Does Genetic Conflict Contribute to Pregnancy Complications and Postpartum Health and Behavior?

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Description
Pregnancy is often described as one of the most cooperative ventures that a woman can experience in her lifetime. But when one considers the biological changes that occur during pregnancy, it becomes clear that pregnancy is not as cooperative as

Pregnancy is often described as one of the most cooperative ventures that a woman can experience in her lifetime. But when one considers the biological changes that occur during pregnancy, it becomes clear that pregnancy is not as cooperative as it seems on the surface. The current research uses a genetic conflict framework to predict how underlying conflict between mother and fetus over resource transfers is expected to alter eating behavior and food preferences, and how these changes in eating behavior and preferences should then be associated with certain pregnancy complications. Across two studies, women who had recently had a baby (Study 1) or were currently pregnant (Study 2) recalled changes in their eating behavior during pregnancy as well as any pregnancy complications they experienced during that pregnancy. Providing partial support for the hypotheses, women who reported increased vomiting in response to maternal-favoring foods were more likely to experience preeclampsia during pregnancy. In addition, the results provided preliminary evidence that changes in pregnancy eating behavior were associated with an increased the likelihood of experiencing high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, and infections during pregnancy. Taken together, these studies show that the framework of genetic conflict makes testable predictions about the relationship between eating behavior in pregnancy and pregnancy complications, and that several pregnancy complications that are relevant to genetic conflict (high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and infection) are associated with changes in eating behavior in pregnancy. Future research should continue to investigate how genetic conflict influences the relationships between pregnancy eating behavior, pregnancy complications, and how these associations impact postpartum health.
Date Created
2022
Agent

How Manifestations of the Jungian Shadow Make Scholarly Debates on YouTube More Divisive and Less Useful

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Description
Academic debates are a core sense-making mechanism of scientific and democratic societies that serve the purpose of educating the public and helping society to achieve further clarity on debated topics. This research seeks to understand why manifestations of the shadow

Academic debates are a core sense-making mechanism of scientific and democratic societies that serve the purpose of educating the public and helping society to achieve further clarity on debated topics. This research seeks to understand why manifestations of the shadow may occur in academic debates on YouTube and how the shadow plays a role in making these debates less productive while breeding divisiveness. The scholarly debate genre on YouTube is an extension of the recognized television genre of televised debate and a description is given about the ways that the YouTube medium may influence the performance of and the viewing of academic debates. An analysis of ten videos that reflect the scholarly debate YouTube genre is done and explained through the dimensions of aggression, dismissiveness, avoiding, and logical fallacies. Shadow manifestations stand in the way of productive debates by distracting the debaters and the audience from the pursuit of the truth, confusing viewers with the use of logical fallacies, and promoting divisiveness that stands in the way of achieving consensus.
Date Created
2022-05
Agent

Why Exercise? An Intervention to Promote Healthy Activity

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Description
Physical activity has been shown to have a multitude of physical health benefits, including reduction of risk of certain illnesses and an overall improvement in physical and cognitive functioning. Current intervention techniques work to improve physical activity habits in participants

Physical activity has been shown to have a multitude of physical health benefits, including reduction of risk of certain illnesses and an overall improvement in physical and cognitive functioning. Current intervention techniques work to improve physical activity habits in participants through education about these long-term health benefits. However, most individuals living in the United States are not currently reaching ideal amounts of physical activity, suggesting that these interventions have not been entirely effective. Might an intervention that fosters intrinsic motivation via exercise enjoyment be more effective? The current study sought to compare a long-term health benefit-focused intervention to an alternative that focuses on immediate enjoyment of exercise. Participants were randomly assigned to one of these two intervention conditions. Participants reported their time spent doing physical activity and level of enjoyment of physical activity pre- and post-intervention. We found no significant differences between conditions. Frequency and enjoyment of physical activity increased post-intervention, regardless of condition. Future research should be done to correct the limitations of this study and gain a more accurate view into which factors are most important in exercise motivation.
Date Created
2022-05
Agent

Differences in the Symptom Profile of Depression in South Asians

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Description

The Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) are highly valid depressive testing tools used to measure the symptom profile of depression globally and in South Asia, respectively (Steer et al., 1998; Kroenke et al,

The Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) are highly valid depressive testing tools used to measure the symptom profile of depression globally and in South Asia, respectively (Steer et al., 1998; Kroenke et al, 2001). Even though the South Asian population comprises only 23% of the world’s population, it represents one-fifth of the world’s mental health disorders (Ogbo et al., 2018). Although this population is highly affected by mental disorders, there is a lack of culturally relevant research on specific subsections of the South Asian population.<br/><br/>As such, the goal of this study is to investigate the differences in the symptom profile of depression in native and immigrant South Asian populations. We investigated the role of collective self-esteem and perceived discrimination on mental health. <br/><br/>For the purpose of this study, participants were asked a series of questions about their depressive symptoms, self-esteem and perceived discrimination using various depressive screening measures, a self-esteem scale, and a perceived discrimination scale.<br/><br/>We found that immigrants demonstrated higher depressive symptoms than Native South Asians as immigration was viewed as a stressor. First-generation and second-generation South Asian immigrants identified equally with somatic and psychological symptoms. These symptoms were positively correlated with perceived discrimination, and collective self-esteem was shown to increase the likelihood of these symptoms.<br/><br/>This being said, the results from this study may be generalized only to South Asian immigrants who come from highly educated and high-income households. Since seeking professional help and being aware of one’s mental health is vital for wellbeing, the results from this study may spark the interest in an open communication about mental health within the South Asian immigrant community as well as aid in the restructuring of a highly reliable and valid measurement to be specific to a culture.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

Effects of Affect Framing and Future Self-Connectedness on Current Decision-Making

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Description

People generally struggle with making good decisions for their well-being (Hershfield, 2019; Hershfield & Bartels, 2018). One reason for this might be that people struggle with connecting to their future selves. Prior research suggests that future self-connectedness predicts better decisions.

People generally struggle with making good decisions for their well-being (Hershfield, 2019; Hershfield & Bartels, 2018). One reason for this might be that people struggle with connecting to their future selves. Prior research suggests that future self-connectedness predicts better decisions. This study examined if feeling more positive or negative helps people connect more to their future self and if this, in turn, helps people make better decisions. Participants read a scenario in which they are presented with two decisions, one having a short-term benefit/long-term cost and the other having a short-term cost/long-term benefit. Either neutral affect framing, positive affect framing, or negative affect framing was emphasized in the scenario depending on the condition. Our study did not find that positive affect framing and negative affect framing enhanced future self-connectedness. Neither did we find that positive affect framing and negative affect framing influenced decision-making.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

Differences in the Symptom Profile of Depression in South Asians

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Description

The Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) are highly valid depressive testing tools used to measure the symptom profile of depression globally and in South Asia, respectively (Steer et al., 1998; Kroenke et al,

The Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) are highly valid depressive testing tools used to measure the symptom profile of depression globally and in South Asia, respectively (Steer et al., 1998; Kroenke et al, 2001). Even though the South Asian population comprises only 23% of the world’s population, it represents one-fifth of the world’s mental health disorders (Ogbo et al., 2018). Although this population is highly affected by mental disorders, there is a lack of culturally relevant research on specific subsections of the South Asian population.

As such, the goal of this study is to investigate the differences in the symptom profile of depression in native and immigrant South Asian populations. We investigated the role of collective self-esteem and perceived discrimination on mental health.
For the purpose of this study, participants were asked a series of questions about their depressive symptoms, self-esteem and perceived discrimination using various depressive screening measures, a self-esteem scale, and a perceived discrimination scale.

We found that immigrants demonstrated higher depressive symptoms than Native South Asians as immigration was viewed as a stressor. First-generation and second-generation South Asian immigrants identified equally with somatic and psychological symptoms. These symptoms were positively correlated with perceived discrimination, and collective self-esteem was shown to increase the likelihood of these symptoms.

This being said, the results from this study may be generalized only to South Asian immigrants who come from highly educated and high-income households. Since seeking professional help and being aware of one’s mental health is vital for wellbeing, the results from this study may spark the interest in an open communication about mental health within the South Asian immigrant community as well as aid in the restructuring of a highly reliable and valid measurement to be specific to a culture.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

A Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Assisted Middleware Interconnecting Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Systems

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Description
The reliable operation of critical infrastructure systems is of significant importance to society. The power grid and the water distribution system are two critical infrastructure systems, each of which is facilitated by a cyber-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)

The reliable operation of critical infrastructure systems is of significant importance to society. The power grid and the water distribution system are two critical infrastructure systems, each of which is facilitated by a cyber-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Although critical infrastructure systems are interdependent with each other due to coupling (a power grid may be the electrical supply for a water distribution system), the corresponding SCADA systems operated independently and did not share information with each other. Modern critical infrastructure systems tend to cover a larger geographic area, indicating that a SCADA control station supervising a small area is far from meeting the demands.

In this thesis, the above-mentioned problem is addressed by building a middleware to facilitate reliable and flexible communications between two or more SCADA systems. Software Defined Networking (SDN), an emerging technology providing programmable networking, is introduced to assist the middleware. In traditional networks, network configurations required highly skilled personnel for configuring many network elements. However, SDN separates the control plane from the data plane, making network intelligence logically centralized, and leaving the forwarding switches with easy commands to follow. In this way, the underlying network infrastructures can be easily manipulated by programming, supporting the future dynamic network functions.

