Digital Commons Network^™

Interstate Conflict Initiation And The Age Of International Leaders, Katelyn L. Laplaunt

Student Publications

The 2024 presidential election in the United States amplified concerns regarding the age of international leaders and their ability to lead. Current research indicates that differences in individual characteristics such as ideology, biological sex, and aggression, can cause leaders to interact with foreign countries in varying ways. Especially important is the manner in which a leader’s age might impact their tendency to initiate interstate conflict, as the effects of these conflicts can have major impacts on the international system. In alignment with my hypothesis, most research indicates that older leaders will initiate fewer interstate conflicts than younger leaders. This is …

Negara Hukum Kesejahteraan Di Batas Pantai: Paradoks Perlindungan Negara Terhadap Masyarakat Pesisir Di Tengah Perubahan Iklim, Aji Baskoro

Jurnal Ilmu Kesejahteraan Sosial

Climate change poses significant challenges to vulnerable coastal communities in Indonesia. As a welfare state, the Indonesian government is expected to safeguard these vulnerable groups through policies that promote their welfare and sustainable livelihoods. However, current policies create a paradox. This article explores this paradox: on the one hand, Indonesia adheres to the welfare state principle, which demands that all government actions be grounded in law, ensuring public safety and welfare. On the other hand, the policies focus on exploiting natural resources, exacerbating the vulnerabilities of coastal communities, particularly in the face of climate change. The article employs a normative …

Aging In Maynard: A Community Needs Assessment, Caitlin E. Coyle, Mary Krebs

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging (CSDRA), within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Town of Maynard. The report supports the Council on Aging’s objective to identify and serve the needs of residents age 50 and older. The contents of this report are meant to inform the Town of Maynard, the Maynard Council on Aging (COA), the Senior Center, and organizations that work with and on behalf of older residents of Maynard for the purposes of COA mission fulfillment alongside planning and coordination of …

School Of Nursing Newsletter Fall 2024, Southern Adventist University

Southern Nursing - School of Nursing Newsletter

The Fall 2024 issue of the newsletter features information on the Fall 2023 NCLEX pass rate, Giving Day success, and alumni recognitions.

Reframing And Advancing Academic Mentorship To Support New And Early Career Faculty Members, Juanita-Dawne R. Bacsu, Patricia C. Heyn, Steffi Kim, Zahra Rahemi, Monique J. Brown, Darina V. Petrovsky, Justine S. Sefcik, Jodi L. Southerland, Jeremy Holloway, Elyse Couch, Ayse Malatyali, Matthew L. Smith

Faculty Publications

Mentorship is critical to fostering professional growth and career development in academia. However, academic mentorship is often an informal activity that is overlooked and under researched. There is much ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding mentorship roles and strategies in academia. This paper provides recommendations and strategies to reframe and advance academic mentorship to support new and early career faculty.

Behavioral Factors Associated With Patients' Non-Attendance: A Retrospective Study In An Outpatient Specialty Clinic At A Women's And Children's Hospital In Singapore, Yue Tang, Houyuan Jiang, Jingui Xie, Zhichao Zheng, Chui Yee Loke, Bee Keow Goh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Background: This study aimed to identify behavioral factors that affect patient attendance in outpatient clinics, especially those related to rescheduling. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 20,386 appointment records for 6,252 patients in an outpatient specialty clinic at a women’s and children’s hospital in Singapore over 34 months (January 2012–October 2014). Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyze the influence of independent variables on appointment no-shows. Results: The average no-show rate of the study population was 28.87%. Patient historical behaviors were significantly associated with appointment attendance. In particular, a larger number of previous visits, more historical no-shows, more historical …

Motivating Physical Activity With Fitness Tracking And The Interpersonal Context, Sapphire H. Lin, Sonny Rosenthal, Rich Ling

