The environmentally friendly or ‘sustainable’ products have been launched in various markets in response to the growing concerns for the environmental deterioration and the alarming effects of climate change in past years. However, the uptake of green products does not seem to fully reflect the self-claimed pro-environmental concerns and attitudes. Consumers who profess to be environmentally conscious and believe they could help slow down environmental deterioration do not necessarily purchase eco-friendly products. This discrepancy between behaviour and attitude has been termed (...) as ‘intention-behaviour gap’ or ‘green gap’. This study aims at exploring the green gap in the purchases of high-involvement products such as skincare products. Focus groups and thematic analysis were conducted. It was found that environmental concern was virtually non-existent in making purchase decisions with regard to skincare products because the perceived product effectiveness is found to be the key determinant of the choice of skincare products. Other factors such as weak social norm, weak perceived consumer effectiveness, and a sense of powerlessness facing the environment degradation, to some degree, attribute to the consumers’ justification of their non-green consumption practices. Implications for closing the gap have been drawn for marketing practitioners and policy makers. Directions for future research are also provided. (shrink)

Compared to our understanding of positive prediction error signals occurring due to unexpected reward outcomes, less is known about the neural circuitry in humans that drives negative prediction errors during omission of expected rewards. While classical learning theories such as Rescorla–Wagner or temporal difference learning suggest that both types of prediction errors result from a simple subtraction, there has been recent evidence suggesting that different brain regions provide input to dopamine neurons which contributes to specific components of this prediction error (...) computation. Here, we focus on the brain regions responding to negative prediction error signals, which has been well-established in animal studies to involve a distinct pathway through the lateral habenula. We examine the activity of this pathway in humans, using a conditioned inhibition paradigm with high-resolution functional MRI. First, participants learned to associate a sensory stimulus with reward delivery. Then, reward delivery was omitted whenever this stimulus was presented simultaneously with a different sensory stimulus, the conditioned inhibitor. Both reward presentation and the reward-predictive cue activated midbrain dopamine regions, insula and orbitofrontal cortex. While we found significant activity at an uncorrected threshold for the CI in the habenula, consistent with our predictions, it did not survive correction for multiple comparisons and awaits further replication. Additionally, the pallidum and putamen regions of the basal ganglia showed modulations of activity for the inhibitor that did not survive the corrected threshold. (shrink)

Mental health research and care in the twenty first century faces a series of conceptual and ethical challenges arising from unprecedented advances in the neurosciences, combined with radical cultural and organisational change. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy of Psychiatry is aimed at all those responding to these challenges, from professionals in health and social care, managers, lawyers and policy makers; service users, informal carers and others in the voluntary sector; through to philosophers, neuroscientists and clinical researchers. Organised around a series (...) of case studies in five key topic areas - concepts of disorder, the philosophical history of psychopathology, philosophy of science, ethics and philosophical value theory, and philosophy of mind - the book provides a detailed introduction to the field and a framework for study and skill development. Each case study is supported by selected readings from both philosophy and mental health, thinking skills exercises, self-test questions, key learning points and detailed guides to further reading. There is an introduction for philosophers to classification and descriptive psychopathology, and for practitioners to philosophical methods (including logic). The philosophical topics covered include philosophical methods (analytic and Continental); phenomenology, hermeneutics and existentialism, logical empiricism and its successors; idealism and realism; reasons and causes; and modern theories of mind and brain, free will and personal identity. Topics from mental health include psychiatry and 'anti-psychiatry'; Jaspers' psychopathology and the new neurosciences; the future of psychiatric classifications; strengths-based approaches, recovery practice, social inclusion and diversity; and key topics in psychopathology, such as delusion, autism, disorders of volition, thought insertion and other experiences in schizophrenia. The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy of Psychiatry aims to secure the skills-base of the discipline by bringing philosophers closer to the realities of practice in mental health, and mental health practitioners closer to the resources of philosophy as a partner to the sciences in responding to the challenges of twenty-first century mental health and social care. (shrink)

McTaggart maintained that, without the kind of change which events undergo in passing from the future through the present into the past, how things are would be fundamentally different from how they appear. More particularly Without A-change there could be no change at all. Without any change there could be no time. Without A-change there could be no time.

