A multifactorial analysis of acceptance of evolution

Background: Despite decades of education reform efforts, the percent of the general US population accepting biological evolution as the explanation for the diversity of life has remained relatively unchanged over the past 35 years. Previous work has shown the importance of both educational and non-educational (sociodemographic and psychological) factors on acceptance of evolution, but has often looked at such factors in isolation. Our study is among the first attempts to model quantitatively how the unique influences of evolutionary content knowledge, religiosity, epistemological sophistication, and an understanding of the nature of science collectively predict an individual’s acceptance or rejection of evolution. Results: Our study population had a high acceptance of evolution, with an average score of 77.17 (95% C.I. ± 1.483) on the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument. Our combined general linear model showed that, of the variables in our model, an understanding of the nature of science explained the greatest amount of variation in acceptance of evolution. This was followed in amount of variance explained by a measure of religiosity, openness to experience, religious denomination, number of biology courses previously taken, and knowledge of evolutionary biology terms. Conclusions: Understanding of the nature of science was the single most important factor associated with acceptance of evolution in our study and explained at least four times more variation than measures of evolutionary knowledge. This suggests that educational efforts to impact evolutionary acceptance should focus on increasing an understanding of the nature of science (which may be expected to have additional benefits towards generalized science denial). Additionally, our measure of epistemological sophistication had a unique, significant impact on acceptance of evolution. Both epistemological sophistication and an understanding of the nature of science are factors that might change throughout a liberal arts education, independent of the effect of direct evolutionary instruction

Social Experimentation as Reflection-in-A ction

We present the results of our review of some forty community-level interventions undertaken in the developing world over the past twenty years m order to reduce malnourishment in children. We argue that such interventions, if they are considered as social experiments, cannot be assimilated to models of quasi-experimental method. We propose an alternative model of experimentation, which we call "reflection-in-action", which seems to us better suited to account for the kinds ofvahdity and rigor attainable in situations such as these.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68568/2/10.1177_107554708400600101.pd

De Haas-Van Alphen measurements of one-electron and many-body effects in transition metals and intermetallic compounds

Examples are given which demonstrate the power and versatility of the dHvA effect in studying electronic behavior in metals. In transition metals the parametrization schemes give a very complete and consistent picture of the k-dependent and surface averaged electronic properties. Because the one-electron behavior is fairly well known, the many body contribution to the Fermi velocity can be isolated and its detailed anisotropy can be displayed. This kind of information is directly relevant to the calculation of electron-phonon interaction effects and cannot be derived by any other means

Higgs-Boson Production Induced by Bottom Quarks

Bottom quark-induced processes are responsible for a large fraction of the LHC discovery potential, in particular for supersymmetric Higgs bosons. Recently, the discrepancy between exclusive and inclusive Higgs boson production rates has been linked to the choice of an appropriate bottom factorization scale. We investigate the process kinematics at hadron colliders and show that it leads to a considerable decrease in the bottom factorization scale. This effect is the missing piece needed to understand the corresponding higher order results. Our results hold generally for charged and for neutral Higgs boson production at the LHC as well as at the Tevatron. The situation is different for single top quark production, where we find no sizeable suppression of the factorization scale. Turning the argument around, we can specify how large the collinear logarithms are, which can be resummed using the bottom parton picture.Comment: 18 page

CASSETTE—clindamycin adjunctive therapy for severe Staphylococcus aureus treatment evaluation: Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Background Exotoxins are important virulence factors in Staphylococcus aureus. Clindamycin, a protein synthesis inhibitor antibiotic, is thought to limit exotoxin production and improve outcomes in severe S. aureus infections. However, randomised prospective data to support this are lacking. Methods An open-label, multicentre, randomised controlled trial (RCT) will compare outcome differences in severe S. aureus infection between standard treatment (flucloxacillin/cefazolin in methicillin-susceptible S. aureus; and vancomycin/daptomycin in methicillin-resistant S. aureus) and standard treatment plus an additional clindamycin given for 7 days. We will include a minimum of 60 participants (both adult and children) in the pilot study. Participants will be enrolled within 72 h of an index culture. Severe infections will include septic shock, necrotising pneumonia, or multifocal and non-contiguous skin and soft tissue/osteoarticular infections. Individuals who are immunosuppressed, moribund, with current severe diarrhoea or Clostridiodes difficile infection, pregnant, and those with anaphylaxis to β-lactams or lincosamides will be excluded. The primary outcomes measure is the number of days alive and free (1 or 0) of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) within the first 14 days post randomisation. The secondary outcomes measure will include all-cause mortality at 14, 42, and 90 days, time to resolution of SIRS, proportion with microbiological treatment failure, and rate of change of C-reactive protein over time. Impacts of inducible clindamycin resistance, strain types, methicillin susceptibility, and presence of various exotoxins will also be analysed. Discussion This study will assess the effect of adjunctive clindamycin on patient-centred outcomes in severe, toxin-mediated S. aureus infections. The pilot study will provide feasibility for a much larger RCT. Trial registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12617001416381p. Registered on 6 October 2017

