The intent of this thesis is to explore the reasons why young athletes may conceal their sports injuries. In recent years, there has been much discussion about the long-term health implications that former athletes are dealing with as they live life after sports. Sports injuries including concussions, knee damage, and spinal injuries are all issues that could affect an athlete’s quality of life far beyond their playing days. It is well known around the athletic and medical communities that many athletes withhold information about their injury symptoms just to get back on to the field. Most worrisome about this fact, is the disregard of any long-term damage being done to their body. In this study, we explored the influence of social norms, perceived masculinity, and other external influences on athlete populations in an attempt to understand the reasons why injuries are so often under-reported and masked by athletes. Understanding the logic behind why athletes “play through” injuries and the external influences that may cause this behavior, is essential to athlete safety in the future. Results showed significant findings among highly masculine athletes and injury concealment as well as in athletes who feared losing a performance role and injury concealment. Those athletes who wish to appear tough and masculine as well as those athletes who may be fearful of losing a performance role were more likely to conceal their injuries. Athletes who are a part of a team were also likely to behave in the same way and understanding these reasons can help improve athlete safety in the years to come.

Many scholars have argued back and forth regarding the reliability of the narrator Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most well-known novel The Great Gatsby. Nick’s attention to detail in his narrative is the element due to which many scholars argue in favour of his reliability. One of these scholars is Wayne C. Booth, who was the first that introduced reliability and unreliability, and marked Nick as a reliable narrator. Nick’s account is a retrospective telling of events which happened two years earlier and Booth argues for Nick’s reliability because he provides the benefit of hindsight. However, in this essay, I will argue that Nick Carraway is an unreliable narrator as the consequence of his selectiveness that is visible in the narrative. Through Nick’s selectiveness, four categories are evident: concealment of information, censorship, memory, and drunkenness. As a result, these categories, alongside the central aspect of selectiveness, verify the suppression of the complete plot which Nick hides from the reader.

Purpose: As a group, adults who stutter (AWS) are vulnerable to experiencing distress and other negative psychological health outcomes. However, not all AWS experience elevated levels of distress, and little is known about why some people are resilient while others struggle to cope. In the current study, stuttering was conceptualized as a type of concealable stigmatized identity (CSI). The purpose of this study was to determine if stigma-identity constructs that contribute to variability in distress among groups of people with other types of CSIs also contribute to psychological health outcomes among AWS. The specific stigma-identity constructs that were examined include salience (the extent that a person thinks about stuttering), centrality (how much a person defines themselves by stuttering), concealment (the extent that a person attempts to keep stuttering a secret from others), and disclosure (the frequency in which a person tells others about stuttering). Methods: A sample of 505 AWS completed an online survey that included measures of salience, centrality, concealment, disclosure, demographics, self-rated stuttering severity, psychological distress, and adverse impact of stuttering on quality of life. Correlational and hierarchical regression analyses were performed to (1) determine the extent that stigma-identity constructs explain variability in psychological health outcomes among AWS and (2) identify unique relationships between each of the stigma-identity constructs and psychological health outcomes. Additionally, self-rated stuttering severity was investigated as a potential moderator of the relationships between stigma-identity constructs and psychological health outcomes. Results: Together, the stigma-identity constructs accounted for a significant proportion of the variability in distress (~25%) and adverse impact of stuttering on quality of life (~30%) among AWS. Salience, centrality, and concealment were positively associated with and predictive of distress and adverse impact of stuttering on quality of life after controlling for demographics and neuroticism. Further, self-rated stuttering severity moderated the relationship between centrality and adverse impact of stuttering on quality of life. Specifically, high centrality was only associated with more adverse impact of stuttering on quality of life among people with moderate and high self-rated stuttering severity. Disclosure did not have a consistent reliable relationship with either psychological health outcome. Conclusions: The results from this study provide evidence that it is both appropriate and useful to conceptualize stuttering as a type of CSI. That is, variability in psychological health outcomes among AWS can be explained to a large extent by individual differences in the ways people think about and behave in relation to their stuttering identity. Speech-language pathologists should be aware of the relationships that salience, centrality, and concealment have with psychological health outcomes among AWS and should consider the implications for stuttering intervention.

