385 research outputs found
Do Zoos and Aquariums Promote Attitude Change in Visitors? A Critical Evaluation of the American Zoo and Aquarium Study
Modern-day zoos and aquariums market themselves as places of education and conservation. A recent study conducted by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) (Falk et al., 2007) is being widely heralded as the first direct evidence that visits to zoos and aquariums produce long-term positive effects on people’s attitudes toward other animals. In this paper, we address whether this conclusion is warranted by analyzing the study’s methodological soundness. We conclude that Falk et al. (2007) contains at least six major threats to methodological validity that undermine the authors’ conclusions. There remains no compelling evidence for the claim that zoos and aquariums promote attitude change, education, or interest in conservation in visitors, although further investigation of this possibility using methodologically sophisticated designs is warranted
Time trends and persistence in European temperature anomalies.
This paper looks at the level of persistence in the temperature anomalies series of 114 European cities. Once this level of persistence has been identified, the time trend coefficients are estimated and the results indicate that most of the series examined display positive trends, supporting thus climate warming. Moreover, the results obtained confirm the hypothesis that long-memory behaviour cannot be neglected in the study of temperature time series, changing, therefore, the estimated effect of global warming.pre-print825 K
Analyticity and uniform stability in the inverse spectral problem for Dirac operators
We prove that the inverse spectral mapping reconstructing the square
integrable potentials on [0,1] of Dirac operators in the AKNS form from their
spectral data (two spectra or one spectrum and the corresponding norming
constants) is analytic and uniformly stable in a certain sense.Comment: 19 page
prototype conductor for the transmission line magnet
The Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC), under consideration for construction at Fermilab in the next 1-2 decades, is a 100 TeV cm pp collider. A major cost driver is the magnet. R&D is underway on several possible magnet designs. A low-field (2T) superferric magnet, sometimes called a transmission line magnet, may be the most cost- effective route to the VLHC. Although NbTi is now the cheapest superconductor measured in cost/kA-meter, Nb/sub 3/Al has the potential advantage that it remains superconducting at higher temperature. It may be particularly suited to the single "turn" and long straight lengths of the transmission line design. The combination of the simple magnet design and the higher strain tolerance than e.g. Nb/sub 3/Sn allows a simple process of cable fabrication, reaction, and magnet assembly. This higher strain tolerance is an advantage for splicing in the field. Sumitomo Electric Industries is producing an Nb/sub 3/Al conductor for the Fermilab low-field magnet program. (9 refs)
Emergent complex neural dynamics
A large repertoire of spatiotemporal activity patterns in the brain is the
basis for adaptive behaviour. Understanding the mechanism by which the brain's
hundred billion neurons and hundred trillion synapses manage to produce such a
range of cortical configurations in a flexible manner remains a fundamental
problem in neuroscience. One plausible solution is the involvement of universal
mechanisms of emergent complex phenomena evident in dynamical systems poised
near a critical point of a second-order phase transition. We review recent
theoretical and empirical results supporting the notion that the brain is
naturally poised near criticality, as well as its implications for better
understanding of the brain
The Effects of Home Computers on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Schoolchildren
Are home computers are an important input in the educational production
function? To address this question, we conduct a field experiment
involving the provision of free computers to schoolchildren for home
use. Low-income children attending middle and high schools in 15 schools
in California were randomly selected to receive free computers and
followed over the school year. The results indicate that the experiment
substantially increased computer ownership and total computer use among
the schoolchildren with no substitution away from use at school or other
locations outside the home. We find no evidence that the home computers
improved educational outcomes for the treatment group. From detailed
administrative data provided by the schools and a follow-up survey, we
find no evidence of positive effects on a comprehensive set of outcomes
such as grades, test scores, credits, attendance, school enrollment,
computer skills, and college aspirations. The estimates also do not
indicate that the effects of home computers on educational outcomes are
instead negative. Our estimates are precise enough to rule out even
modestly-sized positive or negative impacts. The lack of a positive net
effect on educational outcomes may be due to displacement from
non-educational uses such as for games, social networking, and
entertainment. We find evidence that total hours of computer use for
games and social networking increases substantially with having a home
computer, and increases more than total hours of computer use for schoolwork
- …