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Studies indicate a high level of risk taking behavior among student-athletes in the college setting. There are questions as to whether risk-taking behaviors stem from the unique social and academic environment experienced by intercollegiate athletes, or due to other factors such as sensation seeking or other personality traits, perceived norms, peer influence or an amplification of the common college experience of experimentation. However, most research has focused on student-athletes from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). This study examined (1) health risk taking behaviors, (2) sensation seeking and (3) perceived norms among gender and sport-type (contact or non-contact) in a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) population. Participants (N=63) completed a 78-item questionnaire and reported on risk-taking behaviors (alcohol, marijuana, gambling and sexual risks, for a 12 month period), sensation seeking and perceived norms. Findings from this research indicate that non-contact athletes are more likely than contact athletes to use alcohol during the season of competition. Male and female athletes showed not significant differences in alcohol use, marijuana use and sexual risk behaviors, they did however, have significant differences in gambling behavior. High sensation seekers show strong, positive correlations with alcohol frequency and quantity during the off-season. Perceptions of others (athletes/teammates and general college population) health risk-taking behaviors are higher than their own behaviors. Additional research is needed in many of these domains to further elucidate the relationships and significance of these findings. / text

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The Northern Channel Islands (NCI) lie southwest of Santa Barbara, California. In the Late Pleistocene, the NCI were part of the larger paleo-island of Santarosae, reachable only by open water voyages. The hypothesis presented in this thesis is that people with a distinctive littoral maritime culture, including open water boat technology, spread from Japan along the Pacific Coast and reached Santarosae prior to 13,000 calBP, where they found a rich, stable food supply and a benign environment. Prior to Spanish contact and removal of the native population, the Northern Channel Islands had been occupied for at least 13,000 years, one of the longest local occupancy records in the world. This hypothesis is supported by new evidence from CA-SMI-522, on western San Miguel, dated - 10,000 calBP; and from ongoing work at CA-SMI-678, 679, and 701 , three quarry sites near Cardwell Bluffs on eastern San Miguel, dated between - 12,200 and - 11 ,400 calBP. Comparison of LP/EH lithic assemblages suggests cultural affinity between Santarosae and Late Pleistocene Japan. Dimensional analysis of points from the NCI suggests possible use of bow and arrow technology on Santarosae as early as - 12,000 calBP, over 10,000 years earlier than commonly assumed. Seasonality and paleotemperature estimates are supported by data from for δ18O analysis of red (Haliotis rufescens) and black (H. cracherodii) aba lone recovered from Cardwell Bluffs and CA-SMl-522 which yielded estimates suggesting sea surface temperatures surrounding Santarosae from - 11,600 - - 10,000 calBP were ~3.7° - 3.0°C cooler than today. Seasonality estimates from H. cracherodii suggest that the NCI were occupied during four distinct seasons by 10,000 calBP. Dietary reconstruction, supported by paleotemperature estimates, indicates that plant foods were a necessary dietary component for the long term occupancy of Santarosae without reliance on mainland food resources.

Sequence typing is a rapidly evolving field and offers improved analysis into the genetic background and lineages of organisms compared to serological or DNA banding pattern based analysis. However, the resolution of molecular typing schemes varies between organisms and often loci used in sequence typing lack discriminatory power and give limited information into the evolution of the organism. This is particularly true of group B streptococci (GBS), where the same sequence types appear worldwide, which is unlikely for such a pathogen. This project aimed to develop a two component pathogen profiling approach which accurately reflected the phylogeny of GBS isolates, using elements of the core genome and elements of the variable genome. To address this a bioinformatic approach which selected loci for sequence typing based on predicting genes which evolve in the same manner as the average for the core genomes was adapted from a previously applied study for designing genus level sequence typing schemes. This informed the selection of candidate loci which were then experimentally verified, using a collection of 135 GBS clinical isolates. It was demonstrated that it was possible to obtain greater resolution and accuracy using only three unique genes that are intelligently selected, rather than using seven known housekeeping genes that are selected at random. Sources of hyper variability within the genome, in particular the presence of mononucleotide repeats (MNR) were investigated in non-coding DNA. It was postulated that these regions of DNA are more prone to mutation due to the lack of selective pressures, the presence of MNR repeats make these regions more unstable during replication and that in core genes these regions may be involved in genomic regulation by slipped strand mispairing. Results did confirm that non-coding DNA containing MNR repeats were more variable than DNA without them but these did not match the discriminatory power of MlST typing or the new three gene typing scheme. However, it was observed that one MNR tract was an insertion site for one of two insertion sequences and that typing using the presence/absence of these insertion sequences further enhanced discriminatory

<p>With a surge of digital video content appearing on the Internet in the emerging apparatus of electracy, YouTube launched an archive for new media and steadily grew into a successful global community of individuals who participate by way of commenting, remixing, subscribing, and uploading. Inspired by Gregory Ulmer's notion of digital cognition and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's philosophical approach to the idiot, this thesis reinvents the theory of videocy and chooses to embrace its early association to idiocy. With insight from Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, who take a sociological approach to YouTube, and Sarah Arroyo, who examines participatory composition in video culture, we can envisage YouTubers as producers within a choric (from Jacques Derrida's <i> chora</i>) network. The pedagogical potential of this digital era, as developed by Patricia Lange, and its connection to Tubing, as approached by Arroyo and Geoffrey Carter, will reclaim the "weird" for didactic rhetoric. </p>

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 49-57)