No description available.

No description available.

Fake news has great potential to cause damage to brand reputations and finances. Given the technical challenges of detecting fake news in time, it is inevitable that social media platforms will end up hosting fake news. The competition for attention and advertising revenue is intense. Many consumers read only the headlines. Fake news stories that mention brands in headlines can help news publishers garner social media engagement but can also hurt brands, raising concerns about brand protection. In this research, I focus on the first two stages of the information processing model – attending to information and encoding information (Berk 2018; Miller 1988).In Chapter 2, I investigate whether mentions of human and product brands are associated with news consumption and news retransmission (how brand mentions attract attention; the first stage of information processing). Using data from a news platform that generated both traditional and satirical (fake) news stories, I quantify the effects of brand mentions on social media engagement for both traditional and fake news. The analysis encompasses mentions of popular product brands, such as Apple, and mentions of human brands, such as famous politicians and actors. A framework based on uses and gratifications theory (UGT) aids in variable selection and the interpretation of results. My results imply that human brand mentions generally have a positive effect on news consumption and retransmission for both news formats, and product brand mentions affect engagement of satirical news via an interaction with news categories. Results provide further insights on the roles of sentiment, narrative style, and writing quality of news stories. The high potential of human and product brands in the headlines, especially human brands in satirical news, may be indicative of their potential to be misused by unscrupulous news media publishers. This reminds social media platforms of their responsibility to protect brands and consumers from fake news. Next, in Chapter 3, I examine the effectiveness of before-warnings (BWs) and after-warnings (AWs) in alerting consumers and reducing the persuasive influence of fake news on brand attitudes (how warning timing affects encoding; the second stage of information processing). Results reveal that for both negative and positive fake news, BWs are sometimes no more effective than no-warnings. Although BWs do encourage more critical processing of misinformation, this can distract consumers from the warning message. More importantly, Chapter 3 demonstrates a robust after-warning effect (AWE). Warning consumers after they have read fake news with AWs consistently leads to a higher reduction of persuasive influence (negative or positive) than BWs. AWs are more salient and arouse greater reactance to the false information than BWs. The resulting loss in control over how the news influenced attitudes and increased anger lead to the observed after-warning effect. News valence also matters since positive news is perceived to be more credible and processed less critically than negative news. AWs relative to BWs thus arouse feelings of being tricked when fake news is positive but not when it is negative, also leading to the after-warning effect. The findings have several theoretical and managerial implications. / Business Administration/Marketing

Within Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas, rice acreage is rotated with soybean due to both crops’ adaptability to the clay soils of the midsouthern USA. Two row patterns, two maturity groups, and six seeding rates were examined at Stoneville, MS, in 2009-2010, with respect to soybean growth and yield produced on silt loam soil. Optimal yield for MG IV was 333,000 seed ha-1 (297,000 plants ha-1). Twin-row soybean increased seed yield 7 to 10% more than single-row due to greater LAI, NDVI, and node and pod production. Rice field experiments quantified N loss via ammonia volatilization and determined grain yield for various N sources and preflood application timing. Cumulative ammonia volatilization loss on Tunica clay was minimal (10% of applied N). Grain yields were 6% less when fertilizer was applied 10 days before flood (dbf) as compared to 1 dbf; N sources are available to minimize ammonia volatilization loss.

To date, no prior research has examined the combined roles of childhood family adversity and pubertal timing in longitudinal pathways to depressive symptomatology in adulthood. The present study was conducted with 225 men and 225 women to explore the unique and combined roles of childhood family adversity and pubertal timing on depressive symptoms in a community sample of married adults. Results for both men and women indicated significant main effects of a cumulatively risky family environment on depressive symptoms, as well as main effects of families with higher levels of abuse and neglect, chaos and disorganization, and interpersonal family conflict. A significant moderating relation was found for women with earlier pubertal timing and higher levels of childhood interpersonal family conflict on greater levels of depressive symptoms in adulthood. No other significant relations were determined in other moderation and mediational analyses. This project furthers our understanding of how the combined roles of pubertal timing and childhood family experiences can clarify the developmental, evolutionary, and clinical theories that link childhood and adolescent experiences to depression in adulthood. Specifically, childhood home environments defined by frequent interpersonal conflict (quarreling, arguing, and shouting), combined with early pubertal development, may play an important role in predicating depressive symptomatology among adult women.

No description available.

No description available.

Das Prompt Gamma-Ray Timing (PGT) ist eine vielversprechende Methode für die in vivo Reichweite-Verifikation in der Protonentherapie. Dabei wird mit unkollimierten Szintillationsdetektoren die Zeit-Verteilung prompter Gammastrahlung, in der die Protonenreichweite enthalten ist, gemessen. In dieser Arbeit wurden PGT-Spektren einer Bestrahlung eines Plastikphantoms mit verschiedenen Dicken an Luftkavitäten analysiert. Neben der Optimierung der Datenverarbeitung wurden Methoden für die Selektion statistischer Parameter implementiert und die resultierenden linearen Modelle mit denen der bisher verwendeten Parameter verglichen. Zusätzlich wurde der Einfluss der Spotakkumulation und die Energieabhängigkeit der Modelle untersucht. Nachdem die Datenverarbeitung optimiert werden konnte, zeigte der Vergleich der Modelle eine deutlich bessere Vorhersage der neu entwickelten Modelle (R2 > 0;5) im Vergleich zu den bisher verwendeten Modellen (R2 < 0;1), wobei eine weitere Verbesserung durch die Akkumulation von Spots erreicht werden konnte (R2 > 0;9). Weiterhin zeigte die Parameterselektion eine deutlich bessere Vorhersagekraft der energiespezifischen (RMSE < 1;8 mm) gegenüber den energieunabhängigen Modellen (RMSE > 3 mm). Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse leisten einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur klinischen Implementierung der PGT-Methode. / Prompt Gamma-Ray Timing (PGT) is a promising method for in vivo range verification in proton therapy. The distribution of prompt gamma radiation, in which the proton range is encoded, is measured in a time-resolved manner with uncollimated scintillation detectors. In this work, PGT spectra acquired during irradiation of a plastic phantom with air cavities of different thicknesses were analyzed. In addition to the optimization of the data processing, methods for parameter selection were implemented and the resulting linear models were compared with those of previously used parameters. In addition, the influence of a spot accumulation and the energy dependency of the models were examined. After the data preprocessing could be optimized, the newly developed models showed a strongly improved predictive power (R2 > 0;5) compared to the previously used models (R2 < 0;1) and a further improvement could be achieved by the accumulation of spots (R2 > 0;9). In addition the parameter selection showed better predictive power of the energy-specific models (RMSE < 1;8 mm) compared to the energy-independent models (RMSE > 3 mm). The knowledge gained can contribute to the clinical implementation of the PGT method.

No description available.

The objective of this project was to design, construct and test a wall climbing vehicle which uses a novel vacuum tread system for both adhesion and locomotion. The design and manufacturing of this proof of concept vehicle is detailed with particular emphasis on the design decisions that proved most impactful to the performance of both the vehicle and the tread system. Adhesion performance was characterized by a series of tests that validate the concept, but also identify improvements and design recommendations for future embodiments of the adhesion/locomotion system.