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The UK Biobank mental health enhancement 2022: Methods and results
Get PDFBackground This paper introduces the UK Biobank (UKB) second mental health questionnaire (MHQ2), describes its design, the respondents and some notable findings. UKB is a large cohort study with over 500,000 volunteer participants aged 40–69 years when recruited in 2006–2010. It is an important resource of extensive health, genetic and biomarker data. Enhancements to UKB enrich the data available. MHQ2 is an enhancement designed to enable and facilitate research with psychosocial and mental health aspects. Methods UKB sent participants a link to MHQ2 by email in October-November 2022. The MHQ2 was designed by a multi-institutional consortium to build on MHQ1. It characterises lifetime depression further, adds data on panic disorder and eating disorders, repeats ‘current’ mental health measures and updates information about social circumstances. It includes established measures, such as the PHQ-9 for current depression and CIDI-SF for lifetime panic, as well as bespoke questions. Algorithms and R code were developed to facilitate analysis. Results At the time of analysis, MHQ2 results were available for 169,253 UKB participants, of whom 111,275 had also completed the earlier MHQ1. Characteristics of respondents and the whole UKB cohort are compared. The major phenotypes are lifetime: depression (18%); panic disorder (4.0%); a specific eating disorder (2.8%); and bipolar affective disorder I (0.4%). All mental disorders are found less with older age and also seem to be related to selected social factors. In those participants who answered both MHQ1 (2016) and MHQ2 (2022), current mental health measure showed that fewer respondents have harmful alcohol use than in 2016 (relative risk 0.84), but current depression (RR 1.07) and anxiety (RR 0.98) have not fallen, as might have been expected given the relationship with age. We also compare lifetime concepts for test-retest reliability. Conclusions There are some drawbacks to UKB due to its lack of population representativeness, but where the research question does not depend on this, it offers exceptional resources that any researcher can apply to access. This paper has just scratched the surface of the results from MHQ2 and how this can be combined with other tranches of UKB data, but we predict it will enable many future discoveries about mental health and health in general
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Education: Insights From Global Deans
Get PDFOn November 1 and 2, 2024, 53 deans, associate deans, and other educational leaders from 40 institutions across 29 countries gathered in Shanghai for the sixth annual Global Education Deans Forum (GEDF). The GEDF was established to afford educational deans at research universities from around the world the opportunity to identify and discuss shared problems and challenges and to forge collaborative partnerships. GEDF co-founding Deans Zhenguo Yuan and Rick Ginsberg seeded the conversations for the coming day and a half in their opening remarks
Ultrasound-Induced Dynamics of Nanodroplets and Microbubbles in Synthetic Cystic Fibrosis Mucus: Toward Pulmonary Drug Delivery and Mucus Rheology Assessment
Get PDFThe unique mucosal environment in CF airways poses significant barriers to conventional drug delivery methods. This research explores how the rheological properties of the surrounding medium influence the vaporization and movement of ultrasound-responsive contrast agents. Experiments compare 2 wt% polyethylene oxide (PEO), a viscoelastic solution mimicking CF mucus, to 1× PBS, a low-viscosity control. It is hypothesized that PEO will require higher acoustic pressures to activate nanodroplets compared to 1× PBS due to its elevated viscosity and increased elasticity, while PBS will allow for greater microbubble displacement and coalescence due to its lower viscous damping. A 1.1 MHz focused transducer was used to apply ultrasound to lipid-shelled microbubbles and nanodroplets in both media, and particle behavior was recorded using an objective-coupled digital camera at 120 fps. Vaporization and coalescence behavior were compared between PBS and PEO. These results suggest that viscosity directly modulates mobility—lower viscous drag in PBS enables faster movement, while PEO’s resistance slows displacement. In PBS, lower viscous damping also promoted microbubble coalescence. Additionally, microbubble and nanodroplet behaviors can indirectly reflect mucus rheology, enabling real-time assessment of CF-like environments. By understanding these interactions, this research aims to identify optimal ultrasound conditions for drug delivery in CF-like environments and to establish methods for assessing mucus rheology. Ultimately, these findings could inform future therapeutic strategies that overcome biological barriers in CF airways, paving the way for more effective treatments that improve patient outcomes.Bachelor of Scienc
The American State Board: A Study of State Boards and Commissions in North Carolina
