The Sharing of and Reactions to Positive Events in Romantic Relationships

This study investigated positive event sharing (i.e., capitalization) in romantic relationships as well as partners\u27 responses to participants\u27 positive event sharing, and examined how each relates to attachment style and relationship satisfaction. Participants (aged 18--25, with 89 men and 95 women within 92 couples) completed online daily logs of positive events that occurred over a one week period, whether or not they shared those events with their romantic partners, and their reaction and their partners\u27 reaction to those events. They also completed measures of attachment, their partner\u27s general reactions to their positive event sharing, and support-seeking in a lab visit. Romantic partners reported on an online survey about how they responded to their partner\u27s disclosure and also completed measures of attachment style and relationship satisfaction. Results indicated that perceived partner responses predicted participant\u27s relationship satisfaction, even when controlling for support seeking. Participants who were low in attachment anxiety shared the most positive events over the course of the study, and also reported that partners responded in a more positive manner to their positive event sharing. Partner\u27s self-reported responses were related to their gender and attachment, with women and those low in attachment anxiety and avoidance reporting more positive responses. Finally, participants\u27 attachment avoidance was somewhat related to a higher discrepancy between participant and partner report for the same event. Results provide further support for the moderating role of attachment in capitalization (shown with avoidance; Hicks & Diamond, 2008), and also provide new evidence to suggest that attachment plays a crucial role in how partners actually respond when hearing a participants\u27 positive event disclosure

Understanding the Nature and Impact of Early Pregnancy Loss Through Women\u27s Stories

Guided by Harter’s narrative framework for health communication this thematic narrative analysis sought to understand women’s experiences of early pregnancy loss with focus on sense making and communication by gathering stories from women who lost a wanted or accepted pregnancy at or prior to at twenty weeks in utero. Ten women ranging in age from twenty-six to seventy years old participated. Time since loss experience ranged from two months to forty years prior to the interview. Ellingson’s crystallization technique was employed with focus given to creating two related texts. Analysis of both individual core narratives at the time of loss and sub-stories located across the entire interview data strengthened early pregnancy loss understanding. Three core narrative summaries provide commonalities of experience within the following convergent core narratives: (a) conceptualization (what was lost?) (b) secret motherhood (disenfranchised grief), and (c) anchoring emotions (talking helps). Two sub-stories occur throughout the data, lost at sea and processing EPL. Lost at sea consists of three themes: (a) blindsided by the unexpected, (b) lack of acknowledgment within interpersonal interactions, and (c) EPL as marginalized by society. Processing EPL consists of: (d) cause of EPL, (e) emotional anchors, and (f) “time heals…it doesn’t erase.” The six themes indicate participants’ shared reactions from the first moments of experiencing loss to current understandings of the EPL experience. The three core narratives symbiotically interact with the six themes to provide a coherent picture of the participants’ early pregnancy loss experiences. Stories gathered provide a depth of understanding early pregnancy loss experiences and communication surrounding the topic both closer to the time of incident and how women understand the experience at the time of interview. Results contribute support for and extension of existing knowledge of disenfranchised grief and the power of the story in the context of early pregnancy loss. Results suggest that in situations of disenfranchised grief of early pregnancy loss, the first step in moving toward working with and/or living in one’s new normal is the ability to speak of the early pregnancy loss. The results provide a deep understanding of the emotional turmoil women experience at time of early pregnancy loss and how the emotions may resurface many years after the event. The new normal exists on a continuum. Women often continue to understand, live into, and with the unexpected early pregnancy loss years beyond the occurrence. As demonstrated through participant’s stories, even though the pain remains the ability to create an alternative option to the original family plan exists. As the data demonstrates, women experience communicative interactions that fail to acknowledge EPL and that acknowledge EPL. Often communication regarding early pregnancy loss is described as societally and interpersonally disenfranchised, silenced, dismissed, and not talked about. Apparent in the stories, the inability to acknowledge and talk about EPL within interpersonal and societal contexts detracts from a woman’s ability to work through the emotions that accompany such a blindsiding event. However, when interactions involve the acknowledgment of EPL, communication is described as anchoring, supportive, and assisting with coping with the pain of loss. Particularly salient to participants’ adjustment to the situation, or new normal, were the memorable moments where practitioners said or did things that positively impacted the participants’ EPL experience. Participants’ stories indicate women benefit from telling stories of early pregnancy loss. The stories remain present long beyond the loss occurrence, highlighting the potential need for more discussions to occur both with women recently experiencing early pregnancy loss and women carrying the secret motherhood story years beyond the occurrence. Understanding “time heals…it doesn’t erase” may warrant further investigation of stories from women experiencing early pregnancy loss and the need to provide discussion with an avid, empathic listener. Women may benefit from anchoring conversations whether the loss occurred recently or long ago

