American Identity and Public Opinion: How What it Means to be an American Influences Language Policy Preferences

This paper builds upon previous research that has shown how notions of what it means to be an American can influence policy preferences. The author does so by analyzing how several conceptions of American citizenship, namely liberalism, civic republicanism, and ethnoculturalism, affect support for declaring English the official language and printing election ballots only in English. Using focus group research, the paper shows that these three conceptions provide a useful, though incomplete, framework for describing Americans' perceptions of their national identity and for examining how those perceptions influence opinions. Further, the author argues that the direction in which conceptions of national identity influence preferences will depend on the particular aspects of identity that people emphasize.

Attenuated total reflection enhanced photoejection from cathodes Final report

Optical equations governing interaction between radiation and interface of two media using metallic cathode

Henri Temianka Correspondence; (schildkraut)

https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/temianka_correspondence/2747/thumbnail.jp

Characteristation of positive welfare indices in captive african lions (Panthera leo)

Providing captive animals with optimal welfare is a key aim of zoos and aquariums and has traditionally been evaluated through “input measures”. These measures are important but fail to capture the experience of the animal, a critical component of welfare. This project is a first step towards developing “output measures” - positive animal-based metrics – to be used as a benchmark to assess the welfare. This study provided a thorough account of captive lion behaviour in modern facilities and compared this behaviour to that of wild conspecifics. Nine adult African lions from three facilities were studied. Hair (unsuccessful) and faecal (successful) sample collection was attempted for measurement of corticosterone levels as a stress indicators. Behavioural data for each lion was also measured daily, collected through instantaneous scans and continuous focal follows. A comprehensive behavioural ethogram and activity budget was generated for captive lions and behaviour was aligned with corticosterone levels. The lions exhibited variation in daily faecal glucocorticoid metabolite (FGM) levels with few peaks, demonstrating that they were not chronically stressed. Mean baseline FGM levels in dry faeces was 128.96 ± 10.47 ng/g, with significant differences between sexes and facilities. There was no significant relationship between FGM and aggression or activity (p= 0.27). This suggests that prior validations are required to identify certain behaviours as indicators of stress or poor welfare. The results provide an account of captive lion behaviour and FGM levels, in addition to trialling multiple measurements of welfare to provide robust animal welfare assessment. This study is the first step in linking excreted hormones and observed behaviour for captive lions. The results presented provide opportunities for animal institutions to evaluate which aspects of their lion husbandry practices promote optimal lion welfare

A Call to the Media to Change Reporting Practices for the Coverage of Mass Shootings

This article considers how a more responsible form of media coverage of mass shootings could help to reduce the occurrence of these events. It begins by exploring evidence of a contagion effect, as well as the presence of copycat shootings, that result from the media coverage of these attacks. The article then assesses media coverage in light of the World Health Organization’s recommendations for coverage of a related phenomenon, suicide. The article argues for a shift of journalistic practices moving forward in an effort to help reduce the occurrence of mass shootings in the United States

Mass Murder and the Mass Media: Understanding the Construction of the Social Problem of Mass Shootings in the US

Nearly as soon as the first shot is fired in a mass shooting, the news media already are rushing to break coverage, the likes of which typically last days or, in the more extreme cases, weeks. Though mass shootings are rare in occurrence, the disproportionate amount of coverage they receive in the media leads the public to believe that they occur at a much more regular frequency than they do. In order to understand how the public comes to understand mass shooting events, however, one first must understand how the stories are constructed by the media. The present study takes this important step by examining The New York Times coverage of 91 shootings occurring between 2000 and 2012. Using Best's (1987, 2006) three-stage model for the creation of social problems, this study considers the naming or defining of the issue, the incorporation of examples, and the use of statistics. The findings indicate that the coverage (a) overemphasized the shooters, (b) highlighted the most extreme examples for comparison, including Columbine and the Oklahoma City bombing, and (c) relied heavily on the use of statistics, particularly victim counts, while omitting any national data that could ground these events in the larger discourse of violence in the nation. Thus, the disproportional coverage of mass shootings, both individually and as a collective phenomenon, serves to solidify these events as a social problem in the US. Directions for future research, as well as potential policy implications for the coverage, also are discussed

Homicide In The Headlines An Analysis Of The Newspaper Reporting Of Baltimore Homicides Of 2010

Baltimore is notorious for its recent and storied history of crime. The current study examines the treatment of homicide victims in Baltimore newspapers. In 2010, 222 homicides occurred in Baltimore, according to the city‟s homicide map. One hundred and sixty-five were discussed in The Baltimore Sun, the city‟s most-circulated paper. Based on the inclusion or exclusion of particular cases and the manner in which cases were discussed, conclusions can be drawn about the media‟s perception of a case‟s newsworthiness. Specifically, cases with particular details that varied significantly from a “normal” homicide were found to be most newsworthy, determined in part by analyzing the frequency of reporting, placement of coverage within the newspaper, and word count allocated to the discussion of crime

Bayesian model search and multilevel inference for SNP association studies

Technological advances in genotyping have given rise to hypothesis-based association studies of increasing scope. As a result, the scientific hypotheses addressed by these studies have become more complex and more difficult to address using existing analytic methodologies. Obstacles to analysis include inference in the face of multiple comparisons, complications arising from correlations among the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), choice of their genetic parametrization and missing data. In this paper we present an efficient Bayesian model search strategy that searches over the space of genetic markers and their genetic parametrization. The resulting method for Multilevel Inference of SNP Associations, MISA, allows computation of multilevel posterior probabilities and Bayes factors at the global, gene and SNP level, with the prior distribution on SNP inclusion in the model providing an intrinsic multiplicity correction. We use simulated data sets to characterize MISA's statistical power, and show that MISA has higher power to detect association than standard procedures. Using data from the North Carolina Ovarian Cancer Study (NCOCS), MISA identifies variants that were not identified by standard methods and have been externally ``validated'' in independent studies. We examine sensitivity of the NCOCS results to prior choice and method for imputing missing data. MISA is available in an R package on CRAN.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS322 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org