Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Conformational Altered P53 As An Early Marker Of Oxidative Stress In Alzheimer's Disease, Laura Buizza, Giovanna Cenini, Cristina Lanni, Giulia Ferrari-Toninelli, Chiara Prandelli, Stefano Govoni, Erica Buoso, Marco Racchi, Maria Barcikowska, Maria Styczynska, Aleksandra Szybinska, D. Allan Butterfield, Maurizio Memo, Daniela Uberti

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

In order to study oxidative stress in peripheral cells of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, immortalized lymphocytes derived from two peculiar cohorts of patients, referring to early onset AD (EOSAD) and subjects harboured AD related mutation (ADmut), were used. Oxidative stress was evaluated measuring i) the typical oxidative markers, such as HNE Michel adducts, 3 Nitro-Tyrosine residues and protein carbonyl on protein extracts, ii) and the antioxidant capacity, following the enzymatic kinetic of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GRD). We found that the signs of oxidative stress, measured as oxidative marker levels, were evident only in ADmut …

School, Family, And Faith: Social Influences On Educational Outcomes Of Nonmetropolitan Sexual Minority Students, Christopher J. Stapel

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

Social institutions in rural communities tend to be highly interrelated and social ties tend to be dense and multiplex. Human ecological theoretical models posit that all institutions in which an individual is embedded interact in complex ways. As such, this dissertation examines the influences of school, faith, family, and risk contexts on the grade point averages of students who attended school in nonmetropolitan counties in Appalachian Kentucky. Using data disaggregated by gender from nearly 5,000 adolescents, I identified risk and protective factors on grade point averages by attraction type (exclusively opposite-sex attracted, same-sex attracted, and unsure of attraction), identified differences …

Intimate Partner Violence: Implications For The Domestic Relations Practitioner [2012], Carol E. Jordan

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Agbufferbuilder: A Filter Strip Design Tool For Gis, Surendran Neelakantan, Tom Mueller, Michael G. Dosskey, Todd Kellerman, Eduardo Abel Rienzi

Plant and Soil Sciences Research Tools

AgBufferBuilder is a GIS-based computer program for designing vegetative filter strips around agricultural fields that utilizes terrain analysis to account for spatially non-uniform runoff (Figure 1). The core model is derived from the process-based Vegetative Filter Strip Modeling System (VFSMOD-W). A detailed description of the core model and its development is provided in Dosskey et al. (2011). The GIS program runs with ArcGIS (ESRI, Redlands, CA).

Contraception In Adolescents, Donald E. Greydanus, Carolyn M. Lentzsch-Parcells, Hatim A. Omar

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

The age of adolescence is the time when most adolescents in the world begin to be sexually active with resultant millions of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). This chapter considers methods of contraception for these adolescents, including oral contraceptives, transdermal contraception, minipills, intra-vaginal ring, injectable contraception, intrauterine devices (IUDs), barrier contraceptives, implants, and others. It is important for clinicians caring for sexually active youth to provide information regarding contraception and appropriate contraceptive prescriptions.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Stds), Donald E. Greydanus, Jane Seyler, Hatim A. Omar

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

High rates of unprotected sexual behavior in adolescents result in millions of cases of STDs in the world. This chapter reviews factors inducing high STD rates, specific STDs, and their management based on 2010 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) STD guidelines. Clinicians should screen all their sexually active adolescent patients for STDs and provide preventive education as well as treatment measures.

Adolescence And Contraception, Donald E. Greydanus, Carolyn M. Lentzsch-Parcells, Hatim A. Omar, Colleen B. Dodich

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

The age of adolescence is the time when most adolescents in the world become sexually active with resultant millions of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. This paper considers methods of contraception for these adolescents, including oral contraceptions, transdermal contraception, mini-pills, intravaginal ring, injectable contraception, intrauterine devices, barrier contraceptives, implants, and others. It is important for clinicians caring for sexually active youth to provide information regarding contraception and appropriate contraceptive prescriptions.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases In Adolescence, Donald E. Greydanus, Jane Seyler, Hatim A. Omar, Colleen B. Dodich

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

High rates of unprotected sexual behavior in adolescents result in millions of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the world. This paper reviews factors inducing high STD rates, specific STDs, and their management based on 2010 US Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) STD guidelines. Clinicians should screen all their sexually active adolescent patients for STDs and provide preventive education as well as treatment measures.