Chemical Tuning of Interaction Strength in 2-D and 3-D Frustrated Magnets

Predictive design and synthesis of materials with quantum, topological, and magnetic properties is the frontier in quantum materials research. One of the most critical areas of research is the development of design principles for 2-D and 3-D magnetic materials, which exhibit a wide array of quantum behaviors. In this thesis I discuss materials design principles for, and synthesis and characterization of, new and newly-understood 2-D and 3-D frustrated magnets. It was the employment of materials design principles that led to the discovery of two new compounds, MgNiMo3O8 and FeNiMo3O8, which were synthesized by site-specific chemical substitution on Ni2Mo3O8, an integer-spin nickel honeycomb with tetrahedrally and octahedrally coordinated nickel on the two halves of the bipartite honeycomb lattice. These 2-D magnetic materials are discussed in Chapter 2. Ni2Mo3O8 is the first known realization of zig-zag antiferromagnetic order in a non-centrosymmetric integer-spin honeycomb lattice. The diamond lattice in spinel structure compounds is a 3-D frustrated lattice. FeSc2S4 is a well-known material that has been predicted to host a disordered quantum spin liquid state down to the lowest measurable temperatures. In both powder and crystal samples, antiferromagnetic order was observed to develop below T = 10 K, placing FeSc2S4 close to, but on the antiferromagnetically ordered side of a quantum critical point, which is within the paradigm of theoretical predictions on this material. Finally, two nascent projects are discussed in Chapter 4. One is the discovery and characterization of the first metallic kagomé antiferromagnet, KV3Sb5, and characterization of its physical properties. An antiferromagnetic transition at T = 80 K can be increased to T = 100 K by doping the material with Ba. In contrast, doping with Sn seems to reduce the magnetism in the material. The physical properties of M3(hexaiminobenzene (HIB))2, M = (Ni, Cu), have been reported as metals. However, resistivity and heat capacity measurements show that they are more likely small band gap semiconductors

Beliefs About Savoring in Older Adulthood: Aging and Perceived Health Affect Temporal Components of Perceived Savoring Ability

The ability to savor positive life events is associated with higher emotional well-being; however, few studies have examined savoring ability in older adults. The present study used a longitudinal design to examine changes in perceived savoring abilities and associations with perceived health in older adulthood. Older adults (N=131) reported on beliefs about savoring and perceived health at baseline and 2½ years later. Perceived anticipation (savoring the future) and reminiscing (savoring the past) abilities declined from baseline to follow-up. Better perceived health at baseline predicted greater perceived reminiscing and anticipation abilities at follow-up. Greater perceived ability to savor the present moment at baseline predicted better perceived health at follow-up. Aging and poorer health focus older adults’ thoughts on present-moment pleasures, which may benefit health, but may also lead to reductions in perceived anticipation and reminiscing abilities

Antiferromagnetic and Orbital Ordering on a Diamond Lattice Near Quantum Criticality

