Applying the Multidimensional Ethics Scale to Examine Student Behavior when using Technology

This study contributes to the discussion on student perceptions of questionable academic behavior. Students evaluate behavioral scenarios to see whether they judge the behavior as ethical and to examine potential predictors of that judgment. The scenarios used isolate academic integrity decisions that involve the use of IT. The respondents were given items to examine the influence of moral equity, egoism, relativism, contractualism, and utilitarianism on three dependent variables: individual intention, peer intention, and ethical awareness of students in an academic-setting. This instrument incorporates dimensions from traditional ethical philosophies to determine which reasoning affects ethicality. This research aims to bridge the gap between faculty and student expectations by gaining a deeper understanding of the students’ decision making in a theoretical framework. The results suggest that students incorporate a number of philosophical frameworks in judging a specific behavior. Moral equity was the theory that was employed most frequently by the subjects

Biblical Citations as a Stylistic Standard in Johnson’s and Webster’s Dictionaries

Noah Webster’s primary source for the first edition of the 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (ADEL) was Samuel Johnson’s 1799 eighth edition of the Dictionary of the English Language (DEL). Scholars have made much of the debt that Webster owes to Johnson for entries in the 1828 ADEL. Stylistic analyses have typically focused on the definitions included in the two dictionaries. Far less attention has been paid to the illustrative quotations employed by both authors to exemplify usage. This article focuses on Biblical citations in the letter S used by both Johnson and Webster as examples of usage. All citations (both secular and Biblical) under the letter S were examined to determine the relative importance of the Bible to the style and content of the dictionaries. Results indicate that though Johnson included more Biblical citations than Webster did, Biblical citations made up a larger proportion of Webster’s total citations than they did for Johnson.In addition to ascertaining frequency of Biblical citations, all Biblical citations shared by both dictionaries were also identified. Results of this analysis confirmed Webster’s debt to Johnson, as a great number of Webster’s Biblical citations may be found in Johnson’s dictionary. A study of the religious convictions of Johnson and Webster is integral to understanding both authors’ motivations in constructing their dictionaries. Though both were pious men, Johnson’s focus on the Bible was as a great literary work, whereas Webster’s focus on the Bible was as a tool for the religious and moral betterment of his readers.Les sources primaries utilisées par Noah Webster pour la première édition de son American Dictionary of the English Language (ADEL) publié en 1828 étaient la huitième édition du Dictionary of the English Language (DEL) de Samuel Johnson, publié en 1799. La dette de Webster envers Johnson concernant les entrées d’ADEL en 1828 a été mentionnée à plusieurs reprises par les chercheurs. Les analyses stylistiques se sont essentiellement portées sur les définitions dans les deux dictionnaires. Mais il a rarement été fait mention des citations utilisées par les deux auteurs comme exemples ou illustrations. Cet article porte sur les citations pour les mots commençant par la lettre S, utilisées aussi bien par Johnson que Webster à titre d’exemples. Nous avons étudié toutes les citations (aussi bien bibliques que non bibliques) utilisées pour les mots commençant par la lettre S afin de déterminer l’importance relative de la Bible sur le style et le contenu des dictionnaires. Les résultats indiquent que bien que Johnson ait utilisé plus de citations de la Bible que Webster, les citations bibliques forment une proportion plus importante des citations totales de Webster.Toutes les citations bibliques communes aux deux dictionnaires ont non seulement été identifiées, mais nous avons également établi leur fréquence d’usage. Les résultats de cette analyse ont confirmé la dette de Webster envers Johnson, puisqu’un grand nombre de citations bibliques utilisées par Webster se trouvent dans le dictionnaire de Johnson. La prise en compte des convictions religieuses de Johnson et de Webster fait partie intégrante de la compréhension des motivations des deux auteurs en ce qui concerne leurs choix lexicographiques. Bien que les deux fussent croyants, Johnson voyait la Bible comme une œuvre littéraire remarquable, alors que Webster la voyait comme un moyen d’élévation religieuse et morale de ses lecteurs

