Thesis--University of Oklahoma. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-80).

Background During pregnancy, a healthy diet is beneficial for the expecting mother and her fetus. Midwives in antenatal care have an ideal position for promoting a healthy diet and thereby help women to not only lower the risks of pregnancy complications and adverse birth outcomes, but improve maternal health. The overall aim of this thesis was to describe diet and dietary changes during pregnancy from the women’s and the midwives’ perspectives with a focus on dietary counseling. The thesis comprises four studies. The specific aims in the respective studies were to: I) Describe pregnant women’s attitudes to and experiences of dietary information and advice, as well as dietary management during pregnancy. II) Explore midwives’ strategies in challenging dietary counseling situations. III) Describe how midwives’ perceive their role and their significance in dietary counseling of pregnant women.  IV) Describe women’s food habits during pregnancy and up to six months postpartum. Methods Studies I-III were qualitative. Study I included focus group interviews with 23 pregnant women. Study II included telephone interviews with 17 experienced midwives working in Swedish antenatal health care. Study III included the same 17 interviews from study II and supplemented them with four face-to-face-interviews. Qualitative content analysis was performed in all three studies. Study IV was a longitudinal study including a quantitative analysis of a questionnaire, which was given to women at five occasions during and after pregnancy. It concerned their food habits and it was answered by 163 women. The quantitative data was analyzed using comparative and descriptive statistics. Results The overall findings of the thesis were summarized as the main theme “Pregnant women and midwives are not in tune with each other about dietary counseling”. The main theme included the two themes ‘Pregnant women are concerned about risks for their child but fail to change to healthier dietary habits over time’, and ‘Midwives view themselves as authorities, though questioned ones’. In subthemes it was highlighted that pregnant women are well informed and interested in risk reduction for their child’s best and that they try to do their best to improve their diet during pregnancy. However, their diet did not reach levels of healthy eating recommendations and became even unhealthier after pregnancy. It was also highlighted that midwives experienced insufficient knowledge in dietary issues and related risks and that they had difficulties to give dietary support to pregnant women. Midwives were found to mainly focus on giving information and they lacked sufficient competence for challenging counseling. Conclusion Pregnant women, on the one hand, experience a lack of support from the midwives when dealing with dietary changes. The midwives, on the other hand, feel exposed and express a need for both further education in dietary issues and training in counseling. Women’s food habits during, but in particular after pregnancy need improvement, and dietary counseling could be more focused on healthy eating in a long-term perspective. / <p>Felaktigt ISSN angivet i avhandlingen och på spikbladet.</p>

The Papanicolaou Smear is a screening test which detects premalignant lesions of the uterine cervix. By treating these lesions, cervical cancer can be evaded. In 1988, a cytological diagnosis which communicated a state of uncertainty in the atypicality of cervical cells was first created in the Bethesda Cytology Classification scheme. This diagnosis is now known as atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) and still little is known about its natural history. / This paper analyzes the results of a longitudinal study incorporating repeated regular measurements of viral and cytological endpoints as well as lifestyle and behavioural aspects, to understand the natural history of an ASC-US Pap smear and identify determinants of ASC-US acquisition and clearance. / Overall, the median duration of ASC-US is short, and is dependent on the definition of clearance since most lesions regress to normal. The factors most predictive of ASC-US acquisition but not clearance relate to HPV infection.

The aim of this dissertation was to examine how Japanese learners of English in the United States developed their interpretation of antecedents of reflexive pronouns and their understanding of the direction of verb gapping in English over time. The two properties in question operate differently in English and Japanese, and neither property is normally taught. Therefore, the acquisition of these properties of English by Japanese learners sheds light on the role of Universal Grammar (UG) in second language acquisition (SLA).Fourteen Japanese learners answered three questionnaires, each containing a test assessing reflexives (the Binding Test) and a test assessing verb gapping (the Gapping Test) at three different times, approximately 12 weeks apart from each other. In addition, three groups of 20 native speakers of English provided their results on the same questionnaires.The overall performance of the learners on the Binding Test started out significantly inferior to that of native speakers, and it did not reach the level of native speakers in later sessions. In contrast, the overall performance of the learners on the Gapping Test started out as good as that of native speakers, and it maintained the same level relative to the native performance in later sessions. Furthermore, the overall performance of the learners in later sessions was not significantly better than that in earlier sessions. These findings seem to suggest that increased time spent in an English-speaking environment did not have any effects on the learners' acquisition of the two properties. However, when performance by subset was considered, significant improvement was observed.Examination of individual patterns of responses revealed that the learners showed the patterns consistent to English, Japanese, and even other languages and that some of the learners who previously showed a pattern other than the English pattern successfully demonstrated the English pattern in later sessions. These findings constitute evidence for the view that parameter-resetting is possible in SLA.The dissertation also includes discussion of the test instrument and explanation of the data in the light of recent theoretical predictions. The concluding chapter offers pedagogical implications as well as suggestions for future UG-based SLA research. / Department of English

