America has the highest incarceration rate in the world with an estimated 2.2 million inmates, and more than five million American children have at least one parent in jail (Murphey, 2015). Prior to imprisonment, many parents are employed, contribute economically to family life, and are engaged in parenting their children. Parent-child relationships that may have been strong pre-incarceration may not thrive once the parent goes to jail due to limited communication and the inmate’s inability to provide financial support for his/her family. Further, once the parent is released from prison, s/he faces fewer options for employment with a criminal history. Developmental programs in prison such as job training and parenting skills exist to mediate these negative outcomes. Although program participation is associated with a 20% likelihood of increased employment among inmates, little research explores the motivating factors behind program participation (Visher, Debus, & Yahner, 2008). This study poses three research questions that explore child contact and program participation as factors of increased employment post-release. In detail, the first research question explores factors related to child contact in prison, focusing on the history of parent-child financial support prior to incarceration. The second research question explores the relationships between child contact in-prison and program participation. Finally, this paper tests a third research question to explore child contact and program participation as factors of employment outcomes post- release. Interesting findings from the study suggest that parental inmates with frequent child contact in-prison are likely to have been their child(ren)’s primary source of financial support prior to incarceration. Inmates with frequent reports of child contact are also more likely to participate in developmental programs during their sentences and more likely to be employed post-release. These associations may exist because parental inmates have a sense of responsibility after being in touch with their children. Therefore, policymakers should consider removing contact barriers that complicate phone access and visitation privileges between parental inmates and their minor child(ren).

Class of 2012 Abstract / Specific Aims: Determine the difference in venom potency among Mohave Rattlesnakes in Cochise in Pima Counties and determine if those differences correlate to changes in clinical outcomes. Methods: Twenty-one Mohave rattlesnakes, C. s. scutulatus were collected from Arizona and New Mexico. Venom proteomes were analyzed using RP-HPLC and SDS-PAGE. The toxicity of venoms was analyzed using LD50. Health severity outcomes between two Arizona counties, Pima and Cochise, were determined by retrospective chart review of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center database between 2002-2009. Main Results: Six phenotypes were identified based on three venom proteins; Mojave toxin, SVMP PI and PIII, and myotoxin. Venom changed geographically from SVMP-rich to Mojave toxin-rich phenotypes from south central to southeastern Arizona. Phenotypes containing myotoxins were only found in the transitional zone between the SVMP and Mojave toxin phenotypes. Venom samples containing the largest amounts of SVMP or Mojave toxin had highest and lowest LD50s, respectively. Conclusions: There was a significant difference when comparing the presence of CNS affects between Pima and Cochise counties (p = 0.001). No significant difference was found when comparing severity number of antivenom vials administered, days spent in a health care facility or envenomation per 100,000 population. Although not part of the original data to be collected, death and intubations, were also noted. There is a 10x and 50x increased risk of death or intubations if envenomated in Cochise County.

To study potential hyperactivity and hyperconnectivity based on the latent resource hypothesis, this study assessed functional connectivity in survivors of childhood brain tumors compared to their healthy peers during an attention task using psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses and evaluated for a relationship with performance. Twenty-three survivors and 23 healthy controls completed a letter n-back task in the scanner. An empirically-based seed was placed in the parietal lobe, a theoretical seed was placed in the hippocampus, and a control seed was placed in the occipital lobe. Differences in both performance and functional connectivity networks from each seed emerged between groups, with some findings supporting the latent resource hypothesis and other networks showing compensatory function in survivors. Attention networks, phonological networks, and executive function networks were all found to differ between controls and survivors.

While a significant amount of research illustrates the positive effects of therapists’ use of mindfulness, few studies have addressed whether therapists’ mindfulness actually improves psychotherapy outcomes. Additionally, no existing research has examined whether therapists’ use of a mindfulness exercise immediately before meeting with a client could also have a positive impact on the following session. The purpose of this study was to test whether engaging in a centering exercise 5-10 minutes before a session could have a positive impact on therapy, in particular on the therapists’ ability to remain present in session. Results indicated that the trainee therapists did not report changes in mindfulness after the brief mindfulness training program. Results also indicated that completing the centering exercise before a session did not appear to impact client ratings of therapeutic presence and session outcomes. The results suggest that more intensive training in mindfulness may be necessary to impact psychotherapy outcomes.

Research on age differences in heart transplant patients has focused primarily on medical outcomes, with mixed findings regarding mortality and morbidity rates and limited research regarding age differences in psychosocial and quality of life outcomes. To gain a more complete understanding of psychosocial adjustment after heart transplant, this study examined age differences in: satisfaction with quality of life, satisfaction with social support, depressive symptoms, negative affect, symptom distress, stress related to heart transplant, overall health functioning, coping strategies, and aspects of adherence. Results indicate that older patients, compared to younger patients, report better adjustment and quality of life across numerous outcomes 5-10 years after heart transplant. These findings are consistent with previous literature examining age differences in developmental changes with emotion regulation and coping. This study hopes to contribute to the discussion of age and heart transplant, highlighting the importance of considering quality of life in addition to medical outcomes.

The world around us has changed so much, socio-economically, that musical theatre departments around the country are facing budget shortfalls, staff attrition and even vertical cuts leading to full departmental closings. This paper attempts to divert these measures, as well as address the new role of student as consumer, by way of proposing a new musical theatre curricular model to satisfy the needs of both student and university alike. Topics such as fiscal responsibility in academe, departmental expectations, current employment statistics in the musical theatre field and current student learning outcomes are covered. The current student learning outcomes are then joined by two newly proposed outcomes and serve as a lens through which the curricular redesign is possible.

