A Post-Succession Analysis of Factors Influencing Coaching Success in NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics

Based on the reciprocal determinism component of social learning theory, a total of 736 men’s NCAA Division I basketball coaching changes between 1999 and 2014 were examined to establish which factors were related to conference success following a coaching change. Results from an exploratory latent class analysis indicated that many demographic, environmental, and experiential variables assumed to be important in hiring a new coach are insignificant. However, a program’s previous success, individual coaching ability, and previous coach vacancy circumstance are all significantly related to conference winning differential after a coaching change. Results also indicated a regression to the mean occurs after most coaching changes except for the most elite programs. Pragmatically, however, findings show relatively small increments in winning or losing following a coaching change, suggesting that the impact of a coach is often overstated. Stakeholders can use this information to evaluate coaches, programs, and hiring practices in men’s Division I basketball

The N250 Brain Potential to Personally Familiar and Newly Learned Faces and Objects

Studies employing event-related potentials have shown that when participants are monitoring for a novel target face, the presentation of their own face elicits an enhanced negative brain potential in posterior channels approximately 250 ms after stimulus onset. Here, we investigate whether the own face N250 effect generalizes to other highly familiar objects, specifically, images of the participant’s own dog and own car. In our experiments, participants were asked to monitor for a pre-experimentally unfamiliar target face (Joe), a target dog (Experiment 1: Joe’s Dog) or a target car (Experiment 2: Joe’s Car). The target face and object stimuli were presented with non-target foils that included novel face and object stimuli, the participant’s own face, their own dog (Experiment 1), and their own car (Experiment 2). The consistent findings across the two experiments were the following: (1) the N250 potential differentiated the target faces and objects from the non-target face and object foils and (2) despite being non-targets, the own face and own objects produced an N250 response that was equal in magnitude to the target faces and objects by the end of the experiment. Thus, as indicated by its response to personally familiar and recently familiarized faces and objects, the N250 component is a sensitive index of individuated representations in visual memory

Why People Are Not Willing to Let Their Children Ride in Driverless School Buses: A Gender and Nationality Comparison

As driverless vehicles proliferate, it is possible that this technology will be applied in mass transport vehicles. School buses may be suited for autonomous operations as they follow set routes and schedules. However, a research gap exists in whether or not parents would be willing to have their children ride in autonomously operated school buses. The purpose of this study was to examine parents’ willingness to allow their child to ride in an autonomous school bus. Participant gender and nationality were also two independent variables, along with affect measures as a possible mediating variable. The research used a two-study approach. In study one, it was found that participants were less willing to have their child ride in a driverless school bus than a traditional human-operated vehicle. In study two, findings suggest a significant interaction between the type of driver, participant gender, and nationality. In general, American females were less willing than Indian females and overall, Americans were less willing than Indians in the driverless conditions. Affect was found to be a mediating variable, which suggests that emotions were playing a role in the responses of participants. The paper concludes with theoretical contributions, practical applications, and suggestions for future research

The genetic structure of Aedes aegypti populations is driven by boat traffic in the Peruvian Amazon.

In the Americas, as in much of the rest of the world, the dengue virus vector Aedes aegypti is found in close association with human habitations, often leading to high population densities of mosquitoes in urban settings. In the Peruvian Amazon, this vector has been expanding to rural communities over the last 10-15 years, but to date, the population genetic structure of Ae. aegypti in this region has not been characterized. To investigate the relationship between Ae. aegypti gene flow and human transportation networks, we characterized mosquito population structure using a panel of 8 microsatellite markers and linked results to various potential mechanisms for long-distance dispersal. Adult and immature Ae. aegypti (>20 individuals per site) were collected from Iquitos city and from six neighboring riverine communities, i.e., Nauta, Indiana, Mazan, Barrio Florida, Tamshiaco, and Aucayo. FST statistics indicate significant, but low to moderate differentiation for the majority of study site pairs. Population structure of Ae. aegypti is not correlated with the geographic distance between towns, suggesting that human transportation networks provide a reasonable explanation for the high levels of population mixing. Our results indicate that Ae. aegypti gene flow among sub-populations is greatest between locations with heavy boat traffic, such as Iquitos-Tamshiaco and Iquitos-Indiana-Mazan, and lowest between locations with little or no boat/road traffic between them such as Barrio Florida-Iquitos. Bayesian clustering analysis showed ancestral admixture among three genetic clusters; no single cluster was exclusive to any site. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that human transportation networks, particularly riverways, are responsible for the geographic spread of Ae. aegypti in the Peruvian Amazon. Our findings are applicable to other regions of the world characterized by networks of urban islands connected by fluvial transport routes

