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The goal of this thesis is to enumerate the number of oriented rational knots and the number of oriented rational links with any given crossing number and minimum genus. This allows us to obtain a precise formula for the average minimal genus of oriented rational knots and links with any given crossing number.
Sleep health is an important aspect of an individual’s overall health; however, it is often overlooked. Despite the promotion of healthy sleep practices, many individuals have competing demands that interfere with sleep (e.g., work, socializing, school), contributing to poor sleep outcomes. This, in part, seems to be a result of having certain values about sleep. What is less understood, however, are how these values become embedded within an individual’s system of beliefs, and, if they are related to sleeping behaviors. This dissertation first crafted a theory based on the pre-existing literature related to internalization to create the construct conceptualization for internalized sleep culture. Internalized sleep culture was intended to help explain the process of adopting ideas related to sleep into one’s own belief system, ideas which are thought to be transmitted through cultural memes, messages, and social channels, and how this may predict subsequent behaviors related to sleep. Next, a measurement scale was developed to assess the degree to which individuals have internalized sleep culture, and the initial validation process was started. Two separate studies utilizing independent samples (N = 669 adults), as well as data from three subject matter experts were used to help develop a 12-item scale consisting of one higher order factor (global internalized sleep culture), and two lower order factors (sleep as a commodity versus a biological/psychological need, and sleep as a mechanism for bonding). Though the scale passed initial validation checks and was found to demonstrate convergent and discriminant validity through correlations with sleep attitudes, sleep hygiene, sleep outcomes (duration, quality, latency), and social desirability, further analyses demonstrated that internalized sleep culture as it was conceptualized and measured was not empirically distinct enough than the pre-existing construct of sleep attitudes. Implications of these findings and future directions related to internalized sleep culture and sleep attitudes are discussed.
Researchers have provided evidence of the effects of academic engagement on the achievement of all students. Despite the benefits of academic engagement, low rates have been reported for students with extensive support needs (ESN). Fortunately, researchers have identified effective practices for increasing academic engagement, including increasing teacher-delivered opportunities to respond (OTRs); however, students with ESN often have complex communication needs (CCN) and require supports to communicate and systematic prompting to acquire skills.
Efforts to increase teacher practices are often not sustained over time. Coaching is form of professional development with a large research base demonstrating lasting impact on teacher behavior. There are several components in the coaching literature which have been shown to be effective. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a coaching package comprised of an initial training, a goal setting and meeting cancellation contingency, daily performance feedback, and follow up coaching sessions on the frequency of teacher-delivered supported OTRs (i.e., OTR, communication support, prompt). All three teachers increased delivery of supported OTRs for the target student during small group instruction, while also increasing OTRs for all students in the group. In addition, all three target students increased active student responses (ASRs).
Compared to their cisgender counterparts, transgender, and gender diverse youth (TGDY) disproportionately experience an increased risk for poor patient safety and healthcare disparities. TGDY report poorer mental and physical health and lower rates of utilization of preventive medicine. These health and healthcare disparities may be due to a lack of access to gender-affirming care – an integrative approach to providing developmentally appropriate healthcare and facilitating conversation and exploration of gender identity with patients and their families in a supportive environment. Gender-affirming care is associated with increased healthcare utilization, quality of life, and decreased rates of depression and suicidality among TGDY. In the United States, TGDY report difficulty finding gender-affirming providers as well as trans-specific healthcare. To meet the healthcare needs of TGDY, in 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued the policy statement, “Ensuring Comprehensive Care and Support for Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents” to provide clinical practice guidelines for physicians to provide gender-affirming care to youth. However, little is known about physicians’ knowledge, agreement, or perceived barriers to implementing the AAP recommendations. Further, TGDY in rural and fringe urban areas face unique healthcare challenges and experience greater discrimination and negligence in the healthcare setting, such as receiving delayed medical care. The specific aims of this study were: To assess (1a) pediatrician’s knowledge, agreement with, and perceived barriers of the AAP recommendations as well as provision of gender-affirming care (i.e., psychoeducation, patient interaction, providing care in a safe environment, and referrals) and (1b) if this differs based on practice setting urbanization level; to examine the role of provider characteristics and practice setting in explaining the variability in: (2a) AAP policy knowledge; (2b) agreement with the AAP Policy; and (2c) perceived implementation barriers of the AAP policy; and to examine the role of provider characteristics and practice setting in explaining physician’s provision of: (3a) total GAC; (3b) GAC psychoeducation; (3c) GAC patient interaction; (3d) GAC safe environment; and (3e) GAC referrals; when accounting for AAP policy knowledge, agreement, and perceived implementation barriers. In this study, 199 physicians were recruited to participate in an online survey. Findings from this study will inform efforts to improve healthcare safety, accessibility, and equitability for TDGY by informing the future development of a context-tailored, theory-based intervention to promote gender-affirming care in diverse geographical areas.
