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Sustaining Comprehensive Health And Wellness Initiatives In The Elementary School Setting
No full textSchools have transitioned from single-component health and wellness programs to comprehensive initiatives aimed at fostering continual and sustained improvement in children’s overall health and wellness. These interventions, with a focus on knowledge and behavior change, can effectively promote the adoption of healthy behaviors among children. These programs leverage theoretical frameworks to establish practical relationships among stakeholders, including administrators, teachers, students, parents, funding partners, external organizations and community members. While the literature extensively discusses the facilitators and barriers to implementing comprehensive wellness interventions, there remains limited understanding of their long-term sustainability. This qualitative study explores how resources provided during the implementation of comprehensive interventions, along with various inputs and activities, may impact sustainability post-programming. The findings suggest that continuity across implementation levels, along with buy-in from teachers and administrators, as well as additional resources such as time and funding, are crucial for ensuring sustainability. This study sought to understand the perspectives of participants and identify systematic factors that contribute to long-term sustainability of programming beyond the intervention period or grant funding
The Relationship Between Mild Cognitive Dysfunction And Diabetes Self-Management In Community Dwelling Older Adults
Get PDFBackground. Cognitive dysfunction is an important comorbidity of diabetes, which may reflect brain changes as a consequence of diabetes. Objective The purpose of this study was to examine the association between specific cognitive domains and diabetes self-management behaviors in individuals with diabetes and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Furthermore, the association between social determinats of health and MCI was investigated. Design A cross-sectional descriptive correlational design was used to address the study aims using data extracted from the 2022 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and 2016 Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HCAP) datasets. Participants Of the total HRS and HCAP participants, 2035 individuals aged 65 and older were selected. Results Among people with diabetes and MCI, executive function and processing speed predicted A1C (t = -2.978, p = .003; t = -1.759, p = .079, respectively). In addition, physical activities were predicted by executive function and immediate episodic memory (t = -2.25, p \u3c .025; t = 2.25, p = .027, respectively). Activities of daily living was predicted by language and verbal skills (t = 11.97, p = .001), executive function (t = 8.27, p \u3c .004), immediate episodic memory (t = -4.92, p = .016), sensation and perception (t = 7.57, p = .005), processing speed ( t = 8.28, p = .004), orientation (t = 8.98, p = .003), and visuospatial domain ( t = -1163, p = .001). Depression was predicted by executive function (t = -2.82, p = .005), immediate episodic memory (t = -1.95, p = .051), processing speed (t = -5.028, p \u3c .001), and visuospatial domain ( t = -2.22, p = .026). Furthermore, individuals with MCI had lower educational levels (z = -6.44, p \u3c .0001). Moreover, social support was significantly associated with A1C (F = 2.061, p = .005). Conclusion Diabetes is strongly associated with specific cognitive domain impairment
A Takeover Framework For Autonomous Vehicles To Enhance Safety And Driving Experience
No full textAutonomous driving technology, particularly Level 3 autonomy, promises to reduce highway accidents. Traditional fixed-rule approaches fail to account for driver variability and dynamic driving conditions. To address this, a Personalized Takeover Framework is proposed. This framework aims to adapt takeover processes to individual drivers and environments, enhancing safety, reducing stress, and promoting public acceptance. Objectives include developing adaptive protocols, ensuring safety and reliability, improving user experience, addressing ethical considerations, and conducting comprehensive testing. Leveraging advanced technologies like machine learning and real-time data analysis, this framework seeks to enhance the integration of autonomous vehicles into everyday transportatio
Exploiting Light To Probe Biological Processes
Get PDFMetal complexes have many advantages as biochemical tools due to their rich photophysical properties and unique geometry. Metal-based complexes are commonly reported as emissive probes or photoactivatable biological agents. Long emission lifetimes of metal complexes allow for the use of lifetime gating which eliminates autofluorescence found in assays, a distinct advantage over short-lived organic fluorophores. This work utilizes this powerful technique to generate reversible, emissive probes for monitoring CYP3A4 active site occupancy. In addition to the emissive properties of metals, metals can also be used as photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photochemotherapy (PCT) agents. These light-activated strategies provide important spatiotemporal control which grants localized treatment and elimination of off-target side effects found in conventional therapeutics. This work represents advances in the PCT/PDT field to shift to use of green-light activated agents, opposed to commonly found blue-light agents associated with poor tissue penetration and light toxicity. Together, this collection of work demonstrates the superiority of the photophysical properties of metal complexes and its promising biological application
Learning In The Absence Of Training: Examining Differential Age- And Alzheimer’s Disease Risk-Related Performance On A Stimulus Equivalence Task
No full textIntroduction: Relational frame theory (RFT) is a theoretical framework which posits that the ability to derive implicit relations amongst stimuli is foundational to human cognition and language development. Stimulus equivalence tasks measure derived relational responding abilities by training a limited set of relations amongst stimuli and assessing recall for explicitly trained and implicitly derived stimulus relations. These tasks may be sensitive to identifying older adults (OA) at increased risk for dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT), though this application has been scarcely researched. This study examined age differences in performance on a novel stimulus equivalence task and was the first to investigate how derived relational responding abilities change in OA with DAT risk factors. We predicted worse performance (i.e., slower and less accurate) on the stimulus equivalence task in younger adults (YA) relative to OA and in OA with a first-degree family history of DAT (OA+) relative to those without said history (OA-).
