Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense: A Practical Text for Critical and Creative Thinking

The information explosion has made us information rich, but wisdom poor. Yet, to succeed in business and in life, we must distinguish accurate from bogus sources, and draw valid conclusions from mounds of data. This book, written for a general adult audience as well as students, takes a new look at critical thinking in the information age, helping readers to not only see through nonsense, but to create a better future with innovative thinking. Readers should see the practicality of enhancing skills that make them more innovative and employable, especially in a day when companies increasingly seek original thinkers, global visionaries, and thought leaders. Targeting high school seniors and college freshmen, but useful to all adult readers, the authors examine surprising and costly mental errors made by respected business leaders, entertainment moguls, musicians, civic leaders, generals and academics. Then, the authors draw practical applications to help readers avoid such mistakes and think more creatively in each field. Although written in an engaging and popular style, over 600 end notes provide authority to this content-rich document. Thus writers, researchers, teachers, and job seekers should find it a useful starting point for research into this important field. Home school teachers and public school educators will find an accompanying free website with lesson plans and teaching tips. It\u27s also a low-cost alternative to expensive texts. (The hard copy is priced reasonably and a pdf of the entire book will be offered free to students on their digital platforms.) Each chapter ends with thought questions and tips for further research.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/facbooks2015/1011/thumbnail.jp

The constrained E6SSM

We discuss the predictions of a constrained version of the exceptional supersymmetric standard model (cE6SSM), with a universal high energy soft scalar mass, soft trilinear coupling and soft gaugino mass. The spectrum includes a light gluino, a light wino-like neutralino and chargino pair and a light bino-like neutralino, with other sparticle masses except the lighter stop being much heavier. We also discuss scenarios with an extra light exotic colour triplet of fermions and scalars and a TeV scale Z', which lead to early exotic physics signals at the LHC.Comment: To appear in proceedings of The 2009 Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, 16-22 July 2009 Krakow, Poland; 4 page

Decoupling the Ethernet From Agents in the Internet

Many hackers worldwide would agree that, had it not been for write-ahead logging, the understanding of model checking might never have occurred [9], [4]. Given the trends in virtual epistemologies, security experts particularly note the construction of 802.11b [3]. In our research, we construct an analysis of the Turing machine (LAURA), disconfirming that multi-processors and redundancy are usually incompatible

A to Z of the Muon anomalous magnetic moment in the MSSM with Pati-Salam at the GUT scale

We analyse the low energy predictions of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) arising from a GUT scale Pati-Salam gauge group further constrained by an A4 × Z5 family symmetry, resulting in four soft scalar masses at the GUT scale: one left-handed soft mass m0 and three right-handed soft masses m1, m2, m3, one for each generation. We demonstrate that this model, which was initially developed to describe the neutrino sector, can explain collider and non-collider measurements such as the dark matter relic density, the Higgs boson mass and, in particular, the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon (g − 2)μ. Since about two decades, (g − 2)μ suffers a puzzling about 3σ excessoftheexperimentallymeasuredvalueoverthetheoreticalprediction,whichour model is able to fully resolve. As the consequence of this resolution, our model predicts specific regions of the parameter space with the specific properties including light smuons and neutralinos, which could also potentially explain di-lepton excesses observed by CMS and ATLAS

Culture of airway epithelial cells from neonates sampled within 48-hours of birth

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Human paraoxonase gene cluster polymorphisms as predictors of coronary heart disease risk in the prospective Northwick Park Heart Study II

AbstractThe anti-atherogenic effect of HDL has been suggested to be partly due to the action of HDL-associated paraoxonase (PON). Three distinct enzymes have been identified, encoded by PON1, PON2 and PON3, clustered on chromosome 7q21–q22. Two cSNPs in PON1 (L55M and Q192R) and one in PON2 (S311C) have been implicated as independent risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD) in some, but not all, studies. A PON3 SNP (A99A) was identified and the effect of these four PON SNPs on HDL levels and CHD risk was examined in the prospective Northwick Park Heart Study II (NPHSII). Genotype frequencies did not differ between cases and controls but the CHD risk associated with smoking was significantly modified by PON1 L55M genotype. Compared to LL non-smokers, LL smokers had a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.30 (95% CI 0.81–2.06) while M-allele carriers had a HR of 1.76 (1.17–2.67). When genotypes were analysed in combination, men with the genotype PON1 55 LM/MM+PON2 311 CC, had HR of 3.54 (1.81–6.93) compared to PON1 LL+PON2 SS/SC men (interaction P=0.004). These effects were independent of classical risk factors. These data demonstrate the importance of stratifying by environmental factors and the use of multiple SNPs for genetic analysis

