Mexican Immigrants as Other : An Interdisciplinary Analysis of U.S. Immigration Legislation and Political Cartoons

This paper uses postcolonial theory to analyze United States immigration legislation as it applies to the marginalized group of Mexican immigrants, beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and ending with Obama’s proposed immigration plan in 2014. It also couples postcolonial theory with visual rhetoric concepts to analyze political cartoons and images relating to Mexican immigration, uncovering the attitudes and messages they represent

An evaluation of modern day kitchen knives: an ergonomic and biomechanical approach

The focus of this study was to evaluate how different knife characteristics affect the consumer\u27s ability to slice vegetables. There are many variables to a knife and there are beliefs about what makes for a better knife. There are two common multipurpose knives used for slicing vegetables, the chef knife and the santoku knife. The aim of the first portion of the study was to investigate if there is a difference in cutting between a chef knife and a santoku knife, a ceramic knife and a stainless steel knife, and a sharp and dull knife in terms of muscle activation, body part discomfort, time, and slice performance. In order to test these variables, four different knives were used. 50 participants sliced two pounds of vegetables with two knives each, each on a different day. The results show that for the consumer, the type of knife, material, and level of sharpness do not affect the user\u27s muscle activation, discomfort, time, or slice performance. In the second portion of the study the Pinch Cinch grip was designed to be placed on the knife to create an affordance for users to hold the knife in a pinch grip. This grip aligns the wrist and forearm and decreases fatigue and increases stability and control while cutting. The designed grip, the Pinch Cinch, is to be used as a training mechanism for the consumer to easily adjust to using the pinch grip. The grip was tested with 16 participants against a previously tested knife to ensure it did not require more muscle activation, time, discomfort, or cause lower slice performance. The results showed this grip did not have any significant difference from the knife with out the grip. The Pinch Cinch did not have any negative effect on the task compares to the other knife tested. The Pinch Cinch can ensure the consumer is maintaining the pinch grip, and allows them to become accustomed to it by having the affordance present. With the use of the Pinch Cinch, the consumer will feel the pinch grip is natural and retain the benefits of more control and stability

Influence of Gluteus Medius Strength on Interlimb Asymmetry in Female Recreational Runners.

PURPOSE: Running-related injuries are most often single-sided and are partially attributed to lower limb movement and loading asymmetries.1 Gluteus Medius (GM) plays a significant role in lower limb alignment, especially in the frontal and transverse planes by its influence on the pelvis and the femur.2 Female runners are more prone to GM weakness which has been proposed to be a risk factor for overuse injuries.3 These strength deficits contribute to abnormal lower limb kinematics and kinetics during dynamic tasks like running and jumping.4 These changes include an increase in peak hip adduction angle (HA), hip internal rotation angle (HI), knee abduction moment (KA) and rearfoot eversion angle (RE).4 Symmetry Angle (SA) is a commonly-used, robust measure of determining symmetry.1 No study has evaluated the role of unilateral GM strength on interlimb asymmetry for HA, HI, KA and RE during running. We hypothesized that female runners with stronger GM would demonstrate decreased interlimb asymmetry for HI, HA, KA and RE during running. METHODS: Thirty healthy female recreational runners (Age: 35.40±10.52 yrs, Height: 1.66±0.06 m, Weight: 61.61±7.31 kg) running at least 10 km per week participated in this study. Isometric GM strength was measured using a handheld dynamometer for the right lower limb and participants were divided into two groups of stronger and weaker. 3D gait analysis was conducted as participants ran on an instrumented treadmill at 2.98 m/s. Peak HA, HI, KA and RE were generated for the bilateral lower extremities and interlimb asymmetry using SA was calculated for all variables. A Shapiro-Wilk test for normality was conducted and it showed that all variables were not normally distributed. Wilcoxon Two-Sample Test was performed to look at differences between the two groups for HA, HI, KA and RE. RESULTS: Female runners with weaker GM demonstrated significantly increased asymmetry for HA (18.80±24.11 vs 12.20±24.11 %, p=0.02), HI (18.47±24.11 vs 12.53±24.11 %, p=0.03), and KA (18.33±24.11 vs 12.67±24.11 %, p=0.04). For RE, the weaker group had greater asymmetry (16.13±24.11 vs 14.87±24.11 %, p=0.35), but the relationship was not significant. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggested that runners with weaker GM on one side exhibited increased interlimb asymmetry during running for certain kinematic and kinetic variables. Future studies should determine how unilateral and bilateral strength deficits contribute to interlimb asymmetry and running biomechanics in healthy and injured runners.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1290/thumbnail.jp

Visual Representation of Women in Media

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/feminist_zines/1040/thumbnail.jp

Development of visual noise mask for human point-light displays

Since the 1970’s Point-Light Display (PLD) stimuli have been widely used in investigations regarding how humans process and recognize human movement. Because humans have a great ability to recognize human motion even in the absence of pictorial information, several studies introduce visual noise in order to make stimuli recognition more challenging. The usual approach is to introduce extra moving dots of similar size that move along to the actual human PLD. To construct such a noise mask, often researchers must develop algorithms that generate random moving dots. Although some authors made platforms allowing manipulations within the algorithmic possibilities available, most of the developed and available ways of visual dot noise masks production rely on paid softwares, have file format restrictions and require the researcher to have extensive programming skills. In this regard, we herein propose to build the noise mask on Blender, a free open source software, with a graphical interface that reads and exports many file formats and enables the manipulation of videos both in 2D and 3D. Therefore, we present a user- friendly step-by-step guide on how to develop visual noise for masking PLD. Specifically, we explain how to set a dynamic movement in a 2D environment that relies mainly on changing an object position on the ‘x' and ‘y' axis. Additionally, we also present how to build the dots and how they can be manipulated to create the desired movement. The herein presented guideline can also be easily translated and applied in the 3D option. Furthermore, we made available the environment of the software with some directions and the set of noise videos developed by our group. Finally, as normally the combination of videos with the mask is crucial, the process of combination of the videos and the mask in Blender is also explained. In sum, the main advantages of the presented methodology are the non-expensiveness and no need of programming experience; thus having no prerequisites to be applied. In particular, this step-by-step guide might be appealing to students engaged in this research topic but who are still novice in programming skills usually required to build visual dot noise masks

