Publications by authors named "Stacey Scott"

The organization of microtubules into a mitotic spindle is critical for animal cell proliferation and involves the cooperation of hundreds of proteins whose molecular roles and regulation are not fully understood. The protein product of the Drosophila gene abnormal spindle, Asp, is a microtubule-associated protein required for correct mitotic spindle formation. To better understand the contribution of Asp to microtubule organization during spindle formation, we reverse-engineered flies to express a version of Asp (Asp), predicted to have lost its ability to bind the phosphatase trimer PP2A-B56.

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Background: Personalized approaches to behavior change to improve mental and physical health outcomes are needed. Reducing the intensity, duration, and frequency of stress responses is a mechanism for interventions to improve health behaviors. We developed an ambulatory, dynamic stress measurement approach that can identify personalized stress responses in the moments and contexts in which they occur; we propose that intervening in these stress responses as they arise (ie, just in time; JIT) will result in positive impacts on health behaviors.

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Previous work suggests that some social media (SM) activities may have detrimental effects on users' affective well-being, whereas other activities can be more adaptive. SM use is typically assessed with global or retrospective measures; it remains unclear how its relation with affect may play out in real-time and in regard to specific SM activities, as opposed to general SM use. The current study investigated the association between specific SM activities (posting, viewing others' posts, liking/commenting, checking replies to one's own posts, direct messaging) and concurrent positive and negative affect in a sample of  = 349 18-year-old emerging adults.

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  • - User-centered design methods from human-computer interaction (HCI) have improved the welfare of various animals but are not widely applied in farm animal settings, prompting the emergence of animal-computer interaction (ACI) aimed at benefiting both animals and humans.
  • - Despite advancements in HCI and ACI, their application in improving welfare for farm animals, especially dairy cows, swine, and poultry, is still lacking, indicating a need for innovation in these areas.
  • - The paper advocates for a shift towards animal-centered farming methods and the integration of HACI within precision livestock farming and artificial intelligence to enhance animal welfare, aligning with the 'One Welfare' approach that considers broader societal benefits.
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  • The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to analyze stress responses in real-time, focusing on reactivity, recovery, and stressor accumulation (RRPs) in everyday situations.
  • It involved 123 healthy adults over a 14-day period, collecting data via 10,065 EMA reports to evaluate how stress responses varied across individuals, days, and moments.
  • Results showed that RRPs effectively captured dynamic stress variations within individuals, suggesting that personalized measures are beneficial for designing timely interventions for stress management.
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  • Falls are a significant issue for older Australians, with over 380 hospitalized daily due to fall-related injuries.
  • The objective is to guide health professionals in effectively prescribing exercise to help prevent falls in older adults living in the community.
  • Exercise programs that focus on functional balance and muscle strength training are most effective, especially for individuals at higher risk, and ongoing support may be necessary for those with complex health conditions.
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Sustainable soil resource management depends on reliable soil information, often derived from 'legacy soil data' or a combination of old and new soil data. However, the task of harmonizing soil data collected at different times remains a largely unexplored in the literature. Addressing this challenge requires incorporating the temporal dimension into mathematical and statistical models for spatio-temporal soil studies.

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  • The study investigates loneliness and social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on age differences and how they may vary by region and time within the first year of the crisis.
  • Data from four studies with a total of 1,307 participants were analyzed using common variables and statistical methods to explore how social interactions influenced feelings of loneliness, particularly considering age as a factor.
  • Results showed that social interactions were generally linked to lower loneliness levels, with consistent patterns observed across different pandemic phases; importantly, no significant age-related differences were found in these associations.
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Objective: Exposure to neighborhood violence may have negative implications for adults' cognitive functioning, but the ecological sensitivity of these effects has yet to be determined. We first evaluated the link between exposure to neighborhood violence and two latent constructs of cognitive function that incorporated laboratory-based and ambulatory, smartphone-based, cognitive assessments. Second, we examined whether the effect of exposure to violence was stronger for ambulatory assessments compared to in-lab assessments.

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Objectives: The transition into residential aged care (RAC) is often associated with loss, grief, isolation and loneliness. This scoping review aimed to identify quantitative research which focused on reducing the negative effects associated with transition, thereby improving the transition experience.

Methods: A scoping review, which concentrated on quantitative research, was conducted.

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DNA methylation-derived epigenetic clocks offer the opportunity to examine aspects of age acceleration (ie, the difference between an individual's biological age and chronological age), which vary among individuals and may better account for age-related changes in cognitive function than chronological age. Leveraging existing ambulatory cognitive assessments in daily life from a genetically diverse sample of 142 adults in midlife, we examined associations between 5 measures of epigenetic age acceleration and performance on tasks of processing speed and working memory. Covarying for chronological age, we used multilevel models to examine associations of epigenetic age acceleration (Horvath 1, Horvath 2, Hannum, PhenoAge, and GrimAge clocks) with both average level and variability of cognitive performance.

