The End of the World: Fear of the Apocalypse

Predicting the end of the world has been a practice for thousands of years. In recent years, it was seen in 1891 with the Mormon Armageddon, 2000 with Y2k, and 2012 when the Mayan calendar was believed to have ended. While these moments in history are often seen as entertainment by the greater population, there are many groups of people that support and live by the idea that the world will end in their lifetime or the near future. This paper will develop ideas of why people form a fear of the world ending, and the public opinion around this fear. The Chapman Survey of American Fears’ data shows that only 16.4% of Americans are fearful of an apocalypse; while this number may seem low, there are a higher percentage of people who are afraid of the extinction of animals and plants, economic collapse, and warfare including nuclear and biological weapons (“America’s Top Fears 2018” 2018). There is an overarching theme that people are fearful of everyday problems facing the world, and there is a fear that in the near future the world will never be the same. Apocalyptic theory splits the believers in two groups: one group believing that the world will inevitably end, the other group believing that humans are contributing and working towards ending the world internally. This paper will explore these hypotheses: 1) Fear of the world ending is the result of religious affiliation and political ideology, 2). Fear of the world ending is correlated to fear of the use of nuclear weapons, and 3). Those who are fearful of the apocalypse are more likely to have emergency preparedness kits in their home. Fear of the apocalypse carries importance today because this fear can create distrust amongst communities, but can also create trouble for elected officials. Should more Americans be fearful of the apocalypse or the end of the world, there is potential for extremely differing opinions on how to vote towards environmental or economic policy and how governmental budget should be spent. Furthermore, those fearful of the end of the world can decide to not vote at all

Paddy's Park Audit Report

This Report is a milestone deliverable as part of the funded Ginninderry Open, Green and Play Space project with the Riverview Group

Electronic risk assessment for venous thromboembolism: investigating physicians' rationale for bypassing clinical decision support recommendations.

Objective: The underutilisation of venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis is still a problem in the UK despite the emergence of national guidelines and incentives to increase the number of patients undergoing VTE risk assessments. Our objective was to examine the reasons doctors gave for not prescribing enoxaparin when recommended by an electronic VTE risk assessment alert. Design: We used a qualitative research design to conduct a thematic analysis of free text entered into an electronic prescribing system. Setting: The study took place in a large University teaching hospital, which has a locally developed electronic prescribing system known as PICS (Prescribing, Information and Communication System). Participants: We extracted prescription data from all inpatient admissions over a 7-month period in 2012 using the audit database of PICS. Intervention: The completion of the VTE risk assessment form introduced into the hospital-wide electronic prescribing and health records system is mandatory. Where doctors do not prescribe VTE prophylaxis when recommended, they are asked to provide a reason for this decision. The free-text field was introduced in May 2012. Primary and Secondary Outcome Measures: Free-text reasons for not prescribing enoxaparin when recommended were thematically coded. Results: A total of 1136 free-text responses from 259 doctors were collected in the time period and 1206 separate reasons were analysed and coded. 389 reasons (32.3%) for not prescribing enoxaparin were coded as being due to 'clinical judgment'; in 288 (23.9%) of the responses, doctors were going to reassess the patient or prescribe enoxaparin; and in 245 responses (20.3%), the system was seen to have produced an inappropriate alert. Conclusions: In order to increase specificity of warnings and avoid users developing alert fatigue, it is essential that an evaluation of user responses and/or end user feedback as to the appropriateness and timing of alerts is obtained

Filling the gaps: A comprehensive understanding of diets and ecosystem interactions within the modern and fossil small mammal communities of Meade Basin, Kansas

The modern Great Plains ecosystem began shifting from a woodland biome to a grassland in the Miocene. Stable isotope analysis (SIA) of a diverse community of local consumers, in this case small mammals, provides both a paleoenvironmental record of the shift from woodland C3 biomass to grassland C4 biomass, and a paleoecological record of species interactions and community dynamics. The Meade Basin in southwestern Kansas contains a rich and fairly complete fossil record of a Great Plains small mammal community throughout the past 5 million years. SIA of fossil tooth enamel from Meade small mammals has revealed interesting dietary patterns among, and within, major lineages of rodents and lagomorphs. Yet, an incomplete understanding of ecosystem interactions in the modern small mammal community hinders our interpretation of these fossil isotopic datasets. Until now, the majority of the modern Meade dataset was derived from 5 years of live trapping across a range of prairie microhabitats, and this sample is inherently biased towards small bodied and nocturnal species. The goal of this project is to fill taxonomic gaps in the modern sample, and provide a complete interpretation of current small mammal dietary ecology that is directly comparable to the fossil data. Our samples are derived from biologic (owl pellets, raptor nests and prairie dog burrows), and anthropogenic (road kill) collections, which contain remains of previously under sampled taxa within the small mammal community. Preliminary results have already highlighted the importance of this work. For example, prairie dogs are the highest C4 grass consumers in the modern community, and without them we would underestimate the use of C4 resources by small mammals. As another example, rabbits have predominantly been mixed C3-C4 to strongly C3 plant consumers throughout the past 5 million years, and that diet appears to be maintained today. Our complete isotopic dataset consists of results for more than 50 specimens, and yields a comprehensive understanding of species and ecosystem interactions among small mammals in the Great Plains today

