The moral dumbfounding phenomenon for harmless taboo violations is often cited as a critical piece of empirical evidence motivating anti-rationalist models of moral judgment and decision-making. Moral dumbfounding purportedly occurs when an individual remains obstinately and steadfastly committed to a moral judgment or decision even after admitting inability to provide reasons and arguments to support it (Haidt, 2001). Early empirical support for the moral dumbfounding phenomenon led some philosophers and psychologists to suggest that affective reactions and intuitions, in contrast with reasons or reasoning, are the predominant drivers of moral judgments and decisions. We investigate an alternative reason-based explanation for moral dumbfounding: that putatively harmless taboo violations are judged to be morally wrong because of the high perceived likelihood that the agents could have caused harm, even though they did not cause harm in actuality. Our results indicate that judgments about the likelihood of causing harm consistently and strongly predicted moral wrongness judgments. Critically, a manipulation drawing attention to harms that could have occurred (but did not actually occur) systematically increased the severity of moral wrongness judgments. Thus, many participants were sensitive to at least one reason — the likelihood of harm — in making their moral judgments about these kinds of taboo violations. We discuss the implications of these findings for rationalist and anti-rationalist models of moral judgment and decision-making.

Herbicide resistance has been studied extensively in agronomic crops across North America but is rarely examined in vegetables. It is widely assumed that the limited number of registered herbicides combined with the adoption of diverse weed management strategies in most vegetable crops effectively inhibits the development of resistance. It is difficult to determine whether resistance is truly less common in vegetable crops or whether the lack of reported cases is due to the lack of resources focused on detection. This review highlights incidences of resistance that are thought to have arisen within vegetable crops. It also includes situations in which herbicide-resistant weeds were likely selected for within agronomic crops but became a problem when vegetables were grown in sequence or in adjacent fields. Occurrence of herbicide resistance can have severe consequences for vegetable growers, and resistance management plans should be adopted to limit selection pressure. This review also highlights resistance management techniques that should slow the development and spread of herbicide resistance in vegetable crops.

Background: Antibiotics are frequently prescribed in nursing homes, often inappropriately. Data sources are needed to facilitate measurement and reporting of antibiotic use to inform antibiotic stewardship efforts. Previous analyses have shown that the type of nursing-home stay, that is, short stay (<100 days), is a strong predictor of high antibiotic use compared to longer nursing-home stays. The study objective was to compare 2 different data sources, electronic health record (EHR) and long-term care (LTC) pharmacy data, for surveillance of antibiotic use and type of nursing-home stay. Methods: EHR and pharmacy data during 2017 were included from 1,933 and 1,348 US-based nursing homes, respectively. We compared data elements available in each data source for antibiotic use reporting. In each data set, we attempted to describe antibiotic use as the proportion of residents on an antibiotic, days-of-therapy (DOT) per 1,000 resident days (RD), and distribution of antibiotic course duration, overall and at the facility level. Facility proportion of short-stay and long-stay (>100 days) nursing-home residents were calculated using admission dates and census data in the EHR data set and a payor variable in the pharmacy data set (Figure 1). The 2 data sources also provided antibiotic characteristics, including antibiotic class, agent, and route of administration. The deidentified nature of facility data prevented direct comparison of antibiotic use measures between facilities. Results: The EHR and pharmacy data sets contained 381,382 and 326,713 residents, respectively (Table 1). Within the EHR, 51% of residents were prescribed an antibiotic in 2017, at a median rate of 77 DOT per 1,000 RD. In the LTC pharmacy, 46% of residents were prescribed an antibiotic at a median rate of 79 DOT per 1,000 RD (Table 1). Short-stay residents contributed a smaller proportion of total RDs in the EHR relative to the pharmacy cohort (21% vs 50%, respectively). Conclusions: Nursing-home antibiotic use data obtained from EHR and pharmacy vendors can be used for calculating antibiotic use measures, which is important for antibiotic use reporting and facility-level tracking to identify opportunities for improving prescribing practices and provide facility-level benchmarks. Further validation of both data sources in the same facilities is needed to compare antibiotic use rates and to determine the most appropriate proxy for type of nursing-home stay for facility-level risk adjustment of antibiotic use rates.

Funding: No

Disclosures: None

Figure 1.

Table 1.

The neural reuse framework developed primarily by Michael Anderson proposes that brain regions are involved in multiple and diverse cognitive tasks and that brain regions flexibly and dynamically interact in different combinations to carry out cognitive functioning. We argue that the evidence cited by Anderson and others falls short of supporting the fundamental principles of neural reuse. We map out this problem and provide solutions by drawing on recent advances in network neuroscience, and we argue that methods employed in network neuroscience provide the means to fully engage in a research program operating under the principles of neural reuse.

Neural reuse allegedly stands in stark contrast against a modular view of the brain. However, the development of unique modularity algorithms in network science has provided the means to identify functionally cooperating, specialized subsystems in a way that remains consistent with the neural reuse view and offers a set of rigorous tools to fully engage in Anderson's (2014) research program.

Results from Chandra-HST-VLA observations of 13 hybrid sources are presented. Data from ten sources in the literature are analysed along with new data from three hybrid blazars belonging to the MOJAVE sample. Studies of such hybrid sources displaying both FRI and FRII jet characteristics could provide the key to resolving the long-standing Fanaroff-Riley dichotomy issue. A majority of the 13 hybrid sources show FRII-like total radio powers, i.e., they are “hybrid” in radio morphology but not in total radio power. VLBI observations of ten of the 13 sources show that the X-ray jet is on the same side as the one-sided VLBI jet. X-rays are therefore emitted from relativistically-boosted approaching jets. This is consistent with the X-ray emission being IC/CMB in origin in the majority of sources. It is not completely clear from our study that asymmetries in the surrounding medium can create hybrid sources. Hybrid radio morphologies could also be indicative of intrinsically asymmetric jets.

James Clerk Maxwell's electromagnetic theory famously unified many of the Victorian laws of physics. This essay argues that Maxwell saw a deep theological significance in the unification of physical laws. He postulated a variation on the design argument that focused on the unity of phenomena rather than Paley's emphasis on complexity. This argument of Maxwell's is shown to be connected to his particular evangelical religious views. His evangelical perspective provided encouragement for him to pursue a unified physics that supplemented his other philosophical, technical and social influences. Maxwell's version of the argument from design is also contrasted with modern ‘intelligent-design’ theory.