The Effect Role Modeling and the Apparent Fatness of a Physical Educator has on Student Learning and Attitudes

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a physical education instructor appearing overweight versus lean, and role modeling exercise behavior versus “do as I say” on student learning and attitudes. The results indicated that role modeling desired behavior had a significant and positive effect on the test scores and attitudes of participants. Specifically students who viewed the role modeling tapes scored significantly higher on the knowledge test (ES = 62 SD). The students also showed a significant effect for attitude (F[3,100] = 2.10, p \u3c .05) from the role modeling tapes vs. the “do as I say” tapes. Further analysis revealed students liked the role modeling instructor better than the “do as I say’ instructor, (p \u3c .01, ES — .54 SD) and they also believed him to be more of a role model who actually practiced what he preached about physical activity and fitness (p = .05, ES = .39 SD). Students who viewed the role modeling tape were significantly higher in their agreement with the item “regarding whether physical education instructors should be good role models” (F[l, 102] = 5.56, p \u3c .05, ES = .45 SD) than the students who watched the “do as I say instructor”. Students did not show any statistically greater motivation to be physically active and fit regardless of which video they watched. However, there was a significant interaction efFect for responses to this item (F[l, 100] = 4.40,/? \u3c .05). Subsequent analysis of this interaction effect revealed that students who watched the lean “do as I say” instructor were more motivated to be physically active and fit than the students who watched the fat “do as I say” instructor (p \u3c .05, ES = .56 SD). Students who watched the fat role modeling instructor were also more motivated than the fat “do as I say” instructor (p \u3c .05, ES = .63 SD). using the same script. However, in two tapes the instructor wore a “fat suit” (generously provided by Nasco’s Lifeform) designed to make him look overfat. In one of those tapes he role modeled participation to emphasize it’s importance for health—while he merely instructed in “do as I say” mode in the other tape. Similarly, two more tapes did the same except that the instructor appeared lean. After viewing the tapes, the students (who had been randc nly assigned to the four conditions) took a knowledge test to assess their learning of the tapes’ content, and completed items tapping their attitudes to the instructor and his effectiveness. using the same script. However, in two tapes the instructor wore a “fat suit” (generously provided by Nasco’s Lifeform) designed to make him look overfat. In one of those tapes he role modeled participation to emphasize it’s importance for health—while he merely instructed in “do as I say” mode in the other tape. Similarly, two more tapes did the same except that the instructor appeared lean. After viewing the tapes, the students (who had been randc nly assigned to the four conditions) took a knowledge test to assess their learning of the tapes’ content, and completed items tapping their attitudes to the instructor and his effectiveness

Developing exercise trails

"5/81/2M"Exercise trails have become increasingly popular in parks and open areas because they provide many recreational opportunities for the user. Exercise trails combine environmental aesthetics with such physical exercise as jogging, hiking, or calisthenics. The idea of combining calisthenics with hiking and running started in Switzerland during the late 1960 ' s. The popularity of these courses has been enhanced by the recent research supporting the premise that physical fitness contributes to an individual’s physical and emotional well-being

Evaluation of multilayered elastostatic backcalculation using in-situ measurements in geosynthetic-reinforced asphalt pavement

