Fitness Profiles and Activity Patterns of Entering College Students

Abstract

Fitness levels of American youth have shown a marked decline in the last decade, according to recent studies. To determine whether such a tendency persists for entering college students, the authors evaluated 115 male and 143 female students for performance on the following fitness-related variables: (1) maximal oxygen consumption (estimated from Astrand cycling protocol), (2) body composition (skin-fold techniques), (3) muscle endurance (sit-up protocol), (4) muscle strength (bench-press protocol), and (5) joint flexibility (upper and lower body protocols).

Although neither men nor women exhibited high levels of cardiorespiratory fitness, the women in the study showed higher relative levels than their male counterparts. Both groups showed excellent levels of muscle strength (compared with normative standards), but they achieved only an average standard for muscle endurance. Findings of relatively low levels of cardiovascular fitness compared with levels of muscle strength, particularly in men, seem to be a reflection of an inappropriate concentration of physical activity.     

Age-Related Changes in Emotion Recognition: How,Why, and How Much of a Problem?

Isaacowitz and Stanley review age differences in facial emotion recognition, an ability tied to effective socioemotional functioning but often marked by age-related decline. They highlight major findings from the past decade and conclude that age-related declines exist but are least pronounced for positive relative to negative emotions. They discuss possible motivational and structural explanations for this positivity effect, and they describe future research avenues for evaluating age-related differences in more ecologically valid contexts. In this commentary, we discuss each of these topics. We state that many complexities that arise when interpreting age differences are similar to issues raised by emotion scholars who have studied intrapersonal and interpersonal processes outside of the developmental literature. We argue that theoretical and methodological lessons gained from these emotion scholars would provide insight to interpret current findings and direct future research in life-span development.     

Factor copula models for right-censored clustered survival data

Lifetime Data Analysis - In this article we extend the factor copula model to deal with right-censored event time data grouped in clusters. The new methodology allows for clusters to have variable...     

A Systematic Uncertainty Analysis of an Evaluative Fate and Exposure Model

Multimedia fate and exposure models are widely used to regulate the release of toxic chemicals, to set cleanup standards for contaminated sites, and to evaluate emissions in life-cycle assessment. CalTOX, one of these models, is used to calculate the potential dose, an outcome that is combined with the toxicity of the chemical to determine the Human Toxicity Potential (HTP), used to aggregate and compare emissions. The comprehensive assessment of the uncertainty in the potential dose calculation in this article serves to provide the information necessary to evaluate the reliability of decisions based on the HTP A framework for uncertainty analysis in multimedia risk assessment is proposed and evaluated with four types of uncertainty. Parameter uncertainty is assessed through Monte Carlo analysis. The variability in landscape parameters is assessed through a comparison of potential dose calculations for different regions in the United States. Decision rule uncertainty is explored through a comparison of the HTP values under open and closed system boundaries. Model uncertainty is evaluated through two case studies, one using alternative formulations for calculating the plant concentration and the other testing the steady state assumption for wet deposition. This investigation shows that steady state conditions for the removal of chemicals from the atmosphere are not appropriate and result in an underestimate of the potential dose for 25% of the 336 chemicals evaluated.     

The television archive: A source for the sociological study of culture

In this essay the George Foster Peabody Collection and the WSB Atlanta Television News Archive are described. A discussion of the form, structure and content of the collections reveal that each are ideally suited to visual sociological investigation. In all, the textual body of visual imagery found in the Peabody collection is an important source for the study of culture. The collection offers access to fifty years of award winning audio and video recordings, spanning news, documentary, international, entertainment, public service and childrens program submissions, the WSB collection contains a rich array of materials that service to elaborate on a cultural and historic framework of the new and old south. Hard news stories along with documentaries reveal a variety of public and social rituals of historic importance, the WSB and Peabody collections can be accessed to fulfil a number of scholarly endeavors. Visual sociologists, anthropologists and communication scholars are encouraged to further explore the use of these two electronic media archives.     

Replacement of semi-natural cover with artificial substrates in urban parks causes a decline of house sparrows Passer domesticus in Mediterranean towns

Urban Ecosystems - Many European towns and cities have undergone reurbanisation processes in recent decades. However, their effects on urban biodiversity have been poorly studied. Currently...     

“I Was in Crisis”

This article explores the illicit labor and imprisonment of two women, Cynthia and Dinah, in the Santa Monica prison in Lima, Peru through the lens of gendered motherwork. Because the unequal distribution of care places the burden of this labor on women, Cynthia and Dinah were primarily responsible for the care of their adult children who were diagnosed with AIDS. Both women entered the transnational cocaine commodity chain in order to provide their children with medication that was not administered by the state. Neoliberal healthcare in the form of cuts to national health systems makes the motherwork of poor women more difficult to perform. In order to afford care for their children's health, Cynthia and Dinah entered a labor market that is criminalized by punitive war on drug policies and they were subsequently imprisoned. Illicit labor was therefore an extension of their motherwork and the removal of this care from their children resulted in tragic health consequences. This article is based on ethnographic dissertation fieldwork in 2008–09 in the largest women's prison in Peru.     

Using Visual Art Workshops with Female Survivors of Domestic Violence in Portugal and England: A Comparative Reflection

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a reflection on the use of visual art workshops in an interdisciplinary feminist project with female survivors of domestic violence living in refuges in England and Portugal. The paper discusses the fieldwork in each location with attention to the interaction between participants, between participants and the researcher/s, and the cultural and institutional structures influencing the research and the images produced. Despite some key differences in the context, the analysis highlights key resonances and commonalities amongst the objects that survivors of domestic abuse depicted in each location. We use the feminist notion of ‘giving voice’ as an analytical tool throughout the paper. The paper argues that ‘giving voice’ was not unproblematically accomplished by using visual methods and suggests that our understanding remained partial and often reliant on verbal narratives accompanying the visual images produced. We also highlight issues of power emerging when exhibiting art generated through the study.     

创业精神在中国

大型国有企业或外资企业在经济发展中所取得的成就往往受到广泛关注，而由国际著名战略咨询公司摩立特集团和国务院发展研究中心近期公布的一项调查显示，中小型创业企业的增长活力和动力也不可忽视。