A smokin' good ad : how efficacy and emotional tone interact in anti-smoking messages

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on September 8, 2008)Thesis (M.A.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2008.This study explores how efficacy-related copy points and emotional tone interact during anti-smoking messages. A psychophysiological experiment was conducted to determine the level of attention, arousal, positive affect, negative affect, and recognition efficacy-related copy and emotional tone elicited from current smokers. These were measured with heart rate, skin conductance response, corrugator and orbicularis oculi activity, and an audio recognition test.The analysis found that negative messages that contained efficacy-related copy points had increased attention, less arousal, less negative affect and increased recognition than the other types of messages. Efficacy-related copy points were found to dampen negative emotional responding and lessen its intensity. Anti-smoking PSA creators need to employ efficacy-related copy in their messages to ensure their messages resonate with their target. Efficacy was found to take the bite off of messages, most likely keeping people from responding defensively to the messages.Includes bibliographical reference

Emissions and removals of greenhouse gases from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: 1990-2012

This report presents a summary of the net emissions and removals of greenhouse gases for 1990-2012 by the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector of the UNFCCC National Inventory for each of the UK Administrations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland)

Exploring Predictors of Sense of Belonging in Trinidad and Tobago

Over the past two decades, Trinidad and Tobago has promoted explosive expansion of tertiary education. As with many growing postsecondary education systems, this increase in tertiary enrollment has led to the development of student support services (Haddad & Altbach, 2009). The field of student services is growing throughout the Caribbean (Reynolds, 2008), but there is currently little research on the role of student services in fostering students’ sense of belonging specific to the Caribbean cultural context. Using data from over 900 students at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, we examined students’ sense of belonging in the context of T&T. Findings point to the key role that student services professionals play in promoting students’ sense of belonging, but the limited interactions that students are having with student services staff and key differences by students’ race, religion, program level, and major should be noted. We also identified the indirect role of cocurricular engagement in promoting sense of belonging and the main barriers that prevent students from participating in more cocurricular activities. These findings have important implications for the work of student services professionals in T&T and also expand our understanding of constructs, such as student engagement and sense of belonging, ideas that have been well-researched in the US to a very different tertiary education system

Conversational Behaviors in Youth with High-functioning ASD and Asperger Syndrome

Twenty-nine youth with autism spectrum disorders and 26 with typical development between 12 and 18 years of age were engaged in structured interviews (ADOS). The interviews were videotaped and rated for atypical conversational behaviors by trained raters, using the Pragmatic Rating Scale (Landa et al. Psychol Med 22:245–254, 1992). The ASD group was divided into AS and HFA/PDD-NOS subgroups. Significant differences were found among groups on approximately one-third of the PRS items. These items involved primarily the management of topics and information, reciprocity, intonation, and gaze management. The only differences to reach significance between the AS and HFA/PDD-NOS group were a greater tendency for overly formal speech on the part of the AS group, and more difficulty with gaze management on the part of the group with HFA/PDD-NOS. The implications of these findings for understanding and treating conversational deficits in ASD are discussed

Improving the care of people with dementia in general hospitals: evaluation of a whole-system train the trainer model

Background: There are concerns about the quality of care that people with dementia receive in the general hospital. Staff report a lack of confidence and inadequate training in dementia care. Methods: A train-the-trainer model was implemented across eight acute hospital trusts in London via a large academic health and science network. Impact was evaluated using mixed methods. Data was collected at (a) Individual level: ‘Sense of Competence in Dementia Care’ (SCID) (b) Ward level: Person Interaction and Environment (PIE) observations (c) Organisation level: use of specific tools i.e. “This Is Me”, (d) Systems level: numbers and types of staff trained per trust. Results were analysed with descriptive statistics and paired t-test with thematic framework analysis for PIE observations. Results: Number of staff trained per trust ranged from 67 to 650 (total 2,020). 1,688 (85%) baseline questionnaires and 456 (27%) 3 month follow-up questionnaires were completed. Mean SCID score was 43.2 at baseline and 50.7 at follow-up (paired t-test, p<0.001). All sub-scales showed a small increase in competence, the largest being for ‘building relationships’. Organisational level data suggested increased use of carer’s passport, “This Is Me” documentation, dementia information leaflets, delirium screening scales and pathways. PIE observations demonstrated improved staff-patient interactions but little change in hospital environments. Conclusions: There was a significant improvement in staffs’ sense of competence in dementia care and the quality of interactions with patients. More hospitals adopted person centred tools and pathways. Work is required to investigate if these changes improve hospital outcomes for people with dementia

Parental Language Input to Children at Stuttering Onset

Many programs for the indirect management of stuttering in early childhood counsel adjustment of parental language models, which are presumed to play an exacerbating influence on vulnerable children’s fluency. We examined the relative levels of linguistic demand in maternal language to stuttering and nonstuttering children, adjusted for each child’s current level of linguistic development. No significant or observable differences were detected in the relative level of linguistic demand posed by parents of stuttering children very close to onset of symptoms. Empirical support for current advisement and potential ramifications are discussed

Thermal reaction norms and the scale of temperature variation: latitudinal vulnerability of intertidal Nacellid limpets to climate change

