Institutions of higher learning across the United States are experiencing an aging faculty population. A significant proportion of college and university faculty are over 55, a growth expected to continue in future years. Parallel to this growth and change has been an expanding use of technology in higher education. Despite this trend and potential implications, few studies have provided in-depth insight into older faculty and technology. The study used a quantitative descriptive design to provide a comprehensive look at older community college faculty and various aspects of technology. Areas examined included older faculty's perceptions of technology, their attitudes toward institutional technology support and professional development, and their self-reported use of technology. Further, the study determined if older faculty reported existence of barriers preventing technology use and explored perceived technology and technology related needs. A 120-item questionnaire and cover letter was mailed to full-time faculty at five Florida community colleges. Respondents included 246 full-time faculty members; older faculty (age 55 and over) comprised 40.7% of the population sample. Descriptive and inferential statistical procedures were employed for data analysis. Overall technology use among older faculty was slightly less than younger faculty; older faculty were no less likely than younger respondents to use technology. Both age groups used similar technologies and reported equivalent degrees of perceived skill with those technologies. Despite similarities in perceived technology use, older faculty considered technology a minor source of stress. Younger and older faculty were positive about their institution's support services and expressed similar technology related needs, including additional professional development and classrooms equipped with Internet/network access, audio/visual technologies, instructor computer stations, and multi-media projection capabilities. Principally, the technological divide between younger and older faculty seems less striking than some have previously contended. Technology use and proficiency appear to vary widely across age groups. Older and younger respondents also had positive perceptions of technology. Findings suggest community colleges are serving adequately the technology needs of faculty. Recommendations for future research include broadening the population of community college faculty and exploring technology use among older four-year and university faculty.

While men retain the highest rates of incarcerations, the female prison population has tripled in the last decade (Covington, 2007; Henderson, 1998). The goal of this study was to examine micro-level forces, such as social support, substance use, and childhood trauma, in a sample of 188 recently incarcerated women, aged 18-58. Using an ANOVA with ages grouped 18-29, 30-39, and 40-58, age differences in substance use were identified, with the 30-39 year old group reporting more alcohol and drug use than the 18-29 year old group. There were no age differences on social support or childhood trauma. Multiple regression analyses revealed that older age and less social support predicted more alcohol use and older age alone predicted drug use. These results illustrate a need for deeper exploration of these micro forces across the life course of incarcerated women and the need for age-specific programs with at-risk populations to address different use patterns.

Syftet med studien var att testa om det fanns åldersgruppsskillnader, könsskillnader, samt om ålder och kön hade interaktionseffekter när det gäller emotionell intelligens  och autobiografiskt minne mellan manliga (n=106) och kvinnliga (n=231)studenter på Örebro Universitet är från 18 till 45 år(n=299). Data samlades via emotionell intelligensens enkätformulär Andrew m.fl. (2010) och Waldfogel (1948) autobiografiska minnens test. Det fanns inga könsskillnader och åldersgruppsskillnader i total emotionell intelligens, men det fanns interaktion mellan kön och ålder det vill säga att ålder och kön hade effekter på varandra. Det fanns könsskillnader i totala autobiografiska minnen då flera kvinnor rapporterade autobiografiska minnen än män, men det fanns inga åldersgruppsskillnader. Ålder och kön hade inte effekter på varandra när det gäller autobiografiska minnen.  Det fanns inga skillnader mellan grupperna som rapporterade låg, medel och hög autobiografiskt minne och emotionell intelligens. / The purpose of this study was to test whether there were age differences, gender differences, and if the age and gender had interaction effect on each other when it comes to groups’ emotional intelligence and autobiographical memories. The participants were male (n = 106), women (n = 231) students at Örebro University who were from 18 to 45 years (n = 299). The students responded to emotional intelligence, short version of the Andrew et al. (2010) and Waldfogel (1948) autobiographical memories test. There were no gender differences and age differences in overall emotional intelligence, but there was an interaction between gender and age meaning that gender and age had effects on each other when it comes to students' emotional intelligences. There were gender differences in the overall autobiographical memories meaning that women reported several autobiographical memories than men in the study, but there were no age differences. Age and gender had no effects on each other in terms of autobiographical memories. There were no differences in autobiographical memories among those who reported low, medium and high emotional intelligence. There were no differences in emotional intelligence between those who reported low, medium and high autobiographical memories.

