Self-Management of Diabetes in Low-Income Appalachian Women.

Diabetes mellitus is a major health concern and the number of Americans diagnosed with the disease is quickly increasing, affecting all aspects of an individual’s life and requiring significant self-involvement. Little is known about how low-income Appalachian women with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) manage their diabetes from day-to-day. This population struggles to effectively manage the illness as they desire for many reasons. The purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences of Appalachian women in self-managing diabetes so that health care providers can better meet the social and cultural needs of this unique population. This study used a qualitative descriptive design. Data were collected by means of in-depth, semi structured interviews. The sample consisted of 5 low-income Appalachian women with T2DM who seek care at the Johnson City Community Health Center. The data analysis was completed by generating a set of themes from the narrative data. Three themes emerged from the interview data: Achieving Care with Limited Resources; Consistent and Involved Health Care Providers; and Family Support. Life situations unique to this population can influence the self-management of T2DM. Financial difficulties hinder the overall care that they need and desire, but through consistent and involved care givers and family support, successful self-management can occur in spite of significant barriers

The Costs and Benefits of Reducing Acid Rain

Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments initiated a dramatic reduction in emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by electric power plants. This paper presents the results of an integrated assessment of the benefits and costs of the program, using the Tracking and Analysis Framework (TAF) developed for the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP). Although dramatic uncertainties characterize our estimates especially with respect to the benefits of the program, many of which we have modeled explicitly, we find that the benefits can be expected to substantially outweigh the costs of the emission reductions. The lion’s share of benefits result from reduced risk of premature mortality, especially through reduced exposure to sulfates, and these expected benefits measure several times the expected costs of the program. Significant benefits are also estimated for improvements in health morbidity, recreational visibility and residential visibility, each of which measures approximately equal to costs. In contrast, areas that were the focus of attention in the 1980s including effects to soils, forests and aquatic systems still have not been modeled comprehensively, but evidence suggests benefits in these areas to be relatively small, at least with respect to "use values" for the environmental assets that are affected.

#47 - Attractiveness of Individuals Based on Personality and Financial Status

Attractiveness of Individuals Based on Personality and Financial Status A very common saying is “opposites attract.” Some studies suggest that people are more likely to be in relationships with others who are similar to them (Olderbak et al., 2017) whereas other research findings suggest individuals are more attracted to those with dissimilar interests and characteristics to them (Schmitt, 2002). The aim of the current study is to examine how different constellations of a person’s characteristics impact attraction. We hypothesize that the more extroverted, conscientious, and financially stable a person is, the more attractive they will appear. Also, we predict that participants will find individuals with dissimilar characteristics to themselves to be more attractive. In addition, participants that are more (vs. less) satisfied in their relationships are predicted to rate individuals as less attractive. We will create 8- fictitious individuals and create short descriptions of them. We will not provide any photographs or gender information. We will conduct a 2x2x2 within-subjects, experimental-design. The independent variables are extroversion (high, low), conscientiousness (high, low), and financial stability (high, moderate), and the dependent variable is ratings of attractiveness. First, Participants will complete a consent form. Then, they will rate the attractiveness of the 8 fictitious individuals (the order of descriptions will be counterbalanced). Then, participants will rate their own personality traits and basic demographic information. Last, participants will be debriefed. Results of the current study may help individuals better understand why we choose particular mates. It can also aid in narrowing down potential partners when online dating

Penalized regression and its applications to genetics and genomics

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2014. Major: Biostatistics. Advisor: Wei Pan. 1 computer file (PDF); viii, 94 pages.The quality of genetics-based personalized medicine is a direct function of the success of statistical genomics, defined here as the application of statistical methodologies to genome data. The following dissertation provides two new statistical tools and insights for three areas of interest within the statistical genomics field: (1) better disease outcome prediction using personal genomes, (2) describing the association between genome regions and an outcome, and (3) discovering previously unknown subpopulations within a population. With respect to each of the three problems, penalized regression, in particular regression utilizing the truncated L1-penalty (TLP), is an essential element of the related methodology. Collectively, the dissertation reveals potential gains from using penalties better aligned with the data's structure and the research aim; for example, by syncing penalty features to underlying genetic architectures to improve prediction. Supported by both simulation and real data analysis, the work herein develops and demonstrates the promise of (1) a new global testing statistic for quantifying the association of a targeted genome region and a disease outcome and (2) a new group truncated L1-penalty (gTLP) methodology akin to hierarchical clustering that in some settings is able to uncover previously unknown subpopulations.Austin, Erin Edward. (2014). Penalized regression and its applications to genetics and genomics. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/164691

