College of the Holy Cross

The perception of objects is a challenging task that requires recognizing visual elements and integrating them into a whole. While human vision prioritizes attention to the overall configuration, data from other species suggests this bias towards global form perception is not universal. Studies with pigeons indicate preferential attention to local details when both local and global information may be diagnostic, but studies with other bird species are more limited. To examine whether this local bias is class-wide or potentially species-specific, we studied whether African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) have a bias towards local elements or the global configuration when processing Navon-like hierarchical form displays. Two parrots were tested using a computerized touch-screen two-alternative choice task that presented displays that were local-relevant or global-relevant. The results of several successive acquisition phases suggest that these parrots have no local or global bias, indicating differing evolutionary or ecological drives for visual processing among avian species.

In seven studies, this research demonstrates that both the general public and educators may hold culturally‐shared, class stereotype‐laden mental representations that they reflexively use both to subjectively identify particular students as being high or low in academic ability, and determine who should receive educational support. Using procedures designed to capture people's mental images of others, we first observed that both the general public and aspiring educators mentally represent low‐ability students as qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from high‐ability students. Furthermore, the representations of low (vs. high) ability students captured from the public and aspiring educators were more likely to be associated with negative class‐based academic stereotypes by separate samples of the public and educators, such that a student who “looks” low in ability was also more likely to be labeled as being low‐SES, and having poorer academic motivation and work ethic. As a result, the low (vs. high) ability student was more likely to be denied college admissions or scholarship support by members of the American public and to be exposed to unsupportive instructional practices by teachers. Implications for our understanding of teacher biases are discussed.

Introduction The incidence of severe BPD (sBPD), defined as needing oxygen or positive pressure at 36 weeks corrected gestational age (CGA), has remained unchanged. These infants are at risk for developing late pulmonary hypertension (LPHN) or needing surgical interventions such as Gastrostomy Tubes (GT) or Tracheostomy Tubes (TT). The finding of pepsin in the lungs of infants who were extremely low birth weight (ELBW) with sBPD has led to the speculation that gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and aspiration could contribute to their lung disease. Micro-aspiration-reducing strategies such as Transpyloric feeds (TpF) have not been well studied. Objectives To compare ELBW infants with sBPD managed with or without TpF and determine the difference between the two groups for (i) illness severity, (ii) LPHN, (iii) need for GT, and (iv) TT; the secondary aim was to study the TpF group to (i) evaluate the change in Respiratory Severity Score (RSS) before and after TpF, and (ii) evaluate the time taken to affect the change in RSS. Methods In this retrospective study there were 229 ELBW infants with sBPD (78 in the TpF group, 151 in the non-TpF group). SPSS software was used for univariate analyses. Results There was no difference in sex or race. TpF group had (i) a lower BW, GA, higher severity of illness (ii) higher incidence of LPHN (p < 0.05), (iii) higher need for GT (p < 0.001) and TT (p < 0.001). In the TpF group, 60 who were on TpF for pulmonary protection from micro aspiration (lung protection group), had significantly improved RSS (p < 0.05), and symptoms within 45 days in 57 out of 60 infants (95%). They improved their respiratory status by 14 days, and 80% of responders could be identified by 21 days after initiation. In the 18 that TpF was started for documented airway protection (airway protection group), there was a higher need for GT or TT. Conclusions TpF could play an essential role in the management of ELBW infants with sBPD. Considering the limitations of a single center retrospective study, prospective randomized control trials are needed to confirm these findings.

