Increasing the Awareness of Black Women to Promote Medical Research Engagement

Medical research in the United States has drastically improved over the past forty years with the implementation of policies and procedures through government regulation and significant technological advancements. Despite these measures, there are still low participation rates among minority groups, especially Black women, who have proven to suffer the most drastic effects from underrepresentation in medical research. Despite their willingness to participate in medical research, a leading barrier to participation is the need for more knowledge and awareness about how to engage in medical research. This research is a field experiment conducted at a Black Women’s Health Symposium in urban Atlanta to explore the research question, Does awareness improve Black Women’s intent to engage in medical research?” During the symposium, a workshop focusing on the importance of participating in medical research was conducted to increase the knowledge and awareness of Black women. The intent is to encourage engagement and reduce health disparities to improve health equity for Black women

The Equity and Engagement Challenges of Teaching Reading in Middle School

The point is to look at midlevel and high school students—those often encapsulated by the term ‘adolescent literacy’—and to ask what it is that makes those students less likely to engage in productive reading practice. That may at first look like a psychological question about motivation, which makes the challenge seem like it is something inside the student that needs attention or ‘fixing’. But the orientation here is instead more sociological. If we talk about instruction, in this case reading instruction, it is intrinsically interactive, between teacher and student most obviously, but also interactive between students and their peers (e.g. how ‘cool’ is reading viewed in their classroom), and even between student and author (e.g. prospective readers can ask: Why should I care about what this author could tell me?)

Do Some Business Models Perform Better than Others?

This paper defines four basic business models based on what asset rights are sold (Creators, Distributors, Landlords and Brokers) and four variations of each based on what type of assets are involved (Financial, Physical, Intangible, and Human). Using this framework, we classified the business models of all 10,970 publicly traded firms in the US economy from 1998 through 2002. Some of these classifications were done manually, based on the firms' descriptions of sources of revenue in their financial reports; the rest were done automatically by a rule-based system using the same data. Based on this analysis, we first document important stylized facts about the distribution of business models in the U.S. economy. Then we analyze the firms' financial performance in three categories: market value, profitability, and operating efficiency. We find that no model outperforms others on all dimensions. Surprisingly, however, we find that some models do, indeed, have better financial performance than others. For instance, Physical Creators (which we call Manufacturers) and Physical Landlords have greater cash flow on assets, and Intellectual Landlords have poorer q's, than Physical Distributors (Wholesaler/Retailers). These findings are robust to a large number of robustness checks and alternative interpretations. We conclude with some hypotheses to explain our findings.business models; performance

Do Some Business Models Perform Better than Others?

This paper defines four basic business models based on what asset rights are sold (Creators, Distributors, Landlords and Brokers) and four variations of each based on what type of assets are involved (Financial, Physical, Intangible, and Human). Using this framework, we classified the business models of all 10,970 publicly traded firms in the US economy from 1998 through 2002. Some of these classifications were done manually, based on the firms' descriptions of sources of revenue in their financial reports; the rest were done automatically by a rule-based system using the same data. Based on this analysis, we first document important stylized facts about the distribution of business models in the U.S. economy. Then we analyze the firms' financial performance in three categories: market value, profitability, and operating efficiency. We find that no model outperforms others on all dimensions. Surprisingly, however, we find that some models do, indeed, have better financial performance than others. For instance, Physical Creators (which we call Manufacturers) and Physical Landlords have greater cash flow on assets, and Intellectual Landlords have poorer q's, than Physical Distributors (Wholesaler/Retailers). These findings are robust to a large number of robustness checks and alternative interpretations. We conclude with some hypotheses to explain our findings.business models; performance

Increasing physical activity intentions and physical activity behaviour using a media-based intervention informed by protection motivation theory in women at an increased risk of developing breast cancer

Purpose: Physical activity (PA) has been shown to decrease breast cancer risk. Using protection motivation theory (PMT), this study explored whether a media-based intervention that presented factual breast cancer and PA information could motivate atrisk women to increase their PA levels. Method: Inactive women (N= 60) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) PMT intervention, (2) attention control, or (3) noncontact control group. The PMT intervention watched a DVD containing information on PA and breast cancer risk based on PMT constructs (i.e., perceived severity [PS], perceived vulnerability [PV], response efficacy [RE], and self-efficacy [SE]), while the attention control group watched a DVD that contained general diet and cancer information. PMT constructs and PA intentions were measured pre- and post-DVD, and PA was measured subjectively and objectively pre- and post-DVD and at 4-week followup. Results: Participants in the PMT intervention group showed significant improvements in coping appraisal constructs after watching the DVD (i.e., RE and SE). RE was also found to significantly predict PA intention scores pre-DVD and post-DVD. No significant changes were found for PA behaviour. Conclusions: The PMT-based PA intervention successfully increased participants’ belief that PA decreases breast cancer risk and that they can perform the required amount of PA to decrease their risk. Further research is needed on the threat appraisal component of PMT and on the inclusion of objective measures of PA in intervention research

