Category: Professional Studies

Body weight monitoring, or the measurement of body weight by the self or others using a scale, is a technique used in numerous popular weight management programs. However, weight monitoring behavior (particularly self-weighing) is relatively understudied and poorly understood, and a controversy has erupted regarding its use as a tool for weight control. To elucidate this issue, the objective of this project is to quantitatively examine the physiological, psychological, and behavioral factors associated with weight monitoring behavior.

In the Spring of 2009, sample of UWM undergraduates completed series of survey instruments assessing demographics, weight monitoring behavior (e.g., self-weighing frequency), dietary intake, disordered eating, physical activity, body image, and self-esteem. Multivariate statistical methods will be used to examine associations between weight monitoring behavior and body weight status, psychological factors, and healthy and unhealthy eating and activity behaviors.

This project will provide foundational knowledge about the individual-level factors associated with weight monitoring among adults, and inform health researchers, clinicians, and educators about weight monitoring for the prevention and treatment of eating disorders and overweight and obesity.

Tasks and Responsibilities

• Entering survey data into Excel for future analysis.
• Conducting literature searches on the topic (with faculty guidance).
• Reading and summarizing relevant research articles on the topic (with faculty guidance).
• Assistance with research poster preparation for conference presentation(s) (as needed).
• Other tasks may be assigned based on student skill and interest.

My laboratory is dedicated to understanding the neural bases of health and pathological emotional processing and also understanding dysregulated responses to emotional stimuli among people prone to depression and anxiety, and the differences in brain activity associated with dysregrulation.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Data collection and analysis. Other duties as assigned within the research.

The significance of this research is that pinch grip is used in many daily activities, such as picking up small objects, tying shoelaces, and writing. The age related changes in pinch grip make daily activities challenging limiting the full potential of an individual The objective of this study is to gain further understanding of how pinch force generation changes with age. The methodology will include investigation of how pinch force generation differs for stroke survivors and for age-matched neurologically healthy individuals. Instrumented pinch devices are used to measure 3-dimensional pinch force profiles. Data collection and analysis involve age groups of young and old utilizing three different surfaces including rubber, wood, and paper. The impact of this research is that the results from this study can be used to better understand pinch grip generation, which will ultimately be used to create and evaluate training protocols for effective pinch force generation.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Students will be getting exposed to multiple projects while being responsible for one primary project. The project is about how people grip differently as they age. Students are currently analyzing the data collected from the pilot and control subjects and gaining further knowledge with Minitab and statistical analysis.

The primary aim of this study is to determine if sound levels and duration of resident exposure to sound during meals can be reduced with the AIM intervention protocol in a nursing home environment.

Tasks and Responsibilities

Student will be responsible for data entry for this study. Role includes:

1. Handle and protect all confidential and sensitive data with integrity.
2. Download sound data from data source, transfer data from sound software to excel and SPSS files.
3. Manage data collected on paper form. Transcribe into excel file.
4. Create tables and graphs from data.

The overall purpose of this project is to understand how the brain controls reaching movement under various sensorimotor environments.

The specific objectives are:

1. To investigate how individuals adapt to novel environments in which their sensory-motor relationship is altered by the presence of visual rotations or virtual force fields.
2. To investigate how sensorimotor adaptation is generalized across different conditions (e.g., transfer of motor learning from one arm to the other).
3. To understand the effect of handedness on sensorimotor adaptation and its transfer across the arms.

Tasks and Responsibilities

1. Students will recruit subjects.
2. Students will help, and learn how, to collect movement data using 2-D movement data acquisition systems.
3. Students will be exposed to data processing and analysis procedures.
4. Students will learn to search and review relevant literature.
5. Students involved in a project for an extended time period may be encouraged to present research findings at UWM/national conferences, and invited to be an author on a research manuscript.

I am in the advanced stages of this Internet article for an Internet Encyclopedia of quantitative economic histories of most countries of the world. Even though the article can not exist without a statistical component, it is more than that:it also contains a descriptive-qualitative economic history segment.

Tasks and Responsibilities

A student could benefit through participation in this research of linking quantitative with qualitative aspects of this project. A student would be exposed to the multiple, challenging aspects of (inter)disciplinary research, always anchored in broadly defined economics.