Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the "Enhanced" Interrogation Program

Examines evidence of medical professionals monitoring the interrogations of detainees, analyzing the results, and seeking inferences to be applied to subsequent interrogations. Explores purposes and implications and recommends a federal investigation

Cloning of terminal transferase cDNA by antibody screening

A cDNA library was prepared from a terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-containing thymoma in the phage vector λgt11. By screening plaques with anti-terminal transferase antibody, positive clones were identified of which some had β-galactosidase-cDNA fusion proteins identifiable after electrophoretic fractionation by immunoblotting with anti-terminal transferase antibody. The predominant class of cross-hybridizing clones was determined to represent cDNA for terminal transferase by showing that one representative clone hybridized to a 2200-nucleotide mRNA in close-matched enzyme-positive but not to enzyme-negative cells and that the cDNA selected a mRNA that translated to give a protein of the size and antigenic characteristics of terminal transferase. Only a small amount of genomic DNA hybridized to the longest available clone, indicating that the sequence is virtually unique in the mouse genome

Confronting the Janus Face: The Armed Forces and African Transitional Politics

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, scholars have given renewed attention to the role of the armed forces as an essential but ambivalent actor in the birth, life, and death of democracy. Despite this emergent literature, there is no consensus concerning the institutional dimensions, causal mechanisms, and regional differences that motivate why soldiers choose to support political reformers, side with dictators, or upend existing democratic regimes. This dissertation proposes a theory on the relationship between authoritarian civil-military relations, democratic transitions, and the duration of emerging democratic regimes in Africa. It argues that the continent has been characterized by three predominant forms of authoritarian civil-military relations, each with distinct democratization patterns: military regimes, ethnic civil-military relations, and representative civil-military relations. Military regimes occur when a country is ruled by a junta of military officers. Cleavages between praetorian and professional factions of the armed forces make democratic transitions likely, but democratic settlements brittle. Authoritarian regimes with ethnic civil-military relations are ruled by a civilian who attempts to recruit co-ethnics into key positions in the army or other parallel military institutions. Patron-client relations between the authoritarian leaders and military institutions dominated by co-ethnics impede democratic transition, but the absence of a politically dominant military results in more stable democracy than in military regimes. Authoritarian regimes with representative civil-military relations refrain from manipulating either the political or ethnic loyalties of the armed forces. Marginalized from politics and free from ethnic allegiances, such regimes are most likely to transition to stable democratic rule. These theoretical claims are evaluated through cross-country regression analysis and case studies in Nigeria, Sudan and Tunisia. The cross-country analysis tests whether authoritarian military institutions affect the likelihood of democratic transition, as well as the duration of emerging democratic regimes. The case studies, which are supported by key informant interviews with military officials and politicians in Tunisia and Nigeria, trace the causal mechanisms that facilitate military action for or against democratization

A Duration Analysis of Food Safety Recall Events in the United States: January, 2000 to October, 2009

The safety of the food supply in the United States has become an issue of prominence in the minds of ordinary Americans. Several government agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, are charged with the responsibility of preserving the safety of the food supply. Food is withdrawn from the market in a product recall when tainted or mislabeled and has the potential to harm the consumer in some manner. This research examines recall events issued by firms over the period of January, 2000 through October, 2009 in the United States. Utilizing economic and management theory to establish predictions, this study employs the Cox proportional hazard regression model to analyze the effects of firm size and branding on the risk of recall recurrence. The size of the firm was measured in both billions of dollars of sales and in thousands of employees. Branding by the firm was measured as a binary variable that expressed if a firm had a brand and as a count of the number of brands within a firm. This study also provides a descriptive statistical analysis and several findings based on the recall data specifically relating to annual occurrences, geographical locations of the firms involved, types of products recalled, and reasons for recall. We hypothesized that the increasing firm size would be associated with increased relative risk of a recall event while branding and an increasing portfolio of brands would be associated with decreased relative risk of a recall event. However, it was found that increased firm size and branding by the firm are associated with an increased risk of recall occurrence. The results of this research can have implications on food safety standards in both the public and private sectors

On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-profound Bullshit

Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity

It’s Still Bullshit: Reply to Dalton (2016)

In reply to Dalton (2016), the authors argue that bullshit is defined in terms of how it is produced, not how it is interpreted. They agree that it can be interpreted as profound by some readers (and assumed as much in the original paper). Nonetheless, they present additional evidence against the possibility that more reflective thinkers are more inclined to interpret bullshit statements as profound

Correction: Phylogenetic placement of the enigmatic parasite, Polypodium hydriforme, within the Phylum Cnidaria

Correction to Evans, N.M., Lindner, A., Raikova, E.V., Collins, A.G. and Cartwright, P. Phylogenetic placement of the enigmatic parasite, Polypodium hydriforme, within the phylum Cnidaria. BMC Evol Biol, 2008, 8:139