Changing public perception of dementia: the effect and credibility of three informational models.

Background: Since the 1970s, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia have been portrayed in a medicalized, symptom-focused manner to help spread awareness, improve diagnosis, and push for treatment research. In recent decades, there has been movement towards a biopsychosocial, person-centered approach that considers social and psychological factors that interact with biological diseases processes. Common biopsychosocial approaches retain an emphasis on deficits and symptoms. New research has integrated positive psychology constructs and dementia. This integration of positive psychology principles and dementia care and research has the potential to more accurately capture the experience of having dementia. Objectives: This dissertation tested how the portrayal of dementia affects perceptions of dementia in the general public. A second objective was to explore variables that predict attitudes about dementia. Finally, this dissertation aimed to assess the perceived credibility of the three informational models of dementia. Methods: The final sample consisted of 255 English-speaking adults living in the United States, aged 19-80, recruited via Amazon MTurk. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: biomedical model of dementia, biopsychosocial model of dementia, or positive psychology-informed model of dementia. Participants then read a vignette and answered a series of questionnaires. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 28. Results: A one-way MANOVA showed no significant difference in perception of dementia between the three dementia model conditions. Multiple linear regressions identified a series of variables that predicted attitudes and beliefs about people with dementia, with ageism emerging as a consistent predictor of both positive and negative perceptions. A one-way ANOVA showed that the positive psychology-informed model and the biopsychosocial model of dementia did not result in worse credibility ratings than the biomedical model. Conclusions: Statistical limitations hinder the ability to draw strong conclusions about several of the analyses. Statistically sound conclusions include the emergence of ageism as a consistent predictor of beliefs about dementia, and the fact that the biomedical model did not have higher credibility ratings than the more holistic models of dementia. These findings encourage future research into the relationship between ageism and perception of dementia, and into the effects of disseminating a positive psychology-informed framing of dementia

Polarimetric radar processing of AIRSAR imagery from Los Angeles basin region

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on February 22, 2011).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Justin J. Legarsky.M. S. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.Extracting useful information and intelligence from polarimetric interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PolInSAR) data involves a variety of highly sophisticated processing methods. To aid in the advancement of efficient PolInSAR processing techniques, an investigation of underlying scattering mechanisms such as coherent scatterers (CS) and polarimetric decomposition techniques is conducted in this study using JPL AIRSAR fully polarimetric data over a portion of the greater Los Angeles area. For this study, selection of the overall optimum polarization showed an increase of CS candidates compared to standard polarizations. In addition, polarimetric decomposition ([alpha]-H and F/D) analysis of CS and non-CS (NCS) pixels found a trend of increasing double-bounce scattering, Fd, with decreasing volume scattering, Fv, and polarimetric Entropy, H, for CS relative to NCS.Includes bibliographical references

Diacetyl and Acetylmethylcarbinol production in the manufacture of unsalted butter

During the ripening of sweet or neutralized sour cream in laboratory and semi-commercial trials there were some irregularities in the effects of various factors on the diacetyl and acetylmethylcarbinol contents of the cream, but generally the contents were increased by an increase in the acidity to which the cream was ripened, by addition of small ·amounts of citric acid to the cream and by agitation (shaking in the laboratory trials and revolving the coils in the semi-commercial trials) during the ripening. In some trials the contents were greatly influenced by the use of certain butter cultures, while in other trials they were not. In general, as the diacetyl contents increased in the ripening cream the acetylmethylcarbinol contents. also increased, but there were variations from this relationship. The occasional decreases in diacetyl contents often were accompanied by increases in acetylmethylcarbinol contents. Some of the ripening procedures used with the cream were beneficial from the standpoint of score of the butter under certain holding conditions. These procedures included development of higher acidities in the cream, addition of citric acid to the cream and agitation of the cream during ripening

Phase Velocities and Angle of Inclination for Frequency Components in Fully Developed Turbulent Flow Through Pipes

Measurements of phase shift and coherence between the streamwise velocity fluctuations at two sensors placed very close to each other have been made in fully developed turbulent flow in a smooth pipe. For the frequencies where the √coherence is near unity (i.e. the correlation between the frequency components is near unity) the phase shifts have been related to the phase velocities and angle of inclination of a frozen pattern of turbulence. Several other quantities such as intensities, energy spectral densities and mean velocities have also been obtained from the data taken with each sensor and these are in good agreement with previously found values. Probability densities of the streamwise velocity fluctuations were calculated and appear to be positively skewed near the wall and negatively skewed in the central region of the flow. The phase shift measurements indicate that the phase velocities of all but the lowest frequency components are near and somewhat below the local mean velocity in the central region of the pipe and that the disturbance fronts are perpendicular to the wall. Near the wall all the disturbances seem to be inclined - the lower frequencies making smaller angles with the wall than the higher frequencies. The angles of inclination of all disturbances increase with distance from the wall. The phase velocity appears higher than the local mean velocity in this region

