Mexican validation of the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-3) in men undergraduate students / Validación mexicana del Cuestionario de Actitudes Socioculturales hacia la Apariencia (SATAQ-3) en estudiantes universitarios varones

The Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire-3 (SATAQ-3) is one of the instruments used to measure the influence of mass media on adolescents, and is a useful instrument that has been widely applied in different countries and translated to many languages. The present study is the first validation of the Mexican version of the SATAQ-3 with a male college student sample. A total of 148 students participated in the study (M = 19.1, SD = 2.14). A principal axis factor analysis was used to evaluate the scale, yielding a poor result, due to the formation of an extra factor with reverse-keyed items. Therefore, reversed key items were removed and a second analysis was conducted. After removing reverse-key items, a four-factor structure was obtained: Pressures, Internalization-general, Internalization-athletic, and Information. The internal consistency obtained for SATAQ-3 was satisfactory (α = .81), however, it was slightly lower than the original. Regarding the concurrent validation, the SATAQ-3 presented significant correlations with body dissatisfaction, social perfectionism and psychological distress. SATAQ-3 is an appropriate instrument to measure the internalization of aesthetic ideals and acceptance, among male college students in Mexico.ResumenUno de los cuestionarios más utilizados para medir la influencia de los medios de comunicación es el Cuestionario de Actitudes Socioculturales hacia la Apariencia (SATAQ-3), el cual ha sido traducido a varias lenguas y aplicado en distintos países. El presente estudio constituye la primera validación mexicana del SATAQ-3 en varones. Participaron 148 estudiantes universitarios (M = 19.1, DE = 2.14). Para evaluar la escala se realizó un análisis factorial de ejes principales, obteniendo inicialmente un resultado pobre, dada la formación de un factor extra con los ítems con redacción inversa. Por esta razón dichos ítems fueron removidos y se condujo un segundo análisis que derivó una estructura de cuatro factores: Presión, Interiorización general, Interiorización atlética, e Información. La consistencia interna del SATAQ-3 fue satisfactoria (α = .81), sin embargo fue un poco menor a la obtenida de la escala original. Respecto a la validación concurrente, el SATAQ-3 presentó correlaciones significativas con la insatisfacción corporal, el perfeccionismo social y el malestar psicológico. El SATAQ-3 es un instrumento apropiado para medir la interiorización de los ideales estéticos y su aceptación en estudiantes universitarios varones mexicanos.

On the scaling of fragmentation and energy dissipation in collisions of dust aggregates

Fragmentation of granular clusters may be studied by experiments and by granular mechanics simulation. When comparing results, it is often assumed that results can be compared when scaled to the same value of $$E/E_{\mathrm{sep}}$$ E / E sep , where E denotes the collision energy and $$E_{\mathrm{sep}}$$ E sep is the energy needed to break every contact in the granular clusters. The ratio $$E/E_{\mathrm{sep}}\propto v^2$$ E / E sep ∝ v 2 depends on the collision velocity v but not on the number of grains per cluster, N. We test this hypothesis using granular-mechanics simulations on silica clusters containing a few thousand grains in the velocity range where fragmentation starts. We find that a good parameter to compare different systems is given by $$E/(N^{\alpha }E_{\mathrm{sep}})$$ E / ( N α E sep ) , where $$\alpha \sim 2/3$$ α ∼ 2 / 3 . The occurrence of the extra factor $$N^{\alpha }$$ N α is caused by energy dissipation during the collision such that large clusters request a higher impact energy for reaching the same level of fragmentation than small clusters. Energy is dissipated during the collision mainly by normal and tangential (sliding) forces between grains. For large values of the viscoelastic friction parameter, we find smaller cluster fragmentation, since fragment velocities are smaller and allow for fragment recombination. Graphic abstract

«Cultural autopsy»: The Inner Body in the Visual and Verbal Space of the Modern Westerner

