Sam Houston State University

Objective This article examines the incidence and effects of the most common ballot ordering procedure used in U.S. general elections, Prevailing Party laws, which give the most advantageous ballot position to the currently prevailing political party. Methods Panel regression and regression discontinuity analyses are applied to almost 50 years of county‐level election data from Wyoming. Results Prevailing Party laws generally increase the favored candidate's vote share by two percentage points or more, enough to flip the result of roughly 1 percent of major elections nationwide. Conclusions The effect of Prevailing Party laws is substantially larger than that of more innocuous ballot ordering schemes, due to “endorsement effects” these other schemes lack. The existing literature, which exclusively analyzes these other schemes, substantially understates the degree to which ballot order can be used to maintain political power.

Considerable proportions of college students in White, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries, such as the United States, suffer from eating disorders and other problematic eating behaviors. The prevalence of eating disorders in Western Asia has been historically low but is rapidly increasing. One of the most dramatic increases is occurring in the United Arab Emirates. Advancements in eating disorder research and intervention that would benefit college students in the United Arab Emirates are inhibited by the lack of psychometrically sound measures of eating behaviors and motivations that have been empirically demonstrated to perform well in this population. The present study took initial steps in filling this need by evaluating the measurement and predictive invariance of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire–Short Form and The Eating Motivation Survey using college student samples from the United Arab Emirates (n = 366) and United States (n = 317), followed by a series of cross-country comparisons. Results offer important evidence supporting the measurement invariance of both instruments and the predictive invariance of the The Eating Motivation Survey when used to predict scores on the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire–Short Form. Although no significant cross-country differences in eating disorder features and behaviors were found, some cross-country differences in eating motivations were observed. Similar eating motivations emerged in both countries as possible protective and risk factors for eating disorders. The implications of these findings for eating disorder assessment and practice are discussed, along with their implications for theory and research on eating motivations, nutritional health, and people’s relationships with food.

As general surgery education and credentialing shifts towards a competency basis, there is a need for updated task-based scoring scales to correlate, especially in robotic surgery. The purpose of this study is to introduce a novel Competency-Based Assessment of Robotic Surgery Skills (CARS) Scale and report on its initial potential to evaluate general surgery resident development of robotic surgery skills. Resident robotic surgery performance was evaluated at a single institution using the CARS scale over the course of one academic year. Twenty de-identified and randomized operative robotic procedure videos were scored using the CARS and Global Evaluative Assessment of Robotic Skills (GEARS) scales by two expert blinded reviewers. Inter- and intra-rater reliability was analyzed. A total of seven Post-Graduate Year (PGY)-1, seven PGY-2, six PGY-3, four PGY-4, and five PGY-5 general surgery residents were evaluated in-person using the CARS scale. Robot docking exhibited the highest mean score across all PGY levels, while robotic stapler use exhibited the lowest score. In-person assessments utilizing the CARS scale reliably differentiated advanced (PGY-4–5) resident performance from both intermediate (PGY-3) and beginner (PGY-1-2) resident performance. Additionally, the CARS scale reliably differentiated intermediate (PGY-3) from beginner (PGY-1-2) resident performance. In blinded video review, both the CARS and GEARS scales reliably differentiated attending surgeon from beginner, intermediate, and advanced resident performance. Inter-rater reliability of the CARS scale was moderate when used to evaluate inguinal hernia repair video samples. The CARS scale represents a first step towards establishing competency-based scoring of general surgery resident robotic surgery performance. Further studies are necessary to evaluate the potential of the CARS scale to replace non-competency-based robotic surgery scoring scales.

This research draws on conflict-based accounts to examine how perceptions of out-group threats shape White resistance to police and criminal justice reform. Using nationally representative data from the ANES-GSS 2020 Joint Study, we find that White Americans who perceive immigrants as a criminal threat are more likely to prioritize the need for more robust social controls rather than supporting efforts toward reforming the police and the criminal legal system. We also uncover a link between racial competition for political power and White preferences for a stronger emphasis on law and order through expanded policing and more stringent enforcement of the laws. This preference supersedes the desire to address bias against minorities in the criminal legal system through police and court reforms. The implications of these findings for understanding the current context of American racial and immigration politics, as well as the future of American policing and criminal justice, are discussed.

