Glad Tidings and Grave Warnings: The Role of Advice on Cooperation in Public Goods Dilemmas With Value Uncertainty

We investigate how third-party advice on the estimated value of a public good acts as a dual-uncertainty reducing mechanism to encourage cooperation in a trust social dilemma. Experiment 1 finds that the valence of an advisor’s estimate affects cooperation behavior and that this advice effect is mediated by the level of trust that an individual has in fellow group members. Experiment 2 finds that when estimates about the value of the public good are mixed, trust in experts declines, and trust in other group members also declines. Experiment 3 finds that mixed valence estimates do not affect cooperation behavior when the majority of advisors are in consensus. In merging the social dilemma and advice-giving literatures, we show one way to navigate the dual-uncertainty problem when producing public goods and how independent, third-party advice can influence interpersonal relations among group members

Can Customers Detect Script Usage in Service Encounters? An Experimental Video Analysis

Service scripts are predetermined guides for employees to follow when delivering service to customers. Some services require employees to strictly follow a script, whereas others use scripts more flexibly, if at all. Extant research regarding service scripts in the domain of service operations has mainly addressed the topic from more of a process view as a control mechanism for the encounter but minimal research has examined customer perceptions of scripted service. The authors examine a pivotal first question, which is if customers can detect different approaches to script use. To answer the question, the authors conducted a video experiment of face‐to‐face service encounters in the hospitality industry. The results indicate that customers can detect degrees of script use across both standardized and customized encounter types. This work serves as initial empirical evidence that customers are indeed capable of detecting subtleties in scripting approaches in different service situations and supports that script level is an important service design construct for research. Furthermore, the authors highlight the use of a video experiment as an innovative methodology for assessing customer perceptions of intangible aspects to services in a realistic setting. One implication of this study is that managers need to assess the impact that different script levels have on customer perceptions of various service performance measures. Managers should also consider the effect script detection has on customer perceptions of the service experience and service brand to assure their script approach aligns with the organization’s service strategy

Rayleigh wave dispersion measurements reveal low-velocity zones beneath the new crust in the Gulf of California

Rayleigh wave tomography provides images of the shallow mantle shear wave velocity structure beneath the Gulf of California. Low-velocity zones (LVZs) are found on axis between 26 and 50 km depth beneath the Guaymas Basin but mostly off axis under the other rift basins, with the largest feature underlying the Ballenas Transform Fault. We interpret the broadly distributed LVZs as regions of partial melting in a solid mantle matrix. The pathway for melt migration and focusing is more complex than an axis-centered source aligned above a deeper region of mantle melt and likely reflects the magmatic evolution of rift segments. We also consider the existence of solid lower continental crust in the Gulf north of the Guaymas Basin, where the association of the LVZs with asthenospheric upwelling suggests lateral flow assisted by a heat source. These results provide key constraints for numerical models of mantle upwelling and melt focusing in this young oblique rift

'To live and die [for] Dixie': Irish civilians and the Confederate States of America

Around 20,000 Irishmen served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. As a result, they left behind, in various Southern towns and cities, large numbers of friends, family, and community leaders. As with native-born Confederates, Irish civilian support was crucial to Irish participation in the Confederate military effort. Also, Irish civilians served in various supporting roles: in factories and hospitals, on railroads and diplomatic missions, and as boosters for the cause. They also, however, suffered in bombardments, sieges, and the blockade. Usually poorer than their native neighbours, they could not afford to become 'refugees' and move away from the centres of conflict. This essay, based on research from manuscript collections, contemporary newspapers, British Consular records, and Federal military records, will examine the role of Irish civilians in the Confederacy, and assess the role this activity had on their integration into Southern communities. It will also look at Irish civilians in the defeat of the Confederacy, particularly when they came under Union occupation. Initial research shows that Irish civilians were not as upset as other whites in the South about Union victory. They welcomed a return to normalcy, and often 'collaborated' with Union authorities. Also, Irish desertion rates in the Confederate army were particularly high, and I will attempt to gauge whether Irish civilians played a role in this. All of the research in this paper will thus be put in the context of the Drew Gilpin Faust/Gary Gallagher debate on the influence of the Confederate homefront on military performance. By studying the Irish civilian experience one can assess how strong the Confederate national experiment was. Was it a nation without a nationalism

LDHB contributes to the regulation of lactate levels and basal insulin secretion in human pancreatic β cells

Using 13C6 glucose labeling coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and 2D 1H-13C heteronuclear single quantum coherence NMR spectroscopy, we have obtained a comparative high-resolution map of glucose fate underpinning β cell function. In both mouse and human islets, the contribution of glucose to the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle is similar. Pyruvate fueling of the TCA cycle is primarily mediated by the activity of pyruvate dehydrogenase, with lower flux through pyruvate carboxylase. While the conversion of pyruvate to lactate by lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) can be detected in islets of both species, lactate accumulation is 6-fold higher in human islets. Human islets express LDH, with low-moderate LDHA expression and β cell-specific LDHB expression. LDHB inhibition amplifies LDHA-dependent lactate generation in mouse and human β cells and increases basal insulin release. Lastly, cis-instrument Mendelian randomization shows that low LDHB expression levels correlate with elevated fasting insulin in humans. Thus, LDHB limits lactate generation in β cells to maintain appropriate insulin release.</p

