Love, sex, and marriage in the global mission of Walter and Ingrid Trobisch

In 1962 Walter Trobisch, a Lutheran missionary in Cameroon, published a book about love, sex, and marriage. By 1974 the book had been translated into seventy languages. One million copies were in circulation, and Walter had received 10,000 letters from young people around the world asking for sexual advice. The book, J'ai Aimé Une Fille, launched Walter and his wife Ingrid into a global marriage counseling ministry. Through books, seminars, and personal correspondence the Trobisches advocated western, Christian sexual ethics like premarital chastity, spouse self-selection, monogamy, and the intimacy and spiritual equality of husband and wife. This dissertation analyzes the economic, political, and religious conditions that facilitated the global flow of the Trobisches' message. Global gender relations during this period were in flux, due to the influence of colonial encounters, industrialization, urbanization, and new forms of education. Cultural chasms often developed between the young, who were open to new family structures and sexual norms, and the old, who insisted on preserving traditions like the bride-price and arranged marriage. While the Trobisches held paternalistic attitudes common among western missionaries of their generation, their vision of sexual ethics aimed to provide young people around the world with tools to navigate changing sexual norms of the mid-twentieth century. In the 1960s, the Trobisches helped to popularize and shape an African marriage guidance movement. However, with the awareness in the 1970s of the church's complicity in colonialism, the Trobisches' leadership in African marriage guidance became increasing problematic. As they lost influence in Africa, they shifted their focus to the United States, where their vision of sexual ethics resonated with evangelicals who were trying to distinguish their views of sexuality from those of the surrounding culture. Although the Trobisches conceived of their work as a way to introduce non-Christians to the faith, the people most affected by their work were those who already considered themselves Christian. Through historical analysis of books, correspondence, diaries, articles, and conference proceedings, this dissertation argues that the Trobisches played a significant role in shaping a transcultural conversation about the meaning of Christian marriage during the mid-twentieth century

The influence of group discussion on future member performance: Generality over tasks and persistence over time

Small, ad hoc groups perform a large number of organizational tasks, and discussion and consensus in these groups provides a setting for social influence. The study of this influence process is important because group members often perform similar such tasks later, either individually or in another group. Previous work has almost exclusively examined influence on the same task discussed by the group. This project investigated group influence on tasks similar to those performed by the group and persistence of influence over time in an attempt to gather support for or against the popular notion that participation in a group does affect future member performance. The study of influence across tasks and over time may also help distinguish between hypothesized group influence processes (e.g., informational, normative, commitment, etc.).Five-person groups worked on an intellective task (arithmetic problem) and a judgmental task (choice between two risky prospects) under one of three assigned consensus requirements (simple majority, unanimity, or no specified rule). Actual group performance was summarized well by a truth wins process on the intellective task and a majority wins process on the judgmental task. Members of correct groups were more likely to be correct on posttest problems than those in a control condition (working individually) on the problem discussed in the group and an analogically similar problem (same structure, but different numerical values), but not on a problem structurally different from the group task. On judgmental tasks, subjects that experienced group opposition were more likely to change decision strategies on the group task and two similar tasks than both those with group support and subjects with no group experience. Assigned consensus rule affected only the intellective task, people in unanimous rule groups were more likely to be correct than those in majority rule groups. The same pattern of results was observed one week after the group performance tasks. This study provided a demonstration of group influence across tasks and over time, and supplied some insight into the processes underlying social influence.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio

Multi-modal neuroimaging signatures predict cognitive decline in multiple sclerosis: A 5-year longitudinal study