Firms—business enterprises in all their various forms—occupy an increasingly contested position in contemporary society. Some argue that their proper role is strictly limited to the impersonal provision of goods and services. Others argue that their wealth, power, and position require much more from them vis-à-vis their communities, the environment, and, most relevantly here, their employees. Very little of the debate over the proper behavior of firms has drawn on the collective action literature despite the fact that firms exist and function exclusively as the result of collective action. In this paper, as elsewhere, I show that attending to the collective nature of the firm can help us resolve some of the debated issues. I begin (Sect. 1) by presenting a holist, structuralist account of corporate agents: highly structured collectives that qualify as moral agents in their own right. Almost any functional firm with multiple employees will qualify as a corporate agent and thus, I have argued elsewhere, will be bound by traditional moral obligations. Unlike other accounts, this particular account emphasizes the social aspects of corporate agents and thus of firms. Looking at firms through this lens highlights their nature as communities of people joined together for the purpose of improving their own lives. In short, this account shows that firms are a lot like the Aristotelian polis. In Sect. 2, I draw on Aristotle and recent work in political science to fill a gap in the literature by offering a novel account of a “political community.” In Sect. 3, I show that collectives that qualify as corporate agents will generally qualify as political communities as well. In Sect. 4, I argue that political communities should be governed in accordance with political theory rather than moral theory, i.e., that the governing bodies should draw on normative standards from political theories (liberalism, libertarianism, etc.) rather than from individualistic moral theories (Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, etc.). Section 5 briefly explores the implications for firm governance, most of which are sharply at odds with contemporary practice, but I close with a warning for those who assume that the political nature of the firm wins them a liberal, democratic workplace.

Extending our previous works on the Cauchy problem for the 2+1 equivariant Einstein-wave map system, we prove that the linear part dominates the nonlinear part of the wave maps equation coupled to the full set of the Einstein equations, for small data. A key ingredient in the proof is a nonlinear Morawetz estimate for the fully coupled equivariant Einstein-wave maps. The 2+1-dimensional Einstein-wave map system occurs naturally in the 3+1 vacuum Einstein equations of general relativity.

Let $e_k(x_1,\ldots ,x_\ell )$ be an elementary symmetric polynomial and let $\lambda =(\lambda _1,\ldots ,\lambda _\ell )$ be an integer partition. Define ${{\,\textrm{pre}\,}}_k(\lambda )$ to be the partition whose parts are the summands in the evaluation $e_k(\lambda _1,\ldots ,\lambda _\ell )$. The study of such partitions was initiated by Ballantine, Beck, and Merca who showed (among other things) that ${{\,\textrm{pre}\,}}_2$ is injective as a map on binary partitions of n. In the present work, we derive a host of identities involving the sequences which count the number of parts of a given value in the image of ${{\,\textrm{pre}\,}}_2$. These include generating functions, explicit expressions, and formulas for forward differences. We generalize some of these to d-ary partitions and explore connections with color partitions. Our techniques include the use of generating functions and bijections on rooted partitions. We end with a list of conjectures and a direction for future research.

Importance Prostate cancer (PC) care has evolved rapidly as a result of changes in prostate-specific antigen testing, novel imaging, and newer treatments. The impact of these changes on PC epidemiology and racial disparities across disease states remains underexplored. Objective To characterize racial and ethnic differences in the epidemiology of PC states, including nonmetastatic hormone-sensitive PC (nmHSPC), metastatic HSPC (mHSPC), nonmetastatic castration-resistant PC (nmCRPC), and metastatic CRPC (mCRPC). Design, Setting, and Participants This is a retrospective, population-based cohort study of male US veterans aged 40 years and older with known race and ethnicity and no non-PC malignant neoplasm before study entry receiving care through the Veterans Health Administration. The study period was from 2012 to 2020, with follow-up through 2021. To identify active users, data capture included visits 18 months before and after the study period. Data analysis was performed from March to August 2023. Exposure Self-identified race and ethnicity, classified as Black, White, or Hispanic. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary outcomes were annual age-adjusted incidence rates (IRs) and point prevalence for PC states by race and ethnicity. Trends were evaluated using joinpoint regression. Time to disease progression or death was estimated using nonparametric cumulative incidence. Competing risk models adjusted for age assessed the association of race and ethnicity on disease progression. Results The study included 6 539 001 veterans (median [IQR] age, 65 [56-74] years), of whom 476 227 had PC (median [IQR] age, 69 [63-75] years). IRs varied by time frame and disease state. Across all states and years, the relative risk among Black vs White patients ranged from 2.09 (95% CI, 2.01-2.18; P < .001) for nmHSPC in 2012 to 4.12 (95% CI, 3.39-5.02; P < .001) for nmCRPC in 2017. In nmHSPC, hazard ratios for progression to mHSPC and nmCRPC were 1.36 (95% CI, 1.33-1.40) and 1.60 (95% CI, 1.51-1.70), respectively, for Black patients and 1.38 (95% CI, 1.31-1.45) and 1.55 (95% CI, 1.40-1.72), respectively, for Hispanic patients vs White patients. In contrast, in mCRPC, the hazard ratio for death was lower for Black (0.84; 95% CI, 0.81-0.88) and Hispanic (0.76; 95% CI, 0.69-0.83) patients compared with White patients. Conclusions and Relevance This cohort study of veterans found that Black patients had more than 2-fold higher incidence of all disease states vs White patients. Progression risk was higher for Black and Hispanic patients in early-stage disease, but lower in later disease stages. Despite equal access, Black patients disproportionately experience PC, although progression risks relative to White patients differed according to disease state.

