Tittensor, D. P., Mora, C., Jetz, W., Lotze, H. K., Ricard, D., Berghe, E. V., & Worm, B. (2010). Global patterns and predictors of marine biodiversity across taxa. Nature, 466(7310), 1098-101. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/749726179?accountid=14729

Researchers Derek P. Tittensor, Camilo Mora, Walter Jetz, Heike K. Lotze, Daniel Ricard, Edward Vanden Berghe, and Boris Worm all worked on the journal titled “Global Patterns and Predictors of Marine Biodiversity Across Taxa.  Their topic and research question was to figure out how marine biodiversity varies on a global scale in patterns and predictors.  They chose to work with marine biodiversity because not much in known about it compared to land biodiversity.  They studied thirteen different taxonomic that ranged from zooplankton marine mammals in order to get a wide variety of information; 11,567 species were observed.  The type of information that they would need was species richness, different regions of the ocean, and major impacts that could affect the biodiversity of certain areas.  This information would be observational and records of acts and behaviors.  The researchers used spatial modeling  and observational patterns.  They got a lot of their data from the Census of Marine Life that was in the Ocean Biogeographic Information System.  There are several figures that display the patterns of species richness according to individual taxa.  The researchers used qualitative and quantitative analysis with their findings.  They modelled relationships between species richness and environmental predictors.  The other figured displayed species richness compared to human impact.  All of these figures were easy to read and understand.  I find their research extremely well thought out.  They had to analysis vast amounts of space and species.  This would be difficult and take a large amount of time.  I want to use the Ocean Biogeographic Information System for my research project as well.

The article Deadly Dreams: What Motivates School Shootings, describes a psychological analysis done of various school shooters and their motivations behind their actions. My research project is based in how adolescents bring violence to their games rather than violent games causing violence. One of the most popular arguments against violent videogames is that the graphic nature is blamed for teenagers committing violent acts; the most popular being school shootings. As part of my research project, I wanted to find a study that disproved this theory.

The article begins with describing various mass shootings, focusing on the Virginia Tech massacre. It talks about the shooters in these incidences and their personality characteristics. It becomes clear immediately that videogames have nothing to do with it. Instead, it comes from a repression of violent thoughts, and a history of “loaner” behavior. As the psychologist says, “a thought of murder a day keeps the psychiatrist away”, referring to the tendency everyone has of fantasizing rather violent scenarios. However, these fantasies can be relaxing to a balanced mind are treated as an obsession in a mentally ill mind. These teenagers keep to themselves and articulate their plans in journals, or sometimes youtube videos. There are even school shooting fan pages online, particularly glorifying Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters, as gods.

This god complex seems to be the driving force behind these students’ motivations. Sebastian Bosse, a 18 year old shooter in Germany, considered Harris and Klebold to be martyrs. In his diary before the shooting, Bosse wrote, “Imagine that you’re standing in your old school and that your trench coat conceals all of your tools of righteousness, and then you throw the first Molotov cocktail, the first bomb. You are sending the most hated place in the world to Hell!” This desire to act as a god figure, to take life by choice, is a common thread in most of these shooters’ minds.

This article can be tied to my research project, particularly the idea of fantasies in the mind of a healthy person and a mentally unwell person. Hurting or killing an avatar in a video game can be seen as fun without any repercussions. However, it is only a mentally unstable person who takes this fantasy to real life.

Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/deadly-dreams/

http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/sociology/docview/1267124107/83AD39E0B36240F1PQ/3?accountid=14729

In the article “Tattoos, piercings, and sexual activities” by Nicolas Guéguen they talk about peoples with tattoos and piercings and how they are the cause of young males and females sexual activity. They found that males with tattoos and piercings are at a higher risk of engaging in sexual activity at an early age, they also said males with tattoos and piercings are more likely to be involved in drinking alcohol and engaging in illicit drugs as well as having a violent behavior. They compared the young males with tattoos to young males without tattoos and piercings and they found that males with no tattoos and piercings are less likely to engaged in sexual activity and drugs and illicit drugs. They compared girls with tattoos and piercings and to girls without piercings. They found out that 83% of women with piercings are more likely to engage in sexual activity compared to 63% of women without piercings will not engage in sexual activity. But they did find out that males and females with tattoos are respondents to having violent behavior and do drugs and partake in sexual activity at a young age.

