Media Bias through Facial Expressions on Local Las Vegas Television News

Trust in news media has been considered an important base for social order and cohesion in society and is a crucial variable for evaluating news media. Media credibility has been questioned by the audience for some time and the audience’s trust in the media has been slowly diminishing over the years. When a news broadcaster communicates a story on local television news, it is possible for his own opinions and beliefs to leak through nonverbal communication, specifically facial expressions. This presentation explores the four main local Las Vegas television news stations’ anchors and reporters to visually analyze whether facial characteristics reveal media bias while reporting the news

Speed-ups and slowdowns: insights into velocity variations measured from 2009-2011 on Yahtse Glacier, Alaska

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016Water at the bed of a glacier can alter the basal stress distribution that governs basal motion and is responsible for short-term velocity variations. Accelerated basal motion has lead to increased ice discharge on tidewater glaciers, influencing the glacial contribution to sea level rise. The development of a temporally high-resolution model requires understanding the dynamic elements of the subglacial drainage system that govern short-term velocity variations. Here, we use global positioning system (GPS) observations to document the relationship between basal motion and widely variable water inputs on Yahtse Glacier over three years. Yahtse Glacier is a temperate, grounded, tidewater glacier terminating in Icy Bay, southcentral Alaska. We simultaneously measured surface ice velocity along the glacier's centerline using high-resolution GPS stations, weather data and glaciohydraulic tremor amplitude from 11 June 2009 through 11 September 2011. Yahtse exhibits a repeated summer slowdown facilitated by speed-up events and winter speed-up that ends in mid-winter when ice velocities return to pre-melt-season values. We find that the extent of the summer slowdown is determined by the presence of late-summer heavy rainfall that triggers speed-up events coupled with extra slowdowns. The summer minimum speed impacts flow speeds until mid-winter, therefore controlling average annual ice velocities. Measurements of glaciohydraulic tremor and surface uplift indicate extra slowdowns are the result of the release of subglacially stored water and the dynamic response of the isolated cavity system. We apply the basal hydrology model developed by Bartholomaus [Journal of Glaciology, 57, 206 (2011)] and adapted by Brinkerhoff [Annals of Glaciology, 57, 72 (2016)] to the ablation area of Yahtse Glacier. The model reproduces a majority of the transient speed-up events observed, but not the associated extra slowdowns or the season trend of a summer slowdown and winter speed-up. For the model to reproduce the short lived extra slowdowns and subsequent seasonal velocity trends, we suggest the model may need to account for the isolated subglacial cavity system

Media Bias Through Facial Expressions on Local Las Vegas Television News Programs: A Visual Content Analysis

Trust in news media has been considered an important base for social order and cohesion in society and is a crucial variable for evaluating news media. Media credibility has been questioned by the audience for some time and the audience\u27s trust in the media has been slowly diminishing over the years. When a news broadcaster communicates a story on local television news, it is possible for his own opinions to leak through nonverbal communication, specifically facial expressions. This thesis explores the six local Las Vegas television news stations\u27 anchors and reporters to visually analyze whether facial characteristics reveal media bias while reporting the news

Surviving Variable Yields and Prices

A marketing strategy focusing on prices from the most re-cent past, indirectly gives little or no weight to all of the other possible price outcomes. While it is intuitive that the most recent prices are more likely to play a role in our decision-making process, there are other price events that can happen. The seasonal price path from the 2019/2020 crop year was nothing like we have recently experienced. Sup-pose we entered the 2020’s marketing decision using a seasonal approach that considers only the average price series over the past 5 years (2015-19 average), Figure 1. The seasonal average indicates prices at harvest are among the lowest with early summer prices higher. The 2020 price series turned out to be nothing like the previous five-year average. This may have left you wondering what happened and perhaps in an unexpected financial position. This illustration shows us that recent experience does not give us enough information to construct an appropriate risk management decision framework. Price outcomes that have not yet been experienced will likely be the ones that severely hurt the financial health of a farming operation. A better understanding of the price generating process and an improved risk management decision framework are required

Heteroatom and side chain effects on the optical and photophysical properties: ultrafast and nonlinear spectroscopy of new Naphtho[1,2-b:5,6-b ']difuran donor polymers