The industrial revolution and technological advancements have introduced a myriad of chemicals into the environment, leading to extensive pollution and threats to living organisms. Persistent organic compounds (POPs), such as organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), continue to pose environmental challenges even after their discontinuation. Furthermore, both legacy and emerging contaminants (ECs), such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, and personal care products, have raised public concern due to their persistence, potential for bioaccumulation, toxicity, and ability to be transported over long distances. Nanoparticles and treatment by-products further complicate the issue, requiring advanced detection methods. The scientific community has already identified occurrences of the legacy and emerging contaminants in different environmental compartments, including aquatic systems, indicating a ubiquitous occurrence of the legacy and emerging pollutants in the environment. This pollution demands effective management, as the pollutants are liable for serious health concerns for human, animal, and other biotic components. Effective management strategies for these contaminants involve identifying contaminants, characterizing their sources and pathways, evaluating threats, establishing standards, and developing monitoring techniques, including biosensors, etc. Legislative frameworks and regulations are essential for addressing both existing and emerging contaminants, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of their environmental and health impacts. This chapter provides an overview of legacy and emerging contaminants as well as the regulatory and legislative instruments developed at different levels (i.e., national and international) to address the legacy and emerging contaminants-associated environmental challenges. Additionally, both mandatory and optional management strategies and actions are also outlined.

Aims and Objectives The aim of this introductory chapter to Effects of Limited Input, a Special Issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism, is to give a brief overview of how the topic of limited linguistic input is situated within the study of bilingualism and language contact. The seven chapters—which present samples of the varied circumstances in which bilinguals acquire, use, maintain, and sometimes suppress areas of their languages—are introduced. Research Questions The authors of this collection address the following kinds of questions: What are the circumstances—and consequences—of limited linguistic input? What kinds of changes are likely or unlikely to happen when the amount of input is low and stylistically reduced? How meager can the input be for some degree of functional bilingualism to still develop? Design/Methodology The methods used in the seven articles in this collection vary; they include case studies, observations, speech-rate measurements, oral narration tasks, comparisons of production vs. comprehension, and longitudinal approaches. Data and Analysis The studies in this collection draw from a wide variety of data sets, including bilingual corpora and naturally occurring or elicited speech. The data come from children, youth, and adults, from various languages and language contact settings, and from populations with varying degrees of bilingualism. Findings/Conclusions We argue that limited input is not restricted to bilingual situations alone; it relates also to the mastering of monolingual registers. The key argument of this introductory chapter is that limited input is the rule, not the exception, as it is very rare to find a language contact situation wherein all contact varieties are equally represented in the input that speakers receive. Therefore, we argue against the theoretical notion of “balanced bilingualism” as a realistic outcome of bilingualism and claim that variations in the circumstances of language exposure will naturally lead to different consequences and configurations in the outcomes of bilingual acquisition. One inevitable outcome is language change. Originality All the articles in this collection are original, providing new angles to the complex topic of variation in speakers’ access to their languages in contact settings. Significance The authors of this collection look at various aspects of language contact situations through the lens of limited input. This emphasis allows us to view bilingualism as a special case of monolingual register variation and reject the concept of “balanced bilingualism.”

