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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.
Sexual violence on college campus is a salient threat to the health and well-being of students in higher education. Title IX legislation was developed to address and help reduce sex-based discrimination, including incidences of sexual violence, on college campuses. However, existing data suggests that a relatively small number of campus survivors make a formal report and subsequently have an interaction with the Title IX Office (Cantor et al., 2015). Additionally, little is known about the implementation of Title IX processes, the nature of Title IX sexual violence reports, or the outcomes of survivors involved in Title IX reports. The current study adds to our understanding of these survivors’ experiences. Specifically, the study utilized archival Title IX report data obtained from one large public university during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 academic years (n = 151) to explore the nature and scope of Title IX sexual violence reports and the academic health outcomes of survivors post-report. The study utilized data extracted from Title IX sexual violence reports to describe the characteristics of Complainants (i.e., survivors), Respondents (i.e., perpetrators), incident characteristics, reporting processes, and characteristics of cases involved in formal university hearings. The study also utilized aggregated data from the Title IX sexual violence reports in conjunction with data obtained from UNC Charlotte Maxient system, which contains student GPA and enrollment status, to examine the academic health of survivors over time. Complainants predominantly identified as Caucasian (65%) and female (93%). Respondents predominantly identified as Caucasian (42%) and male (99%). Complainants most often identified Respondents as friends (16%), ex romantic partners (16%), or acquaintances (14%). Only 11% of Respondents were identified as strangers. Complainants were most often referred to the Title IX Office by mandated reporters (87%). Over half of the Complainants (62%) engaged with Title IX staff following initial outreach. Many cases had incomplete academic data (no pre-report or post-report semester GPA). However, in the sample with three GPA time points (n = 57 survivors), academic outcomes over time were not significantly associated with Respondent’s affiliation to the university, source of referral to the Title IX Office, engagement in the reporting process, or involvement in a formal university hearing. Seventeen percent (n = 25) of Complaints dropped out of the university. However, Complainant engagement with the Title IX Office was not significantly associated with dropout. These findings increase our understanding of the Title IX process and the experiences of campus sexual assault survivors who are involved with the Title IX Office.
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.
Technology Usage has become an important topic because of disruptions in the healthcare space in recent years. Long wait times and service delivery times, reduced patient engagement and interaction on care plans, lack of access to just-in-time healthcare records, diverse IT infrastructure with little or no interoperability and frequent server downtimes are some of the critical issues that could leverage current technology solutions to engage with patients before, during and post encounter visits and significantly improve outcomes and patient experiences.
Objective – This study extends the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model by examining the role of technology use in influencing healthcare outcomes and patient experience. The study also investigates how healthcare service modality (Brick& Mortar, Hospital at Home, Mobile/Telehealth) influences the relationship between technology use and patient outcomes. Specifically looking at how different healthcare modality types can leverage modern technologies and disruption trends to improve patient satisfaction and patient engagement throughout the life cycle of a patient encounter visit.
Methods – Our proposed model incorporates five constructs- Two Independent variables- Individual Behavioral Intention and Technology use, Two moderators- Cloud based Electronic Medical Record (EHR) and Modality and finally two dependent variables- Patient Satisfaction and Patient Engagement.
Results -Results from an online survey on technology use from patients who have experienced services from the different healthcare modalities will be collected and analyzed to support the model.
Conclusions – This study is an important innovative addition for the UTAUT2 model. It will have practical implications for academia and industry by informing future research and operationalization strategies on possible trends that could be leveraged to significantly improve performance and outcomes in the healthcare industry.
Key Words – Healthcare Business Types, Technology Use, Cloud Enabled Patient Portal, Healthcare Service Delivery, Technology Acceptance Model (UTAUT2), Patient Satisfaction, Patient Engagement
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 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.
