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Relationship between Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion and Diabetes
No full textColor poster with text, images, charts, maps, and graphs.According to CDC, among chronic conditions, Diabetes is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the US. Access to health care is most essential to stay healthy for a diabetic person. With high cost of supplies, medication, education, and medical care to manage diabetes, affordable and adequate health insurance is imperative. Before the Affordable Care Act expansion in 2014, Medicaid program primarily covered pregnant women, low-income families with children, and elderly and disabled people with Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The expansion extended coverage to most of the adults up to 138% Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and it was adopted by 27 states in 2014 and by 2021, it increased to 39 states (including DC). Past literature provided evidence that this led to a significant increase in the total Medicaid coverage and consequently a decrease in the total number of the uninsured individuals in the expansion states. This paper examines the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid Expansion on diabetes diagnoses, and its management to prevent health complications caused by diabetes. Exploiting the differential timing of adoption of Medicaid expansion by different states, we employ a staggered difference-in-difference framework to compare the diabetes outcomes in the expansion states (treatment group) with the non-expansion states (control group).University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program
Examining Foliar Water Uptake in Neotropical Epiphytes
No full textVascular epiphytes account for 9% of plant diversity and are abundant in tropical rainforest canopies but experience dry microclimates due to their lack of contact with the soil. As such, epiphytes have evolved numerous adaptations for drought resistance and water uptake, including foliar water uptake, the absorption of water directly through leaf tissue. Traits such as trichomes, greater stomatal size and density, and thicker leaves can improve the efficiency of foliar water uptake, yet their relative contribution to water uptake and dry-down rates across different species is unclear. Additionally, experimental design may influence our understanding of these mechanisms, as the submersion methods used in previous studies differ from natural leaf wetting events. This study investigates how functional traits influence drought tolerance and foliar water uptake in epiphytes from Bromeliaceae, Orchidaceae, and Polypodiaceae. Using a novel mist experiment and a traditional submersion method, we evaluated foliar water uptake and dry-down rates. We combined mass and fluorescence measurements while considering leaf anatomical traits to explore mechanisms and the influence of experimental design across nine species. We found significant differences in species’ physiological recovery under mist versus submersion experimental design, as well as clear differences in dry down and foliar water uptake rates across all three families and nine species, which are linked to unique anatomical trait syndromes. Comparing dry down and foliar water uptake rates via mass and fluorescence measurements demonstrated family and species-specific mechanisms for drought resistance and foliar water uptake
Tracing Frameworks of Visibility in Open Kitchen Environments
No full textOpen kitchens “represent a multifaceted metaphor for the way diners regard the experience of eating out and the way many chefs regard their role” (Bruni 2005). New York Times Opinion writer Frank Bruni suggests complex interpretations of the open kitchen environment organized by different social actors. Existing literature on open kitchens conceptualizes visibility in three distinct ways: 1) as a mechanism of social control (i.e., surveillance); 2) as a mechanism of communication; and 3) as a mechanism of authentication. However, little is known about how actors in the open kitchen environment interpret and navigate visibility in practice. Drawing on 10 hours of participant observations and 12 semi-structured interviews in Milwaukee’s restaurant industry, this study traces how visibility is structured, interpreted, and negotiated by various restaurant actors. Findings indicate that prior conceptualizations of visibility in open kitchens interact in ways patterned by material, sensory, and epistemological boundaries indicating field position. By tracing visibility across multiple sub-disciplinary boundaries, this study contributes to ongoing efforts to bridge currently isolated sociological theoretical frameworks
BLANKING OUT WHILE PRESENTING: EFEFCTS OF STRESS ON REMEBERING AND INTEGRATING KNOWLEDGE
No full textThe abilities to learn new information and to integrate connected pieces of information across context and time are crucial for survival. Unfortunately, we are not immune to being stressed, and sometimes the source of stress comes from other people. Therefore, it is crucial to see how social stress affects the ability to learn and integrate knowledge. This research study utilized the Paired Associate Inference paradigm and the Trier Social Stress Task to examine the effects of stress on remembering and integrating knowledge. Based on a preliminary analysis of 56 participants, those who went through the social stress task reported higher levels of subjective stress and lower inference ability when accounting for direct learning performance. Temporal delay also seems to negatively affect the inferential ability on top of stress. In conclusion, stress seems to not affect direct learning but more of one’s ability to connect different pieces of information