Method: Forty-four YA, 42 OA+, and 45 OA- completed the stimulus equivalence task and other measures of processing speed, episodic memory, associative learning, working memory, and crystallized intelligence. During the stimulus equivalence task, participants were taught two relations (e.g., A --\u3e B, A --\u3e C) between single English language letters (Letter condition) and abstract symbols (Symbol condition). Recall of the two trained and four derived relations (e.g., B --\u3e A and C --\u3e A, symmetry; B --\u3e C and C --\u3e B, transitivity) was subsequently tested. Accuracy rates and response time (RT) were recorded.
Results and Discussion: Overall, YA were faster and more accurate than OA- and exhibited greater learning across trials, consistent with cognitive aging literature demonstrating declines in processing speed, memory, and cognitive flexibility with age. Unexpectedly, no performance differences were observed between the cognitively healthy OA+ and OA- groups. This finding may be due to high cognitive reserve and lack of confirmed biomarkers for Alzheimer\u27s disease in the OA+ group. All groups performed better when stimuli were familiar letters as opposed to abstract symbols. Derived relations were consistently recalled slower than trained relations in the YA group, whereas RT differences across relation types were only apparent in the Letter condition for the OA groups. Contrary to predictions, all groups were remarkably accurate even for the most complex transitivity relations, with minimal accuracy differences across relation types. These findings highlight the importance of examining RT rather than accuracy to detect more subtle cognitive weaknesses. Additionally, stimulus equivalence task performance was correlated with measures of associative learning, episodic memory, working memory, and processing speed, but not crystallized intelligence, supporting the task’s construct validity. While future research is needed in participants with diagnoses spanning the DAT continuum, this study offers promising preliminary results that the stimulus equivalence task may serve as a simple, cost-effective method for identifying age-related and possibly DAT risk-related cognitive decline
Crossing The “valley Of Death”: How Climate Technology Entrepreneurs Navigate Relationships With Venture Capital Investors
Get PDFAs the world faces the ongoing and intensifying impacts of climate change, a group of innovative changemakers known as climate tech entrepreneurs (CTEs) are working on climate adaptation, mitigation, and/or resilience efforts by brining innovative technologies to the global market (UNFCC, 2018; Endeavor 2022). To realize the full potential of these technologies—tools, techniques, specialized knowledge or skillsets—they must be developed, deployed, and implemented at scale (IPCC, 2000). To do this, CTEs require external funding support, especially during a crucial period of the start-up lifecycle known as the “valley of death”. In this period between development and commercialization, production costs and technology risks are high while market penetration and profits remain low, resulting in a funding gap from which many start-ups never emerge (Ghosh & Nanda, 2010; Hegeman & Sørheim, 2021). Venture capital investors (VCs), a critical source of funding in this period, are of particular importance to CTEs given their role as de facto gatekeepers for climate technologies into the marketplace. The relationships formed between CTEs and VCs during compliance gaining, when entrepreneurs attempt to persuade VCs to provide the resources they require to cross the valley of death, are often complex. Tensions may arise in relationships between CTEs—who simultaneously pursue financial outcomes while creating environmental, social, economic, and policy impact for a broad group of stakeholders—and VCs—who are traditionally driven by financial logics. Furthermore, the critical communicative processes, including negotiation and tension management, that constitute these relationships are understudied phenomena. Taking a social constructionist perspective, this study takes up the call from scholars for further inquiry into the everyday actions and communicative acts that constitute entrepreneurship. It adopts a process view of entrepreneurship known as entrepreneuring (Steyaert, 2007), and explores the dynamics of relationship building and tension management between these actors to understand how CTEs engage in compliance gaining with VCs. This study combines two theoretical frameworks to address this topic. First, Dillard’s (2008) Goals-Plans-Action (GPA) theory, a multiple goals theory which recognizes compliance gaining goal pursuit as driven by primary goals to influence message targets, but as also shaped by secondary goals, which may be related to resources, identity, or relationships. Second, it utilizes a tension-centered approach (Trethewey & Ashcraft, 2004), which recognizes tensions as an inherent part of organizing and considers the productive capacities of tension management for organizations and organizational actors. Combining these approaches allows for a more nuanced understanding of tension management within goal pursuit and the compliance gaining process. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 21 CTEs provided the data required for this qualitative analysis, which was conducted using constructivist grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2014). Findings from this study expound upon the compliance gaining process, highlighting the variety of resource-, identity-, relational-, and impact-related goals of CTEs. The plans they generate and the actions they implement in pursuit of these goals come together to form a matrix of communicative actions, such that the GPA process is recursive and dynamic. Additionally, findings show that throughout the GPA process, as a variety of tensions become salient to CTEs, which are then framed as either contradictions, complementary dialectics, or double binds and subsequently managed via a typology of tension management techniques. Findings from this study point to several theoretical implications for compliance gaining and GPA literature, for studies that adopt a tension-centered approach, and for organizational communication literature on entrepreneuring. There are also practice-based takeaways for CTEs, VCs, and other climate tech ecosystem stakeholders