Raw output data from geophones embedded in an instrumented pavement section with six different geosynthetic reinforcements used as interlayers in the hot mix asphalt (HMA) were processed to determine deflections occurring at several depths within the pavement under falling weight deflectometer (FWD) testing. This testing took place during loading campaigns that were conducted over the first two years of the rehabilitated pavement design life. The intent of the study was to use these measured deflections to assess the accuracy of elastostatic backcalculation, by comparing predicted deflections occurring within the pavement using backcalculated moduli and layered elastic theory to measured ones under similar loading. Deflection Basin Parameters (DBPs) obtained from consideration of surface deflections only which included the Surface Curvature Index (SCI), Base Damage Index (BDI), outermost deflection (W7), and spreadability were first used to qualitatively compare the change in performance of the seven test sections over the first two years of rehabilitated pavement life. When deflections were load and temperature normalized, the spreadability decreased while the SCI increased in each section over time, which are both indicative of the start of damage accumulation. The overlays appeared to be performing similarly in each section, except for in Section 7 which seemed to be deteriorating at a more rapid rate. Additionally, the baseline spreadability of the Old HMA and overlay in the control section immediately following rehabilitation was highest but compared more closely with the spreadability of several of the reinforced sections two years following rehabilitation, which may provide early indication of a possible effect of geosynthetic reinforcement in slowing the degradation of pavement flexural rigidity. Each of these effects should continue to be investigated over the course of the overlay design life through nondestructive testing and and/or routine PCI surveys. Taking the geophone measured depth deflections into consideration and assessing the agreement between theoretical and in situ depth deflections under FWD loading, it was found that during the first two loading campaigns the overall agreement between the two was acceptable, with 75 percent of all observations having a relative error of less than 9 percent, and with the absolute error occurring within a range of -1.2 to +1.0 mils. This apparent range in absolute error was fairly consistent across all load levels and maximum deflections, which suggests that the error is most likely due to a combination of the signal to noise ratio of the geophones as well as slight imprecision in the location of FWD drops as opposed to being a function of nonlinear behavior of unbound pavement materials. When the effect of anomalous readings during the first loading campaign in Section 3 and second loading campaign in Section 4 were ignored, the presence of a geosynthetic reinforcement in the HMA did not seem to affect the overall accuracy of elastostatic backcalculation, with overall average relative errors per sensor in each section being approximately 4.0 to 6.5 percent. The exception to this was in Section 7, which was also the section that appeared to be deteriorating more quickly than the others and had an average relative error per sensor in excess of 11 percent between the two loading campaigns. However, the average absolute error per sensor increased significantly in all sections over time, with the largest errors observed during the last two loading campaigns included in the analysis. It is unknown if this effect is primarily attributable to degradation of the pavement or to degradation in performance of the instrumentation, since a relatively large number of sensors used in this analysis (19 percent) malfunctioned causing the data to become unusable within the time incorporated in this study. The exact cause of the malfunctioning geophones is still under review but lends to the importance of careful installation techniques and planning for redundancy and possible sensor loss if geophones are to be used to provide in-situ measurements for long-term field monitoring programs. Engineers should be wary of the possibility for non-uniqueness of solution in deflection basin fitting, and if pavement layers need to be combined, they should consist of the materials with as close of a match as possible in engineering properties.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Final Technical Report Power through Policy: "Best Practices" for Cost-Effective Distributed Wind

Power through Policy: 'Best Practices' for Cost-Effective Distributed Wind is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded project to identify distributed wind technology policy best practices and to help policymakers, utilities, advocates, and consumers examine their effectiveness using a pro forma model. Incorporating a customized feed from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), the Web-based Distributed Wind Policy Comparison Tool (Policy Tool) is designed to assist state, local, and utility officials in understanding the financial impacts of different policy options to help reduce the cost of distributed wind technologies. The project's final products include the Distributed Wind Policy Comparison Tool, found at www.windpolicytool.org, and its accompanying documentation: Distributed Wind Policy Comparison Tool Guidebook: User Instructions, Assumptions, and Case Studies. With only two initial user inputs required, the Policy Tool allows users to adjust and test a wide range of policy-related variables through a user-friendly dashboard interface with slider bars. The Policy Tool is populated with a variety of financial variables, including turbine costs, electricity rates, policies, and financial incentives; economic variables including discount and escalation rates; as well as technical variables that impact electricity production, such as turbine power curves and wind speed. The Policy Tool allows users to change many of the variables, including the policies, to gauge the expected impacts that various policy combinations could have on the cost of energy (COE), net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and the simple payback of distributed wind projects ranging in size from 2.4 kilowatts (kW) to 100 kW. The project conducted case studies to demonstrate how the Policy Tool can provide insights into 'what if' scenarios and also allow the current status of incentives to be examined or defended when necessary. The ranking of distributed wind state policy and economic environments summarized in the attached report, based on the Policy Tool's default COE results, highlights favorable market opportunities for distributed wind growth as well as market conditions ripe for improvement. Best practices for distributed wind state policies are identified through an evaluation of their effect on improving the bottom line of project investments. The case studies and state rankings were based on incentives, power curves, and turbine pricing as of 2010, and may not match the current results from the Policy Tool. The Policy Tool can be used to evaluate the ways that a variety of federal and state policies and incentives impact the economics of distributed wind (and subsequently its expected market growth). It also allows policymakers to determine the impact of policy options, addressing market challenges identified in the U.S. DOE's '20% Wind Energy by 2030' report and helping to meet COE targets. In providing a simple and easy-to-use policy comparison tool that estimates financial performance, the Policy Tool and guidebook are expected to enhance market expansion by the small wind industry by increasing and refining the understanding of distributed wind costs, policy best practices, and key market opportunities in all 50 states. This comprehensive overview and customized software to quickly calculate and compare policy scenarios represent a fundamental step in allowing policymakers to see how their decisions impact the bottom line for distributed wind consumers, while estimating the relative advantages of different options available in their policy toolboxes. Interested stakeholders have suggested numerous ways to enhance and expand the initial effort to develop an even more user-friendly Policy Tool and guidebook, including the enhancement and expansion of the current tool, and conducting further analysis. The report and the project's Guidebook include further details on possible next steps. NREL Report No. BK-5500-53127; DOE/GO-102011-3453

Prognostic and predictive value of circulating tumor cells and CXCR4 expression as biomarkers for a CXCR4 peptide antagonist in combination with carboplatin-etoposide in small cell lung cancer: exploratory analysis of a phase II study.