Implementing Novel Data Analysis Methods to Enhance Biophysical Studies
No full textObserving and quantifying the interactions of proteins as they perform their biological functions in living cells is of high importance in modern biophysical research. Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) and time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography (TR-SFX) have been successful in obtaining protein structures at near-atomic spatial resolutions and ultrafast temporal resolutions. However, this method of obtaining protein structures presents data analysis challenges. In typical SFX experiments, the microcrystals are streamed through the X-ray exposure path, and each X-ray pulse can only interact with a crystal for a short duration of time before it is destroyed. Hence, each collected diffraction pattern is only a small portion of the full diffraction information needed to fully characterize the structure of the proteins in the crystal. Therefore, the collected data is highly incomplete. Further, the data may also suffer from issues like noise and timing uncertainty. Classically, SFX data has been analyzed by merging all the collected data to obtain a single structure from the whole dataset. Time-resolved datasets have, on the other hand, been analyzed by first grouping data into temporal bins before averaging the data in each bin to obtain a time series of distinct structures. While this method has yielded structural information for many proteins, it loses finer resolution information. In this work, we employ a machine learning algorithm known as nonlinear Laplacian spectral analysis, or NLSA, to fill the data analysis gaps left by simpler averaging methods. To test the effectiveness of NLSA, we simulated sets of diffraction data for photoactive yellow protein (PYP) suffering from noise, incompleteness and timing uncertainty. With this, we demonstrate that NLSA is an effective algorithm for overcoming noise and timing uncertainty and can recover useful structural and dynamical information from TR-SFX experiments. Other ways of studying proteins have also proven very fruitful, specifically when studying phenomena like protein-protein interactions. One such method is the use of fluorescence microscopy paired with Förster resonance energy transfer, or FRET. FRET is the non-radiative transfer of energy from an excited donor fluorescent molecule to a nearby acceptor. Since FRET is highly sensitive to the separation distance between donor and acceptor molecules, it is a natural choice in quantifying protein-protein interactions in cells. In biological studies, fluorescent proteins are commonly used, which serve as donors and acceptors, and can be tagged to other proteins of interest to quantify interaction. The practice of FRET spectrometry has revealed geometrical properties such as the quaternary structure of proteins but has been limited to using spectrally resolved instruments. In this work, we implement an alternative method of processing data from time-resolved fluorescence decay signal, as would be obtained in fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) studies. This new approach, dubbed tiFRET, involves integration of the fluorescence decay signal instead of fitting with exponential functions. This methodology may allow users of FLIM to perform FRET spectrometry, which may broaden the capabilities of FLIM practitioners.2026-02-2
FEMALE EMPLOYEES’ PERCEPTION OF BREASTFEEDING SUPPORT PROVIDED IN THE WORKPLACE IN SAUDI ARABIA
No full textBackground: Recent research has demonstrated a noticeable decline in breastfeeding practices around the world. In particular, studies in Saudi Arabia (SA) showed low rates of breastfeeding practices and a need for further investigation of reasons behind such practices (breastfeeding initiation, exclusive breastfeeding, and breastfeeding duration). Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to conduct a systematic review to identify barriers to WHO recommendations for early initiation of breastfeeding, breastfeeding initiation, and exclusivity. Based on the systematic review, returning to work and the workplace environment were the main reasons for the lack of exclusive breastfeeding practices in SA. Therefore, a questionnaire that aimed to investigate Employees' Perception of Breastfeeding Support (EPBS) in the workplace was adapted and translated into Arabic. A psychometric test was applied to test the reliability and validity. Then, the questionnaire was used to investigate female employees’ perception about workplace breastfeeding support in Saudi Arabia and its potential influence on breastfeeding. Method: The systemic review was conducted using PRISMA guidelines. The psychometric tests were applied to measure the reliability and validity of the Arabic version of the EPBS questionnaire. Then the questionnaire was used in a cross-sectional study design to examine female employees’ perception of workplace breastfeeding support in SA and its potential influence on breastfeeding practices. Results: The cross-sectional study revealed a lack of perceived physical environmental support in the workplace. The physical environment was significantly associated with increasing the female employees’ intention to breastfeed or express breast milk upon returning to work (OR=2.041; 95% CI: 1.255- 3.319). Conclusion: The review found a limited number of experimental studies carried out in the Saudi context. The results indicate that there is a critical need to empower lactating women in the workplace by providing the facilities needed to continue breastfeeding upon return to work, such as a private space equipped with supplies including a comfortable chair, water, electricity, and a refrigerator to store expressed breast milk.2027-08-2
