Nov. 9: Wilmot Cancer Institute Scientific Symposium. Oral presentations and poster session.  9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Class of ’62 Auditorium and Flaum Atrium, Prizes for best posters. Deadline for poster registration submission is November 1. For questions about the symposium, the poster presentation, or to obtain a poster registration form, contact Chelsea Costanzo at chelsea_costanzo@urmc.rochester.edu or at 273-1447.

Nov. 13: Initial abstracts due for Incubator Awards from the School of Medicine and Dentistry’s Scientific Advisory Committee. Find more details and application instructions online.

Nov. 15: Deadline to apply for Wilmot Cancer Institute’s Junior Investigator Award, for Collaborative Pilot Studies Targeting New NCI Funding, and for Brain Tumor Pilot Studies. For additional information and applications, click here. Applications should be submitted electronically to Pam Iadarola, research administrator, James P. Wilmot Cancer Center, Pamela_iadarola@urmc.rochester.edu. Questions should also be directed to her at 585-275-1537 or by email.

Dec. 1: Center for AIDS Research ninth annual HIV/AID Scientific Symposium. Keynote speakers and poster session. Click here for more information. Contact Laura Enders for more information about World AIDS Day events.

Dec. 6: Science, Technology, and Culture book club discusses Weapons of Math Destruction, by Cathy O’Neil. 5 to 6 p.m. Humanities Center lobby (Rush Rhees Library). Email Emma_Grygotis@urmc.rochester.edu for more information.

December 7: “Including Disability in the Diversity Conversation.” Susan Hetherington, associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Strong Center for Developmental Disabilities.  Phelps Colloquium. 4 to 5:30 p.m. Evarts Lounge, Helen Wood Hall. School of Nursing. Click here to register.