Student Lifestyle Choices and Perceptions of Stress Based on Majors

College students are often experience many stressors. This study was designed to look at perceived-stress and health habits with relation to academic department of undergraduate students at Cedarville University. The results of this study have implications for the Physical Activity and the Christian Life (PACL) class, offered on the Cedarville campus, in assessing its current curriculum and making potential future adjustments to the course. The objective of this study was to answer the question: “Do perceived stress levels within different academic departments affect health habits in Cedarville University undergraduate students?” The study was conducted with a campus-wide, 27 question survey using Qualtrics software via email. The survey was primarily comprised of close-ended questions using Likert scales and Cohen’s Perceived Stress scale to quantify perceived stress level, exercise habits, and eating habits. Included in the survey was an agreement to Informed Consent which ensured response anonymity. Inclusion criteria specified that the student had to be 18 years or older to participate. 535 students responded to the survey; 206 male participants (38.5%) and 329 female participants (61.5%). Students were asked to identify their academic department, year and gender. The Engineering and Computer Science department had the highest perceived stress at 15.4% of all the participants, the Nursing at 14.1% and Science and mathematics at (11.8%). It was found that juniors had the highest collective stress among most majors on the perceived stress scale. 71% of participants ranked Academic/school work as the main stressor that they dealt with on a daily basis. 10.9% of participants ranked Relationships second. Junior-year females in science-based departments experienced more perceived stress than males within the same departments. It was hypothesized that higher stress levels would increase poor food choices among Cedarville students, however, the results do not confirm that hypothesis. Results of the survey showed that most of the campus consumed a normal amount of healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables on a daily basis. Data relating the amount of exercise in relation to academic department shows that the most stressful majors have the highest incidence of exercise. The Nursing Department had the most participants who exercised 3 to 4 times a week. Engineering and Computer Science Department was second and the Science and Mathematics Department in third. Questions relating to the PACL class were asked regarding the course and how well stress management techniques were integrated into the curriculum. These questions were included in order to evaluate the effects that the PACL course had upon students and their stress management capabilities. Recommendations for further research would be to add a personality questionnaire; questions related to drug and alcohol consumption could also be added to the original survey

Energy Monitoring & Management System (EMMS)

The Energy Monitoring and Management System (EMMS) is developing an electrical power meter to help make electricity more available in energy impoverished regions of the world. The meter fills a unique niche for energy tracking and regulation within micro-grid systems. The EMMS project has partners in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe: Open Door Development (ODD), the Institut Missiologique du Sahel (IMS), and the Theological College of Zimbabwe (TCZ). Ties are also maintained on a regular basis with IEEE Smart Village for potential future widespread system implementation. Recent work on the EMMS meter has been focused on resolving the last few remaining bugs, establishing a robust communication system, and developing a centralized server-based interface which aids with meter configuration and administration. The team has also begun several future developments which include datalogging and remote access features.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2021/1004/thumbnail.jp

EMMS: Increasing Hope and Transforming Lives Through Improved Access to Electrical Power

Developing countries often face a challenge involving energy conservation. Energy Monitoring and Management Systems (EMMS) was tasked to make an energy meter in order to provide a practical way of controlling energy consumption and create a tool for teaching energy conservation. This meter should be able to measure energy usage over a period of time and prevent further energy usage after a specified amount has been consumed. In this poster, the team will explain what they have been doing in recent semesters to work towards their goal of testing and preparing this meter for implementation in Zimbabwe this summer, as well as how they have been improving the user experience through website implementation. Funding for this work provided by The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2022/1005/thumbnail.jp

Radiology Posters - 2019

Radiology Posters - 2019https://scholarlycommons.libraryinfo.bhs.org/research_education/1015/thumbnail.jp

Measurements of extragalactic background light from the far UV to the far IR from deep ground- and space-based galaxy counts

