The evolution of online asexual discourse

Technological, social, and economic changes in recent decades have led to new possibilities for communication and for forming communities that are not tied to a specific geographical location. This creates new opportunities and challenges for studying language change, including the language of online communities. This dissertation provides such a case study by examining the development of, and changes in, online English language asexual discourse from the second half of the 1990s until late 2013, focusing on lexical items and multi-word expressions. This dissertation combines three major research approaches---archival research, corpus research, and survey research . Using the Way Back Machine, databases of newspaper archives, and academic databases and references, historical conceptualizations of asexuality can be seen well before the emergence of asexual communities online, but I can find no evidence of asexual organizing prior to the 1990s. Largely using qualitative analysis of asexual websites, I give a historical account of the development of online asexual communities, and I argue that there have been at least two major conceptual shifts in the conceptualization of asexuality in the time period under consideration, which I call the "AVEN shift" and the "rise of intermediate categories." I then discuss the construction of four corpora: I scrapped the largest asexual website (Asexual Visibility and Education Network [AVEN]) and a similar sized message board on a different topic as a control (Non-asexual corpus). I subdivided the AVEN data into two sub-corpora, based on the sub-forum topics. Most subforums are in the AVEN-core corpus. Some (e.g. "Just For Fun" or "Off-A") are mostly about topics other than asexuality, and were grouped as the AVEN-other Corpus. In addition, I scraped several asexual blogs and asexual communities other than AVEN (e.g. a LiveJournal community): these comprise the Asexual-other corpus. Using a multinomial Naive Bayes classifier, I found moderate distinguishability between the AVEN-main and non-asexual corpura at the level of individual posts when only considering individual words. To rule out the possibility that the classifier was distinguishing AVEN vs. non-AVEN discourse, I first created an algorithm to remove from consideration words that probably refer to users. Second, I used the same classifier on the AVEN-other corpora and the asexual-other corpora. Results for the asexual-other corpus are similar to results for the AVEN-main corpus, while results for the AVEN-other corpus are not. This suggests that the classifier is identifying asexual discourse vs. other discourse. I used the AVEN-core Corpus to generate a list of "key-words" that well-characterize asexual discourse, and then investigate the evolution of three sets of these: intermediate category terms, romantic orientation terms, and the terms repulsed and indifferent. Results provide strong support for the "rise of intermediate categories" hypothesis, and also provide evidence of terminological change for the other two domains. To test the "AVEN shift" hypothesis, I conducted an online survey in Early 2012 about people's self-understanding prior to and after finding an online asexual community. Results provide evidence for all predictions of the "AVEN shift" hypothesis, although the changes were by no means monolithic. Through this research, I illustrate the utility of applying methodologies from corpus linguistics and from machine learning for investigating the language of specific online communities. Further, I provide novel methodologies (or novel uses of existing methodologies) for problems likely to be faced by other researchers using corpus linguistics to study online language change in specific (sub)communities

Impaired Endothelial Function in Coronary Heart Disease Patients With Depressive Symptomatology

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to assess whether depressive symptomatology was associated with vascular endothelial dysfunction in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). BACKGROUND In patients with CHD, the presence of depression is associated with a two to four times increased risk of mortality, but the disease pathways involved are uncertain. Endothelial dysfunction is an established risk factor for cardiovascular events in patients with CHD. METHODS Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery, a measure of endothelial function, was assessed in 143 patients (99 men, 44 women), ages 40 to 84 years (mean age, 63 ± 10 years), with documented CHD. RESULTS Patients with significant depressive symptomatology, as indicated by a Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score ≥10 (n = 47) showed attenuated FMD (p = 0.001) compared with patients that were not depressed (BDI <10 n = 96). The use of antidepressant medication was associated with improved FMD (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The increased risk of cardiovascular events in CHD patients with elevated symptoms of depression may be mediated, in part, by endothelial dysfunction

Research utility of noninvasive methods for measurement of cardiac output

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/109853/1/cptclpt198751.pd

Hemodynamics and Vascular Hypertrophy in African Americans and Caucasians With High Blood Pressure

BACKGROUND: Hypertension in African Americans is characterized by greater systemic vascular resistance (SVR) compared with Caucasian Americans, but the responsible mechanisms are not known. The present study sought to determine if peripheral vascular hypertrophy is a potential mechanism contributing to elevated SVR in African Americans with high blood pressure (BP). METHODS: In a biracial sample of 80 men and women between the ages of 25 and 45 years, with clinic BP in the range 130/85-160/99mm Hg, we assessed cardiac output and SVR, in addition to BP. Minimum forearm vascular resistance (MFVR), a marker of vascular hypertrophy, also was assessed. RESULTS: SVR was elevated in African Americans compared with Caucasians (P < 0.001). Regression models indicated that age, body mass index, 24-hour diastolic BP, and ethnicity were significant predictors of SVR. There was also a significant interaction between ethnicity and MFVR in explaining SVR in the study sample. In particular, there was a significant positive association between MFVR and SVR among African Americans (P = 0.002), whereas the association was inverse and not statistically significant among Caucasians (P = 0.601). CONCLUSION: Hypertrophy of the systemic microvasculature may contribute to the elevated SVR that is characteristic of the early stages of hypertension in African American compared with Caucasians

