Greenland coastal air temperatures linked to Baffin Bay and Greenland Sea ice conditions during autumn through regional blocking patterns

Variations in sea ice freeze onset and regional sea surface temperatures (SST) in Baffin Bay and Greenland Sea are linked to autumn surface air temperatures (SAT) around coastal Greenland through 500 hPa blocking patterns, 1979-2014. We find strong, statistically significant correlations between Baffin Bay freeze onset and SSTs and SATs across the western and southernmost coastal areas, while weaker and fewer significant correlations are found between eastern SATs, SSTs, and freeze periods observed in the neighboring Greenland Sea. Autumn Greenland Blocking Index (GBI) values and the incidence of meridional circulation patterns have increased over the modern sea ice monitoring era. Increased anticyclonic blocking patterns promote poleward transport of warm air from lower latitudes and local warm air advection onshore from ocean-atmosphere sensible heat exchange through ice-free or thin ice-covered seas bordering the coastal stations. Temperature composites by years of extreme late freeze conditions, occurring since 2006 in Baffin Bay, reveal positive monthly SAT departures that often exceed one standard deviation from the 1981-2010 climate norma

Effect of television advertising of alcohol on alcohol consumption and intentions to drive

The alcohol consumption of 120 male and female college students was measured as they viewed a 90‐min videotape of popular prime‐time television programmes. Independent measures were the sex of the student, their drinker classification (light or moderate‐heavy) and the number of alcohol advertisements (0, 6, 12) shown during the screening of the television programmes. Dependent measures were the number of drinks consumed, and the intentions of students to drive a motor vehicle after viewing the videotaped programmes. As predicted, males consumed more alcohol than females, and moderate‐heavy drinkers consumed more than light drinkers. Male and female students who viewed six alcohol advertisements consumed more alcohol than students shown no alcohol advertisements or 12 alcohol advertisements. Analysis of intentions to drive after viewing the programmes revealed that the number of drinks consumed was not a significant covariate of driving intentions. Rather light drinkers of both sexes were less likely to intend to drive than moderate‐heavy drinkers. Males exposed to alcohol advertisements were less likely to intend to drive than males who did not view alcohol advertisements. Different levels of exposure to alcohol advertisements did not influence the driving intentions of college females. 1992 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drug

Predecisional Distortion of Information by Auditors and Salespersons

As people are deciding between two alternatives, they may distort new information to support whichever alternative is tentatively preferred. The presence of such predecisional distortion of information was tested in decisions made by two groups of professionals, auditors and salespersons. Both groups exhibited substantial distortion of information, with little reduction for professional decisions compared to nonprofessional ones. However, auditors' distortion was significantly smaller than that of salespersons. In addition, holding professionals accountable for their decisions, akin to a supervisory review, lowered distortion somewhat for salespersons but not at all for auditors. The latter seemed to act as if they were always being held accountable. Because people seem unaware that they are distorting information, at least at the moment this bias is occurring, they are fully convinced of the soundness of their choices. This may make it difficult for distortion to be detected by decision makers themselves or even by supervisors who cannot completely duplicate their subordinate's knowledge.Decision Making, Accountability, Bias in Judgments

DNA-polymer conjugates via the graft-through polymerisation of native DNA in water

The direct, graft-through, ring-opening metathesis polymerisation (ROMP) of unprotected DNA macromonomers is reported. By tuning the polymerisation conditions, good control is achieved, enabling the rapid and efficient synthesis of DNA-containing bottlebrush copolymers, without the need for protection of the DNA bases

Flexible expressed region analysis for RNA-seq with derfinder

Differential expression analysis of RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data typically relies on reconstructing transcripts or counting reads that overlap known gene structures. We previously introduced an intermediate statistical approach called differentially expressed region (DER) finder that seeks to identify contiguous regions of the genome showing differential expression signal at single base resolution without relying on existing annotation or potentially inaccurate transcript assembly. We present the derfinder software that improves our annotation-agnostic approach to RNA-seq analysis by: (i) implementing a computationally efficient bump-hunting approach to identify DERs that permits genome-scale analyses in a large number of samples, (ii) introducing a flexible statistical modeling framework, including multi-group and time-course analyses and (iii) introducing a new set of data visualizations for expressed region analysis. We apply this approach to public RNA-seq data from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project and BrainSpan project to show that derfinder permits the analysis of hundreds of samples at base resolution in R, identifies expression outside of known gene boundaries and can be used to visualize expressed regions at base-resolution. In simulations, our base resolution approaches enable discovery in the presence of incomplete annotation and is nearly as powerful as feature-level methods when the annotation is complete. derfinder analysis using expressed region-level and single base-level approaches provides a compromise between full transcript reconstruction and feature-level analysis. The package is available from Bioconductor at www.bioconductor.org/packages/derfinder

Cultural Perceptions of the Mentally-Ill - Australian and Papua New Guinean High-School Youth

One hundred and thirty-three (76 male, 57 female) Papua New Guinean (PNG) and 144 (93 male, 51 female) Australian high school students completed a series of structured and open-ended measures on attitudes to the mentally ill, especially opinions about the nature of mental illness, characteristics of the mentally ill, and treatment. Both groups of students suggested hereditary and environmental causes, with PNG students citing more often witchcraft and sorcery. Australian students generally presented more favourable attitudes to mental illness, in that they were more willing to work with or marry the mentally ill. PNG students, however, were more likely to highlight the disruptive, violent behaviour of the long long and possibly held a much narrower view of the types of persons labelled mentally ill