The paper reviews the main trends in the perception of the inner body in the western culture of the late 20th – early 21st centuries caused by its wide discursivization in the visual and verbal formats. Up until the late 20th century the inner body was culturally marginalized and routinely associated with something incomprehensible, irrational, and dirty. However, postmodernism, with its clear somatocentric perspective, removed the old conceptual and discursive restrictions placing the inner body into the cultural limelight. Until recently the inner body was deemed to be part of the individual’s subjective reality which was supposed to be felt rather than understood. It was mainly defined through negation, by listing the features it was devoid of. The crucial phenomenological properties of the inner body were unobservability, unsociability, uncontrollability and unverifiability. In total, these features shaped the irrational mode of the inner-body perception prompting its discursive representation through mythopoesis. These features lose relevance with the development and ubiquitous spread of technologies, which enable online visualization of the living inner body, perceptual replication of the processes which take place within its realm and control over the activities of the inner organs. In the modern world, it is no longer possible to see these technologies as something external in relation to humans and something which is artificially brought into their experience of embodiment, because they are an integral part of our everyday existence (P.-P. Verbeek). Objective knowledge is no longer juxtaposed to the felt experience forming a synthetic unity with it. An extra factor in shaping a new type of the inner-body experience is people’s forced immersion into new discursive practices when the inner body is widely represented in their verbal and visual lifespace.

Exact description of SIR-Bass epidemics on 1D lattices

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>This paper is devoted to the study of a stochastic epidemiological model which is a variant of the SIR model to which we add an extra factor in the transition rate from susceptible to infected accounting for the inflow of infection due to immigration or environmental sources of infection. This factor yields the formation of new clusters of infections, without having to specify a priori and explicitly their date and place of appearance.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>We establish an exact deterministic description for such stochastic processes on 1D lattices (finite lines, semi-infinite lines, infinite lines) by showing that the probability of infection at a given point in space and time can be obtained as the solution of a deterministic ODE system on the lattice. Our results allow stochastic initial conditions and arbitrary spatio-temporal heterogeneities on the parameters.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>We then apply our results to some concrete situations and obtain useful qualitative results and explicit formulae on the macroscopic dynamics and also the local temporal behavior of each individual. In particular, we provide a fine analysis of some aspects of cluster formation through the study of patient-zero problems and the effects of time-varying point sources.</p><p style='text-indent:20px;'>Finally, we show that the space-discrete model gives rise to new space-continuous models, which are either ODEs or PDEs, depending on the rescaling regime assumed on the parameters.</p>

Inhomogeneous compact extra dimensions and de Sitter cosmology

In the framework of multidimensional f(R) gravity, we study the possible metrics of compact extra dimensions assuming that our 4D space has the de Sitter metric. Manifolds described by such metrics could be formed at the inflationary and even higher energy scales. It is shown that in the presence of a scalar field, it is possible to obtain a variety of inhomogeneous metrics in the extra factor space $${{\mathbb {M}}}_2$$ M 2 . Each of these metrics leads to a certain value of the 4D cosmological constant $$\varLambda _4$$ Λ 4 , and in particular, it is possible to obtain $$\varLambda _4 =0$$ Λ 4 = 0 , as is confirmed by numerically obtained solutions. A nontrivial scalar field distribution in the extra dimensions is an important feature of this family of metrics. The obtained solutions are shown to be stable under extra-dimensional perturbations.

Faktor Yang Mempengaruhi Keputusan Konsumen Menggunakan Kartu Kredit di Mall Semarang

This research aimed to know and analyze what factors affect the decision in using credit card and to know which factor was the most dominant in purchase decision using credit card of Paragon City Mall consumers in Semarang City. Research method conducted was quantative research, which variables measured by questionnaires by Likert scale. Data collection was conducted with list of questions or questionnaires. Data processing used SPSS software version 19, with factor analysis. Research result showed that 5 factors which influenced purchase decision using credit card mall consumers, namely transaction and promotion factor, credit card advantage factor, extra factor, having credit card factor, and prestige factor. The dominant factor among five factors was transaction and promotion factor which consisted variables easing transaction, discount in transaction, buy one get one, and point from transaction.

