ADVICE, INFLUENCE, AND INDEPENDENCE: ADOLESCENT NUTRITIONAL PRACTICES AND OUTCOMES IN BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND

The goal of this dissertation is to discuss relationships between the sociocultural environment and nutritional status outcomes in an urban industrialized city with high rates of poverty. The purpose is to highlight the complex web of factors shaping nutritional status outcomes and move beyond cause and effect approaches to nutrition in an environment where obesity is a central nutritional concern. To accomplish this goal, I examine a range of factors that relate to adolescent nutritional practices and nutritional status outcomes in a sample population of adolescents living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I discuss connections between social locations such as age, gender, geographic area, and socioeconomic status. I also highlight the range of nutritional status outcomes observed in the sample population, while examining broader social, political, and economic aspects of the lives of adolescents that differentially shape nutrition-related experiences in the city. Finally, I demonstrate that adolescents occupy a complex social location in which autonomy, advice, and influence from sociocultural and political-economic factors shape their diet and exercise practices and nutritional status outcomes in multi-faceted, and at times unexpected, ways. In doing so, I emphasize the benefits of a localized, rather than a globalized approach to nutritional concerns such as obesity

Can Mixed Emotions Peacefully Co-Exist?

This research sheds insight on the psychological impact of mixed emotions on attitudes. In three experiments, we show that persuasion appeals that highlight conflicting emotions (e.g., both happiness and sadness) lead to less favorable attitudes for individuals with a lower propensity to accept duality (e.g., Anglo Americans, younger adults) relative to those with a higher propensity (e.g., Asian Americans, older adults). The effect appears to be due to increased levels of felt discomfort that arise for those with a lower, but not higher, propensity to accept duality when exposed to mixed emotional appeals. Theoretical implications regarding boundary conditions of emotional dissonance and distinctions between emotional and cognitive dissonance are discussed

Testing Hypotheses for Exotic Plant Success: Parallel Experiments in the Native and Introduced Ranges

A central question in ecology concerns how some exotic plants that occur at low densities in their native range are able to attain much higher densities where they are introduced. This question has remained unresolved in part due to a lack of experiments that assess factors that affect the population growth or abundance of plants in both ranges. We tested two hypotheses for exotic plant success: escape from specialist insect herbivores and a greater response to disturbance in the introduced range. Within three introduced populations in Montana, USA, and three native populations in Germany, we experimentally manipulated insect herbivore pressure and created small-scale disturbances to determine how these factors affect the performance of houndstongue (Cynoglossum officinale), a widespread exotic in western North America. Herbivores reduced plant size and fecundity in the native range but had little effect on plant performance in the introduced range. Small-scale experimental disturbances enhanced seedling recruitment in both ranges, but subsequent seedling survival was more positively affected by disturbance in the introduced range. We combined these experimental results with demographic data from each population to parameterize integral projection population models to assess how enemy escape and disturbance might differentially influence C. officinale in each range. Model results suggest that escape from specialist insects would lead to only slight increases in the growth rate (λ) of introduced populations. In contrast, the larger response to disturbance in the introduced vs. native range had much greater positive effects on λ. These results together suggest that, at least in the regions where the experiments were performed, the differences in response to small disturbances by C. officinale contribute more to higher abundance in the introduced range compared to at home. Despite the challenges of conducting experiments on a wide biogeographic scale and the logistical constraints of adequately sampling populations within a range, this approach is a critical step forward to understanding the success of exotic plants

Correlation of thyroid hormone measurements with thyroid stimulating hormone stimulation test results in radioiodine-treated cats.

BACKGROUND: Iatrogenic hypothyroidism can develop after radioiodine-I131 (RAI) treatment of hyperthyroid cats and can be diagnosed using the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) stimulation test. OBJECTIVES: To assess the effect of noncritical illness on TSH stimulation test results in euthyroid and RAI-treated cats. To assess the correlation of low total-thyroxine (tT4), low free-thyroxine (fT4), and high TSH concentrations with TSH stimulation test results. ANIMALS: Thirty-three euthyroid adult cats and 118 client-owned cats previously treated with RAI. METHODS: Total-thyroxine, fT4, and TSH were measured, and a TSH stimulation test was performed in all cats. Euthyroid control cats were divided into apparently healthy and noncritical illness groups. RAI-treated cats were divided into RAI-hypothyroid (after-stimulation tT4 ≤ 1.5 μg/dL), RAI-euthyroid (after-stimulation tT4 ≥ 2.3 μg/dL OR after-stimulation tT4 1.5-2.3 μg/dL and before : after tT4 ratio > 1.5), and RAI-equivocal (after stimulation tT4 1.5-2.3 μg/dL and tT4 ratio < 1.5) groups. RESULTS: Noncritical illness did not significantly affect the tT4 following TSH stimulation in euthyroid (P = .38) or RAI-treated cats (P = .54). There were 21 cats in the RAI-equivocal group. Twenty-two (85%) RAI-hypothyroid cats (n = 26) and 10/71 (14%) of RAI-euthyroid cats had high TSH (≥0.3 ng/mL). Twenty-three (88%) RAI-hypothyroid cats had low fT4 (<0.70 ng/dL). Of the 5 (7%) RAI-euthyroid cats with low fT4, only one also had high TSH. Only 5/26 (19%) RAI-hypothyroid cats had tT4 below the laboratory reference interval (<0.78 μg/dL). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The veterinary-specific chemiluminescent fT4 immunoassay and canine-specific TSH immunoassay can be used to aid in the diagnosis of iatrogenic hypothyroidism in cats

2006 Housing in the Nation's Capital

Explores the interdependent relationship between public school systems and housing markets, and examines the ability of coordinated investment in affordable housing and quality education to revitalize Washington, D.C., metropolitan area neighborhoods

Avoiding unintentional eviction from integral projection models

Integral projection models (IPMs) are increasingly being applied to study size-structured populations. Here we call attention to a potential problem in their construction that can have important consequences for model results. IPMs are implemented using an approximating matrix and bounded size range. Individuals near the size limits can be unknowingly "evicted" from the model because their predicted future size is outside the range. We provide simple measures for the magnitude of eviction and the sensitivity of the population growth rate (lambda) to eviction, allowing modelers to assess the severity of the problem in their IPM. For IPMs of three plant species, we found that eviction occurred in all cases and caused underestimation of the population growth rate (lambda) relative to eviction-free models; it is likely that other models are similarly affected. Models with frequent eviction should be modified because eviction is only possible when size transitions are badly mis-specified. We offer several solutions to eviction problems, but we emphasize that the modeler must choose the most appropriate solution based on an understanding of why eviction occurs in the first place. We recommend testing IPMs for eviction problems and resolving them, so that population dynamics are modeled more accurately

Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy on Iron-Pnictides

Tremendous excitement has followed the recent discovery of superconductivity up to Tc= 56 K in iron–arsenic based materials (pnictides). This discovery breaks the monopoly on high-Tc superconductivity held by copper-oxides (cuprates) for over two decades and renews hope that high-Tc superconductivity may finally be theoretically understood and widely applied. Since scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) have been key tools in the investigation and understanding of both conventional and unconventional superconductivity, these techniques are also applied to the pnictides. While the field is still in its early stages, several important achievements by STM and STS have been reported on the pnictides. In this paper, we will review their contribution towards an understanding of superconductivity in this new class of materials.Physic