Get PDFAmerican state boards and commissions are chronically disregarded institutions. Here, I consider the state board in its own right. I use North Carolina as a case study in a grounded theory study. Building off limited research on federal and local boards, I completed a review of the portions of the North Carolina General Statutes that authorize state boards and created a typology to understand the powers boards are afforded. I inspected the portions of the North Carolina General Statutes that authorize appointments to state boards, examining the prevalence of appointments by the governor, the General Assembly, legislative leaders, interest groups, and others. With the hope of gaining further insight into the activities of state boards, I distributed a qualitative survey to ten percent of contactable state board members in North Carolina, yielding 33 valid responses. I interviewed 10 survey respondents, supplementing survey questions through organic interaction. By means of statutory review, I discovered the governor and General Assembly maintain the most power in appointments, but that legislative leaders and interest groups also have significant footholds. When considering qualitative results, I argue there is sufficient evidence to warrant concern about the use of clientelist appointments to state boards and the inexpedient use of state board resources. Bachelor of Art
It Takes a Village: Social Support, Perceived Stress, and Stress Biomarkers in Mothers from Rural Pakistan
Get PDFSocial support is widely recognized as a protective factor against stress, but its relationship with perceived stress and stress biomarkers remains unclear, especially in low-resource settings. This study examines how emotional and instrumental social support are associated with stress among mothers in rural Pakistan. Stress is measured by both self-reported perceived stress and the stress biomarkers of hair cortisol levels, hair DHEA levels, and cortisol-DHEA ratio. Findings indicate that emotional and instrumental social support are similarly associated with lower perceived stress, suggesting their equal importance in this population. However, the relationship between social support and biological stress markers is less clear. Instrumental support was unexpectedly linked to higher hair cortisol levels, which may reflect an increased burden of external stressors or other factors requiring further research. No significant associations were found between social support and DHEA levels or cortisol-DHEA ratio. These results highlight the complexity of the stress response, reinforcing that self-reported perceived stress and physiological biomarkers capture distinct aspects of stress. Findings support interventions that strengthen both emotional and instrumental support systems to improve maternal well-being in low-resource settings.Bachelor of Scienc
Enhancing Information Work: A Typological Analysis of Human-AI Augmentation
Get PDFThis study explores the evolving relationship between information professionals and generative artificial intelligence (AI), examining how large language models (LLMs) augment human capabilities and reshape information practices. Through thematic analysis of diary entries and semi-structured interviews with 43 information professionals, this study identified four key typologies of human-AI augmentation: efficiency, insight, development, and transformation. These findings reveal that AI tools enhance efficiency by streamlining tasks and accelerating information retrieval, provide insight by aiding in content refinement and problem-solving, support personal growth and development through skill-building and learning, and drive transformation of workflows by redistributing cognitive load and expanding workflow possibilities. This research concludes that AI augmentation not only enhances human intellect and abilities but also fundamentally alters work processes, highlighting the nuances of human-AI augmentation.Bachelor of Scienc
Exploring the Link Between Autonomic Nervous System Dysfunction, Functional Cognitive Performance, & Post Concussive Symptoms in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Insights from the ANSWERS Project
Get PDFConcussions, also known as mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs), are increasingly being recognized for their potential to lead to autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysfunction— a proposed primary contributor of persistent post-concussive symptoms, such as impaired functional cognitive performance and sleep disturbances. Given the anatomical location and interconnected neural circuitry of ANS structures, the shearing forces and diffuse axonal injury resulting from rotational acceleration in sports-related concussions frequently lead to damage in these regions. This study examines the relationships between concussion history, ANS function, and sleep quality, and how these factors impact functional reaction time (FRT). Forty-seven collegiate club athletes (13 mTBI+ ≥12 months post-injury, 34 mTBI–) completed heart rate variability assessments, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and various FRT tasks using the Senaptec Sensory Station and Oculus Quest 2 (VR platform). A linear regression model (Senaptec RT) and mixed-effects linear model (VR RT) found that concussion history and sleep quality did not significantly predict FRT outcomes. However, ANS function (LF/HF ratio) showed trend-level associations with FRT performance in both models, and sex emerged as a significant predictor in the VR RT model. Pearson correlation analyses revealed unexpected sex-based differences, further underscoring the importance of including sex as a key biological variable. Additionally, the correlations revealed that the mTBI+ group exhibited signs of ANS dysfunction, characterized by a significantly stronger negative correlation between the LF/HF ratio and Sample Entropy, indicating heightened sympathetic dominance and reduced adaptability. Although their FRTs were not consistently slower, VR task patterns were more sensitive to physiological profiles and showed potentially reduced cognitive flexibility through lower inter-trial variability. In all, these findings suggest that ANS function—particularly its dysregulation—may be an informative indicator of post-concussive cognitive function symptomology and emphasize the need for physiologically grounded, sex-informed, and ecologically valid assessments in evaluating long-term functional outcomes.Bachelor of Scienc
