Tutor profile: Lidya T.

What is the Health Belief Model of behavior change?

According to the Health Belief Model, an individual’s perceived threat of a disease is comprised of two components: (1) one’s perceived susceptibility to a disease and (2) one’s perceived severity of a disease. This perceived threat is one factor that influences health behaviors, along with an individual’s perceived benefits (belief that a certain behavior will minimize the threat of disease), perceived barriers (belief that the costs of a behavior outweigh the benefits), and self-efficacy (confidence in one’s ability to successfully perform a specific behavior at a specific time).

What is passive voice and why should we avoid it in writing?

Passive voice refers to a grammatical tool in which the subject of a sentence is acted upon. It is often very tempting to use passive voice, especially in long, formal texts as there is a perception that passive voice is more didactic. However, passive voice can actually lead to language that is less direct and concise. Instead, we should use active voice when we can. For instance, the following sentence is in passive voice: "The pen was picked up by Sarah." Instead we should use active voice, in which case the sentence would be: "Sarah picked up the pen."

What determines whether a cell will continue into the next phase of the cell cycle?

CDK is the protein that is responsible for regulating the cell cycle. CDK is always present in a cell, however it's active site remains unexposed. It is when CDK is bonded with cyclin that the active site of CDK is exposed. Once this active site is exposed, the cell will move onto the next phase.