University of North Texas

About: University of North Texas is a education organization based out in Denton, Texas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 11866 authors who have published 26984 publications receiving 705376 citations. The organization is also known as: Fight, North Texas & UNT.

American Adults' Knowledge of Exercise Recommendations

Abstract: Physical inactivity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, and some cancers. Approximately 950,000 Americans die annually from cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this study was to determine whether American adults know which traditional and lifestyle physical activities affect health and how they should be physically active to achieve a health benefit. Secondary purposes were to determine whether this knowledge is a function of gender, ethnicity, education, or age and if those who are sufficiently active for a health benefit possess different knowledge levels than those not sufficiently active for a health benefit. Items based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/American College of Sports Medicine principles included knowledge of exercise guidelines and traditional and lifestyle physical activities. This information was obtained from 20 questions that were part of a national random telephone survey of 2,002 Amer...

Research on religion/spirituality and forgiveness: A meta-analytic review.

Abstract: In the present article, we review the literature on religion/spirituality (R/S) and forgiveness using meta-analysis. R/S was positively related to trait forgivingness (i.e., across relationships and situations; r .29), state forgiveness (i.e., of a specific offense; r .15), and self-forgiveness (r .12). Contextual measures of R/S more proximal to the forgiveness process were more strongly related to state forgiveness than were dispositional measures of R/S. Measures of one’s relationship with the sacred were more strongly related to self-forgiveness than were dispositional R/S measures. We discuss implications for next steps in the study of R/S and forgiveness.

American Federalism and the Search for Models of Management

Abstract: Public administration and the processes of federalism have merged to a nearly indistinguishable point. Since the "cooperative federalism" of the 1930s, managing within the federal system has become an increasingly more important activity. However, federalism is not static. As policy responsibilities between the national and subnational governments have evolved and devolved, governing authority has overlapped across levels to a point where all actors are involved simultaneously to varying degrees (Wright 1988). Attention must be given to operations in such a system. Managing across governments and across organizations within the complex and continuously changing processes of federalism deserves the attention of both scholars and practitioners. Such activity has become the very heart of public administration and management. The continuing growth of federal grants and new regulatory programs, increased federal-state programming, the continuation of some federal-local programs, federal initiatives to nongovernmental organizations, and expanded roles for state government have changed the context of public administration from single-organization operations to boundary-spanning operations (Agranoff and McGuire 1998a). Not only do local public managers now operate within their home agency and jurisdiction, they also perform numerous identifiable activities within the vertical realm, which includes the state and federal governments, and also horizontal activities, which involve other local governments and many nongovernmental organizations (Agranoff and McGuire 1998b; Jennings and Krane 1994; Mandell 1990; Wright and Krane 1998). These forces have put a premium on collaborative actions and transactions across governmental boundaries. While the resilience of federalism as a form of governance is undeniable--its shape and operation has caused and been caused by changing social, economic, and political trends (Watts 1996)--the search for appropriate management models within the changing processes of federalism remains a difficult task. To help focus that search, this article explores models of management. Two venerable models, top-down and donor-recipient, and two emergent models, jurisdiction-based and network, are presented. Each model's prevalence and applicability to twenty-first-century federalism are examined. While they are adaptable to explanation in a number of policy arenas, the emerging models are confirmed by our empirical study of 237 city governments and the intergovernmental and collaborative activity of government officials promoting economic development. The primary concern of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of public-management approaches by demonstrating how emergent models exist alongside more traditional models as a result of shifts in federalism. The term "model" employed here follows Kaplan's (1964, 266-7) usage: It is a "scientific metaphor" that directs attention to certain resemblances between theoretical entities and the real subject-matter; one type of system can be shown to be a consistent interpretation of another. Our search here is not for characteristic metaphors of federalism itself (Wright 1988), but how policy making and management can vary within federalism across time and policy realms. Thus, each model is not only described, its temporal and policy-specific relevance is also analyzed. Concern for management models is hardly new. Elazar (1964, 248) suggests that, from the founding period, intergovernmental cooperation was necessary, and methods of providing for collaboration among the various parts of the federal system were sought out continually. Similarly, Grodzins (1966) equates administrative practices in federalism with shared functions, and Leach (1970) identifies the management of grants programs as involving joint action and manpower from all levels of government. Even during Nixon's New Federalism attempt to streamline the intergovernmental system, Walker (1974, 30) claimed that managing within federalism was still in "a state of considerable confusion. …

Fast outflows and star formation quenching in quasar host galaxies

Abstract: We acknowledge financial support from INAF and the Italian Ministry of University and Research under the contracts PRIN-INAF- 2011 (“Black Hole growth and AGN feedback through cosmic time”) and PRIN MIUR 2010-2011 (“The dark Universe and the cosmic evolution of baryons”). MB acknowledges support from the FP7 Career Integration Grant “eEASy” (CIG 321913). RS acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the European Union (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement n. 306476. EP acknowledges financial support from INAF under the contract PRIN-INAF- 2012. C.C. gratefully acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship grant PP00P2_138979/1 (ETH Zurich).

Salicylic Acid Regulates Basal Resistance to Fusarium Head Blight in Wheat

Abstract: Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a destructive disease of cereal crops such as wheat and barley. Previously, expression in wheat of the Arabidopsis NPR1 gene (AtNPR1), which encodes a key regulator of salicylic acid (SA) signaling, was shown to reduce severity of FHB caused by Fusarium graminearum. It was hypothesized that SA signaling contributes to wheat defense against F. graminearum. Here, we show that increased accumulation of SA in fungus-infected spikes correlated with elevated expression of the SA-inducible pathogenesis-related 1 (PR1) gene and FHB resistance. In addition, FHB severity and mycotoxin accumulation were curtailed in wheat plants treated with SA and in AtNPR1 wheat, which is hyper-responsive to SA. In support of a critical role for SA in basal resistance to FHB, disease severity was higher in wheat expressing the NahG-encoded salicylate hydroxylase, which metabolizes SA. The FHB-promoting effect of NahG was overcome by application of benzo (1,2,3), thiadiazole-7 carbothioic acid S-methyl ester, a synthetic functional analog of SA, thus confirming an important role for SA signaling in basal resistance to FHB. We further demonstrate that jasmonate signaling has a dichotomous role in wheat interaction with F. graminearum, constraining activation of SA signaling during early stages of infection and promoting resistance during the later stages of infection.