Effects of Exercise and Sertraline on Measures of Coronary Heart Disease Risk in Patients With Major Depression: Results From the SMILE-II Randomized Clinical Trial

To assess the effects of supervised and home-based aerobic exercise training, and antidepressant pharmacotherapy (sertraline) on coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors in a sample of participants with major depressive disorder (MDD)

Ethnic Differences in the Effects of the DASH Diet on Nocturnal Blood Pressure Dipping in Individuals with High Blood Pressure

Ethnic differences in nocturnal blood pressure (BP) dipping may contribute to the increased risk for adverse cardiovascular events noted in African Americans (AAs). The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet has been shown to be efficacious in lowering clinic and ambulatory BP; however, the effect of the DASH diet on BP dipping is unclear

The DASH Diet and Insulin Sensitivity

Lifestyle modifications, including adoption of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) dietary pattern, weight loss in individuals who are overweight or obese, and physical activity, are effective in the prevention and treatment of hypertension. A healthy lifestyle may also have beneficial effects on metabolic abnormalities, such as insulin resistance, that are associated with high blood pressure. This review examines the independent and combined effects of the DASH diet and weight loss plus exercise on blood pressure and insulin sensitivity, with a focus on recently published results from the ENCORE study. Our data suggest that the DASH eating plan alone lowers blood pressure in overweight individuals with higher than optimal blood pressure, but significant improvements in insulin sensitivity are observed only when the DASH diet is implemented as part of a more comprehensive lifestyle modification program that includes exercise and weight loss

The effect of job strain on nighttime blood pressure dipping among men and women with high blood pressure

Blunted nighttime blood pressure dipping is an established cardiovascular risk factor. This study examined the effect of job strain on nighttime blood pressure dipping among men and women with high blood pressure

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE ENDOTHELIAL FUNCTION OF UNTREATED HYPERTENSION

Vascular endothelial dysfunction is associated with increased risk for adverse cardiovascular (CV) events. However, less is known about sex differences in the endothelial function of untreated hypertensive individuals. The purpose of this study was to assess endothelial function in women and men with untreated hypertension. Ninety participants (35 women, 55 men), aged 40 to 60 years (mean age, 46.1±8.2 years), with untreated stage 1 hypertension (systolic blood pressure 140-159 mm Hg and/or diastolic blood pressure 90-99 mm Hg) underwent brachial artery endothelial-dependent flow-mediated dilation and endothelial-independent glyceryl trinitrate dilation. Women had a smaller flow-mediated dilation response than men (adjusted mean±standard error of the mean [SEM]; 1.8±0.6% vs 3.9±0.4%, P=.036), adjusting for baseline arterial diameter (P=.004), age (P=.596), ethnicity (P=.496), log shear stress ratio (P<.001), body mass index (P=.009), 24-hour diastolic blood pressure (P=.169), high-density lipoprotein (P=.225), log creatinine (P=.927), and log physical activity (P=.682). Glyceryl trinitrate dilation did not differ by sex in adjusted models. Women between the ages of 40 and 60 years with untreated stage 1 hypertension exhibited a greater impairment of endothelial function compared with their male counterparts. These findings raise the possibility that female sex may impart a greater risk of CV events in patients with untreated stage 1 hypertension potentially due to poorer endothelial function

Enhancing Cardiac Rehabilitation With Stress Management Training

BACKGROUND: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is the standard of care for patients with coronary heart disease. Despite considerable epidemiological evidence that high stress is associated with worse health outcomes, stress management training (SMT) is not included routinely as a component of CR. METHODS AND RESULTS: One hundred fifty-one outpatients with coronary heart disease who were 36 to 84 years of age were randomized to 12 weeks of comprehensive CR or comprehensive CR combined with SMT (CR+SMT), with assessments of stress and coronary heart disease biomarkers obtained before and after treatment. A matched sample of CR-eligible patients who did not receive CR made up the no-CR comparison group. All participants were followed up for up to 5.3 years (median, 3.2 years) for clinical events. Patients randomized to CR+SMT exhibited greater reductions in composite stress levels compared with those randomized to CR alone (P=0.022), an effect that was driven primarily by improvements in anxiety, distress, and perceived stress. Both CR groups achieved significant, and comparable, improvements in coronary heart disease biomarkers. Participants in the CR+SMT group exhibited lower rates of clinical events compared with those in the CR-alone group (18% versus 33%; hazard ratio=0.49; 95% confidence interval, 0.25-0.95; P=0.035), and both CR groups had lower event rates compared with the no-CR group (47%; hazard ratio=0.44; 95% confidence interval, 0.27-0.71; P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: CR enhanced by SMT produced significant reductions in stress and greater improvements in medical outcomes compared with standard CR. Our findings indicate that SMT may provide incremental benefit when combined with comprehensive CR and suggest that SMT should be incorporated routinely into CR. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00981253