Texas A&M International University: Research Information Online (RIO)
Not a member yet
951 research outputs found
Sort by
Lesbians & Gays: Attitudes Among U.S. Latino College Populations
Get PDFNegative attitudes towards homosexuals in the United States amongst Latino populations have been associated with cultural factors such as machismo and marianismo, as well as acculturation, ethnic identity and religious involvement (Diaz, Ayala, Bein, Henne & Marin 2001; Herek & Gonzalez-Rivera, 2006; Harris, 2009). Studies have indicated that the stronger the beliefs in traditional norms, religious affiliation and low levels of acculturation an individual has the more likely that they are to have negative attitudes towards individuals who identify as lesbian and gay (Ahrold & Meston, 2010). The following study aims to analyze the impact that acculturation, ethnic identity, traditional gender norms and religious involvement have on attitudes towards lesbians and gays amongst Latino college populations in the U.S
Civil Liberties V. National Security: A Study of Hispanic Students\u27 Public Opinion
Get PDFThe purpose of this study is to understand Hispanic students’ public opinion on whether they want to protect their civil liberties or prefer more national security to respond to terrorism. I sent an electronic survey to 900 students attending a South Texas university with 193 completed surveys returned. I replicated eight individual counter-terrorism measures from Welch (2015), and derived a component dependent variable using a data reduction technique called principal component analysis. In this study, my independent variables are measures of nationalism, ethnocentrism, and political affiliation. Political affiliation was significantly related to the support for counter-terrorism policy, and the gender of respondents had a significant main effect. Furthermore, females did not support counter-terrorism policies if it meant subjugating their civil liberties. Male respondents supported counter-terrorism policy for more national security, despite the loss of some civil liberties. My study contributes to the fundamental understanding of the role of gender in the support for counter-terrorism policies
Regímenes de historicidad y la presencia de los medios de comunicación en la ciudad de León. Cine, música y lo juvenil.
No full textLas películas sobre jóvenes que aparecieron durante la década de los cincuenta coinciden con un cambio en la producción de cultura de la modernidad. La presencia de una cultura de masas internacional no solamente manifestaba cambios importantes en la vida en las ciudades, sino en las formas de ser joven. A partir de entonces, ser joven era una forma de ser un sujeto moderno y la acción de los medios de comunicación era una de las pautas más importantes para lograrlo. El presente trabajo aborda el contexto del cine sobre jóvenes entre los cincuenta y los sesenta, y muestra como lo juvenil emerge como una experiencia de los jóvenes en la ciudad de León, Guanajuato, y como una de las vías para ser público de cine en la ciudad.Palabras clave:Cine, jóvenes, música de rock, cultura masiva, mediásfera.Abstract:Films about young people who appeared during the fifties coincide with a change in the production of culture of modernity. The presence of an international mass culture not only manifested significant changes in life in cities, but in the ways of being young. Thereafter, being young was a way of being a modern subject and the action of the media was one of the most important guidelines to achieve. This paper addresses the context of film on young people between the fifties and sixties, and shows how the youth emerges as an experience of young people in the city of Leon, Guanajuato, and as one of the ways for public film city.Key words:Cinema, youth, rock music, mass culture, mediasphere
Effects of Exercise Training on Fat Loss and Lean Mass Gain in Mexican-American and Korean Premenopausal Women
No full textWe investigated the effect of exercise training on body composition change in women. Nineteen Mexican-American and 18 Korean premenopausal overweight/obese women were randomized into one of the following groups: control, low-intensity training group (LI), and high-intensity training group (HI). Subjects completed 12 weeks of training at 50-56% maximal oxygen consumption (LI) or 65-70% maximal oxygen consumption (HI). Body composition components were measured at baseline and after training using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry for Mexican-Americans, while whole-body composition was measured by the direct segmental multifrequency bioelectrical impedance analysis and abdominal fat was measured by single-slice computed tomography for Koreans. Data were analyzed using mixed-model repeated measures independent of age, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI). Exercise training showed a significant effect on BMI, fat percentage, fat mass, lean mass, and visceral adipose tissue area. HI significantly decreased fat mass and fat percentage but increased lean mass (all P\u3c0.05). LI significantly reduced BMI, fat mass, fat percentage, and visceral adipose tissue area but increased lean mass (all P\u3c0.05). Exercise training had a beneficial effect on reducing BMI, fat percentage, fat mass, and visceral adipose tissue area but had no effect on increasing lean mass for Mexican-American and Korean premenopausal overweight/obese women
