The Augmentation of Digital Violence during COVID-19

The abrupt onset of the COVID -19 pandemic brought devastating consequences to society as we know it. Connected to the obvious medical, societal, and economic changes, the pandemic also ushered in a world of isolation. Within this world, both media and violence are connected to imposed quarantine and confinement. During the pandemic, many studies indicated the rise of gender-based violence. For example, Mittal and Singh (2020) study the rise of quarantine violence in India. Equally disturbing is the rise of gender-based violence in digital spaces. Anon-IB is an image-based discussion board where anonymous images are posted. However, the board has become a hotbed for revenge porn and incel activity. Dutch police shut the site down in April 2018 (Vaas, 2018), but during the pandemic Anon-IB was able to find loopholes to restart itself. Users can also post headshots of a woman on the site and then ask for “wins,” which translates into nude photos. Anon-IB is location-based, and users often ask for photos of women in the surrounding area. The site also reaches aninternational audience. One example is a past thread from The University of Georgia in Tbilisi, Georgia. This paper discusses the rise of extreme online violence and revenge porn during the pandemic through a discourse analysis of Anon-IB. A discussion of incel culture will also be discussed, using the work of O’Malley et al. (2020) and others as a framework to discuss the internet’s role in ideological extremism and violence.

Preface

Thirty three years ago, because of the dramatic increase in the power and utility of computer simulations, The University of Georgia formed the first institutional unit devoted to the application of simulations in research and teaching: The Center for Simulational Physics. Then, as the international simulations community expanded further, we sensed the need for a meeting place for both experienced simulators and newcomers to discuss inventive algorithms and recent results in an environment that promoted lively discussion. As a consequence, the Center for Simulational Physics established an annual workshop series on Recent Developments in Computer Simulation Studies in Condensed Matter Physics. This year’s highly interactive workshop was the 32nd in the series marking our efforts to promote high quality research in simulational physics. The continued interest shown by the scientific community amply demonstrates the useful purpose that these meetings have served. The latest workshop was held at The University of Georgia from February 18-22, 2019. These Proceedings provide a “status report” on a number of important topics. This on-line “volume” is published with the goal of timely dissemination of the material to a wider audience. These Proceedings contain both invited papers and contributed presentations on problems in both classical and quantum condensed matter physics. The Workshop was prefaced by a special tutorial presented by colleagues from Oak Ridgr National Laboratory on a powerful software suite: OWL (Oak Ridge Wang-Landau). The first manuscript in this Proceedings is devoted to this tutorial material. The Workshop topics, as usual, ranged from hard and soft condensed matter to biologically inspired problems and purely methodological advances. We hope that readers will benefit from specialized results as well as profit from exposure to new algorithms, methods of analysis, and conceptual developments. D. P. Landau M. Bachmann S. P. Lewis H.-B. Schüttler

171 The Northeast Georgia Beef Cattle Short Course: An Eight-year Review

A study was conducted to assess the economic impact and knowledge retention of participants that attended the Northeast Georgia Beef Cattle Short course over an eight-year period. The course is an educational program hosted by the University of Georgia Extension Service that brings evidence-based science, technology, and economic and management strategies to Georgia beef cattle producers. The short course is taught annually, lasts a full day, and offers guest speakers and demonstrations from University of Georgia faculty and staff along with industry professionals. Non-formal feedback received from participants showcases its value and supports its continuation, but little is known about how the program impacts beef production in Georgia. The goal of the study was to quantify the long-term impact of the short course while developing an assessment tool that can be used to analyze and improve the course moving forward. Qualtrics was used to distribute a survey to 308 attendees of the short course to gather information on respondents’ role in the cattle industry, knowledge of the concepts taught, comfort level utilizing what was learned, and self-reported economic impact. The response rate was 22% for this study. 41% of respondents are retired individuals, 18% were involved in agricultural production and the remainder of participants represented outside professions. 14% of respondents reported that they believed the knowledge they gained during the short course allowed them to save or gain more than $20 per head. An additional 84% reported an economic impact up to $20/head. The most frequently reported source of cattle information was extension programs, at 17%. Based on these data, Extension has a significant impact on the Georgia cattle industry. In order to further develop the program, the recommendation is made that future courses can be developed to further build relationships with cattle producers and larger operations across the state.

