Identifying Athlete’s Majors and Career Aspirations: The Next Step in Clustering Research

The purpose of the study was to examine current collegiate athlete’s academic majors and identify their career plans after graduation. The goal was to see if the athlete’s academic major was congruent with their career aspirations. Previous research studies have shown that academic clustering, when 25% or more of an athletic team are in the same academic major, exists within a variety of athletic teams. However, there has not been a study done that assesses whether the athletes are majoring in disciplines that are related to their ultimate career goal. A total of 605 athletes from eight sports in the BIG10 and MAC conferences participated in the study. The results revealed that 192 of the 605 participants (31.7%) did not have majors and career aspirations that aligned. This study provides further insight into the academic puzzle of collegiate athletics

Current Collegiate Experiences of Big-Time, Non-Revenue, NCAA Athletes

Over the past 30 years experiences of collegiate athletes have been a major focus of scholarly research. Through well-known works, student-athletes’ roles and personal development have been cornerstones of this new knowledge base (Adler & Adler, 1991; Lapchick, 1987). However, an understanding of the big-time athlete who also participates in nonrevenue sports1 is grossly under-represented in the literature. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the benefits and challenges that athletes in these sports (e.g., tennis, soccer, golf, track and field, etc.) currently experience. Interviews were conducted with 30 collegiate athletes—who were chosen at random from a sample pool of 9,231 athletes around the country—that focused on the types of benefits and the specific challenges that these athletes face while attending college. Results revealed current benefits of being a big-time, nonrevenue college athlete were very heterogeneous with a total of 24 distinct themes mentioned. The most popular of these included: academic benefits, being on a team, learning life skills, improved time management, and tangible benefits such as equipment, facilities, scholarship and travel. Current challenges that athletes face were much more homogenous, as only three lower order themes received more than two responses: missing out on things in college, lack of free time, and being stereotyped. As a whole, most athletes believed the challenges they face were worth the perceived benefits; and thus, big-time, non-revenue athletes do not receive an inferior overall college education experience (Potuto & O’Hanlon, 2007)

Not a Student, Not an Athlete, a Person

College athletics can place immense demands on athletes in terms of time commitment, physical conditioning, and pressure to perform. However, one important but less visible dimension affected by participation is one’s identity. College athletes hold multiple identities (Sturm et al., 2011) and these identities are further refined through their experiences (Chang et al., 2018). However, much less is known about athletes’ cognitive awareness of others’ perceptions and how those opinions influence athletes’ sense of self. In the present work, 52 Division I collegiate basketball players took part in a qualitative survey focused on understanding their athletic experience based on interactions with others. Responses revealed that athletes had dichotomous beliefs when addressing their perceptions of self and how they believed others viewed them, primarily based on the influence of sport. Conversely, athletes had more differing thoughts when discussing their aspirations and wishes for their future and often discussed professional goals, personality traits, and connections to others. Taken together, these results corroborate the desire (and need) for athletes to foster identities beyond their sport world (Stokowski et al., 2019) and for those who shape the sport experience to proactively work on behalf of athletes in this domain

Spitzer spectral line mapping of supernova remnants: I. Basic data and principal component analysis

We report the results of spectroscopic mapping observations carried out toward small (1 x 1 arcmin) regions within the supernova remnants W44, W28, IC443, and 3C391 using the Infrared Spectrograph of the Spitzer Space Telescope. These observations, covering the 5.2 - 37 micron spectral region, have led to the detection of a total of 15 fine structure transitions of Ne+, Ne++, Si+, P+, S, S++, Cl+, Fe+, and Fe++; the S(0) - S(7) pure rotational lines of molecular hydrogen; and the R(3) and R(4) transitions of hydrogen deuteride. In addition to these 25 spectral lines, the 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.3 and 12.6 micron PAH emission bands were also observed. Most of the detected line transitions have proven strong enough to map in several sources, providing a comprehensive picture of the relative distribution of the various line emissions observable in the Spitzer/IRS bandpass. A principal component analysis of the spectral line maps reveals that the observed emission lines fall into five distinct groups, each of which may exhibit a distinct spatial distribution: (1) lines of S and H2 (J > 2); (2) the H2 S(0) line; (3) lines of ions with appearance potentials less than 13.6 eV; (4) lines of ions with appearance potentials greater than 13.6 eV, not including S++; (5) lines of S++. Lines of group (1) likely originate in molecular material subject to a slow, nondissociative shock that is driven by the overpressure within the supernova remnant, and lines in groups (3) - (5) are associated primarily with dissociative shock fronts with a range of (larger) shock velocities. The H2 S(0) line shows a low-density diffuse emission component, and - in some sources - a shock-excited component.Comment: 43 pages, including 21 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Converging to Gosper's Algorithm

