An experimental investigation of the relationships among race, prayer, and pain

Background and aims Compared to White individuals, Black individuals demonstrate a lower pain tolerance. Research suggests that differences in pain coping strategies, such as prayer, may mediate this race difference. However, previous research has been cross-sectional and has not determined whether prayer in and of itself or rather the passive nature of prayer is driving the effects on pain tolerance. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationships among race, prayer (both active and passive), and pain tolerance. Methods We randomly assigned 208 pain-free participants (47% Black, 53% White) to one of three groups: active prayer (“God, help me endure the pain”), passive prayer (“God, take the pain away”), or no prayer (“The sky is blue”). Participants first completed a series of questionnaires including the Duke University Religion Index, the Coping Strategies Questionnaire-Revised (CSQ-R), and the Pain Catastrophizing Scale. Participants were then instructed to repeat a specified prayer or distractor coping statement while undergoing a cold pressor task. Cold pain tolerance was measured by the number of seconds that had elapsed while the participant’s hand remained in the cold water bath (maximum 180 s). Results Results of independent samples t-tests indicated that Black participants scored higher on the CSQ-R prayer/hoping subscale. However, there were no race differences among other coping strategies, religiosity, or catastrophizing. Results of a 2 (Race: White vs. Black)×3 (Prayer: active vs. passive vs. no prayer) ANCOVA controlling for a general tendency to pray and catastrophizing in response to prayer indicated a main effect of prayer that approached significance (p=0.06). Pairwise comparisons indicated that those in the active prayer condition demonstrated greater pain tolerance than those in the passive (p=0.06) and no prayer (p=0.03) conditions. Those in the passive and no prayer distractor conditions did not significantly differ (p=0.70). There was also a trending main effect of race [p=0.08], with White participants demonstrating greater pain tolerance than Black participants. Conclusions Taken together, these results indicate that Black participants demonstrated a lower pain tolerance than White participants, and those in the active prayer condition demonstrated greater tolerance than those in the passive and no prayer conditions. Furthermore, Black participants in the passive prayer group demonstrated the lowest pain tolerance, while White participants in the active prayer group exhibited the greatest tolerance. Results of this study suggest that passive prayer, like other passive coping strategies, may be related to lower pain tolerance and thus poorer pain outcomes, perhaps especially for Black individuals. On the other hand, results suggest active prayer is associated with greater pain tolerance, especially for White individuals. Implications These results suggest that understanding the influence of prayer on pain may require differentiation between active versus passive prayer strategies. Like other active coping strategies for pain, active prayer may facilitate self-management of pain and thus enhance pain outcomes independent of race. Psychosocial interventions may help religiously-oriented individuals, regardless of race, cultivate a more active style of prayer to improve their quality of life

A continuously updated, geospatially rectified database of utility-scale wind turbines in the United States.

Over 60,000 utility-scale wind turbines are installed in the United States as of October, 2019, representing over 97 gigawatts of electric power capacity; US wind turbine installations continue to grow at a rapid pace. Yet, until April 2018, no publicly-available, regularly updated data source existed to describe those turbines and their locations. Under a cooperative research and development agreement, analysts from three organizations collaborated to develop and release the United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) - a publicly available, continuously updated, spatially rectified data source of locations and attributes of utility-scale wind turbines in the United States. Technical specifications and wind facility data, incorporated from five sources, undergo rigorous quality control. The location of each turbine is visually verified using high-resolution aerial imagery. The quarterly-updated data are available in a variety of formats, including an interactive web application, comma-separated values (CSV), shapefile, and application programming interface (API). The data are used widely by academic researchers, engineers and developers from wind energy companies, government agencies, planners, educators, and the general public

Memento Mori: The development and validation of the Death Reflection Scale

Despite its potential for advancing organizational behavior (OB) research, the topic of death awareness has been vastly understudied. Moreover, research on death awareness has predominantly focused on the anxiety‐provoking aspect of death‐related cognitions, thus overlooking the positive aspect of death awareness, death reflection. This gap is exacerbated by the lack of a valid research instrument to measure death reflection. To address this issue, we offer a systematic conceptualization of death reflection, develop the Death Reflection Scale, and assess its psychometric properties across four studies. Further, using a sample of 268 firefighters, we examine whether death reflection buffers the detrimental impact of mortality cues at work on employee well‐being and safety performance. Results provide strong support for the psychometric properties of the Death Reflection Scale. Further, moderation analysis indicates death reflection weakens the negative effect of mortality cues on firefighters' safety performance. Overall, these findings suggest the newly developed Death Reflection Scale will prove useful in future research on death‐related cognitions

