Ethnic Differences In Alcohol Use: A Comparison of Black and White College Students in a Small Private University Setting

An identified gap in the literature associated with college student alcohol use is the exploration of the problem based on ethnicity, specifically possible differences in use between Black and White college students. The purpose of the present study was to examine differences in alcohol use for Black and White college students at a small private university in the southeast United States. The study was conducted using the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey Long Form, which is designed to collect data related to self reported use of alcohol and perceptions of alcohol use among college students. A quantitative methodology was employed by using the statistical analyses one way analysis of variance, difference in proportions, confidence intervals, and multiple regression analysis. The data revealed significant differences by ethnicity exist between Black and White college students when exploring data associated with drinking during the 30 days prior to taking the survey and consuming five or more drinks in a sitting during the two weeks prior to taking the survey. The motivational factors associated with alcohol consumption did not reveal differences based on ethnicity, and the perception of alcohol use at the research site did not differ by ethnicity. The multiple regression analysis revealed that a combination of factors can be used to predict alcohol use, and the strongest predictor identified was the level of leadership in a social fraternity or sorority. The results provided a great deal of insight into the culture of alcohol use at the research site, and the results may assist personnel in the development of a prevention and educational plan to address the problem on campus

Characterisation and properties of r-Toeplitz matrices

AbstractAn r-Toeplitz (rT) matrix can be regarded as a block Toeplitz matrix with order some multiple of r from which a bottom border and a right-hand border have been removed. It is shown that some known properties of Toeplitz matrices extend to this new class. In particular, a necessary and sufficient condition is given, in terms of a linear matrix equation, for a nonsingular matrix to have rT form, from which it follows that the elements of the inverse are completely determined by those in its first and last r rows and columns. In addition, some results are presented for cases when the inverse of an rT matrix has certain banded forms

Past, Present, and Future

Seven leading thinkers on the presentation of Native American history and contemporary cultures discuss how the essential ideas behind the creation of the National Museum of the American Indian initially were implemented and potentially could evolve. In addition to honoring the leadership and contributions of the museum’s founding director, W. Richard West, Jr., the authors explore such topics as repatriation, the representation of Native voices in exhibitions and programs, and the museum’s ongoing effort to develop its intellectual authority. Synthesizing the papers presented at a symposium of the same name hosted by the museum in October 2007, Past, Present, and Future takes a candid look at the National Museum of the American Indian’s complex genesis and future challenges

Einstein metrics in projective geometry

It is well known that pseudo-Riemannian metrics in the projective class of a given torsion free affine connection can be obtained from (and are equivalent to) the solutions of a certain overdetermined projectively invariant differential equation. This equation is a special case of a so-called first BGG equation. The general theory of such equations singles out a subclass of so-called normal solutions. We prove that non-degerate normal solutions are equivalent to pseudo-Riemannian Einstein metrics in the projective class and observe that this connects to natural projective extensions of the Einstein condition.Comment: 10 pages. Adapted to published version. In addition corrected a minor sign erro

A holonomy characterisation of Fefferman spaces

We prove that Fefferman spaces, associated to non--degenerate CR structures of hypersurface type, are characterised, up to local conformal isometry, by the existence of a parallel orthogonal complex structure on the standard tractor bundle. This condition can be equivalently expressed in terms of conformal holonomy. Extracting from this picture the essential consequences at the level of tensor bundles yields an improved, conformally invariant analogue of Sparling's characterisation of Fefferman spaces.Comment: AMSLaTeX, 15 page