<p>Communication over today’s IP-based networks are to some extent subject to packet loss. Most real-time applications, such as video streaming, need methods to hide this effect, since resending lost packets may introduce unacceptable delays. For IP-based video streaming applications such a method is referred to as a <em>packet loss concealment </em>scheme.</p><p>In this thesis a recently proposed mixture model and least squares-based packet loss concealment scheme is implemented and evaluated together with three more well known concealment methods. The JM reference software is used as basis for the implementation, which is a public available software codec for the H.264 video coding standard. The evaluation is carried out by comparing the schemes in terms of objective measurements, subjective observations and a study with human observers.</p><p>The recently proposed packet loss concealment scheme shows good performance with respect to the objective measures, and careful observations indicate better concealment of scenes with fast motion and rapidly changing video content. The study with human observers verifies the results for the case when a more sophisticated packetization technique is used.</p><p>A new packet loss concealment scheme, based on joint modeling of motion vectors and pixels, is also investigated in the last chapter as an additional contribution of the thesis.</p>

The goal of this dissertation is to take initial steps towards understanding concealment behaviour and ultimately developing a theory of visual concealment. Since there are relatively few studies of concealment in the literature and given the natural relationship between search and concealment, five strategies used in the development of traditional visual search theory and scene-based search theory were applied to the study of concealment. These strategies are: 1) establish a methodology, 2) identify dimensions, 3) categorize dimensions, 4) prioritize dimensions, and 5) integrate results into a theoretical framework that may involve inferences about the mechanisms involved. In Chapter 2, participants placed target objects within luggage in locations that were easy or hard to find (i.e., the placement task). Participants’ subjective reports of their thought processes and strategies were analyzed to identify dimensions that are important during concealment in real-world settings. Once a list of dimensions was generated, the dimensions were then categorized into three categories: Stimulus Properties dimensions such as visual similarity, Embodiment dimensions such as confrontation, and Higher Order dimensions such as schema. In Chapter 3, the dimensions uncovered in Chapter 2 were used in a forced-choice task, and participants’ choices were evaluated to determine whether the dimensions affected hiding behaviour. To further develop the methodological techniques available to study concealment behaviour and to examine the generalizability of previous findings, in Chapter 4, the placement task was used in another context – an office environment – and the locations chosen by participants to make objects easy or hard to find were coded on relevant dimensions. In Chapter 5, an initial attempt was made to prioritize the dimensions. The forced-choice task was used in a new way to explore the relative importance of the dimensions by examining which dimensions participants chose to use over other dimensions. Finally in the General Discussion in Chapter 6, an attempt was made to integrate available results and previous theories and to make inferences about the mechanisms involved in visual concealment. Methodological considerations and future directions for the study of visual concealment are also discussed.

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This study aims to investigate how the U.S. military presence has become possible and why the U.S. military bases have concentrated in Okinawa. Since 1945, the U.S. military and the Japanese government have maintained U.S. military bases in Okinawa. U.S. military accidents and soldiers’ crimes have been serious problems in Okinawa. Moreover, Okinawans have not been protected from military violence by adequate judicial measures for over a half century. I employ the analytical insights of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben to analyze archival and secondary documents and investigate historical and current U.S. military problems in Okinawa. Foucault’s insight allows me to analyze American rationalizing discourses and power relations that have contributed to the U.S. military presence and concentration on the Okinawa islands. The analytical insight of Giorgio Agamben is a useful reference to investigate juridical contradictions of U.S. military presence in Okinawa. I argue that the U.S. military and the Japanese government have attempted to make the American military presence in Okinawa legitimate through multiple tactics of governance. Given Okinawans’ persistent resistance against the U.S. military and the Japanese government, the U.S. military base presence does not seem wholly accepted in Okinawa. Nevertheless, the military burden has been imposed on Okinawans who are represented and treated by the U.S. military and the Japanese government as the insignificant “Other.” I argue that the analytical approaches that I develop in this study can be applicable to grasp patterns of modern domination in other cases of governance wherein political elites realize their interests by suspending the juridical rights of minority groups.