Biomarker-guided antibiotic stewardship in suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAPrapid2) : a randomised controlled trial and process evaluation

Background Ventilator-associated pneumonia is the most common intensive care unit (ICU)-acquired infection, yet accurate diagnosis remains difficult, leading to overuse of antibiotics. Low concentrations of IL-1β and IL-8 in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid have been validated as effective markers for exclusion of ventilator-associated pneumonia. The VAPrapid2 trial aimed to determine whether measurement of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid IL-1β and IL-8 could effectively and safely improve antibiotic stewardship in patients with clinically suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia. Methods VAPrapid2 was a multicentre, randomised controlled trial in patients admitted to 24 ICUs from 17 National Health Service hospital trusts across England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Patients were screened for eligibility and included if they were 18 years or older, intubated and mechanically ventilated for at least 48 h, and had suspected ventilator-associated pneumonia. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) to biomarker-guided recommendation on antibiotics (intervention group) or routine use of antibiotics (control group) using a web-based randomisation service hosted by Newcastle Clinical Trials Unit. Patients were randomised using randomly permuted blocks of size four and six and stratified by site, with allocation concealment. Clinicians were masked to patient assignment for an initial period until biomarker results were reported. Bronchoalveolar lavage was done in all patients, with concentrations of IL-1β and IL-8 rapidly determined in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from patients randomised to the biomarker-based antibiotic recommendation group. If concentrations were below a previously validated cutoff, clinicians were advised that ventilator-associated pneumonia was unlikely and to consider discontinuing antibiotics. Patients in the routine use of antibiotics group received antibiotics according to usual practice at sites. Microbiology was done on bronchoalveolar lavage fluid from all patients and ventilator-associated pneumonia was confirmed by at least 104 colony forming units per mL of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. The primary outcome was the distribution of antibiotic-free days in the 7 days following bronchoalveolar lavage. Data were analysed on an intention-to-treat basis, with an additional per-protocol analysis that excluded patients randomly assigned to the intervention group who defaulted to routine use of antibiotics because of failure to return an adequate biomarker result. An embedded process evaluation assessed factors influencing trial adoption, recruitment, and decision making. This study is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN65937227, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01972425. Findings Between Nov 6, 2013, and Sept 13, 2016, 360 patients were screened for inclusion in the study. 146 patients were ineligible, leaving 214 who were recruited to the study. Four patients were excluded before randomisation, meaning that 210 patients were randomly assigned to biomarker-guided recommendation on antibiotics (n=104) or routine use of antibiotics (n=106). One patient in the biomarker-guided recommendation group was withdrawn by the clinical team before bronchoscopy and so was excluded from the intention-to-treat analysis. We found no significant difference in the primary outcome of the distribution of antibiotic-free days in the 7 days following bronchoalveolar lavage in the intention-to-treat analysis (p=0·58). Bronchoalveolar lavage was associated with a small and transient increase in oxygen requirements. Established prescribing practices, reluctance for bronchoalveolar lavage, and dependence on a chain of trial-related procedures emerged as factors that impaired trial processes

A unified phylogeny-based nomenclature for histone variants

Histone variants are non-allelic protein isoforms that play key roles in diversifying chromatin structure. The known number of such variants has greatly increased in recent years, but the lack of naming conventions for them has led to a variety of naming styles, multiple synonyms and misleading homographs that obscure variant relationships and complicate database searches. We propose here a unified nomenclature for variants of all five classes of histones that uses consistent but flexible naming conventions to produce names that are informative and readily searchable. The nomenclature builds on historical usage and incorporates phylogenetic relationships, which are strong predictors of structure and function. A key feature is the consistent use of punctuation to represent phylogenetic divergence, making explicit the relationships among variant subtypes that have previously been implicit or unclear. We recommend that by default new histone variants be named with organism-specific paralog-number suffixes that lack phylogenetic implication, while letter suffixes be reserved for structurally distinct clades of variants. For clarity and searchability, we encourage the use of descriptors that are separate from the phylogeny-based variant name to indicate developmental and other properties of variants that may be independent of structure

A Comparative Risk Assessment Of Burden Of Disease And Injury Attributable To 67 Risk Factors And Risk Factor Clusters In 21 Regions, 1990–2010: A Systematic Analysis For The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2010

Background Quantification of the disease burden caused by different risks informs prevention by providing an account of health loss different to that provided by a disease-by-disease analysis. No complete revision of global disease burden caused by risk factors has been done since a comparative risk assessment in 2000, and no previous analysis has assessed changes in burden attributable to risk factors over time