Enhancements to ACL2 in Versions 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4

We report on improvements to ACL2 made since the 2013 ACL2 Workshop.Comment: In Proceedings ACL2 2014, arXiv:1406.123

High distance knots in closed 3-manifolds

Let M be a closed 3-manifold with a given Heegaard splitting. We show that after a single stabilization, some core of the stabilized splitting has arbitrarily high distance with respect to the splitting surface. This generalizes a result of Minsky, Moriah, and Schleimer for knots in S^3. We also show that in the complex of curves, handlebody sets are either coarsely distinct or identical. We define the coarse mapping class group of a Heeegaard splitting, and show that if (S, V, W) is a Heegaard splitting of genus greater than or equal to 2, then the coarse mapping class group of (S,V,W) is isomorphic to the mapping class group of (S, V,W).Comment: Certain misstatements about the pair of pants decompositions constructed for reducible Heegaard splittings have been corrected. The paper has also been restructured some to aid the exposition of the proof. Details have been provided for the end of the proof of the main theorem. And the first author's name has been change

Buddhism and Political Theory

Matthew Moore, professor in Political Science, discusses his 2016 book, Buddhism & Political Theory, with Joe Lynch, professor in Philosophy. The conversation promises enlightenment as well as entertainment, as suggested by Dr. Lynch\u27s chapter in The Big Lebowsky and Philosophy title Buddhism, Daoism and Dudeism.https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/convocpauth/1021/thumbnail.jp

Do Psychosocial Services Make the Starting Lineup? Providing Services to Student-Athletes

Participation in college athletics comes with inherent risks. Many of these risks relate to the psychosocial well-being of athletes. This study examined the availability of services that treat psychosocial needs. A web-based survey was used to gather information from both athletic directors (N = 132) and athletes (N = 349). The researcher used descriptive and multivariate tests to analyze the data and found both athletic directors and athletes found psychosocial services to be less available than academic and athletic services. Additionally, NCAA division level impacted the degree of service availability. More must be done to ensure the psychosocial well-being of college athletes. This includes exploring ideas for having services more readily available.

Point/Counterpoint: Transgender Sport Participation Policy

I am looking forward to a spirited point/counterpoint regarding the NCAA (2022) policy on transgender sport participation. The NCAA Board of Governors voted in support of a sport-by-sport approach to transgender participation that preserves opportunity for transgender student-athletes while balancing fairness, inclusion, and safety for all who compete. The national governing bodies for each sport will determine policies for transgender participation (e.g., USA Swimming). The NCAA policy became effective in January. The policy requires transgender student-athletes to document sport specific testosterone levels beginning four weeks before their sport’s championship selections. In the 2022-2023 competition season, transgender student-athletes will need documented testosterone levels at the beginning of their season, six months later, and four weeks before their sport’s championship selections

Deisha Myles, Oral History Interview, 2021

A member of the Native American Student Organization at Eastern Michigan University at the time of the struggle to change the EMU mascot and logo, Deisha [Olszewski] Myles attended nearly every meeting related to the change of what many considered to be an insensitive depiction of Native American culture. Myles speaks of her experience as a student on the Logo Selection Committee, witnessing the tense interactions between university administrators and describing the divisions amongst indigenous participants, divisions that often adhered closely to differing generational values.https://commons.emich.edu/oral_histories/1073/thumbnail.jp

Advances in ACL2 Proof Debugging Tools

The experience of an ACL2 user generally includes many failed proof attempts. A key to successful use of the ACL2 prover is the effective use of tools to debug those failures. We focus on changes made after ACL2 Version 8.5: the improved break-rewrite utility and the new utility, with-brr-data.Comment: In Proceedings ACL2-2023, arXiv:2311.0837

Youth Sport Spectating among Parents During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant changes to family life and youth sports activities around the globe. In efforts to promote continuity and youth participation in sports, and in lieu of risks for spreading the virus at competitions and games, the youth sport environment adapted to meet emerging health and safety protocols. The cancellation of youth sports and shifts to virtual spectating (i.e., watching children play sports online) were often enacted to protect families, yet little is known about how these changes physically, socially, and psychologically impacted parents and the family system. In response, we conducted a mixed-methods study to explore the lived experiences of parents of youth sport participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. This novel and exploratory research discovered several shifts in the physical environment of youth sport, including challenges with technology and limitations in the number of spectators at youth sporting events. Findings also revealed an array of psychosocial experiences among parents including feelings of grief, frustration, and sadness due to restrictions and sport cancellations, as well as fewer child-parent interactions and a diminished connection to sport in response to virtual spectating. We developed a conceptual model of how shifts in the youth sport environment influenced parent spectators. Our findings have important implications for practice and inform future areas of research regarding youth sports and the family system. Keywords: parent spectators; youth sports; COVID-19 pandemic; family system