Predation is an important ecological process that shapes life-history traits, community dynamics, and species coexistence and therefore has been suggested to explain many patterns in avian ecology. Although many studies have reported spatial, temporal, or interspecific patterns in nest predation, relatively few studies have been designed to identify the specific mechanism(s) that underlie these patterns. I examined mechanisms underlying the risk of nest predation in birds by (1) reviewing nine of the most commonly cited hypotheses to explain spatial, temporal, and interspecific variation in the risk of nest predation, (2) conducting a comparative analysis of the nest-concealment hypothesis to examine which methodological issues, extrinsic factors, and species traits influence whether or not foliage density affects the risk of nest predation, and (3) testing six mechanistic hypotheses to determine the underlying cause(s) of intra-seasonal decreases in the risk of nest predation.Many of the hypotheses invoked to explain spatial, temporal, and interspecific variation in the risk of nest predation lack clearly defined mechanisms. I suggest that future studies explicitly define the mechanism and assumption(s) of each hypothesis prior to implementing empirical tests.I found that the discrepancy in results among past studies that have examined the nest-concealment hypothesis was due to interspecific differences in a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that affect nest predation but have previously been ignored. The effects of nest concealment on nest placement and probability of nest predation vary among species and this variation is predictable based on the bird's morphological traits and characteristics of the ecosystem.Increased risk of nest predation early in the breeding season appears to be due, in part, to foliage phenology and spatial and temporal changes in predator behavior. The risk of nest predation was negatively associated with foliage density early, but not late, in the breeding season. Supplemental food provided to nest predators resulted in a numerical response by nest predators, increasing the risk of nest predation at nests located near feeders. I show that intra-seasonal changes in environmental features and predator behavior affect patterns of nest predation, which can influence timing of breeding.

What is forgetfulness? How does it show? Is it a part of memory or can it be considered on its own? In the philosophical discourse forgetfulness is limited and the phenomenon is mostly portrayed as a pathological or obscure counterpart of memory. This portraying of forgetfulness can be seen as traditional way of describing it, but there is some philosophers who has spoken of forgetfulness in more fruitful ways. These ways are not to be interpreted as aspirations to decouple forgetfulness from memory, rather they are to be seen as attempts to interpret this relation on another basis. This basis has also led this essay towards an interpretation of forgetfulness' relation to truth. The aim of this essay is thereby to examine forgetfulness as phenomenon and its relation to truth. To approach these subject-matters I've taken Paul Ricoeur's Memory, History, Forgetting and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time to my help. In Memory, History, Forgetting Ricoeur tries to portray forgetfulness as an essential part of human life that's not a deficiency, but nor is it intended to be seen as an incentive to forget. We are rather encouraged to remember, thereof his watchword “the obligation to remember” which is also linked to “the truth status of memory”. Heidegger too considers forgetfulness in Being and Time as an essential part of the human life, or as he writes, of everydayness. Remarkably, Heidegger's translations of the greek words lēthē and its privation alētheia are translatable by him as the words for forgetfulness (concealment) and truth (unconcealment). This opens up a view on forgetfulness and truth as radically different from Ricoeur's and thereof the traditional. The disparity between the two philosophers allows this relation to point beyond the two of them as a possibility and a necessity to make room for forgetfulness as a multifaceted phenomenon in the philosophical discourse.

The goal of this dissertation is to take initial steps towards understanding concealment behaviour and ultimately developing a theory of visual concealment. Since there are relatively few studies of concealment in the literature and given the natural relationship between search and concealment, five strategies used in the development of traditional visual search theory and scene-based search theory were applied to the study of concealment. These strategies are: 1) establish a methodology, 2) identify dimensions, 3) categorize dimensions, 4) prioritize dimensions, and 5) integrate results into a theoretical framework that may involve inferences about the mechanisms involved. In Chapter 2, participants placed target objects within luggage in locations that were easy or hard to find (i.e., the placement task). Participants’ subjective reports of their thought processes and strategies were analyzed to identify dimensions that are important during concealment in real-world settings. Once a list of dimensions was generated, the dimensions were then categorized into three categories: Stimulus Properties dimensions such as visual similarity, Embodiment dimensions such as confrontation, and Higher Order dimensions such as schema. In Chapter 3, the dimensions uncovered in Chapter 2 were used in a forced-choice task, and participants’ choices were evaluated to determine whether the dimensions affected hiding behaviour. To further develop the methodological techniques available to study concealment behaviour and to examine the generalizability of previous findings, in Chapter 4, the placement task was used in another context – an office environment – and the locations chosen by participants to make objects easy or hard to find were coded on relevant dimensions. In Chapter 5, an initial attempt was made to prioritize the dimensions. The forced-choice task was used in a new way to explore the relative importance of the dimensions by examining which dimensions participants chose to use over other dimensions. Finally in the General Discussion in Chapter 6, an attempt was made to integrate available results and previous theories and to make inferences about the mechanisms involved in visual concealment. Methodological considerations and future directions for the study of visual concealment are also discussed.