This article was very interesting because I never looked at tattoos and piercings to be that big of a deal and how they can affect sexual activity. I also think this article only speaks for a certain population of people because I have piercings and tattoos and I don’t do drugs and I didn’t start being sexually active at an early age. I can also see how tattoos and piercings can come off to people as a rebellious act and that’s why people think that all people with tattoos and piercings do drugs and have sex and drink all the time. I think everyone should read this article I am sort of torn between on believing tattoos and piercings can have an effect on sexual activity and the other half of me thinks this is total nonsense. Please read this and tell me what you think and how it makes you feel.

http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/sociology/docview/873637602/CE21796694F45CAPQ/5?accountid=14729

In the article “The effects of family structure on African American adolescents marijuana use.” by Jelani Mandara, Sheba Y. Rogers, and Richard E. Zinbarg talks about African American Adolescents and how their family structure plays a huge part in their marijuana and drug use. They talked about how the current marijuana use among high school students estimated out to 49% of African American young men had used marijuana at least once in their lifetime and 30% used marijuana in the previous 30 days. They touched on the topic of young African American males were more likely to use marijuana if their is only a single parent in their household, generally speaking about the biological father not in the picture anymore. They also talked about the self control of the young men and the use of marijuana and how they might not have to self control to not use drugs based on their household structure as well as the neighborhoods they grow up in.  They talk about how young African American men from poverty neighborhoods are more likely to use marijuana than males in nice neighborhoods. The article talked about young African American women and their use of marijuana and their findings were totally different from the males. They found that African American females are less likely to use marijuana in a single household and have more self control than males. But they did say that the African American females from a poverty neighborhood are likely to try marijuana because they are around it in their neighborhoods. The overall article concluded that their is a huge risk factor in males and the use of marijuana when the biological father is not in the household and in a single parent household, and family structure was not related to the use of marijuana for females.

This article i thought was very interesting because i can somewhat relate to it not from the use of marijuana but from aspect of growing up in a single parent household. I know growing up in a single parent household with no father is really hard on a African American man because you feel betrayed and now you have to be the man of the house. When growing up with out a father or in a single parent household people often turn to the wrong things like marijuana or even just look to rebel because they do not have that role model to tell them what to do or even to guide them into becoming a young man. This article is a really good one and it has opened up my eyes to thoughts that i never thought about as a child and never looked at a females perspective and just as a race as a whole. I encourage everyone to read this article and think what they can come up with why African American males are more likely to turn to drugs and marijuana than females.

http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/sociology/docview/222609111/fulltext/84930E25AFF44482PQ/5?accountid=14729

In this article by: Drummond, Murray J.N he talks about he male athlete and how they differ from female athletes. He talked about how he was running a stair race in the tallest building in Melbourne it was running up 74 flight of stairs and the winner got to move on to the next round and won $1,000 dollars. There were 149 other men in the race and there was also a separate women’s race, he talked about how he questioned is ability as a well as his sanity. He talk about the numbers of people that signed up for the race for the men they had to turn down over 100 people and for the females race they had 100 females not even show up for the race, he touched upon that subject about the difference in male and female mentalities and demeanor in sports. The article went into talking about masculinity in males and sports and how men choose and use sports to activate the term of masculinity. Masculinity is sports are a big thing when competing against other males and showing other males that they are better than the other. He also touched upon the topic of being beaten by a woman and interviewed a male athlete and he said that he was never beaten by a female and how it his goal to not just out work the men but also the women because he said if you loose to a women that it will question a mans masculinity. It also touched upon the topic of what women are still seen as by society and how they should still be doing women household chores like cleaning up the house and cooking and doing laundry, Another male in the article said he was a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy) and how when he looks at his girlfriend regardless of who she is that he will always be there for her but will never clean the toilet or even iron a shirt for as long as he lived.  I feel like that how society sees some women still as only being allowed to do household chores and that’s it. The article also talked about how Masculinity has also been determined by the sports and separation of male and female sports how male sports shape you to be masculine and tough and teach you how to be an adult and women sports do not do that. Overall the article was about the masculine term and the stereotypes that come from men sports and the separation and huge, and difference between men and women.

