Globalism’s Impact on the Geopolitics of the Middle East

The important geography of the Middle East contributes to the unquestionable value of the region in international relations. Through examining the origin of geopolitics as well as the relevant political theories, and then applying these theories to the current state of the Middle East, it is evident that the geography of the Middle East has impacted the region’s international significance and stability. Understanding the unique geography assists in explaining the region’s current turmoil. The opposing interests in religion, land, and power catalyze tensions across the Middle East, producing an unstable environment around trade route chokepoints and disputed territories. War, political unrest, humanitarian crisis, and terrorism are a few of the unresolved problems within the Middle East. Consequently, these issues not only changed the Middle East’s current political climate, but through globalization affect the cultures and economies of the connected regions in Europe and Africa. The geopolitics of the Middle East explains the devastation in the region, which globalization has spread to transform Europe and Africa economically, culturally, and politically

Cost Utility of Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence [poster abstract]

Objective: There are many possible treatment options for stress urinary incontinence. We sought to investigate the cost-utility of non-surgical versus surgical treatments. Study Design: A decision analysis model was created to compare non-surgical and surgical treatment options for healthy women with stress urinary incontinence. Decision paths included conservative management, pelvic floor physical therapy, pelvic floor physical therapy with electrical stimulation, incontinence pessary and surgical treatment with a midurethral sling. A Markov model cohort analysis was performed with a cycle length of one year starting at age 45 with a lifetime horizon. Probabilities, success rates and utilities for health outcomes were obtained from the literature or, when unavailable, by expert opinion. A cost utility analysis was performed using US recommendations from a societal perspective. This includes cost to the patient and the health plan. Cost data was obtained from Medicare reimbursement in 2012 US dollars. Cost and quality adjusted life years were discounted at 3% per year. Sensitivity analysis was performed to test the validity of our model. Results: Analysis of the model showed that incontinence pessary was the most cost-effective treatment option with a cost of $11,411 for 18.9 quality adjusted life years. At a willingness to pay threshold of$50,000, incontinence pessary remained the most cost-effective treatment option. At a willingness to pay threshold of $60,000, surgery became the most cost-effective treatment option. Pelvic floor physical therapy and pelvic floor physical therapy with electrical stimulation were dominated at any willingness to pay threshold. Conclusion: This model shows that surgical correction is likely the most cost-effective treatment option for young healthy women with stress urinary incontinence. These results are driven by the high success rate of minimally invasive slings compared to other treatment modalities. More studies are needed to define utility values for heath states experienced by women with stress urinary incontinence. This will enhance our ability to develop more accurate cost-utility models and offer the best treatment for women affected by incontinence

The Effects of Practice on Stroop Inhibition: A Process Dissociation Approach

Two studies were performed to investigate the effects of age and practice on Stroop inhibition. The first experiment examined the influence of age on the ability to ignore the meaning of words on Stroop items. Fifteen younger and 15 older adults were asked to name the color of congruent, incongruent, and control items appearing on a computer screen. Participants\u27 interference and facilitation scores, error rates, and color and word process dissociation estimates were computed. The results indicate that older adults experienced more interference and facilitation than the younger adults and produced more errors than the younger adults on items where the meaning of the word and the color of the item did not match. Likewise, the process dissociation measures showed higher word estimates for older adults. Altogether these findings are indicative of a breakdown in older adults\u27 inhibitory processes. The second study examined the effects of practice on older and younger adults\u27 ability to inhibit word reading in the Stroop. Twelve younger and 12 older adults were assigned to each of two list conditions. Participants in the mostly congruent list condition received 140 items, 100 of which were congruent, 20 of which were incongruent and 20 of which were control. Participants in the mostly incongruent condition also received 140 trials, 100 of which where incongruent, 20 of which were congruent and 20 of which were control. The mostly incongruent list thus provided more practice in ignoring word meaning. Once again Stroop facilitation and interference scores, error rates, and process dissociation measures were computed. The results indicated that the mostly congruent list produced more facilitation and interference than the mostly incongruent list and that older adults again had higher facilitation and interference scores than younger adults. However, there was no evidence in the latency data that older adults benefitted less from practice than their younger counterparts. The process dissociation estimates demonstrated that older adults had higher word process estimates than the younger participants but that their color process estimates were similar to those of the younger adults. In addition, the mostly incongruent list produced lower word estimates and higher color estimates than the mostly congruent list. Moreover, this pattern did not differ across list types from that of the younger adults, again suggesting a similar benefit from practice for the two age groups. Taken together, these two studies suggest that while older adults are poorer at inhibitory skills, they do benefit from practice