Background Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 4 (CXCR4) expression in CTCs and tumor tissue were evaluated as prognostic or predictive markers of CXCR4 peptide antagonist LY2510924 plus carboplatin-etoposide (CE) versus CE in extensive-stage disease small cell lung cancer (ED-SCLC). Methods This exploratory analysis of a phase II study evaluated CXCR4 expression in baseline tumor tissue and peripheral blood CTCs and in post-treatment CTCs. Optimum cutoff values were determined for CTC counts and CXCR4 expression in tumors and CTCs as predictors of survival outcome. Kaplan-Meier estimates and hazard ratios were used to determine biomarker prognostic and predictive values. Results There was weak positive correlation at baseline between CXCR4 expression in tumor tissue and CTCs. Optimum cutoff values were H-score ≥ 210 for CXCR4+ tumor, ≥7% CTCs with CXCR4 expression (CXCR4+ CTCs), and ≥6 CTCs/7.5 mL blood. Baseline H-score for CXCR4+ tumor was not prognostic of progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS). Baseline CXCR4+ CTCs ≥7% was prognostic of shorter PFS. CTCs ≥6 at baseline and cycle 2, day 1 were prognostic of shorter PFS and OS. None of the biomarkers at their respective optimum cutoffs was predictive of treatment response of LY2510924 plus CE versus CE. Conclusions In patients with ED-SCLC, baseline CXCR4 expression in tumor tissue was not prognostic of survival or predictive of LY2510924 treatment response. Baseline CXCR4+ CTCs ≥7% was prognostic of shorter PFS. CTC count ≥6 at baseline and after 1 cycle of treatment were prognostic of shorter PFS and OS

Why and how do political actors pursue risky welfare state reforms?

Why and how do political actors pursue risky welfare state reforms, in spite of the institutional mechanisms and political resistance that counteract change? This is one of the key puzzles of contemporary welfare state research, which is brought about by the absence of a complete account that identifies both the cause and causal mechanisms of risky reforms. In this article we offer a remedy for this lacuna. Prospect theory teaches us that political actors will only undertake risky reforms if they consider themselves to be in a losses domain, that is when their current situation is unacceptable. Next, we discuss the strategies that political actors use to avoid the blame associated with risky reforms. These provide the causal mechanisms linking cause and effect. The sudden outburst of risky reforms in formerly 'immovable' Italy provides an empirical illustration of our account. Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications

Cortical Topography of Error-Related High-Frequency Potentials During Erroneous Control in a Continuous Control Brain–Computer Interface

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) benefit greatly from performance feedback, but current systems lack automatic, task-independent feedback. Cortical responses elicited from user error have the potential to serve as state-based feedback to BCI decoders. To gain a better understanding of local error potentials, we investigate responsive cortical power underlying error-related potentials (ErrPs) from the human cortex during a one-dimensional center-out BCI task, tracking the topography of high-gamma (70–100 Hz) band power (HBP) specific to BCI error. We measured electrocorticography (ECoG) in three human subjects during dynamic, continuous control over BCI cursor velocity. Subjects used motor imagery and rest to move the cursor toward and subsequently dwell within a target region. We then identified and labeled epochs where the BCI decoder incorrectly moved the cursor in the direction opposite of the subject’s expectations (i.e., BCI error). We found increased HBP in various cortical areas 100–500 ms following BCI error with respect to epochs of correct, intended control. Significant responses were noted in primary somatosensory, motor, premotor, and parietal areas and generally regardless of whether the subject was using motor imagery or rest to move the cursor toward the target. Parts of somatosensory, temporal, and parietal areas exclusively had increased HBP when subjects were using motor imagery. In contrast, only part of the parietal cortex near the angular gyrus exclusively had an increase in HBP during rest. This investigation is, to our knowledge, the first to explore cortical fields changes in the context of continuous control in ECoG BCI. We present topographical changes in HBP characteristic specific to the generation of error. By focusing on continuous control, instead of on discrete control for simple selection, we investigate a more naturalistic setting and provide high ecological validity for characterizing error potentials. Such potentials could be considered as design elements for co-adaptive BCIs in the future as task-independent feedback to the decoder, allowing for more robust and individualized BCIs

A Search for Dark Higgs Bosons

Recent astrophysical and terrestrial experiments have motivated the proposal of a dark sector with GeV-scale gauge boson force carriers and new Higgs bosons. We present a search for a dark Higgs boson using 516 fb-1 of data collected with the BABAR detector. We do not observe a significant signal and we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of the Standard Model-dark sector mixing angle and the dark sector coupling constant.Comment: 7 pages, 5 postscript figures, published version with improved plots for b/w printin