1,740 research outputs found
Are Alcohol Excise Taxes Good For Us? Short and Long-Term Effects on Mortality Rates
Regression results from a 30-year panel of the state-level data indicate that changes in alcohol-excise taxes cause a reduction in drinking and lower all-cause mortality in the short run. But those results do not fully capture the long-term mortality effects of a permanent change in drinking levels. In particular, since moderate drinking has a protective effect against heart disease in middle age, it is possible that a reduction in per capita drinking will result in some people drinking "too little" and dying sooner than they otherwise would. To explore that possibility, we simulate the effect of a one percent reduction in drinking on all-cause mortality for the age group 35-69, using several alternative assumptions about how the reduction is distributed across this population. We find that the long-term mortality effect of a one percent reduction in drinking is essentially nil.
Perceptions of the Freezing Response of Male and Female Rape Victims, and an examination of the Moderating Role of Rape Myth Beliefs
PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate whether indicating victims of sexual attacks actively resisted their attacker or froze during their assault affected perceptions of victim blame, perpetrator blame and seriousness of the crime. We also tested whether victim and perpetrator gender or participants’ rape myth endorsement moderated the outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThis study was a cross-sectional, vignette survey study with a 2 × 2 between-participants experimental design. Participants read a mock police report describing an alleged rape with a female or male victim who either resisted or froze, while perpetrator gender was adjusted heteronormatively.FindingsFreezing and male victims were blamed more than resisting and female victims. Perpetrators were blamed more when the victim resisted, but male and female perpetrators were blamed equally. Seriousness of the crime was higher for male perpetrators and when the victim resisted. Female, but not male, rape myth acceptance moderated the relationship between victim behaviour and outcome variables.Originality/valueThis study highlights the influence of expectations about victim behaviour on perceptions of rape victims and the pervasive influence of rape myths when evaluating female rape victims. The data is drawn from the German border region of the Netherlands, which is an especially valuable population given the evolving legal definitions of rape in both countries
Performance Benchmarking of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Clouds with CloudWorkBench
The continuing growth of the cloud computing market has led to an unprecedented diversity of cloud services with different performance characteristics. To support service selection, researchers and practitioners conduct cloud performance benchmarking by measuring and objectively comparing the performance of different providers and configurations (e.g., instance types in different data center regions). In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to write performance tests for IaaS clouds using the Web-based benchmarking tool Cloud WorkBench (CWB). We will motivate and introduce benchmarking of IaaS cloud in general, demonstrate the execution of a simple benchmark in a public cloud environment, summarize the CWB tool architecture, and interactively develop and deploy a more advanced benchmark together with the participants
Digitalization in psychology: A bit of challenge and a byte of success
Digitalization affects research in almost every scientific discipline. This becomes apparent in new approaches of data analysis and management, such as machine learning, but also in new therapeutic approaches using digital and virtual technologies in patient care. Thus, digitalization can be considered a promising area in the field of evidence-based health care. However, a glance at the history of such applications reveals that the interaction between psychology and digital technologies has a long tradition. This perspective gives a brief overview on how digital technologies have emerged into psychological science in the past and what future challenges and opportunities are
Concept for a Time-of-Flight Small Angle Neutron Scattering Instrument at the European Spallation Source
A new Small Angle Neutron Scattering instrument is proposed for the European
Spallation Source. The pulsed source requires a time-of-flight analysis of the
gathered neutrons at the detector. The optimal instrument length is found to be
rather large, which allows for a polarizer and a versatile collimation. The
polarizer allows for studying magnetic samples and incoherent background
subtraction. The wide collimation will host VSANS and SESANS options that
increase the resolution of the instrument towards um and tens of um,
respectively. Two 1m2 area detectors will cover a large solid angle
simultaneously. The expected gains for this new instrument will lie in the
range between 20 and 36, depending on the assessment criteria, when compared to
up-to-date reactor based instruments. This will open new perspectives for fast
kinetics, weakly scattering samples, and multi-dimensional contrast variation