Secondary Transition Resources Across New England

Our website focuses on creating an accessible resource for individuals approaching the transition out of secondary education who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. Within the site, there are a variety of resources for every state in New England to provide the user with a single place to find the help and resources they need instead of having to search for them on their own.https://dune.une.edu/caiepfall2023/1011/thumbnail.jp

The impact of COVID-19 hygienic measures on food choice and eating behaviour

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to several changes that have affected not only emotional and psychological well-being but also eating behavior. Herein, we sought to evaluate if depicting pandemic-related sanitary measures in a food consumption video would impact food appraisal, decreasing food attractiveness and the desire to eat. Participants performed, on two different days, an online protocol in which foods presented in a video, and following, in pictures, were evaluated regarding visual aspect, expected smell and taste, and desire to eat. The videos presented each day differed only regarding the presence/absence of sanitary elements adopted during the pandemic, composing COVID/non-COVID conditions. For both conditions, sweet and high-calorie foods were better evaluated when compared to salty and low-calorie foods, with the sweet food evaluation higher for the non-COVID condition when compared to the COVID-condition. Only for the non-COVID condition was the reported desire to eat higher immediately after the video, and for both conditions, it was higher at the end of the task when compared to the baseline. Correlation analysis suggests that depression and anxiety symptoms may reduce the smell appreciation of foods presented in the pandemic scenario. We conclude that food perception is affected by the presence of the sanitary measures adopted during the pandemic by reducing the desire to eat and food hedonic appreciation and, further, that depression and anxiety symptoms may be related to a higher negative impact of the pandemic on eating behavior.O.M.L. is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, through the national funds, within the scope of the Transitory Disposition of the Decree No. 57/2016, of 29th of August, amended by Law No. 57/2017 of 19 July (Ref.: SFRH/BPD/72710/2010). This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the Portuguese State Budget (Ref.: UIDB/PSI/01662/2020)

The impact of COVID-19 hygienic measures on food choice and eating behaviour

[Excerpt] The COVID-19 pandemic has led to several changes that have affected not only emotional and psychological well-being but also eating behavior. Herein, we sought to evaluate if depicting pandemic-related sanitary measures in a food consumption video would impact food appraisal, decreasing food attractiveness and the desire to eat. Participants performed, on two different days, an online protocol in which foods presented in a video, and following, in pictures, were evaluated regarding visual aspect, expected smell and taste, and desire to eat. The videos presented each day differed only regarding the presence/absence of sanitary elements adopted during the pandemic, composing COVID/non-COVID conditions. [...

Implementing lifetime performance index of products from type-II right - censored data using Lomax distribution

Process capability analysis has been widely applied in the manufacturing industry to monitor the performance of industrial processes. The lifetime performance index CL is used to assess the performance and potential of their process, where L is the lower specification limit. In the case of product processing a two-parameter Lomax distribution, the study will apply the transformation technology to construct a maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of CL based on type-II right-censored data. Then, the MLE of the CL is utilized to develop the new hypothesis testing procedure in the condition known as lower specification limit. Finally, we give an example and the Monte Carlo simulation to assess the behavior of the proposed method under the given significance level

Impacts of COVID-19 sanitary cues on hedonic appreciation of foods

The COVID-19 pandemic led to several lifestyle changes, including eating behavior. Herein, we aimed to evaluate how pandemic-related sanitary cues presented in food videos impact food appraisal and desire to eat, and their priming after-effects on subsequent food pictures presented without such cues. In two online sessions, separated by 4 to 7 days, participants watched either a Non-Pandemic or a Pandemic video of a woman eating, the latter containing sanitary elements adopted during the pandemic. The order of the videos was counterbalanced across participants over the two experimental sessions. Videos were followed by images of food from different categories. After observing both videos and each picture, participants were instructed to evaluate the visual aspect, expected smell and flavor, and rate their desire to eat. Our study demonstrated (1) higher hedonic responses to the Non-Pandemic compared to the Pandemic video, (2) a priming effect showing higher appreciation for sweet foods after the Non-Pandemic compared to the Pandemic video, (3) that food exposure gradually increases one’s desire to eat, but such effects are impacted by pandemic sanitary cues, and (4) greater hedonic responses are given for sweet and high-calorie foods compared to salty and low-calorie ones, irrespective of pandemic priming. Finally, depression and anxiety symptoms were associated with lower smell evaluations only in the Pandemic condition.O.M.L. is supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, through the national funds, within the scope of the Transitory Disposition of the Decree No. 57/2016, of 29 August, amended by Law No. 57/2017 of 19 July (Ref.: SFRH/BPD/72710/2010). This study was conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology through the Portuguese State Budget (Ref.: UIDB/PSI/01662/2020)