Barry University is a private Catholic university in Miami Shores, Florida. Founded in 1940 by the Adrian Dominican Sisters, it is one of the largest Catholic universities in the Southeast and is within the territory of the Archdiocese of Miami.The university offers more than 100 degree programs, from bachelors to doctorate, in six schools and two colleges. Barry University has more than 7,000 students, a campus of 54 buildings, a branch campus in Tallahassee, a law school in Orlando, and 50,000 alumni.
Introduction:Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets must balance collegiate demands with military preparation, leaving them vulnerable to psychological stressors. While structured strength and conditioning (S&C) programs enhance physical readiness, their impact on psychological health in cadet populations remains unclear. This study evaluated changes in depression, eating behaviors, sleep quality, and emotion regulation during a 12-wk S&C program.Methods:Forty-nine U.S. Air Force ROTC cadets (21 female, 28 male; age: 20 +/- 2 yr; body mass index: 24.2 +/- 4.4 kg & centerdot;m-2; body fat %: 27.1 +/- 9.0%) completed the Supporting Tactical Athlete Readiness (STAR) program, a structured 12-wk S&C intervention. Assessments at baseline and postintervention included depressive symptoms, eating behaviors, sleep disturbance, and emotion regulation. Changes in these psychological parameters were analyzed in relation to program attendance and improvements in U.S. Air Force Physical Fitness Assessment scores to assess the effects of program dose-response and improved fitness, respectively.Results:Across all cadets, depressive symptoms, mood, and emotion regulation did not significantly improve. However, greater attendance and fitness improvements were independently associated with lower depression and improved mood. Male cadets demonstrated enhanced cognitive reappraisal, while female cadets reported worsening depression. Black cadets experienced greater increases in depression and sleep disruption compared with White cadets. Maladaptive eating behaviors rose overall but were attenuated among cadets with higher attendance. Sleep disturbance worsened, although cadets with fitness improvements reported fewer sleep problems. Program enjoyment and commitment were highest among underclassmen and less fit cadets.Conclusion:Structured S&C training did not uniformly improve psychological outcomes, but consistent attendance and fitness improvements were protective against depression, mood disturbance, and sleep disruption. The observed sex- and race-specific disparities, along with maladaptive eating behaviors, reinforce the need for tailored interventions that integrate physical training with mental skills, nutrition, and sleep strategies. These findings highlight the importance of comprehensive, evidence-based S&C programs as resilience-building tools in military preparatory populations.
Axion-like particles (ALPs) coupled to nucleons can be efficiently produced in core-collapse supernovae (SNe) and then, if they couple to photons, convert into gamma rays in cosmic magnetic fields, generating short gamma-ray bursts. Though ALPs from a Galactic SN would induce an intense and easily detectable gamma-ray signal, such events are exceedingly rare. In contrast, a few SNe per year are expected in nearby galaxies within 𝒪(10) Mpc, where strong magnetic fields can enable more efficient ALP-photon conversions than in the Milky Way, offering a promising extragalactic target. This circumstance motivates full-sky gamma-ray monitoring, ideally combined with deci-hertz gravitational-wave detectors to enable time-triggered searches from nearby galaxies. We show that, under realistic conditions, a decade of coverage could reach sensitivities to ALP-photon coupling g_a γ≳ 10^-16GeV^-1 for ALP masses m_a ≲ 10^-9 eV and assuming an ALP-nucleon coupling close to SN 1987A cooling bound. This sensitivity would allow one to probe a large, currently-unexplored region of the parameter space below the longstanding SN 1987A bound.
This paper explores the relative importance of key migration drivers and examines how institutional quality influences migration rates using a classical migration model and data from OECD countries over the period 1985-2015. Within a fixed-effects framework, we develop a novel analytical framework using comprehensive institutional quality indices constructed from the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) to capture both pushing and pulling effects. Our variance decomposition analysis reveals that network effects account for 43.73% of the total explained variance in general migration inflows, but only 11.29% for inflow workers and 2.35% for foreign students changing status. Pushing and pulling effects contribute 23.02% and 16.49%, respectively, to general migration inflows, while for inflow workers, pushing effects dominate, explaining 34.96% compared to 18.78% for pulling effects. Among foreign students changing status, these effects are more balanced, contributing 30.52% and 30.05%, respectively. A deeper analysis of institutional qualities shows that political quality dominates both pushing and pulling effects across most specifications, except for foreign students changing status, where 46.67% of the pulling-effects variance is explained by socioeconomic factors, compared to 40.68% for political factors. Additionally, geographical distance is the most significant factor in bilateral migration costs, contributing over 75% across all specifications. These findings help policymakers better understand the complex roles of networks, institutional qualities, migration costs, etc. in shaping migration patterns.
Focused attention is crucial for skilled performance, and athletic participation may influence attentional processing. This study examined differences in sustained attention and visual search between Division II college student-athletes and non-athlete students. Baseline data from 59 participants (30 athletes, 29 non-athletes) were analyzed. Participants completed computerized tasks assessing sustained attention (go/no-go) and visual search. Between- and mixed-subjects ANCOVAs were conducted, controlling for age. Athletes outperformed non-athletes in sustained attention (F (1, 56) = 8.12, p = .006, Cohen’s d = 0.78) and visual search (F (1, 56) = 34.43, p < .001, d = 1.58). Open-skilled athletes showed higher detection scores than non-athletes (p = .004, d = 0.88). No group differences were observed in response bias. On the visual search task, close-skilled athletes demonstrated (M = 1257 ms, SD = 624 ms) faster response times than open-skilled athletes (M = 1904 ms, SD = 419 ms) and non-athletes (M = 2547 ms, SD = 522 ms), p’s < .001. Athletic participation is associated with enhanced attentional performance across multiple cognitive domains, supporting the transfer of cognitive skills developed through sport to fundamental attentional processes.
