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Using the 2013 data set provided by Insurance Inc., logistic regression and linear discriminant analysis models were created along with data visualizations to find out which factors recorded in the data set and the state of those factors causes a client to cancel their policy. The factors that impact whether a client will cancel are those that directly pertain to the policy. For example, the coverage type and the premium the client is paying for the policy impacts the probability the client will cancel their policy. Factors that go into forming the policy and have a relationship between one another such as age and premium, also impact the probability that a client will cancel their policy. The credit status of a client, whether it is low, medium, or high, and the type of coverage they have, has the most impact on a client's inevitability to cancel. If a client's credit score is classified as low, then that client is has a high probability of cancelling their policy according to the LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis) classifier and logistic regression model. Likewise, if a client has coverage type B, the probability that they will cancel their policy is higher. The sales channel used to sell a client a policy also impacts the probability they will cancel. According to the LDA classifier and the logistic regression model, if a client was sold a policy over the phone, they are more likely to cancel. © 2024 IEEE.

Purpose: To explore the relationships between weight status, weight perceptions, and perceptions of the body positivity movement on social media. Design: Cross-sectional. Setting: Online through the Qualtrics platform. Subjects: Participants (N = 521; mean 26.6 ± 5.1 years) were recruited using Qualtrics online panels. Measures: The study survey included questions about participant demographics, weight status, and weight perception. Subjects rated 6 study-specific viewpoint questions about the body positivity movement on a 5pt Likert scale. Analysis: Multinomial logistic regression models adjusted for relevant confounders assessed the associations between objective weight status, perceived weight status, and perceptions of the body positivity movement. Results: Objective weight status was not associated with perceptions of the body positivity movement. Perceptions of weight status were associated with perceptions of the body positivity movement in young women, with those that perceived themselves as overweight more likely (OR = 1.67, P < 0.05) to disagree with the statement that “the body positivity makes people less likely to lose weight.”. However, young women that perceived themselves as having a lower weight status were less likely (OR = 0.54, P < 0.05) to agree with the statement that “the body positivity movement empowered women” as well as “being inclusive of people of all sizes” (OR = 0.56, P < 0.05). Conclusion: Weight perception, rather than objective weight status, may be a stronger predictor of weight bias and views of the body positivity movement. © The Author(s) 2024.

Introduction: Government and insurance sponsored exercise programs have demonstrated decreased hospitalizations, but it is unclear if this is the case for self-referred programs. Methods: In this retrospective cohort study from 2013 to 2020, older adults who participated for at least three months at a community-based exercise center (participants) were compared with those who did not (nonparticipants). Each completed a baseline physical assessment and periodic reassessments thereafter. These data were paired with regional hospital data and a national mortality database. Statistical analysis and modeling were performed from 2020 to 2023. Survival to all-cause hospitalization was assessed with a priori subgroup comparison by gender and cox proportional hazard modeling by age, gender, and comorbidities. Results: The cohort included 718 adults, mean age 69.5 years (SD 8.4), with 411 (57.2%) participants and 307 nonparticipants. Mean follow-up was 26.7 months. Participants had similar baseline measures of fitness (p>0.05) but were more likely to be retired and less likely to have diabetes or prior stroke than nonparticipants. Sustained participation was associated with a reduced rate of all-cause hospitalization (9.0% vs. 12.7%, p=0.02), even when adjusted (HR 0.54; 95% CI 0.34, 0.87, p=0.01). This decrease was noted only in women (p=0.03) but not in men (p=0.49), gender was nonsignificant after adjustment for comorbidities (p=0.15). Conclusions: Exercise program participation was independently associated with decreased risk of all-cause hospitalization, with possible differential effects by gender. Further randomized trials of the benefits of personalized exercise programs are warranted to assess sex- and gender-specific effects. © 2024 Elsevier Inc.

This research introduces the application of an innovative bio-inspired metaheuristic technique, termed the Crow Search Algorithm (CSA), to model a crucial industrial process - hot rolling manufacturing. Inspired by the foraging patterns of crows, the CSA algorithm has demonstrated its prowess in solving diverse optimization challenges. In the context of this study, the CSA algorithm is harnessed to fine-tune the parameters of a simulation model focused on predicting the force exerted during a hot rolling procedure. The proposed model takes into consideration a range of influential factors, including the initial temperature (Ti), width (Ws), carbon equivalent (Ce), gauge (hi), draft (i), and roll diameter (R). The findings underscore the CSA's capability to deliver an exceptional modeling performance characterized by swift convergence and high solution quality. By getting along very well with the proposed model with the CSA algorithm, a robust and efficient avenue to optimize the hot rolling process emerges, with the potential for expansion into other manufacturing domains. The computational and simulation results demonstrated that the proposed approach-based CSA outperformed different meta-heuristic search algorithms, such as the Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA), Dandelion Optimizer (DO), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Gray Wolf Optimizer (GWO), and Moth-Flame Optimization (MFO), in all test cases. The CSA has achieved the highest coefficient of determination (R2), equal to 0.97244, and the lowest mean squared error (MSE), equal to 1904.97, compared to its opponent algorithms. © 2024 IEEE.

