Waste Not, Want Not: The Potential for Urban Water Conservation in California

The largest, least expensive, and most environmentally sound source of water to meet California's future needs is the water currently being wasted in every sector of our economy. This report, "Waste Not, Want Not," strongly indicates that California's urban water needs can be met into the foreseeable future by reducing water waste through cost-effective water-saving technologies, revised economic policies, appropriate state and local regulations, and public education

Our Violent Culture: Implications for Special Event Planning

Special events are an integral part of every community. Events provide a place to have fun and escape the normalcies of everyday life. Our society’s violent culture is playing a role in how special events are being planned and executed. Recent events, like the tragic shooting at Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas have caused security efforts to increase at events across the globe. Music festivals, sporting events, and all other special events are challenged with adapting to rising security risks. This report will address the impacts of our violent culture on event planning and security at special events. This report will also look into the best practices being used by event planners and security personnel

Our Violent Culture: Implications for Special Event Planning

Special events, such as music festivals, are an integral part of every community. In the USA alone, over thirty million people attend at least one music festival every year. Special events offer a place to have fun and escape the normalcies of everyday life. Our society’s violent culture is playing a role in how special events are being planned and executed. Recent events, like the tragic shooting at Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas have caused security efforts to increase at events across the globe. Music festivals, sporting events, and all other special events are challenged with adapting to rising security risks and the associated expenses. The methodology includes a literature review as well as a qualitative component including interviews conducted with event experts. This report will address the impacts of our violent culture on event planning and security at special events. This report will also look into the best practices being used by event planners and security personnel.https://encompass.eku.edu/swps_graduategallery/1086/thumbnail.jp

Acute Effects of a Glucose Energy Drink on the Attentional Blink

There has been a dramatic rise is the consumption of energy drinks (e.g., Red Bull) in the past decade, particularly among college students. However, there has been little laboratory research to examine the acute effects of energy drinks on cognitive performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a glucose energy drink on an attentional blink task and on subjective measures of mental fatigue and stimulation. Attentional blink is a phenomenon observed in rapid serial visual presentation. When a subject is presented with a sequence of visual stimuli in rapid succession at the same spatial location on a computer screen, a participant will often fail to detect a second salient target occurring in succession if it is presented between 200–500 ms after the first one. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to one of six dose conditions (energy drink doses of 1.8 ml/kg, 3.6 ml/kg, 5.4 ml/kg, and 7.2 ml/kg, a decaffeinated placebo beverage and a no drink condition). Participants completed the cognitive task and subjective measures both at baseline and at 30 min. after dose administration. The results indicated that the energy drink increased feelings of stimulation and decreased feelings of mental fatigue in a dose-dependent fashion. By contrast, only the lower doses of energy drink improved accuracy on the attentional blink task. The results are consistent with findings of other stimulant drugs that improvements in cognitive performance are not linear but instead look like an inverted-U shaped function

Acute Effects of a Glucose Energy Drink on Information Processing and Subjective Ratings of Stimulation

There has been a dramatic rise in the consumption of energy drinks (e.g., Red Bull, Monster, Amp) in the past decade, particularly among college students. Young people have become enamored with using these beverages to increase alertness, such as when studying. However, there has been little laboratory research to examine the acute effects of energy drinks on cognitive performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a glucose energy drink on an information processing task and on subjective measures of stimulation and mental fatigue. Information processing was assessed using a psychological refractory period task that measured information processing when subjects were required to do two tasks at once. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to one of six dose conditions (energy drinks of 1.8 ml/kg, 3.6 ml/kg, 5.4 ml/kg, and 7.2 ml/kg, a decaffeinated placebo beverage and a no drink condition). Participants completed the cognitive task and subjective measures both at baseline and at 30 minutes after dose administration. The results indicated that the energy drink increased feelings of stimulation and decreased feelings of mental fatigue in a dose-dependent fashion. By contrast, the energy drink had no impact on information processing rates, as measured by the behavioral task. The results are consistent with a growing literature that the consumption of an energy drink may only benefit the subjective feeling state of the consumer, but has no impact on actual cognitive processing