Recent work in the area of retail financial services marketing almost invariably cite the deregulation of national and international financial markets as a major reason as to why financial institutions have a need for better knowledge of their customers' behaviors and needs. Among the most sought-after information are better ways to segment and target the market, that is, how do groups of households behave with regards to their savings and investments, why do they behave in certain ways, how can we reach them and how do they respond to marketing activities? In this thesis we will attempt to shed light on some salient aspects of the first two of these four questions.Three of the papers in this volume are based on the segmentation of the market for retail financial services based on different financial strategies, as expressed in households' portfolio choices. In the first two papers, such behavioral segmentation is carried out on data from samples of Swedish and Dutch households. Issues concerning the stability of segmentation over time are also highlighted. The third paper is also focused on the concept of heterogeneity, but this time as expressed by different agents within the individual household, the question being whether the marketing researcher needs to collect data from both spouses in family households. In the fourth paper behavioral segments are used as domains to examine differences in human intertemporal discounting. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

[Truncated abstract] Asthma is a chronic and complex disorder and despite our increase in the understanding of the genetics, pathology and mechanisms underlying asthma a gold standard definition of asthma does not exist. A criterion for recognising and diagnosing asthma in epidemiological studies is crucial in order to determine risk factors for disease. Prospective longitudinal birth cohort studies have increased our understanding of the natural history and risk factors for asthma, yet we are still not able to accurately predict which children will go on to have asthma as adults. It is during the transition from childhood to adolescence where factors underlying asthma change and the prevalence of asthma shifts between the sexes. There are inconsistencies regarding risk factors for the development and persistence of disease during this transitional period. Risk factors predicting the development and persistence of asthma and intermediate phenotypes (BHR, airway inflammation and atopy) may be influenced by gender and risk factors predicting disease may differ between childhood and adolescence. Aims 1. To identify risk factors for Asthma, BHR and Atopy at 14yrs of age. 2. To determine risk factors for persistence of asthma between 6 and 14 years. 3. To examine the influence of gender on risk factors during adolescence. Method The West Australian Pregnancy Cohort is a longitudinal birth cohort. The cohort initially consisted of 2868 live births with follow-ups at 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10 and 14 years of V age. ... Strong associations were seen with BHR and new diagnosis of wheeze and asthma in VI teenagers. Interestingly having either a cat or dog inside was protective for persistence of disease; in particular stronger associations were seen in teenage girls not in boys. During this transitional period the risk factors for asthma and intermediate phenotypes differ between the sexes. Different mechanisms are likely to be involved in determining asthma in boys and girls during adolescence and shed new light on the recognised switch in the gender balance in asthma prevalence from the male predominance in childhood to the female predominance in adult life. Our understanding of the natural course of disease from the prenatal period to adulthood and the identification of the various asthma phenotypes has the potential to change prognosis and planning of therapeutic strategies. Identifying those at high risk for persistence of disease in the early stages of life will allow therapeutic interventions to be more appropriately targeted.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Biostatistics) -- University of Colorado Denver, 2008. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-119). Free to UCD Anschutz Medical Campus. Online version available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations;

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Feb 13, 2009). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--University of Oklahoma. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-115).