Este trabalho investigou processos metamnemônicos de monitoramento e controle, bem como conhecimento e desempenho de memória em diversas condições. O Capítulo I apresenta um paradigma experimental de aprendizado associativo de pares de palavras para avaliação da metamemória. No Capítulo II observou-se que julgamentos de aprendizagem (JOL) tardios foram mais precisos do que imediatos, porém apenas para adultos jovens, em comparação a adultos de idade intermediária. Adultos jovens contaram mais com seus JOLs e seu desempenho de memória prévios para alocação de tempo de estudo (STA), porém apenas na condição JOLs tardios. No Capítulo III, os grupos de pacientes pós-acidente vascular cerebral e controles não se diferenciaram significativamente quanto ao funcionamento metamnemônico. Contudo, uma análise de séries de casos revelou heterogeneidade dos casos e associações e dissociações funcionais entre memória e metamemória, além de uma dissociação dupla entre monitoramento e controle de memória, indicando que lesões à esquerda comprometem o monitoramento, enquanto lesões à direita o controle. / This work investigated metamemory processes of memory monitoring, control, as well as memory knowledge and performance in several conditions. Chapter I presents a paired-words associative learning experimental paradigm to assess metamemory. In Chapter II we observed that delayed judgements of learning (JOLs) were more accurate than immediate JOLs, however only for young adults compared to intermediate age adults. Young adults relied more on theirs previous JOLs and memory performance for the allocation of study-time (STA), though only in the delayed JOLs condition. In Chapter III a group analysis showed no significant differences for metamnemônic measures between stroke patients and controls. Nevertheless, a case series analysis revealed inter-case heterogeneity and functional associations and dissociations between memory and metamemory, in addition to a double dissociation between memory monitoring and control, which suggested that left hemisphere lesions impair the monitoring while right hemisphere lesions impair the control.

Perceptual bi/multi-stability—the phenomenon in which perceptual awareness switches between alternative interpretations of a stimulus—can be elicited by a large range of stimuli. The phenomenon is explored in vision, audition, touch, and even olfaction. The degree to which perceptual switching across visual and auditory bi/multi-stable paradigms depends on common or separate mechanisms remains unanswered. This main question was addressed in the current work by using four ambiguous tasks that give rise to bi/multi-stability and which are thought to involve rivalry at different levels of cognitive processing: auditory streaming and ambiguous-structure-from-motion (low- level tasks), and verbal transformations and ambiguous figures (high-level tasks). It was also investigated if individual differences in executive function (inhibitory control and set-shifting), creativity and personality traits have common relationships with perceptual switching in adults and children. A series of five experiments (four studies) were conducted. In Study 1 (two experiments), perceptual switching behaviour of adult participants was examined in the four perceptual tasks mentioned above. In Experiment 1, participants reported higher switching rates for the ambiguous figure and verbal transformations than for ambiguous motion and auditory streaming. However, in Experiment 2 participants had a higher switching rate in verbal transformations than in auditory streaming, while the switching rates in the two visual tasks did not differ significantly. The correlations between visual and auditory switching rates were similarly inconclusive: in Experiment 1, no cross-modal correlations emerged, while in Experiment 2 there were correlations between ambiguous figure and verbal transformations and between ambiguous motion and verbal transformation. Furthermore, inhibitory control, set-shifting, and creativity correlated with perceptual ii switching rates in some of the perceptual tasks, although not in a consistent manner. In Study 2, the development of perceptual switching was investigated in children in the same four tasks used in Study 1. Findings showed that the number of switches increased with age in all four perceptual tasks, indicating general maturational developments. Executive functions and creativity were not associated with the ongoing perceptual switching, which was similar to what was found in adults. In Study 3, a neuroscientific perturbation approach was used to investigate whether the superior parietal cortex is causally involved in both visual and auditory multistability as a top-down mechanism. Transcranial magnetic stimulation on the anterior and posterior superior parietal cortex did not increase or decrease the median phase durations in response to the ambiguous motion and auditory streaming. These regions were not causally involved in either visual or auditory multistability. Perceptual switching across modalities correlated nevertheless, indicating common perceptual mechanisms. In Study 4, the effects of attentional control and instructions were further investigated in ambiguous motion and auditory streaming. There were strong correlations between perceptual switching in the two tasks, confirming that there are common mechanisms. However, the effects of voluntary attention did not explain the commonalities found. Possibly the commonalities found reflect similar functionalities at more low-level sensorial mechanisms. In conclusion, perceptual switching in vision and audition share common mechanisms. These commonalities do not seem to be due to the same neural underpinning in parietal cortex. Moreover, attentional control does not explain the commonalities found, indicating a more low-level common mechanism or functionality. Perceptual switching across all ages is task-specific, more than modality specific. No central influence of inhibitory control and creativity was constantly associated with perceptual switching regardless of task/modality, supporting the distributed mechanisms hypothesis.