Conflict can profoundly affect individuals and their groups. Oftentimes, conflict involves a clash between one side seeking change and increased gains through victory and the other side defending the status quo and protecting against loss and defeat. However, theory and empirical research largely neglected these conflicts between attackers and defenders, and the strategic, social, and psychological consequences of attack and defense remain poorly understood. To fill this void, we model (1) the clashing of attack and defense as games of strategy (...) and reveal that (2) attack benefits from mismatching its target's level of defense, whereas defense benefits from matching the attacker's competitiveness. This suggests that (3) attack recruits neuroendocrine pathways underlying behavioral activation and overconfidence, whereas defense invokes neural networks for behavioral inhibition, vigilant scanning, and hostile attributions; and that (4) people invest less in attack than defense, and attack often fails. Finally, we propose that (5) in intergroup conflict, out-group attack needs institutional arrangements that motivate and coordinate collective action, whereas in-group defense benefits from endogenously emerging in-group identification. We discuss how games of attack and defense may have shaped human capacities for prosociality and aggression, and how third parties can regulate such conflicts and reduce their waste. (shrink)

Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.Karl marx’s distinction between interpreting the world and changing it points by extension to the state of contemporary philosophy and psychiatry. The 1990s resurgence of interdisciplinary work in this area was driven equally by phenomenological scholarship and by initiatives in analytic philosophy. The former reflected the focus in phenomenology on ‘what it is like’ to experience a given mental symptom with the aim of reconstructing the (...) life-worlds of people experiencing mental disorders, while the latter reflected directly or indirectly the influence of J. L. Austin and others from... (shrink)

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

Our target article modeled conflict within and between groups as an asymmetric game of strategy and developed a framework to explain the evolved neurobiological, psychological, and sociocultural mechanisms underlying attack and defense. Twenty-seven commentaries add insights from diverse disciplines, such as animal biology, evolutionary game theory, human neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and political science, that collectively extend and supplement this model in three ways. Here we draw attention to the superordinate structure of attack and defense, and its subordinate means to meet (...) the end of status quo maintenance versus change, and we discuss how variations in conflict structure and power disparities between antagonists can impact strategy selection and behavior during attack and defense; how the positions of attack and defense emerge endogenously and are subject to rhetoric and propaganda; and how psychological and economic interventions can transform attacker-defender conflicts into coordination games that allow mutual gains and dispute resolution. (shrink)

IN CRITICALLY ANALYZING THE DEADLY VIPER CONTROVERSY AND MARY Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church's social activism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we consider questions concerning the ability of Asian Americans to participate in public discourse in meaningful ways that spur social change while fostering solidarity with other marginalized ethnic groups in the United States. Drawing on Christian theo-ethical reflection on the racial or social identity of Jesus as a hybridized concept, we argue for a robust public discourse that recognizes (...) Asian Americans as a social group without succumbing to the ghettoization of Asian American identity or a withdrawal from engagement with other justice-seeking social groups. In doing so, we look toward constructive modes of public discourse carried out by multiple counterpublics that both give voice to the Asian American community and open the space for collaboration across ethnic, racial, class, religious, and national boundaries. (shrink)

Citation: Braun G, Hellwig MK, Byrnes WM (2007) Global Climate Change and Catholic Responsibility: Facts and Faith Response. Journal of Catholic Social Thought 4(2): 373-401. Abstract: The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that human activity is causing the Earth’s atmosphere to grow hotter, which is leading to global climate change. If current rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue, it is predicted that there will be dramatic changes, including flooding, more intense heat waves and storms, and an increase in disease. (...) Indigenous peoples and the poor will be most severely affected, as will Earth’s wild animals and plants, a quarter of which could become extinct in fifty years. We urgently need to switch to renewable (non-GHG emitting) energy sources, and try to live in a simpler, more sustainable way. In this article, a renewable energy expert, a biochemist, and a theologian have come together to describe the situation in which we find ourselves, and present ideas for a solution that incorporates Catholic social teaching. (shrink)