RIVPACS database documentation. Final report

With the advent of the EU Water Framework Directive the concept of the 'reference condition' has become explicit within the legislative framework of the European Union. Reference condition has been established as a quality standard against which assessments of biological degradation must be compared. It is therefore essential that Member States can demonstrate that the biological datasets used to define their reference conditions meet the criteria of the WFD. The RIVPACS reference site dataset is therefore central to the definition of reference conditions for macroinvertebrates in streams and rivers in the United Kingdom. Objectives of research: • To establish the ownership of the RIVPACS reference site dataset • To liaise with all stakeholders of the dataset to establish unhindered access to the RIVPACS reference site dataset for the UK agencies (in perpetuity) • To deliver the RIVPACS reference site dataset to the UK agencies and to the public domain in a readily accessible database together will its accompanying physicochemical variables (both existing and newly collated as part of this project), historical and current anthropogenic stress data, and a range of calculated biotic indices. Key findings and recommendations: Ownership of the RIVPACS dataset resides with no single organization and several different organizations consider that they own different portions of the dataset. Formal permissions to release the dataset into the public domain have been obtained from all twelve extant organizations that have been identified as having funded various phases of RIVPACS research. In addition, CEH/NERC has also agreed to release the RIVPACS dataset to the public domain. Terms and conditions relating to the end use of the RIVPACS dataset have now been established. The RIVPACS database has been assembled in Microsoft® Access and can now be downloaded from the CEH web site. This report details the terms and conditions that apply to all end users of the database and it documents the tables given in the database, their structure and the origin of their data. A separate Pressure Data Analysis report describes the screening of the RIVPACS sites in terms of the current and emerging definitions of reference condition

Students’ Ethical Decision-Making in an Information Technology Context: A Theory of Planned Behavior Approach

Business educators have increased the focus on ethics in the classroom. In order for students to become ethical professionals, they must first be held to an ethical standard as students. As information technology continues to permeate every aspect of students’ lives, it becomes increasingly important to understand student decision-making in this context. This study seeks to apply a modified form of the Theory of Planned Behavior to assess influences on behavioral intention when IT is involved in an academic setting. Attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, moral judgment, and perceived importance are investigated. After pilot testing four scenarios and the instrument, 90 survey responses are gathered from undergraduate business students from two southwestern universities in the United States. Using SmartPLS, results are assessed by scenario. The results indicate that attitude, subjective norm, moral judgment and perceived importance are significant in some of the scenarios, whereas perceived behavioral control is not significant in any scenarios. A discussion of the contributions of this study, as well as limitations, is provided

Using Giving Voice to Values to Improve Student Academic Integrity in Information Technology Contexts

Academic integrity continues to be a concern for universities and faculty. Yet practical methods for conveying ethical behavior can be difficult to achieve. This study uses the multidimensional ethics scale to gain insight into three situations involving students. The findings from those scenarios are then framed using the Giving Voice to Values ethics pedagogy in order to provide common rationales given by students and to create levers or arguments that can be used to combat the rationales. The common rationales and levers provided in this study, along with the scenarios, can be used as teaching tools to promote ethical action among current students

Early Lessons Learned from Building Local Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems in Texas

In 2010, the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV), provided states with the opportunity to apply for funding to build and expand evidence-based home visiting programs in their states and to incorporate community collaboration components, referred to as early childhood comprehensive systems (ECCS). For Texas, this was the first opportunity to build a statewide program of home visiting services that would be incorporated within local comprehensive early childhood systems to support the early development of Texas children and their families. This paper highlights the lessons learned from the first year of implementing a comprehensive system of early childhood services in the Texas Home Visiting Program (THVP). Findings from this first year can inform any effort to build comprehensive and accountable communities for children. By the end of the first year, each of the seven Texas communities taking part in THVP had made significant progress building their ECCS. Prior experience building coalitions in the community facilitated early, but not necessarily long-term, success. Communities required flexibility to build an ECCS that fit their unique contexts, but they also required strong support and technical assistance to sustain their coalitions. Additionally, the availability of local-level data to inform the development of coalition goals and action plans was critical to recruiting and sustaining membership. Moving forward, communities will begin to assess and promote the sustainability of their ECCS. Sustainability will be critical to reaching the ultimate goal of providing a seamless delivery of health and human services to ensure that all children are ready for school

Upward nitrate transport by phytoplankton in oceanic waters : balancing nutrient budgets in oligotrophic seas

© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in PeerJ 2 (2014): e302, doi:10.7717/peerj.302.In oceanic subtropical gyres, primary producers are numerically dominated by small (1–5 µm diameter) pro- and eukaryotic cells that primarily utilize recycled nutrients produced by rapid grazing turnover in a highly efficient microbial loop. Continuous losses of nitrogen (N) to depth by sinking, either as single cells, aggregates or fecal pellets, are balanced by both nitrate inputs at the base of the euphotic zone and N2-fixation. This input of new N to balance export losses (the biological pump) is a fundamental aspect of N cycling and central to understanding carbon fluxes in the ocean. In the Pacific Ocean, detailed N budgets at the time-series station HOT require upward transport of nitrate from the nutricline (80–100 m) into the surface layer (∼0–40 m) to balance productivity and export needs. However, concentration gradients are negligible and cannot support the fluxes. Physical processes can inject nitrate into the base of the euphotic zone, but the mechanisms for transporting this nitrate into the surface layer across many 10s of m in highly stratified systems are unknown. In these seas, vertical migration by the very largest (102–103 µm diameter) phytoplankton is common as a survival strategy to obtain N from sub-euphotic zone depths. This vertical migration is driven by buoyancy changes rather than by flagellated movement and can provide upward N transport as nitrate (mM concentrations) in the cells. However, the contribution of vertical migration to nitrate transport has been difficult to quantify over the required basin scales. In this study, we use towed optical systems and isotopic tracers to show that migrating diatom (Rhizosolenia) mats are widespread in the N. Pacific Ocean from 140°W to 175°E and together with other migrating phytoplankton (Ethmodiscus, Halosphaera, Pyrocystis, and solitary Rhizosolenia) can mediate time-averaged transport of N (235 µmol N m-2 d-1) equivalent to eddy nitrate injections (242 µmol NO3− m-2 d-1). This upward biotic transport can close N budgets in the upper 250 m of the central Pacific Ocean and together with diazotrophy creates a surface zone where biological nutrient inputs rather than physical processes dominate the new N flux. In addition to these numerically rare large migrators, there is evidence in the literature of ascending behavior in small phytoplankton that could contribute to upward flux as well. Although passive downward movement has dominated models of phytoplankton flux, there is now sufficient evidence to require a rethinking of this paradigm. Quantifying these fluxes is a challenge for the future and requires a reexamination of individual phytoplankton sinking rates as well as methods for capturing and enumerating ascending phytoplankton in the sea.This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation: OCE-0726726, OCE-0094591, OCE-9414372, OCE-9100888 and OCE-9415923 to TAV, and OCE-9423471 to CHP

Imaging of Glutamate Concentration in Sturge-Weber Syndrome

Investigators from Wayne State University studied a cohort of children with Sturge-Weber syndrome (SWS) and epilepsy using both glucose-based positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) to evaluate metabolic activity and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to evaluate glutamate turnover

Impact of prawn farming effluent on coral reef water nutrients and microorganisms

© The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Aquaculture Environment Interactions 9 (2017): 331-346, doi:10.3354/aei00238.Tropical coral reefs are characterized by low-nutrient waters that support oligotrophic picoplankton over a productive benthic ecosystem. Nutrient-rich effluent released from aquaculture facilities into coral reef environments may potentially upset the balance of these ecosystems by altering picoplankton dynamics. In this study, we examined how effluent from a prawn (Litopenaeus vannamei) farming facility in Al Lith, Saudi Arabia, impacted the inorganic nutrients and prokaryotic picoplankton community in the waters overlying coral reefs in the Red Sea. Across 24 sites, ranging 0-21 km from the effluent point source, we measured nutrient concentrations, quantified microbial cell abundances, and sequenced bacterial and archaeal small subunit ribosomal RNA (SSU rRNA) genes to examine picoplankton phylogenetic diversity and community composition. Our results demonstrated that sites nearest to the outfall had increased concentrations of phosphate and ammonium and elevated abundances of non-pigmented picoplankton (generally heterotrophic bacteria). Shifts in the composition of the picoplankton community were observed with increasing distance from the effluent canal outfall. Waters within 500 m of the outfall harbored the most distinct picoplanktonic community and contained putative pathogens within the genus Francisella and order Rickettsiales. While our study suggests that at the time of sampling, the Al Lith aquaculture facility exhibited relatively minor influences on inorganic nutrients and microbial communities, studying the longer-term impacts of the aquaculture effluent on the organisms within the reef will be necessary in order to understand the full extent of the facility’s impact on the reef ecosystem.This research was supported by a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Ocean Life Institute postdoctoral scholar fellowship to A.A., the Semester at WHOI Program supporting C.B., and Award No. USA 00002 to K.H. made by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)