When speaking English is not enough: The consequences of language-based stigma for non-native speakers

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordWe explored the effects of language-based stigma on the relationship between native and nonnative speakers. In two studies we found that stigmatized non-native speakers experienced more negative interpersonal interactions, higher levels of intergroup threat, and reduced performance on an English test compared to non-native speakers who did not experience stigma. These effects were mediated by anxiety and moderated by prevention-related goals. Furthermore, native speakers perceived stigmatized (vs. not-stigmatized) speakers’ accents as stronger and their commitment to living in the host country as weaker. Our findings suggest that experiencing language-based stigma can: a) incite a stereotype threat response from nonnative speakers, and b) damage their relationship with native speakers on an interpersonal and intergroup level.University of ExeterUniversity of Cheste

What accounts do young people give of their experience of person-centred annual review meetings?

They’re helpful Because it tells you about About all the stuff you need to work on And what stuff you are good at already (Nick aged 10) Following recent reform in special educational needs (SEN) education in England, schools and settings are expected to include children with SEN in statutory meetings about their progress. In the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (LBTH), a model of ‘person-centred annual review’ meetings has been developed. The meeting centres on the young person and includes discussion of strengths, difficulties and future plans. Information is presented in accessible language and using visual representations. Children are encouraged to participate fully in the meeting. This idiographic and exploratory study sought the perspectives of six young people about their experience of these meetings. All the children had SEN and attended a single primary school in LBTH. Narrative interviews were conducted: children were asked to describe and draw the review. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and a narrative analysis was conducted incorporating psychodynamic concepts. Interviews were converted into ‘rough verse’; a condensed way of presenting the children’s words and interviewer’s prompts. Children presented a largely positive view of their experience of such meetings; all children described their own strengths and positive characteristics, most described difficulties and what they were working on, all described changes that they attributed to the meeting. The children’s accounts support the view that the meeting was an ‘intervention’, in that these children felt the meeting changed aspects of their experience of school, including practical benefits and feeling better understood and supported. Implications for educational settings are outlined, and the value of meaningful pupil participation in reviews is considered

Engaged followership and toxic science : exploring the effect of prototypicality on willingness to follow harmful experimental instructions

Funding: This research was supported by Economic and Social Research Council grant (ES/L003104/1), a Fellowship from the Australian Research Council (FL110100199), from funding received from the School of Management at the University of St Andrews.Drawing on the ‘engaged followership’ reinterpretation of Milgram’s work on obedience, four studies (three of which were pre-registered) examine the extent to which people’s willingness to follow an experimenter’s instructions is dependent on the perceived prototypicality of the science they are supposedly advancing. In Studies 1, 2 and 3, participants took part in a study that was described as advancing either ‘hard’ (prototypical) science (i.e., neuroscience) or ‘soft’ (non-prototypical) science (i.e., social science) before completing an online analogue of Milgram’s ‘Obedience to Authority’ paradigm. In Studies 1 and 2, participants in the neuroscience condition completed more trials than those in the social science condition. This effect was not replicated in Study 3, possibly because the timing of data collection (late 2020) coincided with an emphasis on social science’s importance in controlling COVID-19. Results of a final cross-sectional study (Study 4) indicated that participants who perceived the study as to be more prototypical of science found it more worthwhile, reported making a wider contribution by taking part, reported less dislike for the task, more happiness at having taken part, and more trust in the researchers, all of which indirectly predicted greater followership. Implications for the theoretical understanding of obedience to the toxic instructions of an authority are discussed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Optically targeted search for gravitational waves emitted by core-collapse supernovae during the first and second observing runs of advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo

