Effects of facemasks and virtual lecture environments on speech recall

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, schools often required that students and faculty wear face masks in the classroom or attend virtual class. The current study focused on the impact of face visibility in the classroom and virtual lectures on students’ recall for spoken information. Traditionally aged college students participated in live and virtual lecture environments with both masked and unmasked speaker stimuli. The researchers hypothesized that scores on a recall post-test for unmasked, individual lectures would be higher than post-test scores for the masked individual lecture or group lecture conditions. However, results revealed no differences between conditions. These findings are significant for determining if students’ learning experience is directly affected by the presence of facemasks in the classroom

Personality Traits and Exercise Motivation Among College Students

Exercise and its benefits have been studied for a long period of time. Something that has gained interest is identifying what influences individuals to exercise, and if personality has any impact. The purpose of this study was to understand if conscientiousness and neuroticism influenced different exercise motivations. Participants (N=97, Males= 39, Females= 58) were recruited from academic and athletic clubs at Winona State University. The participants filled out multiple inventories using paper and pencil. This study is looking in particular at the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Exercise Motivation Inventory-2 (EMI-2). Bivariate correlation analyses were conducted in order to examine the relationship between variables, using SPSS, version 25. Significant positive correlations were found between conscientiousness and ill health avoidance, positive health, and stress management. A significant negative correlation was found between neuroticism and positive health. The results indicate that those who are higher in conscientiousness engage in healthy exercise habits, while those lower in neuroticism may be exercising to improve health. These findings can be useful in identifying personality traits to help motivate individuals to exercisehttps://openriver.winona.edu/urc2019/1079/thumbnail.jp

Eating Behaviors and Cultural Influences on Appearance: What is the Experience of College Women?

Previous research has shown that people who suffer from eating disorders are likely to engage in unhealthy eating behaviors and cultural pressure toward appearance. The purpose of the present study was to replicate previous studies examining unhealthy eating behaviors and cultural values of appearance among college women. It was hypothesized that approximately 50% of college women at WSU engage in unhealthy eating behaviors and college women who report unhealthy eating habits will also note greater awareness of cultural values toward appearance. Seventy-nine undergraduate women participated in a series of online surveys through Qualtrics. Variables examined for this project came from a demographic questionnaire and the Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearances Questionnaire-4-Revised (SATAQ-4R). Participants self-reported a range of BMI scores between 16.5 and 42. An independent samples T-test was conducted in order to identify group differences on unhealthy eating behaviors (some or none) and cultural influences. Approximately 50% of participants reported engaging in at least one unhealthy eating behavior. Women who reported engaging in some unhealthy eating behaviors also reported greater internalization of thinness, general attractiveness, and pressure from the media, compared to those who reported none. Campus efforts to improve health among women may be benefitted by interventions that reduce cultural influences on expectations for appearance.https://openriver.winona.edu/urc2019/1093/thumbnail.jp

Cold-Formed Steel Strength Predictions for Torsion

Locally slender open cross-section members are susceptible to significant twisting and high warping torsion stresses. Torsion considerations are complicated by whether it is derived as a first-order effect from loading or a second-order effect from instability. Previous direct torsion experiments on lipped channels have shown significant inelastic reserve in limited cases. The current design for combined bending and torsion interaction has some limitations, including only considering the first yield in torsion and ignoring the cross-section slenderness in torsion. A parametric study is conducted to predict the torsion capacity in locally slender cross-sections. Shell finite element models of lipped Cee and Zee section members are validated with existing experiments on combined bending and torsion. The validated models are utilized for a parametric study with applied torsion on a range of cross-sections, steel grades, and members lengths to cover the range of practically expected torsional slenderness. A set of bimoment parameters, including yield bimoment, buckling bimoment, and plastic bimoment, are calculated and the ultimate bimoment is determined by performing shell finite element collapse analyses. A simple uniform equation is adopted to predict the bimoment capacity and two bimoment strength curves under torsion only are proposed for local and distortional buckling controlled cases respectively

Coreference and discourse coherence in L2:The roles of grammatical aspect and referential form

Discourse-level factors, such as event structure and the form of referential expressions, play an important role in native speakers’ referential processing. This paper presents an experiment with Japanese- and Korean-speaking learners of English, investigating the extent to which discourse-level biases that have gradient effects in L1 speakers are also implicated in L2 speakers’ coreference choices. Results from a story continuation task indicate that biases involving referential form were remarkably similar for L1 and L2 speakers. In contrast, event structure, indicated by perfective versus imperfective aspect, had a more limited effect on L2 speakers’ referential choices. The L2 results are discussed in light of existing accounts of L1 reference processing, which assume that referential choices are shaped by speakers’ continually updated expectations about what is likely to be mentioned next, and argued to reflect L2 speakers’ reduced reliance on expectations.NS

Cold-Formed Steel Strength Predictions for Combined Bending and Torsion

Locally slender cross-section members, such as cold-formed steel Cee and Zee sections, are susceptible to significant twisting and high warping torsion stresses. Torsion considerations are complicated by whether it is derived as a first-order effect from loading or a second-order effect from instability. The current design for combined bending and torsion interaction has some limitations, including only considering the first yield in torsion and ignoring the cross-section slenderness in torsion. Previous work has derived a simple uniform equation to predict the bimoment capacity and two bimoment strength curves for local and distortional buckling under torsion only. This work is extended to consider combined bending and torsion for locally slender cross-sections. A parametric study is conducted to improve the interaction prediction of combined bending and torsion for a range of torsional slenderness. Shell fnite element analysis of lipped Cee and Zee section members with combined bending and torsion were created using a validated model. A practical range of cross-sections and bracing conditions were investigated with various ratios of applied torsion and bending. Shell finite element buckling and collapse analyses were performed to determine the critical and ultimate moments and bimoments. It was found that the current AISI standard is conservative under most scenarios. Updated torsion-bending interaction equations incorporating bimoment and bending moment are proposed. The interaction equations are dependent on the cross-section, the direction of the applied torsion, and the bracing condition