Including universal design for learning in graduate programs for in-service teachers is crucial to increasing the application of the framework in practice. This chapter will introduce an action research assignment within an American UDL graduate course and its impact on teacher practice and student learning. Eight case studies across disciplines and levels will be shared. During this process, teachers identified a classroom challenge, developed a UDL intervention, analyzed student data, and shared implications. In-service teacher reflections will be shared on the continued use of a UDL approach beyond their course work and its impact on their teaching practice. The chapter will begin with an introduction to the context of the implementation, investigation questions, methodology, case study presentation, discussion, and conclusion. © 2024, IGI Global.

We report on the charged-particle multiplicity dependence of net-proton cumulant ratios up to sixth order from s=200 GeV p+p collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The measured ratios C4/C2, C5/C1, and C6/C2 decrease with increased charged-particle multiplicity and rapidity acceptance. Neither the Skellam baselines nor PYTHIA8 calculations account for the observed multiplicity dependence. In addition, the ratios C5/C1 and C6/C2 approach negative values in the highest-multiplicity events, which implies that thermalized QCD matter may be formed in p+p collisions. © 2024 The Author(s)

Interest in the gender gap in the physical sciences has been ongoing for a number of years. This study aimed to explore differences in gender based on self-perception. The use of a post-examination survey was used to examine the role of gender in grade perception in chemistry courses over a several-year period. This included courses for non-science majors, health science majors, and traditional chemistry courses for science majors. Self-reported data was collected after the completion of examinations and analyzed to explore the connection between gender and the student’s postdiction (a prediction after the completion of the examination) of their examination score as it related to the Kruger-Dunning effect. While male and female students followed the same general patterns, it was found that for most students, male students tended to predict higher scores than female students while seeing little difference in actual performance. The lowest performing students (those scoring less than 50% on examinations) showed little difference in the accuracy of their postdictions based on gender. © 2024 National Science Teaching Association.

Resisting Divide-and-Conquer Strategies in Education: Pathways and Possibilities examines the ways in which divide-and-conquer strategies operate in the American public education system. In U.S. education, these mechanisms are endemic and enduring, if not always evident. Coordinated, strategic, well-funded, politically-viable campaigns continue to stoke fear, othering, villainization, and dehumanization of minoritized groups, pushing false and problematic narratives that inhibit progress toward social justice. Weaponizing hegemony and leveraging misinformation, reactionary agents and institutions seek to suppress truth, block access to democratic participation, and dismantle education and other sites of emancipatory possibility through the strength of divide-and-conquer mechanisms, pitting relatively disempowered groups against one another to preserve the dominant social order. Readers of this book will encounter conceptual and critical interrogations of divide and conquer. The text will help facilitate inquiry and engagement into how divide and conquer operates and how it can be resisted. It looks at the history of the phenomenon, as well as its current state, especially as it relates to education. What insights and lessons might we learn from a focused examination of divide and conquer, and what strategies of resistance are both possible and necessary for challenging it? This text is designed for undergraduate and graduate classrooms in education and social sciences. Part I, Ideology and Sociopolitical Contexts, dissects how divide-and-conquer mechanisms operate ideologically and sociopolitically. Part II, Policies and Practices, focuses on how divide-and-conquer mechanisms shape exclusionary U.S. educational policies and practices. Part III, Resistance and Liberation, documents efforts of liberatory communicative, curricular, and pedagogical possibilities. Each chapter concludes with a set of critical questions for reflection and engagement.Perfect for courses such as: Foundations of Education; Schools and Society; Schooling in America; History of Education; Philosophy of Education; Sociology of Education; Social Studies; Critical Theory in Education

The project of engaging undergraduates in research methods courses is an outstanding challenge for social work educators. Anxiety about the subject is common, for both students and instructors. Further, students’ wariness may reflect historical trauma and their knowledge about the ways in which research has been used to oppress people of color; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual or ally, and other sexual and gender minorities communities; and other marginalized populations. This teaching note offers reflections and experiences about developing an undergraduate social work research methods course that uses antioppressive pedagogies to create student-centered learning with experiential team-based activities and ongoing critique about the role of power and privilege in research. Specific teaching resources and strategies are shared. © 2024 Council on Social Work Education.