Funding: Australian Research Council via Discovery Project DP130103505 (SPD).We combine wide and deep galaxy number-count data from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly, COSMOS/G10, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Early Release Science, HST UVUDF, and various near-, mid-, and far-IR data sets from ESO, Spitzer, and Herschel. The combined data range from the far UV (0.15 μm) to far-IR (500 μm), and in all cases the contribution to the integrated galaxy light (IGL) of successively fainter galaxies converges. Using a simple spline fit, we derive the IGL and the extrapolated IGL in all bands. We argue that undetected low-surface-brightness galaxies and intracluster/group light are modest, and that our extrapolated-IGL measurements are an accurate representation of the extragalactic background light (EBL). Our data agree with most earlier IGL estimates and with direct measurements in the far IR, but disagree strongly with direct estimates in the optical. Close agreement between our results and recent very high-energy experiments (H.E.S.S. and MAGIC) suggests that there may be an additional foreground affecting the direct estimates. The most likely culprit could be the adopted model of zodiacal light. Finally we use a modified version of the two-component model to integrate the EBL and obtain measurements of the cosmic optical background (COB) and cosmic infrared background of 24+4-4 nW m−2sr−1 and 26+5-5 nW m−2sr−1 respectively (48%:52%). Over the next decade, upcoming space missions such as Euclid and the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope will have the capacity to reduce the COB error to <1%, at which point comparisons to the very high-energy data could have the potential to provide a direct detection and measurement of the reionization field.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Measurements of extragalactic background light from the far uv to the far ir from deep ground- and space-based galaxy counts

We combine wide and deep galaxy number-count data from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly, COSMOS/G10, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Early Release Science, HST UVUDF, and various near-, mid-, and far-IR data sets from ESO, Spitzer, and Herschel. The combined data range from the far UV (0.15 μm) to far-IR (500 μm), and in all cases the contribution to the integrated galaxy light (IGL) of successively fainter galaxies converges. Using a simple spline fit, we derive the IGL and the extrapolated IGL in all bands. We argue that undetected low-surface-brightness galaxies and intracluster/group light are modest, and that our extrapolated-IGL measurements are an accurate representation of the extragalactic background light (EBL). Our data agree with most earlier IGL estimates and with direct measurements in the far IR, but disagree strongly with direct estimates in the optical. Close agreement between our results and recent very high-energy experiments (H.E.S.S. and MAGIC) suggests that there may be an additional foreground affecting the direct estimates. The most likely culprit could be the adopted model of zodiacal light. Finally we use a modified version of the two-component model to integrate the EBL and obtain measurements of the cosmic optical background (COB) and cosmic infrared background of ${24}_{-4}^{+4}$ nW m−2 sr−1 and ${26}_{-5}^{+5}$ nW m−2 sr−1 respectively (48%:52%). Over the next decade, upcoming space missions such as Euclid and the Wide Field Infrared Space Telescope will have the capacity to reduce the COB error to <1%, at which point comparisons to the very high-energy data could have the potential to provide a direct detection and measurement of the reionization field

The Small-Scale Physical Structure and Fragmentation Difference of Two Embedded Intermediate Mass Protostars in Orion

Intermediate-mass (IM) protostars, the bridge between the very common solar-like protostars and the more massive, but rarer, O and B stars, can only be studied at high physical spatial resolutions in a handful of clouds. In this paper, we present and analyze the continuum results from an observing campaign at the Submillimeter Array (SMA) targeting two well-studied IM protostars in Orion, NGC 2071 and L1641 S3 MMS 1. The extended SMA (eSMA) probes structure at angular resolutions up to 0".2, revealing protostellar disks on scales of ∼200 AU. Continuum flux measurements on these scales indicate that a significant amount of mass, a few tens of M_⊙, is present. Envelope, stellar, and disk masses are derived using compact, extended, and eSMA configurations and compared against spectral energy distribution fitting models. We hypothesize that fragmentation into three components occurred within NGC 2071 at an early time, when the envelopes were less than 10% of their current masses, e.g., <0.5 M. No fragmentation occurred for L1641 S3 MMS 1. For NGC 2071, evidence is given that the bulk of the envelope material currently around each source was accreted after the initial fragmentation. In addition, about 30% of the total core mass is not yet associated to one of the three sources. A global accretion model is favored and a potential accretion history of NGC 2071 is presented. It is shown that the relatively low level of fragmentation in NGC 2071 was stifled compared to the expected fragmentation from a Jeans argument. Similarly, the lack of fragmentation in L1641 S3 MMS 1 is likely due to similar arguments