The Application of Ant Colony Algorithms to Improving the Operation of Traction Rectifier Transformers

In this paper, we discuss a technical issue occurring in electric traction. Tram traction may use DC voltage; this is obtained by rectifying AC voltage supplied by the power grid. In the simplest design— one which is commonly used—only diode uncontrolled rectifiers are used. The rectified voltage is not smooth; it always contains a pulsating (AC) component. The amount of pulsation varies. It depends, among other factors, on the design of the transformer-rectifier set. In the 12-pulse system, we use a three-winding transformer, consisting of one primary winding and two secondary windings: one is delta-connected and the other is star-connected. The unbalance of secondary windings is an extra factor increasing the pulsation of DC voltage. To equalize secondary side voltages, a tap changer may be used. The setting of the tap changer is the question resolved in this paper; it is optimized by application of the ACO (ant colony optimization algorithm). We have analyzed different supply voltage variants, and in particular, distorted voltage containing 5th and 7th harmonics. The results of ant colony optimization application are described in this paper.

Acoustic analysis methods for particle identification with superheated droplet detectors

A superheated droplet detector (SDD) consists of a uniform dispersion of over-expanded, micrometric-sized halocarbon droplets suspended in a hydrogenated gel, each droplet of which functions as a mini-bubble chamber. Energy deposition by irradiation nucleates the phase transition of the superheated droplets, generating millimetric-sized bubbles that are recorded acoustically. A simple pulse shape validation routine was developed in which each pulse is first amplitude demodulated and the decay constant then determined through an exponential fit. Despite this, low amplitude (< 3 mV) events embedded at naked eye in the noise level are not counted for calibration purposes with neutron and alpha sources. The solution found was to filter the data with a low band-pass filter in the region that the bubbles nucleate (typically from 450 to 750 Hz). After this, a peak finding algorithm to count all the events was implemented. The performance demonstrates better than a factor 40 reduction in noise and an extra factor 10 reduction with the filtering application. The lowering of noise and discovery of low signal amplitudes by the acoustic instrumentation and acoustic analysis permits a capability of discriminating nucleation events from acoustic backgrounds and radiation sources and, having a 95% confidence level on identifying and counting events in substantial data sets like in calibrations.

A Refined Definition for Groups of Moving Entities and Its Computation

One of the important tasks in the analysis of spatio-temporal data collected from moving entities is to find a group: a set of entities that travel together for a sufficiently long period of time. Buchin et al.2 introduce a formal definition of groups, analyze its mathematical structure, and present efficient algorithms for computing all maximal groups in a given set of trajectories. In this paper, we refine their definition and argue that our proposed definition corresponds better to human intuition in certain cases, particularly in dense environments. We present algorithms to compute all maximal groups from a set of moving entities according to the new definition. For a set of [Formula: see text] moving entities in [Formula: see text], specified by linear interpolation in a sequence of [Formula: see text] time stamps, we show that all maximal groups can be computed in [Formula: see text] time. A similar approach applies if the time stamps of entities are not the same, at the cost of a small extra factor of [Formula: see text] in the running time, where [Formula: see text] denotes the inverse Ackermann function. In higher dimensions, we can compute all maximal groups in [Formula: see text] time (for any constant number of dimensions), regardless of whether the time stamps of entities are the same or not. We also show that one [Formula: see text] factor can be traded for a much higher dependence on [Formula: see text] by giving a [Formula: see text] algorithm for the same problem. Consequently, we give a linear-time algorithm when the number of entities is constant and the input size relates to the number of time stamps of each entity. Finally, we provide a construction to show that it might be difficult to develop an algorithm with polynomial dependence on [Formula: see text] and linear dependence on [Formula: see text].