Competent adults should be permitted to determine the course of their own lives. We may try to influence them. We may ask them, perhaps even implore them, to change their minds. But in the end, they are in charge of their lives. They get to choose their careers, whether and whom to marry, whether to exercise, and whether to have surgery.This emphasis on respect for patients’ autonomy may seem to imply that allowing patients to make their own decisions should always (...) take precedence over other considerations. Given this presumption, there has been almost no discussion in the medical literature or elsewhere about how important this value is and whether it should sometimes be balanced against and give way to other values. This absence of guidance is especially problematic in cases where respect for patient autonomy conflicts with promoting patients’ clinical interests. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Responsible conduct of research courses are widely taught, but little is known about the purposes or effectiveness of such courses. As one way to assess the purposes of these courses, students were surveyed about their perspectives after recent completion of one of eleven different research ethics courses at ten different institutions. Participants enrolled in RCR courses in spring and fall of 2003 received a voluntary, anonymous survey from their instructors at the completion of the course. Responses were received from 268 (...) participants. Seventy-seven percent of open-ended responses listed specific kinds of information learned; only a few respondents talked about changes in skills or attitudes. The perception that courses did more to provide information than to foster skills or attitudes was verified in quantitative responses. Over 75% of the respondents specifically noted that courses were useful in preparing them to recognize, avoid, and respond to research misconduct. The two principal findings of this multi-institutional study are that respondents reported: a wide variety of positive outcomes for research ethics courses, but that the impact on knowledge was greater than that for changes in skills or attitudes. (shrink)

SummaryThis report describes a family planning KAP survey conducted in 2000 households in rural Ghana between April and October, 1972, as one of the Danfa Project’s baseline studies. Subsequent re-surveys were done in 1975 and 1977 to assess changes related to project health education and family planning programmes.Reported knowledge about family planning was three times that reported in previous studies in rural Ghana. About 70% of the respondents approve of family planning, but most want a large family, with over six (...) children. At all ages, males wanted two or three more children than did women.The current 3% population growth rate in Ghana may increase due to continued early age of marriage, the rising size of the reproductive age group and improved pregnancy outcome.Although the expected relationships between knowledge and use of family planning and age and education were present, these differentials were typically only 10–15%. In the project area it appears that women will be most important in making the decision to practise family planning, although motivation of males is being stressed.Most villagers hear about family planning through informal, word-of-mouth channels with relatively little use of news media, family planning workers or clinic health personnel. To improve the practice of family planning, village-based health educators are working with volunteers including traditional birth attendants, community leaders, teachers and church groups. (shrink)

Computational models of semantic memory exploit information about co-occurrences of words in naturally occurring text to extract information about the meaning of the words that are present in the language. Such models implicitly specify a representation of temporal context. Depending on the model, words are said to have occurred in the same context if they are presented within a moving window, within the same sentence, or within the same document. The temporal context model (TCM), which specifies a particular definition of (...) temporal context, has proved useful in the study of episodic memory. The predictive temporal context model (pTCM) uses the same definition of temporal context to generate semantic memory representations. Taken together pTCM and TCM may prove to be part of a general model of declarative memory. (shrink)

