Mobilising Q methodology within a realist evaluation – lessons from an empirical study

Realist evaluation and Q Methodology are established approaches in social science. However, integration of Q methodology within a realist evaluation is scarce. This paper attempts to illustrate (through a recent evaluation) how Q methodology can support a realist evaluation. The paper attempts to capture the philosophical compatibility of the two approaches creating an argument for Q’s integration within realist evaluation. Through the case study selected (a realist evaluation of an evaluation capacity building framework) the iterative methodological process is presented, capturing a snapshot of the findings from the evaluation. This illuminates how Q met the philosophical aims of a realist evaluation to make sense of how and why and under what circumstances a programme or intervention works. It is argued that Q methodology is entirely suitable for capturing the three key stages in a realist evaluation of developing, testing, and refining programme theory. It is intended that this paper can contribute to inspire other realist evaluators and methodologists to make use of Q as a tool in their evaluation

Genomic Analysis of the Hydrocarbon-Producing, Cellulolytic, Endophytic Fungus Ascocoryne sarcoides

The microbial conversion of solid cellulosic biomass to liquid biofuels may provide a renewable energy source for transportation fuels. Endophytes represent a promising group of organisms, as they are a mostly untapped reservoir of metabolic diversity. They are often able to degrade cellulose, and they can produce an extraordinary diversity of metabolites. The filamentous fungal endophyte Ascocoryne sarcoides was shown to produce potential-biofuel metabolites when grown on a cellulose-based medium; however, the genetic pathways needed for this production are unknown and the lack of genetic tools makes traditional reverse genetics difficult. We present the genomic characterization of A. sarcoides and use transcriptomic and metabolomic data to describe the genes involved in cellulose degradation and to provide hypotheses for the biofuel production pathways. In total, almost 80 biosynthetic clusters were identified, including several previously found only in plants. Additionally, many transcriptionally active regions outside of genes showed condition-specific expression, offering more evidence for the role of long non-coding RNA in gene regulation. This is one of the highest quality fungal genomes and, to our knowledge, the only thoroughly annotated and transcriptionally profiled fungal endophyte genome currently available. The analyses and datasets contribute to the study of cellulose degradation and biofuel production and provide the genomic foundation for the study of a model endophyte system

Non-Standard Errors

In statistics, samples are drawn from a population in a data-generating process (DGP). Standard errors measure the uncertainty in estimates of population parameters. In science, evidence is generated to test hypotheses in an evidence-generating process (EGP). We claim that EGP variation across researchers adds uncertainty: Non-standard errors (NSEs). We study NSEs by letting 164 teams test the same hypotheses on the same data. NSEs turn out to be sizable, but smaller for better reproducible or higher rated research. Adding peer-review stages reduces NSEs. We further find that this type of uncertainty is underestimated by participants

Sewer System Alternatives Evaluation for Potential Creswell Area Expansion in Harford County

Final project for ENCE422: Project Cost Accounting and Economics (Fall 2018). University of Maryland, College Park.This report summarizes the findings of the ENCE422 Fall 2018 class term project. Students were tasked with evaluating sewer system alternatives for the Creswell area expansion in Harford County. Student groups were to consider environmental impacts, community/social impacts, and perform financial analysis for the alternatives they chose to evaluate. This report extracts information from 14 separate team presentations and synthesizes it around the following structure; 1. Systems that Utilize Septic Tanks a. Traditional Septic System b. Orenco Effluent System c. Small Diameter Gravity Sewer System 2. System that Do Not Utilize Septic Tanks a. Traditional Gravity System b. Vacuum System c. Grinder Pump SystemHarford Count

Perspectives on the Philosophy of Mind

The relationship between the non-physical mind and the physical brain has “over the centuries filled philosophers with frustration, desperation, almost panic” (Humphrey, 1992). Nevertheless, the majority of contemporary philosophers and scientists reject dualistic notions of the mind (e.g. Crick, 1979; Dennett, 1978), and neuroscientific findings continue to challenge the existence of a non-material mind that transcends the physiology of the brain (e.g. Libet et al., 1983; Soon et al., 2008; Fried et al., 2011). However, given the widely held religious, spiritual and paranormal beliefs that exist in society (Harris Poll, 2009), implicit dualistic beliefs appear common amongst the population more generally. Whilst the mind/body problem might be considered a ‘philosophical’ one, our implicit beliefs about the issue can profoundly influence our behaviour. It is of course too simplistic to characterise the debate dichotomously as monism vs dualism, and this study uses Q methodology to explore a more complex set of beliefs about the materialistic/non-materialistic nature of the universe. College and university students were asked to indicate their level of agreement/disagreement with twenty seven statements, reflecting a continuum from Cartesian dualism at one end to mechanistic materialism at the other. Three distinct accounts emerged, which can be characterised as: irreducibly complex dualism, interactive dualism and explainable materialism

Invariance of the perceived spatial frequency shift of peripherally viewed gratings with manipulations of contrast, duration, and luminance.

Gratings appear of higher spatial frequency when they are viewed peripherally rather than foveally. To test the hypothesis that this effect is an artefact of particular laboratory conditions, we manipulated the contrast, luminance and presentation duration, manipulations which have also been shown to increase the apparent spatial frequency of foveally presented gratings. It has been argued that such shifts reflect an attempt to increase sensitivity by changing the receptive field properties of spatially tuned visual channels, while keeping their size labels constant. If so, and peripheral channels are not otherwise mislabelled, it should be possible to find conditions under which the apparent spatial frequency of peripherally viewed gratings matches that of foveal gratings of the same spatial frequency. In this study, manipulations of contrast, luminance, and duration had no effect on the size of the perceived spatial frequency shift in peripheral vision. Thus the putative inappropriate size labelling of peripheral visual channels is constant over a wide range of stimulus values. We speculate that this apparent constant error may result from a mechanism which normally compensates for another factor such as blur, which may otherwise lead to an overestimation of size

Colour pools, brightness pools, assimilation, and the spatial resolving power of the human colour-vision system.

A stimulus is described that demonstrates the spatial pooling of colour information in the visual system. Chequerboards (or gratings) consisting of alternating squares (or stripes) of complementary colours become achromatic at particular spatial scales; such stimuli have been named 'transchromatic' stimuli. Colour pools are much larger than the receptive fields that respond to luminance contrast. Some measurements are described which form the basis for estimates of the size of the colour pools. The size of colour pools varies according to the colours involved. For red-cyan and green-magenta complementary pairs colour is pooled at spatial frequencies above about 7-8 cycles deg-1, implying pools whose diameter is around 8 min arc. For yellow-blue complementary pairs the corresponding figures are about 4 cycles deg-1 and 15 min arc. Some phenomena of normal colour vision, colour blindness, and the development of infant vision are discussed in the light of these findings