Depression is a significant public health problem for young adults of college age, and negative life events exacerbate risk. Not all individuals who experience negative life events, however, report depressive symptoms, perhaps owing to protective characteristics. We examined one such characteristic, trait hope, a goal-oriented construct, as a potential moderator of the association between negative life events and depressive symptoms in an ethnically diverse sample of 386 college students. In support of our hypotheses, negative life events were significantly associated with greater levels of depressive symptoms, and higher levels of hope attenuated this relationship, such that those with greater hope reported fewer depressive symptoms related to potentially traumatic events. The moderating effect of hope did not differ across ethnic groups. Our findings have implications for managing the sequelae of negative life events, including depression. Cognitive–behavioural interventions tailored to help young adults identify and attain important life goals might help to overcome psychopathology associated with life stress. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

As HIV is now primarily a chronic condition, treatment is given life-long with changes as necessitated by alterations in tolerability and efficacy. Thus, personalized medicine may be useful in the prevention of unnecessary drug exposure and avoidable side effects. Three of the four currently available HIV integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs), raltegravir, elvitegravir, and dolutegravir, are widely utilized antiretrovirals in the USA and exhibit variations in outcomes among subjects. To interrogate differences among subjects receiving these drugs, we investigated the association of several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with drug exposure, clinical outcomes, and subject-reported adverse events. HIV+ adults (≥18 years old) receiving an INSTI regimen were recruited (n=88). Subject genotypes were evaluated using an iPLEX PGx Panel. Genetic variations within our population, underwent multiple regression with covariates [age, sex, BMI, regimen duration, and baseline variables (as required) along with specific regimen in the comprehensive group] to detect significant (p=0.028) between abnormal dream occurrence and specific INSTI regimen with the raltegravir grouping presenting a higher frequency. This exploratory study also discovered several SNP-outcome associations when using INSTIs. Although these SNPs were found to have a role in predicting segments of adverse effect profiles, the clinical significance of these findings remains to be determined. Larger studies will be needed to confirm these exploratory findings with functional studies to understand pathogeneses. In conclusion, the associations found in this study strengthen the need for further assessment, within the HIV+ population, of factors contributing to unfavorable subject outcomes.

This dissertation investigates three topics related to movement and events associated with geospatial barriers. This research makes a unique contribution to geographic information science (GIScience), by examining how boundaries influence the interactions of other geographic features and to location-based services by bringing a GIScience perspective to geofence services. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 can be considered independently as journal articles. Each of these chapters builds on the previous. Chapter 2 serves as the base by examining geospatial barriers and impedance events associated with these barriers. The relationships between barriers, the features they protect and the features that they hinder are formalized in an ontology design pattern (ODP) that also includes events associated with these features. Algorithms are written to demonstrate the ODP can be used to answer queries about the presence or absence of barrier events. Chapter 3 transitions from physical boundaries to digital boundaries by examining geofences, a location-based notification service. Interaction between users and multiple geofences are investigated when the configuration of geofences differs (i.e. disconnected, partially overlapping, and completely overlapping) and when geofences are independent or dependent (a rule states that the activation of geofence Y depends on users having visited geofence X). A geofence system is prototyped in an iOS environment and used to further evaluate user-geofence interactions. Chapter 4 expands on the topic of location- based notification regions by investigating what is required for a geofence system to handle events. How changes in conditions (e.g. the spreading of a flood or movement of a fire) interact with geofences and users and what new categories of interactions are required to handle these changes are discussed. The proposed system is applied to a scenario of flooding on multiple rivers interrupting the transportation network.