Working parents in are struggling to balance the demands of their occupation with those of childcare and homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, studies show that women are shouldering more of the burden and reporting greater levels of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression relative to men. However, research has yet to show that increases in psychological symptoms are linked to changes in stress during the pandemic. Herein, we conduct a small-N study to explore the associations between stress and psychological symptoms (...) during the pandemic among mothers using structural equation modeling, namely latent change score models. Thirty-three mothers completed questionnaires reporting current anxious and depressive symptoms, as well as stressful life experiences prior to-versus during the pandemic. Women endorsed significantly more stressful events during the pandemic, relative to the pre-pandemic period. Additionally, 58% of mothers scored as moderate-to-high risk for developing a stress-related physical illness in the near future because of their pandemic-level stress. Depressive symptoms were associated with the degree of change in life stress, whereas anxiety symptoms were more related to pre-pandemic levels of stress. The present study preliminarily sheds light on the nuanced antecedents to mothers’ experiences of anxious and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although further work is needed in larger, more diverse samples of mothers, this study highlights the potential need for appropriate policies, and prevention and intervention programs to ameliorate the effects of pandemics on mothers’ mental health. (shrink)

BackgroundInformed consent forms are intended to facilitate research enrollment decisions. However, the technical language in institutional templates can be unfamiliar and confusing for decision-makers. Standardized language describing financial implications of participation, namely compensation for injury and costs of care associated with participating, can be complex and could be a deterrent for potential participants. This standardized language may also be misleading in the context of comparative effectiveness trials of standard care interventions, in which costs and risk of injury associated with participating (...) may not differ from regular medical care. In addition, the revised U.S. Common Rule contains a new requirement to present key information upfront; the impact of how this requirement is operationalized on comprehension and likelihood of enrollment for a given study is unknown.MethodsTwo online surveys assessed the impact of (1) changes to compensation for injury language (standard vs. tailored language form) and (2) changes to the key information page (using the tailored compensation language form with standard key information vs. modified key information vs. modified key information plus financial information) on both likelihood of enrollment in and understanding of a hypothetical comparative effectiveness trial.ResultsLikelihood of enrolling was not observed to be different between the standard and tailored language forms in Study 1 (73 vs. 75%; p = 0.6); however, the tailored language group had a higher frequency of understanding the compensation for injury process specific to the trial (25 vs. 51%; p < 0.0001). Modifications to the key information sheet in Study 2 did not affect likelihood of enrolling (88 vs. 85 vs. 85%; p = 0.6); however, understanding of randomization differed by form (44 vs. 59 vs. 46%; p = 0.002).ConclusionsThese findings suggest that refining consent forms to clarify key information and tailoring compensation for injury language to the nature of the study, especially in the context of comparative effectiveness trials, may help to improve study comprehension but may not impact enrollment. (shrink)

Variations in levels of apolipoprotein E have been tied to the risk and progression of Alzheimer's disease . Our group has previously compared and contrasted the promoters of the mouse and human ApoE gene promoter sequences and found notable similarities and significant differences that suggest the importance of the APOE promoter's role in the human disease. We examine here three specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms within the human APOE promoter region, specifically at -491 , -427 , and at -219 upstream from the (...) +1 transcription start site. The -219 and -491 polymorphic variations have significant association with instance of AD, and -491AA has significant risk even when stratified for the APOEepsilon4 allele. We also show significant effects on reporter gene expression in neuronal cell cultures, and, notably, these effects are modified by species origin of the cells. The -491 and -219 polymorphisms may have an interactive effect in addition to any independent activity. DNA-protein interactions differ between each polymorphic state. We propose SP1 and GATA as candidates for regulatory control of the -491 and -219 polymorphic sites. This work's significance lies in drawing connection among APOE promoter polymorphisms' associations with AD to functional promoter activity differences and specific changes in DNA-protein interactions in cell culture-based assays. Taken together, these results suggest that APOE expression levels are a risk factor for AD irrespective of APOEepsilon4 allele status. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to develop a Physician's Spiritual Well-Being Scale (PSpWBS). The significance of a physician's spiritual well-being was explored through in-depth interviews with and qualitative data collection from focus groups. Based on the results of qualitative analysis and related literature, the PSpWBS consisting of 25 questions was established. Reliability and validity tests were performed on 177 subjects. Four domains of the PSpWBS were devised: physician's characteristics; medical practice challenges; response to changes; and overall well-being. The explainable (...) total variance was 65.65%. Cronbach α was 0.864 when the internal consistency of the whole scale was calculated. Factor analysis showed that the internal consistency Cronbach α value for each factor was between 0.625 and 0.794 and the split-half reliability was 0.865. The scale has satisfactory reliability and validity and could serve as the basis for assessment of the spiritual well-being of a physician. (shrink)

