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Maternal eating patterns during pregnancy and the first year postpartum contribute to short and long term maternal and child health outcomes. Food choices are thought to result from an interaction between individual-level appetite and the diversity and quantity of foods available to the individual. Appetite, the motivational drive to eat, is regulated by both internal and environmental factors and occurs both within and outside of physiological energy deprivation. Through a series of three manuscripts, this work examined psychophysiological influences on maternal appetite and their interrelations to understand how these factors present in pregnancy and postpartum, how they change over time, and their role in predicting the development of specific food desires. The Power of Food Scale (PFS), a measure of hedonic hunger, assesses perceived responsiveness to food stimuli in the environment. PFS retains stable psychometric properties and remains at similar levels across its subscales through pregnancy and the first year postpartum. In contrast, leptin, a hormone with roles in satiety, reward, and reproduction, shows positive mean change over the same time. Neither of these appetitive influences nor dietary restraint were associated with variability in cravings concurrently or prospectively, during pregnancy or postpartum. Overall, results of these studies suggest that these appetite influences vary relatively independently during pregnancy and postpartum, in contrast to relationships observed outside this time. Future research could build upon these findings by incorporating additional appetitive influences and/or increasing the frequency of assessments to capture fluctuations within trimesters or within the first year postpartum.
We construct the definition of Brownian motion on the N-legged spider graph with infinite legs and Kirchhoff’s gluing conditions at the origin and calculate the transition probability of this process. In addition, we study several important Markov moments, for instance the first exit time τL from the spider with the length L of all legs. The calculations give not only the moments of τL but also the distribution density for τL (all results of this section are new ones). For the spectral theory on the spider like quantum graphs, we start by constructing the spectral analysis on the finite interval of a three-legged spider graph and then pass it to infinity. Spectral analysis is performed for three different types of potentials. The fast-decreasing potentials, the fast-increasing potentials, mixed potentials, and its spectral theory. The details contain, the absolute continuous spectrum of multiplicity 3 and its construction using the reflection-transmission coefficients on each leg for the fast-decreasing potential, Bohr’s asymptotic formula for N(λ) (the negative eigenvalues), instability of the discrete spectrum for the mixed potential on each leg of the spider graph. Furthermore, we have done symplectic analysis, and its representation on the spider quantum graph.
This research uses PPP loan data from the Small Business Administration (SBA) to investigate whether information frictions contributed to disproportionate PPP loan disbursements to certain racial and socioeconomic groups. This analysis makes several contributions. First, it adds to the body of literature on the PPP program, the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, and government subsidy programs designed to mitigate economic crises. Prior research on the PPP program examined whether loans were allocated to business owners based on socio-demographic factors. Atkins et al. (2022) find a negative relationship between a community’s minority share of business owners and disbursed PPP loan amounts. Likewise, Howell et al. (2021) report that minority business owners were less likely to obtain PPP loans. We build on these existing studies by conceptualizing information frictions. To our knowledge, this is the first study to conceptualize information frictions into three main drivers, socio-demographic bias, financial institution access, and digital literacy, and to explain the relationship between information frictions and the efficacy of the PPP program.
This study examines the decision-making logics of 220 small and micro-entrepreneurial businesses throughout the United States and presents a model for a better understanding of the impact of decision-making approaches on relative profitability through the lens of effectuation theory in the small business and entrepreneurial context. The study fills existing gaps in literature by accounting for the moderating influences of the decision-maker’s emotions (affect) as well as accounting for entrepreneurial orientation. The study finds that effectuation is positively related to small business relative profitability. Entrepreneurial orientation as well as positive and negative owner / manager affect are shown to moderate the relationship between either decision-making logic and firm relative profitability.
Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) is a nature-inspired engineering solution to stormwater management that has gained increasing attention over the last two decades. While the technical evidence supporting the efficacy and efficiency of GSI is crucial, it alone does not necessarily translate to a significant increase in GSI adoption. Even with the recent research focus gradually turning toward the social benefits of GSI implementation, the social factors that influence its implementation remain underexplored. Furthermore, successful GSI adoption and implementation requires a collaborative effort in governance transitioning, public engagement, and adequate consideration of demographic constraints. Therefore, it is essential to understand the social barriers that hinder the adoption of GSI. This dissertation draws interdisciplinary linkages between social barriers and the cognitive biases that may affect rational decision-making for GSI adoption.
Mecklenburg County, the most population-dense county in North Carolina, is an ideal case study location to represent future scenarios for other urbanized areas across the United States. The case study, including an online survey and interviews with local officials, reveals patterns that resonate with the literature's findings that negative public opinions hinder long-term support for GSI. This study created a simulation model to streamline decision-making processes based on individual behaviors to explore long-term local GSI adoption patterns. The simulation model developed in this study shows that cognitive biases, such as loss aversion and status quo, could impede broader GSI adoption. The insights of this work could help local stormwater management authorities identify shortcomings in current stakeholder engagement plans to increase financial support for GSI implementation in urbanized areas.
Entrepreneurial enterprises take risks, innovate, and remain proactive in seeking business opportunities. For the past 30 years, entrepreneurial orientation theory has been the basis of exploring organizational behavior and has proven to be a reliable measure of what drives firm performance. Entrepreneurial firms remain adaptive by directing their internal and external capabilities to capture digital commerce and customer-linking opportunities. Thus, online marketing has gained in significance, suggesting that firms with the ability to leverage their digital marketing capabilities position themselves to gain a greater market advantage. In addition, the digital environment also offers unique opportunities for female-led firms with an entrepreneurial orientation. The possibility now exists for high levels of connectivity, adding value to the female owner’s ability to expand networks and increase social capital. Digitization of markets suggests new prospects for connectivity and performance gains not previously accessible. There is a gap in the literature as it relates to a firm’s digital marketing capabilities and firm performance outcomes. In addition, there is a dearth of research regarding entrepreneurially oriented female owners navigating contemporary digital and social environments where greater opportunities exist to leverage networks to creating social capital and improve firm performance. A quantitative study was conducted utilizing a client database from the Carolina Small Business Development Fund, a state-wide community development financial institution offering small loans and grants to business owners in the state of North Carolina, and surveys collected from LinkedIn social media platform. The surveys provided data for this study evaluating the connection between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance when moderated by digital marketing capabilities and female owner behaviors.