Compressible Features: Mathematical Foundations and Applications
Get PDFWith the growing emphasis on analyzing large-scale real-world systems, improving computational efficiency, specifically reducing storage requirements and computational time, has become increasingly important. Although previous studies have introduced various matrix- and tensor-based compression techniques, the behavior of compressible features in special matrix exponentials of the form , where is the sum of a diagonal matrix and a low-rank matrix, remains underexplored as the parameter evolves. Generalized from 2D systems, researchers also employ tensor-based dynamical systems to capture the multilayer relationships that 2D systems cannot. Traditional approaches to verify system properties, such as controllability, stability, and observability, typically involve unfolding the tensor into large block-circulant matrices, followed by the application of classical linear systems theory. However, such unfolding-based methods often result in a dramatic increase in memory usage and computational cost as system dimensions grow, necessitating more scalable solutions. Therefore, this study proposes efficient compression techniques for two-dimensional and higher-order systems by addressing three central challenges: (i) characterizing the evolution of compressible patterns in matrix exponentials of structured operators and proving bounded numerical rank growth in physically relevant systems; (ii) accelerating the analysis of T-product-based dynamical systems (TPDSs) through block diagonalization, significantly reducing computational time and memory; and (iii) improving the computational efficiency of multilinear dynamical systems (MLDSs) using Tucker decomposition and Tensor-Train decomposition (TTD) by leveraging their respective tensor cores. The proposed framework is supported by theoretical guarantees and numerical experiments, all while preserving model interpretability, which is essential for applications in quantum control, video processing, and large-scale network analysis. Overall, our work contributes to the advancement of structured tensor algebra for high-dimensional data analysis and inspires future work related to rank evolution and practical deployment in complex systems.Bachelor of Scienc
Addressing Participation Disparities in Vision Research: Social Determinants and Site Effectiveness
Get PDFVision impairment affects over 2.2 billion people globally, with nearly half of cases being preventable or untreated due to barriers in care access. Despite the value of community vision screenings in reaching underserved populations, little is known about how social determinants of health (SDOH) influence participation in vision research. This cross-sectional study, conducted across Cumberland and Lenoir Counties in North Carolina from March to July 2024, aimed to identify demographic and social factors associated with participation in community vision screenings and determine the most effective locations for identifying individuals with vision impairment.
Data were collected at various site types using convenience sampling, with 991 adults screened and 879 completing demographic and SDOH questionnaires. Results showed disproportionately high representation of Black individuals (61.4%) and women (65.8%), but low participation among Hispanic/Latino individuals (2.5%). Food distribution sites yielded the highest rates of vision impairment and were effective in reaching at-risk groups. Logistic regression analysis identified food insecurity as the only significant predictor of vision impairment (OR = 2.468, p = 0.024). These findings underscore the importance of targeting community-based sites serving socioeconomically vulnerable populations and addressing food insecurity as part of vision health outreach. Bachelor of Science in Public Healt
Exploring the Relationship Between C-Circle Levels and Cell Senescence in ALT-Positive Cancer Cell Lines
Get PDFFor 10-15% of cancers, the hindrance of telomere shortening is accomplished by alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) – a recombination-based assay that utilizes homologous recombination. This mechanism is most prevalent in glioblastoma multiforme, osteosarcomas, neuroblastomas, and various tumors of mesenchymal origin. Due to a current lack of knowledge on treatments for ALT based tumors, these cancers are often severe with a low chance of recovery. The Pattenden Lab has developed the High-Throughput C-circle Assay (HT-CCA) to screen for chemical or genetic inhibitors of the ALT pathway. A pilot screen of approximately 100 compounds identified a handful of small molecules that significantly increased C-circle level, including TR107, I-BET151, Belinostat, and Talazoparib. Previously, the lab utilized the CellTiter-Glo® Luminescent Cell Viability Assay to measure the number of viable cells in culture after compound treatment. While this assay can show whether the cells are metabolically active, it cannot confirm if the cells have stopped dividing and entered a senescent state. To better understand the significance of elevated C-circle levels in ALT cell viability, we need to examine how direct markers of senescence respond to compound treatment on the ALT cells. We hypothesize that the treatment of ALT-positive cells with compounds that increase C-circle levels will induce senescence. These results will help further our understanding of the internetwork within the ALT pathway, addressing an unmet need within the understudied area of ALT cancer therapy.Bachelor of Scienc