The prayer-driven church plant

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1273/thumbnail.jp

A Flexible Inventory of Survey Items for Environmental Concepts Generated via Special Attention to Content Validity and Item Response Theory

We demonstrate how many important measures of belief about the environmental suffer from poor content validity and inadequate conceptual breadth (dimensionality). We used scholarship in environmental science and philosophy to propose a list of 13 environmental concepts that can be held as beliefs. After precisely articulating the concepts, we developed 85 trial survey items that emphasized content validity for each concept. The concepts’ breadth and the items’ content validity were aided by scrutiny from 17 knowledgeable critics. We administered the trial items to 449 residents of the United States and used item response theory to reduce the 85 trial items to smaller sets of items for use when survey brevity is required. The reduced sets offered good predictive ability for two environmental attitudes (R2 = 0.42 and 0.46) and indices of pro-environmental behavior (PEB, R2 = 0.23) and behavioral intention (R2 = 0.25). The predictive results were highly interpretable, owing to their robust content validity. For example, PEB was predicted by the degree to which one believes nature to be sacred, but not by the degree of one’s non-anthropocentrism. Concepts with the greatest overall predictive ability were Sacredness and Hope. Belief in non-anthropocentrism had little predictive ability for all four response variables—a claim that previously could not have been made given the widespread poverty of content validity for items representing non-anthropocentrism in existing instruments. The approach described here is especially amenable to incremental improvement, as other researchers propose more informative survey items and potentially important concepts of environmental beliefs we overlooked

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 25, No. 3

• The Pennsylvania Germans and the American Revolution • The Blooming Grove Colony • The Salebill • The Schlegel Family and the Rosicrucian Movement • A Log Settler\u27s Fort/Home • Pennsylvania Dutch Studies at Ursinus College, 1976 • The Country Sale: Folk-Cultural Questionnaire No. 43https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1067/thumbnail.jp

Toward Human-Carnivore Coexistence: Understanding Tolerance for Tigers in Bangladesh

Fostering local community tolerance for endangered carnivores, such as tigers (Panthera tigris), is a core component of many conservation strategies. Identification of antecedents of tolerance will facilitate the development of effective tolerance-building conservation action and secure local community support for, and involvement in, conservation initiatives. We use a stated preference approach for measuring tolerance, based on the ‘Wildlife Stakeholder Acceptance Capacity’ concept, to explore villagers’ tolerance levels for tigers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans, an area where, at the time of the research, human-tiger conflict was severe. We apply structural equation modeling to test an a priori defined theoretical model of tolerance and identify the experiential and psychological basis of tolerance in this community. Our results indicate that beliefs about tigers and about the perceived current tiger population trend are predictors of tolerance for tigers. Positive beliefs about tigers and a belief that the tiger population is not currently increasing are both associated with greater stated tolerance for the species. Contrary to commonly-held notions, negative experiences with tigers do not directly affect tolerance levels; instead, their effect is mediated by villagers’ beliefs about tigers and risk perceptions concerning human-tiger conflict incidents. These findings highlight a need to explore and understand the socio-psychological factors that encourage tolerance towards endangered species. Our research also demonstrates the applicability of this approach to tolerance research to a wide range of socio-economic and cultural contexts and reveals its capacity to enhance carnivore conservation efforts worldwide

Workplace distractions in the digital era – are smartphones a threat to safety or an essential tool?

Anaesthesia is a technology‐dependant specialty. While the impact of total intravenous anaesthesia, video laryngoscopes and ultrasound‐guidance – to name but a few influential recent technologies – have been extensively studied [e.g. 1-4], the professional use of smartphones in anaesthesia remains relatively under‐investigated. This is perhaps an oversight considering that this ubiquitous accessory now reaches into nearly every aspect of our lives, from communication to study, shopping and dining, and indeed – to professional practice. In this issue of Anaesthesia, van Harten et al. report “An observational study of distractions in the operating theatre” [5], which among other findings, highlights the (distracting) role played by smartphones. In this editorial, we consider the utility and methodology of van Harten et al.’s work, reflect on the extent to which smartphones may threaten patient safety in anaesthesia, and ask how this can be balanced against their prominent and increasing role as a professional tool

Artificial Intelligence

Contains research objectives and reports on eight research projects.Computation Center, M.I.T

Dataset of characteristic remanent magnetization and magnetic properties of early Pliocene sediments from IODP Site U1467 (Maldives platform)

This data article describes data of magnetic stratigraphy and anisotropy of isothermal remanent magnetization (AIRM) from "Magnetic properties of early Pliocene sediments from IODP Site U1467 (Maldives platform) reveal changes in the monsoon system" [1]. Acquisition of isothermal magnetization on pilot samples and anisotropy of isothermal remanent magnetization are reported as raw data; magnetostratigraphic data are reported as characteristic magnetization (ChRM).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio