SB17-10/11: Curry Health Center Fee

SB17-10/11: Curry Health Center Fee. This resolution passed unanimously during the February 16, 2011 meeting of the Associated Students of the University of Montana (ASUM)

ALPS LINK: Site of the Month February 2012

Because copyright is a such a timely topic, Site of the Month features an interview with Carolyn Soltau, Douglas College Librarian about her Douglas College Copyright Guide

Gender, health, the decisions we make and the actions we take

This thesis comprises of four self-contained papers that use both experimental and applied micro-econometric methods to explore different aspects of gender, health, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. In the first paper we investigate changes in psychiatric diagnoses and their income-related inequalities over time in Sweden and attempt to disentangle the development by decomposing changes over time in terms of population-level changes in education and migration background. Using Swedish administrative data we find that income-related inequalities in mental ill health increased dramatically between 1994 and 2011, but changes in education and migration background were not important drivers of these increases.The second paper aims to improve our understanding of the use of commitment contracts to help individuals achieve their physical activity goals. We experimentally compare the success of commitment contracts with and without financial stakes attached, and find a significant positive impact of being offered a hard contract. Importantly, we find that the effects are strongest among participants who reported exercising the least at baseline.In the third paper we seek to establish the effect of access to universal primary school-based health services in Sweden on long-term health and socioeconomic outcomes, using historical data on the timing of implementation of school health services in school districts in Sweden combined with administrative data. This paper helps shed light on the importance of interventions occurring during childhood on later life outcomes. Overall, we find little evidence that access to universal primary school-based health services leads to improved outcomes either during school ages or in later life.In the fourth paper, I conduct a pilot study to experimentally investigate the role of children’s books in the early internalisation of norms regarding gender, family, and careers. The motivation for this study was the fact that when women have children, they tend to make labour market decisions that result in substantial and persistent losses in earnings. The study was under-powered to draw strong conclusions, but results suggest exposure to a book that communicates a strong, positive message about mothers in both career and family roles may lead to reductions in implicit and explicit biases about gender, family and careers

Fostering Community Health and Well-Being through the Development of a Mindfulness Program and Meditation Space at the University of Miami Libraries

This paper offers a case study in the development of a mindfulness program and meditation space within the context of a university research library in the United States. In 2016, thanks to a collaboration with the University of Miami Mindfulness-in-Law Program, the University of Miami (UM) Libraries began offering weekly mindfulness sessions for the benefit of the University community and with the goal of supporting community health and well-being. Appropriate for novice meditators and led by mindfulness researchers and certified teachers, these sessions offer guided meditations and talks that cultivate awareness and compassion. Attendees also have the opportunity to ask questions and learn from other participants. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring of 2020, the mindfulness sessions shifted from in-person to online. As a result, the sessions attracted an increased number of participants, and these sessions continue online to the present day

Universal Device Access with FreeMote

With the FreeMote system, we present a solution for easy and intuitive universal device control. Based on the Wii Remote Controller real world device functions can be accessed and controlled via gestures. Gestures include predefined sets apt for standard functions present in many devices as well as user definable gestures. Offering both possibilities, the users are free to choose and adapt the gestures to their needs while reducing the mental load. Along with the gesture interface, FreeMote offers a simple way of enabling everyday devices for FreeMote controlling. FreeMote makes use of the spatial nature of real world environments in device selection and in function controlling via gestures. Thus, FreeMote system supports the user in finding enabled devices, makes selecting devices easy and provides an intuitive way of controlling devices via gestures

Multivariable flexible modelling for estimating complete, smoothed life tables for sub-national populations.

BACKGROUND: The methods currently available to estimate age- and sex-specific mortality rates for sub-populations are subject to a number of important limitations. We propose two alternative multivariable approaches: a relational model and a Poisson model both using restricted cubic splines. METHODS: We evaluated a flexible Poisson and flexible relational model against the Elandt-Johnson approach in a simulation study using 100 random samples of population and death counts, with different sampling proportions and data arrangements. Estimated rates were compared to the original mortality rates using goodness-of-fit measures and life expectancy. We further investigated an approach for determining optimal knot locations in the Poisson model. RESULTS: The flexible Poisson model outperformed the flexible relational and Elandt-Johnson methods with the smallest sample of data (1%). With the largest sample of data (20%), the flexible Poisson and flexible relational models performed comparably, though the flexible Poisson model displayed a slight advantage. Both approaches tended to underestimate infant mortality and thereby overestimate life expectancy at birth. The flexible Poisson model performed much better at young ages when knots were fixed a priori. For ages 30 and above, results were similar to the model with no fixed knots. CONCLUSIONS: The flexible Poisson model is recommended because it derives robust and unbiased estimates for sub-populations without making strong assumptions about age-specific mortality profiles. Fixing knots a priori in the final model greatly improves fit at the young ages

Co-occurrence of Mild Salinity and Drought Synergistically Enhances Biomass and Grain Retardation in Wheat

In the present study we analyzed the responses of wheat to mild salinity and drought with special emphasis on the so far unclarified interaction of these important stress factors by using high-throughput phenotyping approaches. Measurements were performed on 14 genotypes of different geographic origin (Austria, Azerbaijan, and Serbia). The data obtained by non-invasive digital RGB imaging of leaf/shoot area reflect well the differences in total biomass measured at the end of the cultivation period demonstrating that leaf/shoot imaging can be reliably used to predict biomass differences among different cultivars and stress conditions. On the other hand, the leaf/shoot area has only a limited potential to predict grain yield. Comparison of gas exchange parameters with biomass accumulation showed that suppression of CO2 fixation due to stomatal closure is the principal cause behind decreased biomass accumulation under drought, salt and drought plus salt stresses. Correlation between grain yield and dry biomass is tighter when salt- and drought stress occur simultaneously than in the well-watered control, or in the presence of only salinity or drought, showing that natural variation of biomass partitioning to grains is suppressed by severe stress conditions. Comparison of yield data show that higher biomass and grain yield can be expected under salt (and salt plus drought) stress from those cultivars which have high yield parameters when exposed to drought stress alone. However, relative yield tolerance under drought stress is not a good indicator of yield tolerance under salt (and salt plus drought) drought stress. Harvest index of the studied cultivars ranged between 0.38 and 0.57 under well watered conditions and decreased only to a small extent (0.37-0.55) even when total biomass was decreased by 90% under the combined salt plus drought stress. It is concluded that the co-occurrence of mild salinity and drought can induce large biomass and grain yield losses in wheat due to synergistic interaction of these important stress factors. We could also identify wheat cultivars, which show high yield parameters under the combined effects of salinity and drought demonstrating the potential of complex plant phenotyping in breeding for drought and salinity stress tolerance in crop plants

Life tables for global surveillance of cancer survival (the CONCORD programme): data sources and methods

We set out to estimate net survival trends for 10 common cancers in 279 cancer registry populations in 67 countries around the world, as part of the CONCORD-2 study. Net survival can be interpreted as the proportion of cancer patients who survive up to a given time, after eliminating the impact of mortality from other causes (background mortality). Background mortality varies widely between populations and over time. It was therefore necessary to construct robust life tables that accurately reflected the background mortality in each of the registry populations. Life tables of all-cause mortality rates by single year of age and sex were constructed by calendar year for each population and, when possible, by racial or ethnic sub-groups. We used three different approaches, based on the type of mortality data available from each registry. With death and population counts, we adopted a flexible multivariable modelling approach. With unsmoothed mortality rates, we used the Ewbank relational method. Where no data were available from the registry or a national statistical office, we used the abridged UN Population Division life tables and interpolated these using the Elandt-Johnson method. We also investigated the impact of using state- and race-specific life tables versus national race-specific life tables on estimates of net survival from four adult cancers in the United States (US)

Breeding progress in grain yield of winter wheat cultivars grown at different nitrogen levels in semiarid conditions

The objectives of this study were to estimate the progress in wheat genetic yield potential, associated with changes in some agronomic traits, under different N rates. Twenty-four cultivars of winter wheat (T. aestivtum L.) representing most of the cultivars released in Serbia from 1955 to 2006 were analyzed. The cultivars were grown for four years (2005-2008) in field trails with two levels of agronomic inputs (low nitrogen-N-45 and high nitrogen-N-110). Data were collected on 1000-kernel weight, kernels per spike, kernels per square meter, spikes per square meter, plant height, harvest index, heading time and grain yield. Mean difference between the two fertilization levels was 0.44 t ha(-1). The average rate of increase in yield potential per year of release, estimated from the slope, was 41 kg ha(-1) year(-1) and it was significantly different from zero (P lt = 0.01). It was 35 kg ha(-1) year(-1) or 0.55% at the low level of N input, and 46 kg ha(-1) year(-1) or 0.68% at the high level of N input. This suggests that modern cultivars are better adapted to high N input. Our results suggested that individual contribution of the most of analyzed traits may vary depending on the genotype as well as environmental conditions

Exploitation of epigenetic variation of crop wild relatives for crop improvement and agrobiodiversity preservation

Crop wild relatives (CWRs) are recognized as the best potential source of traits for crop improvement. However, successful crop improvement using CWR relies on identifying variation in genes controlling desired traits in plant germplasms and subsequently incorporating them into cultivars. Epigenetic diversity may provide an additional layer of variation within CWR and can contribute novel epialleles for key traits for crop improvement. There is emerging evidence that epigenetic variants of functional and/or agronomic importance exist in CWR gene pools. This provides a rationale for the conservation of epigenotypes of interest, thus contributing to agrobiodiversity preservation through conservation and (epi)genetic monitoring. Concepts and techniques of classical and modern breeding should consider integrating recent progress in epigenetics, initially by identifying their association with phenotypic variations and then by assessing their heritability and stability in subsequent generations. New tools available for epigenomic analysis offer the opportunity to capture epigenetic variation and integrate it into advanced (epi)breeding programmes. Advances in -omics have provided new insights into the sources and inheritance of epigenetic variation and enabled the efficient introduction of epi-traits from CWR into crops using epigenetic molecular markers, such as epiQTLs