Student evaluations of teaching are widely believed to contain gender bias. In this study, we conduct a randomized experiment with the student evaluations of teaching in four classes with large ...enrollments, two taught by male instructors and two taught by female instructors. In each of the courses, students were randomly assigned to either receive the standard evaluation instrument or the same instrument with language intended to reduce gender bias. Students in the anti-bias language condition had significantly higher rankings of female instructors than students in the standard treatment. There were no differences between treatment groups for male instructors. These results indicate that a relatively simple intervention in language can potentially mitigate gender bias in student evaluation of teaching.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Replication in Social Science Freese, Jeremy; Peterson, David
Annual review of sociology,
07/2017, Letnik:
43, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Across the medical and social sciences, new discussions about replication have led to transformations in research practice. Sociologists, however, have been largely absent from these discussions. The ...goals of this review are to introduce sociologists to these developments, synthesize insights from science studies about replication in general, and detail the specific issues regarding replication that occur in sociology. The first half of the article argues that a sociologically sophisticated understanding of replication must address both the ways that replication rules and conventions evolved within an epistemic culture and how those cultures are shaped by specific research challenges. The second half outlines the four main dimensions of replicability in quantitative sociology-verifiability, robustness, repeatability, and generalizability-and discusses the specific ambiguities of interpretation that can arise in each. We conclude by advocating some commonsense changes to promote replication while acknowledging the epistemic diversity of our field.
En este artículo reevaluamos el cartulario conocido como el Becerro Galicano de Valpuesta (1236) con referencia sobre todo a su contenido y al contexto de su creación. El sorprendente protagonismo ...cedido en su estructura a una serie de textos referentes a Salinas de Añana nos hace pensar que el origen del cartulario esté relacionado con la consolidación de la frontera interdiocesana Burgos-Calahorra, plasmada en el texto conocido como el Convenio de la Alternativa (1229). En este contexto, la hipótesis propuesta por Ruiz de Loizaga de la autoría intelectual de Hilario, arcediano de Valpuesta en los años anteriores a 1236 e implicado también en el Convenio de la Alternativa, parece consolidarse. Refuerza asimismo la hipótesis la observación que en otros contextos (Toledo, Froncea) también Hilario parece asociarse con la creación de cartularios.
En las décadas que siguieron a la creación de la diócesis de Burgos hacia 1068, el flanco centro-oriental de la circunscripción, con una compleja historia geopolítica a caballo entre Castilla y ...Navarra, apenas figuraba en la documentación conservada en el archivo catedralicio. Todo apunta a que la actividad episcopal se circunscribía al entorno de la ciudad de Burgos. No obstante, a partir de 1160, se aprecia un renovado interés en el espacio periférico, primero en la reactivación de la antigua sede aukense y después, entre aproximadamente 1215-1235, en el espacio limítrofe con la vecina diócesis de Calahorra. La abadía de Froncea sería clave en el proceso, su cartulario el mejor testimonio de ello, y sus abades figuras claves en la imposición de la autoridad episcopal en estas tierras antaño olvidadas.
Background
Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana, USA) have been immense in recent years, capturing the attention of resource managers, fire scientists, ...and the general public. This paper synthesizes understanding of the potential effects of changing climate and fire regimes on Pacific Northwest forests, including effects on disturbance and stress interactions, forest structure and composition, and post-fire ecological processes. We frame this information in a risk assessment context, and conclude with management implications and future research needs.
Results
Large and severe fires in the Pacific Northwest are associated with warm and dry conditions, and such conditions will likely occur with increasing frequency in a warming climate. According to projections based on historical records, current trends, and simulation modeling, protracted warmer and drier conditions will drive lower fuel moisture and longer fire seasons in the future, likely increasing the frequency and extent of fires compared to the twentieth century. Interactions between fire and other disturbances, such as drought and insect outbreaks, are likely to be the primary drivers of ecosystem change in a warming climate. Reburns are also likely to occur more frequently with warming and drought, with potential effects on tree regeneration and species composition. Hotter, drier sites may be particularly at risk for regeneration failures.
Conclusion
Resource managers will likely be unable to affect the total area burned by fire, as this trend is driven strongly by climate. However, fuel treatments, when implemented in a spatially strategic manner, can help to decrease fire intensity and severity and improve forest resilience to fire, insects, and drought. Where fuel treatments are less effective (wetter, high-elevation, and coastal forests), managers may consider implementing fuel breaks around high-value resources. When and where post-fire planting is an option, planting different genetic stock than has been used in the past may increase seedling survival. Planting seedlings on cooler, wetter microsites may also help to increase survival. In the driest topographic locations, managers may need to consider where they will try to forestall change and where they will allow conversions to vegetation other than what is currently dominant.