Synchronizing Media Content In A Shared Virtual Reality Environment

Disclosed herein is a mechanism for synchronizing media content in a shared virtual reality environment. The mechanism can cause a shared virtual reality space to be presented on multiple user devices corresponding to multiple users participating in the shared virtual reality space. In some instances, users in the shared virtual reality space can be viewing different media content items. The mechanism can cause indications of the media content items being viewed by each user to be presented within the shared virtual reality space. In response to receiving a selection from a first user device of an indication of a media content item being presented on a second user device, the mechanism can transmit, to the first user device, metadata indicating an identifier of the media content item being presented on the second user device and a current playback position of the media content item on the second user device. The mechanism can then cause the media content item to be presented on the first user device at the playback position indicated in the transmitted metadata

Triple Therapy or Triple Threat: An Analysis of Triple Antiplatelet Therapy Compared to Dual Antiplatelet Therapy

Triple antiplatelet therapy (TAPT, or triple therapy), is an oral medication regimen designed to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events. It consists of aspirin, clopidogrel or an alternative, and an oral anticoagulant (OAC). It differs from dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) due to inclusion of an OAC. Multiple clinical studies have indicated that triple therapy is more effective at clot prevention, when compared to aspirin monotherapy and DAPT, but is associated with a higher risk of major bleeding. Pharmacists have a key role in determining candidates for DAPT and TAPT regimens. Other opportunities for pharmacists include patient monitoring, counseling and medication review throughout treatment with antithrombotic therapy

Rethinking infrastructure design: Evaluating pedestrians and VRUs' psychophysiological and behavioral responses to different roadway designs

The integration of human-centric approaches has gained more attention recently due to more automated systems being introduced into our built environments (buildings, roads, vehicles, etc.), which requires a correct understanding of how humans perceive such systems and respond to them. This paper introduces an Immersive Virtual Environment-based method to evaluate the infrastructure design with psycho-physiological and behavioral responses from the vulnerable road users, especially for pedestrians. A case study of pedestrian mid-block crossings with three crossing infrastructure designs (painted crosswalk, crosswalk with flashing beacons, and a smartphone app for connected vehicles) are tested. Results from 51 participants indicate there are differences between the subjective and objective measurement. A higher subjective safety rating is reported for the flashing beacon design, while the psychophysiological and behavioral data indicate that the flashing beacon and smartphone app are similar in terms of crossing behaviors, eye tracking measurements, and heart rate. In addition, the smartphone app scenario appears to have a lower stress level as indicated by eye tracking data, although many participants don't have prior experience with it. Suggestions are made for the implementation of new technologies, which can increase public acceptance of new technologies and pedestrian safety in the future

An Experimental Study of Unconfined Hydrogen/Oxygen and Hydrogen/Air Explosions

Development tests are being conducted to characterize unconfined Hydrogen/air and Hydrogen/Oxygen blast characteristics. Most of the existing experiments for these types of explosions address contained explosions, like shock tubes. Therefore, the Hydrogen Unconfined Combustion Test Apparatus (HUCTA) has been developed as a gaseous combustion test device for determining the relationship between overpressure, impulse, and flame speed at various mixture ratios for unconfined reactions of hydrogen/oxygen and hydrogen/air. The system consists of a central platform plumbed to inject and mix component gasses into an attached translucent bag or balloon while monitoring hydrogen concentration. All tests are ignited with a spark with plans to introduce higher energy ignition sources in the future. Surrounding the platform are 9 blast pressure "Pencil" probes. Two high-speed cameras are used to observe flame speed within the combustion zone. The entire system is raised approx. 6 feet off the ground to remove any ground reflection from the measurements. As of this writing greater than 175 tests have been performed and include Design of Experiments test sets. Many of these early tests have used bags or balloons between approx. 340L and approx. 1850L to quantify the effect of gaseous mixture ratio on the properties of interest. All data acquisition is synchronized between the high-speed cameras, the probes, and the ignition system to observe flame and shock propagation. Successful attempts have been made to couple the pressure profile with the progress of the flame front within the combustion zone by placing a probe within the bag. Overpressure and impulse data obtained from these tests are used to anchor engineering analysis tools, CFD models and in the development of blast and fragment acceleration models