The Effect of Official College Athletic Web Sites on the Job of Division I Sports Information Directors

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of official college athletic Web sites on the job of Division I sports information directors. Specifically, it focused on how often the site is updated, who is responsible for performing that duty, and whether a position has been created solely for the purpose of maintain the Web site. The target population included all 327 Division I sports information directors. Directors from Division I schools were chosen because of the high probability that their school maintains an official Web site that it has had an impact on the sports information director position. The instrument used to collect the data was an online survey and participants were invited via e-mail. The survey contained 21 questions and in order to ensure anonymity, no identifying characteristics were asked. Participants were given the option to skip any questions they did not feel comfortable answering. The directors were given two weeks to respond to the survey, with a reminder e-mail being sent halfway through. In total, the survey received a response rate of 44.6 percent. The major findings were that a very small amount of sports information offices (6.4 percent) employ a full-time staff member to maintain the Web site despite the fact that almost 96 percent consider the site to be of above average importance to their athletic program. One of the main constraints is budget, but 55.6 percent believe that hiring Web personnel will become a trend of the future out of the necessity to keep up with expanding technology and the growing importance of the sites to the programs. The study also shows a varying degree of overall effect on the job of sports information directors. Some have welcomed the Web site, saying that it makes the job easier. Others, however, view it as added work and a greater demand to have new information constantly available. Some directors have developed a love-hate relationship, recognizing the value of the site but also the drawbacks

Response of Multiple-Mass Systems to Nonvertically Incident Seismic Waves

A variational procedure is used for calculating the response of two foundations with rectangular bases supported on a viscoelastic halfspace and subjected to horizontally and vertically incident SH-waves and Rayleigh waves. Results which include the response of massless foundations and those with mass indicate that the dynamic behavior of a rigid foundation to traveling wave excitation can be affected significantly by the presence of a neighboring foundation. The effect is most pronounced when the direction of the incoming wave is parallel to the axis of the two masses, in which case a noticeable reduction in the response of the downstream foundation is observed with respect to that of the upstream foundation

Seismic Response of 20-Valleys: Local Site Effects

Layering and geometry effects on ground response of two-dimensional sedimentary valleys under oblique seismic excitation are investigated. The seismic wave has the shape of a half cycle incoming pulse with SV-wave characteristics. Vertical and oblique incoming signals of varying duration are used. The analysis is performed using finite element techniques, an equivalent effective force method to prescribe the free field motion within the domain of computation, and an artificial boundary to absorb the scattered motion. Simple examples are presented confirming the validity of this methodology. It is shown that surface waves generated at the valley edges propagate through the basin producing an increased ground response. Horizontal and vertical displacements are affected significantly by valley geometry, particularly by the inclination of the valley sides. Layering and inclined waves contribute to producing amplification and very long duration of ground motion

Preserved differentiation between physical activity and cognitive performance across young, middle, and older adulthood over 8 years.

Objectives: A critical question in the activity engagement literature is whether physical exercise alters the trajectory of age-related cognitive decline (differential preservation) or is associated with enhanced baseline cognitive ability (preserved differentiation). Further, investigations considering that these relations may differ across young, middle, and older adulthood are rare. Method: We evaluated data from the PATH Through Life Project, where participants aged 20-24, 40-44, and 60-64 years at baseline (n = 6,869) completed physical activity (PA; mild, moderate, and vigorous) and cognitive measurements thrice over 8 years. Results: Multilevel models accounting for employment status, sex, education, health, and mental and social activity showed that between-person differences in PA participation positively predicted baseline performance on fluid cognitive ability (perceptual speed, short-term memory, working memory, and episodic memory). These effects were similar across age groups, but strongest for the youngest cohort, for whom there was also evidence of covariation between within-person change in PA and cognitive score. PA was not associated with change in cognition over time. DISCUSSION: Results support preserved differentiation, where physically active adults have higher initial cognitive ability, and the advantage is maintained over time. PA appears to be unique in showing differences across young, middle, and older adulthood in predicting cognition

Towards an active and happy retirement? Changes in leisure activity and depressive symptoms during the retirement transition

Objectives: Retirement is a major life transition in the second half of life, and it can be associated with changes in leisure activity engagement. Although theories of retirement adjustment have emphasized the need to find meaningful activities in retirement, little is known about the nature of changes in leisure activity during the retirement transition and their association with mental health. Methods: Based on four annual waves of the 'Health, Aging and Retirement Transitions in Sweden' study, we investigated the longitudinal association of leisure activity engagement and depressive symptoms using bivariate dual change score models. We distinguished intellectual, social, and physical activity engagement. Results: We found increases in all three domains of activity engagement after retirement. Although level and change of activity and depressive symptoms were negatively associated, the coupling parameters were not significant, thus the direction of effects remains unclear. Conclusion: The results highlight the need to consider the role of lifestyle changes for retirement adjustment and mental health

Long-term cognitive correlates of traumatic brain injury across adulthood and interactions with APOE genotype, sex, and age cohorts.

There is continuing debate about long-term effects of brain injury. We examined a range of traumatic brain injury (TBI) variables (TBI history, severity, frequency, and age of injury) as predictors of cognitive outcome over 8 years in an adult population, and interactions with apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype, sex, and age cohorts. Three randomly sampled age cohorts (20-24, 40-44, 60-64 years at baseline; N = 6333) were each evaluated three times over 8 years. TBI variables, based on self-report, were separately modeled as predictors of cognitive performance using linear mixed effects models. TBI predicted longitudinal cognitive decline in all three age groups. APOE ε4 + genotypes in the young and middle-aged groups predicted lower baseline cognitive performance in the context of TBI. Baseline cognitive performance was better for young females than males but this pattern reversed in middle age and old age. The findings suggest TBI history is associated with long-term cognitive impairment and decline across the adult lifespan. A role for APOE genotype was apparent in the younger cohorts but there was no evidence that it is associated with impairment in early old age. The effect of sex and TBI on cognition varied with age cohort, consistent with a proposed neuroprotective role for estrogen

A new fast multi-domain BEM to model seismic wave propagation and amplification in 3D geological structures

International audienceThe analysis of seismic wave propagation and amplification in complex geological structures raises the need for efficient and accurate numerical methods. The solution of the elastodynamic equations using traditional boundary element methods (BEMs) is greatly hindered by the fully-populated nature of the matrix equations arising from the discretization. In a previous study limited to homogeneous media, the present authors have established that the Fast Multipole (FM) method reduces the complexity of a 3-D elastodynamic BEM to $N \log N$ per GMRES iteration and demonstrated its effectiveness on 3-D canyon configurations. In this article, the frequency-domain FM-BEM methodology is extented to 3-D elastic wave propagation in piecewise-homogeneous domains in the form of a FM-accelerated multi-region BE-BE coupling approach. This new method considerably enhances the capability of the BEM for studying the propagation of seismic waves in 3-D alluvial basins of arbitrary geometry embedded in semi-infinite media. Several fully 3-D examples (oblique SV-waves) representative of such configurations validate and demonstrate the capabilities of the multi-domain fast multipole approach. They include comparisons with available (low-frequency) results for various types of incident wavefields, and time-domain results obtained by means of Fourier synthesis