DIFFERENTIATING AUTOGENOUS AND REACTIVE OBSESSION USING ERROR-RELATED BRAIN ACTIVITY
No full textCognitive control enables individuals to monitor, detect, and adapt to conflict and errors, yet in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), this process is often dysregulated. Despite robust evidence linking OCD to heightened error-related brain responses, behavioral patterns such as RT, accuracy, and post-error slowing (PES) have yielded inconsistent findings, possibly due to a lack of consideration of symptom heterogeneity and task dynamics. Using a Flanker task in a high-conflict setting, this study employed a dimensional approach and single-trial analysis to investigate how obsessive–compulsive (OC) symptom severity and obsession subtypes, autogenous (AO) and reactive (RO), interact with cognitive control at both behavioral and neurocognitive levels. Results showed that overall, OC symptom severity did not predict mean RT or accuracy alone but interacted significantly with RT to disrupt the typical speed–accuracy trade-off. High-OC individuals who responded slowly did not achieve improved accuracy and instead exhibited heightened error-related negativity (ERN), suggesting maladaptive over-monitoring. These effects were further elaborated by subtype: Unlike RO, AO symptoms predicted greater ERN amplitudes and longer PES under slow response conditions, reflecting a ruminative, internally focused error-monitoring loop. While both AO and RO subtypes disrupted adaptive slowing, only AO aligned with exaggerated neural conflict processing. Contrary to predictions, ERN and PES did not covary directly as a function of OC symptoms or subtype severity, suggesting dissociable mechanisms of early error detection and post-error adjustment. Collectively, this finding, behavioral similarity, but neurocognitive dissociation of AO and RO, represents the key contribution of the current study and underscores the importance of not treating OC symptom profiles as monolithic. While both AO and RO may lead to similar observable behaviors under task constraints, only AO is associated with the exaggerated internal error monitoring thought to underlie ruminative doubt and persistent self-evaluation in OCD, as emphasized in neurocognitive models of the disorder. 2026-02-2
The Politicization of VNSAs in the Middle East
No full textSenior Honors Thesis, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-MadisonThis thesis investigates the lack of politicization of terrorist organizations in the Middle East, a finding derived from the End of Terror database on terrorist groups. This research was inspired by Jones and Libicki’s (2008) seminal work, How Terrorist Groups End, which coded the outcomes of 648 terrorist groups. My thesis looks at one of those outcomes: politicization. Politicization stands out among other outcomes due to its coincidence with regional characteristics of the Middle East, namely the lack of democracy in the region, failure to follow global trends, and the interplay between religion and governance. The lack of politicization is explored using analogical and empirical reasoning with supporting evidence from case studies. I also evaluate terrorism outcomes in relation to grand theories of democracy, state-building, and collective action to see how they compare with global trends. During the course of this research, several significant events pertinent to the topic have transpired: the Taliban's transition to the de facto ruler of Afghanistan (2021), the heightened role of Hamas in the War in Gaza (2023), and the entry of HTS into the Syrian government (2025). These events highlight the evolving nature of violent non-state actors in the region and warrant greater attention to their political identity. By no means do I condone the tools of senseless and often theatrical violence, brandished by said groups by reason of their political goals. Rather, I ask why they are so unsuccessful at entering the political institutions in their state if they are rational political actors
Expanding the Expressive Palette : Performing the Voice Music of Viardot on the Clarinet
No full textColor poster with text, images, and photographs.Can the clarinet learn to play with a singing quality by studying vocal repertoire and technique? This was the central research question addressed in our UWEC Student-Faculty Research that we considered through the study of repertoire and historical context of Bel Canto music written by French composer Pauline Viardot as well as a vocal approach to the selected pieces. Dr. Alyssa Powell guided my study of three pieces that demanded slightly different artistic approaches. These were, Fleur desséchée, Povera me, and L’innamorata, all by the remarkable and lesser-known composer, Pauline Viardot. For each piece, I learned the French and Italian diction with the help of Dr. Ken Pereira, considered agogic stress of the text with the music, determined the articulations needed to convey the many vowels and consonants present in the language via the clarinet, considered registration as a singer would, and combined the results of this work in a performance. I performed the three works alongside Shawn Muench, local pianist, in a recital. Examining the tone colors, breathing habits, and articulations from a vocalist’s perspective was especially helpful in stretching my musical interpretive skills.University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program