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Many societies have aging populations. Getting older people to exercise can help them achieve a higher quality of life. Fitness tracking and social support can buttress that goal. This study tested the effects of fitness tracking and spousal influence on the physical activity of older adults. In a 2 (blinded vs. feedback) × 2 (individual vs. dyad) between-group experiment, 240 participants received a fitness tracker with a visible or blinded display. They participated in the three-month experiment either individually or with their spouses. Participants who received feedback met daily step counts of 7500 and 10,000 more frequently than those without …

Exploring Conversations Between A Practitioner And A Person With Dementia, Kotaro Hara, Rosiana Natalie, Wei Soon Cheong, Jingjing Gu, Qianli Xu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In social service centers, practitioners engage in conversations with clients with dementia to facilitate their daily activities and provide support when they are distressed. However, the nature of the care demands the practitioner’s active engagement, which becomes difficult to deliver as the number of people who need care expands. Researchers have been investigating the efficacy of developing agents that assume conversational tasks to alleviate this work. To contribute to the future design of agents for caregiving, we collected and analyzed ten conversations between clients with mild dementia and practitioners who provide care. Our analyses of turn-taking dynamics and dialogue acts …

Late Life Cognitive Function Trajectory Among The Chinese Oldest-Old Population-A Machine Learning Approach, Jierong Hu, Minzhi Ye, Juan Xi

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

Informed by the biopsychosocial framework, our study uses the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) dataset to examine cognitive function trajectories among the oldest-old (80+). Employing K-means clustering, we identified two latent groups: High Stability (HS) and Low Stability (LS). The HS group maintained satisfactory cognitive function, while the LS group exhibited consistently low function. Lasso regression revealed predictive factors, including socioeconomic status, biological conditions, mental health, lifestyle, psychological, and behavioral factors. This data-driven approach sheds light on cognitive aging patterns and informs policies for healthy aging. Our study pioneers non-parametric machine learning methods in this context.

Dna Methylation-Derived Immune Cell Proportions And Cancer Risk In Black Participants, Christopher S Semancik, Naisi Zhao, Devin C Koestler, Eric Boerwinkle, Jan Bressler, Rachel J Buchsbaum, Karl T Kelsey, Elizabeth A Platz, Dominique S Michaud

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Prior cohort studies assessing cancer risk based on immune cell subtype profiles have predominantly focused on White populations. This limitation obscures vital insights into how cancer risk varies across race. Immune cell subtype proportions were estimated using deconvolution based on leukocyte DNA methylation markers from blood samples collected at baseline on participants without cancer in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study. During a mean of 17.5 years of follow-up, 668 incident cancers were diagnosed in 2,467 Black participants. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to examine immune cell subtype proportions and overall cancer incidence and site-specific incidence (lung, breast, and …

Exploring Depictions Of Mental Health In Popular Hindi-Urdu Cinema, Sara Ahmed

Journal of Critical Global Issues

Hindi-Urdu popular cinema, commonly referred to as Bollywood, largely reflects the evolution of various social attitudes in the Indian subcontinent. In order to better understand these films’ depiction of social attitudes surrounding mental illness and the implications for its treatment, this study creates and analyzes an anthology of Hindi-Urdu movies from the 1940’s to the present that portray some aspect of mental illness. These movies that depict mental illness were grouped into the various aspects of stigma that they portrayed: structural stigma, courtesy stigma, health practitioner stigma, self-stigma, and public stigma. I extracted and analyzed the attitudes towards mental illness, …

Dietary Inflammatory Index, Physical Activity, Body Composition, And High Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein Levels In Adolescent Athletes In Central Java, Trioni Widyastuti, Hardhono Susanto, Etika Ratna Noer, Muflihatul Muniroh, Nyoman Suci Widyastiti

Jurnal Keolahragaan

Inflammation is the body's response to tissue damage and infection. Prolonged inflammation can increase the risk of non-communicable diseases, including cardiovascular disease. Some factors that can trigger inflammation are dietary patterns, high physical activity, and body composition. This study examined the correlation between dietary inflammatory index (DII), physical activity, body composition, and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) levels. It examined differences in characteristics based on gender. This study was a cross-sectional design of 55 adolescent athletes at the Student Sports Education and Training Center in Central Java. The exclusion criteria were an athlete who had a physical injury (did not …