In virtual reality, creating intelligent virtual characters has been a long-lasting endeavor. However, while researchers have investigated several aspects of a virtual character's intelligence, little attention has been paid to the impact of the implemented intelligence levels assigned to a virtual character during human-virtual character collaboration. Thus, we conducted a within-group study ( N=24 ) to explore how three different intelligence levels (low vs. medium vs. high) assigned to a virtual character can impact how study participants perceive that virtual character and interact with the task they are instructed to complete. Specifically, for our study, we developed a jigsaw puzzle game and instructed our participants to solve it with the help of a virtual character. During the jigsaw puzzle solving process, we collected application logs related to how the participants executed the task and observed the virtual environment. Moreover, after each condition, we asked the participants to respond using a questionnaire that examined their social presence, how they perceived the character's intelligence and compared it with their own, and how they rated the virtual character's realism. Our results indicated that the different intelligence levels assigned to the virtual characters impacted participants’ responses on several variables, including co-presence, perceived intelligence, intelligence comparison, and character interaction and behavior realism. Moreover, based on the collected logged data, we found that the intelligence levels assigned to our virtual character significantly impacted the performance of our participants. Our results could be valuable to the research community for creating more engaging experiences with intelligent virtual characters for collaborative tasks in immersive environments.

Obesity has been recognized as a chronic disorder by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and was first reported in the Paleolithic age. In the recent years there has not been an international collaborative that facilitates professional cooperation on a worldwide level to increase the output of high-level evidence in the fields of obesity treatment and metabolic and bariatric surgery (MBS). In other surgical and medical fields, international collaborative research networks have shown to increase the quality and amount of treatment-changing evidence. In general, Global Collaborative Research in MBS (GCRMBS) should have the following goals: (1) clinical specialty–based research in obesity and MBS, (2) designing research protocols and studies to generate long-term data in obesity and MBS, (3) understanding the uncommon/rare complications and events associated with obesity and MBS, (4) increasing the number of participants in research and (5) investigating ethical and racial disparities in bariatric research. This review gives an overview of the current status and the future of international collaborative research in MBS.

This study aimed to characterize ammonium nitrate lattice vibrations in an ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture (ANFO) following authentic explosive events using confocal Raman microscopy and single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction (XRD). Two simulated IEDs were constructed and detonated, consisting of several different substrate materials, using ANFO as the main charge. Crystalline material was observed to be growing on several of the postblast substrates. Microscopical examination revealed the crystalline material to have isotropic and anisotropic characteristics. Following recrystallization from water, the material was identified as ammonium nitrate. Single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction enabled the identification of the unit cells and molecular structures of the crystals formed after the blast. The values corresponded to the known Phase IV structure of recrystallized ammonium nitrate; however, there were minor yet statistically significant variations in the distances in the unit cell dimensions and O–N–O angles. Ex situ analysis of isotropic crystalline fragment using confocal Raman microscopy determined that lattice vibrations within the material were different than the ANFO intact reference, with the blue shifting of several bands, the emergence of new bands, and the loss of other characteristic bands. It was determined that the isotropic crystalline material observed in the postblast residue consisted of stressed state Phase IV AN. This suggests that a thermal change of AN can be observed in the microscopical characteristics and Raman spectrum of the crystals, demonstrating the importance of low frequency Raman spectroscopy (10–250 cm ⁻¹ ), which allows the identification of distinct spectral features of crystalline salts.

LoRa networks, widely adopted for low-power, long-range communication in IoT applications, face critical security concerns as radio-frequency transmissions are increasingly vulnerable to tampering. This paper addresses the dual challenges of privacy-preserving detection of tampered transmissions and the identification of unknown attacks in LoRa-based IoT networks. Leveraging Federated Learning (FL), our approach enables the detection of tampered RF transmissions while safeguarding sensitive IoT data, as FL allows model training on distributed devices without sharing raw data. We evaluated the performance of multiple FL-enabled anomaly-detection algorithms, including Convolutional Autoencoder Federated Learning (CAE-FL), Isolation Forest Federated Learning (IF-FL), One-Class Support Vector Machine Federated Learning (OCSVM-FL), Local Outlier Factor Federated Learning (LOF-FL), and K-Means Federated Learning (K-Means-FL). Using metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, CAE-FL emerged as the top performer, achieving 97.27% accuracy and a balanced precision, recall, and F1-score of 0.97, with IF-FL close behind at 96.84% accuracy. Competitive performance from OCSVM-FL and LOF-FL, along with the comparable results of K-Means-FL, highlighted the robustness of clustering-based detection methods in this context. Visual analyses using confusion matrices and ROC curves provided further insights into each model’s effectiveness in detecting tampered signals. This research underscores the capability of federated learning to enhance privacy and security in anomaly detection for LoRa networks, even against unknown attacks, marking a significant advancement in securing IoT communications in sensitive applications.

