More on the value of split ballots

Der Autor diskutiert forschungspraktische Probleme, die sich im Rahmen der kognitiven Testung bei Umfragen ergeben, z.B. das Problem, dass alternative Formulierungen von gleichen Fragestellungen zu unterschiedlichen Bewertungen der Daten führen können. Er verdeutlicht anhand von sechs Tabellen die Unterschiede bei den erhobenen Daten, die aus zwei Forschungsprojekten stammen, in denen sehr ähnliche Befragungsmethoden eingesetzt worden sind. (ICI

Why it is easy to write bad questions

Es gibt mindestens acht Standards, denen Fragen in Fragebögen entsprechen sollten. Ein Grund dafür, dass Fragen falsch gestellt werden, ist der, dass Forscher einige Standards berücksichtigen, andere aber ignorieren. Ein komplexeres Problem besteht darin, dass eine nach einem Standard gute Frage gemessen an einem anderen Standard eine schlechte Frage sein kann. Darüberhinaus liefern die typischen Evaluierungsverfahren von Pretests und Fragen keine Informationen über alle acht Standards. Wenn über einen Standard keine Informationen vorliegen, kann er leicht vernachlässigt werden. Forscher verwenden zudem gerne Fragen, die schon einmal gestellt wurden, auch wenn die Schwächen dieser Fragen bereits bekannt sind. Dieser Aufsatz stellt die acht Standards vor und diskutiert Konflikte zwischen den einzelnen Standards, Schwierigkeiten bei der Evaluation von Fragen und Implikationen für die Umfrageforschung. (ICEÜbers)'There are at least 8 standards that survey questions should meet. One reason it is easy to write poor questions is that researchers focus on some standards but ignore others. A more complex problem is posed by the fact that designing a question that is good according to one standard can make it a poor question when judged against another standard. Third, typical pretest and question evaluation procedures do not provide information about all 8 standards. It is easy to ignore a standard if there is no information about it. Finally, researchers often are committed to questions that have been used previously, even when there is evidence that they are flawed. This paper presents the 8 standards, the ways in which they can be in conflict, the challenges of evaluating questions, and the implications for standard survey practice.' (author's abstract)

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Education, Interaction, And Interview Performance.

PhDSocial psychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/184343/2/6614520.pd

Molecular, Neuronal, and Behavioral Effects of Ethanol and Nicotine Interactions

Ethanol and nicotine can modulate the activity of several neurotransmitter systems and signalling pathways. Interactions between ethanol and nicotine can also occur via common molecular targets including nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). These effects can induce molecular and synaptic adaptations that over time, are consolidated in brain circuits that reinforce drug-seeking behavior, contribute to the development of withdrawal symptoms during abstinence and increase the susceptibility to relapse. This chapter will discuss the acute and chronic effects of ethanol and nicotine within the mesolimbic reward pathway and brain circuits involved in learning, memory, and withdrawal. Individual and common molecular targets of ethanol and nicotine within these circuits are also discussed. Finally, we review studies that have identified potential molecular and neuronal processes underlying the high incidence of ethanol and nicotine co-use that may contribute to the development of ethanol and nicotine co-addiction

Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies

Flare frequency distributions represent a key approach to addressing one of the largest problems in solar and stellar physics: determining the mechanism that counter-intuitively heats coronae to temperatures that are orders of magnitude hotter than the corresponding photospheres. It is widely accepted that the magnetic field is responsible for the heating, but there are two competing mechanisms that could explain it: nanoflares or Alfv\'en waves. To date, neither can be directly observed. Nanoflares are, by definition, extremely small, but their aggregate energy release could represent a substantial heating mechanism, presuming they are sufficiently abundant. One way to test this presumption is via the flare frequency distribution, which describes how often flares of various energies occur. If the slope of the power law fitting the flare frequency distribution is above a critical threshold, $\alpha=2$ as established in prior literature, then there should be a sufficient abundance of nanoflares to explain coronal heating. We performed $>$600 case studies of solar flares, made possible by an unprecedented number of data analysts via three semesters of an undergraduate physics laboratory course. This allowed us to include two crucial, but nontrivial, analysis methods: pre-flare baseline subtraction and computation of the flare energy, which requires determining flare start and stop times. We aggregated the results of these analyses into a statistical study to determine that $\alpha = 1.63 \pm 0.03$. This is below the critical threshold, suggesting that Alfv\'en waves are an important driver of coronal heating.Comment: 1,002 authors, 14 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, published by The Astrophysical Journal on 2023-05-09, volume 948, page 7