Student loan debt and mental health: a comprehensive review of scholarly literature from 1900 to 2019.

PURPOSE: The review had two purposes. The first was to examine the nature and extent of published literature on student loan and the second was to systematically review the literature on student loans and mental health. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data from academic databases (1900-2019) were analyzed using two methods. First, topic modeling (a text-mining tool that utilized Bayesian statistics to extract hidden patterns in large volumes of texts) was used to understand the topical coverage in peer-reviewed abstracts (n = 988) on student debt. Second, using PRISMA guidelines, 46 manuscripts were systematically reviewed to synthesize literature linking student debt and mental health. RESULTS: A model with 10 topics was selected for parsimony and more accurate clustered representation of the patterns. Certain topics have received less attention, including mental health and wellbeing. In the systematic review, themes derived were categorized into two life trajectories: before and during repayment. Whereas stress, anxiety, and depression dominated the literature, the review demonstrated that the consequences of student loans extend beyond mental health and negatively affect a person's wellbeing. Self-efficacy emerged as a potential solution. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Across countries and samples, the results are uniform and show that student loan burdens certain vulnerable groups more. Findings indicate diversity in mental health measures has resulted into a lack of a unified theoretical framework. Better scales and consensus on commonly used terms will strengthen the literature. Some areas, such as impact of student loans on graduate students or consumers repaying their loans, warrant attention in future research.

Comparing Naturalistic Mental Health Expressions on Student Loan Debts Using Reddit and Twitter.

PURPOSE: The primary objective of this study was to identify patterns in users' naturalistic expressions on student loans on two social media platforms. The secondary objective was to examine how these patterns, sentiments, and emotions associated with student loans differ in user posts indicating mental illness. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Data for this study were collected from Reddit and Twitter (2009-2020, n = 85,664) using certain key terms of student loans along with first-person pronouns as a triangulating measure of posts by individuals. Unsupervised and supervised machine learning models were used to analyze the text data. RESULTS: Results suggested 50 topics in reddit finance and 40 each in reddit mental health communities and Twitter. Statistically significant associations were found between mental illness statuses and sentiments and emotions. Posts expressing mental illness showed more negative sentiments and were more likely to express sadness and fear. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Patterns in social media discussions indicate both academic and non-academic consequences of having student debt, including users' desire to know more about their debts. Interventions should address the skill and information gaps between what is desired by the borrowers and what is offered to them in understanding and managing their debts. Cognitive burden created by student debts manifest itself on social media and can be used as an important marker to develop a nuanced understanding of people's expressions on a variety of socioeconomic issues. Higher volumes of negative sentiments and emotions of sadness, fear, and anger warrant immediate attention of policymakers and practitioners to reduce the cognitive burden of student debts.

Learning Cephalometric Landmarks for Diagnostic Features Using Regression Trees.

Lateral cephalograms provide important information regarding dental, skeletal, and soft-tissue parameters that are critical for orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning. Several machine learning methods have previously been used for the automated localization of diagnostically relevant landmarks on lateral cephalograms. In this study, we applied an ensemble of regression trees to solve this problem. We found that despite the limited size of manually labeled images, we can improve the performance of landmark detection by augmenting the training set using a battery of simple image transforms. We further demonstrated the calculation of second-order features encoding the relative locations of landmarks, which are diagnostically more important than individual landmarks.

Mapping from spatial meaning: bridging Hñahñu (Otomi) ecological knowledge and geo-information tools.