Facility layout planning can be addressed from several perspectives, such as operational excellence or the well-being of occupants. These two stances are known to be conflicting since an improvement in one is likely to have a negative impact on the other. Some situations might also require additional requirements to be incorporated into the layout plan that can affect its performance. There are three avenues that drive this research because of these issues, including coping with computational complexity, consideration of infectious diseases for layout planning problems, and increasing the applicability of exact methods for layout practitioners. The first research avenue considers a specific layout problem known as the double-row layout problem. By modifying existing formulations in the literature, the number of binary variables are reduced by at least 25%, thus improving the overall tractability. The primary focus of the second research avenue is to assist restaurant owners in maximizing the expected revenue when operating under pandemic conditions in consideration of the probability distribution of party sizes using stochastic programming. For the final research avenue, a two-phase optimization framework is proposed for generating block layouts and aisle networks for further refining the quality of layout alternatives early in the pre-design phase.
The motivation of this thesis is to create an optical probe for the measurement of surfaces in confined spaces. This thesis presents design and operation of an optical fiber-based probe to measure a surface profile or relative displacement of external surfaces, with the vertical range of 3 nanometers to 300 micrometers and resolution of 3.25 nm. Three different probe designs have been fabricated and tested. These three probes are classified as; a single-axis, dual-axis non-
simultaneous and dual-axis simultaneous measurements. The main common components of the probe system are; Graded index lens (GRIN lens) for focusing light onto the surface, two by one fiber couplers/ splitters, photodetectors, single mode optical fibers, piezo electric actuators, and single-mode laser diode coherent sources.
Displacement is measured by mechanically modulating the optical cavity formed by an internal surface and the external surfaces being measured, each cavity of which comprises a Fabry-Perot interferometer. To modulate the phase for each of the designed probe models, a piezo electric actuator is used to oscillate the GRIN lens sinusoidally along the optical axis and perpendicular to the external test surface, with a desired frequency of modulation.
For harmonics extraction, quadrature detection and phase unwrapping, a LabVIEW FPGA program has been implemented.
For the single-axis surface measurement probe, a closed loop-controlled scanning stage was designed and fabricated using a voice coil and mechanical flexures. A specimen attached to the scanning stage is translated under the vertical probe to measure the surface profile. The range of this scan is 1.2 mm with a resolution of traverse 17.5 μm and can scan the surface profile with speed of 1 mm/sec. The working distance of the probe is a flexible number depends on the assembly of GRIN lens and fiber tip and can change between 0 to 20 mm.
For the dual-axis displacement measurement probe, two plain mirrors were attached to separate piezoelectric translation stages with their translation axis along each probe axis. Movement of each stage is measured using capacitance displacement gauges (Lion Precision CPL-190) and will mimic the effect of scanning. During experiments, each of the piezoelectric actuators is energized using a slowly, sinusoidally varying voltage resulting in a peak to valley motion of the surfaces typically of around two micrometers amplitude (corresponding to between six to ten optical fringes). The results of both non-simultaneously and simultaneously independent displacement measurements of plain mirrors is presented in this thesis. Uncertainty measurements is calculated for each probe axis and a result of 8.1 nm rms noise was measured for them.
The reason for using optical fibers and a GRIN lens in this study is to make the probe as compact and flexible as possible to be appropriate for scanning inaccessible, hard to reach surfaces such as inside of a hole or barrel or any other hard to reach areas which is not possible to scan with commercial lens-based microscopes. Also, the multi-directional optical fiber probe design, increase the flexibility of surfaces scan substantially relative to the available surface measurement fiber-based products.
Given the key role of parents in the establishment of health habits among children, the current study aims to (1) explore the nature of weight talk among families, (2) understand the correlates and consequences of various forms of family weight talk, and (3) examine the caregiving context (i.e., parenting practices and family wellbeing) as a potential moderator of the associations among parent experiences/beliefs, family weight talk, and child physical and social-emotional health. Parents and their 10- to 12-year-old children responded separately to an online survey assessing family weight talk, child health, and the caregiving context. Parents completed a daily questionnaire about family weight talk for five consecutive days.
Consistent with past research (Berge et al., 2016; Pudney et al., 2019), we found that families engaged in various forms of weight talk over the study period and that this weight talk served a variety of functions. Additionally, this engagement in health and weight-related conversations varied by several parent and child socio-demographic factors, including parent gender, parent and child BMI, race/ethnicity, and parental educational attainment. As expected, more negative parental weight-related experiences/beliefs were associated with more conversations about the child’s, the parent’s, and others’ weight. Health related conversations among families were most strongly related to greater child fruit/vegetable consumption, while weight-related conversations were associated with more snacking, worse quality of life, and worse social-emotional well-being among children. Finally, we found that weight talk can help explain the relations between parent experiences/beliefs and child health outcomes, and that the caregiving context matters for these relations. This work may contribute meaningfully to continued investigation and intervention on how to best support families in working toward greater health and well-being.
