Mental hoop diaries: emotional memories of a college basketball game in rival fans.

The rivalry between the men's basketball teams of Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (UNC) is one of the most storied traditions in college sports. A subculture of students at each university form social bonds with fellow fans, develop expertise in college basketball rules, team statistics, and individual players, and self-identify as a member of a fan group. The present study capitalized on the high personal investment of these fans and the strong affective tenor of a Duke-UNC basketball game to examine the neural correlates of emotional memory retrieval for a complex sporting event. Male fans watched a competitive, archived game in a social setting. During a subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging session, participants viewed video clips depicting individual plays of the game that ended with the ball being released toward the basket. For each play, participants recalled whether or not the shot went into the basket. Hemodynamic signal changes time locked to correct memory decisions were analyzed as a function of emotional intensity and valence, according to the fan's perspective. Results showed intensity-modulated retrieval activity in midline cortical structures, sensorimotor cortex, the striatum, and the medial temporal lobe, including the amygdala. Positively valent memories specifically recruited processing in dorsal frontoparietal regions, and additional activity in the insula and medial temporal lobe for positively valent shots recalled with high confidence. This novel paradigm reveals how brain regions implicated in emotion, memory retrieval, visuomotor imagery, and social cognition contribute to the recollection of specific plays in the mind of a sports fan.

Scaling limits of a model for selection at two scales

The dynamics of a population undergoing selection is a central topic in evolutionary biology. This question is particularly intriguing in the case where selective forces act in opposing directions at two population scales. For example, a fast-replicating virus strain outcompetes slower-replicating strains at the within-host scale. However, if the fast-replicating strain causes host morbidity and is less frequently transmitted, it can be outcompeted by slower-replicating strains at the between-host scale. Here we consider a stochastic ball-and-urn process which models this type of phenomenon. We prove the weak convergence of this process under two natural scalings. The first scaling leads to a deterministic nonlinear integro-partial differential equation on the interval $[0,1]$ with dependence on a single parameter, $\lambda$. We show that the fixed points of this differential equation are Beta distributions and that their stability depends on $\lambda$ and the behavior of the initial data around $1$. The second scaling leads to a measure-valued Fleming-Viot process, an infinite dimensional stochastic process that is frequently associated with a population genetics.

Physical activity-related and weather-related practices of child care centers from 2 states

© 2015 Human Kinetics, Inc.Background: Young children's physical activity (PA) is influenced by their child care environment. This study assessed PA practices in centers from Massachusetts (MA) and Rhode Island (RI), compared them to best practice recommendations, and assessed differences between states and center profit status. We also assessed weather-related practices. Methods: Sixty percent of MA and 54% of RI directors returned a survey, for a total of 254. Recommendations were 1) daily outdoor play, 2) providing outdoor play area, 3) limiting fixed play structures, 4) variety of portable play equipment, and 5) providing indoor play area. We fit multivariable linear regression models to examine adjusted associations between state, profit status, PA, and weather-related practices. Results: MA did not differ from RI in meeting PA recommendations (β = 0.03; 0.15, 0.21; P = .72), but MA centers scored higher on weather-related practices (β = 0.47; 0.16, 0.79; P = .004). For-profit centers had lower PA scores compared with nonprofits (β = -0.20; 95% CI: -0.38, -0.02; P = .03), but they did not differ for weather (β = 0.12; -0.19, 0.44; P = .44). Conclusions: More MA centers allowed children outside in light rain or snow. For-profit centers had more equipment-both fixed and portable. Results from this study may help inform interventions to increase PA in children.