High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) has become a widely used tool for studying the inner ear morphology of vertebrates. Amphisbaenians are one of the most specialized groups of fossorial reptiles but are poorly understood relative to other squamate reptile. In this paper we survey the anatomy of the inner and middle ear of these fossorial reptiles using HRCT models and we describe qualitatively and quantitatively (using 3D morphometrics) the anatomy of the inner ear. Amphisbaenians are diverse in skull anatomy, especially in the configuration of the snout, which correlates with digging modes. We demonstrate that the ear also exhibits a diversity of configurations, which are independent of phylogenetic relationships. Results from morphological analyses also allow us to describe 11 new potentially informative phylogenetic characters including some that help to diagnose amphisbaenians, such as: 1) the globular vestibule, ii) semicircular canals arranged in a circular trajectory, and iii) an extensive area of interaction between the columella footplate and the lagenar recess. Among extant amphisbaenians, Rhineura floridana has the most unusual inner ear configuration, including a horizontal semicircular canal that is in the same orientation as the inclined snout. The new morphological information helps us to better understand the morphology of headfirst-burrowing fossorial reptiles and contributes new data for resolution of phylogenetic relationships among amphisbaenians.

Background: Nutritional metals (NM) are essential for neurodevelopment and cognitive performance during growth. Nevertheless, epidemiological evidence regarding the associations between NM and brain function remains understudied, particularly among adolescents. Therefore, the objective of this pilot study was to examine the effects of NM biomarkers such as iron (Fe), selenium (Se), zinc (Zn), magnesium (Mg), and copper (Cu) on neurobehavioral functions among a group of rural Bangladeshi adolescents. Methodology: We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 105 adolescents aged 13–17 from Araihazar, Bangladesh. Cognitive function was assessed using the computer-based Behavioral Assessment and Research System (BARS), focusing attention, memory, and executive function, and blood NM levels (Fe, Se, Zn, Mg, and Cu) were measured. Associations between individual minerals, NM composite scores, and cognition were analyzed using multiple linear regressions. Results: This study included 47 boys and 58 girls with an average age of 15 years. Fe levels were correlated with Continuous Performance Test (CPT) latency (r = −0.42, p < 0.05) and Se levels correlated with Match-to-Sample (MTS) correct count (r = 0.32, p < 0.01). Linear regressions showed that Se was associated with MTS correct count (b = 0.02, 95%CI: 0.01, −0.04), reflecting visual memory, and Fe was associated with CPT latency (b = −0.68, 95%CI: −1.11, −0.26), reflecting improved attention. The same BARS measures were also significantly associated with the 3-NM composite score. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that NM, particularly Fe, Se, and NM mixtures, could play a crucial role in brain development and neurocognitive function during adolescence. Further studies will help design national public health policies and strategies to address and mitigate brain health deficiencies among adolescents.

This study reports on data from two 6‐week virtual intercultural exchanges (VIEs) between teachers of multilingual learners in K‐12 schools in Türkiye and the United States. Using the data from these asynchronous VIEs, we focus on Turkish world Englishes speakers’ use of epistemic markers and evidentials. We examine how participants from Türkiye use markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in intercultural encounters and how that use influences their construction of cultural information about Türkiye. Our findings show participants selectively code epistemic modality and evidentiality to indicate (their proximity to) the source of cultural information, avoid potential misunderstanding, and claim responsibility for the factuality of the information shared (or not). Our study contributes to understanding how world Englishes and Intercultural Communication intersect in multilingual contact zones that transcend borders―both real and imagined―between cultures, languages, and nations.