The Quest for Truth in A.S. Byatt’s Possession
Get PDFBy examining A. S. Byatt’s Possession, we can see that Byatt is showing the limitations of postmodern thought in examining historical works of literature, particularly in regards to women writers. The focus of this paper is on the novel’s critique of modern critical theories that conceptualize the text as being impossible to define or understand. This paper argues that Byatt satirizes her postmodern scholars to demonstrate the deficiencies of certain postmodernist principles such as the death of the author and the complete nullification of intended meaning and implicit truth. In order to show how Byatt satirizes the postmodern scholars in the novel, the scholarly characters’ analyses are discussed and revealed to be incorrect. This work discusses how the scholarly characters’ postmodernist approaches result in nothing more than inaccuracies and endless deconstruction. Their approaches, in turn, leave them feeling powerless and deem them incapable of understanding even themselves. The process the characters must go through to discover the inaccuracies of their assessments and overcome their misguided notions is also described. The intent of this thesis is to show that although the novel satires academic study and critical theories by contrasting different views of the Victorian writers being studied—views which are all incomplete until the researchers share their work with each other and let go of their own biased view—rather than altogether rejecting that truth is attainable, Possession counters postmodernist failings with a solution that involves a collaborative effort and utilizes a recursive and circular method of discovering meaning as opposed to an isolated and linear approach. Consequently, this paper contends that it is not until all of the contemporary scholars collaborate and reevaluate certain postmodern viewpoints that postmodernist deconstruction ends in totalizing reconstruction and the rebuilding of the Victorian works in the novel. This paper also contends that Possession culminates in hope, both for its scholarly protagonists and for its postmodern readers
Cálculo de precio para membresía de acceso a sitio de noticias locales
No full textLos esfuerzos editoriales en Internet que actualmente se encuentran financiados por inserción de publicidad, enfrentan a los bloqueadores de anuncios como una nueva amenaza que eventualmente, obligaría a miles de medios a plantear el cambio a un modelo de negocio con base en la venta de contenidos. En este artículo se expone el uso del medidor de sensibilidad a los precios creado por el economista Peter van Westendorp, inserto en un instrumento para determinar la cantidad de clientes potenciales disponibles en un segmento demográfico. Los resultados permiten establecer la viabilidad de un proyecto y el techo de ingreso por grupo poblacional atendido, parámetros básicos para el plan de mercadotecnia de cualquier medio de comunicación que opera en este esquema comercial
Using egocentric analysis to investigate professional networks and productivity of graduate students and faculty in life sciences in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan
No full textPrior studies showed that scientists’ professional networks contribute to research productivity, but little work has examined what factors predict the formation of professional networks. This study sought to 1) examine what factors predict the formation of international ties between faculty and graduate students and 2) identify how these international ties would affect publication productivity in three East Asian countries. Face-to-face surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of faculty and doctoral students in life sciences at 10 research institutions in Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Our final sample consisted of 290 respondents (84 faculty and 206 doctoral students) and 1,435 network members. We used egocentric social network analysis to examine the structure of international ties and how they relate to research productivity. Our findings suggest that overseas graduate training can be a key factor in graduate students’ development of international ties in these countries. Those with a higher proportion of international ties in their professional networks were likely to have published more papers and written more manuscripts. For faculty, international ties did not affect the number of manuscripts written or of papers published, but did correlate with an increase in publishing in top journals. The networks we examined were identified by asking study participants with whom they discuss their research. Because the relationships may not appear in explicit co-authorship networks, these networks were not officially recorded elsewhere. This study sheds light on the relationships of these invisible support networks to researcher productivity