Order and Disruption of Order Induced by Self-Assembled Monolayers

Self-assembly is defined as objects spontaneously and reversibly arranging themselves in the absence of outside direction. It involves a delicate balance between interparticle and intermolecular attraction and repulsion forces, thus resulting in a lower thermodynamic energy for an ordered state. In this work, the effect of self-assembly has been studied in both thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals. The utility of liquid crystals lies in the synergistic alignment that arises from the inherent elasticity of the material. Liquid crystals orient themselves based on the surface chemistry or topography of a substrate, and the bulk of the material will then align in concert with that surface layer. This allows amplification of any surface interactions, or as studied in this work, surface order, which can then be easily characterized with polarized light. Thermotropic, nematic liquid crystals were used to probe the relationship of the chain length of alkylsilane self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) to surface energy. It was found that the liquid crystals interact with only the outermost 4 molecules in a SAM. Additionally, it was found that rubbing can not only induce azimuthal orientation on chains longer than 5, but that it can alter the surface energy and impart polar liquid crystal tilt. Thermotropic liquid crystals were also used to further understand the extent of surface passivation of glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) SAMs. While it was expected that this surface would have low azimuthal anchoring energy, this property was exploited for the detection of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA). The chirality of the molecule, combined with negligible anchoring energy, combined to allow propagation of the unique chiral alignment of -32±4 when exposed to extended dsDNA Finally, it was found that not only do linactants self-assemble into aggregates in 2D Langmuir-Blodgett films, but that linactants also followed the model of 3D micelles, despite being fundamentally different than micelles or hemimicelles. The size scale of these molecules are ~37 nm, rather than limited to the size of two molecules as with a micelle, despite an apparent CMC, as well as eventual onset of lyotropic phases

How emotional are emoji?: Exploring the effect of emotional valence on the processing of emoji stimuli.

Emoji are vastly becoming an integral part of everyday communication, yet little is understood about the extent to which these are processed emotionally. Previous research shows that there is a processing advantage for emotionally-valenced words over neutral ones, therefore if emoji are indeed emotional, one could expect an equivalent processing advantage. In the Pilot Study, participants (N = 44) completed a lexical decision task to explore accuracy and response latency of word, face and emoji stimuli. This stimuli varied in emotional valence (positive vs. neutral). Main effects were found for stimuli type and valence on both accuracy and latency, although the interaction for accuracy was not significant. That is, there were processing advantages of positively-valenced stimuli over neutral ones, across all stimuli types. Also, faces and emoji were processed significantly more quickly than words, and latencies between face and emoji stimuli, irrespective of valence were largely equivalent. The Main Study recruited 33 participants to undertake a modified and extended version of the lexical decision task, which included three valence conditions (positive, negative and neutral) per stimuli type. Although no main effects were found for accuracy, there was a significant main effect found for stimuli but not for valence on latency. Namely, that word stimuli irrespective of valence were processed significantly more slowly than face or emoji stimuli. There was not a significant interaction between stimuli and valence, however. Therefore, overall although there was partial support for a processing advantage of emoji stimuli, this was not replicated across the studies reported here, suggesting additional work may be needed to corroborate further evidenc

Assessment of the Provision and Use of Emergency Assistance, Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program, and Shelter in Hennepin County

Capstone paper for the fulfillment of the Master of Public Policy degree.Over 1,400 families experience homelessness every night in Hennepin County, and thousands more are at serious risk of entering shelter (Hennepin County Office to End Homelessness, 2017). In order to more effectively target services, county officials would like to understand the demographic characteristics and service use patterns of families at risk of entering shelter. This project aims to provide Hennepin County with more information about who is accessing its services and when they are accessing them; specifically addressing these questions: ● How do families who receive Emergency Assistance (EA), Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program (FHPAP), or enter shelter compare across demographics and service use? ● Of those who received EA, FHPAP, or shelter services, how many also received services (i.e., EA, FHPAP) before and when? ● To what extent do families that come to the county for homelessness prevention or homelessness assistance follow Hennepin County’s expected pathway of services: emergency assistance, community prevention (FHPAP), and shelter? ● Of those who received prevention (i.e., EA, FHPAP), how many also entered shelter within one year? Does Hennepin County target its services (i.e., EA, FHPAP) to those most at risk of entering shelter? Our research team conducted quantitative analysis on household heads who received homelessness prevention and assistance services from the County. Data on household heads included demographics and use of other county-administered government services. Samples were constructed to look backwards and forwards from families’ interactions with homelessness prevention and assistance services to understand the use and effectiveness of these services. Our research found the majority of families accessing preventive services had a female head of household between the ages of 25 to 34 with one to two children. Relative to their populations in Hennepin County, African American families were disproportionately represented in use of preventative services and shelter. American Indian families were disproportionately represented in shelter and underserved by EA and FHPAP