This study is focused on exploring quality of life in young adults in the autism spectrum and the factors that contribute to their own perception of satisfaction with their lives. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental disability that is associated with deficits in social interaction and communication and with restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). There has been a documented increase in the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), making it to be one of the fastest growing diagnosed disabilities in children (Hartley-McAndrew, 2014). In the United States, the prevalence of ASD is approximately 1 in 68 children, with 1 in 42 among boys (CDC, 2014). With this increase in recognition of the disorder, adult outcomes have become an increasing priority for this population. While the concept of quality of life has been used in the field of intellectual disabilities for decades, the factors contributing to quality of life of persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have received relatively little attention. The aim of this study was to examine the influences of degree of disability, social and communication ability, academic success, employment, and independence and autonomy on quality of life in young adults with high-functioning autism. Participants (N @ 230) were individuals from the dataset of the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 (NLTS2) who had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Cameto, et al., 2004). Results indicated that employment, social involvement, communication (being able to communicate, converse, and understand), and autonomy were significant in predicting higher quality of life. Factors found not to contribute to QoL included degree of disability (Woodcock-Johnson III) and education. This study helps to shed light on the development of higher quality of life in young adults with ASD and highlights areas for future research and training with these members of society.

Reproductive health patterns in post-Soviet Central Asian countries Abstract This study aims to evaluate reproductive health patterns among post-Soviet Central Asian republics since their independence. The reproductive health indicators of individual countries were researched and compared. Furthermore, cluster country groups among selected post-Soviet, post-Socialist and capitalist countries were identified based on certain reproductive health indicators for the beginning and the end of the research period. The subsequent research was focused on 1999 Kazakhstan Demographic and Health Survey data. This thesis explores statistically significant factors influencing pregnancy outcomes in the country. According to the results, never married, urban women, women of Ukrainian, Russian, and other ethnicities, women living in the East and North regions were more likely to terminate a first pregnancy by an induced abortion rather than giving a live birth. Additionally, the same categories were proven to be statistically significant using the Poisson regression analysis, except the regions were shown to be the West and the North. Keywords: post-Soviet Central Asia, reproductive health, maternal mortality, pregnancy outcomes

Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) is a treatment for lumbar back pain and despitethe proven effcacy of the technology, there is a lack of knowledge in how the treatment outcome varies between different patients groups. Furthermore, since the method is costly, in the sense of material, surgery and follow-up time, a more accurate patient targeting would decrease healthcare costs. Within recent years, Real World Data (RWD) has become a vital source of information to describe the effects of medical treatments. The complexity, however, calls for new, innovative methods using a larger set of useful features to explain the outcome of SCS treatments. This study has employed machine learning algorithms, e.g., Random Forest Classier (RFC) boosting algorithms to finally compare the result with the baseline; Logistic regression (LR). The results retrieved was that RFC tend to classify successful and unsuccessful patients better while logistic regression was unstable regarding unbalanced data. In order to interpret the insights of the models, we also proposed a Soft Accuracy Measurement (SAM) method to explain how RFC and LR differ. Some factors have shown to impact the success of SCS. These factors were age, income, pain experience time and educational level. Many of these variables could also be supported by earlier studies on factors of success from lumbar spine surgery.

Background: Childhood emotional abuse can lead to mental illness. Research about emotional abuse is limited and therefore complicates the work of the nurse, since understanding of what emotional abuse means is of importance. Aim: The aim of this study was to describe what consequences people may suffer later on in life if they were exposed to emotional abuse or emotional neglect as a child. Method: A literature overview was performed by collecting and analysing eight quantitative studies, two qualitative studies and one study with mixed-method. The analysis was performed according to Friberg's three-step-model. Results: Childhood emotional abuse showed to affect the victims mental health later on in life. There were many different mental illnesses associated with persons that had experienced emotional abuse in their childhood. Personality disorders, depression and eating disorder was found to have a significant connection of mental health outcomes based of childhood emotional abuse. There were also a significant connection with social inhibiting states such as anxiety, post traumatic stress syndrom (PTSD), low self-esteem and low self-image. Conclusion: More information about how to detect and prevent emotional abuse of children is needed. Nurses also need more knowledge about how to handle the care of adult patients struggling with mental illness due to childhood trauma. / Barn som utsätts för psykisk misshandel (PM) eller psykisk försummelse (PF) är ofta svåra att uppmärksamma. Att de flesta som utsätts lever i tysthet kan vara en förklaring till att forskning kring ämnet är begränsad. PM har visats vara den mest förekommande formen av misshandel mot barn. Det har även framkommit att PM är den misshandelsform som lämnar störst avtryck på barnet. Vårdpersonal är skyldig att anmäla om ett barn misstänks vara utsatt för PM. Dock är detta en problematisk uppgift när befintlig kunskap kring ämnet är otillräcklig. Ofta bär barnet med sig sitt trauma upp i vuxna år som leder till psykiska besvär och kan påverka deras liv negativt. PM har även en tendens att gå i arv och kan begränsa ett utsatt barns kapacitet i en framtida föräldraroll. Denna studie avser att öka kunskap kring PM av barn genom att påvisa vilka konsekvenser det kan leda till. Kunskap om detta kan medföra att omvårdanden för utsatta barn förbättras och livslånga konsekvenser kan förhindras. Alternativt kunna ge bättre omvårdnad till vuxna patienter som blivit utsatta i sin barndom, genom att vår studie kan öka förståelsen för andra människors lidande. Resultatet i föreliggande studie visar på en mängd allvarliga konsekvenser för den utsattas psykiska hälsa. Det övergripande ämnet i studien är därför psykisk ohälsa med huvudteman som är tänkt att kategorisera hälsotillstånden ytterligare i form av psykisk sjukdom, socialt hämmande tillstånd samt negativ självuppfattning.