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Parasocial Relationships in Children and Teens
Get PDFYoung people have easy access to an array of fictional characters and celebrities, many of whom exist across platforms (e.g., protagonists from the graphic novel Heartstopper now appear in live-action on Netflix) and are manifested in toys and other merchandise. Children and adolescents often create powerful, socioemotional connections with fictional characters and celebrities called parasocial relationships (PSRs). Preschoolers clutching Elmo dolls, tweens fantasizing about interactions with TikTok influencers, and queer teens finding affirmation in a gay couple on Schitt’s Creek all hint at possible PSRs. These one-sided, imagined social ties might raise concerns for parents and other stakeholders; however, PSRs are generally normative and adaptive and provide many social affordances. Children and adolescents relate to media personalities in varied ways, and these connections can lead to a variety of outcomes ranging from improving school readiness to enhancing psychological well-being.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/communication_books/1025/thumbnail.jp
Stability of Cognitive Ability and Effect of Education Across 58 Years: A Project Talent Aging Study
Get PDFWe assessed the degree to which individuals retain cognitive abilities from adolescence through older adulthood, and whether more education associates with better retention in some more than others, after adjusting for adolescent cognitive ability. We also evaluated whether benefits associated with education differ for those with lower or higher cognitive scores in adolescence, or women or men. Data came from the Project Talent Aging Study, and included measures of abstract reasoning, mathematics, visualization in two dimensions, and recognition memory in 1960 and 2018 (n=2,032; age range 71 to 79). Confirmatory factor analysis was used to fit one-factor (cognitive ability factor, CAF) at each timepoint. We then used a structural equation model to test whether the 1960 CAF predicted the 2018 CAF, with an interaction term between 1960 CAF and years of education. Multiple group models tested invariance by sex. We found high stability in CAFs assessed 58 years apart. Education predicted higher 2018 CAF (p\u3c.001), although a significant interaction (1960 CAF*education; p\u3c.05) showed that effects were diminished for those with higher 1960 CAF. Sex-specific analyses showed that the diminishing effect of education was evident for both women (p\u3c.05) and men (p\u3c.05). Additionally, the simple effect of education on 2018 CAF was significant for women (p\u3c.001) but not for men (p=.37). Findings indicate high stability in cognitive abilities from adolescence to older adulthood, and that exposure to more education differentially benefits later age abilities depending on adolescent levels and sex
A New Form of Soft Supersymmetry Breaking?
Get PDFStarting with a supersymmetric U(N) × U(N) gauge theory built in N = 1 superspace, a nonsupersymmetric theory is obtained by “twisting” the gauginos into a different representation of the group than the gauge bosons. Despite the fact that this twisting breaks supersymmetry, it is still possible to construct an action that is holomorphic and invariant to local “twisted” gauge transformations in superspace. It is conjectured that these two properties may allow the theory to be free of quadratic divergences to all orders, despite a lack of supersymmetry. An explicit calculation shows that the theory is free of quadratic divergences to at least the two-loop order
Measuring Religious Evil: Examining the Use of Single-Item Measures in Religious Research
Get PDFMultiple-item indexes are ubiquitous within the sociology of religion. However, there are a growing number of articles in other disciplines that have advocated the use of single-item measures in specific circumstances. Using quantitative survey data taken from the United Kingdom, this paper contributes to this literature by exploring the impact of single and multiple item measures of religious evil on a series of social and political attitudes. The findings suggest that belief in the devil is the most consistent predictor within a multiple-item measure of religious evil and the multiple-item measure does not significantly outperform single-item measures. Indeed, the item “most evil in the world is caused by the devil” could be a more efficient measure of religious evil, particularly where it is combined with religious attendance. While further cross-cultural research on the impact of belief in religious evil remains necessary, the paper also finds some evidence to suggest that exploration of more secular beliefs in evil might be advantageous
AI-Powered Water Quality Index Prediction: Unveiling Machine Learning Precision in Hyper-Arid Regions
No full textWater is a vital resource essential for all life, and its quality has been compromised by pollution and contamination in recent decades. The Water Quality Index (WQI) is crucial for evaluating water validity for several purposes, including drinking. Accurate WQI prediction allows for proactive strategies to combat water contamination, preserve public well-being, and guarantee access to safe water sources. This study introduces a novel approach utilizing advanced Machine Learning (ML) techniques for WQI prediction, demonstrating substantial improvements over traditional methods. The methods include the Ridge Model, Lasso Model, Random Forest (RF) Model, Extra Trees (ExT) Model, AdaBoost (AB) Model, XGBoost (XGB) Model, Gradient Boosting (GB) Model, LightGBM Model, Linear Regression (LR) Model, K-nearest neighbor (KNN) Model, Regressor (R) Model, Decision Tree (DT) Model, Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) Model and Support Vector Regressor (SVR) Model, to determine the most effective models for predicting WQI. The proposed models are trained on a publicly available dataset from 145 groundwater well samples collected between January and April 2018 in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The models’ performance was assessed using various metrics, including Mean Square Error (MSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Adjusted R-squared, Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and R-squared (R2). Experimental results indicate promising performance across all models. In particular, the LR Model proved to be exceptionally accurate, precisely predicting WQI values with 100% accuracy during testing. According to the experimental findings, this model surpassed others in regression tasks, achieving an R2 value of 100% in WQI prediction. The proposed research confirms the effectiveness of ML algorithms in the field of Water Resources and will serve as a reference for the researchers working in the field of WQI prediction