Three Papers On The Economics Of Alcohol Laws
No full textThis dissertation will investigate the impact of various laws regarding the sale and consumption of alcohol on alcohol-related outcomes. These questions are motivated by the numerous changes in these outcomes that the U.S. population has experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic, including worsening of alcohol consumption, alcohol-related deaths, and drunk driving fatalities. The laws I analyze – many of them newly introduced since 2020 – address stay-at-home orders, cocktail-to-go, alcohol delivery and the blood alcohol consumption maximum for driving. These findings will hold the potential to influence public policies with major implications for public health
Communicating Social Determinants Of Health: Causal Attribution And Sourcing In Health News And Its Effect
No full textThis study examines the effects of media framing on public perception and support for health policies, with a particular focus on the attribution of chronic disease causes. The research confirms that media portrayals significantly impact individuals\u27 attributions of the causes of chronic diseases. An online experiment employing a 3 (frame: genetic, behavioral, and social determinants of health [SDOH]) x 2 (source: health expert and health expert with layperson) design was conducted. A total of 489 respondents participated in the study, and a series of multivariate and univariate analyses were performed. The findings showed Genetic frames increased genetic attributions, behavioral frames elevated behavioral attributions, and SDOH frames shifted attributions towards social contexts. However, exposure to SDOH frames did not significantly increase policy support compared to genetic or behavioral frames. Additionally, the inclusion of both health expert and layperson sources did not enhance causal attributions more than using a single expert source. Political ideology and racial/ethnic backgrounds were found to have a greater influence on support for pro-SDOH policies than media frames
Un(disciplined): On Be(com)ing Queer In Late Capitalism
No full textThis dissertation explores the author’s dual experiences of becoming queer and living with mental illness. Using performative methods, the author critiques the hegemonic academic industrial complex, graduate education norms, and gay life in late capitalism. Ultimately, the author concludes that queerness is too excessive to be confined to a dissertation page. As such, the author attempts to queer the dissertation through writing and performing a one act play concerning the themes of the project. Topics explored include: queer digital culture, living and enduring mental illness, the discovery of sexual citizenship, and navigating late capitalism as a millennial
Understanding Travel Behavior And Representativeness In Transportation Surveys: A Focus On Disadvantaged Communities
No full textTransportation infrastructure and services play a pivotal role in shaping societal dynamics, influencing accessibility, mobility, and overall quality of life. The design of transportation systems can either aggravate or alleviate social inequalities. Despite its importance, disparities persist in transportation access and mobility, particularly among disadvantaged communities. The challenge is that there is a lack of clear understanding of the complexity of travel activity patterns for these disadvantaged travelers. In addition to that, the lack of understanding about the travel behavior and needs of transport disadvantaged travelers is further complicated by representation issues in available household travel surveys. This dissertation seeks to address this gap by examining the distinct travel patterns of transport-disadvantaged groups and evaluating the representativeness of existing travel survey data.In addressing the shortcomings of understanding the travel behaviors of transport-disadvantaged travelers, this dissertation asked new questions on the complexity of travel activity patterns for disadvantaged travelers. Drawing from an activity-based perspective, the dissertation investigates the unique travel behaviors of disadvantaged communities. By analyzing travel activity patterns, disparities, and underlying factors shaping travel preferences, this research aims to provide valuable insights into the complexities of transportation access and mobility among disadvantaged groups. Further on, this dissertation examines the intricate interplay between transport disadvantage and travel pattern complexity, with a particular emphasis on race. Furthermore, the dissertation assesses the performance of travel surveys in accurately representing diverse demographic groups. In this dissertation, multiple travel surveys were gathered and examined across the United States. A novel metric is developed to gauge relative representativeness, allowing for a comprehensive evaluation of these survey data across multiple demographics. This new metric is a factor of the population sample weights in travel surveys and its applicability extends to other weighted surveys. By identifying biases and shortcomings in current survey methodologies, this study contributes to enhancing the inclusivity and accuracy of transportation data collection efforts. The research makes significant contributions to transportation planning and policy-making by illuminating the challenges faced by transport-disadvantaged communities and offering insights into addressing equity issues in transportation. Additionally, by providing a robust methodology for evaluating survey representativeness, this dissertation empowers metropolitan organizations to collect more accurate and inclusive transportation data, thereby fostering equitable transportation planning and decision-making processes. Finally, this dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of travel behavior among disadvantaged communities and offers practical solutions for enhancing equity in transportation planning and decision-making