Does mathematics training lead to better logical thinking and reasoning? A cross-sectional assessment from students to professors

© 2020 Cresswell, Speelman. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Mathematics is often promoted as endowing those who study it with transferable skills such as an ability to think logically and critically or to have improved investigative skills, resourcefulness and creativity in problem solving. However, there is scant evidence to back up such claims. This project tested participants with increasing levels of mathematics training on 11 well-studied rational and logical reasoning tasks aggregated from various psychological studies. These tasks, that included the Cognitive Reflection Test and the Wason Selection Task, are of particular interest as they have typically and reliably eluded participants in all studies, and results have been uncorrelated with general intelligence, education levels and other demographic information. The results in this study revealed that in general the greater the mathematics training of the participant, the more tasks were completed correctly, and that performance on some tasks was also associated with performance on others not traditionally associated. A ceiling effect also emerged. The work is deconstructed from the viewpoint of adding to the platform from which to approach the greater, and more scientifically elusive, question: are any skills associated with mathematics training innate or do they arise from skills transfer

Review of Past Nuclear Accidents: Source Terms and Recorded Gamma-Ray Spectra

Airborne gamma ray spectrometry using high volume scintillation detectors, optionally in conjunction with Ge detectors, has potential for making rapid environmental measurements in response to nuclear accidents. A literature search on past nuclear accidents has been conducted to define the source terms which have been experienced so far. Selected gamma ray spectra recorded after past accidents have also been collated to examine the complexity of observed behaviour

An Airborne and Vehicular Gamma Survey of Greenham Common, Newbury District and Surrounding Areas

The airborne gamma ray survey recorded more than 40,000 scintillation spectra and 20,000 spectra from semiconductor detectors. The vehicular survey produced a further 1346 and 763 spectral sets respectively. The installation, calibration, recording and analysis followed SURRC procedures which have been developed and validated over many years and are fully documented. Pre flight checks on detector performance for energy calibration, energy resolution and sensitivity were performed on a daily basis. Background readings over water were taken on a daily basis. All data were registered and backed up in duplicate to form a digital archive of the survey. Subsequent analysis and mapping has used a combination of standard procedures established over many years, and new techniques developed to analyse the low energy spectra. All results have been retained to facilitate traceability and further analysis in the future. The sensitivity of the aircraft and vehicle were also checked at Greenham Common by collecting a set of 31 core samples for independent laboratory analysis. The key points arising from the airborne survey of the entire area show that there has been sufficient sensitivity to record variations in the natural background. The levels of 137Cs are consistent with weapons' testing fallout, and are substantially lower than in other parts of the UK and Europe. The average levels of K (0.5%), U (1 ppm) and Th (3 ppm) are lower than national averages and show variations within the area which reflect local geology and landcover. The area as a whole therefore is one of low environmental radiation background compared with national averages. There is no evidence of signals at Greenham Common or in its vicinity which would present a local radiation hazard. However, signals were detected in the vicinity of Harwell and the Rutherford laboratory which would, at the time of the survey, represent radiation projected off-site as a result of materials stored on-site or on-site activities. Examination of the low energy gamma ray spectra recorded from the semiconductor detectors reveals no evidence, within the sensitivity limits of the method, for excess gamma ray signals at the energies associated with 235U around Greenham Common, Newbury and Thatcham. The low energy data are sufficiently sensitive to record variations in the distribution of natural activity in the area. There is tentative evidence for 241Am in the vicinity of AWE Aldermaston. The vehicular survey demonstrated that the grass areas in between the runway and taxi lanes, and around the hardstand associated with the 1958 fire have retained weapons' testing 137Cs. This supports the view that these represent authentic undisturbed areas for sampling. The built surfaces remaining at the time of the survey were of lower natural activity and 137Cs content than their surroundings. High resolution gamma ray spectra at selected sites were also consistent with the known sources of background radioactivity. On the basis of the results, Newbury District and surrounding areas represent an area with low environmental radioactivity compared with national and European averages. There is no evidence to substantiate fears about the quality of the radiation environment in the vicinity of Greenham Common

Experimental Measurements and Computer Simulation of Fission Product Gamma-Ray Spectra