Conglomeration, Digital Disruption, and COVID-19: Upheaval-Driven Changes to the Roles of U.S. Local Television News Directors
Get PDFThis mixed methods study analyzes how broadcast news directors renegotiate their roles under organizational and cultural times of change. Even before COVID-19, local television news directors, one of the two predominant groups of journalism managers in the United States, were experiencing shifts in roles related to their growing work responsibilities. These changes were the result of long-term workplace upheavals including conglomeration and digital disruption. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, news directors found themselves managing through this additional, short-term upheaval. The authors of this study sought to discover how industry upheavals impact broadcast newsroom management roles
On Explaining Why the (Human) World Is Rich
Get PDFThe wealth of the modern world is a natural historical marvel. Explaining it has traditionally been the purview of economic historians, as exemplified by the recent book How the World Became Rich by Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin. Economic historians, though, tend to only ask process-oriented “how” questions and “by what means” questions of the Great Enrichment. The eight co-authors of Explaining Technology, who are not economic historians, engage the debate asking a different question. Their goal is to explain the exponential shape of our enrichment with a model of the combinatorial evolution of technology. With an eye toward how we ask questions of the Great Enrichment, the essay proposes broadening our inquiries to include questions typically overlooked in modern economic science, namely, “What form does it take? and “For what purpose?
Political Ideology, Emotion Response, and Confirmation Bias
Get PDFMotivated reasoning can serve to help resolve emotional discomfort, which suggests emotion as a likely moderator of such reasoning. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by examining emotion and confirmation bias in the political domain. Results from two preregistered studies, which involved over 900 unique participants, document a confirmation bias across distinct dimensions of belief and preference formation. Also, ideologically dissonant information significantly worsens self-reported emotion. With some exceptions, the evidence generally supports the hypothesis that negative emotion moderates the strength of the bias, which highlights the importance of emotion response in understanding and potentially counteracting confirmation bias
Measuring Norm Pluralism and Perceived Polarization in US Politics
Get PDFRecent research has shown how norms shape political and economic decision-making. Much of this work assumes that a single norm influences the behavior of all people, but in fact, many situations are characterized by the existence of competing normative viewpoints. We apply a method for measuring belief in the simultaneous existence of multiple norms. Such multiplicity arises naturally when norms are associated with distinctive groups, and thus political polarization can be characterized, in part, as a product of diverging norms between groups. We thus assess the validity of our measurement technique by testing whether it can recover polarization on seven salient political issues on which US Democrats and Republicans tend to hold different views. We then compare the norms elicited by our method to the norms of Democrats and Republicans elicited in a separate sample using an established and validated—but methodologically less rich—measurement approach. Our study uncovers a wide range of co-existing views between and within political groups. Partisans understand their group’s norms and hold personal views that align with them. They can also recognize the diversity and polarization in US public opinion by identifying norms specific to political parties and acknowledging the variety of views within their own parties, which may indicate internal divisions. This research underscores the importance of nuanced approaches to political norms that go beyond party lines. By acknowledging a plurality of views, we can encourage productive discussions and bridge ideological divides
Staying Cool: The Contemporary Religious Studies Librarian and the Power of Storytelling
No full textContrary to what many may think, there is immense potential in the space of religious studies librarianship, especially as spirituality and religion are increasingly being explored in non-traditional and interdisciplinary ways. Essraa Nawar, Assistant Dean for Library DEI Initiatives and Development at Chapman University, will take participants on a dynamic journey from her early work at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt to the groundbreaking initiatives she has led at Chapman University. This webinar will redefine what it means to be a contemporary religious studies librarian—it’s not just about managing collections and databases; it’s about staying cool, fostering meaningful connections, and leading innovative conversations that resonate across diverse faith communities and academic disciplines. In an era where libraries are trendsetting hubs of cultural and scholarly engagement, Nawar will illustrate how religious studies librarianship can be disruptive and transformative. She will showcase fresh, relevant, and innovative approaches to knowledge creation and community-building through a blend of case studies, success stories, and personal experiences. Participants will learn how to position their libraries as key players in shaping the conversations institutions need to have, leveraging religious studies collections and databases to drive interfaith dialogue and enrich the understanding of spirituality in our modern world