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Fault Angle Control on Potential Seismic Slip in the Illinois Basin Region
No full textThe possibility of reactivation of faults due to enhancement of pore pressure in rocks surrounding faults and fractures in the deep subsurface is a challenge associated with injection practices. Reactivation can result in induced seismicity, some of which may be significant enough to be felt or even damaging. Of the key factors that influence the propensity for fault slippage—pore pressure, orientation of the stress tensors, and frictional coefficient orientation of the fault plane—only the last factor can be assessed for its contribution to the possibility of reactivation. This investigation assesses a simplified version of fault orientation relative to the stress tensors and ranks the propensity of movement as a three‐level risk (high, medium, and low). Fault segments in the fault systems located within the Illinois basin and surrounding portion of the eastern Midcontinent are assigned a risk based on their relative orientation to the principal horizontal stress. Horizontal stress tensors are arrayed relative to the fault segments in two different manners: a generalized single value for the average stress orientation (N60°E for the entire domain), and a locally specific orientation of the stress tensors based on an inversion of earthquake fault‐plane solutions and stress indicators (30×30 km cells across the domain). Comparison of the results of these two methods of portraying the angle of the maximum horizontal stress tensor relative to the fault segment orientation reveals several areas of divergence in assigned fault‐slip risk. These changes are especially apparent within portions of the Wabash Valley of southwestern Indiana and the Shawneetown‐Rough Creek fault system of western Kentucky and southern Illinois. The assessment of fault‐slip risk potential based on fault orientation relative to the orientation of the principal horizontal stress is improved by incorporating local stress tensor orientations over a single regional value
How knowledge contributors are legitimizing their posts on controversial scientific topics: A case of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine
Full text linkTraditionally, journalists, government agencies, and medical professionals have acted as mediators, facilitating the transfer of scientific knowledge from scientists to the general public. More recently, however, ordinary citizens are circumventing top-down mediation and contributing directly to discussions about scientific topics online. For the present study, we examined how these emerging mediators of online scientific information are shaping the discussion of hotly debated (at least within the public sphere) scientific topics, specifically, the alleged link between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Using content analysis, we have identified the resources that lay pro- and anti-vaccination knowledge contributors most often cite when making knowledge claims. Additionally, we examined how these contributors 1) use citations to legitimize their arguments; and, 2) take on particular roles in such arguments. Our results shed light on an emerging form of online science communication and the process by which knowledge contributed by ordinary citizens is shaping these online discussions. These findings have implications for online health information and health decision-making
Agricultural decision making and climate uncertainty in developing countries
No full textIn situations of uncertainty, people often make decisions with heuristic shortcuts or decision rules, rather than using computational or logical methods such as optimizing their behavior based on specific goals. The high level of uncertainty and complexity involved in adapting to climate change suggests that heuristics would be commonly used in this context rather than more structured decision methods. Through a systematic review of 137 articles, from 2007–2017 we explore the behavioral and cognitive assumptions used to examine agricultural decision-making related to climate change among farmers in developing countries. We find a strong orientation toward modeling behavior and decision making as a rational utility-maximizing process, despite decades of research demonstrating the prevalence of simpler heuristic choice when facing uncertainty and real-world constraints. Behavioral and cognitive approaches can increase our ability to predict or explain decisions being made in this realm, particularly in terms of how we understand decision making around information processing and risk assessment. In the following review, we highlight articles that have contributed to developing a more realistic decision-making framework for studying this problem on the ground. While there is a burgeoning literature using psychological insights to examine decision making under climate uncertainty, few studies consider the prevalence of simple heuristics, the presence of cognitive biases, and the salience of climate relative to other risk factors
Botched Ebola Vaccine Trials in Ghana: An Analysis of Discourses in the Media
No full textIn June 2015, proposed Ebola vaccine trials were suspended by the Ministry of Health of Ghana amid protests from members of parliament and the general public. Scholarship has often focused on the design, development, and administration of vaccines. Of equal importance are the social issues surrounding challenges with vaccine trials and their implementation. The purpose of this study was to analyze discourses in the media that led to the suspension of the 2015 Ebola vaccine trials in Ghana. I use a sociological lens drawing on moral panic and risk society theories. The study qualitatively analyzed discourses in 18 semi-structured interviews with media workers, selected online publications, and user comments about the Ebola vaccine trials. The findings show that discourses surrounding the Ebola vaccine trials drew on cultural, biomedical, historical, and even contextual knowledge and circumstances to concretize risk discourses and garner support for their positions. Historical, political, and cultural underpinnings have a strong influence on biomedical practices and how they are (not) accepted. This study highlights the complexity and challenges of undertaking much needed vaccine tests in societies where the notion of drug trials has underlying historical and sociological baggage that determine whether (or not) the trials proceed
A History of Passing
