Studies in Intentionality: The Role of Pregnancy Intention, Pregnancy History, and the Age of Conception the Evaluation and Utilization of Reproductive Health Services.

The promotion of planned pregnancies has long been a goal of women’s reproductive health researchers and advocates within the United States. However, almost half (49%) of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended (Finer and Henshaw, 2006). The goal of this research is to increase understanding of intentionality, from expanding upon established antecedents of pregnancy intention to examining the effect of pregnancy intention on the utilization and evaluation of reproductive health services. The first study examined the relationship between pregnancy intention and satisfaction with prenatal and hospital-based labor and delivery care. Results revealed that women with unwanted pregnancies were more likely to report lower satisfaction with their prenatal care provider, their provider’s communication skills, and with their perceived sense of control during labor and delivery. The second study examined the potential for pregnancy history as an antecedent of pregnancy intention in a nationally representative sample of women ages 15-44. Separate analyses were further conducted to examine if these hypothesized relationships changed as women aged. Pregnancy history, in particular a history of prior unwanted pregnancy, was found to be significantly associated with an increased likelihood of subsequent unintended pregnancies. Conversely, women with a history of younger age at first pregnancy and/or pregnancy loss were less likely to report their pregnancies as unintended. When analyzed separately by age group, the relationship between pregnancy history and pregnancy intention were generally strongest for women ages 30-44. The final study tested the relationship between pregnancy intention, pregnancy history, and the utilization of pregnancy prevention services, specifically utilization of contraception during the interval between pregnancies and the election of post-pregnancy tubal sterilization. Pregnancy history was found to be significantly associated with the contraceptive use. Women who first became pregnant before age 30 were more likely to utilize contraception in the pregnancy interval, while a history of both unwanted pregnancy and pregnancy loss were negatively associated with this outcome. The relationship between pregnancy history, pregnancy intention, and the evaluation and utilization of reproductive health services, further complicated by influence of age, supports the view of intentionality as a complex and potentially influential construct.Ph.D.Health Services Organization & PolicyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89784/1/jbgrand_2.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89784/2/jbgrand_3.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89784/3/jbgrand_1.pd

Sex-Specific Effects of Respiratory Muscle Endurance Training on Cycling Time Trial Performance in Normoxia and Hypoxia.

Objectives: We tested the hypotheses that respiratory muscle endurance training (RMET) improves endurance cycling performance differently in women and men and more so in hypoxia than in normoxia. Design: A prospective pre-post cross-over study with two testing conditions. Methods: Healthy and active women (seven, 24 ± 4 years, mean ± standard deviation [SD]) and men (seven, 27 ± 5 years) performed incremental cycling to determine maximum oxygen consumption (VO <sub>2peak</sub> ) and power output (W <sub>peak</sub> ) and on different days two 10-km cycling time trials (TTs) in normoxia and normobaric hypoxia (FiO <sub>2</sub> , 0.135, ~3,500 m equivalent), in a balanced randomized order. Next they performed supervised RMET in normoxia (4 weeks, 5 days/week, 30 min/day eucapnic hyperpnea at ~60% predicted maximum voluntary ventilation) followed by identical post-tests. During TTs, heart rate, ear oximetry reading, and W <sub>peak</sub> were recorded. Results: The VO <sub>2peak</sub> and W <sub>peak</sub> values were unchanged after RMET. The TT was improved by 7 ± 6% (p < 0.001) in normoxia and 16 ± 6% (p < 0.001) in hypoxia. The difference between normoxic and hypoxic TT was smaller after RMET as compared with that before RMET (14% vs. 21%, respectively, p < 0.001). All effects were greater in women (p < 0.001). The RMET did not change the heart rate or ear oximetry reading during TTs. Conclusion: We found a greater effect of RMET on cycling TT performance in women than in men, an effect more pronounced in hypoxia. These findings are congruent with the contention of a more pronounced performance-limiting role of the respiratory system during endurance exercise in hypoxia compared with normoxia and more so in women whose respiratory system is undersized compared with that of men

The Role of Traditional Leaders in Fostering Democracy, Justice and Human Rights in Zimbabwe

This article examines the role of chiefs in fostering democracy, human rights and peace in Zimbabwe. It argues that in the precolonial era, chiefs had knowledge of grassroots democracy as they made consultations with their council machinery before taking any decision. It also argues that the pre-colonial chiefs were custodians of peace and human rights. Human life was viewed as sacred and annoyance of innocent people would evoke punishment from the ancestors. With the introduction of salaries and newadministrative policies, the office of chieftaincy was compromised in both the colonial and post-colonial periods. Chiefs lost most of their powers and, therefore, lost control of their people. This article argues that chiefs can however use their position, influence and power to transform Zimbabwe into a democratic, lawful and peaceful nation. It invites the current chiefs to borrow a leaf from their counterparts in the pre-colonial era who were guided by democratic principles in their deliberations, who respected the laws of their chiefdoms and ensured that subjects under their jurisdictionwere given fair treatment