Correlation Between Screen Time And Physical Activity To Student’S Physical Fitness, Anang Bagus Prakoso, Nur Ahmad Arief, Abd Muin, Nurul Kusuma Wardani

Jurnal Keolahragaan

The development of electronic media may increase screen time (ST) duration, cause students to develop sedentary habits, and decrease their physical activity (PA). Lately, this has been thought to be the cause of the problem of low physical fitness (PF) among students. This study aimed to analyze the correlation between screen time, physical activity, and students' physical fitness. The design of this study was correlational, with a total of 88 subjects in grades 4 and 5 at Primary Laboratoy School (Labschool) Unesa 1. The sampling technique was simple random sampling. Nusantara students' physical fitness test (TKPN) was employed to assessed …

Designing A Best Possible Caregiver History To Facilitate Disposition Planning For Older Adults In Emergency Departments, Karen De Sola-Smith, Matthew Growdon, Anita N. Chary, Jennifer D. Portz, Kenneth Lam

Journal of Geriatric Emergency Medicine

Introduction and Background

Detailed information about caregivers is crucial for planning disposition from emergency departments (EDs), but it is unclear what specific information is useful for ED clinicians and how that information should be presented.

Methods

We used a Design Thinking approach to develop a standardized format—which we call a “Best Possible Caregiver History” (BPCH)—for displaying useful caregiver information to ED clinicians. The key steps of this approach are needfinding, followed by iterative cycles of ideation, rapid prototyping, and testing. For needfinding, we used semi-structured interviews of four ED clinicians on current practices for discovering and documenting caregiver information. For …

Downregulation Of Piezo2 In The Detrusor Of Men With Bladder Outlet Obstruction And Its Association With Urinary Retention And Decreased Bladder Compliance, Carlos Henrique Suzuki Bellucci, Thiago Souto Hemerly, Luisa Resende Tenório De Albuquerque, Ruan Pimenta, Vanessa Guimaraes Schreiter, Sabrina Thalita Dos Reis, Jose De Bessa Jr, Katia Ramos Moreira Leite, Alberto Antunes, Boopathi Ettickan, William C. Nahas, Cristiano Mendes Gomes

Center for Translational Medicine Faculty Papers

PURPOSE: Recent research has highlighted the mechanotransducer PIEZO2 as a crucial factor in lower urinary tract function, demonstrating associations with bladder compliance (BC), bladder wall thickening, and elevated bladder pressure. We explored the hypothesis that PIEZO2 expression may be associated with lower urinary tract dysfunction in men with bladder outlet obstruction (BOO) due to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

METHODS: The study included a consecutive series of patients undergoing open prostatectomy for BPH at our hospital between September 2014 and January 2016. All participants underwent comprehensive preoperative evaluations, including urodynamic assessments. During prostatectomy, a full-thickness fragment of the bladder wall was …

Contracture Prevention: Knowledge, Understanding, And Skills Of Community Occupational Therapists And Physiotherapists: A Survey, Jo Buck, Vincent Singh

South West Clinical School Journal

#400WORDS: KNOWLEDGE + ACTION

College Students As Participants In Our Democracy: Models For Engagement, Suzanne E. Walker-Pacheco, Otto Brown, Sarah Nash, Seth Andersen, Allison Rank

eJournal of Public Affairs

Low rates of voter engagement characteristic of the college-age demographic are determined by a host of factors. These factors vary according to geography, demographic variables, and individual inclinations. Those who strive to strengthen our democracy through increasing access to our political system confront many challenges, and there exists no “one-size-fits-all” approach. College campuses, where young voters obviously congregate in large numbers, provide a primary access point for democratic engagement efforts. Institutions of higher education are compelled to respond to the federal mandate put forth by the Higher Education Act to provide information on voter registration. Anecdotal information suggests a greatly …

Living In The Shadows: Exploring The Link Between Colonialism, Climate Change, And Women’S Vulnerability, Akash Bag, Anwesha Ghosh