Reorganization of corticospinal output during motor learning

Motor learning is accompanied by widespread changes within the motor cortex, but it is unknown whether these changes are ultimately funneled through a stable corticospinal output channel or whether the corticospinal output itself is plastic. We investigated the consistency of the relationship between corticospinal neuron activity and movement through in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in mice learning a lever-press task. Corticospinal neurons exhibited heterogeneous correlations with movement, with the majority of movement-modulated neurons decreasing activity during movement. Individual cells changed their activity across days, which led to changed associations between corticospinal activity and movement. Unlike previous observations in layer 2/3, activity accompanying learned movements did not become more consistent with learning; instead, the activity of dissimilar movements became more decorrelated. These results indicate that the relationship between corticospinal activity and movement is dynamic and that the types of activity and plasticity are different from and possibly complementary to those in layer 2/3

A method of lean air-fuel ratio control using combustion pressure measurement

In this paper a method for control of air–fuel ratio (AFR) in cold or lean-burning spark-ignited engines is investigated. The technique uses combustion pressure as measured by a cylinder-mounted sensor, and is based on the phenomenon of increasing cycle-to-cycle combustion pressure variation as the air–fuel mixture approaches the limits of flammability. The cylinder pressure is measured from one engine cycle to the next, and large drops in mean effective pressure (IMEP) are used as an indicator of poor combustion. In response, the airflow or fuel flow to the engine can be manipulated. In a series of experiments, the air and fuel are alternately investigated as control inputs, and performance compared. The resulting control system is a high-bandwidth AFR control strategy that can be used under cold or lean conditions when conventional exhaust gas oxygen sensor cannot be used. Moreover, the method is directly tied to the combustion process and the relevant performance measure — combustion stability — that is perceptible to the driver as a rough-running engine

The Aerodynamics of Hummingbird Flight

Hummingbirds fly with their wings almost fully extended during their entire wingbeat. This pattern, associated with having proportionally short humeral bones, long distal wing elements, and assumed to be an adaptation for extended hovering flight, has lead to predictions that the aerodynamic mechanisms exploited by hummingbirds during hovering should be similar to those observed in insects. To test these predictions, we flew rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus, 3.3 g, n = 6) in a variable–speed wind tunnel (0-12 ms-1) and measured wake structure and dynamics using digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV). Unlike hovering insects, hummingbirds produced 75% of their weight support during downstroke and only 25% during upstroke, an asymmetry due to the inversion of their cambered wings during upstroke. Further, we have found no evidence of sustained, attached leading edge vorticity (LEV) during up or downstroke, as has been seen in similarly-sized insects - although a transient LEV is produced during the rapid change in angle of attack at the end of the downstroke. Finally, although an extended-wing upstroke during forward flight has long been thought to produce lift and negative thrust, we found circulation during downstroke alone to be sufficient to support body weight, and that some positive thrust was produced during upstroke, as evidenced by a vortex pair shed into the wake of all upstrokes at speeds of 4 – 12 m s-1

Phylogenetic relationships in the family Alloherpesviridae

Phylogenetic relationships among herpesviruses (HVs) of mammals, birds, and reptiles have been studied extensively, whereas those among other HVs are relatively unexplored. We have reconstructed the phylogenetic relationships among 13 fish and amphibian HVs using maximum likelihood and Bayesian analyses of amino acid sequences predicted from parts of the DNA polymerase and terminase genes. The relationships among 6 of these viruses were confirmed using the partial DNA polymerase data plus the complete sequences of the terminase, helicase, and triplex protein genes; the position of these viruses among all other sequenced HVs was also investigated using the complete terminase gene. The results established the monophyly of the fish and amphibian HVs (Alloherpesviridae) separate from the HVs of mammals, birds, and reptiles (Herpesviridae) and the single recognized HV of bivalve mollusks (Malacoherpesviridae) in the order Herpesvirales. Two major clades in the family Alloherpesviridae were recognized: one consisting of viruses from cyprinid and anguillid hosts and the other of viruses from ictalurid, salmonid, acipenserid, and ranid hosts. A comparison of virus and host phylogenies suggested that closely related HVs in this family may have coevolved with their hosts, whereas significant codiversification was not apparent for the more distantly related viruses