Effects of Cooking in Solutions of Varying pH on the Dietary Fiber Components of Vegetables

To study the effect of pH on dietary fiber components of vegetables, beans, cauliflower, potatoes, peas and corn were cooked in buffers of pH 2, 4, 6, and 10. Water-soluble pectin and hemicellulose, water-insoluble pectin and hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin were quantitated in raw, cooked vegetables and cooking medium. Tenderness and pH of raw and cooked vegetables were determined. Texture varied with cooking medium. Cooked vegetables were most firm at pH 4 and softest at pH 10. Dietary components found in cooking medium reflected these textural changes. Vegetables which showed greater pH effects exhibited greater changes in fiber components.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73821/1/j.1365-2621.1984.tb13237.x.pd

Search for Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in a triangular Ising antiferromagnet with further-neighbour ferromagnetic interactions

We investigate an antiferromagnetic triangular Ising model with anisotropic ferromagnetic interactions between next-nearest neighbours, originally proposed by Kitatani and Oguchi (J. Phys. Soc. Japan {\bf 57}, 1344 (1988)). The phase diagram as a function of temperature and the ratio between first- and second- neighbour interaction strengths is thoroughly examined. We search for a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition to a state with algebraic decay of correlations, calculating the correlation lengths on strips of width up to 15 sites by transfer-matrix methods. Phenomenological renormalization, conformal invariance arguments, the Roomany-Wyld approximation and a direct analysis of the scaled mass gaps are used. Our results provide limited evidence that a Kosterlitz-Thouless phase is present. Alternative scenarios are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX 3; 11 Postscript figures (uuencoded); to appear in Phys. Rev. E (1995

Clindamycin adjunctive therapy for severe Staphylococcus aureus treatment evaluation (CASSETTE)—an open-labelled pilot randomized controlled trial

Background Combination antibiotic therapy with an antitoxin agent, such as clindamycin, is included in some guidelines for severe, toxin-mediated Staphylococcus aureus infections. The evidence to support this practice is currently limited to in vitro, animal and observational human case-series data, with no previous randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Objectives This pilot RCT aimed to determine the feasibility of conducting a clinical trial to examine if adjunctive clindamycin with standard therapy has greater efficacy than standard therapy alone for S. aureus infections. Methods We performed an investigator-initiated, open-label, multicentre, pilot RCT (ACTRN12617001416381p) in adults and children with severe S. aureus infections, randomized to standard antibiotic therapy with or without clindamycin for 7 days. Results Over 28 months, across nine sites, 127 individuals were screened and 34 randomized, including 11 children (32%). The primary outcome—number of days alive and free of systemic inflammatory response syndrome ≤14 days—was similar between groups: clindamycin (3 days [IQR 1–6]) versus standard therapy (4 days [IQR 0–8]). The 90 day mortality was 0% (0/17) in the clindamycin group versus 24% (4/17) in the standard therapy group. Secondary outcomes—microbiological relapse, treatment failure or diarrhoea—were similar between groups. Conclusions As the first clinical trial assessing adjunctive clindamycin for S. aureus infections, this study indicates feasibility and that adults and children can be incorporated into one trial using harmonized endpoints, and there were no safety concerns. The CASSETTE trial will inform the definitive S. aureus Network Adaptive Platform (SNAP) trial, which includes an adjunctive clindamycin domain and participants with non-severe disease