The Relationship Between Task Cohesion and Competitive State Anxiety

The general purpose of the present study was to determine if perceptions of team cohesion are related to the interpretation athletes attach to their precompetition anxiety. Specifically examined was the association between athlete perceptions of task cohesiveness (Individual Attractions to the Group–Task, ATG-T, and Group Integration–Task, GI-T) and the degree to which perceptions of the intensity of precompetition anxiety symptoms (cognitive and somatic) were viewed as facilitative versus debilitative. Participants were athletes (N = 392) from the sports of soccer, rugby, and field hockey. Each athlete completed the Group Environment Questionnaire (Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985) after a practice session. A directionally modified version of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (Martens, Burton, Vealey, Bump, & Smith, 1990) was completed just prior to a competition. Results showed that athletes who perceived their cognitive anxiety as facilitative had higher perceptions of both ATG-T and GI-T, χ2 (2, N = 260) = 8.96, p \u3c .05, than athletes who perceived their cognitive anxiety as debilitative. Also, athletes who perceived their somatic anxiety as facilitative had higher perceptions of GI-T, χ2 (2, N = 249) = 5.85, p \u3c .05

The spectra of the spherical and euclidean triangle groups

We derive the spectrum of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on the quotient orbifold of the non hyperbolic triangle groups.Comment: accepted in the Journal of the Australian Mathematical Societ

Conditions for entanglement in multipartite systems

We introduce two entanglement conditions that take the form of inequalities involving expectation values of operators. These conditions are sufficient conditions for entanglement, that is if they are satisfied the state is entangled, but if they are not, one can say nothing about the entanglement of the state. These conditions are quite flexible, because the operators in them are not specified, and they are particularly useful in detecting multipartite entanglement. We explore the range of utility of these conditions by considering a number of examples of entangled states, and seeing under what conditions entanglement in them can be detected by the inequalities presented here.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review

Reliability and Validity of the Transactional Analysis Freehand Script Maze

In 1976, Buryska constructed an instrument called the Transactional Analysis Freehand Script Maze to explore the possible injunctions a client may have in certain areas. These areas are body, senses, feelings, head, needing, sex, family and culture, others, doing, and being. The purpose of this study was to find the reliability and validity of the freehand script maze. Before the maze could be discussed, introduction was given about the history and components of Transactional Analysis. The subjects used for the reliability test of the study were 134 Eastern Illinois University students chosen from classes that were willing to participate. The subjects for the validity test were 16 trained T. A. clinicians or therapists, all of which were chosen at random from the T. A. member directory for the United States, and 12 of their clients. The apparatus used was the freehand script maze which contains 60 boxes, all of which contain a statement of Permission to Do or to Be. The maze is formed by the subject when he closes off part of or all of a box. This closing indicates a possible injunction on the part of the subject. Standardized instructions were used for the administration of the maze. For the reliability, the maze was administered to a group of students in different college classes. The validity part of the maze was given by the clinician or therapist to his clients individually. While the client filled out his maze, the therapist or clinician was suppose to fill out a maze of how he thought his client\u27s maze would look when finished. Each maze, after completion, was then scored with each box receiving a score of 0 to 2. A score of 2 indicates an emphatic injunction, a score of 1 indicates a partial injunction, a score of 0 indicates no injunction. Analysis was run on Bio-Med 08 factorial program with subjects and items as random factors; test-retest and areas as fixed. Because of a lack of participation by clinicians and therapists, only one participated, no validity results could be computed. The reliability findings of this study found a Pearson Product Moment coefficient of .67 for the test-retest reliability. This indicates that it has low reliability as a consistent test. The ADV table showed the C/A effect as being significant at the p\u3c.01 level, indicating that some rows of the maze showed more problems than others. One could possibly use the maze then, as an index of adjustment. Subject by item interaction account for 72% of variance in scores. It would then be wrong to assume that a subject would enter the boxes randomly or that one injunction would evoke a response because of another injunction. It was concluded, however, that the maze is probably best used, at present, as a tool for discovering where the client has his greatest problems or injunctions and as an enjoyable rapport builder for both the therapist and the client