BACKGROUND: Hñahñu (Otomi) farmers organize their experiences and ecological learning into a farmland system designed to grow food in areas of scarce water and low soil fertility. The purpose of this paper is to examine Hñahñu concepts and categories pertaining to the farming landscape and the ecological foundations underlying the system, its management implications, and categorial organization in Huitexcalco de Morelos, Mezquital Valley, Mexico. METHODS: Native terms and their links to landscape were recorded and discussed in various workshops. Open interviews and field trips with local experts were used to explain soil and water management practices that allow Hñahñu farmers to maintain sustained yields throughout the year. We then used participatory mapping in order to explore the semantic relations of the terms with the space and its validity in the productive landscape. RESULTS: We elicited 7 Hñahñu language terms related to landforms, 4 related to land use categories, and 17 related to their constituent components organized in two hierarchical levels. We found that mothe as a term of land usage was followed by mothee, ñut'athee, gadñhe, or muiñhe; these primarily refer to the topographic position of the parcel and the form of access to water for irrigation. Stone barriers and earth channels represent the functional structures that are most commonly used by Hñahñu farmers to retain soil and water. In the participatory mapping results, mothe muiñhe displayed a robust spatial link with the gullies. Identifying other landscape categories required a substantial understanding both of management practices of soil and water and forms of organization. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed a complex system of knowledge that contributes to the continued proper management of the local landscape. The terms and their elicited meanings are key to understand the ways in which Hñahñu farmers conceptualize and relate the reality of their landscape and its cultural meanings. Scale and perception were found to have a determining role in defining their taxonomic organization, semantic structure, and relations in space.

Using Video Direct Observation to Assess Children's Physical Activity During Recess.

PURPOSE: Traditional direct observation cannot provide continuous, individual-level physical activity (PA) data throughout recess. This study piloted video direct observation to characterize children's recess PA overall and by sex and weight status. METHODS: Children (N = 23; 11 boys; 6 overweight; third to fifth grade) were recorded during 2 recess periods, coding for PA duration, intensity, location, and type. Duration of PA type and intensity across sex and weight status overall and between/within locations were assessed using 1- and 2-way analysis of variances. RESULTS: The field elicited more sedentary behavior (39% of time) and light PA (17%) and less moderate to vigorous PA (41%) compared with the fixed equipment (13%, 7%, and 71%, respectively) or the court (21%, 7%, and 68%, respectively). Boys engaged in significantly more vigorous-intensity activity on the court (35%) than girls (14%), whereas girls engaged in more moderate to vigorous PA on the fixed equipment (77% vs 61%) and field (46% vs 35%) than boys (all Ps > .05). PA type also differed by sex and weight status. CONCLUSION: Video direct observation was capable of detecting and characterizing children's entire recess PA while providing valuable context to the behavior. The authors confirmed previous findings that PA intensity was not uniform by schoolyard location and further differences exist by sex and weight status.

(99m)Tc-hexamethyl propyleneamine oxime brain perfusion single photon emission computed tomography in characterization of dementia: an initial experience in Indian clinical practice.

There is a growing health burden in developing countries due to recent trends of increasing incidence of neurodegenerative diseases. To reduce the healthcare cost and effective management of dementia illness, early diagnosis, accurate differentiation and their progression assessment is becoming crucially important. We are utilizing (99m)Tc-d, l-hexamethyl propyleneamine oxime (HMPAO) brain perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) to characterize dementia on the basis of perfusion patterns and observed significant improvement in their management. Eleven patients (median age of 60 years range of 53-83 years) with clinical suspicion of dementia underwent (99m)Tc-HMPAO brain perfusion SPECT. SPECT-computed tomography acquisition done, data are reconstructed, reviewed in three view and further processed in "neurogam" to get voxel based analysis and the comparison with age based normal database and surface mapping. Final diagnosis was done with clinical correlation. Four patients are diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease, two as frontotemporal dementia, one as dementia of Lewy bodies, two as vascular dementia and two as pseudodementia. All imaging findings are well-correlated with clinical background. Brain perfusion SPECT with HMPAO was very helpful to us in characterizing the patients of dementia by its perfusion pattern.

