Traumatic events, perceived stress, and health in women with fibromyalgia and healthy controls

This study examined the relationship between trauma, stress and health in 41 women with fibromyalgia (FM) and 44 women who were healthy controls (HC). The participants were assessed for traumatic events, perceived stress and mental and physical health. Perceived stress was related to worse mental and physical health in both groups. Traumatic events were related to worse mental and physical health in the FM group but were unrelated to health in the HC group. Perceived stress partially mediated the effect of traumatic events on mental and physical health in the FM group. Finally, adult abuse partially mediated the effects of child abuse on adult stress and health. Trauma may have lasting effects on stress and health in women with FM. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

The Role of Resilience and Purpose in Life in Habituation to Heat and Cold Pain

This study examined the role of resilience in habituation to heat and cold pain in healthy women (n = 47). Heat and cold pain thresholds were each assessed across 5 equally spaced trials. Re- silience, purpose in life, optimism, social support, and neuroticism were assessed using self-report measures. The hypothesis was that the resilience and the associated resilience factors would be pos- itively related to habituation to heat and cold pain while controlling for neuroticism. Multilevel mod- eling was used to test the hypothesis. When considering each characteristic separately, resilience and purpose in life predicted greater habituation to heat pain while resilience, purpose in life, optimism, and social support predicted greater habituation to cold pain. When controlling for the other charac- teristics, both resilience and purpose in life predicted greater habituation to heat and cold pain. Re- silience and associated characteristics such as a sense of purpose in life may be related to enhanced habituation to painful stimuli. Future research should further examine the relationship between re- silience, purpose in life, and habituation to pain and determine whether psychosocial interventions that target resilience and purpose in life improve habituation and reduce vulnerability to chronic pain

Heavy Metal Accumulation in Seagrasses in Southeastern Florida

Seagrass beds are among the most ecologically important systems in the marine environment. They provide the primary production to nearby coral reef and mangrove communities, and seagrasses comprise a large component of the diets of many marine organisms including fishes, small invertebrate species, and many protected species such as manatees and sea turtles. This consumption provides a pathway for many contaminants to enter the marine food web via the seagrasses. The coastal location of seagrass beds causes them to be especially susceptible to anthropogenic pollution, including accumulation of heavy metals, which has been shown to have many adverse health effects in the seagrasses and marine organisms that feed on them. This study assessed the heavy metal concentrations of seagrasses in three regional locations in South Florida: Port of Miami, Card Sound Aquatic Preserve, and Florida Bay. Three species of seagrasses, Thalassia testudinum, Halodule wrightii, and Syringodium filiforme, which comprise the majority of South Florida seagrass beds, were collected monthly for a period of one year and analyzed for ten heavy metals: (arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), mercury (Hg), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), selenium (Se), zinc (Zn)). Concentrations were compared across locations, season, species, and plant part (leaves, shoots, roots, and rhizomes). Concentration ranges, in µg/g (ppm), found in seagrass tissues for all included locations, species, and plant parts were: As (0.02-2.95), Cd (0.09-10.72), Cu (0.38-33.68), Fe (1.52-1877.43), Pb (0.78-156.20), Mn (0.79-300.15), Hg (0.03-16.46), Ni (0.67-87.74), Se (0.01-4.79), Zn (1.48-669.44). Statistical analysis showed significant difference in concentrations among locations, season, species, and plant morphology

Structuring for serendipity: family wealth creation, farmer autonomy and the pursuit of security in an uncertain Australian countryside

The social and economic particularities of family farms have captured researchers’ attention for many years; but rural scholarship still lacks a clear, analytical sense of how and why family farms are organised in the ways that they are. This thesis critically examines the internal logics underpinning the socio-economic organisation of Australian farms. It adopts Johnsen’s (2003) conceptualisation of farm enterprises as three-way coalitions between farm businesses, farm households and the respective property holdings. Changes to the Australian agricultural property regime are used as the lens through which to observe how the organisational logics of farm enterprises are recalibrated in response to environmental policy reforms; specifically, the separation of land and water titles. Despite the obvious economic significance of separating land and water titles, the impacts on farm organisation remain under-researched. Hence, this thesis uniquely brings together scholarship on family farming with that of water reforms. A qualitative research method – farm life history – is used to generate narratives of the development of 40 farms in Victoria, Australia. Twenty-one of these are from an irrigation district where land and water titles have been separated, and nineteen from a dry land region unaffected by the reforms. The interpretive chapters comprise an analysis of the ways in which the ownership configurations of farm businesses, land and water assets embody farmers’ aspirations for building wealth and maintaining autonomy. These aspirations are jointly articulated in the concept of ‘structuring for serendipity’, which elevates the notions of risk, uncertainty and security as critical drivers shaping farm-level responses to contemporary conditions. The thesis concludes that the organisational forms observed within the Australian agricultural sector ultimately represent farmers’ pursuit of a sense of security in a constantly changing and uncertain countryside

A Multitheoretical Comparative Analysis of Social Organizations and Interaction in California, The Pacific Northwest, and The American Southwest

