Human Aggression and Sports Media Violence

The present study was designed to gain more perspective on human aggression and how sports media violence affects aggression levels. Anderson (1997) defined aggression as behavior that is intended to harm others or one\u27s self. Anderson (2001) defined media violence as a portrayal of intentional harmful behavior directed at another person or the self. To define sports aggression, the definition of aggression must be manipulated slightly. The definition should be changed to a form of behavior intended to injure, whether or not an actual injury occurs, directed at an opposing team or opposing player to gain an advantage during the progression of play. An example of this would be trying to hurt a key player of the opposing team so that this player can no longer perform at a level expected of him by others. This definition does not include aggressive behavior toward people watching the game or officials during the game. It only pertains to playeron-player aggression and those actions taken that are allowed with in the rules of the game. Sports media violence does not include players and fan interaction, two fans fighting, or violent acts between players and officials. Many studies have been completed looking at human aggression levels and how certain media types affect aggression levels. In a study completed in 2001, it was shown that viewing violent movies can increase aggression levels in participants (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). Another study completed by Phillips (1986), examined and compared the homicide rates in America the day after a major boxing match had occurred to the average homicide rate. His findings suggest that a relationship between viewing boxing and homicide rates exists. The more people who viewed the fight the night before, the higher the homicide rates were in America the next day. The present study is attempting to look specifically at the effects of sports violence in the media on aggression levels of its viewers. Participants completed a Buss-Perry Aggression Scale before the experiment began to assess their pre-experiment aggression levels. Then the participants were randomly assigned to view one of the video groups: non-violent sport, violent sport, nonviolent movie, or violent movie. The participants were randomly assigned to conditions based on the times at which they signed up to complete the study. They next watched a five-minute video clip. The content of each video varied by the conditions of the experiment, for example, nonviolent sport, violent sport, nonviolent movie, or violent movie. After watching the video, each group was given the Word Completion Task to assess post-video aggression levels. Results indicated that after viewing violent forms of video material, sports and non-sports, aggression levels increased in participants significantly. But when participants viewed non-aggressive material their aggression levels did not increase significantly. Therefore, exposure to violent sports has the potential to increase levels of aggression following such exposure, just as exposure to violent movies and television shows increases aggression. However, there are other factors that play a role in the development of aggressive behavior

Effect of Attentional Focus on Learning and Performance in Youth Sports

Youth athletes are different from adult and elite athletes in several domains that include cognitive resources, working memory, automaticity of motor movements, conscious control for propensity, attentional focus, and acquisition of motor-skills. Due to significant differences between athletes, not all instructions and feedback provided by coaches are best suited for every player. Instructions and feedback may direct an athlete’s attentional focus and cognitive resources incorrectly leading to poor acquisition and performance of motor-skills. Clinical psychologists with knowledge of motor-skill acquisition, cognitive resources, learning theory, conscious control propensity, automaticity of motor movements, constrained action hypothesis, and attentional focus can follow the Youth Sports Consultation Model when working with youth sports programs, coaches, and youth athletes to improve the youth athlete’s experience by improving the language used by coaches and correctly directing the youth athlete’s attentional focus during the performance and acquisition of motor-skills

Writing Mathematical Proofs

This text is intended to serve as an IBL style workbook to be used in an undergraduate introductory proof writing course. It covers direct, contrapositive, contradiction, biconditional, existence, uniqueness, induction, and set equality proofs while also covering fundamental topics from number theory, elementary real analysis, functions, and sets with infinite cardinality. It is assumed that the audience has attained a degree of mathematical maturity and has had some exposure to sets and logic, but knowledge of calculus or linear algebra is not required

Examination of dioxin and its alteration of gene expression via DNA Microarray Analysis

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to [email protected], referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 18-26).Endocrine disruptive chemicals are known to produce harmful developmental effects on humans and other animals. Since substantial quantities of these chemicals are concentrated in the fat reserves of their victims, it is reasonable to expect a correlation between chemical concentration and physical effect before and to research further into the actuality of the EDCs effects. Some health hazards that are suspected to result from chemical exposure in humans are cleft lip and palate problems, feminization of male offspring, extreme premature puberty in female offspring, neural tube defects, autism, ototoxity, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), fetal tobacco syndrome (FTS), Type II diabetes also known as Non Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (NIDDM), and ADD/ADHD. Little evidence has been available to demonstrate how dioxin specifically alters gene expression, both in developing embryos and adults. Recently, Texas A&M University has acquired several DNA Microarray Systems, which are revolutionizing the examination of research into gene expression alterations. A new cell line of human embryonic kidney cells (293T/17 epithelial) have been properly cultured, had the RNA successfully isolated, and patterns were interpreted for genetic change using DNA Microarray Analysis. Through a cDNA slide specifically spotted with DNA of approximately 1200 endocrine regulated genes, the RNA of these cells can be examined using the DNA Microarray System after being exposed to different concentrations of dioxin, estradiol, DMSO, combinations of chemicals, and finally a control line of unexposed cells. Specific altered genes of the human embryo are predicted to be represented as changed in the RNA of cells previously exposed to dioxin. A nearly undetectable amount of dioxin (10⁴̄ M), was introduced to these cells, and produced significant variation from the natural gene expression. These data suggest that major advances in the prevention of physical pain and deformities in both developmental and everyday lives of both humans and animals could be attained by reducing exposure to environmental chemicals. The genes that are altered by the effects of TCDD promise further research, investigation, and prevention of many disruptive diseases