Este trabalho investigou processos metamnemônicos de monitoramento e controle, bem como conhecimento e desempenho de memória em diversas condições. O Capítulo I apresenta um paradigma experimental de aprendizado associativo de pares de palavras para avaliação da metamemória. No Capítulo II observou-se que julgamentos de aprendizagem (JOL) tardios foram mais precisos do que imediatos, porém apenas para adultos jovens, em comparação a adultos de idade intermediária. Adultos jovens contaram mais com seus JOLs e seu desempenho de memória prévios para alocação de tempo de estudo (STA), porém apenas na condição JOLs tardios. No Capítulo III, os grupos de pacientes pós-acidente vascular cerebral e controles não se diferenciaram significativamente quanto ao funcionamento metamnemônico. Contudo, uma análise de séries de casos revelou heterogeneidade dos casos e associações e dissociações funcionais entre memória e metamemória, além de uma dissociação dupla entre monitoramento e controle de memória, indicando que lesões à esquerda comprometem o monitoramento, enquanto lesões à direita o controle. / This work investigated metamemory processes of memory monitoring, control, as well as memory knowledge and performance in several conditions. Chapter I presents a paired-words associative learning experimental paradigm to assess metamemory. In Chapter II we observed that delayed judgements of learning (JOLs) were more accurate than immediate JOLs, however only for young adults compared to intermediate age adults. Young adults relied more on theirs previous JOLs and memory performance for the allocation of study-time (STA), though only in the delayed JOLs condition. In Chapter III a group analysis showed no significant differences for metamnemônic measures between stroke patients and controls. Nevertheless, a case series analysis revealed inter-case heterogeneity and functional associations and dissociations between memory and metamemory, in addition to a double dissociation between memory monitoring and control, which suggested that left hemisphere lesions impair the monitoring while right hemisphere lesions impair the control.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad som motiverar olika åldersgrupper till att utföra gymträning. De valda åldersgrupperna var 16–21, 22–26 och 27–35. För att besvara syftet använde sig studien av två frågeställningar som handlade om hur deltagarna motiveras av samhällets kroppsideal och aktuella hälsotrender. Metoden som användes för undersökningen var en webbenkät med totalt 20 frågor varav 4 var öppna frågor. I undersökningen deltog totalt 56 personer med en jämn fördelning mellan alla grupper. Resultatet från denna studie visade att samtliga åldersgrupper blev motiverade till att gymträna för att de tycker att det är roligt och för att förbättra sin fysik. Åldersgruppen 16–21 var den grupp som var minst nöjda med sina kroppar och påverkades mest negativt av sociala medier även om alla åldersgrupper påverkades. Sociala medier visade sig även vara den största kanalen för hälsotrendernas spridning. Förslag på Vidare forskning är att se i hur stor utsträckning individers träning och hälsa påverkas av media och sociala medier. Ett annat förslag på vidare forskning skulle även kunna vara att undersöka om individers motiv till träning påverkas av hur länge individen varit fysisk aktiv.

