Updating A Time-Series of Survey Questions: The Case of Abortion Attitudes in the General Social Survey

Long-running surveys need a systematic way to reflect social change and to keep items relevant to respondents, especially when they ask about controversial subjects, or they threaten the items' validity. We propose a protocol for updating measures that preserves content and construct validity. First, substantive experts articulate the current and anticipated future terms of debate. Then survey experts use this substantive input and their knowledge of existing measures to develop and pilot a large battery of new items. Third, researchers analyze the pilot data to select items for the survey of record. Finally, the items appear on the survey-of-record, available to the whole user community. Surveys-of-record have procedures for changing content that determine if the new items appear just once or become part of the core. We provide the example of developing new abortion attitude measures in the General Social Survey. Current questions ask whether abortion should be legal under varying circumstances. The new abortion items ask about morality, access, state policy, and interpersonal dynamics. They improve content and construct validity and add new insights into Americans' abortion attitudes.

CitSci.org & PPSR Core: Sharing biodiversity observations across platforms

CitSci.org is a global citizen science software platform and support organization housed at Colorado State University. The mission of CitSci is to help people do high quality citizen science by amplifying impacts and outcomes. This platform hosts over one thousand projects and a diverse volunteer base that has amassed over one million observations of the natural world, focused on biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability. It is a custom platform built using open source components including: PostgreSQL, Symfony, Vue.js, with React Native for the mobile apps. CitSci sets itself apart from other Citizen Science platforms through the flexibility in the types of projects it supports rather than having a singular focus. This flexibility allows projects to define their own datasheets and methodologies. The diversity of programs we host motivated us to take a founding role in the design of the PPSR Core, a set of global, transdisciplinary data and metadata standards for use in Public Participation in Scientific Research (Citizen Science) projects. Through an international partnership between the Citizen Science Association, European Citizen Science Association, and Australian Citizen Science Association, the PPSR team and associated standards enable interoperability of citizen science projects, datasets, and observations. Here we share our experience over the past 10+ years of supporting biodiversity research both as developers of the CitSci.org platform and as stewards of, and contributors to, the PPSR Core standard. Specifically, we share details about: the origin, development, and informatics infrastructure for CitSci our support for biodiversity projects such as population and community surveys our experiences in platform interoperability through PPSR Core working with the Zooniverse, SciStarter, and CyberTracker data quality data sharing goals and use cases. the origin, development, and informatics infrastructure for CitSci our support for biodiversity projects such as population and community surveys our experiences in platform interoperability through PPSR Core working with the Zooniverse, SciStarter, and CyberTracker data quality data sharing goals and use cases. We conclude by sharing overall successes, limitations, and recommendations as they pertain to trust and rigor in citizen science data sharing and interoperability. As the scientific community moves forward, we show that Citizen Science is a key tool to enabling a systems-based approach to ecosystem problems.

Ileal Bile Acid Transporter Inhibitor Improves Hepatic Steatosis by Ameliorating Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis in NAFLD Model Mice

NAFLD is an increasingly recognized condition that may progress to liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, and community surveys have assessed that the prevalence is 14 to 32% worldwide. The first line of treatment for NAFLD is lifestyle modification to achieve weight reduction, particularly through diet and exercise.

Demographic Diversity of the Aromantic/Asexual Spectrum in Japan: Findings from the 2020 Aro/Ace Survey

In Western countries, studies using representative surveys and community surveys have begun to reveal the size and the diversity of the asexual population. On the other hand, in Japan, there are only a few studies using representative surveys, and the detailed realities of the asexual population are yet to be explored. This article analyzed a web survey “Aromantic/Asexual Spectrum Survey 2020,” conducted by the Aro/Ace Survey Executive Committee. Most of the respondents tended to be cisgender women, young people, and residents of the southern Kanto region. Many identified as aromantic and asexual, but some identified as other aro/ace identities. We also conducted an analysis on “nonsexual,” an identity category unique to Japan. While masturbation and sex drives were found in a certain number of asexual respondents, the proportion of those who would like to have sexual contact with others was particularly low among asexual respondents. We conclude that sexual contact with others has important implications for self-identification.