10,542 research outputs found
The costs of poor safety in the workplace
Over the last two years we have conducted research on the costs of accidents in the workplace, monitoring 14 firms in the Republic of Ireland (RoI) over a 12 week period
in 1995, and 11 firms in Northern Ireland (NI) over a 12 week period in 1996. Using a standard Report Form (Appendix I) which was filled in by the appropriate manager
for every accident over the period, we have been able to obtain interesting case study information on the nature of the costs of accidents. In this paper we discuss costs of accidents in general (Section II), then describe our research methodology (Section III). The next section, section IV, presents the information on the costs of accidents arising from the research, in three sub-sections: total costs, direct vs indirect costs, and insured vs uninsured costs. In section V, we briefly summarise some of the recent literature on the prevention of accidents. Finally, section VI provides a brief conclusion
Origin of life in a digital microcosm
While all organisms on Earth descend from a common ancestor, there is no
consensus on whether the origin of this ancestral self-replicator was a one-off
event or whether it was only the final survivor of multiple origins. Here we
use the digital evolution system Avida to study the origin of self-replicating
computer programs. By using a computational system, we avoid many of the
uncertainties inherent in any biochemical system of self-replicators (while
running the risk of ignoring a fundamental aspect of biochemistry). We
generated the exhaustive set of minimal-genome self-replicators and analyzed
the network structure of this fitness landscape. We further examined the
evolvability of these self-replicators and found that the evolvability of a
self-replicator is dependent on its genomic architecture. We studied the
differential ability of replicators to take over the population when competed
against each other (akin to a primordial-soup model of biogenesis) and found
that the probability of a self-replicator out-competing the others is not
uniform. Instead, progenitor (most-recent common ancestor) genotypes are
clustered in a small region of the replicator space. Our results demonstrate
how computational systems can be used as test systems for hypotheses concerning
the origin of life.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. To appear in special issue of Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society A: Re-Conceptualizing the Origins of Life
from a Physical Sciences Perspectiv
Recommended from our members
The Effect of Limited Attention and Delay on Negative Arousing False Memories
Previous research has shown that, in comparison to neutral stimuli, false memories for high arousing negative stimuli are greater after very fast presentation and limited attention at study. However, full compared to limited attention conditions still produce comparably more false memories for all stimuli types. Research has also shown that emotional stimuli benefit from a period of consolidation. What effect would such consolidation have on false memory formation even when attention is limited at study? The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of fast presentation on false memory production for negatively-arousing and neutral items over time using the DRM paradigm. Sixty-Eight participants studied Negative and neutral DRM lists with fast or slow presentation conditions. Half completed a recognition test immediately and half completed a recognition test after one-week. Results revealed that, for fast presentation, negative critical lures increased after one week and were comparable to negative critical lures in the slow presentation encoding conditions. Neutral critical lures in the fast presentation condition did not change and remained lower compared to the slow presentation condition. These findings are the first demonstration that arousing negative false memories can increase over time when attention at encoding is limited
Principal component analysis in tourism marketing
The analysis methods of the interdependences are meant to give a meaning to a set of variables or to group variables in a certain way. This work includes analysis in principal components. In ACP (Analysis of Principal Components) I included nine variables. Starting from the nine variables I sought to identify three principal components (factors) that summarize most of the information held by these variables and simplify the process of interpretation of results. To achieve the ACP which is a multivariate analysis method of marketing data I worked with primary data collected through quantitative marketing research.correlation, factor, items (variable), variance.
The NMDA agonist D-cycloserine facilitates fear memory consolidation in humans
Animal research suggests that the consolidation of fear and
extinction memories depends on N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA)-
type glutamate receptors. Using a fear conditioning and extinction
paradigm in healthy normal volunteers, we show that postlearning
administration of the NMDA partial agonist D-cycloserine (DCS)
facilitates fear memory consolidation, evidenced behaviorally by
enhanced skin conductance responses, relative to placebo, for
presentations of a conditioned stimulus (CS) at a memory test
performed 72 h later. DCS also enhanced CS-evoked neural
responses in a posterior hippocampus/collateral sulcus region and
in the medial prefrontal cortex at test. Our data suggest a role for
NMDA receptors in regulating fear memory consolidation in humans
Memory Modulation in the Classroom: Selective Enhancement of College Examination Performance by Arousal Induced after Lecture
Laboratory studies examining moderate physiological or emotional arousal induced after learning indicate that it enhances memory consolidation. Yet, no studies have yet examined this effect in an applied context. As such, arousal was induced after a college lecture and its selective effects were examined on later exam performance. Participants were divided into two groups who either watched a neutral video clip (n = 66) or an arousing video clip (n = 70) after lecture in a psychology course. The final examination occurred two weeks after the experimental manipulation. Only performance on the group of final exam items that covered material from the manipulated lecture were significantly different between groups. Other metrics, such as the midterm examination and the total final examination score, did not differ between groups. The results indicate that post-lecture arousal selectively increased the later retrieval of lecture material, despite the availability of the material for study before and after the manipulation. The results reinforce the role of post-learning arousal on memory consolidation processes, expanding the literature to include a real-world learning context
Beyond prebiotic chemistry
Summary: How can matter transition from the nonliving to the living state? The answer is essential for understanding the origin of life on Earth and for identifying promising targets in the search for life on other planets. Most studies have focused on the likely chemistry of RNA (1), protein (2), lipid, or metabolic âworldsâ (3) and autocatalytic sets (4), including attempts to make life in the lab. But these efforts may be too narrowly focused on the biochemistry of life as we know it today. A radical rethink is necessary, one that explores not just plausible chemical scenarios but also new physical processes and driving forces. Such investigations could lead to a physical understanding not only of the origin of life but also of life itself, as well as to new tools for designing artificial biology
- âŠ