Airborne gamma ray spectrometry using high volume scintillation detectors, optionally in conjunction with Ge detectors, has potential for making rapid environmental measurements in response to nuclear accidents. An experimental investigation and computer simulation have been used to characterise the response of such detectors to short lived fission products. Small samples of 235U were irradiated in a research reactor for short periods, to generate fission product sources. Gamma ray spectra were recorded over a period of one year using both high volume scintillation detectors and semiconductor detectors. The main gamma emitting nuclides have been identified, and their associated signals in each detector defined. Simulation work has been used to calculate the corresponding spectra which would have been observed at airborne survey heights, or from fission product sources irradiated for a prolonged period. While Ge detectors can record a fuller range of isotopes, of interest in characterising release terms, the NaI spectra also have potential for providing data on a range of radiologically important isotopes at all stages

An Airborne and Vehicular Gamma Survey of Greenham Common, Newbury District and Surrounding Areas

The airborne gamma ray survey recorded more than 40,000 scintillation spectra and 20,000 spectra from semiconductor detectors. The vehicular survey produced a further 1346 and 763 spectral sets respectively. The installation, calibration, recording and analysis followed SURRC procedures which have been developed and validated over many years and are fully documented. Pre flight checks on detector performance for energy calibration, energy resolution and sensitivity were performed on a daily basis. Background readings over water were taken on a daily basis. All data were registered and backed up in duplicate to form a digital archive of the survey. Subsequent analysis and mapping has used a combination of standard procedures established over many years, and new techniques developed to analyse the low energy spectra. All results have been retained to facilitate traceability and further analysis in the future. The sensitivity of the aircraft and vehicle were also checked at Greenham Common by collecting a set of 31 core samples for independent laboratory analysis. The key points arising from the airborne survey of the entire area show that there has been sufficient sensitivity to record variations in the natural background. The levels of 137Cs are consistent with weapons' testing fallout, and are substantially lower than in other parts of the UK and Europe. The average levels of K (0.5%), U (1 ppm) and Th (3 ppm) are lower than national averages and show variations within the area which reflect local geology and landcover. The area as a whole therefore is one of low environmental radiation background compared with national averages. There is no evidence of signals at Greenham Common or in its vicinity which would present a local radiation hazard. However, signals were detected in the vicinity of Harwell and the Rutherford laboratory which would, at the time of the survey, represent radiation projected off-site as a result of materials stored on-site or on-site activities. Examination of the low energy gamma ray spectra recorded from the semiconductor detectors reveals no evidence, within the sensitivity limits of the method, for excess gamma ray signals at the energies associated with 235U around Greenham Common, Newbury and Thatcham. The low energy data are sufficiently sensitive to record variations in the distribution of natural activity in the area. There is tentative evidence for 241Am in the vicinity of AWE Aldermaston. The vehicular survey demonstrated that the grass areas in between the runway and taxi lanes, and around the hardstand associated with the 1958 fire have retained weapons' testing 137Cs. This supports the view that these represent authentic undisturbed areas for sampling. The built surfaces remaining at the time of the survey were of lower natural activity and 137Cs content than their surroundings. High resolution gamma ray spectra at selected sites were also consistent with the known sources of background radioactivity. On the basis of the results, Newbury District and surrounding areas represent an area with low environmental radioactivity compared with national and European averages. There is no evidence to substantiate fears about the quality of the radiation environment in the vicinity of Greenham Common

On the extraction of disjunctive landmarks from planning problems via symmetry reduction

The exploitation of symmetry in combinatorial search has typically focused on using information about symmetries to control search. This work describes an approach that exploits symmetry to get more detailed domain-analysis rather than as a method of search control

Psychopolitics: Peter Sedgwick’s legacy for mental health movements

This paper re-considers the relevance of Peter Sedgwick's Psychopolitics (1982) for a politics of mental health. Psychopolitics offered an indictment of ‘anti-psychiatry’ the failure of which, Sedgwick argued, lay in its deconstruction of the category of ‘mental illness’, a gesture that resulted in a politics of nihilism. ‘The radical who is only a radical nihilist’, Sedgwick observed, ‘is for all practical purposes the most adamant of conservatives’. Sedgwick argued, rather, that the concept of ‘mental illness’ could be a truly critical concept if it was deployed ‘to make demands upon the health service facilities of the society in which we live’. The paper contextualizes Psychopolitics within the ‘crisis tendencies’ of its time, surveying the shifting welfare landscape of the subsequent 25 years alongside Sedgwick's continuing relevance. It considers the dilemma that the discourse of ‘mental illness’ – Sedgwick's critical concept – has fallen out of favour with radical mental health movements yet remains paradigmatic within psychiatry itself. Finally, the paper endorses a contemporary perspective that, while necessarily updating Psychopolitics, remains nonetheless ‘Sedgwickian’