Journal of International Women's Studies

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its sixth climate change report in early 2022. For the first time in thirty years, this report acknowledged colonial domination and global exploitation as drivers of the climate issue and contributors to the vulnerability of communities and groups. Colonialism, climate change, and women’s vulnerability are rarely discussed in the available literature. A scoping review was done to determine how colonialism makes women more vulnerable to climate change and related disasters. The study examined when and how colonialism increases women’s vulnerability in the Global North and South. Through the study, it was …

Noninvasive Multi-Cancer Detection Using Blood-Based Cell-Free Micrornas, Jason Zhang, Hallgeir Rui, Hai Hu

Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Cancer Biology Faculty Papers

Patients diagnosed with early-stage cancers have a substantially higher chance of survival than those with late-stage diseases. However, the option for early cancer screening is limited, with most cancer types lacking an effective screening tool. Here we report a miRNA-based blood test for multi-cancer early detection based on examination of serum microRNA microarray data from cancer patients and controls. First, a large multi-cancer training set that included 1,408 patients across 7 cancer types and 1,408 age- and gender-matched non-cancer controls was used to develop a 4-microRNA diagnostic model using 10-fold cross-validation. In three independent validation sets comprising a total of …

Health Risk Factors Of Female African American Informal Caregivers For Alzheimer’S Disease Patients In Low-Income Communities, Rosaline Elaine Elliott

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

By 2050, 152 million people worldwide, primarily low-income populations, will have Alzheimer's disease (AD). African American (AA) women informal caregivers are primary caregivers in low-income neighborhoods, and they suffer from burnout and poor health, including physical and mental fatigue, despair, anxiety, hypertension, and stressors that can lead to heart attacks, strokes, or premature mortality. The Informal Caregiver Integrative Model (ICIM) theoretical framework was used to survey 120 participants using SurveyMonkey was administered to collect data for this cross-sectional quantitative study. The multiple hierarchical regression analyses revealed caregiving appraisal had no significant impact on burnout. A higher quality of the caregiver-care …

Influences Of Perceived Environment, Partner Support, And Attitudinal Familism On Physical Activity Among Mexican American Women, Neomie C. Congello

Dissertations

Healthy lifestyle behaviors such as engaging in physical activity (PA) may reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD), the number one cause of mortality among Mexican American women (MAW). Research findings show that MAW have low levels of leisure time PA and vary in the amount of overall PA. The influence of partner support has received little attention in studies examining predictors of PA. This cross sectional study investigated factors influencing PA among MAW aged 19 to 64 years old (mean = 39.4, SD = 11.1) who may be at increased risk for CVD based on hypertension, diabetes and obesity …

Comparing Costs And Predictors Of Low-Value Healthcare Service Use Among Primary Care Nurse Practitioners In The Southwest United States, Sara B. Nugent

Nursing ETDs

Low-value healthcare services (LVHSs) are unsupported by current evidence, associated with harmful patient outcomes, and equate to over $100 billion in wasteful spending annually. The aims of this descriptive, comparative study were to establish baseline prevalence and costs associated with LVHS use among primary care nurse practitioners (NPs), and to test the influence of different geographical regions and patient populations. A secondary data analysis of the Merative™ MarketScan® 2021 databases was conducted. LVHS prevalence was lower or fairly equal to that of other studies, and direct claim costs were very-low cost. Extremely high low-value lumbar radiographic imaging claim costs were …

Intersecting Inequities For Older Lgbtq+ Adults Of Color In The Advent Of Medicare Access: A Structural Vulnerability Framework, Christian D. Chan

Adultspan Journal

Although advances in Medicare legislation provide access for beneficiaries to professional counselors, older LGBTQ+ adults of Color face a litany of concerns that heighten stigma and inhibit their access to mental health services. The structural vulnerability framework identifies multiple domains that support the interface between Medicare coverage and access to care for older LGBTQ+ adults of Color. In this conceptual article, I outline (a) interdisciplinary scholarship that contextualizes the key issues facing older LGBTQ+ adults of Color; (b) the core tenets of the structural vulnerability framework; (c) implications for practice addressing structural vulnerability for older LGBTQ+ adults of Color with …