Background: The relationship between physical activity (PA) and bullying behaviors is unclear among adolescents with overweight/obesity (OW/OB). The current study examined the likelihood of engaging in bullying behaviors by differing physical activity behaviors in adolescents with OW/OB. Method: Analyses included 9114 adolescents with OW/OB, ages 10–17 years, from the combined 2018–2019 National Survey of Children’s Health. Adolescents were grouped by PA level (0 days, 1–3 days, 4–6 days, every day); outcome variables included bullying behaviors (perpetrator, victim, both, or neither), sport participation, behavioral conduct problems, depression, difficulty making new friends, and excessive arguing. Separate adjusted logistic regression models assessed the odds of each outcome comparing differing PA levels. Results: Compared to their inactive peers, adolescents with OW/OB that engaged in at least 1 day of PA were significantly less likely to be victims of bullying (OR = 0.80; 95% CI (0.68, 0.93)) and to be both a bully perpetrator and victim (OR = 0.77; 95% CI (0.64, 0.94)). Participation in sports significantly increased the likelihood of being a bully perpetrator (OR = 1.50; 95% CI (1.06, 2.11)) and decreased the likelihood of being a bully victim (OR = 0.83; 95% CI (0.75, 0.92)) in adolescents with OW/OB. Additionally, adolescents with OW/OB that participated in PA were less likely to experience adverse psychosocial outcomes. Conclusions: Findings suggest PA participation (≥ 1 day/week) may reduce the likelihood of bully victimization and both (perpetration and victimization) and attenuate adverse psychosocial outcomes in adolescents with OW/OB. However, sport participation may increase bully perpetration while decreasing bully victimization in adolescents with overweight/obesity. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.

Urban air pollution, a combination of industry, traffic, forest burning, and agriculture pollutants, significantly impacts human health, plants, and economic growth. Ozone exposure can lead to mortality, heart attacks, and lung damage, necessitating the creation of complex environmental safety regulations by forecasting ozone concentrations and associated pollutants. This study proposes a hybrid method, RFNN-GOA, combining recurrent fuzzy neural network (RFNN) and grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA) to estimate and forecast the daily ozone (O3) in specific urban areas, specifically Kopački Rit and Osijek city in Croatia, aiming to improve air quality, human health, and ecosystems. Due to the intricate structure of atmospheric particles, modeling of O3 likely poses the biggest challenge in air pollution today. The dataset used by the proposed RFNN-GOA model for the prediction of O3 concentrations in each explored area consists of the following air pollutants, NO, NO2, CO, SO2, O3, PM10, and PM2.5; and five meteorological elements, including temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, speed, and pressure. The RFNN-GOA method optimizes membership functions’ parameters and the rule premise, demonstrating robustness and reliability compared to other identifiers and indicating its superiority over competing methods. The RFNN-GOA method demonstrated superior accuracy in Osijek city and Kopački Rit area, with variance-accounted for (VAF) values of 91.135%, 83.676%, 87.807%, 79.673% compared to the RFNN method’s corresponding values of 85.682%, 80.687%, 80.808%, 74.202% in both training and testing phases, respectively. This reveals that RFNN-GOA increased the average VAF in Osijek city and Kopački Rit area by over 5% and 8%, respectively. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.

Symbolic regression techniques are promising approaches to learning mathematical models that fit experimental data. One of the most powerful techniques for symbolic regression is Grammatical Evolution (GE). This evolutionary computation technique explores a space of candidate models that are ensured to be syntactically correct expressions built from a set of arbitrary building blocks and operators. In GE the syntax for these expressions is defined by a problem-specific formal grammar. Therefore, GE can produce an explainable solution (e.g. a formula), not a black-box model. The current contribution assesses the viability of GE for PSF characterization, using real datasets from HST/WFPC2. Our experiments show that our method is able to find the most likely candidate mathematical expression for the PSF shape, and can also model combinations of shapes taken from a predefined family of functions commonly used in astronomy (Gaussian and Moffat PSFs). These results support the hypothesis that the expressive power of GE can be used to tackle the problem of characterization of complex PSF functions, for example, as a necessary step in the prediction of intra-pixel position of stars. © 2024 SPIE.