An Objective Approach to the Study of Certain Emotions

Last year a qualitative and quantitative study of the emotions was made, emphasizing those of fear and startle. On theoretical grounds the emotion which seemed naturally to follow these was surprise, for often the emotion of surprise was closely allied in the introspective reports and in the technical procedure of arousing the several emotions. In the literature little is said about surprise. Almost always it is described as a comparatively mild emotion. Watson does not mention it among his primary emotions and few other authors consider it among the important emotions. In popular literature, however, the word is frequently found and has many shades of meaning, from a very mild emotion to a very powerful one. In scientific literature on the emotions, on the other hand, the following distinctions were found

Quiet Design: Changing Residential Landscapes in Early 21st Century Colorado

This study is an exploration into twenty-first century residential patterns in Colorado. Twenty-one individuals were interviewed, focusing ethnographically in three field site locations: Denver, Boulder, and Summit County. Using in-depth interviews with the twenty-one informants, historical data, and modern articles and media, the changing inclination away from what is described as ‘traditionally Coloradoan’ toward contemporary design is the result of both social class preferences and sociopolitical actors vying for environmental innovation in residential design. Using Keith Murphy’s theory of a cultural geometry and Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of class distinction, as guiding theoretical frames, this study explores changes in residential design patterns as Colorado’s population demographics are shifting in the early twenty-first century

Understanding disability glare: the effects of scattered light on visual performance

The focus of this thesis is on how light is scattered on its passage through the optics of the human eye, and the consequences for visual performance under different lighting conditions. A number of visual psychophysical measurement techniques were employed to investigate the impact of light scatter on various aspects of visual performance. The preliminary experiments carried out were designed to explore the physical properties of scattered light in the eye. Scattered light varies in both amount and angular dependence, outcomes that relate directly to the number and size of particles involved. In this respect, scattered light is estimated using two methods: one that measures both the amount and the angular dependence of scattered light and the other that assumes constant angular dependence in all observers. The findings show that there are significant differences in angular dependence between observers and that the size of the differences correlates with errors in the estimation of the overall amount of scatter. Experiments were then carried out to investigate the effects of increased scattered light on visual performance and whether these can explain any aspects of age-related visual degradation. To disentangle increased scattered light from the innumerable other changes that occur with ageing, the amount of scattered light in young, healthy eyes was increased using fogging filters. Increased scatter is shown to have only a small effect on chromatic sensitivity and the ability to recognise letters or other high contrast optotypes that are commonly used to assess visual acuity. Contrast sensitivity, on the other hand, can be much reduced in the presence of increased light scatter

Detecting Differences in Communication During Two Types of Patient Handovers: A Linguistic Construct Categorization Approach

Health Professions - Clinical: 4th Place, Honorable Mention (The Ohio State University Denman Undergraduate Research Forum)Patient handovers are a critical point in the patient care process. Software to identify differences in communication content and strategies across different types of patient handovers could be helpful in customizing physician training programs. To determine whether there were differences, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used. The primary measure was the LIWC output score, which is the frequency of mention of words in a construct category divided by the total number of words in the handover transcript. Two types of constructs were investigated: 1) content, which included name/age, care plan, prognosis, and family, and 2) strategy, which included questioning and collaborative cross-checks. We hypothesized that the Emergency Department (ED) to hospital transfer compared to Intensive Care Unit (ICU) sign-outs would have more discussion of family and less of the patient’s prognosis, as well as more collaborative cross-checks. A two-tailed t-test was used to detect differences. One hypothesis was confirmed, that there was less discussion of prognosis in the ED as compared to the ICU handover. Unexpected findings were less discussion of the care plan and more questioning in the ED as compared to the ICU handover. Findings confirm that both communication content and strategies are different for the two types of patient handovers and that an automated analysis approach can detect differences across a set of handover transcripts.Academic Major: Neuroscienc