According to dual process models of alcohol use, both explicit (controlled/reflective) process and implicit (automatic/reflexive) cognitions are important predictors of alcohol-related problems. These models also suggest that there are certain types of people for whom implicit processes may be more influential – e.g., people who are more impulsive. Based on these theories, this study seeks to examine whether impulsivity influences the strength of the relationship between implicit drinking identity (cognitions about the self and drinking) and alcohol-related problems. 506 college students completed the Drinking Identity Implicit Association Test, the Impulsivity Subscale of the Substance Use Risks Profile Scale, and the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index. As hypothesized, both impulsivity and drinking identity scores were significantly and positively correlated with alcohol-related problems. Moderation was also supported: drinking identity was more predictive of alcohol-related problems for those reporting higher impulsivity rather than lower impulsivity. These results are consistent with theories that suggest that implicit cognitions should be better predictors for individuals with higher levels of impulsivity. This suggests that targeting implicit drinking identity might be helpful in reducing alcohol-related problems, especially for those individuals with higher levels of impulsivity. In addition, targeting impulsivity may also help reduce alcohol-related problems.

Previous research has found that social influences including descriptive norms (how much or how often a behavior is exhibited) and prototypes (images associated with individuals who engage in certain behaviors) have been shown to influence engagement in risky sexual behavior. Although these relationships are fairly well established, less is known about factors that might influence the strength of these relationships. One potential factor is sexual sensation seeking, which refers to one’s need or desire to have various, new, and complex sexual sensations and experiences. Given that individuals high in sexual sensation seeking have been shown to be more influenced by social factors, we hypothesize that sexual sensation seeking will moderate the relationship between two different forms of social influence (descriptive norms and prototypes) and sexual behavior such that the relationship between descriptive norms and behavior and prototypes and behavior will be stronger for those individuals higher in sexual sensation seeking. Data for the current study are drawn from a sample of 121 University of Washington undergraduate students, ages 21-30, (50.4% female) who completed an online survey regarding their health behaviors, with specific measures including the Sexual Sensation Seeking Scale, Alcohol-Related Sexual Behaviors Scale, Prototypes, and Perceived Sexual and Alcohol-Related Sexual Behaviors Scale. Moderation analyses using linear regression will be conducted in order to test whether sensation seeking moderates the social influence to behavior relationships as predicted above. Results from this study have the potential to inform methods aimed at preventing unwanted pregnancies and STI transmissions, lead to personalized treatment methods for those higher in sexual sensation seeking, as well as supplement current research looking at social influence and personality factors that influence risky sexual behavior.

The physiological mechanism of light-induced leaf expansion may begin with the capture of blue light by the photoreceptor phototropin. This process is responsible for growth of the plant which influences photosynthetic ability and overall productivity. Our goal was to determine whether phototropin has an affect on expansion and if so, what phototropin's role in growth is. In this study, we grew Arabidopsis thaliana WT (wild type), phot1, phot2, and phot1/2 mutants in pots in a growth chamber under continuous light. Each plant's fifth leaf was photographed every day and measured with ImageJ to obtain growth rates. This experiment was run three times. The results show that phot1 mutants do not significantly differ from WT, phot2 mutants had a similar growth rate to WT but continued growing at a fast rate for a day longer, and phot1/2 had a much slower growth rate than WT. A second experiment was done using the same growth conditions, but using only WT, phot2, and phot1/2. On the sixth day after its appearance, the fifth leaf was removed from each plant and floated in a 5 millimolar solution of KCl for 24 hours. These leaves were photographed before and after to obtain their growth rates and the results were consistent with the first experiment which used intact leaves. The second experiment demonstrates that there is a phot-mediated mechanism contained within the leaf which influences growth. Knowing the cellular mechanism regulating leaf growth rate may help to understand how environmental stresses such as drought reduce plant productivity. Our next step will be to determine the mechanism which is causing the difference between the rates. First, we will look at anatomy of the leaves to determine if cell expansion or division is most affected by phototropin.