Despite claims, primarily from Republican lawmakers, that the removal of the 2021 Major League Baseball All-Star Game cost local businesses in the Atlanta area $100 million in damages, an examination of hotel occupancy during the 2014 All-Star Game in Minneapolis and the 2019 All-Star Game in Cleveland suggests that these events generated at most 10,000 additional room nights and$4.5 million in additional hotel revenues for the host cities. These figures suggest that the All-Star Game generates a total direct marginal increase in tourism spending of only $3.9 to$9.4 million. Claiming that Georgia lost $100 million from the removal of the game is pure fiction with no basis in economic data.

Gene model for the ortholog of Density regulated protein ( DENR ) in the May 2011 (WUGSC dyak_caf1/DyakCAF1) Genome Assembly (GenBank Accession: GCA_000005975.1 ) of Drosophila yakuba . This ortholog was characterized as part of a developing dataset to study the evolution of the Insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling pathway (IIS) across the genus Drosophila using the Genomics Education Partnership gene annotation protocol for Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences.

This diachronic, corpus-based study examines Spanish constructions formed with the verb tomar ‘take’ and nouns of ‘emotion’, including endogenous nouns with a target participant (e.g. cariño ‘affection’), exogenous nouns with a source or cause participant (e.g. tristeza ‘sadness’), and hybrid nouns allowing both options (e.g. miedo ‘fear’). Such constructions involve three different inchoative (‘begin to feel’) subschemas. The first one, the Prepositional-Stimulus subschema (e.g. tomar tristeza de algo ‘grow sad over something’), included exogenous and hybrid nouns and predominated in the Middle Ages, but disappeared by the 1800s. The other two subschemas, formed with endogenous and hybrid nouns, have survived until today. They include the Prepositional-Goal subschema (e.g. tomar cariño por alguien ‘grow fond of someone’), the most frequent of the two in the Middle Ages, and the Dative-Goal subschema (e.g. tomarle cariño a alguien ‘grow fond of someone’, lit. ‘take fondness to someone’), which presumably arose through analogy in the 1400s and subsequently marginalized its prepositional counterpart, becoming the default realization in present-day Spanish. Using the framework of Diachronic Construction Grammar, these changes are analyzed as involving the reconfiguration of a broader network of inchoative light verb constructions with nouns of emotion in Spanish.

In the processes required to host a sports mega-event, corruption has been prevalent on numerous occasions, leading to unnecessary costs becoming the ultimate responsibility of a host government’s taxpayers. Little progress has been made in the prevention of such behaviour. In this chapter, the authors examine the history of corruption in sports mega-events, namely, the Olympics and the football World Cup, to identify parts of the bidding and preparation processes that are vulnerable to illicit behaviour. The chapter proposes potential solutions to be implemented at various levels in order to prevent further corruption.

