Extreme response bias in measuring susceptibility to smoking.

Pierce, Choi, Gilpin, Farkas, and Berry (1998) were the first to claim that they could provide causal evidence that tobacco industry advertising and promotion caused adolescent smoking. This claim continues to significantly influence the theory and conceptualization of how youth react to tobacco marketing. The Pierce et al. (1998) methodology has been used by many researchers to establish the influence of tobacco marketing on adolescent smoking (Goldberg, 2003; NCI, 2006; Sargent, Dalton, &amp; Beach, 2000). Pierce et al. (1998) selected respondents for only the second of their two survey longitudinal study because they chose the extreme-negative response. This choice could be the result of the tendency of some significant number of sample members exhibiting extreme-response bias. The results from an analysis of several questions from the original data used by Pierce et al. (1998) has suggested that there is a significant extreme-response style pattern in the Pierce et al. data. This unaccounted for bias in the responses of their sample was due to the procedure used by Pierce et al. (1998) in the selection of their respondents. The Pierce et al. (1998) sample selection procedure requires more research before the causal link can be claimed.<br /

Boomerang effects of gambling warnings exposed to non-problem gamblers

Gambling is the most popular form of entertainment in most markets where it is legal. Theindustry has embraced technology and is a growing category online and through mobileplatforms. Governments throughout the world worry about the product when gambling ismore widely available and more private to play. Warnings for problem gambling have longbeen used in land-based gambling venues but online gambling often does not have thisremedy. In addition, non-problem gamblers make up about 99% of gamblers but littleresearch has tested their reaction to warnings. An online casino was developed to testwarnings and found that a significant proportion of non-problem gamblers gambled morefrequently after exposure to the warnings. Because increased frequency of gambling is one symptom of problem gambling, the implications of these findings are discussed in terms of future remedies for consumers that have problems with gambling products

The baroclinic instability in the context of layered accretion. Self-sustained vortices and their magnetic stability in local compressible unstratified models of protoplanetary disks

Turbulence and angular momentum transport in accretion disks remains a topic of debate. With the realization that dead zones are robust features of protoplanetary disks, the search for hydrodynamical sources of turbulence continues. A possible source is the baroclinic instability (BI), which has been shown to exist in unmagnetized non-barotropic disks. We present shearing box simulations of baroclinicly unstable, magnetized, 3D disks, in order to assess the interplay between the BI and other instabilities, namely the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) and the magneto-elliptical instability. We find that the vortices generated and sustained by the baroclinic instability in the purely hydrodynamical regime do not survive when magnetic fields are included. The MRI by far supersedes the BI in growth rate and strength at saturation. The resulting turbulence is virtually identical to an MRI-only scenario. We measured the intrinsic vorticity profile of the vortex, finding little radial variation in the vortex core. Nevertheless, the core is disrupted by an MHD instability, which we identify with the magneto-elliptic instability. This instability has nearly the same range of unstable wavelengths as the MRI, but has higher growth rates. In fact, we identify the MRI as a limiting case of the magneto-elliptic instability, when the vortex aspect ratio tends to infinity (pure shear flow). We conclude that vortex excitation and self-sustenance by the baroclinic instability in protoplanetary disks is viable only in low ionization, i.e., the dead zone. Our results are thus in accordance with the layered accretion paradigm. A baroclinicly unstable dead zone should be characterized by the presence of large-scale vortices whose cores are elliptically unstable, yet sustained by the baroclinic feedback. As magnetic fields destroy the vortices and the MRI outweighs the BI, the active layers are unmodified.Comment: 19+3 pages, 20+1 figures. Accepted by A&A, final versio

Kepler photometry of RRc stars: peculiar double-mode pulsations and period doubling

We present the analysis of four first overtone RR Lyrae stars observed with the Kepler space telescope, based on data obtained over nearly 2.5 yr. All four stars are found to be multiperiodic. The strongest secondary mode with frequency f2 has an amplitude of a few mmag, 20–45 times lower than the main radial mode with frequency f1. The two oscillations have a period ratio of P2/P1 = 0.612–0.632 that cannot be reproduced by any two radial modes. Thus, the secondary mode is non-radial. Modes yielding similar period ratios have also recently been discovered in other variables of the RRc and RRd types. These objects form a homogenous group and constitute a new class of multimode RR Lyrae pulsators, analogous to a similar class of multimode classical Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds. Because a secondary mode with P2/P1 ∼ 0.61 is found in almost every RRc and RRd star observed from space, this form of multiperiodicity must be common. In all four Kepler RRc stars studied, we find subharmonics of f2 at ∼1/2f2 and at ∼3/2f2. This is a signature of period doubling of the secondary oscillation, and is the first detection of period doubling in RRc stars. The amplitudes and phases of f2 and its subharmonics are variable on a time-scale of 10–200 d. The dominant radial mode also shows variations on the same time-scale, but with much smaller amplitude. In three Kepler RRc stars we detect additional periodicities, with amplitudes below 1 mmag, that must correspond to non-radial g-modes. Such modes never before have been observed in RR Lyrae variables

Horizontal Branch Stars: The Interplay between Observations and Theory, and Insights into the Formation of the Galaxy

We review HB stars in a broad astrophysical context, including both variable and non-variable stars. A reassessment of the Oosterhoff dichotomy is presented, which provides unprecedented detail regarding its origin and systematics. We show that the Oosterhoff dichotomy and the distribution of globular clusters (GCs) in the HB morphology-metallicity plane both exclude, with high statistical significance, the possibility that the Galactic halo may have formed from the accretion of dwarf galaxies resembling present-day Milky Way satellites such as Fornax, Sagittarius, and the LMC. A rediscussion of the second-parameter problem is presented. A technique is proposed to estimate the HB types of extragalactic GCs on the basis of integrated far-UV photometry. The relationship between the absolute V magnitude of the HB at the RR Lyrae level and metallicity, as obtained on the basis of trigonometric parallax measurements for the star RR Lyrae, is also revisited, giving a distance modulus to the LMC of (m-M)_0 = 18.44+/-0.11. RR Lyrae period change rates are studied. Finally, the conductive opacities used in evolutionary calculations of low-mass stars are investigated. [ABRIDGED]Comment: 56 pages, 22 figures. Invited review, to appear in Astrophysics and Space Scienc

Services of Jan Samsonowicz for Polish mining

Omówiono badania geologiczne Jana Samsonowicza w Górach Świętokrzyskich i na Lubelszczyźnie prowadzące do odkryć złóż rud żelaza w Rudkach koło Nowej Słupii, fosforytów w rejonie Annopola-Rachowa oraz węgla kamiennego w Zagłębiu Lubelskim, których konsekwencją było uruchomienie eksploatacji tych surowców mineralnych i kopalin energetycznych; dwa pierwsze surowce były intensywnie eksploatowane od czasów międzywojennych do końca lat 60. ubiegłego wieku, a eksploatację węgla kamiennego na Lubelszczyźnie podjęto w latach 80.The author presents geological research of Jan Samsonowicz in Holy Cross Mts and in the Lublin area. This research has led to discovery of the deposit of iron ore in Rudki near Nowa Słupia, ore of phosphorites in Annopol-Rachów region and deposit of coal in the Lublin area. The results of these discovers were exploitations of those mineral deposits. The ores of iron and phosphorites were exploited from before World War II until the end of 60s while the exploitation of coal in the Lublin area begun in the 80s