University of Colorado Colorado Springs

About: University of Colorado Colorado Springs is a education organization based out in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 6664 authors who have published 10872 publications receiving 323416 citations. The organization is also known as: UCCS & University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

On the relationship between family structure and antisocial behavior: parental cohabitation and blended households

Abstract: In the last several decades, the American family has undergone considerable change, with less than half of all adolescents residing with two married biological parents. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we construct an elaborate measure of family structure and find considerable heterogeneity in the risk of antisocial and delinquent behavior among groups of youth who reside in what are traditionally dichotomized as intact and nonintact families. In particular, we find that youth in “intact” families differ in important ways depending on whether the two biological parents are married or cohabiting and on whether they have children from a previous relationship. In addition, we find that youth who reside with a single biological parent who cohabits with a nonbiological partner exhibit an unusually high rate of antisocial behavior, especially if the custodial parent is the biological father.

Introducing science to the psychology of the soul: Experimental existential psychology

Abstract: Humans live out their lives knowing that their own death is inevitable; that their most cherished beliefs and values, and even their own identities, are uncertain; that they face a bewildering array of choices; and that their private subjective experiences can never be shared with another human being. This knowledge creates five major existential concerns: death, isolation, identity, freedom, and meaning. The role of these concerns in human affairs has traditionally been the purview of philosophy. However, recent methodological and conceptual advances have led to the emergence of an experimental existential psychology directed toward empirically investigating the roles that these concerns play in psychological functioning. This new domain of psychological science has revealed the pervasive influence of deep existential concerns on diverse aspects of human thought and behavior.

Social support and quality of life among lung cancer patients: a systematic review.

Abstract: Objective: This systematic review analyzed the relationships between social support and quality of life (QOL) indicators among lung cancer patients. In particular, the patterns of relationships between different social support facets and sources (received and perceived support from healthcare professionals, family, and friends) and QOL aspects (emotional, physical symptoms, functional, and social) as well as the global QOL index were investigated. Methods: The review yielded 14 original studies (57% applying cross-sectional designs) analyzing data from a total of 2759 patients. Results: Regarding healthcare professionals as support source, corroborating evidence was found for associations between received support (as well as need for and satisfaction with received support) and all aspects of QOL, except for social ones. Overall, significant relations between support from healthcare personnel and QOL were observed more frequently (67% of analyzed associations), compared with support from families and friends (53% of analyzed associations). Corroborating evidence was found for the associations between perceived and received support from family and friends and emotional aspects of QOL.Research investigating perceivedsocial supportfrom unspecified sourcesindicated few significant relationships (25% of analyzed associations) and only for the global QOL index. Conclusions: Quantitative and qualitative differences in the associations between social support and QOL are observed, depending on the source and type of support. Psychosocial interventions may aim at enabling provision of social support from healthcare personnel in order to promote emotional, functional, and physical QOL among lung cancer patients.

Disgust, creatureliness and the accessibility of death-related thoughts

Abstract: From an existential terror management theory perspective, disgusting stimuli are threatening to human beings because they make salient people's vulnerability to death. Two studies were designed to assess this proposition by measuring implicit death-related ideation after individuals were presented with stimuli that either were or were not disgusting, under conditions in which the similarities of humans to other animals or the uniquely human aspects of people were made salient. In Study 1, in which rather extreme disgust-eliciting pictures were used, disgusting stimuli led to higher death-thought accessibility than neutral pictures regardless of whether or not participants had previously been primed with similarities between humans and other animals. In Study 2, in which milder verbal disgust-eliciting stimuli were used, disgusting stimuli led to heightened death-thought accessibility only when human-animal similarities were first primed. Implications for the regulation and humanization of the human body and its functions are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

PrivacyCam: a Privacy Preserving Camera Using uCLinux on the Blackfin DSP

Abstract: Considerable research work has been done in the area of surveillance and biometrics, where the goals have always been high performance, robustness in security and cost optimization With the emergence of more intelligent and complex video surveillance mechanisms, the issue of "privacy invasion" has been looming large Very little investment or effort has gone into looking after this issue in an efficient and cost-effective way The process of PICO (privacy through invertible cryptographic obscuration) is a way of using cryptographic techniques and combining them with image processing and video surveillance to provide a practical solution to the critical issue of "privacy invasion" This paper presents the idea and example of a realtime embedded application of the PICO technique, using uCLinux on the tiny Blackfin DSP architecture, along with a small Omnivision camera It demonstrates how the practical problem of "privacy invasion" can be successfully addressed through DSP hardware in terms of smallness in size and cost optimization After review of previous applications of "privacy protection", and system components, we discuss the "embedded jpeg-space" detection of regions of interest and the real time application of encryption techniques to improve privacy while allowing general surveillance to continue The resulting approach permits full access (violation of privacy) only by access to the private-key to recover the decryption key, thereby striking a fine trade-off among privacy, security, cost and space