Fruit Quality And Consumption By Songbirds During Autumn Migration

Seasonal fruits are an important food resource for small songbirds during autumn migration in southern New England. Therefore, conservation and management of important stopover sites used by migrating birds requires knowledge about nutritional requirements of songbirds and nutritional composition of commonly consumed fruits. We measured nutrient composition and energy density of nine common fruits on Block Island, Rhode Island, and conducted a field experiment to estimate consumption rates of three of these fruits by birds during autumn migration. Most common fruits on Block Island contained primarily carbohydrates (41.3–91.2% dry weight), and little protein (2.6–8.6%) and fat (0.9–3.7%), although three contained more fat: Myrica pennsylvanica (50.3%), Viburnum dentatum (41.3%), and Parthenocissus quinquefolia (23.6%). Bird consumption of high-fat, high-energy V. dentatum fruit and high-carbohydrate, low-energy Phytolacca americana fruit was greater than consumption of Aronia melanocarpa, a high-carbohydrate, low-energy fruit. We estimated that migratory birds on Block Island must eat up to four times their body mass in fruit wet weight each day to satisfy their energy requirements when eating low-energy fruits such as P. americana, and they cannot satisfy their protein requirements when eating only certain high-energy fruits such as V. dentatum. Our results suggest that many migratory birds must eat both fruits and insects to meet their dietary needs. Thus, shrubland habitat at important migratory stopover sites such as Block Island should be managed so that it contains a variety of preferred fruit-bearing shrubs and an adequate abundance of insects

The very bright SCUBA galaxy count: looking for SCUBA galaxies with the Mexican Hat Wavelet

We present the results of a search for bright high-redshift galaxies in two large SCUBA scan-maps of Galactic regions. A Mexican Hat Wavelet technique was used to locate point sources in these maps, which suffer high foreground contamination as well as typical scan-map noise signatures. A catalogue of point source objects was selected and observed again in the submillimetre continuum, and in HCO+ (3->2) at zero redshift to rule out Galactic sources. No extragalactic sources were found. Simulations show that the survey was sensitive to sources with fluxes > 50 mJy, depending on the local background. These simulations result in upper limits on the 850-micron counts of SCUBA galaxies of 53 per square degree at 50 mJy and 2.9 per square degree at 100 mJy.Comment: Accepted by MNRA

A Preliminary Comparison of Pilots\u27 Weather Minimums and Actual Decision-Making

Adverse weather conditions remain a leading contributing factor in general aviation accidents. In compromising situations, such as severe weather, pilots continue to make decisions, which endanger themselves, passengers, and the aircraft. Although technology and training have lowered the risks associated with poor decision making by aviators, they are often still faced with scenarios requiring split second judgments. A countermeasure to these risks is the use of personal weather minimums by pilots. The purpose of this study was to examine pilot’s decision-making and performance, while flying an instrument approach, under extreme conditions of low visibility and ceiling as based on their stated personal minimums. A sample of 35 flight students with instrument ratings was recruited from a large university flight program located in the southeastern part of the United States. Participants were asked a series of pre-test questions, including their personal weather minimums, and then flew an ILS instrument approach on an Elite-1000 flight simulator at the subject university. The findings indicate approximately eighty percent of participants, on average, descended nearly two-hundred feet below their stated personal minimums before aborting the approach. Furthermore, forty percent of them also flew twenty-five feet below the federal requirement (200 feet above ground level) before aborting the approach. These results are pertinent to advance our understanding of the many different variables affecting pilot’s decision making. Understanding these outcomes will progress our initiatives to ensure safer air travel, while improving pilot’s competence and their passenger’s confidence

A thin layer angiogenesis assay: a modified basement matrix assay for assessment of endothelial cell differentiation