After reading this article made me actually think long and hard about what sports do to people and the stereotypes come out of them. For me I feel like yes certain sports do challenge males masculinity and toughness but also if you look at some women sports they do the same thing so I do not think it is right for anyone to separate women and mends sports. If you look at some women sports and things they do, you can say that some of them might be better at a man doing the same thing. So the separation aspect of sports and women is stupid and needs to stop, as well as labeling women as housewives and limiting them to only doing household chores because I know some men that are house dads and the women are out there doing the hard stuff. The term masculinity can go for both genders just depends on what context and what situation.

This study gave a geographic analysis of “Alcohol Retail Density and Demographic Predictors of Health Disparities.” The purpose of the research was to determine whether there is a correlation between the geographic density of alcohol retailers and higher levels of “demographic characteristics that predict health disparities.”

In order to carry this experiment out, the researchers gathered information on the alcohol retailers in the United States and organized the data on a map. The displayed the level of alcohol outlet density at the US Census tract level. US Census data was able to reveal “tract-level” measures on characteristics such as poverty, education, crowding, and race/ethnicity of the population samples. The method used was a multiple linear regression in order to compare the relationship between the factors considered along with the retail alcohol density.

The results revealed a strong nonlinear relationship between alcohol outlet density with race, poverty and education. In “urban” areas, high-proportions of black and latino populations tended to have higher alcohol-outlet densities. In particular, in places with high Latino communities, the alcohol density was found to be “twice as high as the median density.” However, in places with small populations of inhabitants, the factors researched tended to lack relationships.

Ultimately, the study concluded that “a greater density of alcohol retailers was associated with higher levels of poverty and with higher proportions of Blacks and Latinos in urban census tracts.” While there may be a relationship between alcohol outlet-density levels and “demographic characteristics that predict health disparities” does not mean that one factor necessarily affects the rise in the other. This means that it happens that places with higher alcohol-outlet densities also have populations with certain demographic characteristics are common. This could also mean that the areas researched could have a history of conditions such as alcoholism and other characteristics that make them give these kind of results.

Citation:

Berke, Ethan M., Susanne E. Tanski, Eugene Demidenko, Jennifer Alford-Teaster, Xun Shi, and James D. Sargent. “Alcohol Retail Density and Demographic Predictors of Health Disparities: A Geographic Analysis.” American Journal of Public Health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2016. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2936987/>.

This article is from a German university and their center for Muslim studies. Although the article was posted in 2011, I feel that it still has some truth into the changing environment of Germany due to immigration. First, I thought it was interesting that the article pointed out that German migration up until this point has been mainly Christian immigrants. This new wave of immigration consists now more than even of Muslims. The late 1980s is when Germany’s population increased drastically to more asylum seekers than ever before. With that also came an influx of national backgrounds and religions. Currently, in some places in Germany, immigrants with a Turkish background out number all other nationalities. As immigration increased over the years, more people started publicly practicing their Islam tradition. This could be seen in the creation of mosques, and in the everyday life of school, work, etc. There is a mounting visibility of Islamic culture, which is now intertwining with German social and political culture as well.

What surprised me the most about this article was the fact that even though the majority of people in Germany who identify as Muslim are immigrants, 45% are in fact German nationals. This shows that Islam has greatly shaped the modern German identity, and will continue to with the recent immigration crisis. With new Muslim population, an academic interest in religion and policy has been on the rise as well. People now want to know the religious dimension in immigration and policy making. Not only that, but policy and immigration debates have been heavily emphasized with religion as well.

Citation:

Nordbruch, Gotz. Germany: Migration, Islamd, and National Identity. Center for Mellemoststudier, Syddansk Universitet. 2011.

Artificial feeders are commonly used in scientific hummingbird study and for human enjoyment. However, previous to this study very little research had been done on how feeders influence hummingbird behavior and pollination activities, which hold significant ecological importance (especially for specialist hummingbird/flower relationships).  This study examines how the use of feeders and hummingbird behavior, particularly monopolization of a feeder, affected pollen collected by hummingbirds.

Four species of hummingbirds were studied during four sampling periods over two years. The data was collected on Cerro de la Muerte, a region in the Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica that is dominated by the Oak Forest and Paramo ecosystems. Researchers counted species and number of visits to artificial feeders set out by a local hotel/restaurant (note that a “visit” means when an individual drank from the feeder). They also used mist nets to catch hummingbirds. These individuals were marked and pollen was collected from the beak and throat area using scotch tape.