Marr's seminal work laid out a program of research by specifying key questions for cognitive science at different levels of analysis. Because dynamic systems theory focuses on time and interdependence of components, DST research programs come to very different conclusions regarding the nature of cognitive change. We review a specific DST approach to cognitive-level processes: dynamic field theory. We review research applying DFT to several cognitive-level processes: object permanence, naming hierarchical categories, and inferring intent, that demonstrate the difference in understanding (...) of behavior and cognition that results from a DST perspective. These point to a central challenge for cognitive science research as defined by Marr—emergence. We argue that appreciating emergence raises questions about the utility of computational-level analyses and opens the door to insights concerning the origin of novel forms of behavior and thought. We contend this is one of the most fundamental questions about cognition and behavior. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

The development of gene expression profiling and next-generation sequencing technologies have steered oncogenomics to the forefront of precision medicine. This created a need for harmonious cooperation between clinicians and researchers to increase access to precision oncology, despite multiple implementation challenges being encountered. The aim is to apply personalised treatment strategies early in cancer management, targeting tumour subtypes and actionable gene variants within the individual’s broader clinical risk profile and wellbeing. A knowledge-generating database linked to the South African Medical Research Council’s (...) Genomic Centre has been created for the application of personalised medicine, using an integrated service and research approach. Insights gained from patient experiences related to tumour heterogeneity, access to targeted therapies and incidental findings of pathogenic germline variants in tumour DNA, provided practice-changing evidence for the implementation of a cost-minimisation pathology-supported genetic testing strategy. Integrating clinical care with genomic research through data sharing advances personalised medicine and maximises precision oncology benefits. (shrink)

Performance on abstract unfamiliar tasks used to measure intelligence has not been found to correlate with individual differences in highly skilled and expert performance. Given that cognitive and neural structures and regions mediating performance change as skill increases, the structures highlighted by parieto-frontal integration theory are unlikely to account for individual differences in skilled cognitive achievement in everyday life.

The topic of equality comes up in a variety of contexts in Aristotle’s Politics from Book II to VII. The desire for equality with equals and superiority to inferiors seems to play an important explanatory role for Aristotle in determining the characteristics of the constitution of a state and being a significant causal factor in constitutional change. He distinguishes between types of equality, numerical and proportional, and equality relative to some interest and unqualified equality. Aristotle appeals to his conception of (...) equality in his explanation of the nature and types of democracy and oligarchy in the differentiation of the three types of good constitutions—monarchy, aristocracy and polity—and their less than ideal counterparts—tyranny, oligarchy and democracy—as well as in his analysis of political stability and constitutional change. Despite the complexity of his conception of equality and its political importance, Aristotle’s detailed descriptions of actual constitutions and constitutional changes seldom mention equality. How the desire for equality is explanatory or which type of equality is realized in a specific constitution is left to the reader to determine. The goal of this paper is to discover whether a coherent account of equality can be extracted, on Aristotle’s behalf, from what he does say. In the first two sections, we will look at the role equality plays in Aristotle’s descriptions of actual constitutions in Politics IV and V. The third section will examine the role equality plays in his design of an ideal constitution in Politics VII and VIII. We will conclude by summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of Aristotle’s approach to equality. (shrink)

We report specific heat and μSR measurements on Th and/or B substituted UBe13. The specific heat data show that either Th or B substitution reduces the Kondo temperature TK and increases the entropy at the superconducting transition by almost 20%, indicating an enhanced density of states. However, whereas μSR shows clear evidence for magnetic correlations for Th substitutions, no magnetism is observed for B substitutions. The enhanced specific heat jump in the B-substituted material is associated with a change in the (...) superconducting properties as TK is reduced. (shrink)