Using the model statement to elicit information and cues to deceit in interpreter-based interviews
No full textWe examined how the presence of an interpreter during an interview affects eliciting information and cues to deceit, while using a method that encourages interviewees to provide more detail (model statement, MS). A total of 199 Hispanic, Korean and Russian participants were interviewed either in their own native language without an interpreter, or through an interpreter. Interviewees either lied or told the truth about a trip they made during the last twelve months. Half of the participants listened to a MS at the beginning of the interview. The dependent variables were ‘detail’, ‘complications’, ‘common knowledge details’, ‘self-handicapping strategies’ and ‘ratio of complications’. In the MS-absent condition, the interviews resulted in less detail when an interpreter was present than when an interpreter was absent. In the MS-present condition, the interviews resulted in a similar amount of detail in the interpreter present and absent conditions. Truthful statements included more complications and fewer common knowledge details and self-handicapping strategies than deceptive statements, and the ratio of complications was higher for truth tellers than liars. The MS strengthened these results, whereas an interpreter had no effect on these results
Validity of four-compartment model body fat in physically active men and women when using DXA for body volume
No full textThe purpose of this study was twofold: 1) compare body volume (BV) estimated from dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to BV from a criterion underwater weighing (UWW) with simultaneous residual lung volume (RLV), and 2) compare four-compartment (4C) model body fat percentage (BF%) values when deriving BV via DXA (4CDXA) and UWW (4CUWW) in physically active men and women. One hundred twenty-two adults (62 men and 60 women) who self-reported physical activity levels of at least 1,000 MET·min·wk-1 volunteered to participate (age = 22 ± 5 years). DXA BV was determined with the recent equation from Smith-Ryan et al. while criterion BV was determined from UWW with simultaneous RLV. The mean BV values for DXA were not significant compared with UWW in women (p = .80; constant error [CE] = 0.0L), but were significantly higher in the entire sample and men (both p \u3c .05; CE = 0.3 and 0.7L, respectively). The mean BF% values for 4CDXA were not significant for women (p = .56; CE = –0.3%), but were significantly higher in the entire sample and men (both p \u3c .05; CE = 0.9 and 2.0%, respectively). The standard error of estimate (SEE) ranged from 0.6–1.2L and 3.9–4.2% for BV and BF%, respectively, while the 95% limits of agreement (LOA) ranged from ±1.8–2.5L for BV and ±7.9–8.2% for BF%. 4CDXA can be used for determining group mean BF% in physically active men and women. However, due to the SEEs and 95% LOAs, the current study recommends using UWW with simultaneous RLV for BV in a criterion 4C model when high individual accuracy is desired
Simple and fast novel diversification approach for the UBQP based on sequential improvement local search
No full textThe unconstrained binary quadratic program (UBQP) is a challenging NP-hard problem. Due to its vast applicability and the theoretical interests it has grown in importance in the recent years. Various heuristics have been proposed as solution procedures. Most of the heuristics are based on local improvement procedures. To be able to reach optimal or near optimal solutions, researchers have implemented multistart and diversification strategies to explore a larger solution space. Diversification strategies in the literature concentrate on some manipulation of solutions (variables). In this paper, relationship between starting solution, the sequence of implementing local search, and the locally optimal solution x∗ is explored. A novel diversification approach based on the sequence to implement the local improvement is proposed. We implemented four versions of our diversification procedures within a simple tabu search and tested on several benchmark problems available on the Internet. Our extensive computational results show that the procedures can reach the best known solutions with high frequencies within very short CPU time. For 123 out of 125 of these problems the procedures reached the best known solutions quickly. For 44 of the 84 Max-Cut benchmark problems the procedures improved upon the available solutions in reasonably short CPU time