Objective functional assessment after a head injury using movement and activity in physical space scores: a case report.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the potential benefit of using a global positioning system (GPS) and accelerometry as an objective functional-activity measure after concussion by creating Movement and Activity in Physical Space (MAPS) scores. BACKGROUND: A 21-year-old female soccer player suffered a blow to the back of the head from an opponent's shoulder during an away match. No athletic trainer was present. She played the remainder of the match and reported to the athletic training facility the next day for evaluation. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: Concussion. TREATMENT: The athlete was removed from all athletic activities. Her symptoms were monitored based on the Zurich guidelines. She was also instructed to wear an accelerometer on her hip and to carry an on-person GPS receiver at all times for 10 days. Her total symptom scores for the 4 symptomatic days were 82, 39, 49, and 36. Her mean MAPS functional score for symptomatic days 3 through 5 was 900.9 and for asymptomatic days 6 through 11 was 2734.9. UNIQUENESS: We monitored the patient's function during the concussion-recovery process using an on-person GPS receiver and accelerometer to calculate personalized MAPS scores. This novel approach to measuring function after injury may provide a useful complementary tool to help with return-to-play decisions. CONCLUSIONS: An on-person GPS receiver and accelerometer were used to observe the patient's physical activity in a free-living environment, allowing for an objective measure of function during recovery. Her MAPS scores were low while she was symptomatic and increased as she became asymptomatic. We saw the expected inverse relationship between symptoms and function. In situations where accuracy of reported symptoms may be a concern, this measure may provide a way to verify the validity of, or raise doubts about, self-reported symptoms.

Use of geostatistics for remediation planning to transcend urban political boundaries.

Soil remediation plans are often dictated by areas of jurisdiction or property lines instead of scientific information. This study exemplifies how geostatistically interpolated surfaces can substantially improve remediation planning. Ordinary kriging, ordinary co-kriging, and inverse distance weighting spatial interpolation methods were compared for analyzing surface and sub-surface soil sample data originally collected by the US EPA and researchers at the University at Buffalo in Hickory Woods, an industrial-residential neighborhood in Buffalo, NY, where both lead and arsenic contamination is present. Past clean-up efforts estimated contamination levels from point samples, but parcel and agency jurisdiction boundaries were used to define remediation sites, rather than geostatistical models estimating the spatial behavior of the contaminants in the soil. Residents were understandably dissatisfied with the arbitrariness of the remediation plan. In this study we show how geostatistical mapping and participatory assessment can make soil remediation scientifically defensible, socially acceptable, and economically feasible.

Recent changes in the spatial pattern of prostate cancer in the U.S.

INTRODUCTION: Spatial-temporal trends in prostate cancer mortality are of interest because of the introduction and increasing use of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening test after 1986. This article describes spatial-temporal changes in U.S. prostate cancer mortality from 1968 to 1998. METHODS: Prostate cancer mortality data were obtained from Compressed Mortality Files available from the National Center for Health Statistics. To minimize potential problems such as small numbers or missing data, the analysis was limited to white males aged 25 and over, and located in 2970 counties with complete data. Statistical analyses included the global distance between observed and expected multinomial probabilities, Hoover's Index of Concentration, and a retrospective test for change in spatial patterns. RESULTS: Fairly steady declines were observed in prostate cancer mortality from 1968 until 1993, with an increasing tendency toward spatial uniformity. Spatial concentration increased from 1994 to 1998, and by 1998 the level of spatial concentration had returned to levels that prevailed during the early to mid-1980s. Comparing 1991-1998 to 1968-1990, the observed number of prostate deaths increased the most rapidly with respect to the expected number in western Appalachia and the south central U.S. Recent relative declines in mortality were observed in southern California and parts of Florida. CONCLUSIONS: The observed results are generally consistent with prior evaluations of prostate cancer spatial-temporal patterns. However, the current study identified a heretofore unnoticed recent pattern of change in western Appalachia and the south central U.S. Recent declines in Florida and southern California may have contributed to recent increases in spatial concentration of prostate cancer mortality, and may possibly be associated with realized benefits from screening programs.