Opportunity, Temporal Patterns, and Successful Outcomes of Far-right Terrorism Incidents in the United States

This thesis examines the impact that far-right terrorism opportunity structures and temporal patterns of precursor activity have on incident outcomes. Data from the American Terrorism Study (ATS) are extracted for several attributes of far-right opportunity, in addition to measures for temporal patterns of planning and preparatory behaviors. Bivariate and multivariate findings generally support expectations that target attractiveness and vulnerability, far-right group structures, and patterns of precursor activity are significantly associated with incident outcomes. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research and several implications for homeland security policy

Models of Care for High-Need, High-Cost Patients: An Evidence Synthesis

This brief analyzes experts' reviews of evidence about care models designed to improve outcomes and reduce costs for patients with complex needs. It finds that successful models have several common attributes: targeting patients likely to benefit from the intervention; comprehensively assessing patients' risks and needs; relying on evidence-based care planning and patient monitoring; promoting patient and family engagement in self-care; coordinating care and communication among patients and providers; facilitating transitions from the hospital and referrals to community resources; and providing appropriate care in accordance with patients' preferences. Overall, the evidence of impact is modest and few of these models have been widely adopted in practice because of barriers, such as a lack of supportive financial incentives under fee-for-service reimbursement arrangements. Overcoming these challenges will be essential to achieving a higher-performing health care system for this patient population

The Gender Equity Gap: A Multi-Study Investigation of Within-Job Inequality in Equity-Based Awards

Laws in many countries mandate paying men and women equally when in similar jobs. Such laws, coupled with considerable organizational efforts, lead some scholars to contend that within-job pay inequality is no longer a source of the gender pay gap. We argue important differences in a widely used form of pay heretofore overlooked in existing studies—equity-based awards (i.e., pay where the value is tied to the employing organization’s stock, such as stock and stock options)—may cause underestimation of gender-based within-job pay inequality. Specifically, we theorize that because of differences in both why and how equity-based awards are distributed to employees compared to other forms of pay, a gender gap will exist in equity-based awards, with biased perceptions of retention driving the gap. Using a multimethod study with novel data from two technology organizations, archival data from publicly traded firms, and experimental data, we find consistent support for our hypotheses. Taken together, our results suggest that using equity-based awards as a means to retain employees, and the rationale and processes associated with distributing such pay, can result in gender-based within-job inequality. Thus, our study sheds light on a previously overlooked form of inequality in the workplace while offering implications for both theory and practice

Switching Costs and Loyalty: Understanding How Trust Moderates Online Consumers’ Ties to Merchants

Information technology has transformed how travelers interact with travel service providers. Due to fierce competition in the online air travel industry, e-ticketing services have focused attention on fostering customer loyalty. This is an important strategy because, in general, initial transactions with new customers are less profitable than transactions with existing customers. Drawing on research on customer loyalty, switching costs, and trust, this study develops, and proposes an empirical test, for a model incorporating trust as a moderator of the relationship between switching costs and online customer loyalty. We propose that in the presence of high customer trust, e-businesses should have less need to rely on switching costs as a driver of customer loyalty. If supported, this proposition will extend understanding of customer loyalty, switching costs, and trust in e-commerce environments and provide practical, theory-driven, guidelines to e-businesses seeking to develop customer loyalty programs

DIET OF JUVENILE BURBOT AND INSIGHT INTO GAPE LIMITATION

Throughout much of their distribution, Burbot (Lota lota ) populations are declining or have been extirpated.  Burbot in the Kootenai River, Idaho represent one such imperiled population.  In an effort to restore Burbot in the Kootenai River, managers have turned to conservation aquaculture.  However, no appreciable increase in natural recruitment has been observed in the system.  The lack of natural recruitment is believed to be partly due to a deficiency of high-quality prey.  As a result, we sought to i) describe the diet of juvenile Burbot, ii) evaluate the influence of Burbot mouth gape on diet and iii) estimate prey availability at release locations.  Burbot were stocked into two earthen ponds at the Boundary Creek Wildlife Management Area (BCWMA) and sampled weekly to evaluate diet.  Zooplankton were sampled weekly from each pond and from release locations of hatchery-reared Burbot (i.e., Kootenai River, Goat River, Boundary Creek, Deep Creek) to quantify prey availability.  Over the course of the study (~3 months), Burbot primarily fed on Cyclopoida.  Burbot never appeared to be gape limited and exhibited little variability in the size of zooplankton ingested.  Zooplankton densities at stocking locations were relatively low in comparison to BCWMA ponds.  Low zooplankton densities at release sites indicate that alternative management actions may need to be considered to enhance Burbot recruitment in the Kootenai River drainage

Expanding on Basis Risk Estimates for Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage Insurance

Basis risk or residual risk arising from disparity between an index’s estimate of losses and actual losses is inherent in index-based insurance products. We approximate basis risk as the false negative probability (FNP) within pasture, rangeland, and forage (PRF) rainfall index insurance for the south-central coastal region of California. We estimate the FNP on average that at least one of two selected coverage intervals will fail to provide an indemnity when a loss is realized at 48%. The average FNP is reduced to only 11% when considering whether both selected intervals fail to provide an indemnity when a loss is realized