Intended as an introduction to Aristotle's philosophy, this book succeeds in presenting and defending a unified conception of Aristotle's philosophy while at the same time making the discussion accessible to the student approaching the Aristotelian corpus for the first time. Taking Aristotle's mention of a distinctively human desire to understand as the starting point, Lear tackles the analysis of this desire from two perspectives--that of the object of understanding and that of the subject. The first perspective leads to the study (...) of Aristotle's physics and metaphysics, the latter to the study of his psychology and ethics. The discussion of each area centers on three or four topics; for instance, the topics for physics are change, infinity of space and time, and motion. From Zeno's arrow to incontinence, Lear manages to cover many of the questions that have exercised recent commentators on Aristotle's philosophy. Ultimately, both perspectives are seen to be different ways of looking at a single reality, namely, the actualization of essences in the mind reflecting on them. The final chapter with a mighty crescendo brings nature, man, and God together. As Lear explains, "'human mind contemplating form,' 'substantial form,' 'primary substance,' and 'God thinking himself' may be various ways of describing the same thing--form at the highest level of actuality". In the end, nature achieves its highest form in making itself intelligible and the human mind, its highest form in apprehending essences. (shrink)

Corporate governance and finance are dynamic academic fields that offer myriad opportunities for business ethics analysis. Within the corporate governance triad in recent years, shareholders have increased their power over boards of directors and executives through both regulation and movements to change corporate by-laws. The impact of board characteristics on firm performance has proven elusive, leading to questions concerning board processes and individual director beliefs and behaviors. At the same time, CEOs have lost considerable power, leaving many struggling to regain (...) their control and maintain their compensation levels, while others adopt a stewardship approach to their posts. In the field of finance, the recent financial debacle has led to a reexamination of financial regulation and of the fundamental nature and purpose of the industry. All of these issues provide business ethicists fodder for investigation and analysis. (shrink)

BackgroundIt is commonly reported by editors that it has become harder to recruit reviewers for peer review and that this is because individuals are being asked to review too often and are experiencing reviewer fatigue. However, evidence supporting these arguments is largely anecdotal.Main bodyWe examine responses of individuals to review invitations for six journals in ecology and evolution. The proportion of invitations that lead to a submitted review has been decreasing steadily over 13 years (2003–2015) for four of the six (...) journals examined, with a cumulative effect that has been quite substantial (average decline from 56% of review invitations generating a review in 2003 to just 37% in 2015). The likelihood that an invitee agrees to review declines significantly with the number of invitations they receive in a year. However, the average number of invitations being sent to prospective reviewers and the proportion of individuals being invited more than once per year has not changed much over these 13 years, despite substantial increases in the total number of review invitations being sent by these journals—the reviewer base has expanded concomitant with this growth in review requests.ConclusionsThe proportion of review invitations that lead to a review being submitted has been declining steadily for four of the six journals examined here, but reviewer fatigue is not likely the primary explanation for this decline. (shrink)

Motivated by disparities in gun violence, sharp increases in gun ownership, and a changing gun policy landscape, we conducted a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults (n=2,778) in 2021 to compare safety-related views of white, Black, and Hispanic gun owners and non-owners. Black gun owners were most aware of homicide disparities and least expecting of personal safety improvements from gun ownership or more permissive gun carrying. Non-owner views differed. Health equity and policy opportunities are discussed.

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

Early versions of satellite and radiosonde datasets suggested that the tropical surface had warmed more than the troposphere, while climate models consistently showed tropospheric amplification of surface warming in response to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases. We revisit such comparisons here using new observational estimates of surface and tropospheric temperature changes. We find that there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in the tropics. Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in (...) the tropical troposphere are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”.This emerging reconciliation of models and observations has two primary explanations. First, because of changes in the treatment of buoy and satellite information, new surface temperature datasets yield slightly reduced tropical warming relative to earlier versions. Second, recently developed satellite and radiosonde datasets now show larger warming of the tropical lower troposphere. In the case of a new satellite dataset from remote sensing systems, enhancedRSS warming is due to an improved procedure of adjusting for inter-satellite biases. When the RSS-derived tropospheric temperature trend is compared with four different observed estimates of surface temperature change, the surface warming is invariably amplified in the tropical troposphere, consistent with model results. Even if we use data from a second satellite dataset with smaller tropospheric warming than in remote sensing systems RSS, observed tropical lapse rates are not significantly different from those in all model simulations.Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”. (shrink)

