Thesis advisor: John P. Christianson / Stress is a risk factor for neuropsychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, yet not all individuals who are exposed to stress develop such disorders. Several factors influence susceptibility versus resilience to the effects of stress, including coping strategy biological sex. A growing body of research in humans has demonstrated that active coping strategies – defined as using available resources to problem solve – are positively correlated with resilience. In rodents, resilience to a potent acute stressor can be achieved through active coping, such as controlling the termination of a stressor, but only in males. During controllable stress males engage a stress mitigating pathway between the prelimbic (PL) and dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), but this pathway isn’t engaged by control in females or when stress is uncontrollable in both sexes. Thus, neural activity within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a critical determinant of stressor-induced anxiety. The mechanism that engage vmPFC excitability are not well understood. Therefore, the goals of the dissertation were 1) determine if eCBs in the PL promote neuronal excitability and behavioral resilience 2) test if ES and IS result in differential activation PL afferents, and will specifically test if ES results in greater activation PL-inputs from action-outcome associated regions, while IS leads to greater engagement of stress/fear inputs to the PL, and 3) identify network-wide patterns of activation and test the hypothesis that the stress and action-outcome networks are differentially activated as a function of stressor controllability and/or sex. We’ve demonstrated that augmenting eCBs in the PL increased excitability through a CB1 and GABA receptor dependent mechanism and was sufficient to block the stress induced decrease in social exploration. Regarding goal 2, PL inputs from the orbitofrontal cortex and DRN were activated in response to stress per se, but were not sensitive to stressor controllability and did not differ between males and females. PL afferents from the basolateral amygdala and mediodorsally thalamus were not sensitive to stress. Lastly, we quantified Fos expression in response to controllable and uncontrollable stress in male and female rats in 24 brain regions associated with stress, action-outcome learning, and showing sex differences in response to stress. Using interregional correlations, we found differences in functional connectivity as a function of stressor controllability and sex when considering all 24 regions and when considering only stress associated regions. Females showed greater overall functional connectivity compared with males, and IS resulted in greater overall connectivity than ES. We also reveal potentially important nodes in functional connectivity networks using centrality measures to identify network hubs. The findings of this research emphasize the need to study differences between males and females across all realms of neuroscience, particularly in relation to disorders of stress and anxiety. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

Role expectations and stressful work environments place nurses at high risk for burnout. Nurses at an urban hospital were experiencing unhealthy work environments and not engaging in self-care to promote health and wellbeing. The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of an existing quality improvement (QI) initiative developed to encourage nurses to engage in self-care. Pender'€™s health promotion model supported the premise that despite barriers, nurses will engage in self-care. A survey elicited responses from 1,248 participating registered nurses on the extent of their engagement with self-care and perceived effect on their health, health knowledge, stress level, and resilience. A chi-square test of independence was used to determine the relationship between participation in unit activities and the participants'€™ health, health knowledge, stress level, and resilience. Thirty-one percent (n = 387) participated and 69% (n = 861) did not participate. No relationship existed between overall participation and the nurses'€™ health, health knowledge, stress level, and resilience. A positive relationship existed between the number of activities and the nurses'€™ health, health knowledge, and stress level. No relationship existed between the number of activities and resilience. Reasons for participation were to improve or maintain health. Barriers included activities not available on all shifts and heavy workload. Recommendations include offering lunch-and-learn educational health programs, offering educational programs to foster resiliency, and offering activities on different shifts. Nurses who engage in self-care have the potential to serve as role models for positive social change for patients, families, and colleagues.

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Burn injury impacts the lives of over 1.1 million people within the United States annually (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2011). Taking into account current advancements in burn trauma care, approximately 95 percent of those hospitalized will survive their injuries. With increased survival rates, greater attention is being focused on the psycho-social aspect of burn treatment and rehabilitation. There is an opportunity for health educators to affect the long-term wellness outcomes of adult burn survivors and to support their growth beyond survival status. This may not constitute recovery to their preinjury lives, but rather recovery to lives closer to optimal health/wellness as opposed to mere acceptance of their current situation. Utilizing a phenomenological qualitative design, this study explored the burn-related experiences and underlying factors of resilience among burn survivors living in the Midwestern United States. After conducting single, semi-structured interviews focused on eight burn survivors' dimensions of health, the themes that emerged through data analysis were "How it Feels," "Somehow I'm Still Me," and "Yet, I'm Better." The findings of this study support the presence of innate resilient protective factors within participants' journey toward recovery and health. Through the experiences of the participants within this study, there is an opportunity for health educators to increase their understanding of the experiences of burn trauma and the impact of resilience on positive recovery outcomes.

Previous studies of resistance in the field of sociology have focused on many types of resistance but have not examined poor women’s resistance in the aftermath of trauma. Psychologists have examined trauma recovery and resilience, but have not examined these topics from an integrated, sociological perspective. In this work, I synthesize current scholarship on resistance from sociology with resilience in psychology and address these existing gaps. Through open-ended, semi-structured interviews with twenty-three women who suffered traumatic life events, I answer the following questions: How do women narrate their rebound from trauma and how do they define those experiences? What are the commonalities in women's narratives of overcoming? How do race, class, sexuality, and poverty intersect to affect resistance and resilience for these women? What themes emerge in women’s discussions of overcoming trauma? What aspects of their trauma recovery involve resistance and resilience? My findings show that women trauma survivors are resilient and resistant in a number of ways: through understood therapeutic means including self-help, support groups, therapy, reading about and watching programs regarding the subject, discussing trauma and recovery with family and friends, using mentors, engaging in positive spirituality, and through creative expression. I found women were resistant in less traditionally understood ways. These include choosing to get help with coping from therapy or support groups against the wishes of loved ones or others due to stigma. Other methods included renaming themselves “survivor”, “thriver”, or reject labels entirely, and creating new, resilient selves. Finally, I found that survivors of traumatic life events often rejected community norms regarding how gender is “done,” by rejecting femininity, eschewing marriage, living as out lesbians, or choosing not to have children. Two unique findings emerged through the data collection. The first was that women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds frequently rejected the idea of victimhood, identified as survivors, or chose no label at all. They narrated their transition from victim to survivor as a sudden choice as opposed to, as the literature suggests, a process. Second, I find that there is a very particular script for coping in women from lower classes which frames traumatic life experiences as, “just part of being a woman.” I find that these frequently women employed a “tough guise” identity to reclaim respect in their low-income communities. I further find that women recreate new, socially valorized identities free from stigma by engaging in prosocial coping.

Background: As obesity continues to be a global epidemic, health professionals continue to search for effective intervention and prevention programs. As suggested early in the 20th century, sport participation creates an environment not only for one to be physically active at a particular moment, but also to cultivate and develop skills necessary to lead a physically active lifestyle across one’s lifespan. Further, sports can provide individuals with an ideal environment to cultivate the psychological constructs of resilience and self-efficacy, traits that can provide them with protective agents that support physical and mental health, thus promoting greater life satisfaction. Purpose: The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to determine the impact of previous high school sport participation on college freshmen’s current levels of exercise self-efficacy, resilience, and psychological need satisfaction in exercise; and (2) to examine relationships between demographic variables and exercise self-efficacy, resilience, and psychological need satisfaction in exercise (PNSE). Methods: A cross-sectional, stratified random sampling technique was employed to collect responses from college freshmen across the country (n = 156) using a SurveyMonkey survey instrument. ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were completed to examine differences, based on demographic and sports participation factors, on the constructs of exercise self-efficacy, resilience, and PNSE. Independent samples t tests were conducted with dichotomous demographic variables. Ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple linear regression modelling was completed to attempt to predict exercise self-efficacy, resilience, and PNSE scores for respondents based upon their demographic and sports participation variables. Results: The results of analyses indicated that both resilience and PNSE, but not self-efficacy, were associated with sports participation. High school GPA, total physical activity, having met moderate PA guidelines, and being a collegiate athlete were each associated with exercise self-efficacy. Furthermore, high school GPA, total physical activity, freshmen standing, and being a collegiate athlete were each associated with resilience. Lastly, total physical activity and moderate PA guidelines met were associated with PNSE. Conclusion: The findings of this study may support sports participation as a way to develop exercise self-efficacy, resilience, and PNSE. Collectively, these findings may support the development of a model for adolescent programming that could include the development of each of these constructs, the implications of which could positively affect both academic and athletic domains.

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop models and solution approaches to identify the critical hierarchies of railroad and surface transportation network infrastructures, and to facilitate re-routing options that will be necessary for traffic management decision makings in the event of a disaster. We focus on building mathematical models for routing/re-routing of traffic considering the congestion effects which are obvious in the disrupted networks due to disaster. Based on these models, the critical hierarchies of infrastructures are determined. For railroad, we develop two different models: the first one considers ‘unit’ train re-routing and the other one considers Train Design approach. For intermodal system, the optimization model facilitates optimal re-routing of traffic using three surface transportation modes: highway, railway and waterway, considering the congestion characteristics of each mode. For the first model of railroad routing, the optimization model optimally routes unit trains based on a minimum cost network flow formulation with nonlinear objective function. The nonlinear objective function is approximated with a piece-wise linear function to make the model computationally tractable. The second model, known as Train Design optimization, is a highly combinatorial and complex optimization problem. The developed model’s computational complexity suggests us to use heuristic solution procedures. We develop a special heuristic algorithm to route the traffic in the congested network. In this heuristic procedure, we divide the problem into two sub-problems (SPs): SP-1 is termed as Block-to-Train Assignment (BTA) problem, and SP-2 is termed as Train Routing (TR) problem. BTA problem provides a feasible solution that includes the minimum number of required trains with the pick-up and drop-off points of the blocks carried by these trains, and TR problem ensures the optimal routing of these trains. Similar to railroad, an optimization model is developed for optimal routing/rerouting of traffic using the intermodal network. It is a mixed integer programming (MIP) problem, which is not practical to solve for real-world problem instances within reasonable amount of time. Linear relaxation to this model provides a very good lower bound closer to optimal solution. Therefore, we implemented our case-study for a realworld intermodal transportation system of five U.S. states.

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