271 Assessment of Efficacy of Deworming Options in Recently Weaned Beef Cattle Utilizing Different Anthelmintic Programs in the Southeast

This experiment measured the effect of three different deworming strategies on animal performance and Egg per gram (EPG) reduction during a pre-conditioning phase of beef calves using a completely random block designed with n = 797 calves (Year 1 = 263 ± 39 kg; Year 2 = 257 ± 37 kg) randomly assigned to one of four treatments: orally suspended oxfendazole (1ml/55 kgs; ORAL), transdermal eprinomectin (1ml/10 kgs; POUR), both anthelmintic (BOTH), and no treatment (CONT). Weaned calves at four University of Georgia research stations (Calhoun, Alapaha, Eatonton, JPC) were blocked by weight, age, and sex. Calves were weighed at weaning prior to treatment d 0 and on d 42. Fecal samples were collected on d 0 and d 14 from 40 calves per treatment. Anthelmintic resistance was determined if percent EPG reduction and Upper 95% confidence limit were below 95% and the lower 95% confidence limit were below 90%. The ADG was lowest (P < 0.001) for CONT (0.262 kg/d) compared to POUR, ORAL, and BOTH (0.370, 0.412, and 0.387 kg/d, respectively) Anthelmintic resistance to POUR was detected at Eatonton and Alapaha (47.4% and 15.4% reduction respectively), and deemed inconclusive at JPC and Calhoun (51.1% and 50.3% reduction respectively). Only ORAL and BOTH effectively reduced EPG counts across all four research units (> 97.9% reduction). While the POUR option improved animal performance, it was not effective at reducing EPG within the herd. This study demonstrated that the ORAL and BOTH treatments increased ADG compared to CONT and were effective at reducing EPG counts; however, BOTH costs, on average, $3.00 more than ORAL. Producers must consider the cost of each option when choosing a deworming strategy. Based on these results, using orally suspended oxfendazole is a more economical, and effective options to treat parasites during a pre-conditioning phase.

PSIX-16 Association between Thrombin and horn fly abundance in beef cattle

It has been reported that differences in horn fly tolerance in beef cattle could be associated with variation in blood enzymes. Thrombin (TH), a major enzyme for hemostasis that plays an important role in the activation of several pro-coagulation factors through the conversion of fibrinogen to fibrin, has been associated with horn fly prevalence on cattle. Although this assumption is reasonable, as fast-coagulating blood tends to complicate the feeding process for flies, there is little meaningful field data that clearly supports this hypothesis. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess TH levels in relation to horn fly abundance using 360 cows at two University of Georgia farms (Northwest Georgia REC, 34.5°N, 85.0°W and Eatonton Beef Research Unit, 33.4°N, 83.5°W). Horn fly counts were taken twice by trained evaluators during the summer of 2019 (June and August). Additionally, blood samples were collected twice on each cow to quantify serum TH levels using an ELISA assay (MyBioSource, San Diego, CA). The Pearson correlation between serum TH level and horn fly count was -0.19, indicating a decrease in the number of flies with increasing TH in the blood. In order to reduce the impact of the uncertainty associated with the subjective assessment of horn fly abundance and the potential nonlinear relationship between both parameters, TH was categorized into four classes (1=TH >500 ng/mL; 2=250< TH< 500 ng/mL; 3=100< TH< 250 ng/mL; 4=< 100 ng/mL). Average fly counts were 336, 353, 391, and 464 for the four classes, respectively. Between the first (high TH) and fourth (low TH) classes, there was a 38% reduction in fly abundance. Across sire families, fly abundance ranged between 190 and 650. Collectively, these results indicate that selection for higher serum TH levels could be used as a proxy for improving horn fly tolerance in beef cattle.