Why is cheating wrong?

Since cheating is obviously wrong, arguments against it (it provides an unfair advantage, it hinders learning) need only be mentioned in passing. But the argument of unfair advantage absurdly takes education to be essentially a race of all against all; moreover, it ignores that many cases of unfair (dis)advantages are widely accepted. That cheating can hamper learning does not mean that punishing cheating will necessarily favor learning, so that this argument does not obviously justify sanctioning cheaters. -- Keywords: academic dishonesty, academic integrity, academic misconduct, education, ethics, homework, plagiarismComment: 8 pages; new (completely rewritten) version; in Studies in Philosophy and Education (2009

Estimating uncertainty in ecosystem budget calculations

© The Authors, 2010. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. The definitive version was published in Ecosystems 13 (2010): 239-248, doi:10.1007/s10021-010-9315-8.Ecosystem nutrient budgets often report values for pools and fluxes without any indication of uncertainty, which makes it difficult to evaluate the significance of findings or make comparisons across systems. We present an example, implemented in Excel, of a Monte Carlo approach to estimating error in calculating the N content of vegetation at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. The total N content of trees was estimated at 847 kg ha−1 with an uncertainty of 8%, expressed as the standard deviation divided by the mean (the coefficient of variation). The individual sources of uncertainty were as follows: uncertainty in allometric equations (5%), uncertainty in tissue N concentrations (3%), uncertainty due to plot variability (6%, based on a sample of 15 plots of 0.05 ha), and uncertainty due to tree diameter measurement error (0.02%). In addition to allowing estimation of uncertainty in budget estimates, this approach can be used to assess which measurements should be improved to reduce uncertainty in the calculated values. This exercise was possible because the uncertainty in the parameters and equations that we used was made available by previous researchers. It is important to provide the error statistics with regression results if they are to be used in later calculations; archiving the data makes resampling analyses possible for future researchers. When conducted using a Monte Carlo framework, the analysis of uncertainty in complex calculations does not have to be difficult and should be standard practice when constructing ecosystem budgets

Management Impacts on Forest Floor and Soil Organic Carbon in Northern Temperate Forests of the US

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The role of forests in the global carbon cycle has been the subject of a great deal of research recently, but the impact of management practices on forest soil dynamics at the stand level has received less attention. This study used six forest management experimental sites in five northern states of the US to investigate the effects of silvicultural treatments (light thinning, heavy thinning, and clearcutting) on forest floor and soil carbon pools.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No overall trend was found between forest floor carbon stocks in stands subjected to partial or complete harvest treatments. A few sites had larger stocks in control plots, although estimates were often highly variable. Forest floor carbon pools did show a trend of increasing values from southern to northern sites. Surface soil (0-5 cm) organic carbon content and concentration were similar between treated and untreated plots. Overall soil carbon (0-20 cm) pool size was not significantly different from control values in sites treated with partial or complete harvests. No geographic trends were evident for any of the soil properties examined.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Results indicate that it is unlikely that mineral soil carbon stocks are adversely affected by typical management practices as applied in northern hardwood forests in the US; however, the findings suggest that the forest floor carbon pool may be susceptible to loss.</p

Surgical treatment of zygomatic bone fracture using two points fixation versus three point fixation-a randomised prospective clinical trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The zygoma plays an important role in the facial contour for both cosmetic and functional reasons; therefore zygomatic bone injuries should be properly diagnosed and adequately treated. Comparison of various surgical approaches and their complications can only be done objectively using outcome measurements which in turn require protocol management and long-term follow up. The preference for open reduction and internal fixation of zygomatic fractures at three points has continued to grow in response to observations of inadequate results from two point and one point fixation techniques.</p> <p>The objectives of this study were to compare the efficacy of zygomatic bone after treatment with ORIF using 2 point fixation and ORIF using 3 point fixation and compare the outcome of two procedures.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>100 patients were randomly divided equally into two groups. In group A, 50 patients were treated by ORIF using two point fixation by miniplates and in group B, 50 patients were treated by ORIF using three point fixation by miniplates. They were evaluated for their complications during and after surgery with their advantages and disadvantages and the difference between the two groups was observed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 100 fractures were sustained. We found that postoperative complication like decreased malar height and vertical dystopia was more common in those patients who were treated by two point fixation than those who were treated with three point fixation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on this study open reduction and internal fixation using three point fixation by miniplates is the best available method for the treatment zygomatic bone fractures.</p

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe