Can past intergroup contact shape support for policies in a pandemic? Processes predicting endorsement of discriminatory Chinese restrictions during the COVID-19 crisis

A survey of 340 UK residents was conducted when the COVID-19 virus first reached the UK in February 2020. We measured past experiences of positive and negative intergroup contact with Chinese people as predictors of intergroup threat and emotions in the context of the pandemic; and how these processes in turn predicted support for discriminatory policies designed to restrict the freedom of Chinese people in the UK. We tested a novel threat-matching hypothesis which draws upon models of outgroup-specific social perception to predict that the emotional processes underlying contact effects will depend on the specific threat posed by the outgroup. In the present epidemiological context, Chinese people posed a salient threat to individuals’ physical health and welfare. Accordingly, we show that whilst intergroup contact predicted both fear and anger towards the outgroup, the indirect effect of contact on support for Chinese restriction policies via fear was significantly stronger than the indirect effect via anger. Our findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how specific threat and emotions drive intergroup contact effects, and offer important insights for efforts to maintain positive intergroup relations in the face of the crisis

Crop Fertilization on East Texas Soils.

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Elizabeth River Surface Circulation Atlas

The Elizabeth River Surface Circulation Atlas is a compendium of maps which detail the surface circulation throughout the main branch of the Elizabeth River, in the port of Hampton Roads, Virginia. Data for the Atlas maps were obtained directly from field experiments using Remote Sensing and dye-emitting low-windage surface drogues. The maps show surface Lagrangian trajectories under various combinations of wind and tide. The Atlas is not intended to duplicate NOAA tidal current tables, but rather to supplement the tables with empirical trajectory data at increased spatial resolution. Knowledge of surface currents under different tide and wind conditions enables a user to predict the movement of floating debris, such as oil spills, within the Elizabeth River Basin

Field Crop Fertilization on Texas Blackland and Grand Prairie Soils.

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NuSTAR reveals the hidden nature of SS433

SS433 is the only Galactic binary system known to accrete at highly super-critical rates, analogous to tidal disruption events, and needed to explain the mass of some high redshift quasars. Probing the inner regions of SS433 in the X-rays is crucial to understanding this system, and super-critical accretion in general, but has not yet been possible due to obscuration. NuSTAR observed SS433 in the hard X-ray band across multiple phases of its super-orbital precession period. Spectral-timing tools have allowed us to confirm that the hard X-ray emission from the inner regions is scattered towards us by the walls of the wind-cone. By comparing to numerical models, we determine an intrinsic X-ray luminosity of >= 3x10^37 erg/s and that, if viewed face on, the apparent luminosity would be > 1x10^39 erg/s, confirming its long-suspected nature as an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX). A lag due to absorption by Fe XXV/XXVI in outflowing material travelling at least 0.14-0.29c matches absorption lines seen in ULXs and - in future - will allow us to map a super-critical outflow for the first time.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, submitted for publicatio

The Clinical Impact of Continuing to Prescribe Antiretroviral Therapy in Patients with Advanced AIDS Who Manifest No Virologic or Immunologic Benefit

Introduction: Despite the efficacy and tolerability of modern antiretroviral therapy (ART), many patients with advanced AIDS prescribed these regimens do not achieve viral suppression or immune reconstitution as a result of poor adherence, drug resistance, or both. The clinical outcomes of continued ART prescription for such patients have not been well characterized. Methods: We examined the causes and predictors of all-cause mortality, AIDS-defining conditions, and serious non-AIDS-defining events among a cohort of participants in a clinical trial of pre-emptive therapy for CMV disease. We focused on participants who, despite ART had failed to achieve virologic suppression and substantive immune reconstitution. Results: 233 ART-receiving participants entered with a median baseline CD4+ T cell count of 30/mm3 and plasma HIV RNA of 5 log10 copies/mL. During a median 96 weeks of follow-up, 24.0% died (a mortality rate of 10.7/100 patient-years); 27.5% reported a new AIDS-defining condition, and 22.3% a new serious non-AIDS event. Of the deaths, 42.8% were due to an AIDS-defining condition, 44.6% were due to a non-AIDS-defining condition, and 12.5% were of unknown etiology. Decreased risk of mortality was associated with baseline CD4+ T cell count ≥25/mm3 and lower baseline HIV RNA. Conclusions: Among patients with advanced AIDS prescribed modern ART who achieve neither virologic suppression nor immune reconstitution, crude mortality percentages appear to be lower than reported in cohorts of patients studied a decade earlier. Also, in contrast to the era before modern ART became available, nearly half of the deaths in our modern-era study were caused by serious non-AIDS-defining events. Even among the most advanced AIDS patients who were not obtaining apparent immunologic and virologic benefit from ART, continued prescription of these medications appears to alter the natural history of AIDS—improving survival and shifting the causes of death from AIDS- to non-AIDS-defining conditions

Political brand image: an investigation into the operationalisation of the external orientation of David Cameron’s Conservative brand

This paper seeks to address the limited understanding of how to operationalise the external brand image of a political brand. More specifically, this research critically assesses the transfer potential of the six variables of brand image by Bosch, Venter, Han and Boshoff to deconstruct the UK Conservative Party brand from the perspective of young people aged 18–24 years during the 2010 UK General Election campaign. This research demonstrates the applicability of the six variables otherwise known as the ‘brand image framework’ to the political environment. However, the application of the brand image framework in its original conceptualisation proved problematic. Many of the brand image variables were clarified, rearticulated and simplified to address the political context. This refined conceptualisation provided an in-depth understanding of how to investigate the political brand image of David Cameron’s Conservative Party. This study addresses the paucity of research that operationalises external brand image and provides practitioners and academics within and beyond the context of political branding a mechanism to understand the external orientation of brands. This research may also be used by political and non-political brands as a basis to explore external brand image and compare its consistency with internal brand identity

Development of an Urban Watershed Rehabilitation Method Using Stakeholder Feedback to Direct Investigation and Restoration Planning

Includes appendicesThis research was supported by the U.S. EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program under Grant No. R-827147-01-0 and was a project of Texas A&M University's Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy in The Bush School of Government and Public Service.surveyU.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Grant No. R-827147-01-0