The Dynamic Measure of Health Goals, Goal Achievement, and who Succeeds at their Goals

This dissertation is divided into four parts. Part 1 includes the introduction to the dissertation. Part 2 describes the first study of the dissertation, the Goal Measurement study. This focuses on the development and evaluation of the Health Goals and Achievement Surveys; a survey measuring and evaluating health goals and their achievement. The Goal Measurement Study also offers validity information and reports the relationships between various personality traits and health goal achievement. Part 3 describes the second study of the dissertation, the Personality Predictors and Social Support Study which examines multiple psycho-social predictors of health goal achievement. Part 4 is a general discussion of the dissertation’s findings. Broadly, these studies examine direct and multiple relationships between psychosocial variables and health goal achievement

Minimum Degree Conditions for Tilings in Graphs and Hypergraphs

We consider tiling problems for graphs and hypergraphs. For two graphs and , an -tiling of is a subgraph of consisting of only vertex disjoint copies of . By using the absorbing method, we give a short proof that in a balanced tripartite graph , if every vertex is adjacent to of the vertices in each of the other vertex partitions, then has a -tiling. Previously, Magyar and Martin [11] proved the same result (without ) by using the Regularity Lemma. In a 3-uniform hypergraph , let denote the minimum number of edges that contain for all pairs of vertices. We show that if , there exists a -tiling that misses at most vertices of . On the other hand, we show that there exist hypergraphs such that and does not have a perfect -tiling. These extend the results of Pikhurko [12] on -tilings

Some Notes on the Selective Service Act

A great majority of the veterinary students at Iowa State College have evidenced much concern in regard to their standing in relation to the Selective Service Act of 1940. This concern doubtless prevails among the students of every veterinary college in the country

The American Thoroughbred

In attempting to compile this brief dissertation on the history and development of the Thoroughbred horse in America, I found myself confronted with an immense task. The every detail in the development and improvement of our modern racer would be impossible to incorporate in an article as brief as this, and would require a knowledge and skill much beyond my humble capability. Therefore, I have attempted to enumerate but a few of the more pertinent steps concerning the development of the American Thoroughbred horse. I have cited several of the most outstanding men of the turf and sporting world of both the past and present generation. I have endeavored to present as accurately as possible, and to the best of my knowledge the facts behind this truly great American enterprise

A Graph Theoretic Summation of the Cubes of the First n Integers

In this Math Bite we provide a combinatorial proof of the sum of the cubes of the first n integers by counting edges in complete bipartite graphs

The Veterinary Research Institute

THE Iowa State Veterinary Research Institute is located on a sixty acre farm one mile south of the Iowa State College campus. The laboratories and buildings are especially equipped for research work in animal diseases. The problems in the control and eradication of animal diseases are many, and few of these problems have been completely solved. The objective of this organization has been to investigate animal diseases with the view of working out effective methods of control and eradication

Taming the Hydra: A Triangulation Approach to Assessing an Interdisciplinary Core Curriculum

The development of interdisciplinary core curricula has mushroomed in recent years as the need to accommodate general education to an explosion of knowledge cutting across disciplines and increased global interdependence has emerged. This trend has not been accompanied, however, by new methods of assessment. In this paper we describe the use of triangulation strategies for evaluating interdisciplinary core programs, then present a case study of an assessment plan based on triangulation drawn from experience at our institution. We conclude with some recommendations concerning establishing triangulation assessments of interdisciplinary core programs

A Contextual Psychology Approach to Improving Health Outcomes in the Perinatal Period

The United States holds alarming records for highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world. The US infant mortality rate is on par with many low and middle income countries, and despite the decline in maternal mortality rates globally, pregnancy-related deaths in the US have trended upwards. The Birth Your Way perinatal health promotion program was designed to address this US public health crisis by amplifying the ability of federal maternal child health programs to mitigate the primary infant mortality risk factors, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) admissions, low birthweight and preterm deliveries, and the key maternal mortality risk factor, Cesarean delivery. The federal Medicaid program buffers mortality risk via increased access to perinatal healthcare services; while the federal Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program (WIC) improves health outcomes via improved prenatal nutrition. Employing an implementation science approach, the Birth Your Way intervention has been developed and evaluated in collaboration with Medicaid and WIC partners in a model public health test site. The Birth Your Way intervention is the first to utilize an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach to increase pregnant individuals’ adherence to the WIC prenatal nutrition protocol via increases in psychological flexibility, the psychological mechanism underlying ACT. A pragmatic randomized clinical trial was conducted to examine Birth Your Way program effects on psychological flexibility, perinatal nutrition and infant and maternal birth outcomes. Results from the Birth Your Way pragmatic randomized clinical trial demonstrate the ACT-based intervention’s potential to bolster WIC program effects and mitigate poor infant birth outcomes when a minimum dose is received. The current study documents a promising role for the application of ACT in the prenatal period to increase maternal engagement in values-directed actions and healthy dietary behaviors and to decrease the likelihood of NICU admissions, low birthweight, and preterm deliveries. Expanding the reach of ACT-based programs across Medicaid distributors to amplify WIC program engagement could prove a critical component in the public health effort to mitigate the US infant and maternal mortality crisis

Interaction with LC8 Is Required for Pak1 Nuclear Import and Is Indispensable for Zebrafish Development

Pak1 (p21 activated kinase 1) is a serine/threonine kinase implicated in regulation of cell motility and survival and in malignant transformation of mammary epithelial cells. In addition, the dynein light chain, LC8, has been described to cooperate with Pak1 in malignant transformation of breast cancer cells. Pak1 itself may aid breast cancer development by phosphorylating nuclear proteins, including estrogen receptor alpha. Recently, we showed that the LC8 binding site on Pak1 is adjacent to the nuclear localization sequence (NLS) required for Pak1 nuclear import. Here, we demonstrate that the LC8-Pak1 interaction is necessary for epidermal growth factor (EGF)-induced nuclear import of Pak1 in MCF-7 cells, and that this event is contingent upon LC8-mediated Pak1 dimerization. In contrast, Pak2, which lacks an LC8 binding site but contains a nuclear localization sequence identical to that in Pak1, remains cytoplasmic upon EGF stimulation of MCF-7 cells. Furthermore, we show that severe developmental defects in zebrafish embryos caused by morpholino injections targeting Pak are partially rescued by co-injection of wild-type human Pak1, but not by co-injection of mutant Pak1 mRNA disrupting either the LC8 binding or the NLS site. Collectively, these results suggest that LC8 facilitates nuclear import of Pak1 and that this function is indispensable during vertebrate development