Sexual Assault Study: Differences by Age of Victim

Poster originally presented to the Anchorage Police Department and the 2004 Alaska Summit on Violence Against Women.This issue of Anchorage Community Indicators Series 2, "Sexual Assault Study," describes the spatial patterning and geographical concentration of 541 sexual assaults reported to the Anchorage Police Department in 2000–2001 by age of victim. Analysis compares the 210 victims that were less than 21 years old to the 339 victims that were 21 years old or older. Most suspects were older than their victims. On average, suspects were 5 years older than victims.This research was supported by Grant No. 2000-RH-CX-K039 awarded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and by a UAA Faculty Development Grant to the second author.Data / Sexual assault densities by age of victim (maps) / Alcohol use (by victim; by suspect) / Race (of victim; of suspect) / Location (pick-up location; assault location) / Day of incident / Time to report / Suspect's age / Relationshi

Voltage-Gated Channel Mechanosensitivity: Fact or Friction?

The heart is a continually active pulsatile fluid pump. It generates appropriate forces by precisely timed and spaced engagement of its contractile machinery. Largely, it makes its own control signals, the most crucial of which are precisely timed and spaced fluxes of ions across the sarcolemma, achieved by the timely opening and closing of diverse voltage-gated channels (VGC). VGCs have four voltage sensors around a central ion-selective pore that opens and closes under the influence of membrane voltage. Operation of any VGC is secondarily tuned by the mechanical state (i.e., structure) of the bilayer in which it is embedded. Rates of opening and closing, in other words, vary with bilayer structure. Thus, in the intensely mechanical environment of the myocardium and its vasculature, VGCs kinetics might be routinely modulated by reversible and irreversible nano-scale changes in bilayer structure. If subtle bilayer deformations are routine in the pumping heart, VGCs could be subtly transducing bilayer mechanical signals, thereby tuning cardiac rhythmicity, collectively contributing to mechano-electric feedback. Reversible bilayer deformations would be expected with changing shear flows and tissue distension, while irreversible bilayer restructuring occurs with ischemia, inflammation, membrane remodeling, etc. I suggest that tools now available could be deployed to help probe whether/how the inherent mechanosensitivity of VGCs – an attribute substantially reflecting the dependence of voltage sensor stability on bilayer structure – contributes to cardiac rhythmicity. Chief among these tools are voltage sensor toxins (whose inhibitory efficacy varies with the mechanical state of bilayer) and arrhythmia-inducing VGC mutants with distinctive mechano-phenotypes

Evaluating achievement on mathematics and science problems: The role of global and local processing

This thesis sought to clarify relationships between whole-part constructs; where responses are thought to reflect a focus on the whole stimulus or context, or on individual elements (the parts). Children aged 5 to 10 years completed a number of tasks allowing developmental changes to be measured on a cross-sectional and longitudinal basis. Global and local processing tasks (Navon tasks: free choice, selective attention, and divided attention) revealed a change in response patterns between the ages of 6 and 7 years, the precise nature of which varied depending on the attentional demands of the task. Field independence tasks (Children’s Embedded Figures Test (CEFT) and Design Organisation Test (DOT)) revealed that children became more field independent with increasing age. A parental questionnaire measuring systemizing (the analysis or construction of a rule-based system) was administered at a single timepoint and revealed no cross-sectional age-related changes. Behavioural tasks and eye-tracking technology were employed to understand possible mechanisms underlying field independence performance. Visuospatial IQ and working memory explained variation on both field independence tasks. Higher accuracy on the CEFT reflected fewer and shorter fixations on distractor areas as well as longer and more fixations on target areas. Better response inhibitory control related to higher disembedding accuracy, while better semantic inhibitory control related to fewer and shorter fixations on distractor areas. Together, these explain how domain-general factors contribute to performance on the CEFT. The second part of this thesis examined associations between whole-part constructs and mathematics and science achievement. Global and local processing and systemizing revealed few significant associations with the academic scores. Better field independence was associated with higher scores on both mathematics and science. After controlling for age and domain-general factors, the field independence tasks explained additional variance on specific mathematics and science tests, which likely reflect common processes involved in the tasks