Impacts of a flaring star-forming disc and stellar radial mixing on the vertical metallicity gradient

Using idealized N-body simulations of a Milky Way-sized disc galaxy, we qualitatively study how the metallicity distributions of the thin disc star particles are modified by the formation of the bar and spiral arm structures. The thin disc in our numerical experiments initially has a tight negative radial metallicity gradient and a constant vertical scaleheight. We show that the radial mixing of stars drives a positive vertical metallicity gradient in the thin disc. On the other hand, if the initial thin disc is flared, with vertical scaleheight increasing with galactocentric radius, the metal-poor stars, originally in the outer disc, become dominant in regions above the disc plane at every radii. This process can drive a negative vertical metallicity gradient, which is consistent with the current observed trend. This model mimics a scenario where the star-forming thin disc was flared in the outer region at earlier epochs. Our numerical experiment with an initial flared disc predicts that the negative vertical metallicity gradient of the mono-age relatively young thin disc population should be steeper in the inner disc, and the radial metallicity gradient of the mono-age population should be shallower at greater heights above the disc plane. We also predict that the metallicity distribution function of mono-age young thin disc populations above the disc plane would be more positively skewed in the inner disc compared to the outer disc

Unexpected Effect of Internal Degrees of Freedom on Transverse Phonons in Supercooled Liquids

We show experimentally that in a supercooled liquid composed of molecules with internal degrees of freedom the internal modes contribute to the frequency dependent shear viscosity and damping of transverse phonons, which results in an additional broadening of the transverse Brillouin lines. Earlier, only the effect of internal modes on the frequency dependent bulk viscosity and damping of longitudinal phonons was observed and explained theoretically in the limit of weak coupling of internal degrees of freedom to translational motion. A new theory is needed to describe this new effect. We also demonstrate, that the contributions of structural relaxation and internal processes to the width of the Brillouin lines can be separated by measurements under high pressure

Evaluating statistical language models as pragmatic reasoners

The relationship between communicated language and intended meaning is often probabilistic and sensitive to context. Numerous strategies attempt to estimate such a mapping, often leveraging recursive Bayesian models of communication. In parallel, large language models (LLMs) have been increasingly applied to semantic parsing applications, tasked with inferring logical representations from natural language. While existing LLM explorations have been largely restricted to literal language use, in this work, we evaluate the capacity of LLMs to infer the meanings of pragmatic utterances. Specifically, we explore the case of threshold estimation on the gradable adjective ``strong'', contextually conditioned on a strength prior, then extended to composition with qualification, negation, polarity inversion, and class comparison. We find that LLMs can derive context-grounded, human-like distributions over the interpretations of several complex pragmatic utterances, yet struggle composing with negation. These results inform the inferential capacity of statistical language models, and their use in pragmatic and semantic parsing applications. All corresponding code is made publicly available (https://github.com/benlipkin/probsem/tree/CogSci2023).Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 202

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Tides settings variable

Tides is one of several ecological settings variables that collectively characterize the biophysical setting of each 30 m cell at a given point in time (McGarigal et al 2017). Tides estimates the probability that a point is intertidal or subtidal. It is derived from a logistic regression model using tide range and elevation to distinguish mapped salt marshes from uplands.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1022/thumbnail.jp

Designing Sustainable Landscapes: Substrate mobility settings variable

Substrate mobility is one of several ecological settings variables that collectively characterize the biophysical setting of each 30 m cell at a given point in time (McGarigal et al 2017). Substrate mobility measures the realized mobility of the physical substrate, due to both substrate composition (e.g., sand) and exposure to forces (wind and water) that transport material. This is an important attribute of certain dynamic systems (e.g., coastal dune systems); given as a simple index of mobility (1 = stable, 10 = highly mobile). Substrate mobility is assigned by landcover class, derived from expert opinion. This settings variable is dynamic, changing with urban growth.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/1020/thumbnail.jp

A high fidelity Milky Way simulation with Kraken, Gaia-Enceladus, and Sequoia analogues: clues to their accretion histories

Within a simulated Milky Way-like galaxy, we identify and analyse analogues of the Gaia-Enceladus (GE), Kraken, and Sequoia mergers that each matches remarkably well observational results, including in velocity and chemical abundance space, and their distributions in the jz-Energy plane. The Kraken analogue is the earliest merger and has the highest total mass ratio. Consistent with previous studies, it is chemically indistinguishable from old in situ stars at the time of its accretion. The GE and Sequoia analogue events accrete at similar times in our simulation, both along filaments but from opposite sides of the main galaxy. The mean stellar ages of the GE and Sequoia analogues are both similar and, from our simulation results, we see that they can be separate entities and still naturally reproduce the observed properties of their stellar remnants at the present day, including the significant retrograde velocities of the Sequoia analogue remnant stars and the difference in the tracks of the two galaxies through chemical abundance space. Our results provide supporting information about the properties of these three merger events, and show for the first time that they can all be reproduced with a fully cosmological simulation, providing a possible self-consistent evolutionary pathway for the Milky Way’s formation