An interactive activation model for picture naming was used to guide treatment of a semantic-level deficit in 4 individuals with aphasia and severe picture-naming problems. Participants exhibited a profile consistent with Broca's aphasia with severe naming deficits, part of which was attributable to a semantic impairment based on testing of the lexical system. A semantic-based treatment was used to train naming of nouns in two semantic categories using a single-participant multiple baseline across behaviors and participants. Additional treatment, which included orthographic and phonological information about target words, then was applied. Treatment responses and error patterns demonstrated that semantic treatment resulted in improved naming of both trained and untrained items for 2 of 4 participants. Two participants did not show improved naming until treatment emphasizing the phonological form of the word was provided. This study demonstrates the utility of using an interactive activation model to plan treatment based on levels of disruption in the lexical processing system.

As the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer declines, it is the duty of soybean producers to become more efficient irrigators. Research was established in 2012 and 2013 in the Mississippi Delta to evaluate plant development and yield of an indeterminate soybean variety with irrigation initiated at the R1 producer standard and compared to initiation timings at the R2, R4, and R5 growth stages once a 2” deficit was reached according to the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith model. Research was also conducted to evaluate seeding rates in irrigated and non-irrigated systems in Starkville and Stoneville, MS in 2013 and 2014. These data indicate that delaying irrigation initiation beyond R1 did not adversely affect yield, and in some instances even provided a small yield increase. Irrigation did show consistent yield benefit regardless of initiation timing over a non-irrigated system. No optimum seeding rate in terms of yield or net return was observed across site years.

The drought response of the extremophile Eutrema salsugineum (Thellungiella salsuginea) was studied using an experimental protocol involving two progressive drought exposures separated by a recovery period. Accessions from the Yukon Territory, Canada, and Shandong Province, China, were distinguished with respect to their responses to the initial drought, their recovery from wilting, and their response to a subsequent drought following recovery. Eutrema cauline leaves and rosettes were sampled at different stages of the drought treatment for water status and biomass measurements and this information guided tissue selection for transcriptome sequencing by RNA-Seq. For Yukon plants, the initial drought led to a 46% reduction in stomatal conductance (from 122.3 to 66.3 mol m-2s-1) and 25% reduction in rosette water loss relative to unstressed control plants, evidence of drought avoidance to conserve water. Yukon leaf solute potentials decreased to -1.83 MPa compared to -1.54 MPa for Shandong leaves indicating that more solutes accumulated in Yukon leaves in response to drought. Upon wilting, Yukon plants re-established turgor at significantly lower leaf solute potentials than the level for well-watered Yukon plants consistent with osmotic adjustment. In contrast, leaf solute potentials in re-watered Shandong plants returned to pre-drought levels (-1.6 MPa). During the second drought exposure, leaf water content and specific leaf area measurements were significantly higher in Yukon plants compared to plants experiencing the initial drought and wilting was delayed relative to Shandong plants. At the transcriptional level, the initial drought exposure resulted in over 2000 differentially expressed genes in leaves of Yukon plants compared to only two in Shandong plants. Following exposure to a second drought only 45 genes were differentially expressed in leaves of Yukon plants while Shandong plants underwent substantial transcriptional re-programming with nearly 500 genes showing differential expression. Studies of Eutrema grown under controlled conditions were supplemented by physiological measurements made using Eutrema plants found on saline soils in the Yukon. The average stomatal conductance for field plants was 84.8 mol m-2s-1, a rate similar to that of drought-treated Yukon plants in the cabinet. Leaf solute potentials of field plants ranged from -2.0 MPa to -3.5 MPa. RT-qPCR showed the relative expression of four dehydrin-encoding genes, EsRAB18, EsRD22, EsRD29A, and EsERD1, was high in the field plants and levels of expression were comparable to drought-stressed cabinet plants. In summary, Eutrema salsugineum has a naturally high tolerance to water deficits. Between the two accessions studied, Yukon plants have a superior capacity to withstand drought relative to Shandong plants. The heightened capacity for Yukon plants to recover from drought and tolerate repeated drought exposures makes this accession a particularly valuable model for studying many mechanisms underlying innate and inducible plant tolerance to drought. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Research has indicated that individuals with ASD have deficits in the ability to correctly identify and interpret the emotions and feelings of others. The ability to recognize the emotions of others has shown to be extremely beneficial in a number of ways. On the other hand, the inability to recognize the emotions of others has been linked to a number of negative outcomes, including inappropriate behaviors, as well as mental health, personal, social, and academic difficulties. The purpose of the current study was to extend the previous literature on effective strategies for teaching individuals with ASD to correctly label the situation-based emotions of others. Overall, the current study’s results suggest that an intervention package combining animated videos with prompt delay, error correction, and reinforcement procedures was effective in teaching participants the ability to label situation-specific emotions. Additionally, the current study’s results also supported the idea that individuals with ASD have stronger deficits in recognizing negative emotions, such as sad, mad, and afraid, as compared to positive emotions, such as happy. Future research should continue to focus on exploring the generalization and maintenance of these results.

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Hypothermia is increasingly being used as a treatment modality for many conditions. Therapeutic hypothermia is any technique in which the body temperature is lowered for reducing oxygen demand and metabolic rate as a means to prevent or minimize organ damage. The purpose of this thesis is to describe current applications of therapeutic hypothermia, including types of cooling techniques, patients who benefit from hypothermia, target temperature, and associated side effects. There are two clinical situations where large randomized studies have demonstrated benefit of therapeutic hypothermia in humans. The first is in treatment of neonates with asphyxia, and the second is for treating survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Most cooling research focuses on treatment with mild to moderate hypothermia, 32°C - 34°C. Noninvasive cooling methods include the traditional ice packs, fans, alcohol baths, and cooling blankets not attached to any monitoring device. Invasive cooling techniques consist of the infusion of ice-cold fluids, ice slurries, endovascular, and nasopharyngeal cooling. Patients treated with therapeutic hypothermia require close monitoring due to the increased risk of infections, skin break down, vital sign changes such as bradycardia, and electrolyte balances such as hypokalemia. Optimal depth and duration of hypothermia and optimal rate of re-warming are unknown. Further nursing research is needed for induced hypothermia guidelines as well as education.

Yes / Purpose – The objective of this study is to understand the budgetary role of national legislatures in Euro Area (EA) countries and to analyse implications for fiscal discipline. Design/methodology/approach – Building on the budget institutions literature, a legislative budgetary power index for all the 19 EA countries is constructed using OECD and European Commission data as well as data generated from questionnaires to national authorities. A two-way fixed effects panel data model is then used to assess the effect of legislative budgetary power on the budget balance in the EA during 2006-15. Findings - Overall, in the EA, formal legislative powers vis-à-vis the national budgetary process are weak but there is more legislative involvement in SGP procedures and legislative budgetary organisational capacity is generally quite good. In contrast to the traditional view in the budget institutions literature, our empirical findings show that strong legislative budgetary power does not necessarily result in larger budget deficits. Research limitations/implications – Data on legislative budgeting was available from different sources and timeseries data was very limited. Practical implications – There is scope to improve democratic legitimacy of the national budgetary process in the EA, without necessarily jeopardising fiscal discipline. Originality/value – The constructed legislative budgetary power index covers all the 19 EA countries and has a broad scope covering various novel institutional characteristics. The empirical analysis contributes to the scarce literature on the impact of legislative budgeting on fiscal discipline.