The Influence of Chronic Illness on Mental Health: Does the Age of the Patient Matter?

It is no secret that battling a chronic illness can impact an individual’s mental health, all while simultaneously harming their physical health. Although many say that this connection between chronic illness and mental health is obvious, we may still wonder whether chronically ill young adults have a harder time coping with chronic illness and mental health. Does the age of the chronically ill patient matter? Are chronically ill young adults more likely to suffer from poor mental health than older chronically ill individuals? I hypothesize that the older the chronically ill patient, the better their reported mental health will be. To test this assumption, this study analyzes data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) using a subset of 4,257 chronically ill individuals aged 18 through 85. I Control for race, labor force status, and sex, the results from the analyses align with findings from previous literature (Fässberg et al. 2016; Gallant, Spitze and Grove 2010). The findings support my age hypothesis as well as also provide insight on how not being in the labor force also affects chronically ill patient’s mental health

A Study Of The Master Of Education In Educational Leadership Program At The University Of Central Florida: Standards Alignment And Student Perceptions

This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the University of Central Florida’s Master’s Program in Educational Leadership. This study was a mixed mode study which used archival data, survey data, interviews, and Florida Educational Leadership Examination results. Research questions were developed to address how course content in the University of Central Florida’s Master of Education in Educational Leadership Program aligned with the following standards and competencies: (a) the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE/Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC), (b) the Interstate School Leader Licensure Consortium (ISLLC), (c) the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices (FEAPS), (d) the Florida Principal Leadership Standards (FPLS), and (e) the Florida Educational Leadership Examination (FELE). Graduates’ perceptions of the University of Central Florida’s Master of Education in Educational Leadership Program and results of Florida Educational Leadership examination results for 2009-2012 were analyzed. Courses were found to meet all standards very well. There were a few standards that were not addressed directly in syllabi. Faculty interviews, however, revealed content was addressed in the actual coursework. Students, overall, were positive in their survey responses as to their satisfaction with the program. Finally, UCF students’ FELE scores greatly exceeded the state average for all students, indicating that the UCF Educational Leadership courses and experiences were effective in preparing students for this examinatio

BioHarvest: Energy Efficient Design for the Standardization of Biomimetic Technologies at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, USA

The thesis serves as an investigation of the possibilities of biomimicry as well as an exploration of harvesting energy from the sun, the wind, the rain, and the earth. Biomimicry, derived from the Greek words bios meaning “life” and mimesis meaning “imitate,” is the examination of nature in order to create systems that are derived from the natural world and provide sophisticated solutions to human problems. Biomimicry asks the question. “What in nature has already solved what I am trying to solve?” In the case of this project, nature will inspire the creation of a new building typology, Bio-Inspired Solutions Laboratory, which intends to expand the scope of environmentally responsible architecture

Life stressors and cognitive styles in children.

Sin resume

Overestimation of Phonological Judgments on the Right Side of Space

Spatial attentional biases can be observed during the processing of linguistic material. For example, we previously reported that healthy subjects overestimate the semantic distance between word stimuli in the right vs. left space. Here, we explored whether or not attentional biases are also observed in tasks requiring an evaluation of phonological distance between words in the right and left hemifield. Forty-one healthy subjects were presented with triplets of words arranged in space and were asked to indicate the side of the space in which the phonological distance between the middle word and an outer word was smaller. In Experiment 1, real words and pseudowords were used, while in Experiment 2, only pseudowords and consonant strings were used. Subjects overestimated the phonological distance between the middle and outer words in the right space. These findings were specific to word stimuli. These results are consistent with the idea that semantic and phonological information may be internally mapped onto spatial representations

Interacting with the enemy: indirect effects of personality on conspecific aggression in crickets

In animal contests, individuals respond plastically to the phenotypes of the opponents that they confront. These ‘opponent’ – or ‘indirect’ – effects are often repeatable, e.g., certain opponents consistently elicit more or less aggressiveness in others. ‘Personality’ (repeatable among-individual variance in behavior) has been proposed as an important source of indirect effects. Here, we repeatedly assayed aggressiveness of wild-caught adult male field crickets Gryllus campestris in staged dyadic fights, measuring aggressiveness of both contestants. Measurements of their personality in non-social contexts (activity and exploration behavior) enabled us to ask whether personality caused indirect effects on aggressiveness. Activity, exploration, and aggressiveness were positively associated into a behavioral syndrome eliciting aggressiveness in conspecifics, providing direct evidence for the role of personality in causing indirect effects. Our findings imply that a multivariate view of phenotypes that includes indirect effects greatly improves our ability to understand the ecology and evolution of behavior

Al-based foams as permanent cores in al castings: Effect of surface skin thickness and composition on infiltration and core-shell bonding

An emerging and still poorly explored application of aluminum foams is their potential use as permanent cores (inserts) in the casting of aluminum alloys. In this context, Al-based foams can introduce a weight reduction, the obtainment of cavities, a strength increase, the ability to absorb impact energy and vibration, acoustic insulation ability, the possibility to simplify the technological processes (no removal/recycling of traditional sand cores), and finally, they can be fully recyclable. Cymat-type Al foams with thin outer skin were used as permanent cores in Al-alloy gravity casting in the present research. Al-foams were characterized in terms of porosity, density, cell wall and skin thickness, surface chemical composition and morphology, and compression resistance. Cast objects with foam inserts were characterized by means of optical microscopy. The preservation of up to 50% of the initial porosity was observed for foam inserts with higher density. Metallurgical bonding between the foam core and the cast metal was observed in some regions

Indirect genetic effects: a key component of the genetic architecture of behaviour

Behavioural ecology research increasingly focuses on why genetic behavioural variation can persist despite selection. Evolutionary theory predicts that directional selection leads to evolutionary change while depleting standing genetic variation. Nevertheless, evolutionary stasis may occur for traits involved in social interactions. This requires tight negative genetic correlations between direct genetic effects (DGEs) of an individual's genes on its own phenotype and the indirect genetic effects (IGEs) it has on conspecifics, as this could diminish the amount of genetic variation available to selection to act upon. We tested this prediction using a pedigreed laboratory population of Mediterranean field crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus), in which both exploratory tendency and aggression are heritable. We found that genotypes predisposed to be aggressive (due to DGEs) strongly decreased aggressiveness in opponents (due to IGEs). As a consequence, the variance in total breeding values was reduced to almost zero, implying that IGEs indeed greatly contribute to the occurrence of evolutionary stasis. IGEs were further associated with genetic variation in a non-social behaviour: explorative genotypes elicited most aggression in opponents. These key findings imply that IGEs indeed represent an important overlooked mechanism that can impact evolutionary dynamics of traits under selection