In the United States, the average woman intends to have 2.5 children, yet the US total fertility rate is just 1.89. Demographers and economists worry that below-replacement level fertility rates will impede economic growth and render the US incapable of supporting its aging population. To combat this problem, some governments in developed countries have implemented pronatalist policies to encourage women to have more children. This research seeks to discern whether such approaches are sound by analyzing the effect of the availability of more social services, especially childcare and health care, on a woman’s intention to have children. My data set consists of the 2008/2009 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one of the most comprehensive surveys in labor and family economics. My model consists of a multivariate linear regression with fertility as the dependent variable, and the availability and cost of social services, such as healthcare, childcare, and schooling, as well as demographic variables like age, ethnicity, and religion, as independent variables. I aim to show the impact of policy incentives on fertility at the individual level, and to discern what demographic factors make women more or less likely to have children. Furthermore, by using a recent data set, I hope to make timely and relevant conclusions and predictions about the childbearing intentions of young women in the United States that can inform current policy debates.

Research has shown that among alcohol dependent individuals, there is a positive correlation between stress and alcohol craving and that coping motives for drinking are associated with increased alcohol consumption and related problems. However, the relationship between drinking motives, stress, and alcohol cravings has not been investigated in undergraduates. We hypothesize that the more stress people report feeling and the more they endorse drinking to cope, the more they will crave alcohol and experience more alcohol-related problems. Participants (N=506; ages 18-20 and 1st or 2nd-year undergraduates) completed a web-based survey as a part of a larger study. Measures included self-report assessments of stress, coping motives for drinking, alcohol craving, and alcohol-related problems. Both coping motives and stress were significantly and positively related to alcohol related problems. Inconsistent with our hypotheses, stress was a better predictor of alcohol-related problems in people who reported lower (versus higher) coping motives. Coping motives were positively related to craving, but stress was not. Finally, coping motives and stress did not interact to predict alcohol craving. Thus, results were not as expected. These findings suggest that coping motives and stress do not interact to predict alcohol cravings or alcohol-related problems in first and second year undergraduates. Sample differences may account for these unexpected results –for example, nearly half of our sample did not drink alcohol in the last three months. Similarly, those in our sample who do drink may not drink as much, may not have drank for as many years, and/or may not have experienced the same level of negative consequences as published studies of alcohol dependent individuals.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), is a degenerative disease caused by a recessive X-chromosome mutation, resulting in lack of the protein dystrophin. Affected males experience profound muscular weakness in childhood and by adolescence the heart and respiratory muscles are affected. The Golden Retriever muscular dystrophy (GRMD) dog model displays phenotypes analogous to patients and is considered the premier preclinical model. We evaluated changes in limb function by assessing gait in GRMD (n=3), wildtype (n=2), and in GRMD dogs injected with an adeno-associated virus carrying a dystrophin replacement gene in a single limb (n=3). Dogs were walked at a self-selected pace along an instrumented carpet to measure gait parameters. The average velocity over time of non-injected GRMD dogs was 60.39% of wildtype. Treated dogs displayed slightly increased velocities (67.17% of normal). By the final timepoint, velocity in all groups was comparable. The average paw pressure of the non-injected GRMD group increased 8.05%, while the average paw pressure for the wildtype decreased by 12.75%. The ratio of mean paw pressure for untreated GRMD: wildtype increases from 0.819 to 1.014 over time. We therefore determined that paw pressure might be a sensitive indicator of a treatment effect. To estimate the minimum sample size required for future studies, a power of analysis was performed. Results indicate that n=14 is required to detect differences between groups with a confidence level of 5% and power of 80%. Given that human patients suffer multiple symptoms of muscular weakness analogous to the dogs, including reduced limb function, changes in treated GRMD dogs as measured through gait analysis may evaluate the efficacy of the gene therapy as treatment for DMD. Human patients suffer multiple symptoms from muscular weakness (non-ambulatory, cardiac impairment, etc). Future studies hope to transition treatment to human patients to improve ambulation and increase quality of life.