The Effects of a Physical Activity Intervention on the way Elementary School Girls Play

The rates of childhood and adolescent obesity in the United States have been increasing steadily. American youth continue to eat more (increase energy intake) and reduce physical activity (decrease energy expenditure) resulting in increased body weight and body fatness. One way to help reduce body weight in children is to increase physical activity. The purpose of this study was to determine if an age appropriate before-school physical activity intervention would be successful in increasing energy expenditure, intensity of activity, and behavioral approaches in overweight girls. The subjects were recruited from Parker Memorial School in Tolland, Connecticut, and two testing periods occurred over an eight week period. Video recordings of each physical activity session were analyzed to determine energy expenditure, exercise intensity, and behaviors during exercise. Data was evaluated for normal distribution, and paired t-tests were used to determine statistical significance. This study showed that the age appropriate before school physical activity intervention was able to increase energy expenditure and exercise intensity and have a positive effect on behavioral approaches in overweight girls.

The Acceleration of Stock Options in Anticipation of FAS 123 (R)

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) mandated the expensing of stock options with FAS 123 (R). As of March 2006, 749 companies had accelerated the vesting of their employee stock options and avoided a reduction in their reported profits that otherwise would have occurred under the new standard. There are many different motives for the acceleration strategy, and the focus of this study is to determine whether shareholders viewed these motives as either positive or negative. A favorable return subsequent to an acceleration announcement would signify that shareholder's viewed management's motives as positive. An unfavorable return subsequent to an acceleration announcement would signify that shareholder's viewed management's motives as negative. The evidence from this study suggests that shareholders reacted favorably, on average, to acceleration announcements. However, these results lack statistical significance and are based on a small sample, thus, they should be interpreted with caution.

An Appropriate Role for the Leadership: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of House Leadership on Open-Seat Races

This paper investigates the effects on open-seat races in the United States House of Representatives. This project focuses on the influence that the House leadership exerts on races. Generally, the leadership influences race through spending by party organizations and leadership visits. During each election cycle, national party organizations spend millions of dollars to get their candidates into office. I have developed a multiple regression model that measures different types of spending from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Republican National Committee and the effects of these spending types on the election results. Also, the study examines the number of visits by each party’s leadership to each race. I introduced control variables that account for the year, the competitiveness of each race, and the individual candidate fundraising. In terms of statistical significance, the results were mixed showing one type of party spending to be highly influential in the outcome of the race. Competitiveness and individual candidate fundraising also achieved statistical significance. The study also includes a qualitative investigation of leadership visits and individual case studies in order to understand better the way in which the data interact in real campaigns.