The term “kindergarten readiness” lacks a formal definition. This study was done to understand the perceptions of preschool and kindergarten teachers concerning typically developing students on day 60 of kindergarten. Focus groups were used to determine particular skills that a kindergartener should exhibit by that point in school in order to be successful during that year. Both groups of teachers were knowledgeable about the developmental continuum kindergartners should follow in order to achieve needed skills. A second finding was that kindergarten teachers scored students lower than preschool teachers on the anticipated ability of their students to achieve a skill. All teachers considered some skills were introduced prematurely. Kindergarten readiness can be described as skills that students should exhibit on day 60 of kindergarten in order to be successful. These include having control of their emotions, and understanding the emotions of others and what may cause them. Students on day 60 of kindergarten should also understand how to behave in familiar environments and when routines and procedures did not change. Further, they should be able to discriminate the sound that an alliteration and rhyme make but may not be able to explain the reason for the alliteration or rhyme.
The term “kindergarten readiness” lacks a formal definition. This study was done to understand the perceptions of preschool and kindergarten teachers concerning typically developing students on day 60 of kindergarten. Focus groups were used to determine particular skills that a kindergartener should exhibit by that point in school in order to be successful during that year. Both groups of teachers were knowledgeable about the developmental continuum kindergartners should follow in order to achieve needed skills. A second finding was that kindergarten teachers scored students lower than preschool teachers on the anticipated ability of their students to achieve a skill. All teachers considered some skills were introduced prematurely. Kindergarten readiness can be described as skills that students should exhibit on day 60 of kindergarten in order to be successful. These include having control of their emotions, and understanding the emotions of others and what may cause them. Students on day 60 of kindergarten should also understand how to behave in familiar environments and when routines and procedures did not change. Further, they should be able to discriminate the sound that an alliteration and rhyme make but may not be able to explain the reason for the alliteration or rhyme.
Over 80% of all malaria deaths occur in children under 5 years of age. Malaria control
strategies have been progressively shifted to specific populations and/or areas to max-
imize effectiveness. Malaria is a significant public health problem in Ghana. Seasonal
Malaria Chemoprevention (SMC) using a combination of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine
and amodiaquine has been implemented since 2015 in northern Ghana where malaria
transmission is intense and seasonal. In this study, we estimated the prevalence of
asymptomatic P. falciparum carriers in three ecological zones of Ghana, and com-
pared the sensitivity and specificity of different molecular methods in identifying
asymptomatic infections. Moreover, we examined the frequency of mutations in pfcrt,
pfmdr1, pfdhfr, and pfdhps that relate to the ongoing SMC. A total of 535 asymp-
tomatic schoolchildren were screened by microscopy and PCR (18s rRNA and TARE-
2) methods. Among all samples, 28.6% were detected as positive by 18S nested PCR,
whereas 19.6% were detected by microscopy. A high PCR-based asymptomatic preva-
lence was observed in the north (51%) compared to in the central (27.8%) and south
(16.9%). The prevalence of pfdhfr-N51I/C59R/S108N/pfdhps-A437G quadruple mu-
tant associated with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine resistance was significantly higher in
the north where SMC was implemented. Compared to 18S rRNA, TARE-2 serves as
a more sensitive molecular marker for detecting submicroscopic asymptomatic infec-
tions in high and low transmission settings. These findings establish a baseline for
monitoring P. falciparum prevalence and resistance in response to SMC over time.
Ghana is also one of the three African countries where the world’s first malaria
vaccine, RTS, S, was launched recently. The vaccine contains part of the central
repeat region and the complete C-terminal of the circumsporozoite protein (CSP)
gene of the 3D7 strain. Polymorphism in the PfCSP protein has been reported from
several parts of the world. However, whether RTS, S-induced immunity is PfCSP
allele-dependent and if selection favors non-3D7 strains are unclear. This study aims
to examine the genetic polymorphism of the PfCSP genes in clinical P. falciparum
cases and provide a baseline of parasite diversity prior to vaccine implementation in
Ghana. A total of 212 clinical samples were collected from Seikwa located in the
Brong Afrong region where the vaccine is currently being deployed. Preliminary data
indicated a high rate of polyclonal infections, with some samples harboring up to 3
clones based on the allele frequency among mapped reads. Parasite clones detected
within the same host were not genetically similar to one another. Instead, they were
distributed in various subclades and closely related to clones identified from other
hosts. It is yet to be investigated if the high PfCSP haplotype diversity and low
resemblance to the 3D7 strain have an impact on the anti-CSP immune response and
thereby the efficacy of RTS,S.
Supply chain disruptions have been a major concern in businesses and society. Our goal is to study these disruptions and analyze ways to mitigate their effects. To do so, we propose an agent-based model simulation. In our model, we consider the following: a supply chain that is generic in the structure; however, we will focus on three types of supply chains, customer-focused, low-cost, and dual-purpose supply chains. Disruptions will include repeatable small-scale events and non-repeatable large events. The managerial decisions considered include excess capacity, the amount of safety stock at each echelon of the supply chain, and the geographical dispersion of partners. To measure the resiliency in our simulation, we will compute the service levels, the time needed to return to normal operations, and the profit.
