Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2009, Psychology

The present study explored the relationship between positive and negative reactivity, effortful control (EC), and symptoms of both general distress and depression in a sample of 1242 undergraduate students. Participant responses to self-report questionnaire measures of temperament and emotional symptoms were analyzed using multiple linear regression analyses. EC was divided into three facets of attentional control, inhibitory control, and activation control to examine the different relationships between the individual components of EC and emotional problems. Attentional control and inhibitory control were related to symptoms of general distress and depression that were associated with negative reactivity. There was also evidence that attentional control moderated the association between negative reactivity and symptoms of general distress and depression. Conversely, activation control was related to symptoms specific to depression, which are most strongly related to low positive reactivity. Activation control also moderated the association between positive reactivity and anhedonic symptoms such that low positive reactivity was more weakly related to depressive symptoms at higher levels of activation control. Sex differences were found indicating that men were more likely to report symptoms of depression not related to negative reactivity than women. The results also showed that low activation control was related to more depressive symptoms in men than women. There was evidence of an interactive relationship between Behavioral Inhibition (BIS) and Behavioral Activation (BAS) for general distress such that the at low levels of BIS, low BAS was associated with higher reports of general distress, and at high levels of BIS, reports of general distress were similar for both high and low levels of BAS. There was also an interaction between negative affectivity (NA) and positive affectivity (PA) for symptoms of depression such that the relationship between NA and depressive (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Michael Vasey Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Julian Thayer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Cheavens Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2015, Engineering and Applied Science: Aerospace Engineering

The weightless environment of space negatively affects the health and safety of astronauts. If long term space flight is to be achieved, astronauts must maintain the ability to work against gravity present on Earth when they return. Current exercise protocols need to be tailored to a weightless environment. Finite element modeling and differential equations representing bone growth can be used to tailor exercise. To make use of these methods, muscle forces need to be accurately predicted. This work examines two muscle force prediction techniques from the literature, namely inverse dynamics based static optimization and computed muscle control, to determine a method to be used for the tailoring of exercise protocols. A previous study compared static optimization and computed muscle control finding that they were equal in representing the timing of muscle activations. This is a similar study during a throwing motion but for five subjects and ten trials. This study compares resulting forces and activations of the biceps, triceps long and triceps lateral to electromyography through quantitative and statistical measures. Computed muscle control and static optimization are essentially equal in their ability to predict height of normalized electromyography. Computed muscle control is shown to be better at predicting timing of normalized electromyography as a statistically significant difference exists in time at peaks between each method and electromyography. A significant difference also exists in the average Pearson correlation coefficient between activations of each method and electromyography. It is further shown that both methods could be improved through scaling.

Committee: Grant Schaffner Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Ronald Huston Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kristin Yvonne Rozier Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Biomechanics