If only it were true: the problem with the four conditionals

The traditional division of conditionals into four main types (zero, first, second, and third) has long been called into question. Unfortunately, the awareness that this description does not reflect conditional patterns in actual usage has not generally been reflected in EFL coursebooks. This article re-examines the arguments for a description of conditional patterns which reflects actual usage and uses corpus data to demonstrate the kind of patterns in frequent use. It then suggests two teaching approaches that may help teachers to tackle a variety of conditional patterns in the classroom

Precautionary advice about mobile phones: Public understandings and intended responses

The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright @ Taylor & FrancisThere is a widespread academic and policy debate about public responses to precaution in public health campaigns. This paper explores these issues in relation to the precautionary stance adopted in the UK around the regulation of mobile telecommunications. The aim of the paper is to examine the nature of attitudes to precaution, and the way in which these, along with other relevant variables, relate to the intention to adopt relevant behaviours. The results from an experimental study (n = 173) indicate that people distinguish between two dimensions of precaution: firstly in relation to its value or necessity per se and secondly as anchored to notions of governance. The two variables differentially relate to other variables including trust and uncertainty, and are predictive of intended behaviour change indirectly, through worry about mobile phone risks. Precautionary advice was generally interpreted as causing concern rather than providing reassurance. The results suggest that precaution may be considered a valuable stance but this does not mean that it is seen as good governance or that it will reduce concern. Whilst the discourse of precaution is aimed at reducing concern, it appears that the uptake of relevant behaviours is largely triggered by worry

A multi-model climate response over tropical Africa at +2 °C

The impact of a +2 °C global warming on temperature and precipitation over tropical Africa is examined, based on an ensemble of 12 regional climate model scenario simulations. These 12 scenarios are re-phased so that they all correspond to the same global warming of 2 °C with respect to pre-industrial conditions. The continental temperature increase is above the global average. If heat waves are defined with the same temperature threshold in the reference climate and in the scenario, their frequency increases by a factor of 10. When the temperature threshold is adapted to future conditions, there is still a slight increase in frequency. The average precipitation does not show a significant response, due to model-to-model spread. However two compensating phenomena occur, which are robust among the models: (a) the number of rain days decreases whereas the precipitation intensity increases, and (b) the rain season occurs later during the year with less precipitation in early summer and more precipitation in late summer. Simulated daily temperature and precipitation data are combined in two impact models, one for the hydrology of the Nile and Niger basins, one for the food security of the different countries. They show that the main feature of the climate change is not a continuous trend signal, but an alternation of dry and wet decadal to multidecadal episodes

Contextualised strong reciprocity explains selfless cooperation despite selfish intuitions and weak social heuristics

Humans frequently cooperate for collective benefit, even in one-shot social dilemmas. This provides a challenge for theories of cooperation. Two views focus on intuitions but offer conflicting explanations. The Social Heuristics Hypothesis argues that people with selfish preferences rely on cooperative intuitions and predicts that deliberation reduces cooperation. The Self-Control Account emphasizes control over selfish intuitions and is consistent with strong reciprocity—a preference for conditional cooperation in one-shot dilemmas. Here, we reconcile these explanations with each other as well as with strong reciprocity. We study one-shot cooperation across two main dilemma contexts, provision and maintenance, and show that cooperation is higher in provision than maintenance. Using time-limit manipulations, we experimentally study the cognitive processes underlying this robust result. Supporting the Self-Control Account, people are intuitively selfish in maintenance, with deliberation increasing cooperation. In contrast, consistent with the Social Heuristics Hypothesis, deliberation tends to increase the likelihood of free-riding in provision. Contextual differences between maintenance and provision are observed across additional measures: reaction time patterns of cooperation; social dilemma understanding; perceptions of social appropriateness; beliefs about others’ cooperation; and cooperation preferences. Despite these dilemma-specific asymmetries, we show that preferences, coupled with beliefs, successfully predict the high levels of cooperation in both maintenance and provision dilemmas. While the effects of intuitions are context-dependent and small, the widespread preference for strong reciprocity is the primary driver of one-shot cooperation. We advance the Contextualised Strong Reciprocity account as a unifying framework and consider its implications for research and policy

High background rates of positive tuberculosis-specific interferon-? release assays in a low prevalence region of UK: a surveillance study

Background: Background rates of latent tuberculosis infection in low prevalence regions of Britain are unknown. These would be valuable data for interpreting positive IGRA results, and guiding cost-benefit analyses. The management of a large outbreak of tuberculosis occurring in a rural district hospital provided an opportunity to determine the background rates and epidemiology of IGRA-positivity amongst unselected hospital patients in a low-prevalence region of U.K.Methods: As part of a public health surveillance project we identified 445 individuals exposed to the index cases for clinical assessment and testing by a TB-specific interferon-? release assay (IGRA): T-Spot.TB. Uniquely, an additional comparator group of 191 age-matched individuals without specific recent exposure, but with a similar age distribution and demographic, were recruited from the same wards where exposure had previously occurred, to undergo assessment by questionnaire and IGRA. Results: Rates of IGRA positivity were 8.7% (95%CI, 4.2-13, n=149) amongst unexposed patients, 9.5%(3.0-22, n=21) amongst unexposed staff, 22%(14–29, n=130) amongst exposed patients, 11%(6.1-16, n=142) amongst exposed staff. Amongst the individuals without history of recent exposure to the outbreak, IGRA-positivity was associated with prior TB treatment (OR11, P.04) and corticosteroid use (OR5.9, P.02). Background age-specific prevalences of IGRA-positivity amongst unexposed individuals were: age <40 0%(N/A), age 40–59 15%(12–29), age 60–79 7.0%(1.1-13), age?80 10%(5.9-19).Conclusions: Background rates of IGRA-positivity remain high amongst unselected white-Caucasian hospital inpatients in U.K. These data will aid interpretation of future outbreak studies. As rates peak in the 5th and 6th decade, given an ageing population and increasing iatrogenic immunosuppression, reactivation of LTBI may be a persistent hazard in this population for several decades to come