This manual describes use of a new hybrid autonomous crack and structural response monitoring (ACSM) system. It is designed as a low cost alternative to the research grade version employing SOMAT’s eDAQ data recording system. The concept is to combine a new field portable, 24 bit, 12 channel seismograph with...
Transposable elements (TEs) have been recognized as potentially powerful drivers of genomic evolutionary change, but factors affecting their mobility and regulation remain poorly understood. Chaperones such as Hsp90 buffer environmental perturbations by regulating protein conformation, but are also part of the PIWI-interacting RNA pathway, which regulates genomic instability arising from...
Many preventable behaviors contribute to adolescent mortality and morbidity. Non-adherence to preventive measures represents a challenge and has been associated with worse health outcomes in this population. The widespread use of electronic communication technologies by adolescents, particularly the use of text messaging (short message service, SMS) and mobile phones, presents...
As of 2020, there are currently 5.8 million people in the United States suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), a debilitating and progressive neurodegenerative disorder. Of these nearly six million people, two-thirds are women. While it has been suggested that women’s longer lifespan accounts for this disparity, the overall lifetime risk...
Affective science has long been interested in the coherence between different emotion response systems (e.g., subjective emotional experience, behavior, physiology). Although evolutionary functionalist accounts of emotion hold that emotional coherence should be related to greater adaptation, few studies have analyzed links between emotional coherence and wellbeing. Thus, in this laboratory-based...
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded health coverage for thousands of Illinois residents. Expanded coverage, however, does not guarantee appropriate health care. Diabetes and its ocular complications serve as an example of how providers in underserved urban areas may not be able to keep up with new demand for...
Achievement gaps between students from different SES and racial/ethnic backgrounds stubbornly persist despite decades of policy interventions. My dissertation focuses on several unexpected sources of stress and disruption that may be related to the achievement gap: sunlight exposure, a sister’s teen childbearing, and nearby violent crime. I demonstrate that these...
This paper examines the relationship between a party'’'s descriptive representation of women and its ideological proximity to female and male voters. I find that male and female voters are both objectively closer to parties with more females in their delegations. However, males are more likely to subjectively assess parties with...
To analyze institutional dynamics, it is first necessary to determine when change has occurred, when not, and the nature and magnitude of change. If social institutions are defined in terms of rules, then a change of rules forms the core of institutional change. A number of complications arise from the...