Feeder usage was dependent on hummingbird species. P. Insignis most frequently monopolized feeder use and was the most frequently recorded visitor to the feeders and in the mist nets. More than 50% of the hummingbirds collected in the nets had little or no pollen on them. Season had a significant impact on pollen collected, but species of hummingbird did not. Pollen from only one species of plant (Centropogon) dominated the pollen collected in this study.

This study shows that artificial feeders have the potential to attract hummingbirds from large distances. This draws them away from flowers, which leads to the potential to decrease of pollination of flowering species in the area. Further, the feeders detract from pollen diversity on hummingbirds, indicating the presence of feeders could reduce plant diversity in the area if some plant species are no longer being pollinated sufficiently by hummingbirds.

Citation:

Avalos, G., Soto, A., Alfaro, W., (2012). Effect of artificial feeders on pollen loads of the hummingbirds of Cerro de la Muerte, Costa Rica. Revista de Biologia Tropical.

Eriksen M, Lebreton LCM, Carson HS, Thiel M, Moore CJ, Borerro JC, et al. (2014) Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea. PLoS ONE 9(12): e111913. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0111913

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0111913

Marcus Eriksen , Laurent C. M. Lebreton, Henry S. Carson, Martin Thiel, Charles J. Moore, Jose C. Borerro, Francois Galgani, Peter G. Ryan, Julia Reisser are all the researcher that produced the study “Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea.”   Their research question was to figure out more information about the plastic pollution in the marine environment because there is a huge lack of data mostly in the Southern Hemisphere.  Their topic of ocean plastic pollution is a not widely researched.  The type of data that they would need is observational data of acts, reports, and behaviors.  They would need to evaluate the area and go on expeditions.  They went on 24 expeditions across all five sub-tropical gyres.  They used surface net tows to get the plastic, as well as visual survey transects of plastic debris.  Various other models were used to collect data.  They used mathematical calculations to estimate the proper amount of plastic that is in the ocean to fix the wind driven mixing correcting too.  Based on their findings, analytical data, and model results they calculated that there are at least 5.25 trillion plastic particles floating in the sea.  The plastic is carried by prevailing winds and surface currents.  I believe that they preformed a massive amount of research for this study.  Traveling to all five gyres is a lot of work.  They performed in-depth analysis of their findings and used different forms of models to get the most accurate results.  I found their research extremely interesting.

“Another Look at Scared Straight” by Sheryl Feinstein from the Journal of Correctional Education is a study done looking at the impact of adult prisoner presentations on juvenile delinquents using twenty-four male juvenile delinquents in a detention facility. Two male adult prisoners accompanied by a guard visited the twenty-four juvenile delinquents and spoke about their life before prison, and their life in prison.

Feinstein notes that according to the large amount of research done, scared straight programs aimed at youth at-risk of becoming delinquent has little positive impact on youth and even produce higher recidivism rates among the youth. While Feinstein understands scared straight programs are not preventative for at-risk youth, she is interested in the impact of adult prisoner presentations (commonly used in scared straight programs) on juvenile delinquents that are currently held in a juvenile correctional facility.

Feinstein had the twenty-four male juvenile delinquents complete a survey to collect their opinions and beliefs after they had attended the adult male prisoners presentation. After collecting the data, Feinstein used cross tabulation to look at the impact of the presentation on the youths’ thoughts on drugs, alcohol, gangs, fighting, authority defiance, and living on the streets.

Of the topics presented through the adult prisoners presentation, drugs and alcohol had the most impact on the juvenile delinquents. In total, 55% of the juvenile delinquents believed this presentation would prevent them from going to prison. As Feinstein notes, that while this study only looks at the short-term affects of adult prisoner presentations on juvenile delinquents the presentation may have only had a short-term effect on the youth. Feinstein concludes, that while scared straight programs may only prevent crime for a period of time after the program, it is important that more research should be done with scared straight programs on at-risk youth and juvenile delinquents.

This research is interesting since it is one of the few studies that looks purely at short-term impact of scared straight programs on juvenile delinquents currently in a juvenile correctional facility. While this is a study unlike others it is also interesting that it suggests that perhaps scared straight programs for both at-risk youth and juvenile delinquents are useful for deterring crime rather than preventing it, an interesting view about a program that is continually criticized for its long term impact.

“Another Look at Scared Straight”
By Sheryl Feinstein

Journal of Correctional Education (1974-), Vol. 56, No. 1 (March 2005)

http://0-www.jstor.org.books.redlands.edu/stable/23282782