Background: Cognitive impairment is a hallmark of multiple sclerosis (MS) but is usually an under-recorded symptom of disease progression. Identifying the predictive signatures of cognitive decline in people with MS (pwMS) over time is important to ensure effective preventative treatment strategies. Structural and functional brain characteristics as measured by various magnetic resonance (MR) methods have been correlated with variation in cognitive function in MS, but typically these studies are limited to a single MR modality and/or are cross-sectional designs. Here we assess the predictive value of multiple different MR modalities in relation to cognitive decline in pwMS over 5 years. Methods: A cohort of 43 pwMS was assessed at baseline and 5 years follow-up. Baseline (input) data consisted of 70 multi-modal MRI measures for different brain regions including magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and standard volumetrics. Age, sex, disease duration and treatment were included as clinical inputs. Cognitive function was assessed using the Audio Recorded Cognitive Screen (ARCS) and the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT). Prediction modelling was performed using the machine learning package - GLMnet, where a penalised regression was applied to identify multi-modal signatures with the most predictive value (and the least error) for each outcome. Results: The multi-modal approach to neuroimaging was able to accurately predict cognitive decline in pwMS. The best performing model for change in total ARCS (tARCS) included 16 features from across the various MR modalities and explained 54 % of the variation in change over time (R2=0.54, 95 % CI=0.48–0.51). The features included nine MRS, four volumetric and two DTI parameters. The model also selected disease duration, but not treatment, as a predictive feature. By comparison, the best model for SDMT included several of the same above features and explained 39 % of the change over time (R2=0.39, 95 % CI=0.48–0.51). Conventional volumetric measures were about half as good at predicting change in tARCS score compared to the best multi-modal model (R2=0.26 95 % CI:0.22–0.29). The clinical interpretation of the best predictive model for change in tARCS showed that cognitive decline could be predicted with >90 % accuracy in this cohort (AUC=0.92, SE=0.86 - 0.94). Conclusion: Multi-modal MRI signatures can predict cognitive decline in a cohort of pwMS over 5 years with high accuracy. Future studies will benefit from the inclusion of even more MR modalities e.g., functional MRI, quantitative susceptibility mapping, magnetisation transfer imaging, as well as other potential predictors e.g., genetic and environmental factors. With further validation, this signature could be used in future trials with high-risk patients to personalise the management of cognitive decline in pwMS, even in the absence of relapses.</p

Diffusion tensor imaging changes of the cortico-thalamic-striatal tracts correlate with fatigue and disability in people with relapsing-remitting MS

Purpose: To investigate how the microstructural neural integrity of cortico-thalamic-striatal (CTS) tracts correlate with fatigue and disability over time. The primary outcome was diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics change over time, and the secondary outcome was correlations with fatigue and disability in people with RRMS (pw-RRMS). Methods: 76 clinically stable pw-RRMS and 43 matched healthy controls (HCs). The pw-RRMS cohort consisted of three different treatment subgroups. All participants underwent disability, cognitive, fatigue and mental health assessments. Structural and diffusion scans were performed at baseline (BL) and 2-year follow-up (2-YFU) for all participants. Fractional anisotropy (FA), mean, radial and axial diffusivities (MD, RD, AD) of normal-appearing white matter (NAWM) and white matter lesion (WML) in nine tracts-of-interests (TOIs) were estimated using our MRtrix3 in-house pipeline. Results: We found significant BL and 2-YFU differences in most diffusion metrics in TOIs in pw-RRMS compared to HCs (pFDR ≤ 0.001; false-detection-rate (FDR)-corrected). There was a significant decrease in WML diffusivities and an increase in FA over the follow-up period in most TOIs (pFDR ≤ 0.001). Additionally, there were no differences in DTI parameters across treatment groups. AD and MD were positively correlated with fatigue scores (r ≤ 0.33, p ≤ 0.01) in NAWM-TOIs, while disability (EDSS) was negatively correlated with FA in most NAWM-TOIs (|r|≤0.31, p ≤ 0.01) at both time points. Disability scores correlated with all diffusivity parameters (r ≤ 0.29, p ≤ 0.01) in most WML-TOIs at both time points. Conclusion: Statistically significant changes in diffusion metrics in WML might be indicative of integrity improvement over two years in CTS tracts in clinically stable pw-RRMS. This finding represents structural changes within lesioned tracts. Measuring diffusivity in pw-RRMS affected tracts might be a relevant measure for future remyelination clinical trials.</p