Does the source of water for piped supplies affect child health? Evidence from rural vanuatu

© IWA Publishing 2019. Piped water systems are considered to provide the highest service level for drinking water supplies; however, global monitoring of safe water access pays little attention to the type of water source that piped systems draw upon, even if the water is not treated prior to distribution. This study sought to understand whether the source of water for untreated piped supplies influences the prevalence of diarrhoea among children in rural Vanuatu. The analysis was based on a dataset integrating a Demographic and Health Survey and a nationwide water supply inventory. After adjusting for a range of potential confounders, the results revealed a significant association between diarrhoea and the type of water source supplying a piped system. Compared with borehole-supplied piped systems, spring-fed piped systems were significantly associated with increased odds of diarrhoea (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 5.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1–31, p = 0.040). No significant association between diarrhoea and piped systems drawing on surface water was observed. Increased odds of diarrhoea were significantly associated with water supply systems constructed prior to the year 2000 (AOR 4.9, 95% CI 1.9–13, p = 0.001). The results highlight the need for improvements in spring protection as well as ongoing maintenance and periodic renewal of water supply infrastructure

A GBT Survey of the HALOGAS Galaxies and Their Environments I: Revealing the full extent of HI around NGC891, NGC925, NGC4414 & NGC4565

We present initial results from a deep neutral hydrogen (HI) survey of the HALOGAS galaxy sample, which includes the spiral galaxies NGC891, NGC925, NGC4414, and NGC4565, performed with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The resulting observations cover at least four deg$^2$ around these galaxies with an average 5$\sigma$ detection limit of 1.2$\times$10$^{18}$ cm$^{-2}$ over a velocity range of 20 km s$^{-1}$ and angular scale of 9.1$'$. In addition to detecting the same total flux as the GBT data, the spatial distribution of the GBT and original Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) data match well at equal spatial resolutions. The HI mass fraction below HI column densities of 10$^{19}$ cm$^{-2}$ is, on average, 2\%. We discuss the possible origins of low column density HI of nearby spiral galaxies. The absence of a considerable amount of newly detected HI by the GBT indicates these galaxies do not have significant extended diffuse HI structures, and suggests future surveys planned with the SKA and its precursors must go \textit{at least} as deep as 10$^{17}$ cm$^{-2}$ in column density to significantly increase the probability of detecting HI associated with the cosmic web and/or cold mode accretion.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; 28 pages, 15 figure

Review of water safety planning processes and options for improved climate resilient infrastructure in Vanuatu

Abstract Vanuatu is a small island state ranked the most at-risk for natural hazards globally. Access to safe and secure water is limited, particularly for poor and rural residents. It is projected that climate change will increase temperatures, sea level, cyclone intensity, and extreme rainfall events in Vanuatu. As the impacts of climate change become clearer, it is becoming easier to predict the consequences of those changes on water infrastructure. The Government of Vanuatu, Department of Water Resources (DoWR) wants to support communities to enhance the resilience of community water supply infrastructure, despite the additional challenge of climate change. Since 2013, DoWR has adapted Water Safety Plans to the local context with Drinking Water Safety and Security Plans (DWSSPs). An analysis of actions taken after 199 DWSSPs, site visits and interviews, revealed an opportunity to integrate climate change more into existing community risk planning processes. The analysis also identified many potential problems with existing water infrastructure that increase their exposure to climate risks as well as possible improvements to decrease those risks. As a result, adjustments were made to the current water safety planning approach, so that communities review hazards associated with climate change and identify resilient infrastructure improvements.</jats:p

Benevolent characteristics promote cooperative behaviour among humans

Cooperation is fundamental to the evolution of human society. We regularly observe cooperative behaviour in everyday life and in controlled experiments with anonymous people, even though standard economic models predict that they should deviate from the collective interest and act so as to maximise their own individual payoff. However, there is typically heterogeneity across subjects: some may cooperate, while others may not. Since individual factors promoting cooperation could be used by institutions to indirectly prime cooperation, this heterogeneity raises the important question of who these cooperators are. We have conducted a series of experiments to study whether benevolence, defined as a unilateral act of paying a cost to increase the welfare of someone else beyond one's own, is related to cooperation in a subsequent one-shot anonymous Prisoner's dilemma. Contrary to the predictions of the widely used inequity aversion models, we find that benevolence does exist and a large majority of people behave this way. We also find benevolence to be correlated with cooperative behaviour. Finally, we show a causal link between benevolence and cooperation: priming people to think positively about benevolent behaviour makes them significantly more cooperative than priming them to think malevolently. Thus benevolent people exist and cooperate more