Freshwater crayfish are amongst the largest macroinvertebrates and play a keystone role in the ecosystems they occupy. Understanding the global distribution of these animals is often hindered due to a paucity of distributional data. Additionally, non-native crayfish introductions are becoming more frequent, which can cause severe environmental and economic impacts. Management decisions related to crayfish and their habitats require accurate, up-to-date distribution data and mapping tools. Such data are currently patchily distributed with limited accessibility and are rarely up-to-date. To address these challenges, we developed a versatile e-portal to host distributional data of freshwater crayfish and their pathogens (using Aphanomyces astaci, the causative agent of the crayfish plague, as the most prominent example). Populated with expert data and operating in near real-time, World of Crayfish™ is a living, publicly available database providing worldwide distributional data sourced by experts in the field. The database offers open access to the data through specialized standard geospatial services (Web Map Service, Web Feature Service) enabling users to view, embed, and download customizable outputs for various applications. The platform is designed to support technical enhancements in the future, with the potential to eventually incorporate various additional features. This tool serves as a step forward towards a modern era of conservation planning and management of freshwater biodiversity.

Climate change is exerting complex and transformative effects in the Arctic and Antarctic; regions that are essential to global climate, biodiversity, and sustainable futures. Given the polar regions’ roles in Earth’s system, a robust, coordinated, and innovative strategy to monitor and manage climate change effects is needed. Insufficient baseline data, inconsistent international collaboration, and short-term financing are obstacles to effectively monitor these changes. This hinders our understanding of biodiversity shifts, their implications for food security, and climate change mitigation. Confronting the impacts of climate change will require interdisciplinary collaboration and genuine participation of nations, including Indigenous communities. This sentiment includes facilitating international cooperation to address scientific objectives despite political tensions. Additional recommendations include establishing regular international requirements to track progress based on available science, optimizing the use of existing infrastructure and resources, enhancing data sharing practices, and securing long-term financing to sustain research. While the existing pan-Antarctic and pan-Arctic initiatives present useful strategies, these initiatives are not a silver bullet. They do, however, provide a starting point for further work. Ultimately, by building upon existing initiatives and harnessing their successful components, we can address limitations of short-term or fragmented studies. We outline tools and data resources for polar research, examples of existing collaborative efforts to build upon, and Indigenous knowledge systems that provide valuable resources for this undertaking.

In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (1865), the animal characters become drenched in water after a day of swimming at a local lake. One of the characters, a Dodo Bird, decides to arrange a competition to help everyone dry off. Everyone was to run around the lake until they were dry. No one measured how far or how fast each person ran, nor how long, nor which route they took. Later, when they asked the Dodo who had won, he is reported to have pondered this outcome for some time before declaring, “Everybody has won and all must have prizes.”

It is of no moment to say something complimentary about Sigmund Freud, despite the fact that, as we saw earlier, his thinking about narcissism has been helpful in understanding the likely outcome of efforts to raise self-esteem. Nonetheless, as has been said again and again, Freud is dead. Why resurrect him, especially when even one of his fellow analysts insists that “Freud is less original than he makes himself out to be. Where he is most innovative, he is least reliable” (Kramer 2006, 210). That charge is mild compared to others. Freud, it is argued, played fast and loose with the details of his case studies. He was not above sacrificing an honest portrait of his patient’s symptoms for one that afforded greater congruence with his theory. He matched that infidelity with another, displaying a nasty habit of transforming demonstrable physical causation, such as a violent assault on a woman, into psychological causation, such as anxiety. The patient in question wasn’t raped; she was overcome with anxiety arising from earlier psychological traumas.

Westminster Abbey in central London is one of the important landmarks to be seen by any visitor to England. It is at once a magnificent example of Gothic architecture, the site of every British coronation since 1066, and a working church that still, after more than 100 years of service, holds regular masses. It is also the site of more than 3000 burials or commemorations of England’s most notable citizens, among them scientists, artists, poets, and writers. It is difficult to peruse this list and not be astonished by the number of such notable individuals who come from an island nation that is no more than one-fifth the size of the United States.