The thermal reaction norms of 4 closely related intertidal Nacellid limpets, Antarctic (Nacella concinna), New Zealand (Cellana ornata), Australia (C. tramoserica) and Singapore (C. radiata), were compared across environments with different temperature magnitude, variability and predictability, to test their relative vulnerability to different scales of climate warming. Lethal limits were measured alongside a newly developed metric of “duration tenacity”, which was tested at different temperatures to calculate the thermal reaction norm of limpet adductor muscle fatigue. Except in C. tramoserica which had a wide optimum range with two break points, duration tenacity did not follow a typical aerobic capacity curve but was best described by a single break point at an optimum temperature. Thermal reaction norms were shifted to warmer temperatures in warmer environments; the optimum temperature for tenacity (Topt) increased from 1.0°C (N. concinna) to 14.3°C (C. ornata) to 18.0°C (an average for the optimum range of C. tramoserica) to 27.6°C (C. radiata). The temperature limits for duration tenacity of the 4 species were most consistently correlated with both maximum sea surface temperature and summer maximum in situ habitat logger temperature. Tropical C. radiata, which lives in the least variable and most predictable environment, generally had the lowest warming tolerance and thermal safety margin (WT and TSM; respectively the thermal buffer of CTmax and Topt over habitat temperature). However, the two temperate species, C. ornata and C. tramoserica, which live in a variable and seasonally unpredictable microhabitat, had the lowest TSM relative to in situ logger temperature. N. concinna which lives in the most variable, but seasonally predictable microhabitat, generally had the highest TSMs. Intertidal animals live at the highly variable interface between terrestrial and marine biomes and even small changes in the magnitude and predictability of their environment could markedly influence their future distributions

Violence Related Injuries among Individuals Admitted to a Level I Trauma Center in Atlanta, 2011-2013

Background: Violence related injuries (VRIs) are a major public health problem in the United States (US). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), homicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the US and the third leading cause of death among persons aged 15-24 years old. Among African Americans aged 10-34, homicide is the leading cause of death and is the fifth leading cause of death among those 35-44 years old. One form of homicide that can result in injury resulting in death is firearm violence. The objective of this study is to assess the rates of VRIs among African American males who have been admitted to a Level I trauma center serving metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. Methods: A retrospective analysis of trauma patients admitted to a level 1 trauma center for VRIs over a 3 year period from 2011 to 2013. Data were obtained from the Grady Memorial Hospital (GMH) trauma registry, which serves metropolitan Atlanta, GA. De-identified variables selected included gender, race/ethnicity, age, type of VRI, and year of admission. All analyses were conducted utilizing SAS version 9.2. Results: Of the total number of patients (n=2859) the majority were male (89%), African- American (80%) and between the ages of 20-40 years (61%). The majority of patients (55%) were admitted to the hospital for gunshot wounds followed by assault (33%) and stab wounds (12%). The numbers of VRI patients admitted were similar in each of the years 2011, 2012, and 2013, which represent 31%, 35%, and 34% of the total, respectively. Conclusions: Statistically significant differences were observed between gender, race and age with respect to all VRIs included in the analyses, particularly among African American males. Policy makers may consider targeting interventions accordingly to address VRIs. Further research is needed to identify other factors potentially associated with VRIs

Living Arrangement: a Contributor to Vascular Disease in Asymptomatic African American Women

Background: Diminished social support has shown to lead to worse cardiovascular outcomes and since cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States (U.S.), it is critical to non-invasively study its precursor- vascular disease (VD). Assessing the impact social support has on vascular outcomes can unveil potential CVD susceptibilities in at-risk populations. African American women exhibit the greatest burden of CVD morbidity and mortality; therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the association between living arrangement/social support and impaired vascular function in asymptomatic African American women. Methods: Vascular function was assessed by a non-invasive screening tool, HDI/PulseWave CR-2000, during screenings at community outreach events on participants clinically free of CVD. Vascular disease was defined as abnormal/impaired vascular function. Living arrangement, a binary variable (living with someone/living alone), was determined by survey responses (N=67) and represented social support. Multivariable analyses were used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) to determine the association between living arrangement and vascular disease after controlling for confounders. Analyses were conducted using SAS 9.2. Results: Of those who lived alone, 82% had vascular disease (p=0.03). After adjusting for family CVD, and other CVD risk factors, those who lived with a spouse/partner or relative were 78% (p=0.04) less likely to develop vascular disease (AOR=0.22; 95% CI=0.05, 0.98). Conclusions: Our study provides preliminary evidence to suggest that among African American women, clinically free of CVD, living arrangement is associated with vascular disease. While living alone may place individuals at an increased risk of CVD because of the association, living with a spouse/partner or relative may act as a protective factor against vascular disease and reduce the risk of CVD. Public health practitioners may use individuals’ living arrangement as preventive measure for CVD risk

Event Identification as a Decision Process with Non-linear Representation of Text

We propose scale-free Identifier Network(sfIN), a novel model for event identification in documents. In general, sfIN first encodes a document into multi-scale memory stacks, then extracts special events via conducting multi-scale actions, which can be considered as a special type of sequence labelling. The design of large scale actions makes it more efficient processing a long document. The whole model is trained with both supervised learning and reinforcement learning.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure