Test apparatus for locating shorts during assembly of electrical buses

A test apparatus is described for locating electrical shorts that is especially suited for use while an electrical circuit is being fabricated or assembled. A ring counter derives input pulses from a square wave oscillator. The outputs of the counter are fed through transistors to an array of light emitting diodes. Each diode is connected to an electrical conductor, such as a bus bar, that is to be tested. In the absence of a short between the electrical conductors the diodes are sequentially illuminated. When a short occurs, a comparator/multivibrator circuit triggers an alarm and stops the oscillator and the sequential energization of the diodes. The two diodes that remain illuminated identify the electrical conductors that are shorted

Controlling the influence of stereotypes on one’s thoughts (Preprint title: Controlling implicit bias: Insights from a public health perspective)

Research on reducing or controlling implicit bias has been characterized by a tension between the two goals of reducing lingering intergroup disparities and gaining insight into human cognition. The tension between these two goals has created two distinct research traditions, each of which is characterized by different research questions, methods, and ultimate goals. We argue that the divisions between these research traditions are more apparent than real and that the two research traditions could be synergistic. We attempt to integrate the two traditions by arguing that implicit bias, and the disparities it is presumed to cause, is a public health problem. Based on this perspective, we identify shortcomings in our current knowledge of controlling implicit bias and provide a set of recommendations for future research

Metal Oxide Silicon /MOS/ transistors protected from destructive damage by wire

Loop of flexible, small diameter, nickel wire protects metal oxide silicon /MOS/ transistors from a damaging electrostatic potential. The wire is attached to a music-wire spring, slipped over the MOS transistor case, and released so the spring tensions the wire loop around all the transistor leads, shorting them together. This allows handling without danger of damage

The development and evaluation of a series of recordings for teaching certain critical listening abilities

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University

The motivation to express prejudice

Contemporary prejudice research focuses primarily on people who are motivated to respond without prejudice and the ways in which unintentional bias can cause these people to act inconsistent with this motivation. However, some real-world phenomena (e.g., hate speech, hate crimes) and experimental findings (e.g., Plant & Devine, 2001; 2009) suggest that some expressions of prejudice are intentional. These phenomena and findings are difficult to explain solely from the motivations to respond without prejudice. We argue that some people are motivated to express prejudice, and we develop the motivation to express prejudice (MP) scale to measure this motivation. In seven studies involving more than 6,000 participants, we demonstrate that, across scale versions targeted at Black people and gay men, the MP scale has good reliability and convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. In normative climates that prohibit prejudice, the internal and external motivations to express prejudice are functionally non-independent, but they become more independent when normative climates permit more prejudice toward a target group. People high in the motivation to express prejudice are relatively likely to resist pressure to support programs promoting intergroup contact and vote for political candidates who support oppressive policies. The motivation to express prejudice predicted these outcomes even when controlling for attitudes and the motivations to respond without prejudice. This work encourages contemporary prejudice researchers to broaden the range of samples, target groups, and phenomena that they study, and more generally to consider the intentional aspects of negative intergroup behavior

Breaking the prejudice habit: Mechanisms, timecourse, and longevity

The prejudice habit-breaking intervention (Devine et al., 2012) and its offshoots (e.g., Carnes et al., 2012) have shown promise in effecting long-term change in key outcomes related to intergroup bias, including increases in awareness, concern about discrimination, and, in one study, long-term decreases in implicit bias. This intervention is based on the premise that unintentional bias is like a habit that can be broken with sufficient motivation, awareness, and effort. We conducted replication of the original habit-breaking intervention experiment in a sample more than three times the size of the original (N = 292). We also measured all outcomes every other day for 14 days and measured potential mechanisms for the intervention’s effects. Consistent with previous results, the habit-breaking intervention produced a change in concern that endured two weeks post-intervention. These effects were associated with increased sensitivity to the biases of others and an increased tendency to label biases as wrong. Contrasting with the original work, both control and intervention participants decreased in implicit bias, and the effects of the habit-breaking intervention on awareness declined in the second week of the study. In a subsample recruited two years later, intervention participants were more likely than control participants to object on a public online forum to an essay endorsing racial stereotyping. Our results suggest that the habit-breaking intervention produces enduring changes in peoples’ knowledge of and beliefs about race-related issues, and we argue that these changes are even more important for promoting long-term behavioral change than are changes in implicit bias

Caching Behavior by Wintering Northern Saw-Whet Owls, Aegolius acadicus

We observed 16 instances of caching behavior by Northern Saw-whet Owls in southern Connecticut between 30 October and 29 March over a 23-year period 1982 to 2004. Caches consisted of a single prey item in 13 instances and two prey items in three instances. Prey was cached either directly beneath the owl or from 5-28 cm distant, always on the same branch on which the owl was roosting. Observations of cached prey marked in the morning suggested that it was consumed after 14:30 in the afternoon of the same day. Such a delay indicated a true cache rather than delayed feeding

Heart enhancers with deeply conserved regulatory activity are established early in zebrafish development.

During the phylotypic period, embryos from different genera show similar gene expression patterns, implying common regulatory mechanisms. Here we set out to identify enhancers involved in the initial events of cardiogenesis, which occurs during the phylotypic period. We isolate early cardiac progenitor cells from zebrafish embryos and characterize 3838 open chromatin regions specific to this cell population. Of these regions, 162 overlap with conserved non-coding elements (CNEs) that also map to open chromatin regions in human. Most of the zebrafish conserved open chromatin elements tested drive gene expression in the developing heart. Despite modest sequence identity, human orthologous open chromatin regions recapitulate the spatial temporal expression patterns of the zebrafish sequence, potentially providing a basis for phylotypic gene expression patterns. Genome-wide, we discover 5598 zebrafish-human conserved open chromatin regions, suggesting that a diverse repertoire of ancient enhancers is established prior to organogenesis and the phylotypic period

Breaking the prejudice habit: Automaticity and control in the context of a long-term goal

In what follows, we will describe the problem that motivated the development of the prejudice habit model, namely, that even people who report beliefs and attitudes that are opposed to prejudice can act in discriminatory ways. We will then review the prejudice habit model and how the model uses the distinction between controlled and automatic processes to understand lingering group disparities. We will end our discussion with a review of topics for further research and the implications of the prejudice habit model for other dual process theories