At the origin of the Universe, an asymmetry between the amount of created matter and antimatter led to the matter-dominated Universe as we know it today. The origins of this asymmetry remain unknown so far. High-energy nuclear collisions create conditions similar to the Universe microseconds after the Big Bang, with comparable amounts of matter and antimatter1–6. Much of the created antimatter escapes the rapidly expanding fireball without annihilating, making such collisions an effective experimental tool to create heavy antimatter nuclear objects and to study their properties7–14, hoping to shed some light on the existing questions on the asymmetry between matter and antimatter. Here we report the observation of the antimatter hypernucleus $${}_{\bar{\Lambda }}{}^{4}\bar{{\rm{H}}}$$, composed of a $$\bar{\Lambda }$$, an antiproton and two antineutrons. The discovery was made through its two-body decay after production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions by the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider15,16. In total, 15.6 candidate $${}_{\bar{\Lambda }}{}^{4}\bar{{\rm{H}}}$$antimatter hypernuclei are obtained with an estimated background count of 6.4. The lifetimes of the antihypernuclei $${}_{\bar{\Lambda }}{}^{3}\bar{{\rm{H}}}$$and $${}_{\bar{\Lambda }}{}^{4}\bar{{\rm{H}}}$$are measured and compared with the lifetimes of their corresponding hypernuclei, testing the symmetry between matter and antimatter. Various production yield ratios among (anti)hypernuclei (hypernuclei and/or antihypernuclei) and (anti)nuclei (nuclei and/or antinuclei) are also measured and compared with theoretical model predictions, shedding light on their production mechanisms.

For more than a decade, since the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizen’s United (2010), individuals and groups interested in the outcome of elections have increasingly donated to outside groups that avoid the restrictions imposed on candidates and traditional political action committees (PACs). As a result, total election spending more than doubled in the first five years and has continued to increase since then. Although American political advocacy groups refrain from formal electioneering, much of the increase in spending since Citizen’s United has been directed toward election campaigns under the guise of issue-advocacy ads. This raises the question of whether voters perceive a difference between candidate-sponsored ads and campaign-focused issue-advocacy ads. Unexamined is the impact that advertising by outside groups has on voters and whether voters are even aware of the sponsors of the ads they view. This study addresses whether voters can differentiate between ads sponsored by candidates or outside groups. Using an experimental design, we find that viewers cannot determine the sponsor of campaign ads, despite federal requirements for sponsor disclaimers. © 2024 Common Ground Research Networks. All rights reserved.

An important reason for the success of the Venetian Paolo Sarpi’s ideas in England is found in the ‘Englishing’ of his printed works, that is, their adaptation and appropriation by printers and translators. During the Venetian interdict (c. 1606–1608), Sarpi’s tracts were treated as timely, informative, and politically useful news. Englishing consisted of re-writing titles by adding bombastic phrases, changing printers’ ornaments, and adding marginalia to help readers unfamiliar with Italy. In the History of the Council of Trent, published in 1619 (Italian) and 1620 (English), the Englishing became more substantive – adding lengthy prefaces, inserting words into Sarpi’s text, and including the translator’s name. The prefaces framed the book’s contents, while the translator’s name provided authority. The additional words made the English History even more partisan than the Italian Historia. Publishers and translators modified Sarpi’s works to produce aggressive readings that diverged from his own political and religious goals.

The 30 yr orbit of the Cepheid Polaris has been followed with observations by the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array from 2016 through 2021. An additional measurement has been made with speckle interferometry at the Apache Point Observatory. Detection of the companion is complicated by its comparative faintness—an extreme flux ratio. Angular diameter measurements appear to show some variation with pulsation phase. Astrometric positions of the companion were measured with a custom grid-based model-fitting procedure and confirmed with the CANDID software. These positions were combined with the extensive radial velocities (RVs) discussed by Torres to fit an orbit. Because of the imbalance of the sizes of the astrometry and RV data sets, several methods of weighting are discussed. The resulting mass of the Cepheid is 5.13 ± 0.28 M ⊙. Because of the comparatively large eccentricity of the orbit (0.63), the mass derived is sensitive to the value found for the eccentricity. The mass combined with the distance shows that the Cepheid is more luminous than predicted for this mass from evolutionary tracks. The identification of surface spots is discussed. This would give credence to the identification of a radial velocity variation with a period of approximately 120 days as a rotation period. Polaris has some unusual properties (rapid period change, a phase jump, variable amplitude, and unusual polarization). However, a pulsation scenario involving pulsation mode, orbital periastron passage, and low pulsation amplitude can explain these characteristics within the framework of pulsation seen in Cepheids.

Faculty of color are constantly experiencing trauma and racial inequities in inherently Eurocentric educational spaces where their histories, knowledge, and experiences are delegitimized and marginalized. Employing critical race feminism (CRF) and White racial identity development model, this article details ways in which two Chinese international women instructors grappled with tensions and trauma and celebrated (small) joys and successes within Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) in the United States. We drew on duoethnography, a dialogic methodological approach grounded in social justice, to make meaning of, (re)construct, and advance racial equity in pedagogy. We examined and analyzed four sources of data: our personal narratives, transcripts of eight Zoom meetings, reflection journals, and informal conversational exchanges. We identified three strategies for navigating dissonance and conflicts: 1) being vulnerable, 2) recognizing shared and differing marginalization or privileges, and 3) building allies intentionally and strategically. © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.