Although Lyme disease is the most frequently reported vector-borne illness in the United States, recent evidence from the CDC suggests that Lyme disease incidence in the United States may be much higher than reported. Lyme disease symptoms can be mistaken for a wide variety of diseases, which can complicate the diagnosis. To date, no diagnostic criteria analysis has been conducted examining the association between sociodemographic variables (sex and age) and seasonality of infection with the severity and symptomology found in Lyme disease cases. Using the CDC's outbreak investigation model, a primary case/control study was conducted using the ROSS Scale to collect data. Comparisons were made between a Lyme disease-diagnosed group (n = 203) and a convenience sample of non-Lyme disease patients (n = 388). Novel symptom patterns were found to significantly predict a diagnosis of Lyme disease. Odds ratio results revealed a positive association between musculoskeletal (OR = 11; 95% CI), neurological (OR = 12; 95% CI), cognitive (OR = 10; 95% CI), and cutaneous (OR = 144; 95% CI) symptoms frequency and severity and the diagnosis of Lyme disease. In addition, overall symptom frequency and severity scores displayed significant differences between cases and controls, between males and females, and among certain age groups. No correlation was found between symptom frequency and severity with the seasonality of infection. Current diagnostic tools search for antibodies to the Borrelia bacteria, but antibody production takes a few weeks. The results of this study help identify at-risk patients based on the presentation and severity of Lyme disease symptoms when antibodies are not present in measureable quantities in the blood stream, allowing for earlier diagnosis.

Nurse shortages and nurse turnover are major issues in the health care industry. As 4 generations of nurses are working side by side for the first time in history in the health care industry, nurse leaders need to understand the generational differences in order to bridge the gap on retaining the nurses in the workforce. The primary focus of this applied dissertation study was to explore and obtain the lived experiences of leading the nursing intergenerational cohorts, as well as the strategies that nurse leaders or nurse managers can utilize to meritoriously attract, retain, and motivate the generational nursing workforce. The Leadership Questionnaire, designed in 2008 by Dr. Nelson, was utilized to interview 5 nurse administrators of the phenomenon to comprehend how the health care nurse administrators can utilize productive techniques of leading the nursing generational cohorts. The target population was members of a professional long-term care association. Once the nurse administrators agreed to participate on the study and signed the consent form, the researcher scheduled an initial 45-minute interview of three 15- to 30-minute interviews over a 3-month period. The data collected as a result of this study revealed findings: (a) the intergenerational educational gap in the nursing workforce, (b) the needs of the intergenerational nurses, (c) the critical aspect of continuing of professional education training development for the nurses, and (d) the critical leadership values on leading the intergenerational nursing cohorts. This applied research study dissertation intended to assist nurse leaders to reframe perceptions regarding the nurses’ intergenerational group (e.g., Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y) differences and to view these differences in attitudes and behaviors as potential strengths.

Recent technological developments have ushered in an exciting era for collaborative robots (cobots), which can operate in close proximity with humans, sharing and supporting task goals. While there is increasing research on the biomechanical and ergonomic consequences of using cobots, there is relatively little work on the potential motor-cognitive demand associated with these devices. These cognitive demands primarily stem from the need to form accurate internal (mental) models of robot behavior, while also dealing with the intrinsic motor-cognitive demands of physical co-manipulation tasks, and visually monitoring the environment to ensure safe operation. The primary aim of this work was to investigate the viability of eye-tracking measures for characterizing mental workload during the use of cobots, while accounting for the potential effects of learning, task-type, expertise, and age-differences. While eye-tracking is gaining traction in surgical/rehabilitation robotics domains, systematic investigations of eye tracking for studying interactions with industrial cobots are currently lacking. We conducted three studies in which participants of different ages and expertise levels learned to perform upper- and lower-limb tasks using a dual-armed cobot and a whole-body powered exoskeleton respectively, over multiple trials. Robot-control difficulty was manipulated by changing the joint impedance on one of the robot arms (for the dual-armed cobot). The first study demonstrated that when individuals were learning to interact with a dual-armed cobot to perform an upper-limb co-manipulation task simulated in a virtual reality (VR) environment, pupil dilation (PD) and stationary gaze entropy (SGE) were the most sensitive and reliable measures of mental workload. A combination of eye-tracking measures predicted performance with greater accuracy than experimental task variables. Measures of visual attentional focus were more sensitive to task difficulty manipulations than typical eye-tracking workload measures, and PD was most sensitive to changes in workload over learning. The second study showed that compared to walking freely, walking while using a complex whole-body powered exoskeleton: a) increased PD of novices but not experts, b) led to reduced SGE in both groups and c) led to greater downward focused gaze (on the walking path) in experts compared to novices. In the third study using an upper-limb co-manipulation task similar to Study 1, we found