Long QT Syndrome and Pregnancy

ObjectivesThis study was designed to investigate the clinical course of women with long QT syndrome (LQTS) throughout their potential childbearing years.BackgroundOnly limited data exist regarding the risks associated with pregnancy in women with LQTS.MethodsThe risk of experiencing an adverse cardiac event, including syncope, aborted cardiac arrest, and sudden death, during and after pregnancy was analyzed for women who had their first birth from 1980 to 2003 (n = 391). Time-dependent Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard methods were used to evaluate the risk of cardiac events during different peripartum periods.ResultsCompared with a time period before a woman’s first conception, the pregnancy time was associated with a reduced risk of cardiac events (hazard ratio [HR] 0.28, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.10 to 0.76, p = 0.01), whereas the 9-month postpartum time had an increased risk (HR 2.7, 95% CI 1.8 to 4.3, p < 0.001). After the 9-month postpartum period, the risk was similar to the period before the first conception (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.55 to 1.5, p = 0.70). Genotype analysis (n = 153) showed that women with the LQT2 genotype were more likely to experience a cardiac event than women with the LQT1 or LQT3 genotype. The cardiac event risk during the high-risk postpartum period was reduced among women using beta-blocker therapy (HR 0.34, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.84, p = 0.02).ConclusionsWomen with LQTS have a reduced risk for cardiac events during pregnancy, but an increased risk during the 9-month postpartum period, especially among women with the LQT2 genotype. Beta-blockers were associated with a reduction in cardiac events during the high-risk postpartum time period

Networked buffering: a basic mechanism for distributed robustness in complex adaptive systems

A generic mechanism - networked buffering - is proposed for the generation of robust traits in complex systems. It requires two basic conditions to be satisfied: 1) agents are versatile enough to perform more than one single functional role within a system and 2) agents are degenerate, i.e. there exists partial overlap in the functional capabilities of agents. Given these prerequisites, degenerate systems can readily produce a distributed systemic response to local perturbations. Reciprocally, excess resources related to a single function can indirectly support multiple unrelated functions within a degenerate system. In models of genome:proteome mappings for which localized decision-making and modularity of genetic functions are assumed, we verify that such distributed compensatory effects cause enhanced robustness of system traits. The conditions needed for networked buffering to occur are neither demanding nor rare, supporting the conjecture that degeneracy may fundamentally underpin distributed robustness within several biotic and abiotic systems. For instance, networked buffering offers new insights into systems engineering and planning activities that occur under high uncertainty. It may also help explain recent developments in understanding the origins of resilience within complex ecosystems. \ud \u

Knowledge of antibiotic resistance and antibiotic prescription practices among prescribers in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana; a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Antibiotic resistance (ABR) has become a major public health challenge in most parts of the world including Ghana and is a major threat to gain in bacterial disease control. The role of prescribers in the control of antibiotics is identified as crucial in developing interventions to control ABR. To guide policy recommendations on ABR, a study was carried out among prescribers to identify gaps in their knowledge of ABR and to document their prescription practices. METHOD: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among prescribers from both public and private facilities in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana using both quantitative and qualitative methods in 2014. RESULTS: Three hundred and seventy nine prescribers participated in the quantitative study and a subset of 33 participated in in-depth interviews. Majority (50.0%) of the prescribers interviewed were nurses. Most (51.0%) of the prescribers were located in hospitals. Knowledge of ABR was high among all the prescribers. About 80.0% percent of all prescribers agreed that the antibiotics that are currently used could lose its efficacy in future. There is no singular formal source of information on antibiotic resistance. The prescribers held a strong perception that antibiotic resistance is imminent though their knowledge on various resistant bacterial strains was limited. Prescribers attributed ABR burden to factors such as poor prescription practices and limited ABR control measures. The prescription practices of the prescribers vary but were mostly inappropriate among the lower cadre. CONCLUSION: The knowledge of ABR is high among prescribers. There is however a gap in the knowledge and perception of optimal antibiotic prescription practices among prescribers. There is the need for a formal source of information on ABR to support prescriber's antibiotic prescription practices