Using density surface models to estimate spatio-temporal changes in population densities and trend

Funding – Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, University of St Andrews and U.S. Geological Survey provided funding for this analysis through a studentship to RJC.Precise measures of population abundance and trend are needed for species conservation; these are most difficult to obtain for rare and rapidly changing populations. We compare uncertainty in densities estimated from spatio–temporal models with that from standard design‐based methods. Spatio–temporal models allow us to target priority areas where, and at times when, a population may most benefit. Generalised additive models were fitted to a 31‐year time series of point‐transect surveys of an endangered Hawaiian forest bird, the Hawai'i ‘ākepa Loxops coccineus. This allowed us to estimate bird densities over space and time. We used two methods to quantify uncertainty in density estimates from the spatio–temporal model: the delta method (which assumes independence between detection and distribution parameters) and a variance propagation method. With the delta method we observed a 52% decrease in the width of the design‐based 95% confidence interval (CI), while we observed a 37% decrease in CI width when propagating the variance. We mapped bird densities as they changed across space and time, allowing managers to evaluate management actions. Integrating detection function modelling with spatio–temporal modelling exploits survey data more efficiently by producing finer‐grained abundance estimates than are possible with design‐based methods as well as producing more precise abundance estimates. Model‐based approaches require switching from making assumptions about the survey design to assumptions about bird distribution. Such a switch warrants carefully considered. In this case the model‐based approach benefits conservation planning through improved management efficiency and reduced costs by taking into account both spatial shifts and temporal changes in population abundance and distribution.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The optically-powerful quasar E1821+643 is associated with a 300-kpc scale FRI radio structure

We present a deep image of the optically-powerful quasar E1821+643 at 18cm made with the Very Large Array (VLA). This image reveals radio emission, over 280 kpc in extent, elongated way beyond the quasar's host galaxy. Its radio structure has decreasing surface brightness with increasing distance from the bright core, characteristic of FRI sources (Fanaroff & Riley 1974). Its radio luminosity at 5GHz falls in the classification for `radio-quiet' quasars (it is only 10^23.9 W/Hz/sr; see e.g. Kellermann et al 1994). Its radio luminosity at 151MHz (which is 10^25.3 W/Hz/sr) is at the transition luminosity observed to separate FRIs and FRIIs. Hitherto, no optically-powerful quasar had been found to have a conventional FRI radio structure. For searches at low-frequency this is unsurprising given current sensitivity and plausible radio spectral indices for radio-quiet quasars. We demonstrate the inevitability of the extent of any FRqI radio structures being seriously under-estimated by existing targetted follow-up observations of other optically-selected quasars, which are typically short exposures of z > 0.3 objects, and discuss the implications for the purported radio bimodality in quasars. The nature of the inner arcsec-scale jet in E1821+643, together with its large-scale radio structure, suggest that the jet-axis in this quasar is precessing (cf. Galactic jet sources such as SS433). A possible explanation for this is that its central engine is a binary whose black holes have yet to coalesce. The ubiquity of precession in `radio-quiet' quasars, perhaps as a means of reducing the observable radio luminosity expected in highly-accreting systems, remains to be established.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letters; higher quality versions of figures available at http://www-astro.physics.ox.ac.uk/~km

Ariel - Volume 2 Number 3

Editors Delvyn C. Case, Jr. Paul M. Fernhoff News Editors Richard Bonanno Daniel B. Gould Robin A. Edwards Lay-Out Editor Carol Dolinskas Sports Editor James J. Nocon Contributing Editors Michael J. Blecker Lin Sey Edwards Jack Guralnik W. Cherry Light Features Editor Steven A. Ager Donald A. Bergman Stephen P. Flynn Business Manager Nick Greg