Oceanographic observations at the Amundsen sea shelf break

Introduction: The continental shelf environment of the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas differs markedly from that of the other circumpolar seas, where water temperatures are close to the surface freezing point throughout. In the Amundsen/Bellingshausen sector near-freezing temperatures are encountered only in the upper few hundred metres of the water column. Below this surface layer a broad thermocline trends towards upper Circumpolar Deep Water (uCDW), which is found in a form that is almost unmodified from its off-shelf manifestation (Giulivi and Jacobs, 1996). This means that the ice shelves of the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas experience ocean temperatures some three degrees warmer than those experienced by the other Antarctic ice shelves, and the rates of basal melting are correspondingly high (Jacobs et al., 1996)

Glucocorticoid-Induced Osteoporosis – A Disorder of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells?

Glucocorticoids are a class of steroid hormones that are essential to life but cause serious harm in excess. The main clinical features of glucocorticoid excess are due to adverse effects on cells and tissues that arise from a common developmental precursor – the mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC; sometimes referred to as the mesenchymal stem cell). Interestingly glucocorticoids appear essential for the differentiation of cells and tissues that arise from MSCs. High levels of glucocorticoids are used in tissue engineering strategies to enhance the formation of tissues such as bone, cartilage, and muscle. This article discusses the paradox that glucocorticoids both enhance and impair MSC development and function. It will describe how endogenous glucocorticoids are likely to be important in these processes in vivo and will discuss the implications for therapies aimed at reducing the damage associated with the use of therapeutic glucocorticoids

Microchip Capillary Electrophoresis

For the study of neuromodulation in Cancer borealis we have designed a microfluidic device to separate and detect bioamine concentrations with a high temporal resolution. Our goal is to use this device to measure the concentration of continuous bioamine microdialysis samples directly from the pericardial cavity (the area surrounding the heart) of Cancer borealis. The microfluidic device that we designed is made from polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and exhibits an off-channel configuration of capillary electrophoresis (CE) by incorporating micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC). CE is used to separate bioamines based on charge and size due to the applied electrical potential. In the off-channel configuration, the potential is applied across the separation channel and grounded by the palladium decoupler, which lies just before the detector. Microchip CE is advantageous because it uses small amounts of analyte and completes fast run times. We will use MEKC to separate dopamine and octopamine, since they are structural isomers, by their difference in affinity to sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) micelles. This results in different elution times for dopamine and octopamine. We were able to drive the fluid in the correct direction. The creation of this device has valuable implications, allowing for baseline concentrations of neuromodulators with the Cancer borealis to be established. The effect of different stimuli on these crabs can then be more accurately determined

Induction of Immunological Tolerance to Tissue Allografts with Antilymphocyte Serum

Our interest in the problem of tolerance induction is directly concerned with clinical organ transplantation. ALS is highly effective in depressing cellular immunities. Since at least initial allograft rejection is predominantly a cellular phenomenon, one would expect ALS to be highly effective clinically. Our initial observations in this regard support this concept. However, non-specific depression of cellular immunity may also lead to an increased number or viral, fungal, and protozoan infections. Experiments, such as these presented, strongly suggest that a specific state of tolerance to organ grafts in man should be attainable with the aid of ALS followed by introduction of appropriate antigen

Effects Of Coal Fly-Ash Disposal On Water Chemistry in an Intradunal Wetland at Indiana Dunes

An intradunal wetland within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on the south shore of Lake Michigan was flooded for 15 years by seepage from fly-ash settling ponds located adjacent to the park. Studies were undertaken to determine the effects of the seepage on water chemistry in the flooded wetlands. These water chemistry conditions have been correlated to ongoing studies of soil contamination and secondary succession in the wetland basin following cessation of seepage. The seepage increased the concentrations of calcium, potassium, sulfate, aluminum, boron, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, strontium, and zinc in ground water and surface water downgradient from the settling ponds. Chemical interactions with aquifer materials, particularly organic matter, significantly limit the transport of aluminum, iron, nickel, and zinc in this system. The organic soils of the dewatered wetland basin now contain elevated concentrations of aluminum, boron, manganese, and zinc that are potentially phytotoxic under the low pH (\u3c4) conditions that exist. Plant growth and secondary succession were affected by the soil chemistry of the dewatered wetlands