In this work, an SDN-assisted middleware is designed and implemented with open source platforms Open Network Operating System (ONOS) and Mininet, connecting the power grids emulator and water delivery and treatment system (WDTS) emulator EPANet. Since the focus of this work is on facilitating communications between dedicated networks, data transmissions in backbone networks are emulated. For the interfaces, a multithreaded communication module is developed. It not only enables real-time information exchange between two SCADA control centers but also supports multiple-to-multiple communications simultaneously. Human intervention is allowed in case of emergency.

SDN has many attractive benefits, however, there are still obstacles like high upgrade costs when implementing this technique. Therefore, rather than replace all the routers at once, incremental deployment of hybrid SDN networks consisting of both legacy routers and programmable SDN switches is adopted in this work. We emulate on the ratio of SDN deployment against the performance of the middleware and the results on the real dataset show that a higher fraction of SDN results in a higher reliability and flexibility of data transmissions. The middleware developed may contribute to the development of the next-generation SCADA systems.
Date Created
2018
Agent

Partitioning responsibility: the influence of cultural differences in social attributions on jurors' division of responsibility in a negligent tort context

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Description
Research at the intersection of psychology and law has demonstrated that juror decision-making is subject to many cognitive biases, however, it fails to consider the influence of culturally derived cognitive biases. As jurors become increasingly demographically and culturally diverse it

Research at the intersection of psychology and law has demonstrated that juror decision-making is subject to many cognitive biases, however, it fails to consider the influence of culturally derived cognitive biases. As jurors become increasingly demographically and culturally diverse it is possible—and even likely—that their attributions might vary because of their cultural background. I predict that cultural and demographic group affiliation affects attributional tendencies such that, compared to situationally focused individuals (those from East Asian cultures, women, those from lower socioeconomic status groups, and older individuals), dispositionally focused individuals (those from Western cultures, men, those from higher socioeconomic status groups, and younger individuals) are less likely to attribute some portion of causation and responsibility for the harm to other influences, and they are more likely to find the defendant liable and hold the defendant financially responsible to a greater degree. This dissertation has three aims: (1) to examine how culturally derived attributional tendencies influence jurors' assessments of causation in complex negligent tort cases where there are multiple causal influences (i.e., multiple tortfeasors and plaintiff negligence) (Studies 1 and 2); (2) to study the implications of those causal determinations on liability determinations, damage awards, and other legal decisions (Studies 1 and 2); and (3) to determine whether these culturally derived attributional tendencies are malleable, suggesting an intervention that might be used to attenuate the influence of attributional tendencies in a trial setting (Study 3). This work advances psychological research on cultural differences in attribution by exploring attributional differences in a new domain, developing a new scale of individual differences in attributional tendencies, and examining how multiple causal influences affects culturally derived attributional tendencies and downstream decision-making.
Date Created
2017
Agent

Overlooking Evolution: A Systematic Analysis of Cancer Relapse and Therapeutic Resistance Research

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Description

Cancer therapy selects for cancer cells resistant to treatment, a process that is fundamentally evolutionary. To what extent, however, is the evolutionary perspective employed in research on therapeutic resistance and relapse? We analyzed 6,228 papers on therapeutic resistance and/or relapse

Cancer therapy selects for cancer cells resistant to treatment, a process that is fundamentally evolutionary. To what extent, however, is the evolutionary perspective employed in research on therapeutic resistance and relapse? We analyzed 6,228 papers on therapeutic resistance and/or relapse in cancers and found that the use of evolution terms in abstracts has remained at about 1% since the 1980s. However, detailed coding of 22 recent papers revealed a higher proportion of papers using evolutionary methods or evolutionary theory, although this number is still less than 10%. Despite the fact that relapse and therapeutic resistance is essentially an evolutionary process, it appears that this framework has not permeated research. This represents an unrealized opportunity for advances in research on therapeutic resistance.

Date Created
2011-11-17
Agent

Disagreeing on Whether Agreement Is Persuasive: Perceptions of Expert Group Decisions

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Description

While expert groups often make recommendations on a range of non-controversial as well as controversial issues, little is known about how the level of expert consensus-the level of expert agreement-influences perceptions of the recommendations. This research illustrates that for non-controversial

While expert groups often make recommendations on a range of non-controversial as well as controversial issues, little is known about how the level of expert consensus-the level of expert agreement-influences perceptions of the recommendations. This research illustrates that for non-controversial issues expert groups that exhibit high levels of agreement are more persuasive than expert groups that exhibit low levels of agreement. This effect is mediated by the perceived entitativity-the perceived cohesiveness or unification of the group-of the expert group. But for controversial issues, this effect is moderated by the perceivers' implicit assumptions about the group composition. When perceivers are provided no information about a group supporting the Affordable Care Act-a highly controversial piece of U.S. legislation that is divided by political party throughout the country-higher levels of agreement are less persuasive than lower levels of agreement because participants assume there were more democrats and fewer republicans in the group. But when explicitly told that the group was half republicans and half democrats, higher levels of agreement are more persuasive.

Date Created
2015-03-26
Agent