Full text linkAt 90, Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) remains a deeply relevant novel for today’s readers. Yet, as Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s prescient quote suggests, Passing’s meaning, from its publication date onward, was never stable or concrete. In fact, the novel’s very brilliance, with its designed ambiguity and invitation for interpretation, has been its capacity to mean a myriad of things to a myriad of readers, now for almost a century. The history of Passing—or the story of Larsen’s story—then is its own compelling and instructive narrative, as each successive generation has actively and even literally projected its own needs, desires, and anxieties upon Larsen’s groundbreaking work. As a result, Passing’s history, with its radical swings in reception and reputation, has been as remarkable as that of any work in American literature. Over the past nine decades, Passing has gone from critically acclaimed (late 1920s) to totally obscure and out-of-print (1930-1969) to socially relevant but underappreciated (1970s-early 1980s) to massively significant and canonized (mid-1980s-present). Today Larsen’s novel is considered a landmark work in the fields of African American and American literature, feminism, queer studies, modernism, interracial literature, and the history of American race. Hundreds of books, scholarly articles, and dissertations have taken the novel as their focus. Yet, even within Larsen’s own compact catalogue, Passing has never held a fixed role. In the essay that follows, I will trace the rich history of Larsen’s novel, arguing that this record of publication and reading provides us with critical insight not just into the shifting interpretation of an important novel but also into how America has understood—and continues to understand, and will continue to understand—race, gender, sexuality, and ultimately, those who do not easily fit into its prescriptive categories
Overcoming Disruption in Special Collections Public Services
Full text linkSpecial collections and archives workers have unique experiences in providing service to their patron base while also working to overcome disruption and physical displacement. The disruption may take the form of a major renovation, a closure due to natural disaster, being forced out of a library space, budget cuts, or other operational issues. This article captures the experiences of twenty-eight staff members providing access services to their subset of users, in the form of interviews, in order to reflect upon how our profession connects with, provides services to, and places value on the relationships we cultivate with the public. We sought to gain insight from those who have experienced disruptions to their services in the past in order to apply this knowledge to the pandemic situation of 2020 and 2021, as well as those experiencing major disruptions in the future. The interview responses are a general representation of what staff may endure when embarking on a project that is a major disruption to service delivery. The experiences of the participants revealed a cyclical interconnectedness between the themes, indicating the complex nature of work involving human beings. The responses provide tangible recommendations to those planning for, beginning, or experiencing a disruption
IMPLICITNESS AND EXPLICITNESS IN COGNITIVE ABILITIES AND CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK A DOUBLE DISSOCIATION?
Full text linkThis aptitude–treatment interaction study investigated the extent to which explicit and implicit cognitive abilities are differentially related to learning outcomes under two corrective feedback conditions. One hundred and thirteen intermediate English learners of Spanish were randomly assigned to an implicit feedback (recast), explicit feedback (explicit correction), or control group after completing tests from two aptitude batteries (High-Level Language Aptitude Battery [Hi-LAB] and LLAMA). Linguistic improvement on noun-adjective gender agreement and Differential Object Marking was assessed using grammaticality judgment and oral production tasks. Results showed that implicit but not explicit abilities were relevant for the acquisition of gender agreement under implicit feedback as measured by grammaticality judgments. In contrast, explicit but not implicit abilities were relevant for the acquisition of object marking under explicit feedback as measured by oral production. These results lent support to a double dissociation, but they also suggested higher-order interaction effects between the type of cognitive ability, outcome measure, and target structure
Certification information on trustworthy digital repository websites: A content analysis
No full textIn 1996, an international group of representatives from national archives and libraries, universities, industry, publishing offices, and other government and private sector organizations first articulated the need for certified Trustworthy Digital Repositories (TDRs). Henceforth, multiple standards for TDRs have developed worldwide and their reviewers provide third party audit of digital repositories. Even though hundreds of repositories are currently certified, we do not know if audit and certification of TDRs actually matters. For example, we do not know if digital repositories are actually better at preserving digital information after certification than they were before. Additionally, we do not know if TDRs preserve digital information better than their counterparts, although TDR standards definitely promulgate this assumption. One way of assessing whether audit and certification of TDRs matters is to study its impact on TDRs’ stakeholders (e.g., funders, data producers, data consumers). As an initial critical step forward, this study examines what certification-related information repositories actually include on their websites since repository websites provide a means of disseminating information. Using findings from a content analysis of 91 TDR-certified repository websites, this research examines: 1) written statements about TDR status, 2) the presence of TDR seals and their location, 3) whether the seals hyperlink to additional certification information, 4) the extent to which the certification process is explained, and 5) whether audit reports are shared. Nearly three-fourths of the repository websites provide TDR status statements and put seals in one or more places; nearly 60% post audit reports and link seals to additional certification information; and over one-third explain the certification process. Directions for future research and practical application of the results are discussed
Collegiate athlete brain data for white matter mapping and network neuroscience
No full textWe describe a dataset of processed data with associated reproducible preprocessing pipeline collected from two collegiate athlete groups and one non-athlete group. The dataset shares minimally processed diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) data, three models of the diffusion signal in the voxel, full-brain tractograms, segmentation of the major white matter tracts as well as structural connectivity matrices. There is currently a paucity of similar datasets openly shared. Furthermore, major challenges are associated with collecting this type of data. The data and derivatives shared here can be used as a reference to study the effects of long-term exposure to collegiate athletics, such as the effects of repetitive head impacts. We use advanced anatomical and dMRI data processing methods publicly available as reproducible web services at brainlife.io
Cultural Appropriation: A Review of the Literature in US Folklore Studies
Full text linkIn support of a companion article (Jackson 2021), this paper surveys the most prominent US English-language journals in folklore studies to identify the nature of the extant peer-reviewed literature dealing with the issue of cultural appropriation and its disciplinary conceptualization