Child Food Security And The Food Stamp Program: What A Difference A Month Makes, Yiran Li, Bradford Mills, George Davis, Elton Mykerezi

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Most Americans believe that children should not have either persistent concerns about the quality and quantity of food to eat or lack of actual access to food due to low household resources. However, in 2007, approximately 3.3 million households (8.3 percent of households with children) had food insecure children who did not have consistent access to adequate and safe foods (Nord and Golla, 2009). This implies less than complete coverage of children by the food-assistance safety net.

The United States’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), historically and commonly known as the Food Stamp Program (FSP), is a federal-assistance program designed …

Low Income Preschoolers' Non-Parental Care Experiences And Household Food Insecurity, Colleen Heflin, Irma Arteaga, Sara Gable

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

Rates of food insecurity in households with children have significantly increased over the past decade. The majority of children, including those at risk for food insecurity, participate in some form of non-parental child care during the preschool years. To evaluate the relationship between the two phenomenon, this study investigates the effects of child care arrangements on food insecurity in households with children. To address the selection bias problem that arises from the fact that enrollment in different types of child care is not a random process, this study uses propensity scores techniques. The authors compare outcomes across five child care …

Southeastern Law Librarian Special Election Edition 2012-2013, Seaall

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

The Mismangement Of Marital Disclosures In The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, Randi Cariella Campbell

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Reality television is unique from other television programming because its format is less scripted than typical entertainment television programs, but not as candid as documentary style shows. Aspects of cast members’ private lives are publicly aired as “real.” The consequences for airing one’s private life in the public sphere are unclear. This may be especially important to study when the private disclosures reveal activities that may be unethical, immoral, illegal, or abusive. Petronio’s (date) communication privacy management theory was used to examine the martial disclosures that occurred between Taylor and Russell Armstrong, cast members of the reality television show The …

Southeastern Law Librarian Winter 2012, Seaall

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2012, Kenneth R. Troske, Christopher R. Bollinger, Glenn C. Blomquist, Merl Hackbart, Michael T. Childress

Kentucky Annual Economic Report

No abstract provided.

Communication Overload: A Phenomenological Inquiry Into Academic Reference Librarianship, C. Sean Burns, Jenny Bossaller

C. Sean Burns

Purpose – This study aims to provide insight on the meaning of communication overload as experienced by modern academic librarians. Communication is the essence of reference librarianship, and a practically endless array of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (ICTs) are available to facilitate communication. Design/methodology/approach – This study relied on a phenomenological methodology, which included nine in-depth interviews with academic librarians. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using RQDA, a qualitative analysis software package that facilitates coding, category building, and project management. Findings – Seven themes about librarianship emerged from this research: attending to communication abundance, librarians of two types, …

A Library Is Not The Books: An Ethical Obstacle To The Digital Library, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

Casual and thoughtful speakers alike frequently use “library” as though it were the collective noun for “book”: A herd of cows, a murder of crows, a library of books. In practice it matters little whether “book” is understood as a specific physical artifact of ink and paper, or whether it refers more generically to any information-containing entity. The consistent point appears to be that in the presence of a sufficient number of those items, a library necessarily rises into existence.