Repetition priming of object identification refers to the phenomenon whereby experience with an object induces systematic changes in subsequent processing of that same object. This data-driven form of priming is distinct from conceptually-driven priming. To date, considerable controversy exists about whether data-driven priming reflects facilitation in perceptual processing or mediation by preexisting object representations. The present study concerned priming of recognizing familiar and unfamiliar faces and how this priming is influenced by face inversion, which interferes with perceptual face processing. Perceptual (...) and representation-based loci conjointly contributed to priming; the perceptual locus was operative similarly for familiar and unfamiliar faces, whereas the representation-based locus was only invoked for familiar faces and resulted in a response-time reduction triple the magnitude of that from the perceptual locus. The results constrain theoretical accounts of data-driven priming by indicating that improved identification can result from the combination of perceptual and representation-based facilitation. (shrink)

Hand function improvement in stroke survivors in the chronic stage usually plateaus by 6 months. Brain-computer interface (BCI)-guided robot-assisted training has been shown to be effective for facilitating upper-limb motor function recovery in chronic stroke. However, the underlying neuroplasticity change is not well understood. This study aimed to investigate the whole-brain neuroplasticity changes after 20-session BCI-guided robot hand training, and whether the changes could be maintained at the 6-month follow-up. Therefore, the clinical improvement and the neurological changes before, immediately after, (...) and 6 months after training were explored in 14 chronic stroke subjects. The upper-limb motor function was assessed by Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Upper-Limb (FMA), and the neurological changes were assessed using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Repeated-measure ANOVAs indicated that long-term motor improvement was found by both FMA (F[2,26]= 6.367,p= 0.006) and ARAT (F[2,26]= 7.230,p= 0.003). Seed-based functional connectivity analysis exhibited that significantly modulated FC was observed between ipsilesional motor regions (primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area) and contralesional areas (supplementary motor area, premotor cortex, and superior parietal lobule), and the effects were sustained after 6 months. The fALFF analysis showed that local neuronal activities significantly increased in central, frontal and parietal regions, and the effects were also sustained after 6 months. Consistent results in FC and fALFF analyses demonstrated the increase of neural activities in sensorimotor and fronto-parietal regions, which were highly involved in the BCI-guided training.Clinical Trial Registration:This study has been registered atClinicalTrials.govwith clinical trial registration number NCT02323061. (shrink)

Following a government campaign run by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1994, many Hong Kong companies and trade associations adopted written codes of conduct. The research study reported here examines how and why companies responded, and assesses the impact of code adoption on the moral climate of code adopters. The research involved (a) initial questionnaire surveys to which 184 organisations replied, (b) longitudinal questionnaire-based assessments of moral ethos and conduct in a focal sample of 17 code adopting companies, (...) (c) interviews with 33 managers in the focal companies examining the adoption and impact of the codes, and (d) content analysis of 41 company codes of conduct, including those of most focal companies, plus the ICAC model code.While a mixture of prudential and altruistic reasons were given for code adoption, content analysis suggested that the prime motive was corporate self-defence. The prevailing themes were bribery, conflict of interest, insider information, gambling, moonlighting, accuracy of records and misuse of corporate assets. Wider social responsibility tended to be neglected. Companies appeared to have imposed their codes top-down, emphasising disciplinary procedures rather than ethics training, and appointing neither ethics counsellors nor ombuds-people. The longitudinal study over a seven month period suggested that while moral ethos may have declined, overall standards of perceived conduct had not changed. (shrink)