BACKGROUND: Basement matrices such as Matrigel™ and Geltrex™ are used in a variety of cell culture assays of anchorage-dependent differentiation including endothelial cell tube formation assays. The volumes of matrix recommended for these assays (approximately 150 μl/cm(2)) are costly, limit working distances for microscopy, and require cell detachment for subsequent molecular analysis. Here we describe the development and validation of a thin-layer angiogenesis (TLA) assay for assessing the angiogenic potential of endothelial cells that overcomes these limitations. RESULTS: Geltrex™ basement matrix at 5 μl/cm(2) in 24-well (10 μl) or 96-well (2 μl) plates supports endothelial cell differentiation into tube-like structures in a comparable manner to the standard larger volumes of matrix. Since working distances are reduced, high-resolution single cell microscopy, including DIC and confocal imaging, can be used readily. Using MitoTracker dye we now demonstrate, for the first time, live mitochondrial dynamics and visualise the 3-dimensional network of mitochondria present in differentiated endothelial cells. Using a standard commercial total RNA extraction kit (Qiagen) we also show direct RNA extraction and RT-qPCR from differentiated endothelial cells without the need to initially detach cells from their supporting matrix. CONCLUSIONS: We present here a new thin-layer assay (TLA) for measuring the anchorage-dependent differentiation of endothelial cells into tube-like structures which retains all the characteristics of the traditional approach but with the added benefit of a greatly lowered cost and better compatibility with other techniques, including RT-qPCR and high-resolution microscopy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12860-014-0041-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

A deeply branching thermophilic bacterium with an ancient acetyl-CoA pathway dominates a subsurface ecosystem

<div><p>A nearly complete genome sequence of <em>Candidatus</em> ‘Acetothermum autotrophicum’, a presently uncultivated bacterium in candidate division OP1, was revealed by metagenomic analysis of a subsurface thermophilic microbial mat community. Phylogenetic analysis based on the concatenated sequences of proteins common among 367 prokaryotes suggests that <em>Ca.</em> ‘A. autotrophicum’ is one of the earliest diverging bacterial lineages. It possesses a folate-dependent Wood-Ljungdahl (acetyl-CoA) pathway of CO₂ fixation, is predicted to have an acetogenic lifestyle, and possesses the newly discovered archaeal-autotrophic type of bifunctional fructose 1,6-bisphosphate aldolase/phosphatase. A phylogenetic analysis of the core gene cluster of the acethyl-CoA pathway, shared by acetogens, methanogens, some sulfur- and iron-reducers and dechlorinators, supports the hypothesis that the core gene cluster of <em>Ca.</em> ‘A. autotrophicum’ is a particularly ancient bacterial pathway. The habitat, physiology and phylogenetic position of <em>Ca.</em> ‘A. autotrophicum’ support the view that the first bacterial and archaeal lineages were H₂-dependent acetogens and methanogenes living in hydrothermal environments.</p> </div

The Nab Experiment: A Precision Measurement of Unpolarized Neutron Beta Decay

Neutron beta decay is one of the most fundamental processes in nuclear physics and provides sensitive means to uncover the details of the weak interaction. Neutron beta decay can evaluate the ratio of axial-vector to vector coupling constants in the standard model, $\lambda = g_A / g_V$, through multiple decay correlations. The Nab experiment will carry out measurements of the electron-neutrino correlation parameter $a$ with a precision of $\delta a / a = 10^{-3}$ and the Fierz interference term $b$ to $\delta b = 3\times10^{-3}$ in unpolarized free neutron beta decay. These results, along with a more precise measurement of the neutron lifetime, aim to deliver an independent determination of the ratio $\lambda$ with a precision of $\delta \lambda / \lambda = 0.03\%$ that will allow an evaluation of $V_{ud}$ and sensitively test CKM unitarity, independent of nuclear models. Nab utilizes a novel, long asymmetric spectrometer that guides the decay electron and proton to two large area silicon detectors in order to precisely determine the electron energy and an estimation of the proton momentum from the proton time of flight. The Nab spectrometer is being commissioned at the Fundamental Neutron Physics Beamline at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Lab. We present an overview of the Nab experiment and recent updates on the spectrometer, analysis, and systematic effects.Comment: Presented at PPNS201