that the PD of younger adults reduced at a faster rate over learning, compared to that of older adults, and older adults showed a significantly greater drop in gaze transition entropy with an increase in task difficulty, compared to younger adults. Also, PD was sensitive to learning and robot-difficulty but not environmental-complexity (collisions with objects in the task environment), and gaze-behavior measures were generally more sensitive to environmental-complexity. This research is the first to conduct a comprehensive analysis of mental workload in physical human-robot interaction using eye-tracking measures. PD was consistently found to show larger effects over learning, compared to task difficulty. Gaze-behavior measures quantifying visual attention towards environmental areas of interest were found to show relatively large effects of task difficulty and should continue to be explored in future research. While walking in a powered exoskeleton, both novices and experts exhibited compensatory gaze strategies. This finding highlights potentially persistent effects of using cobots on visual attention, with potential implications to safety and situational awareness. Older adults were found to apply greater mental effort (indicated by sustained PD) and followed more constrained gaze patterns in order to maintain similar levels of performance to younger adults. Perceived workload measures could not capture these age-differences, thus highlighting the advantages of eye-tracking measures. Lastly, the differential sensitivity of pupillary- and gaze behavior metrics to different types of task demands highlights the need for future research to employ both kinds of measures for evaluating pHRI. Important questions for future research are the potential sensitivity of eye-tracking workload measures over long-term adaptations to cobots, and the potential generalizability of eye-tracking measures to real-world (non-VR) tasks. / Doctor of Philosophy / Collaborative robots (cobots) are an exciting and novel technology that may be used to assist human workers in manual industrial work, reduce physical demand, and potentially enable older adults to re-enter the workforce. However, relatively little is known about the potential cognitive demands that cobots may impose on the human user. Although intended to assist humans, some cobots have been found to be difficult to use, because of the time and effort that is needed to learn their control dynamics (i.e. to learn how to physically control them to perform a complex manual task). Thus, it is important to better understand the potential mental demand/workload that a human operator may experience, while using a cobot, and how this demand may vary over time and learning to use the cobot. Eye-tracking is a promising technique to measure a cobot-operators' mental workload, since it can provide various measures that correlate with the involuntary physiological response to mental workload (e.g. pupil dilation - PD), as well as voluntary gaze strategies (e.g. the durations and patterns of where people look) in order to perform a physical/motor task. Eye-tracking measures may be used to continuously and precisely evaluate whether a cobot imposes excessive workload on the human operator, and if high workload is observed, the cobot may be programmed to adapt its behavior to reduce workload. Although eye-tracking is gaining traction in surgical/rehabilitation robotics domains, systematic investigations of eye tracking for studying interactions with industrial cobots are currently lacking. We designed three studies in which we investigated 1) the ability of eye-tracking measures to measure changes in mental workload while participants learned to use a cobot under different difficulty-levels 2) the changes in pupil diameter and gaze behavior when participants walked while wearing a whole-body powered exoskeleton as opposed to walking freely, and potential differences between novice- and expert exoskeleton-users 3) the differences in mental workload and visual attention between younger and older adults while learning to use a cobot. The first and third studies used virtual reality (VR) to simulate the task environment, to allow for precise control over the presentation of stimuli. In study 1, we found that in higher difficulty-levels, participants' pupils were significantly more dilated, i.e., participants experienced higher mental workload, than in lower-difficulty levels. Also, PD gradually reduced as participants learned to better perform the task. In difficult task-conditions, participants gazed more frequently at the robot, and showed higher randomness (entropy) in their gaze patterns. The proportion of gaze falling on certain objects was at least as sensitive an indicator of task-difficulty, as PD and gaze entropy. In study 2, we found that walking in a whole-body exoskeleton was cognitively demanding, but only for novice participants. However, both novice and expert participants showed changes in their gaze patterns while walking in the exoskeleton – both groups lowered their gaze and focused on the walking path to a greater extent, compared to walking freely. Lastly, in study 3, we also found that older adults applied greater mental effort for maintaining similar levels of performance as younger adults. Older adults also exhibited more repetitive scanning patterns compared to younger adults, when task difficulty increased. This may have been due to potential reduction in the capacity to control attention with age. Our work demonstrates that eye-tracking measures are sensitive and reliable metrics of workload, and that different metrics are sensitive to different sources of workload. Specifically, PD was sensitive to robot-difficulty, and measures of visual attention were generally more sensitive to the complexity of the task environment. Important questions for future research are the potential changes in eye-tracking workload measures over longer time periods of learning to use cobots, and how these results generalize to real-world tasks that are not performed in virtual reality.