Drawing from archaeological and ethnographic data from the cultural areas of California, the Pacific Northwest, and the American Southwest, this dissertation employs multiple bodies of theory, uses comparative methods, and explores multiple scales to analyze, reinterpret, and form new narratives about the complexities of past human realities. The first case study establishes sustained long-distance interactions and connections between cultural groups in southern California and the U.S. Southwest, and uses complimentary big picture approaches to demonstrate how systemic linkages between the two regions mutually influenced sociopolitical processes and historic trajectories. The second case study compares the organizational capacity of the hierarchical Chumash and heterarchical Yuman-speaking people of California through an analysis of warfare events and economic transactions, and recognizes that different forms of sociopolitical organization can organize at comparative levels of complexity. The third paper explores the multifarious relationships people in California and the Pacific Northwest had with their watercraft by operationalizing a multitheory that overcomes the limitations of singular theoretical frameworks. It reveals watercraft as power-rendering to elites, resistance apparatuses, regional enforcers, actors in entangled networks, sentient beings and family members, relational homologies, as well as other complex meaningful concepts. Altogether, the holistic anthropological archaeology approach I employ allows for new conceptualizations of histories through analyses of the connections people established with their neighbors near and far, the organizational capacities of conflict and exchange, and the dynamic relationships people experienced with non-humans

A cross-cultural examination of the relations among Parkinson’s disease impairments, caregiver burden and mental health, and family dynamics in Mexico and the United States

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a common progressive neurodegenerative disorder that leads to both physical and cognitive impairment over time. Eventually, these impairments may include the loss of autonomy, and the individual may require the assistance of an informal caregiver. Informal caregivers are critical in the care of individuals with PD and spend substantial time providing care, which may be associated with negative caregiver outcomes such as burden, mental health issues, as well as poor family dynamics. Although research in the United States and Europe has generally supported these relations, there is very limited research on PD caregiving in Latin America. Given the rapidly aging population of Latin America, research suggests that the prevalence of PD is likely to increase substantially. Although cultural values such as familism may encourage informal caregiving in Latin America, very little is known about either PD patient or caregiver experiences in the region and how they may differ from those in the United States and Europe. As such, the current study built upon Pearlin’s caregiving stress process model to examine how PD-related impairments, caregiver burden and mental health, and family dynamics may differ between the United States and Mexico and to examine connections among the following variables in a sample of PD caregivers from the United States and Mexico: (a) PD-related impairments (motor and non-motor symptoms) and caregiver burden, (b) caregiver burden and caregiver mental health, (c) PD-related impairments and mental health through caregiver burden, and (d) family dynamics which may moderate these relations. The current study consisted of caregivers of individuals with PD (total N = 253) from the United States (N = 105) and Mexico (N = 148). A series of t-tests and mediational models were conducted to determine the connections among PD-related impairments, caregiver burden and mental health, and family dynamics. Results suggested that caregivers from the United States site experienced higher levels of caregiver burden, although there were no significant differences in caregiver mental health. Further, caregiver burden fully mediated the relation between PD-related impairments and caregiver mental health at both study sites, although family dynamics did not moderate these mediational models as hypothesized. Despite the importance of cultural values such as familism in Latin America, family dynamics explained more variance in the model at the United States site than at the Mexico site. Exploratory analyses found that caregivers from the Mexico site more frequently reported suicidal and self-injurious thoughts but did not find a significant disparity in self-reported gender of the caregiver. Overall, the current study identified significant relations among PD-related impairments, caregiver burden and mental health, and family dynamics among caregivers of individuals with PD from the United States and Mexico. Findings from the current study highlight a number of important interventions for caregivers and families, including caregiver burden and mental health, as well as family dynamics

Illumination and Food Deprivation as Determinants for Hoarding in Golden Hampsters

It is important for animals to adapt to changes in food availability in order to survive. Hoarding is one method of accomplishing this and the golden hamster (Mesocricetus auratus) is particularly adept at hoarding. Previous literature suggests a connection between hoarding and stress. To further examine this connection, the present study looked at the effects of illumination and food deprivation on the hoarding behavior of male golden hamsters. The within-subjects design allowed each of the 12 subjects to be tested in each of the 4 conditions: 1) illumination and food deprivation, 2) illumination and no food deprivation, 3) food deprivation and no illumination, and 4) no illumination and no food deprivation. The results show 3 significant findings: 1) hamsters moved less food when food deprived than when not food deprived, 2) hamsters ate more food when food deprived than when not food deprived, and 3) there were fewer droppings in the foraging cage when illumination was present than when it was absent. These findings were opposite of those suggested by previous literature, thus providing more questions than answers about the hoarding behavior of the golden hamster

The Naming of Strays

The Naming of Strays is a collection of poems that deal with issues of place, gender power, sexual fidelity, and transience. While the majority of the poems are written in free verse, the dissertation also features a handful of formal poems including sonnets, sestinas, and prose poetry.

EBBINGHAUS ILLUSION IN TOUCH AS EVIDENCE FOR THE TWO STREAM PERCEPTION-ACTION HYPOTHESIS

The Ebbinghaus Illusion (also known as Titchener\u27s circles) is a classic visual illusion. The illusion consists of two inner circles of the same size, with one circle surrounded by a group of larger circles, and the other circle surrounded by a group of smaller circles. Due to the context of the surrounding circles, individuals perceive the inner circle surrounded by the smaller outer circles to be larger, when in fact, both inner circles are the same size. This thesis presents the first evidence of the existence of the Ebbinghaus illusion in the tactile modality. Participants underwent various tactile-tactile and tactile-visual conditions to actively explore Ebbinghaus illusion sets. Our results show that participants are more likely to be deceived when the illusory stimulus (the Ebbinghaus set) is present compared to when the control stimulus (no illusion) is present in a tactile perception condition. Further, our results demonstrate that in a visual-tactile condition, the perceptual system is not deceived, even though the illusion deceives participants in both touch and vision alone. These results contribute to the two-stream hypothesis perception-action debate, which states that the pathways for action and perception are separated in the visual system

"The womb is the home of man": the representation of the lives of women at Oklahoma house museums

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Oklahoma, 2012Includes bibliographical reference