Regulation of tight junction barrier function by phospholipase C

The intestinal epithelium presents a formidable barrier to the absorption of orally administered drugs and macromolecules. It is comprised of a monolayer of diverse epithelial cells connected via multi-protein junctional complexes at the apical membrane. The tight junction, the most apical component of the junctional complex, is generally considered to be the major barrier regulating the passage of molecules between adjacent cells and into the systemic circulation. Over the last fifteen years, evidence has emerged supporting a role for phospholipase C (PLC) enzymes, an important class of intracellular signaling molecules, in the regulation of tight junction function; however, unequivocal evidence to support such a role for any PLC isozyme has yet to be established. Studies in this dissertation were intended to develop a clearer understanding of the molecular mechanism involved in the regulation of intestinal epithelial tight junctions via the PLC-catalyzed signal transduction cascade. Specifically, the goal was to explore whether a cause-effect relationship exists between the inhibition of PLC activity and increased paracellular permeability via specific modulation of epithelial tight junctions. The mRNA expression profile of PLC isozymes in Caco-2 cells, an in vitro model for the human intestine, was established and directly compared to the human intestine. Results demonstrated that PLCβ1, PLCβ3, PLCγ1, PLCγ2, PLCδ3, and PLCε were all expressed at the mRNA level in Caco-2 cells. Importantly, each of these isozymes was also detected in all regions of the human small intestine. Further studies were intended to implicate PLC isozymes in the regulation of human intestinal tight junctions by determining the potency of previously reported PLC inhibitors to increase paracellular permeability and inhibit PLC activity in Caco-2 cells. The potency of a series of homologous alkylphosphocholines (APCs) to inhibit PLCβ activity varied forty five fold and correlated significantly with their potency to enhance paracellular permeability, suggesting that inhibition of PLCβ activity is associated with increased paracellular permeability. Further, structurally unrelated PLC inhibitor, U73122, also increased paracellular permeability and inhibited PLCβ activity. In order to establish a cause-effect relationship between PLC inhibition and increased paracellular permeability in epithelial cells, RNA interference was used to suppress the expression of specific PLC isozymes in MDCK cells, and the effect on tight junction function and structure was evaluated. Surprisingly, depletion of PLCβ3 and PLCγ1 (the only isozymes of their respective families detected in these cells), alone or in combination, had no impact on either tight junction assembly or on the barrier function of already formed tight junctions, suggesting that a cause-effect relationship does not exist between inhibition of these PLC families and tight junction function in epithelial cells. These results further implied that putative PLC inhibitors, APCs and U73122, increase paracellular permeability via mechanisms independent of their effects on PLC enzymes. Additional studies established that APCs disrupt apical membrane order at concentrations that also increase paracellular permeability in Caco-2 cells, providing an explanation for the observed effects on tight junction function. Unexpectedly, U73122 was found to increase the activity of hPLCβ3 in a cell free system, rather than inhibit its activity, providing an alternative hypothesis to explain the observed increase in paracellular permeability following treatment of epithelial cells with this compound. This novel interaction between U73122 and PLC was due to alkylation of the protein at cysteine residues by the highly reactive maleimide moiety in U73122. In summary, studies in this dissertation have significantly enhanced the current understanding of the role PLC enzymes play in the regulation of tight junction function, and have raised questions regarding previous reports that inhibition of these enzymes leads to increased paracellular permeability in epithelial cells

Time to Get in the Game: Opportunities for More Involvement in Sport-Related Concussion Management

Many college athletes who have a sport-related concussion experience changes in cognitive-communication abilities. Unfortunately, nearly half of all sport-related concussions go unreported. Information on why collegiate athletes report or conceal their symptoms is important for improving reporting rates and increasing athletes’ access to services for cognitive-communication impairments. This study examined whether changes in cognitive-communication abilities affected college athlete’s intentions to report a sport-related concussion. Findings showed that approximately two-thirds of the college student-athletes who participated in the research were unlikely to report that they had a sport-related head injury. The study found that participants’ concerns for cognitive-communication deficits differentiated student-athletes who were more likely to report an injury from those who were less likely. This study has important clinical implications for increasing awareness and knowledge about the sequelae of sport-related concussion and the valuable role that rehabilitation specialists, such as speech-language pathologists (SLPs), can play in concussion management and prevention

A Two-dimensional Superconductor in a Tilted Magnetic Field - new states with finite Cooper-pair momentum

Varying the angle Theta between applied field and the conducting planes of a layered superconductor in a small interval close to the plane-parallel field direction, a large number of superconducting states with unusual properties may be produced. For these states, the pair breaking effect of the magnetic field affects both the orbital and the spin degree of freedom. This leads to pair wave functions with finite momentum, which are labeled by Landau quantum numbers 0<n<\infty. The stable order parameter structure and magnetic field distribution for these states is found by minimizing the quasiclassical free energy near H_{c2} including nonlinear terms. One finds states with coexisting line-like and point-like order parameter zeros and states with coexisting vortices and antivortices. The magnetic response may be diamagnetic or paramagnetic depending on the position within the unit cell. The structure of the Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) states at Theta=0 is reconsidered. The transition n->\infty of the paramagnetic vortex states to the FFLO-limit is analyzed and the physical reason for the occupation of higher Landau levels is pointed out.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure