Discussion of "Statistical Modeling of Spatial Extremes" by A. C. Davison, S. A. Padoan and M. Ribatet

Discussion of "Statistical Modeling of Spatial Extremes" by A. C. Davison, S. A. Padoan and M. Ribatet [arXiv:1208.3378].Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-STS376B the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Breast Cancer Screening for African American Women

INTRO Breast cancer is the most common type of malignancy among women in the United States (U.S.) and the second leading killer. Despite the availability of effective breast screening tools, a disparity has formed. Specifically, white women over the age of 40 experienced a higher incidence rate of breast cancer, while African American women experience higher related mortality rate. The purpose of this study was to examine SES and ethnicity/race factors that may influence breast cancer screening rates, and specifically explore how those factors may differ between African American and white women. METHODS Women between the ages of 50-74 who have never been told that they had cancer were asked a series of questions related to breast cancer screening behavior. They were also asked about their race/ethnicity, and SES. Combined, education level, employment status, annual income, and insurance coverage act as proxy measures for SES. Bivariate analysis using chi-square tests and binary logistic regression were used to determine factors associated with screening behaviors. RESULTS The majority of the sample were white (78%) and African American (11%). A higher percentage of African Americans were up to date with receiving a mammogram within the past 2 years at every educational level, employment status, and income level, compared to white females. Using binary logistic regression, African American women had twice the odds of receiving a mammogram than white women. DISCUSSION With SES proving to have minimal association with factors influencing mammography behavior, intervention programs should focus on other factors that may be influencing breast cancer mortality rates in African American women. Increasing the recommendation for breast cancer screening from biennially to annually could potentially allow the disease to be detected sooner and be treated

Keeping Free Speech Free in the College Marketplace of Ideas: California Legislation as an Imperfect Solution to Censorship by University Administrators

This Comment highlights the difficult position that some private college or university students find themselves in, when it comes to suing to protect their free speech rights. As such, this Comment argues that in order for pending California legislation to go the full distance in fostering a marketplace of ideas , the legislature should pass additional bills to protect private college students from Hosty-type administrative censorship

Moderators Of Trust And Reliance Across Multiple Decision Aids

The present work examines whether user\u27s trust of and reliance on automation, were affected by the manipulations of user\u27s perception of the responding agent. These manipulations included agent reliability, agent type, and failure salience. Previous work has shown that automation is not uniformly beneficial; problems can occur because operators fail to rely upon automation appropriately, by either misuse (overreliance) or disuse (underreliance). This is because operators often face difficulties in understanding how to combine their judgment with that of an automated aid. This difficulty is especially prevalent in complex tasks in which users rely heavily on automation to reduce their workload and improve task performance. However, when users rely on automation heavily they often fail to monitor the system effectively (i.e., they lose situation awareness - a form of misuse). However, if an operator realizes a system is imperfect and fails, they may subsequently lose trust in the system leading to underreliance. In the present studies, it was hypothesized that in a dual-aid environment poor reliability in one aid would impact trust and reliance levels in a companion better aid, but that this relationship is dependent upon the perceived aid type and the noticeability of the errors made. Simulations of a computer-based search-and-rescue scenario, employing uninhabited/unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) searching a commercial office building for critical signals, were used to investigate these hypotheses. Results demonstrated that participants were able to adjust their reliance and trust on automated teammates depending on the teammate\u27s actual reliability levels. However, as hypothesized there was a biasing effect among mixed-reliability aids for trust and reliance. That is, when operators worked with two agents of mixed-reliability, their perception of how reliable and to what degree they relied on the aid was effected by the reliability of a current aid. Additionally, the magnitude and direction of how trust and reliance were biased was contingent upon agent type (i.e., \u27what\u27 the agents were: two humans, two similar robotic agents, or two dissimilar robot agents). Finally, the type of agent an operator believed they were operating with significantly impacted their temporal reliance (i.e., reliance following an automation failure). Such that, operators were less likely to agree with a recommendation from a human teammate, after that teammate had made an obvious error, than with a robotic agent that had made the same obvious error. These results demonstrate that people are able to distinguish when an agent is performing well but that there are genuine differences in how operators respond to agents of mixed or same abilities and to errors by fellow human observers or robotic teammates. The overall goal of this research was to develop a better understanding how the aforementioned factors affect users\u27 trust in automation so that system interfaces can be designed to facilitate users\u27 calibration of their trust in automated aids, thus leading to improved coordination of human-automation performance. These findings have significant implications to many real-world systems in which human operators monitor the recommendations of multiple other human and/or machine systems

Seeing at the Nanoscale: New Microscopies for the Life Sciences

Visualizing single modules with fluorescence microscop

The Battle for the Legality and Legitimacy of Ayahuasca Religions in Brazil

This study examines the legal battles of the three Ayahuasca religious groups. Once founded in Brazil, they waged a long campaign to gain freedom by the government to practice their beliefs. The three groups are: Santo Daime, Barquinha, and União do Vegetal (UDV). This work also provides the historical background of each group, its principal beliefs and rites, and the social status of its members. Extensive references and bibliography are included