On the evolution of eccentric and inclined protoplanets embedded in protoplanetary disks

Young planets embedded in their protoplanetary disk interact gravitationally with it leading to energy and angular momentum exchange. This interaction determines the evolution of the planet through changes to the orbital parameters. We investigate changes in the orbital elements of a 20 Earth--mass planet due to the torques from the disk. We focus on the non-linear evolution of initially non-vanishing eccentricity $e$ and/or inclination $i$. We treat the disk as a two- or three-dimensional viscous fluid and perform hydrodynamical simulations with an embedded planet. We find rapid exponential decay of the planet orbital eccentricity and inclination for small initial values of $e$ and $i$, in agreement with linear theory. For larger values of $e > 0.1$ the decay time increases and the decay rate scales as $\dot{e} \propto e^{-2}$, consistent with existing theoretical models. For large inclinations ($i$ > 6 deg) the inclination decay rate shows an identical scaling $di/dt \propto i^{-2}$. We find an interesting dependence of the migration on the eccentricity. In a disk with aspect ratio $H/r=0.05$ the migration rate is enhanced for small non-zero eccentricities ($e < 0.1$), while for larger values we see a significant reduction by a factor of $\sim 4$. We find no indication for a reversal of the migration for large $e$, although the torque experienced by the planet becomes positive when $e \simeq 0.3$. This inward migration is caused by the persisting energy loss of the planet. For non gap forming planets, eccentricity and inclination damping occurs on a time scale that is very much shorter than the migration time scale. The results of non linear hydrodynamic simulations are in very good agreement with linear theory for small $e$ and $i$.Comment: accepted for Astronomy & Astrophysics, 16 pages, 16 figures, animations under: http://www.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de/~kley/publ/paper/eccp.htm

Fertility control as a means of controlling bovine tuberculosis in badger (Meles meles) populations in south-west England: predictions from a spatial stochastic simulation model

A spatial stochastic simulation model was used to assess the potential of fertility control, based on a yet-to-be-developed oral bait-delivered contraceptive directed at females, for the control of bovine tuberculosis in badger populations in south-west England. The contraceptive had a lifelong effect so that females rendered sterile in any particular year remained so for the rest of their lives. The efficacy of fertility control alone repeated annually for varying periods of time was compared with a single culling operation and integrated control involving an initial single cull followed by annually repeated fertility control. With fertility control alone, in no instance was the disease eradicated completely while a viable badger population (mean group size of at least one individual) was still maintained. Near eradication of the disease (less than 1% prevalence) combined with the survival of a minimum viable badger population was only achieved under a very limited set of conditions, either with high efficiency of control (95%) over a short time period (1-3 years) or a low efficiency of control (20%) over an intermediate time period (10-20 years). Under these conditions, it took more than 20 years for the disease to decline to such low levels. A single cull of 80% efficiency succeeded in near eradication of the disease (below 1% prevalence) after a period of 6-8 years, while still maintaining a viable badger population. Integrated strategies reduced disease prevalence more rapidly and to lower levels than culling alone, although the mean badger group size following the onset of control was smaller. Under certain integrated strategies, principally where a high initial cull (80%) was followed by fertility control over a short (1-3 year) time period, the disease could be completely eradicated while a viable badger population was maintained. However, even under the most favourable conditions of integrated control, it took on average more than 12 years following the onset of control for the disease to disappear completely from the badger population. These results show that whilst fertility control would not be a successful strategy for the control of bovine tuberculosis in badgers if used alone, it could be effective if used with culling as part of an integrated strategy. This type of integrated strategy is likely to be more effective in terms of disease eradication than a strategy employing culling alone. However, the high cost of developing a suitable fertility control agent, combined with the welfare and conservation implications, are significant factors which should be taken into account when considering its possible use as a means of controlling bovine tuberculosis in badger populations in the UK