Using The Gerontological Imagination To Explore Suicide Among Older Adults: An Interdisciplinary Perspective For Professional Counselors, Mary Chase Mize, Afroze Shaikh

Adultspan Journal

Gerontology, the study of aging and older adulthood, is a vast field consisting of many intersecting disciplines, such as medicine, nutrition, public policy, psychology, social work, and professional counseling. As the older adult population rapidly increases, so too will the prevalence of mental health concerns among this population, including risk for suicide. Older adults presently comprise 16.5% of the U.S. population, yet account for 19.3% of all deaths by suicide (Drapeau & McIntosh, 2020). Professional counselors are newly eligible Medicare providers and can close gaps in healthcare access for older adults who rely on Medicare to receive mental health services, …

Providing End-Of-Life Counseling: A Narrative Inquiry, Carol Hecht, Sibyl West

Adultspan Journal

This qualitative study aimed to address the gap in the research related to end-of-life counseling by exploring the experiences of counselors working with clients at end of life. While counseling literature and education are lacking regarding end of life, many counselors will work alongside clients approaching death. The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to better understand the nuanced experiences of counselors providing end-of-life counseling and (b) to explore the supports and preparations helpful for counselors to provide end-of-life counseling. A narrative approach, using the Listening Guide (Gilligan, 2015), was employed to analyze and present the stories of three …

Mental Health Distress And Suicide Risk Among Older Adults Who Receive Nutrition Services Programming: Implications For Licensed Professional Counselors., Brittany R. Jones-Cobb, Jihee Hong, Mary Chase Breedlove Mize, Laura Shannonhouse

Adultspan Journal

Licensed professional counselors (LPCs) are now eligible to provide mental health counseling to older adults as Medicare providers. Many older adults receive home delivered (HDM) and congregate (CM) meal services through the Aging Services Network, though their mental health impact remains under examined. This study compared the mental health and suicide risk of older adults receiving HDM or CM services. Our cross-sectional study of 221 HDM and 150 CM recipients from 2018-2020 found significant group differences in psychological distress, t(366) = 3.28, p = .001, perceived burdensomeness; t(357.31) = 2.77, p = .006, and thwarted belongingness, t(357.96) …

Considerations Of Medicare Telehealth Services With Older Adults, Sonah Kho, Amanda Dediego

Adultspan Journal

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic set in motion a rapid expansion of mental health services offered via telehealth. With this rapid expansion came the need to examine how policy and practice should be shaped in a future where telehealth is considered common in counseling practice. For counselors to understand how to support older adult clients in using telehealth services, they must understand telehealth policy. Following the eligibility of licensed counselors to participate in Medicare, counselors need to stay abreast of regulatory changes regarding restrictions and regulations on use of telehealth for mental and behavioral health services, including video and …

Introduction To The Special Issue On Medicare Inclusion Of Counselors: Preparing The Counseling Workforce To Serve Older Adults, Matthew C. Fullen, Jordan Westcott

Adultspan Journal

Introduction to the special issue on Medicare Inclusion of Counselors: Preparing the Counseling Workforce to Serve Older Adults.

Special Issue Editors:

Matthew Fullen, Virginia Tech

Jordan Westcott, The University of Tennessee-Knoxville

How Do Older Adults Define A Good Death? A Scoping Review, Ellen L. Csikai, Quentin R. Maynard

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

A scoping literature review of the concepts of ‘good death’ and ‘dying well’ among older adults was conducted. The purpose was to identify aspects that older adults specifically considered important in defining a ‘good death’. The search revealed five articles published between 2005 and 2019 that met inclusionary criteria for the review. Primary among the views of the older adults in these studies of a ‘good death’ was the desire to avoid being a burden to families; done so by dying pain-free/peacefully (preferably in sleep) and preparing in advance by involving family in decisions and funeral/estate planning. Family support throughout …

Author Biographical Notes

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

No abstract provided.