The major problem of this study is an investigation, by means of a time-sampling technique, the relationship between social behavior and social acceptance as determined by a sociometric technique.

The outbreak of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is one of the largest public health challenges in history. South Africa disproportionately bears the burden of HIV infections with an estimated 7.7-million people living with HIV. Although a comprehensive treatment and prevention program has been enacted in the country, the health gains achieved by these interventions have fallen short of targets set by the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Significant proportions of the population are unaware they have contracted HIV and knowledge about HIV transmission is generally lacking. For patients accessing HIV treatment services, adherence to prescribed regimens is a principal barrier to positive health outcomes. These challenges are further compounded by the development of resistance to HIV treatments. Between 2017-2022, South Africa will implement the four-generation ‘National Strategic Plan on HIV, Tuberculosis, and Sexually Transmitted Infections.’ This framework outlines interventions that will address the biomedical, behavioral, and structural barriers that have sustained HIV transmission while accelerating health advances for people living with HIV. As a result of this integrated approach and the targeted intervention population, South Africa operates the largest HIV treatment program in the world. Evaluation of South Africa’s HIV treatment and prevention activities are needed to ensure the enacted programs continually meet the needs of the population as they change over time. Additionally, program evaluation ensures limited resources are allocated in a judicious manner. Collectively, these evaluations can result in program alterations that deliver the maximum health benefit for all South African citizens. Upon analysis of the South Africa’s National Strategic Plan, several flaws in current program delivery, funding allocations, and accountability actions are immediately evident. The four generation Plan does not include specific steps outlining the exact actions that should be followed by local health officials. The Plan architects failed to incorporate key recommendations from previous investigations there were specific to the South African HIV care delivery model. If these shortcomings persist, South Africa is unlikely to meet proposed HIV reduction targets set by global health organizations. From this analysis, several amendments are recommended to the current plan, including the application of artificial intelligence behavioral mapping for at risk populations and the reallocation of funding to condom distribution, medical-male circumcisions, and social behavior change activities. These amendments represent actionable items that can spur health advancements for the HIV treatment and prevention program in South Africa. / 2022-06-08T00:00:00Z

abstract: Social animals benefit from the aggregation of knowledge and cognitive processing power. Part of this benefit comes from individual heterogeneity, which provides the basis to group-level strategies, such as division of labor and collective intelligence. In turn, the outcomes of collective choices, as well as the needs of the society at large, influence the behavior of individuals within it. My dissertation research addresses how the feedback between individual and group-level behavior affects individuals and promotes collective change. I study this question in the context of seed selection in the seed harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus. I use both field and laboratory studies to explore questions relating to individual behavior: how forager decision-making is affected through information available in the nest and at the seed pile; how workers interact with seeds in the nest; and how forager preferences diverge from each other’s and the colony’s preference. I also explore the integration between individual and colony behavior, specifically: how interactions between the foraging and processing tasks affect colony collection behavior; how individual behavior changes affect colony preference changes and whether colony preference changes can be considered learning behavior. To answer these questions, I provided colonies with binary choices between seeds of unequal or similar quality, and measured individual, task group, and colony-level behavior. I found that colonies are capable of learning to discriminate between seeds, and learned information lasts at least one month without seed interaction outside of the nest. I also found that colony learning was coordinated by foragers receiving updated information from seeds in the nest to better discriminate and make choices between seed quality during searches for seeds outside of the nest. My results show that seed processing is essential for stimulating collection of novel seeds, and that foraging and processing are conducted by behaviorally and spatially overlapping but distinct groups of workers. Finally, I found that foragers’ preferences are diverse yet flexible, even when colonies are consistent in their preference at the population level. These combined experiments generate a more detailed and complete understanding of the mechanisms behind the flexibility of collective colony choices, how colonies incorporate new information, and how workers individually and collectively make foraging decisions for the colony in a decentralized manner. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Biology 2020

Heavy episodic drinking (HED) among college students remains a significant public health concern in the United States, particularly among first-year students. Parents have been identified as a protective factor in college students' drinking behaviors and past parent-based interventions have been successful at reducing HED. However, there are a limited number of parent-based alcohol prevention strategies and a general lack of research on parent-child communication about alcohol use among first-year college students, particularly from the parent perspective. The three studies included in this dissertation assist in filling this gap by examining parent-college student communication about alcohol from a parents' perspective and identifying implications for future parent-based interventions. Study 1 classified parents into segments based on constructs from the Theory of Normative Social Behavior (TNSB), differences in parents' perceptions of student's alcohol use, and content of communication. A modification of the TNSB was used in Study 2 to explore intrapersonal and interpersonal factors that moderate the relationship between parents' descriptive norms related to students' alcohol use and the breadth of topics covered when they communicate with their college student about alcohol. Finally, building upon the first two studies, Study 3 used the Model of Family Decision Making (MFDM) to provide a contextual understanding of parents' communication about alcohol with their first-year college student. Studies 1 and 2 used a web survey conducted in 2010, 2011, and 2012 with a random sample of parents of first-year college students (N = 890) at a large Midwestern university. Results of a K means cluster analysis from Study 1 identified three parent clusters using constructs from TNSB. In Study 2, hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted to explore what constructs of TNSB predicted parents' communication about alcohol, including descriptive norms, injunctive norms, outcome expectations, communication efficacy, and perceptions of severity and susceptibility of the negative consequences associated with alcohol use for their student. The study found the relationship between descriptive norms and parents' communication was moderated by injunctive norms, outcome expectations related to communication, and parents' perceptions of their student's susceptibility to negative consequences associated with alcohol use. Study 3 used qualitative interviews to further explore parents' communication about alcohol with their first-year college student. Using MFDM as a guide, Study 3 found several factors influenced parents' communication about alcohol with their student including role, skills, social structure, awareness, norms, utilization of resources, and other constraints. While parents reported talking about appropriate drinking behavior, the negative consequences of alcohol use, family experiences with alcohol, and family values and rules related to alcohol with their student, they often presented mixed messages, such as identifying drinking underage as illegal, but also describing the behavior as "typical." Across all three studies, it was evident parents held misperceptions of other college students' drinking behaviors and were likely underestimating their own students' alcohol use. The studies in this dissertation provide further understanding of the frequency and content of this communication and provide insight on how theoretical constructs can guide future parents-based interventions.

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Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for women in the United States. Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) carries a more negative prognosis for women than men. Women with AMI have both increased mortality and disability. All researchers who have documented a difference in delay times between men and women note that women delay longer in seeking treatment. In the case of an evolving AMI, women who delay in seeking medical attention will often place themselves outside the limits of reperfusion therapies such as angioplasty and thrombolysis, thereby increasing their risk of an out-of-hospital sudden cardiac death. Several investigators have reported that reasons for delay to treatment may include the presence or absence of “somatic awareness”, that is, how a woman perceives body activity and physiological functioning. The inability of women to disregard social roles and place primacy of caring over their own health issues may limit them from seeking formal care. Social roles and obligations in a women’s life are often influenced by everyday, ordinary happenings which may have a negative impact on decision making. These everyday, ordinary happenings have been defined as “daily hassles”. The Leventhal self-regulatory model of illness behavior, which has been used to study treatment seeking behavior in response to symptoms, provides a coherent framework for interpreting the problem of delayed treatment of myocardial infarction. The Leventhal model proposes that the patients’ belief about their health is structured in a hierarchical fashion and that these structures are based on previous illness experiences and information presented in the social environment. Utilizing a descriptive design, this study examined the relationship between somatic awareness and daily hassles and how these variables influenced a women’s treatment seeking behavior in AMI. The Modified Somatic Perception Questionnaire (MSPQ) was used to measure somatic awareness; and daily hassles were measured through the Daily Hassles and Uplift Scale (DHUS). The questionnaires were administered at least 24 hours post admission to women with AMI. Though there were no significant relationships found between somatic awareness, daily hassles and time to treatment for AMI, the study revealed other pertinent findings. A significant relationship was found between daily hassles and age; revealing that younger participants revealed a higher daily hassle score. Also, a significant relationship was found between total MSPQ and prior cardiac events; indicating infrequent occurrence of intense symptoms experienced by women with a positive cardiac history. Though it is unknown what impact this new knowledge will have on treatment of women with AMI, these findings hold promise for clarifying these areas of research. Keywords: somatic awareness, daily hassles, treatment seeking behavior, women with acute myocardial infarction (AMI).

This study compares social behavior of infants of resident mothers and infants of immigrant mothers in social groups of the mountain gorilla, Gorilla gorilla beringei. Infants of immigrant mothers spent more time in proximity to their mothers during group resting. They spent more time in solo play and less time in social play during group feeding. Their opportunity for social interaction with peers may be restricted mostly to group rest periods and their social play levels during this time are higher than infants with resident mothers. However, during both group resting and feeding they spent less time near other infants and they initiated fewer dyadic play bouts.

The ability of organisms to sense – and properly respond to – their environment is crucial to their survival. Higher organisms communicate with conspecifics to ensure the survival of the species. Nematodes, such as the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, are ubiquitous across all biomes, and rely on chemical communication to convey information with one another. The small molecules they utilize in this communication are called ascarosides. These modular pheromones are employed by all taxa, ranging from Caenorhabditis to Ascaris. The ascaroside, ascr#8, is release by hermaphroditic C. elegans to attract potential mates. Previous work has shown that a class of male specific neurons are required for sensation of this pheromone. Here, we show that these neurons initiate a neural circuit modulated by the FMRFamide-like neuropeptide, flp-3. This neuropeptide is sensed by a set of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), NPR-10 and FRPR-16. Together, these components determine the behavioral valence of males to ascr#8. Within the male-specific sensory neurons, the CEM, we show that another group of GPCRs sense the ascr#8. Two of these receptors, DMSR-12 and SRW-97, are expressed in the cilia, suggesting their involvement in direct sensation of the cue. As a targeted approach to identifying and confirming receptors for ascr#8, we have developed a bioactive photoaffinity probe. We have also confirmed that the ability of ascr#8 to attract males is conserved across the genus. Together, these studies coalesce to deepen our understanding of sex-specific chemosensation and neuronal processing. These results can be used to better understand the defects that are seen in neurodegenerative diseases – many of which exhibit sex-specific defects in neuronal processing.

This chapter begins by describing the appearance of motor abilities, social and play behavior, sexual maturity, and sensory function in laboratory rats. It then discusses cognitive function, the development of simple stimulus associations made in conditioned taste aversion, and complex associations necessitated in spatial memory. The development of brain structures and their possible role in these behaviors are also discussed.