Changes in tree growth rates can affect tree mortality and forest feedbacks to the global carbon cycle. As air temperature increases, evaporative demand also increases, increasing effective drought ...in forest ecosystems. Using a spatially comprehensive network of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) chronologies from 122 locations that represent distinct climate environments in the western United States, we show that increased temperature decreases growth via vapor pressure deficit (VPD) across all latitudes. Using an ensemble of global circulation models, we project an increase in both the mean VPD associated with the lowest growth extremes and the probability of exceeding these VPD values. As temperature continues to increase in future decades, we can expect deficit-related stress to increase and consequently Douglas fir growth to decrease throughout its US range.
The provisioning of ecosystem services to society is increasingly under pressure from global change. Changing disturbance regimes are of particular concern in this context due to their high potential ...impact on ecosystem structure, function and composition. Resilience‐based stewardship is advocated to address these changes in ecosystem management, but its operational implementation has remained challenging. We review observed and expected changes in disturbance regimes and their potential impacts on provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem services, concentrating on temperate and boreal forests. Subsequently, we focus on resilience as a powerful concept to quantify and address these changes and their impacts, and present an approach towards its operational application using established methods from disturbance ecology. We suggest using the range of variability concept – characterizing and bounding the long‐term behaviour of ecosystems – to locate and delineate the basins of attraction of a system. System recovery in relation to its range of variability can be used to measure resilience of ecosystems, allowing inferences on both engineering resilience (recovery rate) and monitoring for regime shifts (directionality of recovery trajectory). It is important to consider the dynamic nature of these properties in ecosystem analysis and management decision‐making, as both disturbance processes and mechanisms of resilience will be subject to changes in the future. Furthermore, because ecosystem services are at the interface between natural and human systems, the social dimension of resilience (social adaptive capacity and range of variability) requires consideration in responding to changing disturbance regimes in forests. Synthesis and applications. Based on examples from temperate and boreal forests we synthesize principles and pathways for fostering resilience to changing disturbance regimes in ecosystem management. We conclude that future work should focus on testing and implementing these pathways in different contexts to make ecosystem services provisioning more robust to changing disturbance regimes and advance our understanding of how to cope with change and uncertainty in ecosystem management.
The Dynamic American Dream Wolak, Jennifer; Peterson, David A. M.
American journal of political science,
10/2020, Letnik:
64, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The American Dream is central to the national ethos, reflecting people's optimism that all who are willing to work hard can achieve a better life than their parents. Separate from the support for the ...idea of the American Dream itself is whether the public believes it is attainable. We consider the origins and dynamics of the public's belief in the achievability of the American Dream. Is the American Dream a symbolic vision, rooted in political socialization rather than contemporary politics? Or does optimism about the American Dream follow from the viability of the dream, rising with economic prosperity and falling with declining opportunity? We develop a new macrolevel measure of belief in the American Dream from 1973 to 2018. We show that it moves over time, responsive to changes in social mobility, income inequality, and economic perceptions. As inequality increases, belief in the attainability of the American Dream declines.
A novel leadless tibial nerve stimulator provides a primary battery-powered, coin-sized, minimally invasive option to deliver automatic low-duty cycle stimulation for overactive bladder syndrome ...therapy. A pivotal trial was conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of this investigational device, eCoin®, for treating refractory urgency urinary incontinence.
This was a prospective, open-label, single arm trial carried out at 15 U.S. medical centers involving 137 subjects with refractory urgency urinary incontinence. After implantation in the lower leg above the fascia over the tibial nerve, eCoin delivered automated stimulation sessions for the duration of the study. The primary efficacy measure was the proportion of subjects who achieved a 50% or greater reduction from baseline in urgency urinary incontinence episodes after 48 weeks of therapy. The primary safety measure was device-related adverse events at the same time point.
Of 137 subjects enrolled, 133 were implanted with eCoin, and 132 were included in the intention-to-treat population. Of those 132 subjects, 98% were female, mean±SD age was 63.9±10.9 years, and baseline daily urgency urinary incontinence episodes were 4.3±3.1. The primary efficacy analysis showed 68% (95% CI: 60%-76%) of subjects experienced at least a 50% reduction in urgency urinary incontinence episodes at 48 weeks post-activation; 16% of implanted subjects experienced device-related events through 52 weeks post-implantation.
eCoin demonstrated clinical benefit for treating overactive bladder syndrome with automatic delivery of an intermittent low-duty cycle and implanted with a minimally invasive, brief procedure.
Alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells (AEMFCs) have advanced rapidly in recent years and now show improved potential to become a low-temperature fuel cell alternative to proton exchange membrane fuel ...cells. To date, performance and durability are still too low to meet the promised reductions in materials cost, especially demonstration of platinum group metal- and precious metal-free AEMFCs. U.S. Department of Energy technical milestones for the next ten years are laid out herein. These milestones focus on the major barriers to AEMFC viability, hastening economic competitiveness and application relevance. Standard test conditions will facilitate benchmarking of AEMFC catalysts and membranes.
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