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Objectives: Loneliness in later life increases the risk for adverse health outcomes; however, less is known about how loneliness is maintained. Anxiety may play an important role in maintaining loneliness, but little is known about how this connection plays out over time in daily life. This study thus focused on the within-person associations between momentary loneliness and anxiety among older adults.

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Loneliness influences how people experience and respond to stressors, which may account for its role as a risk factor for morbidity and mortality. The present study was motivated by emerging evidence that affective responses to minor daily events have long-term implications for health and well-being. Specifically, we evaluated how individual differences in loneliness relate to the frequency of everyday stressors and stressor-related negative emotions.

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Objective: Subjective reports of cancer-related cognitive impairment often far exceed that documented using in-person neuropsychological assessment. This study evaluated whether subjective cognition was associated with real-time objective cognitive performance in daily life versus performance on an in-person neuropsychological battery, as well as fatigue and depressed mood.

Methods: Participants were 47 women (M age = 53.

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  • The study explores how young adults' use of emotion words relates to theories of affect and its connection to eating disorder symptoms.
  • Using latent profile analysis on 352 participants, researchers identified distinct patterns of emotion word usage that align with affect dimensions, revealing that those with more negative emotions tend to have worse eating disorder symptoms.
  • The findings indicate that examining individual differences in emotion word usage can enhance understanding and prevention strategies for eating disorders among young adults.
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Repeated assessments in everyday life enables collecting ecologically valid data on dynamic, within-persons processes. These methods have widespread utility and application and have been extensively used for the study of stressors and stress responses. Enhanced conceptual sophistication of characterizing intraindividual stress responses in everyday life would help advance the field.

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Objectives: Loneliness has been linked to poor mental and physical health outcomes in later life. Little is known about how daily social interactions relate to older adults' everyday experiences of loneliness. This study examined the dynamic associations between social interactions and the momentary feelings of loneliness in older adults' daily lives.

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  • The study investigates how introversion relates to everyday positive and negative experiences, referred to as "uplifts" and "hassles," using real-time reports from participants.
  • Based on a sample of 242 adults, the research found that introverts report fewer and less enjoyable uplifts but show no significant difference in the frequency or unpleasantness of hassles.
  • These findings suggest that introversion affects the experience of positive events more than negative ones, highlighting a need for further research on its impact on health.
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In March 2020, residents of the Bronx, New York experienced one of the first significant community COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States. Focusing on intensive longitudinal data from 78 Bronx-based older adults, we used a multi-method approach to (1) examine 2019 to early pandemic (February-June 2020) changes in momentary psychological well-being of Einstein Aging Study (EAS) participants and (2) to contextualize these changes with community distress scores collected from public Twitter posts posted in Bronx County. We found increases in mean loneliness from 2019 to 2020; and participants that were higher in neuroticism had greater increases in thought unpleasantness and feeling depressed.

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Loneliness has been linked to poor mental and physical health outcomes. Past research suggests that inflammation is a potential pathway linking loneliness and health, but little is known about how loneliness assessed in daily life links with inflammation, or about linkages between loneliness and inflammation among older adults specifically. As part of a larger investigation, we examined the cross-sectional associations between loneliness and a panel of both basal and LPS-stimulated inflammatory markers.

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The lack of social contact or good social relationships has been linked with cognitive decline and higher risk for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. One important but unexamined question is how daily social interactions relate to older adults' cognitive function in daily life. The present study examined how changes in daily social interactions related to fluctuations in older adults' performance on mobile cognitive tests from day to day.

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Anticipatory stress can prospectively and negatively influence diverse outcomes, including cognitive performance and emotional well-being. It has been suggested that perseverative cognitions (e.g.

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Polyploidy is present in many cancer types and is increasingly recognized as an important factor in promoting chromosomal instability, genome evolution, and heterogeneity in cancer cells. However, the mechanisms that trigger polyploidy in cancer cells are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the origin of polyploidy in esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), a highly heterogenous cancer, using a combination of genomics and cell biology approaches in EAC cell lines, organoids, and tumors.

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  • Detecting early signs of cognitive decline, specifically Alzheimer's disease, through subtle changes in social interactions is a key focus of this study.
  • The research involved 311 older adults who tracked their social activities via smartphones over 14 days to see how social interactions differ between those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and those without.
  • Findings revealed that older adults with MCI reported fewer positive social interactions and in-person activities daily, indicating that daily social behaviors may be more effective markers for identifying MCI than traditional measures of social relationships.
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Objectives: The Strength and Vulnerability Integration (SAVI) theory posits boundary conditions, such as chronic stress, which place constraints on positive emotional aging. We examine SAVI's prediction that higher levels of chronic stress will attenuate favorable age gradients for multiple indices of well-being.

Methods: We used cross-sectional data from a diverse systematic probability sample of adults (n = 260, ages 25-65).

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