This implied relationship proves critical to debates over the implications of digital formats for libraries. If libraries are reducible to …

Three Essays On Financial Development, Biniv K. Maskay

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation investigates three separate issues pertaining to a country's financial development. The first essay provides an introduction to the three essays. The second essay examines the combined effect of financial development and human capital on economic growth. While both financial development and human capital are individually positively correlated with growth, the literature has not emphasized their combined effect on growth. In this essay, I analyze the extent to which the effect of financial development on growth depends on a country's level of human capital. Using dynamic panel difference and system GMM, as well as the pooled OLS, I find …

Three Essays On The Role Of Extensive And Intensive Margin In International Trade, Rishav Bista

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the impact of various trade policies on the extensive (new trading relationships) and intensive (increase in trade of existing relationships) margins of trade, whereas past studies have been limited to aggregate trade flows. An inquiry into the extensive and intensive margins of trade reveals that total aggregate trade masks the heterogeneous trade creating effect of policy variables. Furthermore, this dissertation also takes into account the econometric issues that have plagued the traditional empirical model that analyzes the impact of these policies on trade.

The first chapter examines the impact of hosting and …

Essays On The Persistence Of Poverty, T M Tonmoy Islam

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

My dissertation investigates the reasons behind the persistence of income among individuals and US counties. I look at the role of initial conditions in explaining current level of income. In my first essay, I look at how childhood neighborhood conditions affect income of a person. To study persistence, I model income as an autoregressive process where the coefficient on the lagged dependent variable heterogeneous across individuals. In my second essay, I derive a new way to measure chronic poverty, or long term poverty. Current measures of chronic poverty cannot be used to compare improvements of poverty rates over time. Using …

Voter Ideology, Tax Exporting, And State And Local Tax Structure, John M. Foster

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

State and local governments play an important role in financing and delivering public services in the United States. In 2008, state and local governments collected 57 percent of total federal, state, and local revenue (Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, Tax Policy Center, 2009). The decentralization of fiscal responsibility has enabled a high degree of variation in state and local tax structures to emerge. This dissertation presents two empirical studies that extend the positive literature on state and local tax policy.

The extant literature contains evidence of a direct relationship between voter ideology and state and local tax progressivity. However, the …

Fiscal Federalism And Spatial Interactions Among Governments, Longjin Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation examines multiple state and local expenditure categories in the United States to expand understanding of fiscal federalism and spatial interactions among governments. First, the author investigates the relationship between police expenditures and crime rates from a spatial perspective. Both police expenditures and crime rates in one state are found to exhibit a similar pattern to that in neighboring states. Spatial correlation is also detected between police expenditures and crime rates. As police of neighbors in fact deter crime at home, there are positive externalities present among the states. Second, the author conducts new tests on the Leviathan hypothesis, …

Three Essays On The Health Insurance Coverage Of Young Adults, David M. Yaskewich

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation examines the health insurance status of young adults during the transition to adulthood. In a series of three essays, I analyze what happens as young adults reach important milestones and the effects of public policies. The first essay is a descriptive study on how insurance status changes after reaching age 19 and graduating from college. The likelihood of becoming uninsured rises sharply once turning age 19 and then peaks at age 23. While the proportion uninsured also increases following college graduation, this increase disappears after one year. The second essay analyzes the effect of a dependent age law …

Applying Specific Arts Activities To Improve The Quality Of Life For Individuals With Alzheimer’S Disease And Dementia, Ann Christianson Tietyen

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

This study examined the effectiveness of a combination of seven different visual art activities, hat decoration, collage, embossing, painting, ceramics, photography, and printmaking, on quality of life for eight veterans with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The eight veterans were selected from the population of residents at the Thomson‐ Hood Veterans facility in Wilmore, Kentucky. These veterans were administered the seven art activities mentioned above, which ranged from less difficult to increasing difficulty. Three standard self‐reporting instruments, the Quality of Life‐AD, the Rosenberg Self‐Esteem Scale, and the Smiley‐Face Mood Assessment, as well as systematic observation and surveys were used to explore …

Performing Community: The Place Of Music, Race And Gender In Producing Appalachian Space, Deborah J. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Traditional, participatory music is a powerful medium through which people express and shape their ideas about identity, mobility, social relations, and belonging, and through which people are in turn shaped. The everyday cultural practices of playing, sharing, and dancing to traditional music, as well as discussions about the nature of traditional music and production of events involving traditional music, all work to construct the region called Appalachia.