Cette thèse vise à rendre compte de l'évolution, au Chili, de la gestion des événements protestataires par les institutions en charge de l'ordre public depuis le retour à la démocratie en 1990. Il s'agit d'examiner la manière dont un pays autrefois gouverné par la répression encadre, une fois la démocratie retrouvée, les protestations de différents groupes de la société. La thèse interroge aussi l'existence d'un traitement différencié de la contestation en fonction du public mobilisé. L'enquête a été menée entre mars 2015 et mai 2017 et repose sur un matériau composé d'observations, d'entretiens, d'archives de presse. Ce travail est composé de trois parties. La première revient sur les éléments qui ont façonné le contexte politique chilien de la transition, largement défavorable à la contestation. Il s'agit également de s'intéresser aux caractéristiques et à la culture institutionnelle de la police en charge du maintien de l'ordre, en observant comment s'articulent le caractère militaire de cette institution et les fondements de la doctrine du maintien de l'ordre. Dans la seconde, les mobilisations des peuples autochtones et des étudiants chiliens sont longuement décryptées, en particulier la question de leur répertoire d'action et les interactions entre ces groupes, l'État chilien et les forces de l'ordre. La troisième partie est consacrée à la manière dont le passé récent du Chili devient l'enjeu de discours et de mobilisations, et s'intéresse de près à différentes journées de commémoration. Elle examine enfin les effets de la militarisation de la police sur le maintien de l'ordre, et sur les représentations du monde qui entourent ses pratiques professionnelles / This thesis aims to give an account of the evolution, in Chile, of the management of the protest events by the institutions in charge of public order since the return to democracy in 1990. It aims to examine the way in which a country once ruled by repression frames, once the democracy returned, the protests of different groups of society. The thesis also questions the existence of a differentiated treatment of the protest events according to the public mobilized. The investigation was conducted between March 2015 and May 2017 and is based on a material consisting of observations, interviews, press archives. This work is composed of three parts. The first examines the elements that have shaped the Chilean political context of the transition, which is largely unfavorable to collective action. It also analyzes the characteristics and the institutional culture of the police in charge of policing protest, by observing how are articulated the military character of this institution and the bases of the doctrine of protest policing. In the second, the mobilizations of the indigenous peoples and students of Chile are lengthily deciphered, in particular the question of their repertoire of action and the interactions between these groups, the Chilean State and the police forces. The third part is devoted to the way in which the recent past of Chile becomes the issue of speeches and mobilizations, and is closely interested in different days of commemoration. Finally, it examines the effects of police militarization on law enforcement, and on the representations of the world surrounding its professional practices

The purpose of this study was to investigate the time of admission to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and its association with in-hospital mortality among a cohort of neonates at a regional perinatal center. Two different time points were considered: admissions on the weekend versus the weekday and admissions during the nighttime shift versus the day shift. The secondary purpose of the study was to investigate if registered nurse staffing affected this association between NICU admission day or admission time and in-hospital death. Three separate databases were used which contained information on NICU admissions, hospital deliveries and nurse staffing. These databases were linked resulting in data for each individual mother-infant pair for each separate admission to the NICU. Readmissions to the NICU, NICU admissions which could not be linked with the delivery data, admissions from the Newborn Nursery and transfers from other hospitals were excluded from the study. The final study population consisted of 1,846 admissions from October 1, 2001 through December 31, 2006. Weekend admissions were lower than weekday admissions (29.6% versus 70.4%) and nighttime admissions were lower than day admissions (43.2% versus 56.8%). Infants admitted at nighttime were more likely to be low birth weight, have lower Apgar scores and less likely to be delivered by cesarean section. Weekend admissions did not differ significantly from weekday admissions, except weekend admissions were more likely to be Black (33.6% versus 28.6%, p=.30). After adjusting for infant's acuity and other covariates using multivariate logistic regression, the odds of dying on the weekend was not significantly different than weekday admissions (AOR=1.06, 95% CI=.653-1.721) and were not significantly different for nighttime admissions (AOR=1.14, 95% CI=.722-1.79). Nurse staffing was not a significant covariate. Covariates which were significant risk factors for death prior to discharge were non-Black race of the infant, Apgar score of less than 7 at five minutes, presence of a fetal anomaly, and use of ventilation during the stay. Infant's birth weight was a significant protective factor.

Prescription ADHD medication has been shown to be on the rise as a drug of abuse among young people. Unlike other drugs that serve only the purpose of achieving a high, this particular substance can also be perceived as useful and beneficial by those who abuse it. It is these positive attributes given to the illicit use of these drugs that make them so dangerous, especially in the hands of youths. To date extant research has made little effort to contextualize this type of drug use within theories of deviance. This study looks to fill that void as well as bridge the gap between current epidemiological studies on this topic and future etiological studies looking to assess causation within a theoretical context. Examining a national sample of 12th grade students (N=2,384), this study looks at what risk factors and predictors exist for the illicit use of ADHD medication. By testing aspects of social bonding and social learning theories, the goal is to assess which theory can best predict this type of drug use. Due to the low proportion of users, a rare events logistic regression is utilized in the analysis. While social learning items were able to account for the greatest level of variance in use, many of the findings contradict the theory, and therefore no theoretically based conclusions can be made at this time. Overall, more research needed on this topic using better fitting data tailored for theoretical interpretation. Considerations for future studies are also discussed.

