Proto-Ong-Be

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

Identifying Risk Factors for Youth Hospitalization in Crisis Settings: A Classification and Regression Tree Analysis

Traditionally, treatment option for psychiatric crises was limited to psychiatric hospitalization. However, psychiatric hospitals are expensive and little evidence supports their utility. Youth returning from psychiatric hospitalizations often have difficulties readjusting to everyday life which can increase risk for negative outcomes. Alternative treatment options such as mobile crisis services might be useful for stabilizing youth in the community and garnering better long-term outcomes. For alternative treatment options to work, clinicians must be able to efficiently and accurately distinguish youth in need of psychiatric hospitalization and youth who could be served via an alternative service. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to examine the predictive utility of risk factors available at the time of the hospitalization decision and develop a decision tree that clinicians could use to aid in the decision-making process. Data consisted of 2,605 youth aged 4.0 – 19.5 years (M = 14.07, SD = 2.73, 56% female) who utilized the Mobile Crisis Response Team in the State of Nevada between 2014 and 2017. Using Random Forest, the 13 most important risk factors were identified. Classification and Regression Tree provided an interpretable, easy to use decision tree (accuracy = .88, AUC = .82). In summary, the most important risk factors for hospitalization reflected current functioning. Lifetime risk factors (e.g., diagnosis) were not strong predictors of acute decision-making when acute risk factors were available. Clinicians should attend to current symptoms (e.g., suicide behaviors, danger to others, poor judgment, psychotic symptoms) and environmental factors (e.g., poor functioning at home, poor caregiver supervision) that increase a youth’s risk for harming oneself or others when deciding whether to hospitalize or stabilize a youth in psychiatric crisis

Cultural Mechanism of Mothers\u27 Perceptions of Youth Psychopathology

Cross-cultural research systematically identifies variations in cultural practices, meanings, and responses across different cultural groups. For example, psychiatric symptoms vary in their salience and degree to which they are reported across cultures. Cultural differences in causal attributions likely lead to differences in an individual’s help-seeking intention. However, there are limitations in previous cross-cultural studies about perceptions of psychopathology, including not measuring impairment level and parental distress, as well as the problematic use of categorical variables as predictors. To overcome limitations in previous work, the current project examined the cultural mechanism of mothers’ perceptions of externalizing and internalizing psychopathology in youth. Study 1 consisted of 302 U.S. mothers and 303 Taiwan mothers rating vignettes of youth presenting with externalizing problems. Study 2 consisted of 310 U.S. mothers and 294 Taiwan mothers rating vignettes of youth presenting with internalizing problems. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, the mediation pathways demonstrated the mediating effect of adherence to East Asian cultural values (conformity, emotional self-control, and face culture) on the relationship between country of residence and mothers’ ratings of youth’s psychopathology. The association between country of residence, causal attribution, and factors related to help-seeking intention were also examined. Limitations include generalizability of the current findings to other genders and countries, as well as threats to validity due to study methodology and reference group effect. In closing, results from the present study informed the importance of a culturally sensitive approach to the practice of clinical psychology with youth

Does Hot Money Impact Stock And Exchange Rate Markets On China?

d the returns and volatility spillover between the stock and exchange rate market in China by using the monthly data covering the period from July 2005 to June 2013. This paper also uses the quantile approach to determine whether the hot money influences the stock and exchange rate markets. The results frst reveal the long-run equilibrium relationship that is exhibited between the stock and exchange rate market. Second, hot money has an impact on the stock market but has no effect on the exchange rate market, according to the VECMBEKK model. Third, regarding the volatility spillover effects on the stock and exchange rate markets, there is a spillover effect on the Shanghai stock and exchange rate markets. Hot money has an impact on the stock and exchange rate markets. Finally, we apply the quantile regression to determine the impact of hot money on low quantiles of the exchange rate and high quantiles of the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock marke

Security of Deputy Signature

E-system, a new commerce model, is a new era for business direction. When a principal is absent (goes on an errand or on leave), a well-designed deputy system keeps the business operations working. In the network world, identity verification and any substitute for traditional signature can be done by digital signature [1]. Deputy signature guarantees the existence of deputy system in e-system. Current deputy mechanism addresses the verification of deputy signature. No research has been done on the prevention of the illegal use of deputy system when the principal returns and the deputy system is not in use. We propose a mechanism to solve the problem of illegal use of deputy system when the power of deputy system is not legally “ON.

Update propagation algorithms for supporting disconnected write in mobile wireless systems with data broadcasting capability

We develop and analyze algorithms for propagating updates by mobile hosts in wireless client-server environments that support disconnected write operations, with the goal of minimizing the tuning time for update propagation to the server. These algorithms allow a mobile host to update cached data objects while disconnected and propagate the updates to the server upon reconnection for conflict resolutions. We investigate two algorithms applicable to mobile systems in which invalidation reports/data can be broadcast to mobile hosts periodically. We show that there exists an optimal broadcasting period under which the tuning time is minimized for update propagations. We perform a comparative analysis between these two update propagation algorithms that rely on broadcasting data and an algorithm that does not, and identify conditions under which an algorithm should be applied to reduce the total tuning time for update propagation by the mobile user to save the valuable battery power and avoid high communication cost. For real-time applications, we address the tradeoff between tuning time and access time with the goal to select the best update propagation algorithm that can minimize the tuning time while satisfying the imposed real-time deadline constraint. The analysis result is applicable to file/data objects that mobile users may need to modify while on the move

Genetic Polymorphisms of the Glycine N-Methyltransferase and Prostate Cancer Risk in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study

Purpose Glycine N-methyltransferase (GNMT) affects genetic stability by regulating the ratio of S-adenosylmethionine to S-adenosylhomocysteine, by binding to folate, and by interacting with environmental carcinogens. In Taiwanese men, GNMT was found to be a tumor susceptibility gene for prostate cancer. However, the association of GNMT with prostate cancer risk in other ethnicities has not been studied. It was recently reported that sarcosine, which is regulated by GNMT, increased markedly in metastatic prostate cancer. We hereby explored the association of GNMT polymorphisms with prostate cancer risk in individuals of European descent from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). Methods: A total of 661 incident prostate cancer cases and 656 controls were identified from HPFS. The GNMT short tandem repeat polymorphism 1 (STRP1), 4-bp insertion/deletion polymorphisms (INS/DEL) and the single nucleotide polymorphism rs10948059 were genotyped to test for their association with prostate cancer risk. Results: The rs10948059 T/T genotype was associated with a 1.62-fold increase in prostate cancer risk (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.18, 2.22) when compared with the C/C genotype. The STRP1 ≥16GAs/≥16GAs genotype was associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer when compared with the <16GAs/<16GAs genotype (odds ratio (OR) = 0.68; 95% CI: 0.46, 1.01). INS/DEL was not associated with prostate cancer risk. Haplotypes containing the rs10948059 T allele were significantly associated with increased prostate cancer risk. Conclusion: In men of European descent, the GNMT rs10948059 and STRP1 were associated with prostate cancer risk. Compared to the study conducted in Taiwanese men, the susceptibility GNMT alleles for prostate cancer had a reverse relationship. This study highlights the differences in allelic frequencies and prostate cancer susceptibility in different ethnicities