The influence of early questions on learning from text

In this research we explored the use of short-answer questions to improve learning from chapter-like texts (3395 words). Experiment 1 investigated the influence of pre-questions on recall from a text passage when tested a week later; two question sets were counterbalanced within the experimental group. Participants with pre-questions scored higher both overall (d = 3.6, 95%CI [2.4, 4.8]) and on novel questions (d = 2.0 [1.6, 2.4]). In Experiment 2, questions were made available immediately after studying the text either alongside the text, open-book, or closed-book with the opportunity to check answers, or not at all with additional study time. Learning was tested after a week. Although the immediate test scores were substantially higher for open- than closed-book tests, week-delayed performance on the same items was much worse for open-book tests and was moderately improved for closed-book tests. For seen questions, closed-book tests led to better delayed recall than did open-book tests, d = 0.7 [0.02, 1.5]. For novel questions, observed differences were small; ds = .2 [-0.6, 0.9] for both comparisons

Liberalism Versus Fundamentalism: The Ideological Conflict Between Tocqueville and Qtub

This paper seeks to conclude whether Qtub has successfully discredited the values supported by Tocqueville to draw more Muslims to support an increased role of religion in society and influence the majority of Muslims to conduct violent jihad. It is hypothesized that Muslims agree with Qtub that Islam must be increasingly influential in society, but the majority do not seek to increase its role through, or for the purposes of, violent jihad. Differing in their views on freedom and liberty, freedom of religion and separation of church and state, and man-made laws but agreeing on the negative effects of materialism, Tocqueville impacted American society by promoting values considered “American” today that allowed for freedom, while Qtub inspired the radicalization of Islam by joining the Muslim Brotherhood and calling for jihad by all Muslims to discredit the values supported by Tocqueville. By analyzing Tocqueville’s and Qtub’s thinking on Western principles, as well as by taking into account the studies conducted, it has been concluded that Muslims agree with Qtub that Islam must the central most tenet in society, as well as support many of his other ideas, but they ultimately do not support his call for violent jihad. Overall, Qtub has inspired many Muslims to commit violent jihad but has not succeeded radicalizing all moderate Muslims. As a result, the U.S. must determine how to better engage with the Muslim world to combat violent extremism and support peace and stability in the region. If current strategies do not prove to be successful in countering Islamism, radicalization, and terrorism, the U.S. must continue to assess and evaluate its policies, as it has committed itself to the G.M.E for many decades and will face immense challenges in attempting to fully withdraw from or ignore the region

Nature-Based and Cultural-Heritage Tourism in Piscataquis County Community Forums Summary

From April to July 2004, researchers conducted surveys of residents and business owners in Piscataquis County to assess local attitudes toward nature-based and cultural-heritage tourism. Following this process, UMaine researchers convened three public forums to share the results of the surveys with residents, and to elicit further dialogue on the topic. This report provides a summary of the respondents’ comments and viewpoints

Nature-Based and Cultural-Heritage Tourism in Piscataquis County: Survey Analysis

In the summer of 2003, researchers from the University of Maine and community leaders from Piscataquis County, Maine, conducted a survey to assess local attitudes toward nature-based and cultural-heritage tourism and elicit feedback on alternative development scenarios. One phase of that process was surveys of residents and businesses operators in Piscataquis County. This report provides an overview of the survey responses. In addition, the report summarizes the methods used in conducting the surveys. The appendices to this report present the survey questionnaires and aggregate survey responses

The CLEANED R simulation tool to assess the environmental impacts of livestock production

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundatio

How Users are Different? Towards a Deeper Understanding of IT Usage Under the Context of Internet Technologies

Organizations have been suffering from IT nonuse and under-utilization. The objective of the study is to explore factors that could drive diverse and rich IT utilization. We propose two dimensions of usage—diversity (D; scope of usage) and intensity (I; the richness of IT usage), based on which four categories of IT usage are formed (Hd HI, HdLI, Ld HI, and LdLI). It is our assumption that organizations rely on rich and diverse IT usage to reap benefits from their IT investment. Drawing on established models (e.g., technology acceptance model) and theories (e.g., expectation-confirmation theory, social influence theory), we propose four factors (i.e., perceived usefulness [PU] and perceived enjoyment [PE], user satisfaction [US], and subjective norms [SN]) that could differentiate individual IT usage, and that these four determinants will be the highest for the Hd HI usage. A web survey was conducted across 364 users under the context of the Internet usage, and Multinomial Logistic Regression with Maximum Log Likelihood was applied to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that only PU and PE are the highest for Hd HI. The finding suggests that extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are necessary for diverse and intense IT usage