In a big organization there are many events organized every day. To know about the events, we typically need to check an events page, rely on flyers or on distributed pamphlets or through word of mouth. To register for an event a user now a days typically does this online which involves inputting user details. At the event, the user either signs a sheet of paper or enters credentials in a web page loaded on a tablet or other electronic device. Typically, this is a time-consuming process with many redundancies like entering user details every time the user wants to register for a new event and re-entering the details at the event. This project designs a system that eliminates these redundancies and improves event management.

Simulation methods are used when closed-form solutions do not exist. An interesting simulation method that has been widely used in many scientific fields is the Monte Carlo method. Not only it is a simple technique that enables to estimate the quantity of interest, but it can also provide relevant information about the value to be estimated through its confidence interval. However, the use of classical Monte Carlo method is not a reasonable choice when dealing with rare event probabilities. In fact, very small probabilities require a huge number of simulation runs, and thus, the computational time of the simulation increases significantly. This observation lies behind the main motivation of the present work. In this thesis, we propose efficient importance sampling estimators to evaluate rare events probabilities. In the first part of the thesis, we consider a variety of turbulence regimes, and we study the outage probability of free-space optics communication systems under a generalized pointing error model with both a nonzero boresight component and different horizontal and vertical jitter effects. More specifically, we use an importance sampling approach,based on the exponential twisting technique to offer fast and accurate results. We also show that our approach extends to the multihop scenario. In the second part of the thesis, we are interested in assessing the outage probability achieved by some diversity techniques over generalized fading channels. In many circumstances, this is related to the difficult question of analyzing the statistics of the sum of random variables. More specifically, we propose robust importance sampling schemes that efficiently evaluate the outage probability of diversity receivers over Gamma-Gamma, α − µ, κ − µ, and η − µ fading channels. The proposed estimators satisfy the well-known bounded relative error criterion for both maximum ratio combining and equal gain combining cases. We show the accuracy and the efficiency of our approach compared to naive Monte Carlo via some selected numerical simulations in both case studies. In the last part of this thesis, we propose efficient importance sampling estimators for the left tail of positive Gaussian quadratic forms in both real and complex settings. We show that these estimators possess the bounded relative error property. These estimators are then used to estimate the outage probability of maximum ratio combining diversity receivers over correlated Nakagami-m or correlated Rician fading channels

The six short stories in this collection explore the lives and desires of disparate women. In "Sentinel," a woman visits an ex-boyfriend, injured in the army, and his family, with whom she has a fraught relationship, in their vacation home. A diagnosis of cancer spurs a woman to change her life in "Cell Division"; when a new possibility for treatment arises, she reconsiders the choice she made to take her life apart. In the story, "A Wake," a funeral and an unexpected pregnancy set the stage for the breakdown of a couple's relationship. In "A Cyclic Process," a woman conflates her ambivalence toward the anti-depressants she takes with her feelings about her relationship; in the end, she cannot let go of either. A woman, traveling with a new acquaintance, takes a trip to Venice in "The Edge of the World," and falls into an unsettling relationship with a man she meets there. The process of protein denaturation serves as a metaphor in "Marina," for the unraveling of a friendship between two teenage girls.

Adult physical activity is important for prevention of chronic diseases and to minimize health issues; therefore, the motivational influences of sociodemographic variables on participation in organized physical activity events warrant an investigation. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate differences in motivational influences between various sociodemographic variables as related to physical activity events in organized settings. The theoretical framework that guided this research study consisted of the theory of reasoned action (TRA), and the health belief model (HBM). The TRA was applied to study the intention of health behavior, while the HBM was used to investigate individuals' motivation to engage in organized physical activity events. A cross-sectional study design in which an online survey consisting of the 40 item Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale was used to collect data from adults who participated in an organized 5K or 10K running or walking event. The inferential statistical tests of the independent t test, one-way ANOVA, and ordinal logistic regression were used to determine the statistical relationships. The main research finding suggested that 6 motivational influences showed statistically significant relationship with organized physical activity events, which consisted of others' expectations (p = .025), competition/ego (p = .001), appearance (p = .001), affiliation (p = .034), mastery (p = .001), and psychological condition (p = .002) as it relates to their age group and gender. The research findings may be used to influence engagement in future organized physical activity events by understanding the sociodemographic variables relating to participation rates that may result in increased physical activity behavior within the community.