We present neutron scattering measurements on powder samples of the spinel FeSc2S4 that reveal a previously unobserved magnetic ordering transition occurring at 11.8(2)~K. Magnetic ordering occurs subsequent to a subtle cubic-to-tetragonal structural transition which distorts Fe coordinating sulfur tetrahedra lifting the orbital degeneracy. The application of 1~GPa hydrostatic pressure appears to destabilize this N\'eel state, reducing the transition temperature to 8.6(8)~K and redistributing magnetic spectral weight to higher energies. The relative magnitudes of ordered $\langle m \rangle^2\!=\!3.1(2)$ and fluctuating moments $\langle \delta m \rangle^2\!=\!13(1)$ show that the magnetically ordered ground state of FeSc2S4 is drastically renormalized and in proximity to criticality.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure

Patient clinical documentation in telehealth environment: Are we collecting appropriate and sufficient information for best practice?

BACKGROUND: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of telehealth for patient visits grew rapidly and served an important role as a valuable and necessary resource. Although clinical documentation is critical for telehealth patient visits, there is limited information about how healthcare facilities manage telehealth patient visit documentation, technology used for telehealth visits, and challenges encountered with telehealth patient visit documentation. This study aimed to assess the use of telehealth during the pandemic, the quality of clinical documentation in telehealth practice and to identify challenges and issues encountered with telehealth patient visits in order to develop a strategy for best practices for telehealth documentation and data management. METHODS: Data were collected for this cross-sectional study in January-February 2021 via a self-designed survey of administrators/managers from physicians\u27 offices and mental health facilities. Survey questions included four categories: health organization demographic information; telehealth visits; clinical documentation for telehealth visit; and challenges and barriers related to telehealth documentation technology use. RESULTS: Of 76 respondents, more than half (62%) of the healthcare facilities started using telehealth for patient visits within one year of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 94% of respondents indicating an increased use of telehealth for patient visits since the pandemic. The most common types of telehealth patient care provided during the pandemic included pediatrics, primary care, cardiology, and women\u27s health. The most consistent data documentation of telehealth visits included: date of service, patient identification number, communication methods, patient informed consent, diagnosis and impression, evaluation results, and recommendations. The telehealth visit data was most commonly used for patient care and clinical practice, billing and reimbursement, quality improvement and patient satisfaction, and administrative planning. The top barriers to telehealth use by the healthcare professionals included patient challenges with telehealth services, such as inequities in quality of technology, lack of patient understanding, and lack of patient satisfaction; this was followed by frustration with constant updates of telehealth guidelines and procedures, understanding required telehealth documentation for reimbursement purposes, payer denial for telehealth visits, and legal and risk issues. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study can assist government entities, policymakers, and healthcare organizations in developing and advocating best practices in telehealth usage and clinical documentation improvement strategies

Comparing Communication Doctoral Programs, Alumni, and Faculty: The Use of Google Scholar

This paper examines three aspects of doctoral programs in Communication: (a) how doctoral department faculty compare using combined citations to published work using Google Scholar, (b) the contribution in quantity and quality (measured by citations) of alumni teaching in doctoral programs, and (c) identifying the top 25 most cited communication doctoral faculty in Google Scholar. The goal is to provide a series of additional alternatives for faculty and program evaluation beyond simply counting the number of published journal articles

Neurosteroids and Self-Reported Pain in Veterans Who Served in the U.S. Military after September 11, 2001

Nearly half of Operation Enduring Freedom / Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans experience continued pain post-deployment. Several investigations report analgesic effects of allopregnanolone and other neurosteroids in animal models, but few data are currently available focusing on neurosteroids in clinical populations. Allopregnanolone positively modulates GABAA receptors and demonstrates pronounced analgesic and anxiolytic effects in rodents, yet studies examining the relationship between pain and allopregnanolone in humans are limited. We thus hypothesized that endogenous allopregnanolone and other neurosteroid levels may be negatively correlated with self-reported pain symptoms in humans