Given two polynomials, we find a convergence property of the GCD of the rising factorial and the falling factorial. Based on this property, we present a unified approach to computing the universal denominators as given by Gosper's algorithm and Abramov's algorithm for finding rational solutions to linear difference equations with polynomial coefficients.Comment: 13 page

Annotation and classification of the bovine T cell receptor delta genes

Abstract Background: gδ T cells differ from ab T cells with regard to the types of antigen with which their T cell receptors interact; gδ T cell antigens are not necessarily peptides nor are they presented on MHC. Cattle are considered a “gδ T cell high” species indicating they have an increased proportion of gδ T cells in circulation relative to that in “gδ T cell low” species such as humans and mice. Prior to the onset of the studies described here, there was limited information regarding the genes that code for the T cell receptor delta chains of this gδ T cell high species. Results: By annotating the bovine (Bos taurus) genome Btau_3.1 assembly the presence of 56 distinct T cell receptor delta (TRD) variable (V) genes were found, 52 of which belong to the TRDV1 subgroup and were comingled with the T cell receptor alpha variable (TRAV) genes. In addition, two genes belonging to the TRDV2 subgroup and single TRDV3 and TRDV4 genes were found. We confirmed the presence of five diversity (D) genes, three junctional (J) genes and a single constant (C) gene and describe the organization of the TRD locus. The TRDV4 gene is found downstream of the C gene and in an inverted orientation of transcription, consistent with its orthologs in humans and mice. cDNA evidence was assessed to validate expression of the variable genes and showed that one to five D genes could be incorporated into a single transcript. Finally, we grouped the bovine and ovine TRDV1 genes into sets based on their relatedness. Conclusions: The bovine genome contains a large and diverse repertoire of TRD genes when compared to the genomes of “gδ T cell low” species. This suggests that in cattle gδ T cells play a more important role in immune function since they would be predicted to bind a greater variety of antigens

The Social-Psychological Implications of a Coaching Change at the Collegiate Level: Perceptions of Athletes

The purpose of this study was to better understand the social-psychological processes and outcomes athletes experience during a head coaching change. The authors conducted semistructured interviews with 47 NCAA Division I athletes, representing 11 different sports at 20 distinct institutions. Following inductive analysis of transcribed interviews, seven higher order themes emerged: emotions, academics, goals, leadership, negative effects, positive effects, and changing culture and structure of the team. According to the perceptions of athletes, results showed that coaches stressed the importance of academics and used goal setting principles with their new team. However, athletes also spoke to deficiencies in leadership and the emotional instability that resulted in a loss of confidence, increased stress, and feeling ignored by the new staff. Thus, open and honest lines of communication need to be formed early with athletes—by multiple athletic personnel—so that individuals have the support system necessary to prevent maladaptive results

European intensive care physicians’ experience of infections due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Background Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) compromises the treatment of patients with serious infections in intensive care units (ICUs), and intensive care physicians are increasingly facing patients with bacterial infections with limited or no adequate therapeutic options. A survey was conducted to assess the intensive care physicians' perception of the AMR situation in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA). Methods Between May and July 2017, physicians working in European ICUs were invited to complete an online questionnaire hosted by the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. The survey included 20 questions on hospital and ICU characteristics, frequency of infections with multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria and relevance of AMR in the respondent's ICU, management of antimicrobial treatment as well as the use of last-line antibiotics in the six months preceding the survey. For the analysis of regional differences, EU/EEA countries were grouped into the four sub-regions of Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western Europe. Results Overall, 1062 responses from four European sub-regions were analysed. Infections with MDR bacteria in their ICU were rated as a major problem by 257 (24.2%), moderate problem by 360 (33.9%) and minor problem by 391 (36.8%) respondents. Third-generation cephalosporin-resistant Enterobacteriaceae were the most frequently encountered MDR bacteria followed by, in order of decreasing frequency, meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. Perception of the relevance of the AMR problem and the frequency of specific MDR bacteria varied by European sub-region. Bacteria resistant to all or almost all available antibiotics were encountered by 132 (12.4%) respondents. Many physicians reported not having access to specific last-line antibiotics. Conclusions The percentage of European ICU physicians perceiving AMR as a substantial problem in their ICU is high with variation by sub-region in line with epidemiological studies. The reports of bacteria resistant to almost all available antibiotics and the limited availability of last-line antibiotics in ICUs in the EU/EEA are of concern