We present the results from a search for gravitational-wave transients associated with core-collapse supernovae observed within a source distance of approximately 20 Mpc during the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. No significant gravitational-wave candidate was detected. We report the detection efficiencies as a function of the distance for waveforms derived from multidimensional numerical simulations and phenomenological extreme emission models. The sources with neutrino-driven explosions are detectable at the distances approaching 5 kpc, and for magnetorotationally driven explosions the distances are up to 54 kpc. However, waveforms for extreme emission models are detectable up to 28 Mpc. For the first time, the gravitational-wave data enabled us to exclude part of the parameter spaces of two extreme emission models with confidence up to 83%, limited by coincident data coverage. Besides, using ad hoc harmonic signals windowed with Gaussian envelopes, we constrained the gravitational-wave energy emitted during core collapse at the levels of 4.27×10-4 M·c2 and 1.28×10-1 M·c2 for emissions at 235 and 1304 Hz, respectively. These constraints are 2 orders of magnitude more stringent than previously derived in the corresponding analysis using initial LIGO, initial Virgo, and GEO 600 data

Obituary: J. Knox Jones, Jr., 1929-1992

J. Knox Jones, Jr., was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, March 16, 1929, the eldest of the three sons of Virginia Bowen Jones and James Knox Jones. Knox passed away at his home in Lubbock, Texas, on November 15, 1992, after a two-year battle with cancer

Mapping the strand-specific transcriptome of fission yeast

Pervasive genome-wide transcription is widespread in eukaryotic cells, but key features of the transcriptome have yet to be fully characterized. a new study using antibody-based detection of RNA-DNA duplexes on tiling arrays now reveals a complex, strand-specific transcriptional world in fission yeast

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO’s second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h95%0=3.47×10−25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering

Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN)

We describe the overall characteristics and the performance of an optical CCD camera system, Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN), which is being used at the 2.1 m Otto Struve Telescope of the McDonald Observatory since 2010 August. CQUEAN was developed for follow-up imaging observations of red sources such as high redshift quasar candidates (z >= 5), Gamma Ray Bursts, brown dwarfs, and young stellar objects. For efficient observations of the red objects, CQUEAN has a science camera with a deep depletion CCD chip which boasts a higher quantum efficiency at 0.7 - 1.1 um than conventional CCD chips. The camera was developed in a short time scale (~ one year), and has been working reliably. By employing an auto-guiding system and a focal reducer to enhance the field of view on the classical Cassegrain focus, we achieve a stable guiding in 20 minute exposures, an imaging quality with FWHM >= 0.6" over the whole field (4.8' * 4.8'), and a limiting magnitude of z = 23.4 AB mag at 5-sigma with one hour total integration time.Comment: Accepted for publication in PASP. 26 pages including 5 tables and 24 figure

Bioinformatics advances in saliva diagnostics

There is a need recognized by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research and the National Cancer Institute to advance basic, translational and clinical saliva research. The goal of the Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is to create a data management system and web resource constructed to support human salivaomics research. To maximize the utility of the SKB for retrieval, integration and analysis of data, we have developed the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. This article reviews the informatics advances in saliva diagnostics made possible by the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart

GW170817 : Observation of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral

On August 17, 2017 at 12∶41:04 UTC the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors made their first observation of a binary neutron star inspiral. The signal, GW170817, was detected with a combined signal-to-noise ratio of 32.4 and a false-alarm-rate estimate of less than one per 8.0×104  years. We infer the component masses of the binary to be between 0.86 and 2.26  M⊙, in agreement with masses of known neutron stars. Restricting the component spins to the range inferred in binary neutron stars, we find the component masses to be in the range 1.17–1.60  M⊙, with the total mass of the system 2.74+0.04−0.01M⊙. The source was localized within a sky region of 28  deg2(90% probability) and had a luminosity distance of 40+8−14  Mpc, the closest and most precisely localized gravitational-wave signal yet. The association with the γ-ray burst GRB 170817A, detected by Fermi-GBM 1.7 s after the coalescence, corroborates the hypothesis of a neutron star merger and provides the first direct evidence of a link between these mergers and short γ-ray bursts. Subsequent identification of transient counterparts across the electromagnetic spectrum in the same location further supports the interpretation of this event as a neutron star merger. This unprecedented joint gravitational and electromagnetic observation provides insight into astrophysics, dense matter, gravitation, and cosmology