Through this dissertation, I seek to answer some simple questions that have complicated answers involving place, identity, power, and social relations, with economic, social, and emotional ramifications: Who gets to be an Appalachian …

Youth And Adult Perceptions Of Their Relationships Within Community-Based Youth Programs, Kenneth R. Jones, Daniel F. Perkins

Community & Leadership Development Faculty Publications

This study examined perceptions and experiences of youth and adults engaged in various types of community-based youth-adult relationships. Involvement and interaction rating scales were completed by 108 participants involved in community groups from 12 communities in 10 states. The rating scale measured three constructs: youth involvement, adult involvement, and youth- adult interaction. Significant gender differences in participants’ perceptions were found on all three constructs, with females being more positive. Rural participants were found to be significantly more positive than urban participants on the construct of youth involvement. Finally, significant differences were found between all participants within categories of the youth-adult …

Infants’ Perception Of Emotion From Dynamic Body Movements, Nicole R. Zieber

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

In humans, the capacity to extract meaning from another person’s behavior is fundamental to social competency. Adults recognize emotions conveyed by body movements with comparable accuracy to when they are portrayed in facial expressions. While infancy research has examined the development of facial and vocal emotion processing extensively, no prior study has explored infants’ perception of emotion from body movements. The current studies examined the development of emotion processing from body gestures. In Experiment 1, I asked whether 6.5-month-olds infants would prefer to view emotional versus neutral body movements. The results indicate that infants prefer to view a happy versus …

Leading Through Listening: Racial Tensions In 1968 New York, Janice W. Fernheimer

Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Mild Cognitive Impairment: Statistical Models Of Transition Using Longitudinal Clinical Data, Erin L. Abner, Richard J. Kryscio, Gregory E. Cooper, David W. Fardo, Gregory A. Jicha, Marta S. Mendiondo, Peter T. Nelson, Charles D. Smith, Linda J. Van Eldik, Lijie Wan, Frederick A. Schmitt

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) refers to the clinical state between normal cognition and probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), but persons diagnosed with MCI may progress to non-AD forms of dementia, remain MCI until death, or recover to normal cognition. Risk factors for these various clinical changes, which we term "transitions," may provide targets for therapeutic interventions. Therefore, it is useful to develop new approaches to assess risk factors for these transitions. Markov models have been used to investigate the transient nature of MCI represented by amnestic single-domain and mixed MCI states, where mixed MCI comprised all other MCI subtypes based on …

Families With Hungry Children And The Transition From Preschool To Kindergarten, Colleen Heflin, Irma Arteaga, Sara Gable

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

This paper exploits a source of variation in the eligibility for federal nutrition programs to identify the program effects on food insecurity. Children are eligible for the WIC program until the day before they turn 61 months old. The result is an age discontinuity in program participation at the 61-month cutoff. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth-cohort dataset, we find strong evidence of a sizeable increase in household food insecurity at the 61- month cutoff. Our findings are robust to different model specifications, datasets, and various bandwidth choices using various non-parametric estimations.

On Persistent Poverty In A Rich Country, T.M. Tonmoy Islam, Jenny Minier, James P. Ziliak

University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research Discussion Paper Series

We examine differences in income within the U.S., and the regions of persistent poverty that have arisen, using a newly assembled dataset of counties that links historical 19th century Census data with contemporaneous data. The data, along with an augmented human capital growth model, permit us to identify the roles of contemporaneous differences in aggregate production technologies and factor endowments, in conjunction with the historical roles of institutions, culture, geography, and human capital. We allow for possible cross-county factor mobility via a correlated random effects GMM estimator that identifies simultaneously the coefficients on time varying and time-invariant determinants of income. …