The photophysical and electronic properties of four novel conjugated donor polymers were investigated to understand the influence of heteroatoms (based on the first two member chalcogens) in the polymer backbone. The side chains were varied as well to evaluate the effect of polymer solubility on the photophysical properties. The donor–acceptor polymer structure is based on naptho[1,2-b:5,6-b′]difuran as the donor moiety, and either 3,6-di(furan-2-yl)-1,4-diketopyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole or 3,6-di(thiophen-2-yl)-1,4-diketopyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole as the acceptor moiety. Steady-state absorption studies showed that the polymers with the furan moiety in the backbone displayed a favorable tendency of capturing more solar photons when used in a photovoltaic device. This is observed experimentally by the higher extinction coefficient in the visible and near-infrared regions of these polymers relative to that of their thiophene counterparts. The excitonic lifetimes were monitored using ultrafast dynamics, and the results obtained show that the type of heteroatom π-linker used in the backbone affects the decay dynamics. Furthermore, the side chain also plays a role in determining the fluorescence decay time. Quantum chemical simulations were performed to describe the absorption energies and transition characters. Two-photon absorption cross sections (TPA-δ) were analyzed with the simulations, illustrating the planarity of the backbone in relation to its torsional angles. Because of the planarity in the molecular backbone, the polymer with the furan π-linker showed a higher TPA-δ relative to that of its thiophene counterpart. This suggests that the furan compound will display higher charge transfer (CT) tendencies in comparison to those of their thiophene analogues. The pump–probe transient absorption technique was employed to probe the nonemissive states (including the CT state) of the polymers, and unique activities were captured at 500 and 750 nm for all of the studied compounds. Target and global analyses were performed to understand the dynamics of each peak and deduce the number of components responsible for the transient behavior observed respectively. The results obtained suggest that the furan π-linker component of a donor and acceptor moiety in a conjugated polymer might be a more suitable candidate compared with its more popular chalcogenic counterpart, thiophene, for use as donor materials in bulk heterojunction photovoltaic devices.Support for this investigation is provided by the National Science Foundation (DMR-1709005) Polymers (TGIII) and (DMR 1410088/1640297) Polymers (MJE). (DMR-1709005 - National Science Foundation; DMR 1410088/1640297 - National Science Foundation)Accepted manuscrip

Adverse childhood experiences, support, and the perception of ability to work in adults with disability

Objective To examine the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and support on self-reported work inability of adults reporting disability. Participants Adults (ages 18–64) who participated in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in 2009 or 2010 and who reported having a disability (n = 13,009). Design and Main Outcome Measures The study used a retrospective cohort design with work inability as the main outcome. ACE categories included abuse (sexual, physical, emotional) and family dysfunction (domestic violence, incarceration, mental illness, substance abuse, divorce). Support included functional (perceived emotional/social support) and structural (living with another adult) support. Logistic regression was used to adjust for potential confounders (age, sex and race) and to evaluate whether there was an independent effect of ACEs on work inability after adding other important predictors (support, education, health) to the model. Results ACEs were highly prevalent with almost 75% of the sample reporting at least one ACE category and over 25% having a high ACE burden (4 or more categories). ACEs were strongly associated with functional support. Participants experiencing a high ACE burden had a higher adjusted odds ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval] of 1.9 [1.5–2.4] of work inability (reference: zero ACEs). Good functional support (adjusted OR 0.52 [0.42–0.63]) and structural support (adjusted OR 0.48 [0.41–0.56]) were protective against work inability. After adding education and health to the model, ACEs no longer appeared to have an independent effect. Structural support remained highly protective, but functional support only appeared to be protective in those with good physical health. Conclusions ACEs are highly prevalent in working-age US adults with a disability, particularly young adults. ACEs are associated with decreased support, lower educational attainment and worse adult health. Health care providers are encouraged to screen for ACEs. Addressing the effects of ACEs on health and support, in addition to education and retraining, may increase ability to work in those with a disability

Mitigation of the instrumental noise transient in gravitational-wave data surrounding GW170817

In the coming years gravitational-wave detectors will undergo a series of improvements, with an increase in their detection rate by about an order of magnitude. Routine detections of gravitational-wave signals promote novel astrophysical and fundamental theory studies, while simultaneously leading to an increase in the number of detections temporally overlapping with instrumentally- or environmentally-induced transients in the detectors (glitches), often of unknown origin. Indeed, this was the case for the very first detection by the LIGO and Virgo detectors of a gravitational-wave signal consistent with a binary neutron star coalescence, GW170817. A loud glitch in the LIGO-Livingston detector, about one second before the merger, hampered coincident detection (which was initially achieved solely with LIGO-Hanford data). Moreover, accurate source characterization depends on specific assumptions about the behavior of the detector noise that are rendered invalid by the presence of glitches. In this paper, we present the various techniques employed for the initial mitigation of the glitch to perform source characterization of GW170817 and study advantages and disadvantages of each mitigation method. We show that, despite the presence of instrumental noise transients louder than the one affecting GW170817, we are still able to produce unbiased measurements of the intrinsic parameters from simulated injections with properties similar to GW170817.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted in PR