Marxism and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

&nbsp; Using ideological concepts found in Marxism, this thesis contends One Flew Over the Cuckoo&rsquo;s Nest is a decidedly orthodox, revolutionary Marxist text that commits itself to the necessity of overhauling the old framework by means of a bottom-up revolution. The research investigates three key Marxist thinkers&ndash;Eduard Bernstein, Vladimir Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg&ndash;and explores how each of them interprets Marx&rsquo;s works differently in order to acquire a more holistic view of the politics Marxism inspired. The paper finds that One Flew Over the Cuckoo&rsquo;s Nest is a specific embodiment of Rosa Luxemburg&rsquo;s view of Marxism owing to the novel&rsquo;s stance that a corrupt system cannot be fixed within its existing paradigm and that a revolution must derive for and from the people in order for it to have lasting impacts.</p

Evaluation of the consistency of ECMWF ensemble forecasts

An expected benefit of ensemble forecasts is that a sequence of consecutive forecasts valid for the same time will be more consistent than an equivalent sequence of individual forecasts. Inconsistent (jumpy) forecasts can cause users to lose confidence in the forecasting system. We present a first systematic, objective evaluation of the consistency of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) ensemble using a measure of forecast divergence that takes account of the full ensemble distribution. Focusing on forecasts of the North Atlantic Oscillation and European Blocking regimes up to two weeks ahead, we identify occasional large inconsistency between successive runs, with the largest jumps tending to occur at 7-9 days lead. However, care is needed in the interpretation of ensemble jumpiness. An apparent clear flip-flop in a single index may hide a more complex predictability issue which may be better understood by examining the ensemble evolution in phase space

Transcriptional and Environmental Control of Bacterial Denitrification and N2O Emissions

In oxygen-limited environments, denitrifying bacteria can switch from oxygen-dependent respiration to nitrate (NO3−) respiration in which the NO3− is sequentially reduced via nitrite (NO2−), nitric oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide (N2O) to dinitrogen (N2). However, atmospheric N2O continues to rise, a significant proportion of which is microbial in origin. This implies that the enzyme responsible for N2O reduction, nitrous oxide reductase (NosZ), does not always carry out the final step of denitrification either efficiently, or in synchrony with the rest of the pathway. Despite a solid understanding of the biochemistry underpinning denitrification, there is a relatively poor understanding of how environmental signals and respective transcriptional regulators control expression of the denitrification apparatus. This mini-review will describe the current picture for transcriptional regulation of denitrification in the model bacterium, Paracoccus denitrificans, highlighting differences in other denitrifying bacteria where appropriate, as well as gaps in our understanding. Alongside this, the emerging role of small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) in regulation of denitrification will be discussed. We will conclude by speculating how this information, aside from providing a better understanding of the denitrification process, can be translated into development of novel greenhouse gas mitigation strategies

Electrophysiological and Behavioral Working Memory Differences Between Musicians and Non-Musicians

The current study is an examination of P300 differences between musicians and non-musician groups during a visual oddball task, in addition to behavioral subtests of the TOMAL-2 measuring visual and auditory working memory. Previous research has demonstrated higher amplitude P300 waveforms with shorter latencies of P300 onset in musician groups, indicating a more sensitive and accurate stimulus detection system. Fluctuations of P300 amplitude and latency activity near parietal areas have been used to quantify differences in updating processes of working memory possibly associated with differences in amounts of music experience. The current study is designed to partially replicate a method previously implemented by George and Coch (2011) in order to contribute to the body of research describing how music experience may be associated with differences in visual processing as well as auditory working memory. Behavioral data will be collected using six standardized subtest measures of the TOMAL-2, followed by event-related potential (ERP) recordings during a large and small circle visual oddball task. The current study hypothesizes musicians will score significantly higher on the TOMAL-2 and record shorter latency with higher P300 amplitudes associated with greater amounts of music experience in areas previously associated with working memory processing

Exploration is dependent on reproductive state, not social state, in a cooperatively breeding bird

Personality is an intriguing phenomenon in populations because it constrains behavioral flexibility. One theory suggests that personality could be generated and maintained if dependent on asset protection. It is predicted that trade-offs with fitness expectations and survival probability encourage consistent behavioral differences among individuals (personality). Although not mutually exclusive, the social niche specialization hypothesis suggests that a group of individuals that repeatedly interact will develop personality to avoid costly social conflict. The point at which behavioral consistency originates in the social niche hypothesis is still unclear, with predictions for development after a change in social status. In the facultative cooperatively breeding Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis), residing on Cousin Island, breeding vacancies are limited and this forces individuals into different social roles. We used this system to test whether reproductive and social state predicted among-individual differences in exploration. We had 2 predictions. First, that an individual’s start in life can predict personality, whereby young individuals with a good start to life (associated with early age reproduction and earlier onset survival senescence) are fast explorers, suggesting reproductive state-dependence. Second, that an individual’s social status can predict personality, whereby dominant individuals will be fast explorers, suggesting that the behavior is social state-dependent. Neither of the behaviors was associated with social state and social state did not affect behavioral consistency. However, novel object exploration was associated with a proxy of reproductive state. Our results provide further support for state being a mechanism for generating individual differences in behavior