Integrating Quantitative Skills Across the Curriculum

Quantitative reasoning and problem solving skills are some of the most sought after job skills in the market today. Integrating quantitative skills across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities allows us to better prepare our graduates for a competitive job market. This hands-on seminar will offer opportunities for educators from all disciplines to discuss challenges, develop ideas, and plan implementation of quantitative skills into their courses

Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Quantication for an Epidemic Model

We examine estimation of the parameters of Susceptible-Infective-Recovered (SIR) models in the context of least squares. We review the use of asymptotic statistical theory and sensitivity analysis to obtain measures of uncertainty for estimates of the model parameters and the basic reproductive number (R0 )—an epidemiologically significant parameter grouping. We find that estimates of different parameters, such as the transmission parameter and recovery rate, are correlated, with the magnitude and sign of this correlation depending on the value of R0. Situations are highlighted in which this correlation allows R0 to be estimated with greater ease than its constituent parameters. Implications of correlation for parameter identifiability are discussed. Uncertainty estimates and sensitivity analysis are used to investigate how the frequency at which data is sampled affects the estimation process and how the accuracy and uncertainty of estimates improves as data is collected over the course of an outbreak. We assess the informativeness of individual data points in a given time series to determine when more frequent sampling (if possible) would prove to be most beneficial to the estimation process. This technique can be used to design data sampling schemes in more general contexts

Using individual tracking data to validate the predictions of species distribution models

The authors would like to thank the College of Life Sciences of Aberdeen University and Marine Scotland Science which funded CP's PhD project. Skate tagging experiments were undertaken as part of Scottish Government project SP004. We thank Ian Burrett for help in catching the fish and the other fishermen and anglers who returned tags. We thank José Manuel Gonzalez-Irusta for extracting and making available the environmental layers used as environmental covariates in the environmental suitability modelling procedure. We also thank Jason Matthiopoulos for insightful suggestions on habitat utilization metrics as well as Stephen C.F. Palmer, and three anonymous reviewers for useful suggestions to improve the clarity and quality of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprin

Determination of Lens Mass Density Profile from Strongly-Lensed Gravitational-Wave Signals

As the interferometers detecting gravitational waves are upgraded, improving their sensitivity, the probability of observing strong lensing increases. Once a detection is made, it will be critical to gain as much information as possible about the lensing object from these observations. In this work, we present a methodology to rapidly perform model selection between differing mass density profiles for strongly lensed gravitational wave signals, using the results of the fast strong lensing analysis pipeline GOLUM. We demonstrate the validity of this methodology using some illustrative examples adopting the idealised singular isothermal sphere and point mass lens models. We take several simulated lensed signals, analyse them with GOLUM and subject them to our methodology to recover both the model and its parameters. To demonstrate the methodology's stability, we show how the result varies with the number of samples used for a subset of these injections. In addition to the analysis of simulations, we also apply our methodology to the gravitational wave event pair GW191230--LGW200104, two events with similar frequency evolutions and sky locations, which was analysed in detail as a potential lensing candidate but ultimately discarded when considering the full population and the uncertain nature of the second event. We find a preference for the singular isothermal sphere model over the point mass, though our posteriors are much wider than for the lensed injections, in line with the expectations for a non-lensed event. The methodology developed in this work is made available as part of the Gravelamps package of software.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Updated to address referee comment

Faculty Recital: Justin Chesarek, jazz percussion, A Jazz Tribute to The Beatles

Kennesaw State University School of Music presents A Jazz Tribute to The Beatles” featuring Justin Chesarek, jazz percussion, Trey Wright, guitar and Marc Miller, double bass.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1417/thumbnail.jp

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN GRIP STRENGTH TESTS IN MALE STRENGTH SPORT ATHLETES

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between a number of common grip strength tests in strength sport athletes. Thirty-four male athletes competing in weightlifting, powerlifting or strongman were assessed for their maximum performance in the handgrip dynamometer, pinch grip and revolving thick bar grip strength tests. Correlations between the three strength test were: handgrip and pinch grip (r = 0.40), handgrip and revolving thick bar (r = 0.66) and pinch grip and revolving thick bar (r = -0.03). These varying relationships between the three strength tests suggest a relative specificity of strength test assessment, which may also be interpreted to suggest that strength and conditioning coaches need to select the appropriate grip exercises to improve sports specific grip performance in their athletes