Objetivo: Analisar a influência dos cuidados maternos percebidos pelas mães sobre a frequência de aleitamento materno e aleitamento materno exclusivo, aos 3 e 6 meses de vida da criança em uma amostra expostas a diferentes ambientes intrauterinos. Métodos: Estudo observacional longitudinal, utilizando uma amostra de conveniência de mães e seus recém-nascidos, no qual os grupos foram classificados de acordo com as exposições maternas ocorridas no período gestacional, como diabetes mellitus, tabagismo ou desfecho do recém-nascido, como pequeno para idade gestacional, além de um grupo controle. Para algumas análises, os grupos em estudo foram subdivididos em grupo de condições intrauterinas adversas e grupo controle. A amostra foi selecionada em três hospitais de Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, no período de 2011 a 2015. As mães e seus recém-nascidos foram avaliados ao nascimento, 7 e 15 dias, primeiro, terceiro e sexto mês de vida da criança. O aleitamento materno e o aleitamento materno exclusivo foram avaliados desde a entrevista do 15º dia até a entrevista do sexto mês de vida. Os questionários Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), que avalia a percepção dos cuidados maternos e Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), que avalia a presença de sintomas depressivos após o parto, foram autoaplicados na entrevista do terceiro mês. Os testes utilizados foram ANOVA com post hoc de Tukey, teste Kruskal-Wallis com post hoc de Dunn, ANOVA de duas vias, ANCOVA e a Regressão de Poisson. As análises foram realizadas no programa Statistical Package for the Social Sciences versão 18.0. Resultados: A amostra foi composta de 212 duplas mãe/criança, 40 no grupo de mães com diabetes mellitus, 55 no grupo de tabagistas, 21 no grupo de nascidos pequenos para idade gestacional e 96 no grupo controle. A associação entre cuidado materno e amamentação entre os grupos em estudo mostrou que as mães que não praticavam mais o aleitamento materno no 3º mês de vida da criança apresentaram maiores escores na percepção de proteção e menores escores na percepção de cuidados maternos do que aquelas crianças que estavam em aleitamento materno exclusivo (p=0,038; p=0,017, respectivamente). O grupo controle apresentou maior escore na percepção de cuidados e menor escore na percepção de proteção materna em relação ao grupo de ambientes intrauterinos adversos (p=0,005, p=0,049, respectivamente). Em relação aos resultados da análise de regressão de Poisson entre amamentação, grupos, PBI e EPDS os dados mostram que, a cada um ponto a mais no protocolo de EPDS, o risco de não amamentar até 3 meses aumenta em 10,4% e até os 6 meses aumenta em 4,7% (p<0,001 e 0,004, respectivamente). Em relação ao aleitamento materno exclusivo, a cada um ponto a mais no protocolo de EPDS, o risco de não amamentar até 6 meses aumenta em 5,4% (p=0,002). As puérperas que perceberam restrição de carinho de suas mães aos 6 meses, apresentaram risco de 2,42% em relação à categoria de cuidado ótimo para não amamentar. Aquelas mães que perceberam suas mães como negligentes, apresentaram tendência de maior risco de 2,53% em relação à categoria de cuidado ótimo para não amamentar aos 6 meses de vida da criança. Conclusão: Os achados deste estudo sugerem que o estilo parental de baixo cuidado e de superproteção percebidos durante a infancia, interfere na frequencia do aleitamento materno e leva a sintomas depressivos após o parto. Demonstram, ainda, que os sintomas depressivos maternos após o parto influencia na frequencia da amamentação. / Objective: To analyze the influence of maternal care perceived by mothers on the frequency of breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding at 3 and 6 months of the child's life in a sample exposed to different intrauterine environments. Methods: A longitudinal observational study used a convenience sample of mothers and their newborns. They were classified according to maternal exposure occurring during pregnancy, such as diabetes mellitus, smoking or outcome newborn, the small for gestational age, and a control group. For some analyzes, the study groups were divided into two groups: the group of adverse intrauterine conditions and control group. The recruitment of participants was in three hospitals in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, from 2011 to 2015. The mothers and their newborns were evaluated at the newborns birth, 7 and 15 days, first, third and sixth month of child’s life. Breastfeeding and exclusive breastfeeding was evaluated from the 15th day to the sixth month of life, through questionnaires. The Parental Bonding Instrument questionnaires (PBI), which evaluates the perception of maternal care and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), to assess the presence of depressive symptoms after delivery, were self-administered in the third month interview. The statistical tests used were ANOVA one-way with post hoc Tukey, Kruskal-Wallis test with post hoc Dunn, The two-way ANOVA, ANCOVA test and Poisson regression. Analyzes were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 18.0. Results: The sample was composed of 212 mothers with their child, 40 pairs in the diabetes mellitus group, 55 in the smokers group, 21 in small for gestational age group and 96 in the control group. The association between maternal care and breastfeeding among study groups showed that mothers who no longer practiced breastfeeding in the 3rd month of the child's life had higher scores in the perception of protection and lower scores in the perception of maternal care than those children who were in exclusive breastfeeding (p = 0.038, p = 0.017, respectively). The control group had higher scores of perceived care and lower perception of maternal protection in relation to the adverse intrauterine environment group (p=0.005, p=0.049, respectively). Regarding the results of the Poisson regression analysis between breastfeeding groups, PBI, and EPDS data show that each additional point on the EPDS protocol, the risk of not breastfeeding up to 3 months increased by 10.4% and up 6 months increases by 4.7% (p <0.001 and 0.004, respectively). Compared with exclusive breastfeeding, each additional point on the EPDS protocol, the risk of not breastfeeding up to 6 months increased by 5.4% (p = 0.002). The mothers realized that restriction affection from their mothers at 6 months had a risk of 2.42% compared to the great care category to not breastfeed. Those mothers who perceived their mothers as negligent tended to increase the risk of 2.53% compared to the great care category for not breastfeeding at 6 months of child's life. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that low care and overprotection parenting style perceived during childhood, interfere with the frequency of breastfeeding and leads to depressive symptoms after delivery. They also demonstrated those maternal depressive symptoms after birth influences breastfeeding frequency.