studies.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure
Citizen science as a bottom‐up approach to address human–wildlife conflicts: From theories and methods to practical implications
Although biodiversity conservation is a prioritized topic globally, agreements and regulations at multiple levels often fail to meet the desired effects due to insufficient knowledge transmission about and tolerance toward environmental protection measures among the public. To find effective measures to solve human-wildlife conflicts (HWCs) and promote a sustainable coexistence, it is essential to gain the public's understanding of the importance of preserving biodiversity. To spur progress in solution-oriented conservation science, we examine how citizen science (CS) can complement research in the HWC field and coexistence/mitigation strategies. We find that CS (1) is an effective tool for gathering wildlife data and (2) empowers citizens to participate in or drive (in a bottom-up manner) wildlife research and management. Each HWC has a unique social, economic, and geographical context, which makes it challenging to find appropriate mitigation measures. We developed a Global and Local Geographic (GLG) model that provides practical guidelines for implementing CS in HWC research. We argue that the inclusion of youth is fundamental to achieving coexistence between people and wildlife; thus integrating CS into formal education or including an educational component in CS projects can support the sustainable conservation of wildlife species and foster environmentally aware future generations
A Conductor’s Guide to J. N. Hummel’s Forgotten Oratorio: \u3ci\u3eDer Durchzug Durchs Rote Meer\u3c/i\u3e
Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s only oratorio, Der Durchzug durchs rote Meer, was lost to the musical world until around 2004. Hummel (1778–1837) was greatly esteemed during his life as a concert pianist and as a composer, and several of his choral works were among those highly regarded by his contemporaries. Interest in his works, along with Hummel scholarship, has increased in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Hummel’s oratorio is for Classical orchestra plus guitar, harp, and bass drum, four to ten vocal soli, and chorus. Its thirteen numbers run about 51 minutes, recounting the biblical story of Moses and Pharaoh, the ten plagues on Egypt, and the parting of the Red Sea. The composition stands on Classical tradition but displays a distinctively attractive and satisfying originality in motive, color, and harmonic and motivic relationships.
This monograph makes a conductor’s study of Der Durchzug durchs rote Meer based on the autograph manuscript, Add. 32187, British Library, London. The document discusses the structure and musical content of the work including influences from opera. It also presents conducting and performance issues for consideration.
Historical and biographical information is gathered so as to understand Hummel more specifically as a vocal composer, theatre musician, and man of initiative. The document further contributes to new scholarship with the discovery that Hummel, not Liszt, composed the first known bass drum roll. It leaves the question of the exact date of composition to future scholarship
CAMbase – A XML-based bibliographical database on Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
The term "Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)" covers a variety of approaches to medical theory and practice, which are not commonly accepted by representatives of conventional medicine. In the past two decades, these approaches have been studied in various areas of medicine. Although there appears to be a growing number of scientific publications on CAM, the complete spectrum of complementary therapies still requires more information about published evidence. A majority of these research publications are still not listed in electronic bibliographical databases such as MEDLINE. However, with a growing demand by patients for such therapies, physicians increasingly need an overview of scientific publications on CAM. Bearing this in mind, CAMbase, a bibliographical database on CAM was launched in order to close this gap. It can be accessed online free of charge or additional costs. The user can peruse more than 80,000 records from over 30 journals and periodicals on CAM, which are stored in CAMbase. A special search engine performing syntactical and semantical analysis of textual phrases allows the user quickly to find relevant bibliographical information on CAM. Between August 2003 and July 2006, 43,299 search queries, an average of 38 search queries per day, were registered focussing on CAM topics such as acupuncture, cancer or general safety aspects. Analysis of the requests led to the conclusion that CAMbase is not only used by scientists and researchers but also by physicians and patients who want to find out more about CAM. Closely related to this effort is our aim to establish a modern library center on Complementary Medicine which offers the complete spectrum of a modern digital library including a document delivery-service for physicians, therapists, scientists and researchers
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